Saturday, March 15, 2003

Caught Nappin Well, and here's some more deep thinking for ya. I've been thinking about all those "reality" TV shows where people either go into the past (The 1900 House) or they go into the wilderness (Survivor) and they have to depend only upon themselves to get their needs met. They don't get any modern conveniences. And they always seem to be (I can't think of one I've seen that wasn't) transformed spiritually by their ordeals. They don't come out of these things despondent or depressed. They come out of them tired but proud, and astonished. They compare themselves, after having cooked an entire meal on an old coal stove (with WEIRD food), for example, to the lifeless washing-machine and TV-addicted cubicle worms they used to be before they became reborn as self-sufficient Survivors, and they are bittersweet. They rhapsodize about their freedom from cubicles, washing machines, cars, etc. (though rarely, we notice do they rhapsodize about the lack of modern bathing facilities). Their confident acceptance of modern life gets all dented up and doubted, and some even long to go back to the woods after they return to their suburban palaces. I think the entire country should pretend like it's a big game of Survivor right now, and like we have to invent new ways to live together on the island. We will change the rules and only use the Tribal Council to get rid of retards who make life difficult for the Tribe. Like right now, for example, it would be time to vote off George and Dick. And Donald and Condoleeza and Colin. Let me have your torches, please. They will not be allowed to sit on the final jury, let me tell you. They are going to be placed in a special holding pen, in an undisclosed location. There will be a final Survivor match in the hinterlands of Afghanistan. Bush cabinet vs. Al Qaeda. There won't be any midnight pizza deliveries, no jogging, no grand pianos, no golf... This one's probably going to sweep the ratings. And IF, I say, if, the Bush cabinet does manage to win any challenges, they will be taken over to Pakistan for a falafel. But after that it's back to the caves. So for the first challenge, we're going to have all the Democrats and Republicans in Congress actually WAKE UP and come back to their senses! If they can remember that they are there to help their country and not sit there like bumps on a log and let some spoiled rich boyz steal another country's oil so that they can rip us all off selling it to us, then WE ALL WIN IMMUNITY!!!! But -- THAT'S ONLY FOR THIS ROUND! This round, only! Stay awake, no matter how tired you feel! The bad rich boyz will be back again for another round, as soon as you start to nod off, America! 11:35:41 PM    comment []

It's Elementary I understand why the Bushies want the oil so bad. Who wouldn't? They have the resources (our tax dollars and our armed forces and the congress they co-opted by mid-term election cheating) to make the grab right now, and the way things are looking, they probably never will again. But they want it so badly, I'm really beginning to smell Dr. Strangelove, here. This has gotten insane, and all the world knows it. If what they were planning was a restructuring of the world's resources into a "new world order," one wonders if there isn't a better way to go about it, or indeed if these people are actually creating a far bigger problem than they started out thinking they were going to solve. It looks like somebody left the loonies in charge of the operation. Considering the awesome amount of resources that our country possesses, not just in the way of raw money, but in man power, in brain power, why can't we manage to free ourselves of the troublesome addiction to foreign oil? Sherlock Holmes comes to mind, that intellectual giant made powerless by his addiction to cocaine. The answer is because there are people for whom our addiction to foreign oil is profitable. Many of them are in the highest circles of our government... But that may be beside the point right now. I just ask everyone to think about this. Maybe to even write the D.C. 'tards a "Why Letter" about it. What if we took all the money we're spending on all the military buildup and the tax cuts for the rich, etc. etc. etc. and put it into accelerating the development of fuel cell technology, for example? Or any sustainable energy technology? (Or while I'm doing some real deep thinking here -- why not put our resources into ANY PROJECT WHATSOEVER THAT MAKES ANY SENSE in terms of basic human needs... Or is this just going too far with common sense? Sorry, sorry if I got anyone's hopes unduly up.) It could mean that we could put many more people to work, for one thing. We could make a war on war, and make industry create peace by making jobs. What if we put our soldiers to work doing things that are constructive instead of destructive. What if we fired George and Dick and Donald and Condoleeza and Colin and hired some people with common sense to represent our interests in Washington and around the world? Why can't we fire the people we elect before their terms are over? Other countries can have sudden elections and votes of no confidence. We need to change that. The people in charge are insane bozos. Let's just abandon the diplomatic language at this point. I think that's why I've been having such a difficult time writing anything for the last few weeks. I am in OuOvS, or Outrage Overload Shock. Maybe that is the insane bozo strategy. To bombard us with the most ourtrageously stupid chutzpah the world has seen in a long time. To go so far outside the lines that we'll all just give in and say something like, "Oh go ahead already and let's just get this overwith, as long as you boys don't get nuclear." Well, anyway, as crazy as it sounds, the solution ought to be so elementary. 11:06:41 PM    comment []