Permanent Daylight

Sigh.  War?  No war?  What the fuck?

An atmosphere of permanent war.  It's just another sign of the pervasisve, low-level insanity that is basically infecting every level of our society.  When i really think of how things are now, it's hard not to be angry and disgusted all of the time.  Almost everything is tragically flawed in some crucial way.

College costs.  If you want to become a doctor, an engineer, or anything else that is useful to society, you have to pay an insane amount of money.  I have no problem with poetry and philosophy degrees remaining luxury items, but useful professions?  Why do we make it so hard to get through the gate?  What if  you wanted to join the military, but had to pay $60,000 to do so?  We would call that madness, would we not?

Shitty food.  If you want to remain healthy, you have to avoid 90% of the food that is shoved at you.  I've been eating way healthier lately, which means that most of what i shove down my face hole comes from the produce section or the other outside areas of a grocery store, where you can still find the unprocessed foods that are actually meant to be eaten.  And you have to shun all the convenient shit that is pushed from fast-food joints and vending machines, turn down all the sugary crap that appears at parties and other people's houses.  If you just take what society gives you, you're basically poisoning yourself.

Cigarettes.  Alchohol.  Prescription drugs.  It's all poison.

Half of our citizens are working jobs where they break their backs and are on their feet all day.  The other half sit down all day until their bodies atrophy.  Either way, you're a cog doing a job.  Humans serve the machine.  The machine doesn't serve the humans.

I work nights, so i avoid the traffic.  But every morning, i see the highway going into the city clogged with thousands upon thousands of cars going 5 miles an hour.  We built cars to get places faster, right?

Television.  A brilliant device invented by brilliant people, a technology designed to transmit information... is now mostly used to beam images of the stupidest, most grotesque, most backwards, vile, and selfish idiots at us.  It's like using nanotechnology to produce fake vomit and dog shit.

Bah.

I'm just sleepy, addled, and discontent right now.   Everything looks iffy.  Ignore me.

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Scum of the Earf

So everyone already knows that three soulless, scum-sucking sacks of shit shot an Australian student named Christopher Lane to death for no reason. 

These kids should rot forever.  The fucking dolts.

But yeah, i also kind of want to bitch about the conservative reaction.  All week, they've been asking stupid questions like "why isn't this huge story i heard about in the news being talked about in the news?" and "how come this isn't as big as the Trayvon Martin case?"

Well, i'll tell you. 

Because once the police caught up to these murdering fucks, they didn't detain them for a few hours, and then release them scot-free because they were, you know, standing their ground against an aggressive foreigner who was running right at them, or something.

If that had happened, then it would probably be pretty big.

RAAH LIBRULS WANT TO MAKE THESE KIDS HEROS COZ TEHYRE BALCK AND THEY THINK IT ALWAYS IS GOOD TO KILL WHITEMEN BECUAZE THEY FEEL OPPRESSED FOR BEING POOR AN DUMB WITH NO JOBS AND GOT TROPHIEZ EVERY DAY FOR NOTHING JESSE JACKSON AL SHARPTON SELFESTEEM BENGHAZI IRS COVERUP

Yes.  Yes, it is.

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Egypt

You know, i have no idea.  I have no idea what can and should be done about the situation in Egypt, if anything can be done at all.  It's horrible that people are dying over there, even if it's the "bad" ones.  As i type this, i'm listening to Michael Savage bray that whatever is going on, "it's Obama's fault."  What monstrous idiocy.  But a million people are nodding in agreement, because Americans just don't seem capable of comprehending these things anymore.

Can we rewind?  Look back at the last few years through the mindset of the typical clueless American?

Prior to 2011, you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone on the street who even knew who Hosni Mubarak was.  Or Anwar Sadat for that matter.  Americans didn't know who controlled Egypt, and were happy not knowing....

...but then, when the Arab Spring protests ignited in Cairo, Americans said, huh?  He's a lifelong dictator?  Well, i don't like those, i guess.  Yeah, get rid of him in the name of democracy.  Yeah, revolution!  Isn't that what we're rooting for here, the overthrow of middle eastern dick-taters?

Then a few of the realpolitik-minded conservatives pointed out that Mubarak might have been a strongman, but he was still our guy.  Our strongman.  So then people started getting nervous, because it looked like the Islamic Muslimists were going to take over, maybe. 

So then freedom happened, and elections happened, and for a while there we stopped caring. 

Then we learned that Morsi the Muslim Brotherhood candidate won the election.  Jeez, where was Obama during all of this?  Why didn't he help Mubarack stay in power?  Why didn't America bomb and gas and rain bullets down on those crowds demanding freedom and elections?  Way to drop the ball, Obama!

So them Morsi the Muslimist was in control.  And we didn't like that. 

And then he was deposed by his military.  We sort of assumed it would take Egypt about 20 years to overthrow their new Muslim regime, instead they did it rather quickly.  TOO quickly if you ask me!  Why do things go so fast now?  So now... the faceless military -- whom i'm not sure i should be rooting for or not -- is now shooting and gassing the people we didn't want in control of the country.  And that sucks, right?  I don't know.  Americans don't know.  Whatever it is, Obama's to blame.  Can't we just fix everything somehow?  Can't we just bomb the bad people and pick the one right guy over there to make everything better?

Maybe we can't. 

Maybe we need to learn what America can and cannot do. 

You know, it's funny.  For decades, we've lived under the assumption that America can do anything overseas, but nothing at home.  That all we need to do is send enough jets and troops to other countries, and we can fix any problem... while inside our own borders, trying to ensure medical care for all, or feeding the homeless, or building high-speed trains, or preserving middle-class jobs -- these are impossible, Herculean tasks that no government could ever possible achieve.

I won't lie, i wish we had the opposite mindset.  Let's believe that we can do anything here, but not out there.  Focus on our own shit. 

Right?

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The Great Big Maybe in the Sky

By the way, i'm a pure agnostic, in case you were wondering.

I have no idea what lies beyond life; continued existence or the nightmare of oblivion?  Either possibility seems equally unlikely and equally ludicrous; the fact that anything manages to exist at all is still counterintuitive to me.  As for what it is, and what we really are, i have no clue.

It's like...

...it's like having a big box sitting in the middle of your living room.  This box has a countdown clock that slowly ticks down from about sixty years, and occasionally gives a random BEEP that means it might open at any time.  Inside the box is either everything you ever wanted, or a bomb that will destroy you. 

You get so used to the box that you sometimes forget it's there.  But every so often (like when i had a near-miss on the highway today,) you remember that this box is going to pop open someday.  That much is certain.  And either it will be the best thing ever, or the end of everything.

The conclusion that i always come to is.... whatever actually exists, just focus on being an awesome motherfucker. 

You might be an awesome motherfucker made of random, soulless atoms that exists for no purpose, utterly void of meaning.

Or you might be an awesome motherfucker of an eternal soul, existing forever in an infinite pantheon of glory.

Either way, no matter what happens, you're still an awesome motherfucker giving the finger to the whole universe.  It's the one thing they can't take away from you.

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Hail to the King

(Warning: Non-political post)

Wow, i just read some of the sweestest words ever: "NBC announced on July 13th that they are planning a new miniseries based on Stephen King's The Tommyknockers."

YES.

See, i'm a Stephen King fan.  I can't help it, i like his stuff.  And everyone knows that while a lot of King's works have been translated onto the big and small screen, the success rate when it comes to quality is about 20%.  For every Kubrick The Shining we also get a weak The Stand and a dreadful Langoliers.  But now that Under the Dome has been a (financial) success, it looks like the money men are ready to jumpstart the King revival.  Maybe some of it will be done right this time.  How about a new version of It?  A version of The Stand where Randall Flagg doesn't look like some old biker and Harold is actually fat?  Or, in the best of all worlds, a really excellent HBO series of The Dark Tower?

This is the one time when Hollywood's thirst for remakes might actually do some good.

The Dark Tower.  When reading that series recently, i was struck at how perfect a series it could make if done properly -- despite the fact that it deals with universe-spanning epic events, the action is always presented in a smallish, personal context.  Roland talks with Walter in the place of bones.  Eddie and Susannah on a beach.  The showdown with Blake inside a train.  The dusty Calla Bryn Sturgis... heck, even when they finally locate the ultimate threat -- the Breakers of Algul Siento -- it's presented as little more than a posh condominium resort.  It's one of the biggest and most epic stories ever told, but isn't bogged down by massive LOTR-style battles or set pieces.

For right now, i'll slaver in anticipation of this new proposed Tommyknockers.  Come on, let's see Bobbi actually change and turn evil this time. 



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