Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Let 'em Eat Cake

Senator McConnell as Marie Antoinette


I could say it. But I've already said it. So has damned near everyone else. On one side or the other. Everyone in America believes the country is going to hell in a handbasket, for (at least) two different reasons. My posts have grown more infrequent and I either need to write about other things, they will pretty much end. Politics in this country are, for the time being, a lot like the dungeness crabs I shelled the other day; they smell bad and can make you sick. Oh, and one more thing, they can kill you. No one has talked about the suicide rate lately, but you might find it interesting. Oh, and watch it rise as Mitch McConnell, Eric Cantor and John Boehner cut unemployment benefits and cater to the über-rich. Entertainment is only one reason why The Walking Dead, on AMC is/was such a huge hit. Sure, zombies are big, but so is fear of an apocalyptic breakdown. To quote David Byrne, "this ain't no party/this ain't no disco/thgis ain't no foolin' around." It's the end of the world as you know it. I feel somewhat consoled by the Oregon darkness and the rural semi-isolation, but I won't be safe for long. The politics will become like an organism growing out of control in a really big Petri dish. It will no longer be a case of the players. Senators and congressmen won't matter. It will be the will of the people. Of the thing. The "dittoheads" as Rush calls them. They're already like zombies, buying into Mrs. Palin's mavericky gibberish... and, for chrissake, really... what does McConnell look like if not the undead? John Kyl is straight out of Central Casting and Boehner belongs on an ad for Chesterfield. Chicken crap, indeed.

The Marshall Islands are disappearing into the ocean (really). The government is trying to wrest the control of Alaska from the Alaskans in order to preserve some of the ice for the polar bears, whose habitat is literally melting away. It's so far beyond America... or any contrived borders. It's more than the retirement age in France or the tuitions in England. And it's more than the malignant disease and devastation in Haiti. It's more than the raped women and children in Africa or the starvation throughout regions of Africa and Asia. It's the earth. I usually misquote her, but one of the most memorable things my wife ever said to me was that man fucks up the earth a little every day he lives on it, or something to that effect.

I am really glad that I am as old as I am, and don't have children. This is an insane world to grow up in, let alone, grow old in.

As it is, I have found myself turning away from television news. I am in a self-induced 12-step program to wean myself away from Keith Olbermann and even Jon Stewart. It's relentless and unfunny. Better I should wax on about the weather, photography or guitar porn.

Guitar porn. Hmmm... stay tuned.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow-and you're supposed to be the ones with "faith".
Glad I'm an atheist and don't have to deal with fantasies and weird clothes and people claiming to hear the voices of dead shepherds and carpenters.
We may not survive; we're a species and that's what species do-die. But how some of your ideas were supposed to help "sustainability": unlimited immigration, for example, is beyond me.

barryshap said...

Hey, nice to have you back from the dead. How is it where you live now? Toasty, I bet.

I'm not sure what "you're supposed to be the ones with 'faith'" means. Who are we? And who are you to ascribe faith to me? For some reason, Bowie's "Man Who Sold the World" popped into my noggin. "Oh, no. Not me.I never lost control... "

And I'm also not sure what unlimited immigration has to do with climate change. But thanks for the comment.