Dust fired me this. It's funny. It's fun. It's ballerinas being squashed and eaten. Only good karma comes from things like this.

Well, the reformat/install/time of hair pulling and gnashing of teeth is essentially at an end. I've got the system upgraded, 90% of the old software reinstalled and at this point, everything is functional. It could have been worse. A lot worse (this isn't my first time on this merry-go-round) so huzzah and such.

I'm going to work on the novel when I finish here, but I wanted to touch base with you all and say a brief howdya do.

I'm reading a book of essays now. I don't read books of essays much because, deep down, a selfish bastard who usually doesn't care what others think or feel about most subjects and even less when I disagree with them. Hey, at least I'm man enough to admit it. So I've been reading these essays and in a lot of things I'm in agreement with the author and a lot of things, well, they seem to be there solely to rally the troops and get encouraging nods from fellow believers. Ironically the myriad of praises at the beginning of the book all praise this author's ability to unify and give insight in a folksy nice kind of way.

I'm not seeing it. Not that I'm an expert in things "folksy" but I know a lot of folksy people and they don't talk like that. They tend to be much more indifferent, live and let live, but when a response is evoked it tends to be reactionary and a little mean-spirited. Probably the most offending section (as far as being not folksy, not as far as offending me because I'm still indifferent/live and let live--in my best "I wanna be folksy" kinda way...) was this particular author's impish glee at the destruction of all things religious. Now I'm gathering that from her tone, she doesn't come out and make snide comments about Mohammed or the Bhagavad-Gita, it's primarily limited to the forms and flavors of Judeo-Christianity, but she doesn't seem impressed with the whole set of things relating to a higher power, essence or deity.

I don't blame her on a lot of levels. I actually like religion in a lot of ways. Not in the genocide kind of ways, mind you. But there is a degree of comfort I take in the fact that there are tenants out there that say "this is wrong, it will always be wrong and no matter how much you want to include everyone, be their buddy and enjoy your differences, it'll still be wrong and it needs to be dealt with." I also like the line in the book of Daniel that "by peace [he] shall destroy many." If we've learned nothing in the past 228 years of the grand political experiment called America, it should be that "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

The snobbish nihilism of modernity bores me with its false fatalism and pretense of human goodwill in the same way iconography, crusades and the belief in human weakness irks folks on the other side of the fence, I suppose. But that "you're okay; I'm okay" mentality that seems to embrace everything in theory and dislikes so many things in practice is the indication of our desire to change every damn thing for "light and transient causes." In America we have to wonderful right (as I've mentioned before) to be ignorant, stupid and selfish. We can be wrong at will and there's not a damn thing anyone can do about it. Sadly our country seems to becoming a very large corporate setting where, in fact, we can only be wrong if we follow a stringent set of pre-arrange guidelines that avoid: the use of religious language, language that might be thought of as disparaging to any particular interest group (young, old, minority--and by minority I mean any group that thinks its smaller than the large faceless, nameless and apparently insurmountable WASP bloc of humanity that agrees on everything and votes, thinks, acts, speaks in a single, unified voice... kinda like the Borg.) language that does anything less that over-compensate for any historical wrong (perceived or factual) to said party, language that acknowledges the fact that there is a corporate policy in place naming said party as a said party, jokes involving tits and anything bad about John F Kennedy. Basically you can talk about the weather in Greenland (as long as "Greenlanders" aren't mentioned) and the consistency of oatmeal (as long as you're absolutely sure it was made by a middle-age white Methodist male).

I haven't told you much about my background because I don't think it's very important, but I'm not 100% white guy. If I wanted to wave some sort of "the white man screwed my people" flag, I could, but what's the point? Germans got screwed by the treaty of Versailles. Scandinavia was bitch-slapped around by any number of other powers throughout their history. Russia, well, Russia was very good at screwing itself. France was the hybrid--screwed by themselves, Russia and the Germans a number of times. Poland is in a state of perpetual screwedness. Does that mean that the poor folks in Belgium who were rolled over by Nazi Germany can complain that the white man (or weiss man, I suppose...) is responsible for everything wrong with them? I know it's different, but who among you expects everything to run smoothly? Stand up so the person directly next to you can slap you upside the head. There is an axiom that proves right time and time again: if someone wants to hate you, they'll find a way to do it.

It's not your fault. But next time you get cut off in traffic try to refrain from blaming a mysterious system of institutional hatred. Shit happens. It happens a lot, actually. And the sooner you get used to that idea, the smoother your life will go. I'm not saying not to try and correct what's wrong. On the contrary, if you don't get hired for a job because you're black, Asian, native, Paraguayan or whatever, that's stupid and despicable. On the other hand, if we're keeping score, I know a lot of plain ol' white folks who didn't get a job because their last name wasn't right, either. It's a chronically unfair world and the issue comes down to whether you're going to preach muddle-headed social anger and the legislation of politeness and inclusion to degradation of substance and responsibility, or whether you're going to live and preach poise, respect and the simpler joys of watching Martha Stewart go to the hooskow.

And now I've gone and written an essay. Look everyone, I'm a hypocrite! (does little hypocrite dance)

And don't get too excited if you're a Bill O'Reilly loving Bush-o-phile because I'm not one of you. The preaching of pragmaticless pragmatics is arguably as great a scourge on this nation as the social milquetoastery I've just got done pooping on. Humility goes a long way, folks. It's not us against them, the faithful versus the harlots, the Washington Senators trying to take a bit of pride back from the Harlem Globetrotters. As much as you like to talk about the value of hard work, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and power of good moral grounding, you got where you are as much out of chance, brown-nosing and knowing the right people as the hated liberals. Take a deep breath and say to yourself "Bill Clinton wasn't that bad." It will be a healing experience, trust me. You've got to relax and worry about things other than the faceless Socialist illuminati who are trying to give your tax dollars to crack addicts so they can keep having illegitimate children. I know a lot of you and you tend to be decent people (and honestly, that goes for folks on both sides of this) but when you start talking about big pictures you come across as bitter paranoid ideologues--like Nixon without the strange "Grumpy Old Man" kind of endearing quality that he had. Can we all play nice for once? Or is it going to take another plane into the side of a building for us to realize that we have so much in common?

And now I've referenced 9/11. I'm a total liar hypocrite. Throw mud at my lying ass.

All that to ask why we, regardless of our backgrounds, revel in destruction? Why do we take glee in Clinton's impeachment or the removal of religious references in public? When we should have been in the streets celebrating one of the rare instances of destruction when "Brown v Board of Education" beat the Constitutional hell out of "Plessy v Ferguson" people lined the streets in anger. We just don't get it. We enjoy destruction for the advancement of the trivial and decry it when it's something important. Worse yet, most of the time we sit largely indifferent like spectators at a cockfight we haven't bet on. I guess it all works out unless you're the chicken.

I can own up to my feathers. Can you?

And I'm finally done. Forgive me. I won't do this again (at least like this), I swear.

Cluck cluck

-Joe