Paralysis of the Mind

Fired up the ole Launchcast, and "Night Moves" came on... and suddenly, I was consumed with the urge to blog. I don't know why. I don't know how. But I can assure you, I don't care for this turn of events...

(It was followed by a ripping 'Birds of a Feather' from a show I actually attended, so I guess Launch is forgiven.)

So, last night, as I suspect y'all noticed, our Shy Leader spoke in public. It was a nice little speech, I'm sure (I really tried to watch it. But goodness me, there was a 'Hanging with Mr. Cooper' retrospective that I just couldn't miss) and today I've read over the transcript and I find myself — as I often do when dealing with stupid people — having to take several deep breaths before I (in the immortal words of Neil Armstrong just after landing on the moon) lose my shit.

Basically, to sum: There's light around the corner we just turned. Course, the stay. Thousand points of light. A corner, turned. Stay the course. Troops not in meat grinder. Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom. God Bless America.

A pretty impressive performance from someone about as comfortable speaking in public as I would be, say, out front in a nude revue. Apparently when the job was posted on monster.com, nobody told Shy Leader speaking publically was part of the deal. *shrugs*

So I'll come right out and say it: I love the idea of the Bush doctrine. He and I are in general agreement over the concept that self-determination is pretty cool and everyone ought to have a crack at it.

Unfortunately, that's where it all goes ka-put. It's not hard to look around the world and see several situations (Lebanon, Azerbaijan~!, Ukraine) where the actual people living in the actual country looked around, said "This is bullshit" and left their homes and made their voices heard. This is fantastic, because nothing scares leaders more than a pissed-off populace. I'll refer to this as the Antionette Doctrine: When shit goes down, the leaders' heads are the first to roll.

(Incidentally, this is what brought up the Second Amendment. The point was not that Joe Somebody needed to arm himself with landmines, grenades and several rocket launchers against whomever might try to sneak into his home, it was that the government should have to respect the people because the people were armed well enough to at least make it a shooting match should the government go a little awry. Instead it warped our society enough to make guns one of those topics you shouldn't talk about in public because you'll have 6 people who think they ought to be able to arm themselves with concealed howlitzers if they'd like. And sweet mercy if you talk about guns to an American libertarian. It's worse than talking about God to Ralph Reed.)

Now, Bush could have stood in Washington and said, basically, if they wanted freedom that badly they'd have America on their side. Indeed, portraits of Bush were being carried by demonstrators in both Azerbaijan~! and Ukraine during their upheavals. Bush could have promised help, troops, concealed howlitzers... whatever. And it's hard to argue against this, especially as an American. Our country was NOT founded on France saying "Fuck the Brits, let's roll" it was founded on "Don't Tread on Me" (and every time I think of that slogan it's spoken in my head by Cleveland from Family Guy) by us standing up for ourselves.

But no. We offered words. And have rolled into a pair of countries that are -- at best -- filled with mixed emotions at seeing us come.

Dick Cheney, Dark Lord of Douchebaggery, suggested the Iraqis would greet us as liberators with flowers and song and whatnot. He's close. Plenty of Iraqis are stoked to see us there. But he also seemed to forget that, despite the number of people that Saddam put away, tortured or killed, Mr. Hussein was pretty good at keeping basic order on the streets. Oh yeah, and the country is filled with several factions of religion that hate each other enough to kill the other side thinking that God/Allah is on THEIR side. But yeah, flowers, song, car bombs and rocket launchers.

And Afghanistan? Who were we kidding? Nobody's had solid control of Afghanistan for a good thousand years for basically the same reasons: The tribes hate each other, the religions hate each other, everyone is armed, everyone is poor and central control is a joke in the country. From what I understand about Kabul (and I've read some, but by no means am I an expert) it exerts a certain regional influence, but in terms of national control there's none (again, factions and such) so when Karzai is talking, it's mainly for us.

But Bush has decided that their freedoms lie in democracy and centralized rule. This is the fatal flaw — not surprisingly, for a reactionary, it's mostly just an oversimplification of a big issue — of the entire idea: Freedom is not democracy. Freedom is not necessarily of religion, speech or equality. Freedom does not equate women having rights, freedom does not grant anyone anything, but most of all, freedom is not about exchanging one nearby ruler for one a bit further away.

It's not like this is a recent mistake, either. Check into the Bay of Pigs and how our genius CIA said, "Sure, all the people will revolt against that commie Castro!" like, totally forgetting that just a few short years before they'd revolted against Batista to specifcally put Casto INTO power. Our dislike for Communism overpowered any type of reason or sense. And what happened? It was a mess, and a huge black mark against Kennedy. (Who, and it pains me to say it, was really the George W. Bush of the 1960s. But that's another entry entirely.)

Bush rolls out his version of freedom, but he aims high when he tries to explain all the great things he's done "bringing freedom" places. You can't export freedom, because what's freedom to Americans isn't freedom to Canadians, Mexicans, Russians or Poles. Indeed, what's freedom to New Yorkers is not the same to Mississippians. Or even the weird guy who lives down the street.

We have a lot of wonderful things going on in this country, and I cherish several of those rights on a daily basis -- particularly speech, religion and travel -- but our freedoms are evolving every day. Just look at the Supreme Court last week, making it OK for the government to snag your house if they want to put up a Wally World, not OK to hit up Grokster, OK to put up some Ten Commandments stuff in some places (but not in others... one of the worst rulings in the court's history because of the ambiguity involved).

But that's my point: There is NO definition of freedom that's going to work for everyone. It isn't like America didn't have trouble making up its mind on issues -- slavery, blacks, women, drinking -- and still doesn't have a few bugaboos to worry about today **cough cough** lebians and gays **cough** but we've figured out our way here, and we'll keep going forward (or backward, depending on what sort of hellbeasts we elect in 2008) until...

... well... until nothing. In a truly free society, nothing will be completely and utterly 100% settled because everyone will have the right and obligation to question what's going on. The best we could hope for are a few really good explanations why things are the way they are.

But Shy Leader -- he of moral absolutes and oversimplifications -- doesn't say what freedom REALLY looks like. If there was actual freedom, Iraq would be allowed to grow how it chose. Sounds OK, but if 5 years down the line they decided to procure nuclear weapons from the North Koreans... hey, I think it would be a stupid decision on the order of several magnitudes, but that's what freedom brings to the table: Unpredictability. Odds. The chance to do it right and do it well, or to screw it all up.

And that sounds awful, but that's freedom. Nature is unfettered to do whatever it wants, which could mean another million years of an inhabitable, safe Earth OR a mountain sized asteroid that's 5 hours away from slamming into Asia and killing every last living thing on this Earth. And because nature is free, we just have to live with whatever happens next unless we want to revolt -- and move to another planet.

That's freedom. Not a half-measure, not even three-quarters. And in the end, you can't give away something to another person when you can't even explain what you're trying to offer.

I was asked recently by a pretty good female friend of mine if I had a blog. I replied that yes, in fact, I did, and I suppose she's been reading my outbursts lately because she asked me another question a few days ago that's been sort of gnawing at me.

"Why," she asked, "do you write so little about your personal life? I know this isn't livejournal or anything, but I feel like I'm reading the good version of an Opinion page from an upscale newspaper."

She's right. I almost never write about my personal life. But this is the answer.

One thing I love about blogs and online journals is the fact that it gives anyone who takes the 2 minutes required to set up a login the opportunity to have a voice that can be read anywhere by most anyone on the internet(s). No longer do you need to be a scion of libel like my boy Jonah, or a world-hopping tycoon like Nicki Kristof or -- God help you -- Cal Thomas to have a voice and a say, albeit a very small one, in today's issues and how they affect you, society or the world at large. There are some really brilliant and creative blogs that churn out fantastic work of political, non-political, humanistic, artistic and just plain ridiculous (but still totally worthy) writings on a bevy of subjects.

One thing I despise about blogs is the fact that given the keys to the kingdom, most people want to write about their latest shopping trip to Wal-Mart.

And it isn't the elitist in me that wants to poo-poo the proles 'cause I don't like the idea of the trip to Wal-Mart as the be-all/end-all of existence; it's my critical eye on society that tells me something is the matter when people seem to think the most important thing they can write about is themselves.

The kicker, of course, is that writers often bandy "Write about what you know" and, taking that cue, the untrained blogger/livejournalist/x-diarist is saying, "Well, I know me, and that'll have to do." But the problem is that blogging -- at least as I see it -- shouldn't just be "This is what I know. Let me write it down for you." In this medium over most others, the exploration is what counts. The watching of other writers in their craft, the honing of one's own; those are the processes that should be totally a part of the writing experience. Jotting down a few daily notes "Gee, the kids were really bitchy today... my husband is being a real pain... my knee hurts" isn't exactly a hardcore exercise for a budding writer.

And this runs into my next major problem with a personal blog. I don't write about myself because I know full well I have a genuinely uninteresting life and -- this is the important bit here -- nobody cares what my life is like.

That sound overly harsh and maybe a little bitter or depressive, but I mean it in only the most cheerful way possible. Why do I need to log the notes of my day for public consumption? It isn't like my trip to the grocery store, work, the drug store and a quick pitstop for dinner is new, interesting or inspirational. I don't feel like writing them in an interesting way (which is, in fact, a wonderful exercise in writing and there are some blogs that turn the mundane into the extraordinary) but mainly, what's the point? Do I need to say "Gee, I saw something shopping, but I couldn't afford it, and that sucked" as if my experience was the first to ever tread that emotion? Obviously, we've all been there (excepting Messrs. Gates, Buffett, Steinbrenner and Murdoch) and I don't feel like I need to break in with sudden moments of stunning banality.

Apparently, other people do feel like it. That's certainly their right, but I know that when I stumble across blogs that are personal, I feel a little bit dirty looking at them as I quickly pass through to another land of blogtopia. Why must every little innermost thought or feeling be broadcast to the world?

I can only come up with two answers, neither of which reassure me. The first is that the blogger has nobody else to share their feelings with so they're going to take the chance on the faceless internet (which is, I think, much too common these days and very sad on many levels) or -- and I'd say, worse, too -- they're so puffed up with self-importance they feel like their daily struggle deserves an audience. After all, it's very easy to cast yourself as a hero when you're writing your own script.

To me, ideas are what's interesting. Therefore, I do not focus on the non-ideas of daily life (dear diary, today I played with my cat and it was fun) and instead peer at life -- and not just MY life -- in a different way. Yes, it sounds grandiose and self-centered to pump blog-theory (and there's no shortage of "I" in this particular post) but the proof is exactly what I said at the start: I almost never write about my personal life.

I don't call out friends who I feel have backstabbed me, I don't complain about my girlfriend and I certainly don't level the boom at my evil coworkers -- and not just because my friends don't stab me, my girlfriend is genuinely wonderful and my coworkers are generally pleasant -- it's just that everyone else has personal drama and their life is the most important thing to them, not mine. I can't change that, but even more, I don't want to change that.

But on that very same thread, I don't really need to waste my life hearing about a trip to Wal-Mart when I can make that very same trip myself if I wanted to. We don't want television shows about people who work drudge jobs for shitty pay and relax by watching television because who needs a television to catch what's already going on in your mirror? And I certainly don't need to read a blog about how much you enjoy playing with your cat 'cause I got me a kitty right here to play with. (Kitty pictures, on the other hand, are fascinating because of the different varieties shown. See? There's a fine line, but it's definitely there.)

And now, Oh Great Questioning One, you know why.

Ah, yeah, sorry about that last post. As it turned out, to collect REAL right-wing money I would have had to fit one of the following profiles:

-- closeted gay man advocating holocaust against gays (Ken Mehlman, Rev. Fred Phelps, Swift's favorite, Andrew "wOOt" Sullivan)

-- ridiculous bow tie (Tucker "Mr. Liberal" Carlson)

-- screamer able to project voice loud enough to blot out sense, logic and sanity (O'Reilly, Hannity, Limbaugh)

-- completely batshit (Anne Coulter)

I really tried, I did I did. I had a list of really good arguments why CEO's should earn 50,000 times what their company's average worker earns. I discussed the pros and cons of eviscerating liberals, progressives, centrists, libertarians and Europeans... God help me, I tried to find Coulter attractive -- I even ignored her mannish body and hands and her she's-a-total-tranny Adam's apple -- but to no avail. As it turns out, it's all been done before. Unless I could come up with a novel theory on how Hillary Clinton killed what's-her-fuck down in Aruba or how Barack Obama likes to rape goats in his spare time, I get nothing.

(Hillary missed a vote that Friday evening. She flies her special black helicopter down to Aruba. Sexually assaults blondie, pins the disappearance on the Dutch kid, rips what's-her-face into pieces, buries her arms and sends the rest out to sea. Then she makes a 'campaign' stop in Florida later the next day. It lies out SO well and... what? No? Coulter already said that... and... wow, really? A shovel? A rusty shovel? Damn. OK, I'll stop.)

So back to my original idea: credit card fraud. I plan on... say what? 40 million? MasterCard? But I could still... wow, really? Shit. OK, no credit card fraud. Oh, and by the way, MasterCard, NICE GOING. Real good security system you got there.

We're on to plan C, then: marry Katie Holmes. See, I think she's a good choice because she's not quite as big as Lindsey Loha-- pardon me? Who? No, no, he's gay... yeah, definitely gay... Paris? Like Paris, France? City of Light? I'll be damned.

Well.

Um.

Looks like I'm back to working for a living. Traumatic. But lets not get too discouraged here, I have this *awesome* idea for a prequel to the 'Batman' movies and I think it could be really huge...

As I get older and wiser, I've come to realize that my silly idealism (and make no mistake, in America, ALL idealism is silly) is holding me back from my patriotic duty as an American citizen: The duty to profit by any means necessary. Although profit without inconveniencing anyone is okay, I don't want to take that particular limp-wristed path. No sir, I want to do my red, white and blue duty the way most other people get it done: By looking out for #1 exclusively and heaving a hearty "Fuck You" toward the rest of the world.

I've had a good run here, a solid 18-month blog run full of wisdom, wit, copious swearing and one major Garth Iorg reference. But I realize now that my foolish ideas of equality are holding me back from the true reason for doing anything — profit. As such, I tried to look around to see if I could profit from my mostly liberal viewpoints. Sadly, the twisted liberals in this country seem to frown upon mindless profiteering, so there wasn't anything out there.

Therefore, I'd like to announce my new and improved blog that will make me profits. I've signed an exclusive 3-year contract with the right-wing. I won't dictate terms of the deal, but suffice to say, the value I had in my head for my own leisure time was greatly exceeded by the contract.

Unfortunately, though, my mother did not make a career of libel, so unlike Jonah Goldberg, I'll have to actually produce to keep myself on the gravy train. I think I have the talent necessary to do it, and my mind is made up: profit is good, profit is good, profit is good.

God Bless America. (Required at least 4 times in every post from here on out.)

Let's look at today's hot story, Schiavo autopsy shows no abuse, blindness, a story that seems to say Terry Schiavo was blind for years before her terrible death; her husband, Michael "Judicial Killer" Schiavo did not abuse her (as was conclusively proven in several forumns on freerepublic.com); and that there was no possible way she could have come out of her state.

This blows my mind. The LIBERAL MEDIA strikes again, folks. Firstly, Terry wasn't blind: in that one grainy video from 1997 she *obviously* followed a balloon as is floated around the room. This Big Liberal Lie is slander and libel with a side of idealistic idiocy.

Furthermore, Bill Frist (HERO-TN) said in a long speech just days before the LIBERAL MEDIA killed her:

"I question it (the diagnosis) based on a review of the video footage which I spent an hour or so looking at last night in my office. She certainly seems to respond to visual stimuli."

And Frist, who's a REAL DOCTOR not just some GEEK WITH A SMATTERING OF MEDICAL LIBERAL TRAINING LIKE LIBERALS, knows what he's talking about. I love Bill Frist.

Secondly, her husband beat her, as I said above. The LIBERAL MEDIA didn't report it, but as I said, several posters said they thought he beat her severly enough to cause her to fall into that tragic state, so that's good enough for me, Jeb Bush, George W. Bush and the 88% of Americans who held sit-down, hunger and protest strikes during her last days in a final attempt to save her life from the LIBERAL ACTIVIST JUDGES who ruled with the CULTURE OF DEATH on wrong LIBERAL MEDIA information she would never recover. Liberal trash, more like it. God Bless America... seriously. God Bless America.

And speaking of God, He can do anything, and if He had made it part of His plan to save Terri, he would have in a second. Scientific evidence said her brain was too far gone to come back? How about some good-old-fashioned AMERICAN CAN-DO SPIRIT?? That LIBERAL FACT-SLINGING is ridiculous. Enough prayer and Terri would have stood up and started doing cartwheels. If only we'd given her 20 years instead of 15. It boils my RED CONSERVATIVE BLOOD to think about it. God Bless America, if only those GODLESS UN-AMERICAN LIBERALS would stop with their assault on the things I hold most dear, such as profits, red meat and hating those who don't agree with me.

I'm so angry at EVERYONE WHO IS NOT WHITE AND CHRISTIAN right now that I must stop. Plus, the mailman is here with my big fat Richard Mellon Schife check.

God Bless America.

I have no desire whatsoev-AH to write about the Jacko trial, other than to say that I nearly got to put into today's paper the headline "Thriller! Jackson innocent" which is, frankly, the sort of thing that would make the NY Post. Of course the Post would never have such a headline. That right-wing rag would never cheer an innocent verdict unless it was Dick Cheney on war crimes.

Unfortunately, when I signed up for this blog, I apparently signed a contract I did not read carefully enough and now, I'm contractually obligated to write about Jacko. I'm not even kidding, it's right there in section 49, paragraph 17, sub-paragraph 5, line 2: Any trial featuring a former black man who has turned himself into a skinny albino woman must be covered -- IN FULL -- on your blog.

I didn't think anyone was paying attention until I was nearly run off the road by a pair of black SUVs tonight on my way home from work. My car sitting in a ditch, an agent of blogger.com threatened me with his letter opener and suggested I blog about Jackson the very moment I got home.

And now, here I am. And since I'm obligated... ah jeez... I'll write a few things about Ole Jacko. The first question everyone asks is "What do you think about it?" Easy answer: I don't really care.

But, since I have to -- holy crap, that dude from blogger.com is out in my parking lot with a HUGE letter opener -- I'll say a few things that the verdict proves.

Firstly, it's that money now trumps ALL other considerations. OJ was a victory of sorts for minorities because it proved that no matter how black or guilty a suspect was, money could overcome it. And now we can add skinny former black woman with a penchant for sleeping with children in his bed to that list.

Secondly, Jackson's defense was handed the keys to this victory early on. The mother looks like a small-time scammer who got too big for her britches, the kid looked like a willing partner. The parade of people who were supposed to rip Jackson ended up a much more mixed bag, especially Debbie Rowe who -- after all accounts said she was going to blow the lid off the case -- turned out to be totally sympathetic to Jacko and even said today that justice was served and she never would have married a pedophile.

(That big guy from blogger.com is now throwing things at my window. I gotta wrap this up...)

Thirdly, everyone who wanted to nail Jackson to the wall TOTALLY missed their chance in '92 when he paid the other kid off. Pedophile or not, my guess is that all the evidence would have sent Jacko to a prison for a very long time. He was smart enough to drop the payoff. This time? Well, maybe he'd gotten his shock back then and really HAD kept it clean since that incident. I know it's bizarre how he loves kids, but even for a guy as rich as him, forking over 15-20 million bucks is not something you forget so quickly. Did he learn his lesson the first time around? I have to think so.

Fourthly, as Dave Chappelle once said, the man wrote Thriller.

Fifthly...

.... oh my God, the blogger guy is banging on my door...

Sixthly, um... I'm finding it a little hard to concentrate right now because I have to barricade the door against the guy from Blogger... JESUS, I'M WRITING ABOUT JACKO WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT?????

Seventhly, OK, desk in front of the door, it'll keep him, off me for a while. I'd like to write about something else for a seonqfesawqetihn3v;

... send help...

One thing I'll never suffer any shortage of outrage over is the usage of the word "normal."

As you can see above, from the post's title, I r-e-a-l-l-y hate the word normal. I genuinely dislike people who use it, and I get especially queasy when I see people trying to live by it.

So I'll throw it down right here: there is no such thing as normal. Yes, Virginia, there IS no Santa Normal.

What people mean when they think normal isn't normal at all, it's common. It's not common to be a raging liberal, it's not common to be homosexual, it's not common for men to wear a dress.

I hear this a lot when I joke around and tell people that I own a dress. I — almost without fail — get "that's weird" (the easy way of saying it's not normal), to which I reply to a woman: "Is it weird for a girl to own pants?" And always, I have to hold someone's hand and explain the difference between normal and common.

Same thing for long hair on a man: "Oh, it's not normal..." No, fool, it isn't COMMON. And then I wonder if they go around to women with short hair and ask them if they're going to let it grow out or what because it's "weird."

Those are itty-bitty social questions and comments that mean nothing. My biggest problem with the concept of normal is how it makes too many people slaves to the status quo of "society" — that impossible to define set of rules and boundaries that don't really exist but so many people tailor their lives to fit into them.

And that's the deal with normal. Yeah, it's different to see a guy with long hair strolling around. So? Who are we to define normal, we of happy and fat America?

If we lived in Darfur, for example, normal would be the terror of a daily beating, raping or killing. To them, sitting in a faux leather chair typing on their blog in an air-conditioned room (as I'm doing right now) is pretty much like flapping their arms and taking off to the moon. And the reverse would be completely true: I'm quite sure I wouldn't do so well in a genocide.

But that's how we view the rest of the world, that WE'RE the normal ones and that they're weird. It's so silly and self-righteous, but in all fairness, most Americans are silly bordering on stupid and self-righteous to the point of agony. And why? Because we're told that's how society should be, and that's how normal people act. We eat it up and beg for seconds.

How is anything in our society remotely normal? People walk around wearing logos of giant multinational corporations, giving away their body as a billboard — people with NO relation to the company, people who not only have no financial stake in the company, they actually paid for the right to be a billboard! And why is that? Because it's okay to be named "GAP" or "Billabong." But you're a big fat weirdo if you make your own clothes or walk around with a shirt with your own actual name on it.

And how early are we taught how special and wonderful America is! Why do kids have to stand up and say the pledge of allegance every day? Why do we sing the national anthem before every sporting event? Why is it so wonderful to stick a flag in the front yard, on your car's antenna or in every public building? Are we going to wake up one morning in a panic and forget where we live or something? Is it impossible to love a country but understand that not everyone else in the world sees it like that and maybe... just maybe... we can be wrong once in a while?

Normal makes people stupid and slow witted, too. Thinking back to childhood, it's not normal to ask extra questions, it wasn't normal to raise your hand to answer too many of teacher's questions, and if you did well in school, you were more likely to be called a "teacher's pet" rather than cheered. Nerds of any age are sneered at in popular culture. Let's not, of course, consider that if it weren't for scientists and inventors (who, let's be realistic, were probably not towel-snapping jocks in high school) there would be no television, no gas engines, no movies, no computers and no higher knowledge. We'd still be living in trees and flinging shit if someone back in the mists of time didn't say "Y'know, that ground looks awful inviting."

And normal is incredibly dangerous, because the status quo only helps those who are already at the top of the pyramid. And despite how brilliant us humans think ourselves, our normal is not even close to common in nature: if you kick a dog in the face enough times, eventually he'll maul you. Even my cat will only take so much abuse before lashing out.

I'm still waiting for my race to catch up. But I've been told, waiting is pretty damn normal.

I admit it.

I suffer from a totally painful malady, one that appears to be completely incurable. It's known as "outrage fatigue."

I'm not sure when it took me over. But I've got me a pretty bad case, so far as I can tell. I can barely summon the energy to change the radio station in my car when I hear tripe from Kelly Clarkson; I can barely scoff at the latest horrifying remake (I mean, seriously, couldn't we -- at the VERY least -- have waited for Burt Reynolds to be dead, buried and forgotten before The Longest Yard was brutally aborted and chopped up into stem cell suey?); and God help me when it comes to our misbegotten government.

At one point in my life I knew more about the American government than probably 85% of the rest of this country. That sounds, like, way better than it really is: A good 50% of the country is barely aware we have a government, a good 20% are still young enough to use "r0x0rz" and "wOOt" and "LoLx" unironically, and are therefore allowed to shirk their democratic responsibilities. The other 15% are aware of the government and far too square to cheerfully shriek at Chad Michael Murray (check me out dropping the 15-year-old-girl on ya, that kid is apparently hot right now and I looked it up, too) but generally only notice the government when it's either raising taxes, declaring wars or abolishing age-old programs that many folks tend to like.

But now, I can't even keep up. Bill Frist and his cornpone Nazis are so busy trampling over everything in a rush to convene Beer Hall Putsch '05 (would it be on a NASCAR infield?) and our GOOD-BUDDY ole Dub-ya rolling out his plan to ram the old poor folks on Social Security while sending the young poor folks off to war -- God Bless America, Support the Troops, Don't Mind the Wounded -- meanwhile the "opposition" party cheerfully holds the line: We won't let the insurance companies take ALL your money, just 96%, and no more wars once we're done with Syria, North Korea, Iran and Canada and Social Security can go but only if you promise we can go for sundaes at the Senate Ice Cream Social afterward...

And y'know, those 15-year-olds are happier and saner not knowing. So I tried that for a while. I even talked like it for a while:

TK: EWWWWW, Dick Cheny is sooooo NOT kewl :-(
RW: no way! cheney r0x0rz!
TK: did you see the new CMM poster? my mom is totally gunna get that for me! woot!
RW: NO WAY!!!!!!!
TK: if you say plz you can hang out and see it
RW: OMG, plz?!?!?!
TK: ok, kewl r u coming over now?

It didn't work, and not just because I got a quick drop-by from the FBI wondering what I was doing hanging around at Just-teens-dot-com.

Until I figure a way out of this nightmare, I'm going to be suffering from outrage fatigue for a good long time. Hell, I'm so outraged that I'm outraged people aren't more outraged! And after that sentence, I'll probably have to lie down for a few hours...

*deep breath*

With so much wrong, it's easy to get discouraged. But I, and you, faithful reader, must keep our chins up, our backs straight, and our guts in check because... BECAUSE... things will eventually improve.

Optimism, baby! It's the only cure to outrage fatigue. But if you'll excuse me, I have a date with a bed...

... phew.