Well Thanks to all you real folks out there who wished me a gosh darn happy blog birthday. I really appreciate it all to main street heck.
But heck it all, I've just been so gosh darn busy that I haven't been writing. Being a real workin' folk, it's my month to close the store. And we're so darn busy trying to finish the house before moose season. I was just sayin to the folks at the soccer game that I've been busy as heck, ya betcha.
But you folks shouldn't have to worry, because I'll be around. I'm just such a maverick that way, darn it.
I've dealt with racists, bullshit artists and trolls the likes of which few would believe ... unless they've been doing this for 5 years. 5Years. I never thought I'd reach that point.
I haven't a clue how much longer I can maintain this. But still, 5 years. Kinda cool, I think.
When I have to go across the street to have one of your more dim customers move their car from in front of the rather obvious driveway, I expect your BARtenders to deal with me with at least a small amount of sympathy and respect. After all, I have to attempt to live peaceably across from your BAR. I don't appreciate dirty looks, or fracked up snottiness. I'm the one who lives here while you attempt gaining tax-breaks to make more money. I'm the one being illegally inconvenienced for your profit, not you or your BARtenders.
So I would sincerely appreciate it if you would clarify to your employees that I don't need their shit. You have a BAR, and I just live here. Show some gratitude for the neighborhood, would you please?
(Seriously, a big part of that is that I'm just disgusted by some of the stupidity coming from the so-called "Dextra" wing in Montana. Wevs ...)
2) I don't reply to e-mails.
(Okay, so I suck at that anyway. But seriously, I just haven't time. No, Craig. I haven't watched "Class C", yet. But the beloved is gone for the weekend, and I usually stay up late watching movies while pining for her return. So maybe tonight.)
3) I don't have the energy to reply sarcastically and derisively to veiled threats of violence.
(Hey, I told you. I'm busy. Act all big'n'bad later and then maybe we'll talk.)
4) I haven't watched even 5 minutes of the Olympics.
(Though I have read that some 54 year old woman kicks ass with a sword.)
5) We're going on two weeks into *The* Pre-season, and I haven't watched one game, or even part of one game.
(So who looks good?)
6) I've taken 2 weeks of vacation, and already worked 25 hours of it with a week left. Oh, and I'm taking time out of working from home to post this missive. Did I mention I took "vacation" to work on the house?
(Siding installed before winter would be good ... I'm thinking.)
It's the end of the World as we know it, and I feel fine.
I think apocalypse scenarios capture the imagination because they’re a
projection of our anxieties about mortality, but they also address our
anxieties about not being very important in the scheme of things at
all. Considering not just that you’re going to die, but that life will
go on without you is humbling---which means, if you’re egotistical,
humiliating. Think about it. After enough time passes, even the most
famous people are forgotten, except for a few extremely unique ones
like Julius Caesar, who probably didn’t even realize at the time that
he was creating the sort of fame that outstripped other sorts of fame.
How many of you can name all the kings of Europe throughout history?
We can name all the Presidents, but that’s because our history is
relatively short. Given enough time, you’ll be lucky to be a character
in a history book that only a fraction of a percentage of the
population will read. The fact is most of us won’t have even that.
Your family will grieve you when you die, and their children will know
about you, but odds are a few generations down the line, they won’t
even remember your name. The impact we have in the world is limited to
the length of our lives and a few years after that. Even your genetic
heritage divides itself into meaninglessness in a few generations.
Andrew Klaven, in the Wall Street Journal Of Taking Comic Books *WAY* Too Seriously, pens an homage to George Bush entitled "What Bush and Batman Have In Common". The funny part is that Klaven is a professional author of fiction who seems confused by the very word "fiction". Fiction ... as in, it isn't real.
This doesn't bother Klaven even a tittle, as he charges forward to show how the values of Batman are the values of GW.
There seems to me no question that the Batman film
"The Dark Knight," currently breaking every box office record in
history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral
courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror
and war. Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting
terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes
has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency,
certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency
is past.
And like W, Batman understands that there is no moral
equivalence between a free society -- in which people sometimes make
the wrong choices -- and a criminal sect bent on destruction. The
former must be cherished even in its moments of folly; the latter must
be hounded to the gates of Hell.
Well. Guess he told us. The core thesis Klaven is getting at is that people, at the really bloody heart of the matter, all like the values of heroes, like George Bush and Batman. He kinda has a point; most of us really do. But in classic Republicant style, Klaven then frantically builds the Strawman of the Hollywood liberal.
Leftists frequently complain that right-wing morality
is simplistic. Morality is relative, they say; nuanced, complex.
They're wrong, of course, even on their own terms.
Left and right, all Americans know that freedom is
better than slavery, that love is better than hate, kindness better
than cruelty, tolerance better than bigotry. We don't always know how
we know these things, and yet mysteriously we know them nonetheless.
The true complexity arises when we must defend these
values in a world that does not universally embrace them -- when we
reach the place where we must be intolerant in order to defend
tolerance, or unkind in order to defend kindness, or hateful in order
to defend what we love.
You see what he did there? It's kinda a neat trick. Liberals aren't willing to violate their morals to save their morals ... and that makes them immoral. But Batman (remember, he's fictional) and George W (remember, he's an incompetent idiot) are heroes because they take the bloody work as needs doin' on themselves, that we all are better for it, and morality is served. No. No it really isn't. That truly is a relative morality because moral value become solely dependent on the power one has to enforce and defend it. And what makes that relative morality worthwhile to the rest of non-fictional folk is the trust we place in those who have the power to use it in our favor.
It's easy to see why Batman captures the imagination. It's not because we trust him to be the great defender of our beliefs and way of life (that would be Superman, who is Uber-powerful). No, Batman is a hero because we all want to be him. We all want to have the power to strike back at the wrongs that afflict us (and presumably afflict everybody else since each of us special snowflakes must be the normal person.) We all want Wayne's billions, and Batman's toys and skills. We all want to do the right thing. But ya know, most of us (and I'm looking with distrust at Mr. Klaven), most of us know that we are humans who don't have those things. After all, Batman is fictional. We ain't him.
Bush on the other hand, sadly, is not fictional. He's very real, with very real money (ours) and very real skills to use in battle (our children and friends). Klaven agrees that Bush defends our morals by breaking them. For a while, we trusted that, giving him the hallmark gift of a hero. But see, Bush has misused his very real power against those of us he asks to pay for his moral rectitude, with dollars and blood. In comic books, the consequences to the characters is always personal and deeply felt. In reality, the moral relativism of the Bush administration has left us carrying the bag for the consequences leveled at the hero ... in fantasy. I think someone needs to point out to Klaven that Americans don't live in fantasy. We enjoy it on the big screen, even fantasy as complex as the Dark Knight. When the hero bleeds us dry for the pain he visits on the villains (who are such only because of the hero's power to stand against them) we all tend to get the idea that we're not dealing with a hero. We're dealing with a hypocrite.
And that is the main issue that liberals really have with conservative ideology. It isn't that we don't agree about morality. It's that we think most of them are fricking hypocrites. Klaven's Strawman, well abused, can't mask the truth from most people any more. Justice is good. We all agree. Asking those who pay the price for justice to support those who flaunt their disdain for the justice we all believe in is not so good. Life isn't a comic book, and George Bush isn't Bruce Wayne.
Strangely enough, I posted this whole thing simply to bring you the funniest video that I've seen in a very very long time. Who said it? Bush or Batman?
Every year, the sister of one of my very best friends hosts a party to celebrate the Summer solstice at her house in Kalispell. She and her husband (people who are truly great in the most moral and human sense) allow a bunch of us to descend on their home, drink to excess, laugh like the loving fools we are and get reacquainted with what truly makes life good. This year was special beyond measure, because their greatest wish had been fulfilled. This was the first Solstice celebration for their son, Morgan Finn. (Welcome to the wild ride, little man. Hold on tight, and enjoy everything!)
Every year I've gone I have taken a different route from Bozeman to Kalispell; and by a strange coincidence, every year I've driven a different vehicle. Those streaks will likely end soon, but not this year. This year, as once before, my beloved went with me, and we had one quest in mind: to take the road less traveled. It was our intent to journey roads we'd never been on, and see places we'd never seen, and avoid the Interstate whenever and however possible.
We left Bozeman on Huffine, and just went straight to Norris. This was nothing new for either one of us, but pleasant just the same. What we had never done was visit the town of Pony. It's a tiny little mining burg, about two miles off the main road, in the Madison valley. It's nestled in the bosom of some pretty impressive rocks.
That big shaved looking guy to the right is called Hollow Top, for somewhat obvious reasons.
The town itself is cute and quaint beyond compare. In fact, calling it those things may be an insult. My beloved was enchanted with the place. It has a big brick school (abandoned) and several houses that speak to the glory of mining riches. Victorian 'painted ladies', my wife calls them. In truth, I could live there (if I had the money to live there.) One of my co-workers obsessed for a week with the idea that the Pony Bar is for sale. I now understand why, and have twisted fantasies that I might buy the place just so I could live that life under the shadow of great mountains. I wish we had had more time to spend there (like a few others have.) But we had miles to go before rest.
We headed north, and cut over to Cardwell. From there, it was over Pipestone pass, dropping us into the lap of Butte. More later ...
I have no idea what psychosis drives me to view the more unseemly and unreasonable elements of the online world. It has been well established that I spend much more time among the right-wingnut's websites than many of my Montana brethren. (I don't do it as much as I used to. Most of the wingnuts/warbloggers/fake libertarians have just gone off the deep end. I still read Michelle Malkin though, only so that I know what BullShitCairn will post later in the day.) I occasionally lurk amongst the racists (the real ones, not the commenters of Professor Chaos.
) Ultimately, I think that it's a fascination with the unreasonable, the illogical, that drives me to wonder how and why people can so easily believe the ridiculous.
I do shy away from applying that curiosity to friendlies, for the most part. I remain boggled as to how I can write nearly anything, and MarkT will simply read what fits his bias. But ultimately, it isn't fascinating enough for study. Our ongoing argument concerning how useless Ralph Nader was in his efforts will likely never be resolved; nor will it change jack-squat. He will maintain the fiction of his other-reality predictions, I will retain the sadness that we never got to find out. It's a humorous engagement, but has no pragmatic value for either of us. Bush remains President.
However, there is a new angry movement afoot, and that draws me like a bee to nectar. The Democratic primary campaign is over ... or is it? Dah dun DAH!!! There are those out there who are seriously unhappy with the results of the primary, and they are organizing. They call themselves PUMA's. That stands for 'Party United? My Ass!'. Officially, the acronym stands for other than that, but Ive been watching for some time and I see no reason to sugarcoat the bile in this formation. They are angry. They've been cheated. No one official supports their special snowflake-ism. They are 18 million strong (probably more like 1800, but who am I to quibble?) Oh, and, Obama sucks.
Most of the Lefty-sphere is ignoring these folk, and much probably rightly so. But they don't share my unique psychosis. I find the PUMAs fascinating. Over the coming weeks I will review, study and comment on these people. Call it an effort of online anthropology if you will. But there is a lot to behold in that forest of illogic, and I just can't resist. Just so that we're clear on PUMA belief, they hold that a conspiracy between a particular campaign, the DNC, the EmmEssEmm and 18 million brainwashed idiots robbed the Democratic candidacy from Hillary Clinton. Oh, and ... SEXISM!!!!1! They want the media fired, Howard Dean fired, Obama prosecuted or at least made to seem icky and their place in the sun (an odd choice for special snowflakes).
Now here's the harsh part. I really want to blog this. But I am tired of blogging; almost Ed tired. It might just be the season. I don't know. I had planned to give this up right after the primary. But, the best laid yadayada. I like the idea of engaging the PUMAs. I am not a sexist, and I clearly see their circular reasoning. To me, this is strangely ... fun. All I'm asking of you, gentle reader, is not to expect too much too soon. I'll get to it as I can.
