It's ENTERTAINMENT!

Let's remember that, friends. If somebody's making money from you looking at or listening to whatever it is, it isn't NEWS or INFORMATION it's ENTERTAINMENT. No matter how well-intentioned you believe your source to be, it's a commercial enterprise if anybody's paying for you to be delivered to their ads. They want your attention. They are paid to deliver your eyes and/or ears to advertisers. If they can outrage you (Mother) so that you'll stay tuned through the commercials, they've done their job. They don't care if you've pushed "mute" so you can grade papers. Statistically, folks don't check out. I hope they don't believe what they hear, either.

I don't depend on this to pay the rent, either. It's just stuff I'd say if I had anyone around who'd be able to understand it.

"Shameful Act?"

"President Bush offered a vigorous and detailed defense of his previously secret electronic-surveillance program today, calling it a legal and essential tool in the battle against terrorism and saying that whoever disclosed it had committed a 'shameful act.'" (NYT)

Revealing that the government is illegally spying on its citizens is shameful and the actual illegal spying is essential. We really did go through the looking glass on November 7, 2000. Things are just too weird to be true.

Check out Jon Svetkey's song "Not the Hypocrite Rag" which predated this mess by nearly a decade.

Take It Out and Play With It!

One reason evil hacks like the Bushes and Reagan are more popular with True Patriotic Amurcans than thoughtful intelligent leaders like President Clinton is that they are willing, nay, enthusiastic to send in the troops! "We have the most powerful military in history, so why not take it for a spin? Let's see what it can do!" This plays real well with the folk who have difficulty with complexity and ambiguity. "Arabs attacked us, so we gotta get revenge on Arabs!" (Arabs, in this case, refers to all hajis, ragheads, and sand niggers, regardless of actual ethnic affiliation.) "I'm so angry I don't know what to do!" "OK, we'll send a bunch of heavily armed 'volunteers' over there and make 'em pay!" "I feel better, now. I'll put yellow ribbons on the minivan and the truck to show our support."

Oops, they seem to have actually made things worse. More people hate America than ever before. And I don't blame them.

"Freedom isn't free! You gotta round up (what'll we call them? Oh yeah, 'Enemy Combatants') and teach 'em a lesson! It's even better that we can keep 'em in pens outside the US so they don't TECHNICALLY have any rights because the Constitution doesn't apply if we say it doesn't."

Isn't it great to live in the land of the "free" and the home of the "brave?" I feel so much safer with John Bolton at the UN and Donald Rumsfeld running the military, Dark Lord Cheney collecting his Halliburton checks, and the Moron in Chief on vacation 11 months of the first five years in office.