ignorant superciliousness

ok, mark wants me to write a blog. but i'm tired. and i only have 2 original things to say.

1. i just clicked on this random girl's profile on facebook (i know, i'm horrible), and in her "mini feed" it says, so-and-so just left the group, I'm Storming the Field When We Beat Florida 2006.

Now, accuse me of superciliousness (i just like the idea of people saying that word out loud), but I'm pretty sure if I were to exercise my line-item "hide story" power on facebook just once, it would be to delete that. I mean, that's just humiliating. Leaving that in your facebook mini feed nowadays is as embarrassing as it is for Kenny Chesney to take off his hat in public. You just don't expose yourself like that.

2. maybe, just maybe, i can see the merits of occasional ignorance. why? because "The Seed" by The Roots is a great song if you just ignore the lyrics or, if you're heaping ignorance atop ignorance, are ignorant of what they mean. Same with that marry-an-ugly-person-if-you-want-to-be-happy song, songs by the Ying Yang Twins, and 6/7ths of country songs.

fade to

DAMNit Grey makes me cry every gd time. and i'm writing on my blog about it because it's pathetic. i cry about made-up story lines with made-up people and made-up problems. But you know, Omar's wife should NOT have died. jesus christ, have you no SOUL?!

i really love that fall tv is BACK.

going to make green jello w/co-worker's calculator in it - credit goes to The Office for such an ingenious idea.

Part II

i wrote this all on 9/11 but decided, unlike the President of the United States of America, to say anything political that day. But, i mean, i just have to say it now.

I hate that we call it the “war on terror”. Here, 3 definitions for the word “terror”, courtesy of dictionary.com:

1. Terror is “intense, sharp, overmastering fear”. Spiders cause me intense, sharp, overmastering fear. Sad, but true. Are we going to exterminate the spiders? I mean, they really do scare the shit out of me. How can a “war on terror” be won? Bush said himself in his speech on September 21, 2001, that there are thousands of terrorists in more than 60 countries. Get some f-ing balls and call the war what it is: the War on the Middle East. The War for Oil. The War to Overthrow Saddam Hussein. At least if you’d called it the last one, W, you could’ve actually been right when you said you’d won.

2. Terror is, “violence or threats of violence used for intimidation or coercion.” In the 9/21/01 speech, Bush said, “The Taliban must act and act immediately. They will hand over the terrorists or they will share in their fate.” hmmmm… so we’re fighting our own tactics? Or are declarations of violence rendered OK because the President mentions the all-faith-encompassing “God” instead of Allah in his taglines?

3. Terror is, “informal. a person or thing that is especially annoying or unpleasant.” well jesus christ, who knows who the hell we’re killing in our “war on terror” then! that would definitely give me free reign to declare war on at least 2 people at work.

W said in his speech on September 19, 2001: “Some speak of an age of terror. I know there are struggles ahead and dangers to face. But this country will define our times, not be defined by them.”

Good thing we’re defining them and not being defined. God help us if we defined this age using the word terror.

I’m not trying to be overly sarcastic… it’s just that easy. No. no. I meant, it’s 5 years later, and I still don’t know whom or what the hell we’re fighting, I sure as hell don’t know if we’re winning, and I only know that I’ve lost all confidence in the decisions being made.

Don’t worry; there are only 2 parts to this series. Can i get an Amen?

Part I

There’s a boy – 6 years old, kicking around an old soccer ball in the front yard with his dad. The neighborhood is alive at dusk; 2 doors down a dog is barking, 2 more doors down a little girl is screaming at a little boy to get away from her or she’ll tell her mom. Mom can’t hear because she’s in the kitchen making dinner. Her older brother is outside, but he just tells her to shut up. A car rolls by, lacking a muffler and kicking up dust, causing an annoyed instant of commotion up and down the street. Another car drives by, a little faster. All of a sudden gunshots fire, screams resonate, insurgents shoot back at an Allied Forces tank. Dust really kicks up now, for minutes that last too long, pure terror for the 6-year-old boy, the dad for his son, the dog 2 doors down, the little girl 2 more doors down, the older brother who wished for once that he could hear his little sister. The outcome: a fatherless 6-year-old, a brother with no siblings, a barking dog offering the only sound beyond the crying.

We call those boys evil. Maybe they are now. But terror breeds terror. An emotion that is pure doesn’t let logic get a voice; emotions push to extremes, logic never does.

A word really doesn’t exist for things like 9/11. it’s almost better as those 3 numbers and a symbol because words don't represent the way we felt, the way we still remember exactly what we were doing when it happened.

But I think …. sometimes we forget that those people – those middle easterns, those insurgents, those terrorists – are, ultimately, just people. And some of them are just f-ed up in the head, just like the crazy people here (I work with some of them). But some of them have faced heartache and death and vengeance all their lives, and called out hopelessly to the sky that this life is just not fair.

5 years later, I’d almost forgotten – why did they kill us in the first place?

Because they hate us, and now… I’m just afraid that we’re feeding that hate. It’s not about Bush, about pulling out, staying in. God, that makes it sound like a bad porno. It’s about feeding that horribly illogical emotion of hate. It’s not about killing innocent people; it’s about killing people and leaving behind innocent people who cared about the people who are now dead. War is fertile ground for personal martyrs. I feel like this “war on terror” is just kicking them up like weeds.

Cultures are vastly different, but people are fundamentally the same everywhere. It’s weird, actually… weird to go to a different country and meet someone who acts just like your best friend back home.

All I’m saying is it’s weird, and emotions make you do really stupid or drastic or harmful things. We all know that. And we all know that 9/11 is very emotional. all the way around, up and down, through and through.

to buy an envelope

i don't have anything to say. so, mr. vonnegut is my proxy tonight.

when he tells his wife he's going out to buy an envelope:
Oh, she says, well, you're not a poor man. You know, why don't you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I'm going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a lot of people. And, see some great looking babes. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And, and ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don't know. The moral of the story is, is we're here on Earth to fart around. And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the computer people don't realize, or they don't care, is we're dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And, we're not supposed to dance at all anymore.
--as told in a PBS interview, 2005

well, i did have a good time dancing last night... although today i swear someone was dancing on my head.. the bastard