I have been slacking off on the news posting lately, I notice. But that is in large part because the news itself has been repeating itself. Iraq is still a mess. Still. A prominent Republican was indicted on corruption charges. Again. Next week, another Republican will be embroiled in a gay or underage sex scandal. Again. I feel as if we are on a roller coaster and we can't get off, we just get to watch the same sights go by over and over again as we whirl around the loop.
Over at Minstrel Boy's place (Harp and Sword), the Minstrel apparently decided to hop off of the roller coaster and go do something else. Good for him. I keep thinking about doing so myself, but I am too... bought... to think too hard about it. Too comfortable. If I emigrated to Canada, for example, I would basically be starting over from scratch, doing the same sort of stuff that I did starting out over here -- driving a rusty old car bought for cheap, living in a spare bedroom that someone rents out to college students, etc. All of which is quite survivable especially with modern resources such as cheap Internet access and so forth, but I am too bought to really want it enough to do it.
And the same is true, unfortunately, for most Americans today. We don't shut down our government and install one that represents the people rather than a secretive and wealthy elite because, well, we're too comfortable. So when the Scaifes of the world tell us, "bend over so I can fuck you up the ass", we just say "thank you, sir! May I have another?" because the alternative is, uhm, well, we might actually have to do something... ick. Ick ick ick. Far better to simply moulder in our chains of silver and gold, wishing it was different... but never making it so.
Badtux the Pensive Penguin
the only thing is tux, i didn't hop of this particular wagon. i stepped off to take a piss and it got hijacked away from me. if the jingle and sountrack money was still flowing, if i could make a decent living knocking around the ranch kicking out twenty second snippets to encourage everybody to buy household cleansers and every single goddamned brand of trucks, i'd be doing it.
ReplyDeletei didn't quit the business, it quit me. i'm just coping the best i can. still, there's a trip to tahiti in my cards. coming back? je ne sais pas, ce que je n'ai vu pas, reste invisible.
Everything will be better if you just go shopping. Though I hear that malls are becoming jihadist deathtraps.
ReplyDeleteMB, you have a point there, But you yourself said that you have enough money to just retire to the ranch, putter about doing not much of all. Maybe need a bit of belt tightening, but I'm sure it wouldn't be the first time you had to do that.
ReplyDeleteI must admit that my first reaction when I heard you were going to San Diego was, "what? He's leaving the ranch?". But then I realized it was my own projection. I did pretty much the same thing when I left my farm and a secure job to head for the big time, roaming from sea to shining sea until I landed in the SF Bay area, where I seem stuck like glue now because folks keep shoveling money my way to buy me and, well, they're succeeding. Thing is, I'm kinda hittin' the expire-by date, both in my interest in what I'm doing and in how long other people are going to be willing to shovel money my way (there is an "expire-by" date in the computer biz for software geeks, and I passed it by several years back, I'm just lucky to look young for my age).
k.ron, I got my credit card bill this month and gulped pretty hard. I think I need to quit taking your advice :-).