I've been assured by those with initials after their names that we are living in enlightened times (the more letters after a name, the smarter the person must be, right? It's Wheel of Fortune as life itself instead of as a distracting gameshow within it. 'I'd like to buy a Ph.D for two hundred, Pat' as Vanna's jazz hands show more emotion than she ever could.). I can only assume our parents and their parents, conversely, lived in endarkened times because their experts had way fewer letters, but such is our Brave New World, Alpha, and don't let any of those Gammas tell you otherwise. Careful with that axe, Eugene.
It's not so much that in America anyone can grow up to be President of the United States or a major league baseball player (as long as you have 200 million dollars to either finance your campaign or to buy the HGH and steroids that you can later deny ever using)--that's always been the American Way. We are enlightened now, my friend, because nothing is actually anyone's fault.
Make no mistake--bad things still happen. Truly awful calamities befall us every day, we've become desensitized to them because we're bombarded by them, but that doesn't mean they don't happen. We have crimes against and injuries to persons, from robbery and assault to and through murder most foul, my sweet Prince, and then we have disasters from flood waters and forest fires to sub-prime meltdowns, housing foreclosures and five dollar a gallon gas.
But none of this, I'm told, is anyone's fault. Stuff happens (and feel free to use a word that has an 's' and a 't', like stuff but it's also friendly and says 'hi', if you wish) and because it's no one's fault--no one has to take responsibility for any of the actions or for any acts of restitution or repair. No harm-no foul; it's not just for basketball anymore.
Some of our leading minds, you know them, too, the ones with the TV talk shows and the ones that are on all the news program as experts, will help us find someone else to blame for who we are and how we got here. Nothing is our fault and we're just hapless hostages from Hades. Say it with me, "I'm a victim, too" Did you just check out that last link? How Age of Tofu and Dawning of Aquarius is that, eh? A website where you settle scores in public without actually ever confronting the other person, or even identifying them. 'Sympathy and trust abounding' indeed-we've got a herd of Winnebagos.
There are six phases to every aspect of life here on the Big Blue Marble, be it personal or societal:
Enthusiasm, Disillusionment, Fear/Panic, Search for the Guilty, Punishment of the Innocent and Reward/Honors for the Non-Participants. All of us are somewhere in there at all times and in all ways. As a parent, I could be at One while as a spouse I'm at Four--perhaps as a citizen of a particular city and state I'm at Five and as an employee I'm aiming for Six.
"Complain about the present and blame it on the past/
I'd like to find your inner child and kick its little ass."
Really! Is that anyway for Air Age Americans "to dialogue" with one another?
-bill kenny
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