Wednesday, July 4, 2007

High Speed Internet - go figure! (a patriotic screed)

I can't imagine what God operates this way, but I live in the middle of nowhere (I had to pause for a bear to get off the road just up from my house the other day), and had pretty much written off the internet as anything interesting for me. I did start this blogging thing just in case the internet was still interesting to anyone else, and to see if I could develop any discipline about writing. Then I caught the telephone line guy the other day and jokingly asked him when he would bring DSL my way. To my amazment, that 's what he said he was doing. So now I know that the internet is not qualitatively different with speed. It's a totally different thing!

Google Earth, and Live Search (3D) make me feel like living on earth has actually changed, once again without anyone letting me know! I'm a network guy for a living, but am always too busy to play on the worksite, and frankly HAD NO IDEA. Truly (I admit with some shame)!

There are really two pieces to this. One, I can sit in the same chair where I read, and don't have to gear up (bifocals also work better with a laptop actually on the lap). Two, I can poke around. Cool!

I'm still not so sure that I can bother with the formating or photos or anything. Just the words, Ma'am.

So, now what do I want to say? Let's try this: Pornography on the internet could almost ruin lovemaking. And it gets boring really quick. I know I should have my hormones checked or something, and trust me, I'm not without response. But Google earth is way so much more interesting.

The whole porn thing raises the whole what is love anyhow thing, which raises something about the difficulty of the level of trust required for love, and the place of sex in there. Sacramental pledges can easily be posed as the necessary condition for "true" love, as much as it is easy to see the poseurs (of love) as so many abused and love-traumatized victims. But has anyone out there seen Short Bus? It can certainly cure the over-moralizing of sex, which for Chrissakes needs to be cured.

But I think that's what I was trying to get at regarding Gore. Researchers say that, just for example, Ritalin may be appropriate for, let's say for the sake of argument, 45% of ADHD kids, and maybe that's 2% of all kids. But sales figures show that 20% of all kids are on Ritalin. You go to each of the doctors, and they have a good and prudent and conserative reason to prescribe the drug, but then you have the numbers.

Or even better, take a look at the babes driving the really expensive SUVs. This is not a scientific sampling, but I defy anyone to gainsay the obvious. Now you investigate the protestations of truelove among the well-heeled, and I daresay you find the Ritalin story.

Now, I know for a damn fact that these relations are just prostitution on a grander scale. I learned that from my sociology class in high school. I also know that the narrative script for true love becomes the more likely the more health wealth and beauty one has at ones disposal. In the middle, it seems likely that real honest to goodness Hollywood style true love is rare indeed. And given that we all know that, why not go for the gold?

So, let's be real about Al Gore. He's very rich and very pleased with himself. And have you ever driven by that section of Nashville's tony outskirts? You have to want to live there (I honestly wouldn't). He's not going to save the world, but I am willing to say that he would be a whole hell of a lot better than the cynical overdrive in the other direction we've gotten from his opposition.

Speaking of narratives, it's a wonder how few have picked up on the Al Qaeda as The Federation against us as The Empire script. It seems certain that the self-bombers have. But that's an American narrative. Shouldn't we own it? How did we end up as the evil empire up against religious nutcakes obsessed with sex paranoia?

So, speaking of Sicko, it becomes hard not to argue -- to argue against -- the construction whereby these United States of America have lost democracy even as we pander it to the world. One can become shrill inside the country, because sensible arguments so seldom get voiced. But there is Michael Moore to provide comfort -- not necessarily by his entertainment or polemics, but because he so simply demonstrates that not the whole world thinks the way we do. There's lots of company outside, which can see us better than ourselves.

Among a people so uninformed about politics, and so well informed about consumer choice, it has to be inevitable that our very beliefs are marketed to us, to the point where quite literally and with good conscience we vote against very selves. I guess the rest of the world sees this, and recognizes the threat of all that unmediated raw power for what it is. Concentrated in the hands of so few if not stupid, and if not maniacal, and if not even immoral, well certainly unsophisticated champions of the powers that be.

There is a kind of inevitability to it all, well beyond notions of conspiracy. Just as, I hope, there is a kind of inevitability about it's collapse. If not from resource runout, then from what used to be seen clearly as internal contradictions. When our self interest stares us down in the form of blatant injustice, rampant disease, and educational burnout. We're not there yet, and the contradictions remain beyond the castle walls (The immigration debate is SO what it's all about), but Sicko certainly does hit the mark. And is therefore hopeful.

Hey, I'm writing on July 4!! (I do so always miss the obvious) So just as I believe in True Love, and just as I am certain that there is another culture of medicine apart from the predatory one now in ascendancy, and just as I have not become entirely cynical, so do I believe in this great Nation, and find myself a patriot of the very best sort. We, the people, will take back our country.