the other night [or early sunday morning i guess,] i was outside of the city with some friends and we stayed up late sitting on the back porch watching things hit the atmosphere. it wasn't nearly as dramatic as i've heard it was on the west coast, but they were the biggest meteor strikes and tails i'd ever seen. they were amazing, and each one felt like it was [re]building my defenses against all the shit of the world. and being the selfish person i am, surrounded by a few friends and a few hundred streaks in the sky, i appreciated it all, but couldn't help not overlooking what was lacking.

on the subject of selfishness and in this [american] holiday long-weekend of excess, i have to say the media continues to top itself. in the good name of daytime ratings, um, public awareness rather, they showed the memorial service for the plane that crashed recently. i could somewhat understand the one(s) from a few months ago just because they were already/still at the site, so they might as well keep rolling for the funerals too. but why the fuck are we reporting every single plane crash [rail crashes too for that matter] and their memorials? [as this had been occurring well before two months ago.] they are accidents. shouldn't we be reporting the things that happen on purpose? the laws being passed that hurt anyone without petroleum stained hands or an inc. at the end of their name. the fact that we choose not to pay to keep rapists and murderers locked up like the beasts they are. that we don't have enough room because we've locked up drug dealers instead, when we could just stop them at the source instead of letting them get in the country. that we choose not to pay to have schools that aren't falling apart and teachers that show up to teach instead of just for a paycheck. instead we'll give all the money back to the people, er, corporations that don't need it. we don't fucking care about terrorists or lives or rights or consequences. all we care about is making sure our lives are as cushy as possible. the last two decades bombs have been dropped on people who hurt us economically. that's it. we don't care about chechnya, any of africa, tibet, or afghanistan. the only reason we've given any aid to parts of africa, the republics of former yugoslavia, and now afghanistan is because there are people outside of the government with minds and hearts. [for example: help is good, the fact that we've dropped something like 1.5M meals in afghanistan is good. but we didn't help distribute it, whatsoever, and even if it had gotten into the right hands, that is enough to feed one-fourth of the starving population for one day at most. sure we can collect half a billion dollars for people here, no problem; what do we do for them?, breakfast.] i'm sick of self-congratulations. get a clue.

so the government is keeping new law-making as quiet as possible, the president wants to hide documents, the media says nothing, the people are kept from knowing anything besides the claim of victory, and the only legal monopoly is the government. if this were the eighties, we'd be our own cold war.

if someone with nice hips and worn-in jeans could tug at my pockets and give me a back rub, i'd shut right up. i promise.

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