don't shoot

(1 comment)
2003.12.15
When I read the CNN bullet item "600 U.S. troops staged lightning raid on rural hiding place" regarding the capture of Saddam, I got this unlikely but irresistable image that it was like the penultimate scene of the Blues Brothers movie: 600 soldiers, the safeties on their rifles all being unlocked in rapid succession (klaklaklaklaklaklaklak), 600 barrels pointed at this little hole in the wall, Saddam peeking out...



Literary Passage of the Moment
I can believe that things are true and I can believe things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen — I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in War of the Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of casual chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.
Samantha Black Crow in Neil Gaiman's "American Gods"

Link of the Moment
Although the update schedule has been very spotty lately, I always enjoy The Comics I Don't Understand Page. This update they feature a special page of some of the best of 'Frazz', a comic some people think is supposed to answer 'what happened to Calvin when he grew up?'. (A bit more pleasant than the Fight Club answer to that question.) You can also check out the official Frazz site.


Personal Milestone of the Moment
Sigh. Mo and I didn't have an exact date to mark the start of our relationship, so we settled on December 15th, at my urging 'cause it was easy to remember and around the right time. This is (would've been? Not sure of the right tense these days) the 6 year anniversary. Of course, that date tends to decline in importance once there's a wedding anniversary to observe, but still.