Pilot's Log

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I don't think it's possible. Americans hate one another so much now they'll never let anybody in office do anything great.

( Rileys Complaint )

Last year my sister did a lesson for kids titled NOMS 101 (basically about making healthy snacks).

Maybe I should embark on something semi-artistic/cultural/handy. "How To Make Your Misfit Toys Fit".

...You're listening to the local public radio station, and there's a clarinet quartet on--and you want them to play "Freebird"!

PBS World just re-ran a special from four years back about the theme of the American Dream and famous novels that explored it in differing fashions: The Great Gatsby, The Grapes of Wrath, The Street, Seize The Day and a few others. I watched it and began having thoughts related to my own life and work.

I am definitely NOT living the American Dream. I don't have a place of my own, a career of my own, nor a family from my own loins. But at the same time, I haven't gone back on my own morals to pursue schemes for quick gain, nor risked overmuch, nor tried to redefine my own self in ways to please others. That dream I linked to on the Writer's Block the other day--the alternative reality me that HAD somehow gotten himself the American Dream life...I have absolutely NO idea how he did it. And maybe I don't want to know.

There is all sorts of magical thinking involved, of course. But I realize that my lack of success doesn't really mean failure...just as sure as a lack of disasters doesn't mean the blessings of heaven. The world is random and unfeeling and cold and unfair and run by some laws we understand and some laws we will never understand. Looking for much more meaning than that can drive a person crazy.

Maybe my blind spot towards immediate, worldly success is something fundamental about my character that I shouldn't try to mess with. Not all people are built the same way.

Not at all Christmaslike, but I have to get the thoughts in my head out there.

If Afganistan is playing out as a re-do of the Vietnam War, then...

2012 will play out like 1972.

Hear me out: Obama is now in the position Nixon was then. He inherited the war from his predecessor but arguably is doing a better job of waging it. Only the public doesn't see the victory, only the stalemates and futilities.

Meanwhile, the opposition party (we know who that is) is salivating at the possibility of defeating him, especially now that they're gaining seats in Congress. Ultimately they choose a candidate who they think has wide appeal, but when that November Tuesday rolls around, only the hard core of the party votes for that candidate, and the incumbent wins a vast majority...but a powerless one thanks to the hold the opposition has in Congress.

Now, I'm sure most everybody now would think it extremely unlikely that Obama would be capable of something on the level of Watergate just to hedge his risk in the 2012 elections. That may be true. But what about the people working in his White House and beyond? (How many people really thought--before the fact--that Nixon's Administration would stoop to domestic espionage against the opposition party? Somehow I think that number is lower than everybody who tells history seems to let on.)

Don't ask me whose side I'm on about this. I voted against Obama (for a third-party candidate) in 2008 because I knew there was no way in Hades he or any other man of African heritage would carry Tennessee. (I am not a racist; there are many racists here so I'm calling it as I see it!) But I have no love for the Republicans nor the Tea Party, and know they would hate me just as much.

When Obama was elected I was hoping he'd set the moral tone up a little higher and undo some of the evil that has happened in America these last few decades. But now I'm dreading the possibliity that there's evil even in his character, and again we have a choice coming with no right side.

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Unemployment is evil. So there is no way I can make it any more evil than it is. Other than somehow involving bacon.

Yesterday I passed along a story link on Facebook about how a bunch of frat boy students at the University of Central Florida deliberately misled supporters of Glenn Beck to illegally park and get their vehicles towed. The source was a longtime friend I met through LiveJournal. No sooner do I post it then I get scathing criticism from another longtime friend whose acquaintence predates my getting on the Internet. He believes that I'm making heroes out of the frat boys and demonizing the Beck followers.

Well, let me spell this out for the reading world: I'M NOT ON ANYBODY'S SIDE!

If Beck or his followers knew me, they'd hate me for something.

If the frat boys knew me, they'd hate me for something.

There are no good guys in the story, so I have no love for anybody there. I made no claims to the contrary. And I refuse to let somebody else put words in my mouth or accuse me of being their enemy.

...Is suddenly becoming aware that you've already made a deal with him--and had no choice about it.

...That Team America won their game tonight against Honduras to advance to the World Cup.

I was very concerned about it when I heard because 1) everybody knows what's going on in Honduras; 2) everybody probably blames the U.S. Government for the political situation in Honduras; 3) there have already been shooting wars due to tensions wrought by the outcomes of soccer matches and how Honduras fared in them.

You people in Texas? Watch your southsides. You may have visitors.