I’m trying to get amped for spring, but something’s gone off a bit. Watching politicians and religious people get pious and holier than thou with the Terri Shiavo thing. It was a hard situation, but why’d it get turned into this biblical debate for life and death? The creepy, obvious irony of her whole situation is that she was in that “vegatative state” because she starved herself and had a heart attack from lack of potassium. In the end, she starved and the country used that for their own purposes. That was the ultimate crime in all this. The poor soul sat there and dried up and everyone took up the mantle. They’ll never attack the root of the problem being why she had to be so thin that it basically killed her.
Then there’s all the evangelical fervor growing in this country. People are sheep and the trend that is being followed now is getting God cause you’re scared and need to be aligned with something. Meanwhile, there are unscurpulous people making millions selling God to the faithful. I was always a NOVA geek, and the latest one was about the tsunami. Besides the tragedy, something else jumped out at me and made an impression. Scientists say that the earthquake in the Indian Ocean that triggered the tsunami was so strong that not only did the earth wobble, but that day was shorter because the wobble was so great that it made the earth spin faster. I’m a firm believer of “as above, so below”, and saw that as an indicator of what’s happening to mankind right now.
Many of our beliefs and misconceptions about life, living and dying are being challenged en masse in blunt, in-your-face ways. It’s like since 9/11, we have been barraged with an onslaught of mass death on a scale that we can’t take. Yes, we had world wars before and many people died in them. There have been tragedies since the beginning of recorded time. But something about now is disturbing. We are witnessing the kind of death that we can no longer justify in our minds. We previously accepted death through war because there’s a duty and tradition to it we can all relate to. Mothers have always sent their boys to war and lived with the possibility that their baby may die a hopefully honorable death. They resigned themselves to getting the folded flag and suffering nobly that their child died for a cause.
Not the generations now in America. Baby Boomers who spent their youth protesting war have not only have to face the painful fact that it was all for naught, but they are burying their children as a result. One mother brought me to tears when she sobbed on the news that she can’t understand why her child had to die in this war. “Ok, so the Iraqi people have the vote and democracy, but I lost my baby. Why?”
It leaves me feeling tired and weary. When we were younger, no matter how shitty your present was, there was always this hopeful future that kept you going. You always felt that it sucks now, but it’ll get better later. Maybe it’s cause I got older. It just doesn’t feel all that hopeful. I see this country sliding down the following tubes:
Reality shows are all over the place now because real reality is so horrifying that you don’t mind watching other people make dicks of themselves. I hate watching these things and watching manipulative, passive aggressive, narcisisstic assholes pretend they don’t know where the camera is.
Women, especially caucasian women, will have a collective nervous breakdown. They will realize that they’ve been starving themselves and cutting into themselves, and placing all their hopes on their titties and asses and it will eat them alive like a cancer. There are women all over the world who are treated worse than animals, meanwhile American women are getting shit shot into their lips. It seems so retarded.
Michael Jackson ain’t gonna make it out of this one alive.
The Pope, no matter how corrupt the Church got, was a great soul. I am not a practitioner of Christianity, but the Pope and Mother Theresa were the last Pure Christians that I admire. The other was Joan of Arc, but not for the obvious reasons. Joan was, when you strip away dogma and idealism, just a teenage girl who if you use what we know now, was probably bi-polar or schitzophrenic. She heard voices, had gender confusion, grandiose manic highs of victory and catatonic lows. The vital difference was her personality and faith led armies to victory. It also led to her untimely demise. She is the poster child for the crash and burn mentality, if you see the similarities. She was lionized, but she was a kid. A scared, confused, passionate, crazy kid. There were those who served under her that loved her more when she was found to be female, but it couldn’t make them save her. She seems like a real person to be in a surreal situation.
So too with the Pope. With all the vestments and holiness surrounding him, you felt like he was a grandpa-like man who really did love the children of the world and suffered for them. All the corruption and vileness of preists’ conduct didn’t apply to him. He was a pure soul. When I learned how he was as a kid in Poland, and the wars, and his faith, I was really moved to tears. He was the youngest man to become Pope and was the first non-italian. You have to be pretty friggin’ holy to do that. AND take a bullet and LIVE and FORGIVE the guy?! Have Parkinson’s (which my abuelita died of), and still try to be lucid and heal others. His papacy witnessed some of the most pivital, life altering events and we always counted on knowing what the Pope felt about it. No matter how warped religion gets or how corrupt, I will always have Joan, John Paul, Theresa to remind me of what the true meaning is. Along with Budda, and Shiva, and Yemaya, and Oshun, and Mary, and Isis, and on and on and on….BUT how creepy is it that they laid him out without enbalming him. Laying there ripening in the hot Italian sun...yeeech..
Saw something on TV about a guy that worked at group home. He saw the file of a pedofile in the home and saw that he admitted he would get high, drunk and mess with kids. IN WRITING. So he copied the file and contacted the authorities about it. Technically, he violated the confidentiality law, but he was trying to avert a disaster by notifying someone. Wasn’t found guilty of anything, but lost his job. Gained the respect of a whole town who thought he did the right thing and it made me wonder if I wouldn’t have done it too.
Found out yesterday that one of my favorite up and coming comedians died. If any of you knew the comedy of Mitch Hedberg, you knew the guy was cool and funny as hell. He was like this great mix of Bill Hicks and Shaggy from Scooby Doo. Since I was on one of communication blackouts for the last month, I just found this out yesterday and was completely bummed out. He was only 37 and it’s a damn shame.
It just ain't right..
