...I'm okay with being REALITY-based.




Monday, March 17, 2003
      ( 10:04 AM )
 
Overheard on the train into work today (really)
Two men (one young, with brilliant blue spikey hair, one older with a bit of a pot belly) discussing loudly the likelihood of the government spying on us and listening to all our conversations all the time. Suddenly, the conversation takes a turn:
Blue Spikey Hair: They want to get rid of all of us so they can rule by themselves
Pot Belly: yup.
Blue Spikey Hair: That's the whole thing about making marijuana illegal, you know.
Pot Belly: What do you mean?
Blue Spikey Hair: You know, so they can arrest us and make us all felons. Then we can't vote. They want to get rid of people who can vote.
Pot Belly: Felons can't vote?
Blue Spikey Hair: uh, no.
Pot Belly: But I'm a felon and I've voted every year.
(the whole train car tenses palpably)
Blue Spikey Hair: Really?
Pot Belly: I mean, it was like 10 years ago, nothing big. But I've voted in every election since then.
Blue Spikey Hair: Are you sure your vote counts?
Pot Belly: I don't know. No one ever told me I couldn't vote.
Blue Spikey Hair: Wow. that's cool.
Pot Belly: I'm voting next time too. Getting that asshole OUTTA there.
Blue Spikey Hair: Yeah, man.
Pot Belly: Felons can't vote. That's the stupidist thing I ever heard of.

Fantasy UN Security Council
Thanks to Sarah for this intriguing game for the day. Find it hard to top her choices, but here goes:

Figi - They work damned hard to be noticed on the international scene and despite their own coups every few months, they seem to be able to hold their country together AND not offend anyone.

Luxemburg - Because they get 7 weeks of paid vacation a year, and if you're giving your citizens that kind of yearly holiday, you definitely deserve to rule the world.

Canada - They never did nobody wrong, they built that great arm on the space station, they put up with us, and of course, because of Dieppe.

Costa Rica - They spend their money on education, not on military. And no extradition treaties.

Mexico and Chile - I'd keep these guys. They have everything to lose in the way of trade and economic help from the US, but they have stood their ground. I'm sure Chile is wondering as well..."where was the US' "democratic determination" when we were all getting disappeared 30 years ago?"

I notice that I have picked mostly tiny nations, tucked away where hardly anyone notices. I think that is because my instinct tells me that little countries with nothing to prove would work together more efficiently and be much more effective in making choices for the rest of the world. Of course, then again, the idea of the Security Council seems to have lost its meaning, if there ever was one. I do think that the UN itself is an important organization and is still very valid and useful. Without it, how would we have even had this world-wide debate on the virtues of pre-emptory invasions and attacks on countries? It's important to be accountable to the world in some form or another. After all, we're all on this globe together. For now, anyway.

Speaking of casualties
Mike is waxing political this morning(er, not really morning his time) ....sort of. :)

Merci
A shout out to Carrboro, NC for not allowing themselves to get sucked into the vortex of idiocy that surely must be eminating in waves from the beltway, or so it seems. Also on that note, just thought I'd mention the interesting interview of Jacques Chirac on 60 Minutes last night. He answered all the wild accusations being thrown at him from this side of the Atlantic lately with grace and dignity, and didn't even spit when he mentioned our country, unlike our own esteemed leader on Sunday in the Azores when he used his lovely down-home card-playing analogy. Along those lines...just read a horrifying story about idiots gone wild, and some excellent following commentary by Ted B.

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