One of Those Days
It’s probably the emotional hangover from being all amped-up about my birthday yesterday, but today has just felt like one of those days when the center cannot hold and everything’s spinning completely out of control.
Bush and Congress are at a stalemate over Iraq; Britain and Iran seem to be ratcheting up their conflict over the capture sailors; the Saudi king is condemning the US occupation of Iraq; Sunnis and Shiites continue to blow each other up; and even the mass extinction of the dinosaurs didn’t lead as quickly to mammals as scientists have long believed.
I like that bumper sticker that reads, “Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?” That’s what it seems like and even though the sun is out and the birds are singing (well, at least the crows are cawing), I get the feeling everything’s going to come crashing down—socially and politically—and we’ll all be foraging around in the post-apocalyptic landscape for turnips and hubcaps to cook them in.
I wish I could say that this invigorates me to redouble my paltry efforts to make the world a better place, but on the contrary, it inclines me to order up and handful of new credit cards and max them out on champagne, travel, and shoes.
I think part of my problem today was poking around on 9/11 conspiracy theory sites in preparation for talking about them in the Critical Thinking class. While it’s inconceivable to me that the Twin Towers were brought down in a controlled explosion, I can’t help feeling like a sap when I watch those impassioned paranoiacs make their crazy case.
Of course, the knock-down argument against a conspiracy is that Bush would have to be an evil genius to have masterminded the whole thing; I find it far more plausible that he’s just a doofus who let the terrorist attack happen.
But on a day like today, I’m not even sure about that.
Bush and Congress are at a stalemate over Iraq; Britain and Iran seem to be ratcheting up their conflict over the capture sailors; the Saudi king is condemning the US occupation of Iraq; Sunnis and Shiites continue to blow each other up; and even the mass extinction of the dinosaurs didn’t lead as quickly to mammals as scientists have long believed.
I like that bumper sticker that reads, “Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?” That’s what it seems like and even though the sun is out and the birds are singing (well, at least the crows are cawing), I get the feeling everything’s going to come crashing down—socially and politically—and we’ll all be foraging around in the post-apocalyptic landscape for turnips and hubcaps to cook them in.
I wish I could say that this invigorates me to redouble my paltry efforts to make the world a better place, but on the contrary, it inclines me to order up and handful of new credit cards and max them out on champagne, travel, and shoes.
I think part of my problem today was poking around on 9/11 conspiracy theory sites in preparation for talking about them in the Critical Thinking class. While it’s inconceivable to me that the Twin Towers were brought down in a controlled explosion, I can’t help feeling like a sap when I watch those impassioned paranoiacs make their crazy case.
Of course, the knock-down argument against a conspiracy is that Bush would have to be an evil genius to have masterminded the whole thing; I find it far more plausible that he’s just a doofus who let the terrorist attack happen.
But on a day like today, I’m not even sure about that.
posted by Professor Dave at 6:15 PM
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