The Miracle

Originally Posted Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Thelma. . . . 

I'm a miracle.  That's all I have to say today.  I'm working harder than three Chinamen in a dynamite factory. Oooo. . . I love saying things that are wrong.  And if you are anything like me, kids, there is a little bit of you that says "alright, then" to the seventy-something anti-texting-at-the-movies vigilante.  I've wanted to write a script about a man who loses his mind over the everyday mindless selfishness that comprises people's behavior today.  Of course I don't condone the shooting.  I can't.  I don't want to be responsible for any of you wing nuts going looney.  But it is very difficult not to feel the injustice of a world where a guy doing what he is not supposed to do gets self-righteous enough about his misbehavior to verbally assault an old man (sure, the old guy was a pain-in-the-ass) and then to throw popcorn at the antediluvian fucker.  Sometimes it is easy to go over the line, especially when you think you have the physical advantage, but old Clint was whispering in in the ancient one's ear--"Make my day."  The entire incident is an illustration of just about everything that has gone wrong with our culture in the course of a generation. 

In Canada, Old Shaky Young is touring for Indian Land Rights in his vegie-mobile. He says that the mining of oil sands is hazardous and wrong.  The spokesman for Canada's Prime Minister takes exception to Shaky's premise, saying:

"The resource sector creates economic opportunities, and employs tens of thousands of Canadians in high wage jobs, contributing to a standard of living that is envied around the world, and helping to fund the programs and services Canadians rely on."

There you go.  I need your help on this one.  I want to make a list of other resource sector creators throughout history we might want to add to this list.  I can't think.  The asbestos industry was really good at this.  If it weren't for them, the shipping industry would have been handcuffed and cars wouldn't have had brakes.  But my list is short, for some reason.  Maybe the logic holds.  If it creates economic opportunity, it's good. 

Why wasn't Grandpa Looney taking on this issue?  I think because. . . he probably agreed.  Ideology makes strange bedfellows.  Eventually you are sleeping with a bed wetter or an inveterate masturbator.  Better to eschew ideology all together, perhaps. 

Or you can do what I do and just stay home.  Eat your vegetables and get plenty of exercise and go to bed early.  But mostly, just avoid other people when you can.  When you can't, give them a courtesy thirty seconds in which you smile and tell them how good they look, and then keep on your way.  There is no point in arguing except for the fun of it, but eventually that fun will wear off and you'll wonder where all your time went.  And--here's the cosmic truth of it--you'll never change anyone's mind.  Future studies will show, I am certain, that our attitudes and ideas were programed in at birth.  But that probably means if you like to try to change people's minds, you won't be able to help yourself. You are just programmed that way.  I keep thinking about poor Chaz.  And Woody, too.  The world's a mess and all the people in it. 

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