I've been thinking about this for the last month, trying to figure out where I stand in relation to the majority. I've decided what I have is a character flaw, not a virtue.

About a month or so ago I met up with a couple thousand people marching around Hollywood. They all felt the same way as I did about the Iraq nonsense, but I kept returning to a troubling idea. I was there because I felt what we're doing is wrong, but everyone else was there because they knew it was wrong. They had certitude, were convinced they were right, and there was no discussion at all going on. They were all certain, and pretty much it was a mutual admiration society.

I don't like a lot of things. I don't, though, think I'm "right" about very many of my dislikes at all. I just think I don't like them, that they aren't right for me, not that they're intrinsically evil. Where does everyone get these unflappable convictions?

I think I'd be startled beyond measure if my beliefs turned out to be "right" in some cosmic sense. Is everyone else more attuned than I am to morality? Do they all zero in on what is right or do they discover what's right, and then adapt that viewpoint as their own? Which comes first, the view or the correctness of it?

I suppose the easy answer is that they feel a particular way about something, then find others to support their beliefs and stop thinking about it, convinced of their success in unraveling a mystery, but I refuse to think people are that shallow. There must be more than "here is X, I think it's wrong so it is" going on. Half the fun of having an opinion is being able to embrace and understand the other viewpoint, and I think our failure to do that is at least partially responsible for our country's myopic and disastrous foreign policy.

The problem is not that the terrorists hate us, but why.

Yeterday that idiot Bush took his helicopter to the airport, flew AirForce1 out to his photo opp, and drove in his SUV out to talk about the wetlands. Please, don't get me started on wetlands. Here in SoCal I lived for seven years near a wonderful place, the Ballona wetlands, whose prime location has made developers salivate for twenty years. In spite of Indian burial grounds, the poor least tern, and just being a wonderful buffer zone between the city and the beach, the whole place will soon be filled with yuppies ignoring their Wolf ranges and SubZero freezers to look at the ocean and talk about how "in touch" they are with things.
Bush's trip, by CNN's estimation, burned 1800 gals of fuel.

The jerk Kerry, not to be outdone, flew from New Orleans to Houston, where he stood in front of a bunch of new style green posters (no telling what resources were wasted in their production) to give a speech. Instead of telling us his plan, he merely and cheaply lambasted the current administration.
By the time he returned to Washington with his entourage and security (a fifteen SUV train), he'd burned 5,000 gallons of fuel.

Oh, yeah, the two party system works wonders.

Fuck me.

I think I'm special cuz I sometimes think about things. Other people. the succesful one who do things, have already thought it, plotted it, and it's old news.

Just kill me now.

As if completing the paperwork for my taxes, so I can see if I get a refund, wasn't bad enough, BOTH bathrooms are stopped up. I have to say that bathrooms having plumbing problems is the kind of thing that makes me long for kitchen-related stoppages.

I postponed the taxes, and still don't know if I'll be getting any money back. I think I will, but have yet to "run the numbers" and see how good or bad it will be. Since I didn't always have the taxes deducted from my unemployment, it's possible that I'll end up owing this year. If so, I hope that asteroid that's supposed to smack into this planet does so soon.

Like today.

It would even be a blessing to have that Christ peson return, like I've heard he will do one day. Today would be ideal, and we must near the final days by now. If we're moving molecules around in nanotechnology, I think we've reached some sort of limit, anyway.

Have had no luck at all with the snake, which keeps getting caught up in hardware. The super-duper plunger is equally non-effective, but does splash a lot.

"I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex." -- Oscar Wilde

I may not be particularly complex, but I have found it increasingly difficult to get excited about a lot of things that everyone else finds dumbfounding. I love simple, little things, and find less and less to get worked up about the longer I live.

I guess I'm just not serious enough anymore. For whatever reason, things aren't as important as they were when I was younger and discovering them for the first time. Of course, I was convinced that I was the one who'd stumbled on these eternal truths, but that was before I'd heard Mark Twain's line about Adam being the only man who could proclaim with any certainty that no one else had thought of these things.

My pain was personal, and I used it to learn. And what I learned is that while many things like breast cancer and Mexicans dehydrating in the Arizona desert are serious, I'm no longer convinced any of it is what I'd call important. Maybe nothing is important, and our attempts to elevate issues to that state say more about us than they do about anything intrinsic to the issue.

We're all going to die, I think. That's serious, but it's so common that it can't be important. And, if life isn't important, than it should be enjoyed and not taken seriously.

Now they've both pissed me off.

Today I heard Bush is planning on curtailing emission requirements for Conn, NY, and Calif. Those states haven't met their standards, anyway, but allowing them to use less highly engineered gas will save consumers about a dime a gallon this summer. Kind of sucks, not only for the air but also for the oil companies, who've already spent a ton of money refining the gas for us. No, it can't be used in other states, they just need to eat the cost.

Equally disturbing, to me at least, was Kerry's talk yesterday of opening the national reserves to lower gas prices. Sure, that would increase supply, but there isn't a supply shortage. The dollar sucks wind and OPEC is greedy. I dislike Kerry's idea to plunder our reserve set aside for rainy days when it isn't even drizzling. I find his decision to use what we have now and the hell with the future an odd stance for someone who claims to be a conservationist.

People with cars vote. It will be fun to watch them yell about special interests when they choose.