7-8-04

“The Meanification of America.” I was raised in a time when civility and virtue were still considered to be prime attributes, although the WWII generation would complain of us that we were crass and vulgar compared to them. But what’s going on now with the “culture,” by which I mostly mean TV, movies and music, is that civility and virtue -- be it humility, honesty intellectuality or any of the others -- have been mostly thrown out the window. In fact a character on a television show these days, whether it’s a comedy, drama or reality show, is now hooted and booted for displaying virtue, and is liable to be derided as a “wuss,” a sucker or a loser.




An intelligent person is one who can devise a plan. A highly intelligent person is he who can incorporate a plan within the plan. A genius is someone who can put into motion a plan with a second and third stage which is surreptitiously part of a much larger plan.




The current Bush Administration neo-cons were mentored, directly or indirectly, by the power-crazed hawks who got us into Vietnam, then kept us in Vietnam until 58,000 American boys -- and oh, incidentally, five million Vietnamese -- were killed. (Not to mention the untold millions of wounded, whether by injuries or emotional scarring.) All this with no tangible result on the plus side for America’s security or economic well-being, and a severe loss of prestige for the U.S. around the world. Which proves yet again that the rotten apple doesn’t roll far from the tree.




We sometimes assume that they are, but the fact is that the stupid are not like you and me. We forget and give them credit for intelligence sometimes because in some respects, like simple social interactions, they can mimic the behavior of the reasonably intelligent persons around them.




The crazy-ass thing about this world is that, when it comes to the afterlife, there are no guarantees. Some will promise you this, others will promise you that, but their thises and thats are all different from each other. Maybe a day will come when one religion will kill off everyone from the other religions, and that religion will turn out to be the right one. (Or ... maybe it won’t be.)




Many girls have a daddy complex, part of which is that when they act badly, they expect you to still love them, and even comfort them if they’re crying. Because that’s what their daddies used to do. It’s even worse if, in their childhood, most of the actual attention they got from their daddy was after they had acted badly, and had to be punished, and then consoled when they would start to cry. Because those girls, as grown-ups, will run their man through that sick little program over and over again.




The so-called “juvenile delinquents” from my day, leaving aside the very worst of them, were more like those young people judged these days to be “high-spirited.”




There are many versions of the Great Divide to be found in American society, but few are larger in scope or import than that between ghetto blacks and those African-Americans who have risen to the middle class and beyond. There’s serious antipathy and distrust on both sides of that chasm.




One way of registering the demarcation between young and old is that when a 20-year-old is in a noisy place, he considers it a sure sign that he’s having a good time, almost regardless of other factors. When a 60-year-old is in a place that’s boisterously loud, they consider that they’re having a bad time, almost regardless of other factors.