Life in Absurdistan

Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye
--In Memory of W. B. Yeats, 
W. H. Auden

 Those morons out there? Shucks, I could take chicken fertilizer and sell it to them as caviar. I could
make them eat dog food and think it was steak. Sure, I got 'em like this...

You know what the public's like? A cage of Guinea Pigs. Good Night you stupid idiots. Good Night,
you miserable slobs. They're a lot of trained seals. I toss them a dead fish and they'll flap their flippers.
--A Face in the Crowd (1957)
  __________________

We at RangerAgainstWar don't think we are like Lonesome Rhodes in Elia Kazan's A Face in the Crowd. But whoever you pay obeisance to just might be.

Ranger and I had a chuckle over the weight of absurdities reported weekly in the media. He felt that all stories post 9-11-01 regarding terrorism should be reported under a warning banner, like cigarettes: "Nothing herein reflects reality."

The manner in which the average American interacts with the stories that concern him makes him complicit in his own stasis and impotence. Vaclav Havel's 1978 essay "The Power of the Powerless" indicts the behavior, now enhanced by our ability to broadcast over multiple social platforms and feel as though we are accomplishing something.

"For by this very fact, individuals confirm the system, fulfill the system, make the system, are the system." Some stories which we had encountered on that day, which did not tell the truth:

• NPR reports, "Russia is trying to topple the stability of the Ukraine." What stability?

• Why do we cry over the recent Washington mudslides, instead of asking why people build on unstable mountainsides?

• Why do we insist on the parity between the sexes, and yet seem confounded when a recent economic report declares that women earn 77 cents for every dollar a man earns in a similar job? In response, Obama is now pushing for full pay disclosure in Federal contractor situations, as though this will solve the problem. In fact, the disparity is due in large part to women's biological choices, something with which men do not have to contend. Yet women are burdened (faux "liberated") by the superwoman persona which media overlays atop them.

• Why do gays want to marry in a church which does not sanction their behavior? Certainly a civil union according all of the rights of partnership should be allowed, but if we are to obey our Constitution, we would understand the separation of church and state, which is not the same thing as the obliteration or coercion of the Church (and vice versa.)

• Why the minor brouhaha over the Sellwood, OR, health food store proprietress who posted her opposition to gay marriage on her Facebook page? Whether you are pro or con on the issue, the lady is none too bright as a business owner to post such a divisive view on her public site. We have freedom of speech and free market capitalism. You'll find no crocodile tears here if gays and fellow travelers decline to patronize her business.The power of the purse, boycotting, and all of that ... and you're in OREGON, lady.

Wouldn't it be nice if we just told the truth? The broadcasts could shut down by 3 p.m. We could go outside and take a walk, get some sun after work, be healthier in mind and body. We would not need so many meds or doctors.

On second thought, that would not work at all.