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I'm riding the bus back from downtown at about 1:00 on a hot, muggy afternoon. And politically, I love riding the bus -- it's greener than driving, less stressful, and cheaper, all
expenses considered.
But on this particular bus, the air conditioning isn't working, so it's hot and sweaty, and I'm on the verge of grumpy (I'm usually on the verge of grumpy).
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There are teenagers on the bus, half a dozen of them. They're apparently on some sort of field trip, as it's during school hours on a school day, and there are two adults accompanying them. Most teenagers are hateworthy, and these kids are laughing and jiving as teenagers do, but they're behaving within the standards of bus behavior and they're not getting on my nerves. It's their keepers who are getting on my nerves.
Their two adult keepers are loudly, repeatedly telling the kids that we're approaching their stop. That stop will obviously be the high school, but everyone on the bus -- certainly including the kids -- knows where the high school is. Do they really need to be told that we're approaching the high school?
And the high school is on the other side of the street, so these two adults tell the kids, several times, to cross the street carefully after they get off the bus, always stressing carefully. OK, it's a pretty busy street, three lanes in each direction, but these kids aren't toddlers. They go to the high school, they know where it is, and they're probably accustomed to crossing the street. Get off their frickin' backs, already.
All this plays out over several blocks, as the bus meanders toward the high school, and finally, after a fourth or fifth stern warning to cross the street carefully, someone rings the bell, and these six kids and two adults get off the bus.
And immediately, the kids are elbowing each other, and one of them darts into traffic in front of the bus and another one follows instantly, like they're racing. With barely a glance, they run into the next lane, where the cars are coming at 35-40 mph and the drivers can't see the kids because the bus blocks the view. Instantly, tires screech, one car swerves to avoid one of the kids, another car swerves to avoid the first car, and a third car screeches and swerves and ends up diagonal in the middle lane, its back bumper almost but not quite hitting the bus. But none of the cars hit anything or anyone, and the scene ends with the sound of drivers cursing, the nannies yelling, and the kids laughing as they get to the other side of the busy street.
And now, of course, I'm thinking how horribly incompetent were the kids' caretakers, the adults I had thought were so annoyingly naggy just a few seconds earlier.
I suppose (if I'm supposed to be honest here) I should tell you: When the tires started screeching I was hoping one of the kids would get hit. Not killed or anything, but a broken arm or leg, I thought, or maybe a minor concussion would have served as a good object lesson. But that didn't happen. Really, as you can tell by reading this, nothing interesting happened at all. That's the trouble with true stories, they're usually boring.
Several hours later, rethinking and typing the above, an allegorical message to this story occurs to me. It's kind of like the warnings so many of us have shouted over and over again, that the little guys in America -- we the people -- are about to get splattered in oncoming traffic. But I don't think we're going to be as lucky as those kids were.
LINK
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OK, I'm sorry to yield to mass-media saturation, but I have to write something about frickin' Star Wars.
Like most Americans of my generation, I loved the original Star Wars. I waited in line to see it, and I'll admit I waited in line more than once. And I waited in line again for The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. All told, even without ever buying a Star Wars video game, DVD, or videocassette, I've probably paid enough for Star Wars tickets to pay our internet bills for at least a couple of months.
So it was with genuine excitement that I paid to see Star Wars: The Next Generation in 1999. I think it was called The Phantom Menace, and in this movie we learned that the rebellion that had fueled the first three movies ... was ignited by complaints of high taxes. Yeah, high taxes ...
We watched a kindergarten-aged kid racing aerial go-carts for what seemed hours, and once this annoying brat won the race, the flick left behind a planet of slaves as an unimportant plot device.
This kid, apparently, is destined to grow up and become Darth Vader -- so he's a future mass-murderer on a cosmic scale. Yet he's the protagonist, the good guy we're supposed to be rooting for?
After that, all I really remember is a floppy computer-generated muppet that seemed to combine the worst features of Jimmie Walker and Stepin Fetchit. So Phantom Menace was the only Star Wars movie I only saw once, and the only one I regretted seeing at all.
There was another sequel in 2002, which I neither saw nor wanted to see. Yet another multi-zillion-dollar sequel opened a few weeks ago, which brings me finally toward the point of this meandering bit.
We don't watch much television, and because Hollywood movies have looked almost universally awful in recent months, we haven't even seen a preview for the new Star Wars movie, Revenge of the Sith or some such. (Sith, please note, is an obvious anagram for shit.)
But despite being largely out of the loop for this new film's massive publicity campaign, and despite having zero interest in these new Star Wars movies, the saturation is so thorough, in newspapers, magazines, on the telly, on the internet, that I find myself humming the Star Wars theme as I'm walking to the bus stop.
That bastard Lucas has hijacked my brain, and I won't forgive him for it.
The original Star Wars was great, but Lucas won't even let me watch it any more -- instead we have to watch "improved" editions where he's added a special effect here, more aliens there, inserted whole scenes. So we can't even watch Star Wars from when Star Wars was good, Lucas has snatched it away in the name of making more and more money for himself.
Fuck ya, George Lucas. Fuck ya with a light saber up your ass. LINK
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A friend of ours writes, off the record, that she's full of political optimism, that she perceives the current American attitude building to a groundswell of public opinion against Bush, Cheney, et al. She hears "Happy Days Are Here Again," the skies above are clear again, let us sing a song of cheer again ...
We love the optimism, and even more, we love the idea of optimism. And we can *almost* hear that music, almost. There's definitely more of an antiCheneyBush vibe in the air now than there has ever been before. The general mood is less about having to slap strangers in the face and out of their trances, more about joining the townsfolk carrying torches to Frankenstein's castle. And I hope that might mean we're close to victory ...
But I don't think we're there yet. The song seems premature. Maybe it's my innate pessimism, but I refuse to breathe a sigh of relief until the impeachment and criminal trials of Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld et al have been successfully concluded -- until they're ensconced in a humane, Geneva-approved prison for life.
It's too early to be crying "Yay" and claiming success. What needs to be remembered, what always gnaws at me, is how quickly it could all be turned around, because Americans really haven't learned their lesson. All the Cheney-Bush bastards have to do is announce a few Orange Alerts, followed by an "Al Qaeda" strike at Manhattan or Hollywood, and Bush's numbers would zoom up to the stratosphere again ... and Jeb will announce his presidential candidacy.
Happy days are not here again, not yet, not by a long shot. LINK
© by the authors.
What do you think?
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We love the optimism, and even more, we love the idea of optimism.
And we can *almost* hear that music, almost.
There's definitely more of an antiCheneyBush vibe in the air now than there has ever been before.
The general mood is less about having to slap strangers in the face and out of their trances, more about joining the townsfolk carrying torches to Frankenstein's castle.
And I hope that might mean we're close to victory ...
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I can't afford therapy, but boy do I need it. So as an affordable alternative, I've decided to start pounding my anger into a weekly column here.
Fair warning: My parents were repressed -- using any bad words would get my mouth washed out with soap, literally. I still remember the sickly flavor of DoveTM. So as an adult, vulgarity helps with the healing. If naughty language offends you, beat the rush and get offended now.
This page is for my own good, not yours, so you may not like it, but I don't care.
About the authors
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Helen and Harry Highwater have published Unknown News since 1997. We're a married couple sharing a byline à la Lennon and McCartney, and "I" can be either of us, or both of us. If you're consumed by curiosity, it's safe to assume the more boisterous and aggressive bits come from Helen, and anything ladylike or demure is probably Harry's work.
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