This is Mona the Beagle puppy. Sometimes it all seems to come down to this - a dog eating a piece of bologna.
No, I haven't given up blogging, I just haven't been inspired to say anything lately. For the last month or so, I just haven't been riled up enough or inspired by anything to write a decent post, so I haven't. My few attempts at writing for the sake of writing haven't been noteworthy, so I wanted to wait til I could give you something worthwhile. That time is not at hand, but to those of you who read this regularly, just wanted to prove I was still around, and to explain.
Back at the first of the year, I left one job (remember the stories of the homophobic/reactionary office manager?) en route to another, and the other vanished midway, so I've been taking the time to work on a few personal issues while waiting for something worthwhile. Since I've finally come to realize that a career is just not ever going to be the focal point for me, I've settled on finding some tolerable way to produce an income without doing something I object to or hate. As of this point, I still haven't found that, and I need to do something in the next six weeks or so. So there's one source of stress I can't blame on anyone but myself, and it doesn't make for interesting blogging, at least not at this point.
After the Atlanta trip (which I'm about to repeat this afternoon - it's a monthly option), I did come back and do a presentation on Zen at the Middle Tennessee Anime Convention, which should've produced something worth commenting on, but it hasn't gelled yet. Other than that, and the job thing, I've been working out and meditating, and then reading and watching DVD's and wasting time.
Meanwhile, everything else is about the same. The Bush administration is as stupid and evil as ever, and the American people are only catching on to a very limited extent. Particulary galling to me is the attitude I see everywhere, especially among leading Democrats, that, "We shouldn't be in Iraq in the first place (duh!), but now that we're there we have to stay." What kind of idiocy is that? This seems to fall into the category of throwing good money after bad, but what's worse is that it's not just money, it's human lives, and I can't see wasting even one over this stupidity. People are just going to have to open their eyes and see that all of these soldiers were conned into giving up their lives for nothing. In my mind, the Bush Cabal is personally responsible for every death and should be accountable therefore.
I almost wrote an entry on the whole Immigration flap, and I would've if I'd felt like writing at all. First, the Day Without Immigrants, what kind of a stupid idea was that? There were only possible outcome to the thing: (1) everything would turn out OK, which is pretty much what happened, so we could realize that the headache caused by illegal immigrants is much more than the benefit we receive from having someone to do those low-level jobs; or (2) a big mess could've happened, which would've just pissed off the legitimate population. Because see, some of you probably think I'm in sympathy with every liberal cause that arises, and sometime it sure seems that way to me, as a reaction to the Bush Cabal and the Christian Reich, but honestly, I'm not that big on pardoning illegal immigration. I would comment that the present immigration mess is redolent of the mess caused by American drug policy; the law refuses to accept reality, and thereby artificially creates a class of criminals. I may elaborate at some future date.
I could've shocked and offended my readers by coming out with a post pointing out that the only thing we need less than illegal immigrants is illegal immigrants who refuse to work. This might come as some comfort to any right-wingers who happen to read this, if there are any (they would have to be masochistic). But then, in his inevitable stupid countermove, Bush comes out against anyone singing the Star Spangled Banner in Spanish, showing that he just won't be out-dumbed.
I put people who insist that everything in the United States occur in the English language, on the same level as those who insist that everyone here be Christian; they are just naive and unaware of history. I wish I spoke a second language, but I don't; like a lot of us, I took Spanish in high school and French in college and can barely fight my way through a menu in either. But I have frequently observed that people who are bilingual, and especially those bi- or multilingual from childhood, have a big advantage over the rest of us, just not in practical terms (which is obvious everywhere except red-state America), but also in flexibility of mind. Even from my limited studies of languages, I know that learning to think in a different language forces you to reconceptualize everything, and so you learn a little more about perspective and reality. So yes, it would be to these Spanish-speaking immigrants a benefit to learn English, but no more than it would benefit us English-speakers to learn Spanish, and they have exactly the same obligation to do so: None.
As I learned when I lived in New Mexico for ten years, there are native Spanish-speaking Americans who were living and building a culture in what is now the United States whose ancestors were here when yours were still wallowing about in some European beer hall. There is room for more reminisce and extrapolatin here, which will have to wait. But if you think that English is the national language of the United States, get over it. Some of our little Nazi buddies in the White House (and in regular houses and bastions of ignorance around the country - there was even a state law proposed in Colorado I remember, and doubtless elsewhere) would like to make it that way, but they haven't, and I hope they don't. Interestingly, I don't know any reason they couldn't pass a law like that, Constitutionally. So enlightened America, watch out.
That's it for now. Hopefully I'll feel like extrapolating on some of this soon. Hang in there.
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