Current events can go suck my ass.
In fact, the vast majority of "events" usually suck somebody's ass.
There was a time when I wasn't so plugged in to the mass media machine. I was too busy doing other things like spending time with friends and family, going to school, and playing computer games. Who had time to read the newspaper, listen to NPR, or watch the local news, let alone the MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour? Then came the Internet. Then came a job with unfettered T1 access. I had more news than I could shake a stick at.
It didn't take too long for me to realize that most of the material flowing past my monitor was crap, much like Shit River crossed by the hoards of horny American servicemen as they stampeded into Olongapo City, Philippines.
So I tried other media outlets to spice up my daily diet of current events. Reading The Economist or browsing the BBC or reading an English-language Malaysian daily paper gives me a different perspective, yes, but they're all just different perspectives on the same damned thing: how greedy, petty, vicious, and stupid people are, and how goddamned sanctimonious and jingoistic the United States is.
My response to all this has been to grow a thick, cynical crust. Some people are born with this crust. Others are nothing but crust, dry and bitter. I like to think that I'm crusty but still flexible and selectively permeable. Still, the incessant bombardment of evil/stupidity requires some callus.
Now, I thoroughly enjoy fishing out particularly amusing or grotesque turds from the river of shit to share with good friends. One of the highpoints of my day at work is a choice tidbit or three dropped into my lap via email. In fact, a recent exchange had me chuckling maniacally about corporate Bots driving BMWs while sitting on "seats covered in the supple ass leather". That these fugues sometimes develop into a full-blown Cant is just a happy side effect.
Anyway, I feel a little stretched at the moment. I think this has exposed a few chinks in my cyni-armor. I noticed myself swearing a lot more at news radio as I commute by myself to work. One conservative Southern politician rams his foot in his mouth as he's trying to stick his tongue up another conservative Southern politician's ass. In an expansive moment, Trent Lott dons a white pointy hat, sets a cross ablaze, and pisses on the grave of Martin Luther King, Jr. (at least to some pathologically victimized, politically ambitious greaseballs). Are we surprised? The nation's executives are a ruthless, immoral, soulless gang of Narcissistic frat boys and girls, and everyone was perfectly OK with that as long as they could pay cash for their house with the proceeds of their sale of ChocolateCoveredKittyLitterByMail.com stock. Are we surprised? We have a President of the United States who cannot pronounce the word "subliminal". It's as if Jeff Goldblum as Seth Brundle in 1986's The Fly had taken Dan Quayle and Ross Perot and hit the frappé button on his telepods. We threaten war with the psycho, weapons-of-mass-destruction-probable Iraqis, yet we pussyfoot around with the psycho North Koreans who have reactors and who manufacture missiles. Are we surprised? People are trying to get us to buy chocolate French fries because, fuck knows, America's children aren't eating enough chocolate or fries. Again I ask, are we surprised?
I have had a couple glimmers of hope recently, both related to that diasporic juggernaut of everything crass, commercialized, and unhealthy about the American Way. No, I'm not talking about Hollywood. I'm talking about McDonald's.
McDonald's is leaving Bolivia. Not enough money in Bolivia. Apparently Bolivians are too busy trying to live. Not enough of them are saving a couple of week's wages for a Big Mac dinner for the family.
Also, folks in the city of Oaxaca have managed to block McDonald's from installing its piss-yellow arches in their colonial central plaza.
These little victories don't do much to reseal my cyni-crust. Instead, I see them as a kind of soul food, like my mom's deviled ham sandwiches or my dad's BBQ.
Pakeha