Crisis of Consciousness

I was all set to write about our trip to New Orleans--a place that K says fills her with a sense of impending disaster--and how the Charlotte airport, like all airports, is fundamentally alienating in the way that inspired me to start this enterprise.

But I can't get that photograph out of my head.

I can't stop thinking about how half of my countrymen voted for this. How they presumably think that such atrocities committed in our names are somehow making us safer and not what an American flag will come to symbolize to these children when they are old enough to fire a shoulder-mounted missile or get on the subway with an innocent-looking backpack.

I can't stop thinking about the utter inadequacy of language to name this madness.

Crumbs

Well, it's Inauguration Day. Security will essentially turn DC into a police state straight out of a John Carpenter film. Strange, I thought that GW was making us safer.

.......

Speaking of strange, why is it that Americans who identify themselves as 'conservative' strenuously support a system that is built on waste and excess capacity? And why do so many conservative 'Christians' strenuously support a system that runs just about opposite to the actual things that Christ had to say?

.......

Why is it that the music made by folks like Gillian Welch, Neko Case, Iris DeMent and Allison Kraus--which reveals a far more direct lineage to the giants of the genre (Cash, EmmyLou, Hank, etc.)-- gets tagged with the label "alt-country" while what passes for modern "country" sounds indistinguishable from Budweiser jingles circa 1986? That is to say: overamplified telecaster twang ninth rate Mellencamprok with a 2/4 beat that's considered "country" by dint of the comically exaggerated hick drawl of the vocal. Music that's as empty as the expression you'll get from a Toby Keith fan when you ask him if he's ever heard of George Jones--let alone the Louvin Brothers.

.......

Why, lookee the time. C. JoDI is going on another trip with the family, this time to the Big Easy to visit L's great-grandmother. Gonna try to catch us a parade, too.