What Was I Saying?

I came here to write something about distractions. Because it is something I think about a lot. Usually when I should be doing something else. Like texting while driving. Come on, you know you do it, too. While we’re there, really, who are we trying to kid about this. I remember being 15 ½ and the Drivers Ed teacher pounding into our heads that we needed to be looking everywhere, all the time. Because you never know what’s coming at you from where. This must be where it started.

And he was right, after all, what if we missed a billboard and didn’t know where to find the best nachos served by a gorgeous and scantily clad woman or which personal injury lawyer to call when we get into a wreck while trying to read the bumper stickers on the car in front of us or rubber-necking to see who is in that hot convertible in the other lane? And just to be sure we’re paying attention, now there are half a dozen lights on the back of every car and laser beams installed in the headlights of every new car over $28,000.00.

Sure, there are the usual bikes and skateboards and school crosswalks and – depending on whether you live in a 24 hour town – drunks playing in traffic. But these things pale in comparison to the electronic billboards which have started showing up in my town, the ones they’ve designed to be bright enough to be seen from the moon.

All of this takes our attention away from the things going on right under our noses, like the flashing strobe lights on our stereos which have removable faceplates we have to retrieve from the glovebox in between shifting, because we forget to do that before we’re driving more often than we forget to bring our canvas bags into the grocery store. And of course, there’s climate control adjustment and watching your speed and closing the air vent when behind the four ton Armada the driver needs to survive the dangers of the McDonald’s drive-through. That’s if we aren’t too busy trying to follow the on-screen mapped GPS route.

But the single most important thing in your car environment is your phone. Why? Because it is your only link to Facebook when you are not in the office, at home, at the corner Starbucks or in the airport Starbucks. And so, how are you going to update your status unless you are able to text and drive?

Wait a minute. What was I saying? Oh yeah, how are we supposed to pay attention to how much money bankers are stealing from us this week when every thought we have must be recorded on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace (okay, I admit it, I don’t actually have a working MySpace page — I was too late to that game), LinkedIn, and the four hundred other tracking devices we’ve cleverly agreed to subject ourselves to. I’m sure there’s a conspiracy theory out there that blames Drivers Ed teachers for these distraction phenomena designed to take our attention away from the airplane chemtrails.

But the real issue is how is anyone accomplishing anything these days other than keeping a moment-by-moment journal of their lives? Which, if they keep it up, they will have unlimited time to do. Seriously, it could be that the unemployment rate has less to do with the economy and more to do with the fact that people just aren’t working anymore. They’re re-tweeting about what other people are posting about something they saw someone who is supposed to be working upload to YouTube.

Okay, I gotta go, I have to check the stats on my fan page.

Namaste,

T.

Is Stupid the New Black?

Patriotism may or may not be a good thing. If you don’t understand what I mean by this, this blog probably isn’t for you. While this isn’t really my point, it is the premise I’m starting from. What I mean, of course, is that in the John Lennon sense of imagine there’s no country, patriotism isn’t really helpful in so far as it serves to divide us further from our fellow humankind.

And while these days it is far from the no-brainer I think it ought to be, I believe it is not helpful because it feeds the let’s fear and hate others mentality all too common in certain circles. For the sake of argument though, let’s say that it is good in the (larger) community-oriented let’s take care of each other kind of way.

This isn’t the sort of thing I usually write. Really. I am less interested in taking political (or religious or…) sides and more interested in finding common ground. Having said that — as well as the above thesis regarding patriotism – I guess my question is: Is stupid the new patriotism? Because that seems to be the base requirement. Indeed, it seems empirically true that in order to buy into the Glenn Beck Nation’s worldview (also known, entirely inappropriately on both counts, as the Tea Party or sometimes, the Tea-Baggers), and to be considered therefore as a true patriot according to the new American brand of crazy fundamentalism, one must be stupid.

That is, one must be willfully ignorant. Or incapable of absorbing actual facts. Also, one must possess some radical disinclination to look up words one does not understand, like Fascism, or Marxism, or Stalinist, or even Nazi. Oh yeah, and one must NOT have ever traveled anywhere near either pole, so as to avoid at all cost witnessing any actual ice melting at the speed of light.

Further, one must demand all the services the local, state and federal governments now provide (and have also provided under all recent Republican Administrations) and yet be completely unwilling to pay for any of these services through any such Communist means known as taxes. One must prophesize about the imminent destruction and decay of life as we know it should Obama be successful in passing any kind of now-room-temperature health care plan (otherwise known in these circles as — gasp — socialized medicine), and yet demand that Medicare and Medicaid continue to be available to them, free of charge of course.

In short, one must demand fulfillment of the god-given right that the government give each and every one of us a pony, which we may ride whenever we damn well please, wherever we damn well please and also to refuse to lift a finger to feed that pony. Or to clean up after it.

Praise peas and pass the pizza.

Namaste,

TQ