Quote of the Week

Where do I begin? Last week Governor Pataki (R-NY) vetoes a bill to make the "Morning After Pill" over-the-counter. He does this because he's posturing for the 2008 presidential race. Then, everyday I'm hearing about all the soldiers getting killed in Iraq, including 11 from Georgia. And the President twists things around by saying they died in the War Against Terror. Yes, that would be noble, but the fact is that the Iraq war is a neocon oil war.

And then, last Friday I'm at the oil change place sitting in the lobby and I pick up a magazine called "Citizen," which is put out by James Dobson's Focus on the Family organization. The first thing I noticed is that the mailing label had been carefully torn off the cover. So, if some right-winger is going to be spreading propaganda at QuickLube stores, the least they should do is have the balls to leave their name on it. So, I'm flipping through the magazine and I'm thinking that it's not all that bad because the articles are talking about all the filth on TV and in Hollywood, and, well, I'm in full agreement. But then I turn to an article that's attacking environmental "extremism." My GOD, who are these people to talk about extremism? The article is going on about how "liberals" are using scare tactics for some unclear motive. Of course, the article had to say that Global Warming is just a MYTH (they should know all about MYTHS!).

So, I'm looking at this Christian magazine that's viciously attacking the environment and I'm stunned. Why do conservative Christians hate the environment so much? Are they that firmly in bed with Corporate America? Maybe it's troubling to them that we environmentalists are predicting that MAN will destroy the Earth, when they believe that GOD is supposed to destroy it. Or maybe they just associate the environment with evil, heathen LIBERALS. Gosh, I really don't know.

But anyway, all these events have put me in a mild depression, which seems to be more and more like my common state. I just feel a great sense of hopelessness in trying to resist THE MACHINE. I mean, this afternoon I'm standing in the parking lot of a Chinese restaurant, and I just look around at the surrounding houses and cars and strip shopping centers, and I say to myself, "What have we done?" What kind of world have we created for ourselves? It's all nuts.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"Other than telling us how to live, think, marry, pray, vote, invest, educate our children and, now, die, I think the Republicans have done a fine job of getting government out of our personal lives."

-Editorial Page, Sunday, June 19, 2005 Portland Oregonian