02.10.03 - 1:21 p.m.

I'm been thinking of a few things this morning, as I degenerate from tired and efficient and hyperactive to dead chica walking.

1. 24-hour television news such as CNN has done precisely nothing to increase the level of discourse in the US or the level of the average person's knowledge about the US and the world. The nature of television is such that, basically, stories must be short and relatively straightforward to accommodate commercials and captivate the restless viewer's attentions. The nature of 24-hour news means you have an awful lot of time to fill up with short and relatively straightforward tidbits that will appeal to the average butt-scratching American.

Thus: 24-hour TV news spends alot of time saying very little. It's worthwhile only during the special reports, like the international hour, and during crises - 9/11, and so on. And even then, it's not useful. One watches for the same reason one slows down for a train wreck. In high school, I remember being paralyzed and mesmerized by the coverage of the Gulf War. Fortunately, I don't have cable now and that's unlikely to happen. I'll be.... strong and calm.

2. The Sims: suck. F'ing addictive little things. I keep wanting to design a bigger and better castle. What the hell? Precisely HOW is that uhm. Constructive? It's not like I'm going to find a job in modern castle design. Maybe it's a sign I should go back to school and get a Master's degree in medieval history. I actually think I'd like that, but I'm not sure I have the background. Shouldn't one read Latin for that? Gah.

2a. I realized this morning that I do think like a sim. Basically, I'm f'ing exhausted and have a lot of work to do, so I'm trying to keep myself on track. My attention drifts off, and then I force myself to re-align, and my new task sort of pops up like a little revelation at the top of the screen.

I particularly noticed this while working up a claim today. I was finished with one task, trying to figure out what next to do, and I could practically see the bubble pop up: email accounting people and make sure our client got that money back.

While writing said email, I complimented the accounting person in question. Once more, I could practically see the direction bubble pop up: kiss ass.

Woohoo for kissing ass.

3. F'ing WVPR? Keeps popping in and out. It's annoying the hell out of me, and I'm about to go put on the opera-ish (Cecilia Bartoli singing arias from Gluck, Dreams and Fables. GREAT. CD. by the way. Totally kicks butt.) CD that S hates, just to annoy him.

4. I like baroque music. I love Bach, Handal, Mozart. I love the precision and whatnot. The rhythmic forward-march. Love their choral works. Just... really, love it. Gluck is Baroque too, I think. Man, I love this. I can just sit here and bop my head around. Heh.

(Yes: put on that CD.)

5. "What they could do with round here is a good war. What else can you expect with peace running wild all over the place? You know what the trouble with peace is? No organization." That is Bertolt Brecht from Mother Courage and Her Children , which everyone should read once. I read it first year in college, in my lit survey class. I wish I could be a total reactionary liberal these days. I wish I could go back to that simplicity. I really would like to do that, because I don't like not being able to make up my mind, or wondering if my reaction is as knee-jerk at the right-wing crypto-fascists' reactions are.

Iraq: mostly opposed to war. Perfectly aware of our lamentable history, including the fact that we first encouraged the Shiites and the Kurds to rebel in the south and north of Iraq respectively in the days after the end of the Gulf War, and then allowed the Iraqi army to use helicoptors to put down those insurrections, effectively ending them, and, incidentally, effectively ending the possibility that some element in Saddam's military appartus would decide to put him down.

Perfectly aware that the military hardware directed against us in the Gulf War was supplied to Iraq by the US for use against Iran. Perfectly aware that a big reason for the Iranian revolution and subsequent hatred of Americans was that the US supported the Shah wholeheartedly and the Shah engaged in brutal repression of fundamentalists.

So, yeah. Perfectly aware, too, that Reagan administration was aware that Iraq was engaging in a campaign of genocide against the Kurds in the 1980s, and had, in fact, used poison gas against them, and that Congress tried to pass a resolution imposing a unilateral embargo, which might have - had the bill passed - had the effect of quelling Saddam's bizarre ambitions (and incidentally saving some Kurdish lives) and stopping the Kuwait invasion before it started. So, perfectly aware.

Still, there's part of me that says, so. freakin'. what? When the US (and the rest of the world) ignored the genocide in Rwanda - the sheer, brutal murder of more than a million people - I was outraged. When is it okay to fight a war to end genocide? When is it not? I think we had a duty in Rwanda, a duty which we failed miserably. If the equivalent of Nazi Germany were to rise again somewhere in the world, should we stand back and let that happen?

Saddam ain't nice. What he has done to his people is utterly despicable. Who knows? Maybe we should here, and elsewhere in the world, too, take steps to stop systematic genocide. Yes, I know there are problems (but where do we draw the line) and those can be debated with each individual country, on each individual occasion.

Do I think Dubya wants to invade Iraq for the same reasons that are making me waver? No, I don't. I think he wants to be macho, and take down Saddam for dear old dad, or some weird, weird thing like that. Sort of like Harold Bloom's concept of the anxiety of influence, or something. Daddy had a war, so I want one too. And a better one, damnit! Gimme a goddamned war!

6. I love this poem. I'm'a hafta articulate why I love it another time, because I've been typing this for a while and must drag my tired ass back to work. Still, I love this poem. It's called "By a Swimming Pool Outside Siracusa," by Billy Collins from his book Nine Horses. Go buy it!

Oh, okay. Uhm. I love it because it captures the weird disconnects in language, learning a new language, that sort of seem in turn to capture the weird disconnects between language and feeling and thought and whatnot:

All afternoon I have been struggling
to communicate in Italian
with Roberto and Giuseppe who have begun
to resemble the two male characters
in my Italian for Beginners,
the ones always shopping, eating,
or inquiring about the times of trains.

Now I can feel my English slipping away,
like chlorinated water through my fingers.

I have made important pronouncements
in this remote limestone valley
with its trickle of a river.
I stated that it seems hotter
today even than it was yesterday
and that swimming is very good for you,
very beneficial, you might say.
I also posed burning questions
about the hours of the archaeologicalmuseum
and the location of the local necropolis.

But now I am alone in the evening light
which has softened the white cliffs,
and I have had a little gin in a glass with ice
which has softened my mood or-
how would you say in English-
has allowed my thoughts to traverse my brain
with greater gentleness, shall we say,

or, to put it less literally,
this drink has extended permission
to my mind to feel-what's the word?-
a friendship with the vast sky
which is very-give me a minute-very blue
but with much great paleness
at this special time of day, or as we say in America, now.