The disease that is apathy

The unemployed, when not looking for a job, have plenty of time to think and reflect. On life. On current events. On anything and everything. Perhaps that is why I have caught a disease - the disease of apathy. Day after day I enter the world of the internet and see what is going on in the world and what "people" are saying about said events. That is how one contracts the disease.

Politics - one party says ying, the other says yang. They agree to disagree. Unless the polls show that the public is overwhelmingly for or against something. Then they all say they will fix it. But first, they have to have hearings. Actually, pre-hearings before the hearings. Then they take one of their numerous "breaks" to go home to "hear from their constituents" (i.e. big donors). Then they go back to D.C., posture for the cameras and what happens - nothing. Never. Ever. I've often wondered why polls and stories always say that the voters have HUGE negative feelings about Congress, yet the voters always re-elect the same ones over and over again. I used to think that it was because the incumbents have fixed the election rules so much to their advantage that unless they are caught with an animal and/or a child in some seedy motel (and in some districts, that wouldn't even matter it seems), re-election is almost a given. Now I am convinced that when push comes to shove, by the time election day rolls around, the voters are like me - they don't care. Apathy has taken hold of them. It doesn't matter who gets elected, nothing will change because of it. Politics - right now I don't care anymore.

Bush - he is such a disaster, I'm rapidly getting bored reading and listening to all the haters, spinners, apologists, worshipers, etc. When he speaks, I turn it off. Doesn't make any diference what he says - nothing changes because of it. I see today that he has named a new Spin Master - er, Press Secretary. Yawn....do I care, not really.

Reviewing the headlines on Drudge....Brittany Spears pregnant again. Who cares about that? Did anyone care the first time? Tom Cruise / Katie Holmes...again, who cares about this? Why is this even news. Teri Hatcher suffers eye injury. Ohh, the stock market might crash because of this.
Geesh, I can't read anymore of this. I'm going to check out CNN...

Rumey and Condi make a surprise visit to Iraq. Of course it is a surprise, it's so damn dangerous (even though we are making real progress) that they can't announce it in advance or they might get killed. And of course they will stay in the "green zone". Won't venture out. But it's great over there...uh huh. Secrest not talking to Paula Abdul. So what. Who cares? I even read that now there is going to be a reality show about a realty show (American Idol). Is the best that TV execs can come up with? No wonder I only watch sports on the tube. Drivers running out of gas to save money. What? Gas prices...like anyone can do anything about them. It's the same every year. High around Easter, go down a little, high around Memorial Day, go down a little, high around July 4th, go down a little, high around Labor Day (is there a trend here?), then down a little. All it takes is some yahoo oil shiek in some god-forsaken desert country to say "oil", "terrorist", "nukes", "refining capacity" and the oils prices shoot up. Here is the problem in a nutshell - we like big cars. Big SUV's. Big hummers. And nobody is going to tell us what kind of car to drive. Today, as I was driving to the gym, I saw the American gas/oil problem in full view. Sitting at an intersection, there were 10 vehicles waiting for the light to change. All 10 were SUV's (mine included). Of the 10, 8 had only 1 person in them (mine included). There it is. That is the problem. I don't need CNN or Bush or some ExxonMobil executive or some Saudi oil shiek to rail on and on - just go to an intersection and look at the vehicles and how many people are in them.

So I guess the point of this rant is this. I don't care about too much right now. I don't want to watch TV, I don't want to listen to talk radio, I don't want to read papers or surf the web. I have no desire. I'm apathetic. These days, I spend my time 1) sorta looking for a job 2) playing free cell on the computer and 3) watching the NHL play-offs.

I need a life...and something, anything to care about. And quickly.

The Thin White Duke....in Portuguese

I saw this and thought of you Scooter. HERE is a link to a zip file of songs from the movie "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou", which I admit I liked. I love the Bill Murray understated style of comedy. Anyway...throughout the movie, one of the characters sang Portuguse versions of David Bowie songs. The zip file contains the 11 full version songs he sang snippets of in the film.
Pretty cool stuff.

William Shatner

I wanted to be on record somewhere that I love this guy whatever he does. Just saw a piece of a lawyer show: he was fabulous.

Begging the fargin question

This week's hall of shame: (1) "Author and conservative comedian Brad Stine;" (2) Mike McDaniel of the Chronic;

and (3), well I don't have one (or do I?). This travesty is so widespread I thought I could get a weekly feature out of it, you know, three (surely not more) violations I saw THIS WEEK. Either I've not been paying attention or ... something. Anyway, I only had two, so I thought I'd cheat and google some news stories for "begs the question."

The result was shocking. Aussies, at least at 9 CDT, 4/24/06, seem to be the worst offenders.