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We sneaked away for four days – back to Lake Superior. It was a last chance before term started and I returned to ferrying little kids to and from school.

Marquette is such a pleasant town. It was good to smell the fresh air and once again wander streets studded with fine examples of Victorian architecture. The Catholic cathedral has probably the most glorious restrooms in the whole of America.

Marquette looks a pleasant, prosperous little conurbation, and that’s because it is.

Of course, Lake Superior is 550 miles from central Illinois, so two of those four days were spent travelling. That told a different story. The road north of Chicago runs close by Lake Michigan for some fifty or sixty miles. Grand houses front the lake, no doubt many of them second homes – vacation getaways for the wealthy of Chicagoland. It was amazing how many were up for sale. Those hanging on grimly to their homes were flogging off their toys. Motor cars, boats, snowmobiles, trailers – even a bulldozer outside one property – were all sitting on the front lawns with “For Sale” signs plastered over them. One could sense financial belts being tightened even as we passed by.

Why do American towns have to be so grubby? I’ve travelled fairly extensively around the Heartlands and the East, but Marquette is the only town in the country that draws me back. Most have the exact opposite effect. I can’t wait to get away. Some even hold a threatening air. The average American small town looks like something you’d maybe expect to find amid the wastelands of northern Siberia. A motley collection of thrown together buildings, often in need of repair and certainly requiring redecoration; cracked and uneven sidewalks; dingy stores with flyblown food hidden away behind oily gas pumps; obese youths sporting long-unwashed T-shirts, back-to-front baseball caps, and driving rust-bucket pick-up trucks. Only the inevitable McDonald’s sign stands out, it’s unholy yellow cleanliness stark against a drab and sordid background.

Americans still live with their heads in the clouds of Empire, unaware their feet are sinking inexorably into the quicksands of economic collapse. They’re happy to see hundreds of billions of their dollars wasted on the Pentagon’s warmongering ideals, so wouldn’t dream to complain when their new automobile breaks its axle on a pothole in Main Street.

The inhabitants of small town America live boring, repetitive, unfulfilled lives. There’s nothing to do, nowhere to go, so they eat endless burgers and donuts and grow fat. Yet mention the word, “Change,” and they’d probably shoot you.

We drove home yesterday. Back to the central Illinois small town where circumstances dictate we spend another two years before shaking its dust and grime from our feet, finally escaping for good, and hopefully settling permanently in our haven on Lake Superior.

We had a storm this afternoon; one of those noisy summer storms that whip up out of nowhere, dump five minutes of rain, and then are gone to bother someone else. Halfway through the action the cable went out. The local weather channel, sworn to keep us informed of possible danger from tornadoes and other nasties, evaporated into nothing as every TV within ten miles shut down in the blink of an eye.

The storm past; rainclouds cleared. Sunset’s rays peaked beckoningly through drenched foliage. It was over.

Ten minutes later, for no apparent reason, the power went out.

That was at five o’clock this evening. It’s now seven forty-five and I’m typing this by the light of an oil lamp. According to the digitally recorded woman down at the power company, electricity may be available by midnight – though, possibly not.

No-one complains. It’s like the potholes on Main Street. Besides, there’s no-one to complain to. The power company’s digitally recorded woman isn’t programmed to handle such matters.

She’s just one more uncaring, disinterested, fob-you-off voice, in one more grubby small town in a disintegrating America.

Filed under: Going under

The last week has seen me laid low with a stomach bug. Happily, I’m on the mend, but the accompanying lethargy resulted in an unusual pastime for me – TV watching, and in particular, CNN.

I was keen to see if TV news has changed at all since I gave up viewing a few months ago. Not that I expected it had. I was right.

Take this morning, for example. At first glance all seemed well. CNN was running a lengthy slot on healthcare reform. It appeared very fair and balanced – ooops, sorry, wrong channel.

Sorting truth from myth was high on the agenda, and various websites were publicized where viewers could ascertain the facts about this much debated drama. For example, whether its true that forced euthanasia for the over-sixties was on the cards, or not.

I was just becoming lulled into a false sense of security with CNN, when they paused for an advertising break. The very first to appear was – this:

This cute little clip is put out by a group calling themselves the “Sixty Plus Association” – “a non-partisan seniors advocacy group with a free enterprise, less government, less taxes approach to seniors issues”

The real truth is this “association” is backed and funded by the health industry and right-wing Republican lobby groups.^[1]

In one minute, it cleverly negated the whole program segment.

CNN – the most trusted name in news?

^{[1] “Rachel Maddow Exposes More Health Reform Fear Merchants” The Osterley Times, August 11th 2009}

Filed under: Healthcare – who cares?

A major headline this morning, both on the TV and the BBC website, proclaimed the [probable] death of Baitullah Mehsud.^[1]

At the announcement, it was not hard to imagine twenty million people worldwide staring perplexedly at each other, and asking, “Who?”

So, the Americans may have got lucky and assassinated a Taliban leader on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border, from their control center in Arizona, or Texas, or from wherever it is they coldly sit and direct their pilot-less drones. Is it truly so big a deal as to warrant ten minutes discussion out of a half hour news broadcast? No doubt Mehsud’s second-in-command is ready to step adroitly into his shoes.

There’s something terribly menacing about a group of people sat in an underground bunker somewhere, calmly picking off individuals from any point on the globe they wish to direct their hellish missiles.

It smacks of the worst kind of science fiction. Yet, we now accept such news over our morning cornflakes without batting an eyelid. Well, they’re the enemy, after all, aren’t they?

And that’s the problem. As soon as we rate them as “enemy”, they stop being human beings and metamorphose into some ugly, stinging, insect we have no qualms about exterminating. Even when the methods we use to do so are far more inhumane than they are.

We, the people, are to blame. We will readily believe in the necessity for war, so long as our politicians tell us it’s just, but let one member of the military get hurt, or worse, and we give our leaders hell. Can we blame them, then, for developing remote-controlled technology that can assassinate the enemy from thousands of miles away?

Millions of men died in the last two world wars. That sacrifice helped humanity comprehend the God-awful futility of war. It took generations for whole nations to recover from their loss – the winners as well as the losers.

The only way to end war is by generating unacceptable sacrifice. It’s why each of the world wars was labeled, “The war to end all wars.” And they may have been, if technology had not intervened.

Like most species on the planet, we need to feel suffering before taking action to alleviate it. Remember the last time you were ill? You’d do anything to feel better. Once the malady had run its course, however, it was as though it never really existed. One can’t imagine ever feeling ill again – until the next time.

It’s the same with war. When we suffered, when our menfolk died by the millions, we’d do anything to stop it happening again. Now, we have a vaccine against war. We really don’t suffer anymore. By comparison with those dead millions, hardly any of our military are killed or maimed in wars today, and because of the technological advantages held by America and its dubious allies, the outcome of war is rarely in serious doubt.

We’re losing our humanity to the pilot-less drones.

Today, we can hear the news that Baitullah Mehsud is dead while eating our cornflakes, and with bored indifference switch channels to something more titillating.

SOMETHING MORE TITILLATING.

A 26 year old Greek woman is in custody on the island of Crete today after setting fire to the genitals of a British tourist, according to a BBC report.^[2]

Apparently, she poured alcohol over his nether regions and ignited it.

Good.

British tourists are the most disgusting, badly-behaved, depraved individuals on the planet. This woman deserves a medal. The Greeks have suffered too long the invasion of their homelands by drunken British marauders intent on causing mayhem for the purpose of their own selfish pleasure. Frankly, the only reason the Greeks don’t lock them up and throw the key away is because monetary interests in the country won’t let them.

This man exposed himself repeatedly and harassed the woman sexually. Hopefully, he’ll be in intense agony for days. Personally, I hope his balls drop off.

There are times when my countrymen shame and disgust me.

NOTE: If you doubt this latter story is more interesting to the world than the death of Baitullah Mehsud, please note that on the list of most popular stories shared by BBC website readers, the flaming Brit ranks number one, while the deceased Taliban leader fails even to be listed.

^{[1] “Pakistani Taliban leader ‘killed'” BBC, August 7th 2009}

^{[2] “Woman ‘torched Briton’s genitals'” BBC, August 7th 2009}

Filed under: Drones and fiery penises