two-twenty

random thoughts: why can't we all just get along edition

This is so true: no time to blog is the new black. Two-twenty is ashamed to be a part of yet another apathy-related trend associated with our generation, though we are also smugly pleased to find ourselves once again, through absolutely no effort of our own, on the cutting edge of the blogosphere (and the next time you try to slice a tomato with a sphere as opposed to your trusty ginsu, you'll get a pretty fair idea of this cutting edge's overall utility).

So, we apologize, blah blah blog. Spring is here, projects are in the works, the freelance world is showing signs of life, and as always we are faced with alcohol to be drunk, hangovers to muddle through, friends to see, enemies to avoid, and etc. et. al. as well. The international backdrop of seriously depressing shit before which we are now forced to act out our meagre passion plays has also, perhaps, caused our more frivolous creative streams to dry up a bit, in anticipation of a long, hot summer of deception, diplomatic fumbling, scapegoating and mudslinging. So much to look forward to. Speaking of which: Rumsfeld to Army: "We're proud of you." Army to Rumsfeld: "Fuck off."

Disturbing media trend: yesterday, early in the day, stills from the Berg decapitation video shown in the mainstream media pictured only the rank of five masked men standing behind a kneeling Berg. By the end of the day, FOXNews Channel was playing the video and stopping it just as the central figure (now identified as al Qaeda-linked Musab al-Zarqawi) pulled a knife from beneath his shirt. Today, foxnews.com posts a still image on its front page of the presumed al-Zarqawi holding Berg's hair in one hand, and bringing the knife towards his neck with the other. We (or that portion of two-twenty who could stomach it, anyway) have watched the video, available at Salon and, oddly, through Ultragrrrl. It is not pretty. More importantly, it blurs the issues at stake in Iraq by pumping up an "Us vs. Them" mentality. Just as last week the images of American GIs abusing Iraqi prisoners pumped up a similar mentality in the Arab world. In other words, this can only end badly.
 
Speaking of the prison abuse scandal, a beautiful irony resides in the administration's response. The neocon fuckheads who espouse a Straussian philosophy, heavy on the Plato's Republic, and who insist that they should be entrusted to protect the masses by any means necessary (including lying to the public) due to their moral superiority and supreme personal responsibilty, are the same neocon fuckheads who are immediately willing to hang the blame for Abu Ghraib on a few bumblefucks from West fucking Virginia. I hope one of those poor slobs gets a decent lawyer and this whole thing blows up in Rumsfeld's patrician lap. Smug hypocritical fuck.

Speaking of neocon fuckheads, it is becoming abundantly clear that these true believers are just as self-importantly delusional as all of the lefty utopian idealists of the sixties and seventies. The only difference is that rather than dreaming of an impossible world where everyone gets along, they dream of an impossible world where everyone gladly lies down and places their neck beneath the jack-booted foot of sanctimonious zealots (and then asks if they can please lick the dirt off). Happily, it is this delusional aspect of their thinking that, after destroying any semblance of international stability, may finally bring the neocons down. To wit.

Anyway. How 'bout them Sox? Or Yanks? Whatever.