Deityblog

"Every now and then when life gets complicated and the weasels start closing in, the only real cure is to load up on heinous chemicals and then drive like a bastard from Hollywood to Las Vegas. To relax as it were, in the womb of the desert sun."

Thank you, Hunter S. Thompson (z"l).

I feel the weasels closing in these days. Things just keep getting crazier and crazier in the world, nothing seems to make sense anymore, with increasing strength and ludicrousness (if that's a word). I feel like I'm reading "The Onion"...the "Daily Show" is quickly meeting its match as things become far too absurd to even joke about. Let's look at these last two weeks:

~ Bush, our "Tough-On-Terror-Friend-of-Israel" scum of the earth of a human being, let alone a president, has sold the management of US ports in NYC, Baltimore, Miami, and others to the UNITED ARAB EMIRATES. This should speak for itself. Has everyone gone f#$king crazy??!!
Right-wing whacko friends of mine, explain this one to me.

~ Hamas victory. If we give them aid ("we" =US and Israel), then we're acknowledging the legitimacy of a terrorist regime. If we don't, they'll get it from Iran, thus exacerbating their use of terror and making the situation even more beyond the pale. Right-wing whacko friends of mine, I have no answers for this one, only that now it's just become that much more crucial to try to eke out light and maintain stable partnerships with peace-building Palestinians. If you want the phone numbers of at least 12 I know personally, that can be arranged. They exist, whether you wish to believe it or not, and we need to strengthen them and the work they do for peace.

~ Denmark falling over itself to apologize to the Muslim world, while some Muslims go around rioting and killing people and setting fire to everything in site, carrying signs that say "Exterminate those who shame Islam." Excuse me?

I know I'm not saying anything new, but I'm feeling a little shell-shocked right now, and I know it's probably just going to get much, much worse.

On a related note, I'm reading Philip Roth's "The Plot Against America," which has the interesting premise of a right-wing Nazi sympathizer, namely Charles Lindbergh, beating out FDR in the 1940 election on a platform of keeping the US out of war...and then what begins to happen to American Jews once Lindbergh signs a pact with Hitler. I'm not very far into it, and excuse me for disclosing my paranoia...but it's got me thinking.

Every country in history that has at one point offered a safe harbor to Jews has also, at one point, abruptly changed its mind and made things extremely bad for the Jews, with "bad" varying from a pogrom or two to mass expulsion to the Holocaust. You get my drift.

I'm positing that this shift will happen very soon in America--and it will be spearheaded by the Christian Right. They may seem like our friends now, but they're not--they're our most despicable, aggressive, and deceptive of enemies. They desire our spiritual or at least physical death. They support Israel and aliyah to get us there to fulfill their dogma, that it will bring the second coming, at which point we'll have the choice of conversion or death. That the right-wing Jewish community has ignored this and has embraced the Christian Right's support strikes me as selling out of the worst kind, acknowledging the legitimacy of this sinister agenda in exchange for money.

Think I'm crazy? Agree with me? Let me know...

Feeling kind of deflated recently. I think I'm being fried by my desk job. The desk part of it, anyway. There's only so much banality a soul can take, I guess. The space between projects is nurturing an unhealthy internet habit that kind of makes me sick. I'll be fine, don't worry. It's just good to write about.
My Artist Date this week was to go up to the library for a little over an hour yesterday and look at art books. Would have been much better if the fluorescent lighting + air conditioner up there didn't always make me so sleepy and apathetic. I paged through a Chagall book, disturbed to read that his Catholic third wife had him buried in a Roman Catholic cemetery. Teddy Kollek even argued against it. The art, of course, was amazing, but not immediately absorbing for me. Too much of the unreal doesn't always pack the right kind of punch. One of my favorite pieces is the stark, brusquely-constructed "No" by Jasper Johns (whom I love in general). It really captures the essence of what "no" is. If you happen to be passing by the National Gallery in DC, check it out.
Then I found a book called "Artists Confronting the Inconceivable." It's an international selection of glasswork artists responding to Kristallnacht, and to the Holocaust in general. Amazing idea, extremely powerful images.
Quiz for whoever reads this--what is your guiltiest pleasure, website-wise? Even if you don't spend that much time online, there's probably one or two sites you go to just for pure, decadent pleasure. I actually have lots of these, sadly, but the best is probably Holy Bibble. Click, and be amazed :-)