:: The Blurst of Times ::

:: 11.21.2004 ::

Treating others as they like to be treated

I went on a lovely drive today around the thumb of Michigan. It was cold and I was employing the technique of cranking the heater and the stereo, while leaving the window down. I just love that. It was beautiful out, once I got outside the bounds of the Detroit metro. But for as much fun and beauty as it was, I eventually returned to this urban[e] existence of news media, and traffic, and car commercials, and budget deficits, and bigots, and paranoia, and selfishness, and greed. And somehow, when I’ve been so happy all day, it just makes me shaking-mad to read about and hear about all the stupid shit that people do because they can’t seem to think about anyone but themselves. And it just seems like this time of the year, more than any other, maybe we can set aside our differences, and greed, and hostilities, and demands, and hustle-bustle-uber-techno lives for just a little bit and reflect on what we share. If for no other reason than if the world ends tomorrow, I’d rather die with a good feeling than bad.

So here is what I am thankful for:

Family and friends that I will see this weekend
Family and friends that I have spoken to recently, via snippets of emails, random phone calls in drunken stupors, or just venting sessions
Family and friends that keep promising to call or write and give me good reason to motivate myself to check my email once a day
My coworkers who have done a wonderful job of assimilating and acclimating me to a strange place and for giving me the chance to explore my own strengths and weaknesses
My health, vitality, and vigor
Undisturbed acres of natural land, much of which I may never see
Edge Habitat
My insufferable desire to ask questions
The Red Cross - Red Crescent
People who support public education
People who support community
People who support honesty, optimism, and selflessness
The Postal Service (the musical group)
The Postal Service (the ‘neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night’ group)
Old 97’s, the Refreshments, Lagwagon, Rancid, Weezer, REM, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Green Day, NoFX, the Cure, Rise Against, Good Riddance, Leo Kottke, Charlie Parker, Max Roach, Ed Shaughnessey, Neal Peart, the Bad Plus, Tool, Strung Out, Deftones, Less than Jake, Ben Folds (Five), Dave Brubeck (Quartet, Octet), the Clash, the Libertines, Henry Rollins, the Rentals, the Roots, Jay-Z, Snapcase... Every band who has ever made a song that moved me
Stephen King, Kurt Vonnegut, John Irving, Edward Gorey, Shel Silberstein, Daniel Keyes, James Joyce, Homer, Machiavelli, Shakespeare, Plato, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rosseau, Henry David Thoreau, Arthur Miller, Neil Simon, Jane Jacobs, Ian McHarg, Aldo Leopold, Witold Rybczynski, Chinua Achebe... Every author who has ever written a word that challenged me
Time (and its magnificent healing powers)
Crossword Puzzles

See. Now I feel better.

“Don’t wake me I plan on sleeping in...”

:: Freddy F. at 11:29 PM [+] ::
:: (3) comments ::

Perspective

I’d like to reassure everyone and hopefully calm many of us down by reminding you all that everything is indeed cyclical. The saying “what goes around, comes around” has never been more true. When it is all said and done, everyone’s debts balance their winnings, and the only thing that lasts forever is eternity. The laws governing thermodynamics and the conservation of energy all still apply; and whatever cosmic forces have propelled this planet, galaxy, universe, dimension, for the last five thousand or five billion years have withstood the test of November Second.

This public service announcement has been brought to you by two assholes at work who just couldn’t shut up.

“If you look at a big enough picture, everyone’s survival rate drops to zero...”

:: Freddy F. at 9:16 PM [+] ::
:: (0) comments ::

An Open Letter to the American Public

American Public -

With all due respect: just what the fuck is your major malfunction? For three years now you have been abused, ridiculed, dishonored, fragmented, cheated, duped, snowed, and ignored. By your own president you have been driven to embrace a culture of fear, to throw your sons and daughters into faraway lands to die brutal deaths, to give up your righteous earnings to modern-day robber barons. You have seen gun-safety laws, theories about weapons of mass destruction, and a plethora of promises simply dissolve before your very eyes. Yesterday you stood with the opportunity to bring your honor back. And you squandered it like billion dollar budget surplus.

Yesterday, American, you could have made a stand for human rights. You could have made a stand for education, healthcare, the environment, social services. You could have made a stand for honesty, for truth, for peace, for global solidarity, for America and what it once meant to be a proud American. Today I see you have shown that you stand for nothing more than bigotry, hate, violence, destruction, hysteria, greed, and selfishness.

You have believed the charlatan who draped himself in the American flag, not out of pride, but out of cowardice. You rallied behind a heartless crusader, blinded by his own lust for greatness, oblivious to the consequences of reality, hidden from him by curtains of money, oil, and power. You have opened the door into a new era of loss, death, and destruction. The world is now his doormat, forever granted by the mandate of [you] the people.

The blood is on your hands, America. Once you could say the choice was stolen from you, swept away in a humid Florida night. Once you could say the world wasn’t what it is today. Once you could plead ignorance. Never again. You know what you have done. Given a choice between the unknown path and the path to Hell, you have chosen Hell. The piper is here and payment will be extracted. They will be your parents, your children, your friends, neighbors, and coworkers who all get to pay the price from now on, for the mistake you have made. They will pay it and the price will be them.

I have sympathy for you. I will weep with you when you bury your fallen. I will ache for you when the last tree is chopped down, when the last bird chokes on the smog, when cities are swept away in floods and tidal waves. I will be compassioned for you when I see children on the street, homeless and hopeless, robbed of futures in the name of a thinly-veiled religious crusade. I will seethe with my friends denied their rights as human beings and forced to live under the caste of second-class citizens by bigoted zealots. And I will be as ashamed to tell the rest of the world that I am an American and live in a nation unable to see the difference between wrong and right.

“I know the pieces fit, ‘cause I watched them fall away...”

:: Freddy F. at 8:42 PM [+] ::
:: (3) comments ::

Wrong Side of the Coin

Well, after that seemingly unforgiving and unrelenting (and unending) tirade about the faults of a system driven purely by market flooding and demand, I will, in interest of being a “fair and balanced” source, present an example of the other extreme.

I spent last friday morning in the Michigan Department of Motor Vehicles. I had to do two things there: change my license and change my truck tags. One of these things got done and it took two trips, three employees, and almost three hours. The DMV is the epitome of what can happen when there is no competition whatsoever.

Let me walk you through it: I get there at 9 (promptly when they open), I wait at the front desk for a couple minutes. A pleasant looking lady comes out of the back office. I tell her what I need, show her my old license and she tells me I need further ID. Oh, okay, so I drive back across town, get my birth certificate (something I coincidentally got back just last weekend) and head back to the DMV. Again, I wait at the front desk, lady comes out of the back office, tells me again that I need more ID. No, you told me last time this would work. No, I was mistaken, you need more. Finally, we reach the conclusion that what I have is adequate, she hands me a form to fill out and I sit and wait. There are maybe a dozen people waiting and three people working behind the desks. Twenty minutes later, they call my number. I go to the counter. To spare you the details, reviewing my documents (Oh my, you have a Kansas drivers license, an Iowa birth certificate, and a Nebraska title... how crazy!), reviewing my form (Could you spell your last name? Ma’am it’s on the form. Yes, but it’s faster if you just say it.), getting the form signed by the manager, discussing with the manager the necessary steps to take to include a motorcycle operator on my license ($13.50), discussing my choice of checks, double checking my information (Is this how you spell your last name?), checking my eyes (twice [well, I couldn’t remember if you had done it or not, if I don’t write it down I forget, so just run through those top lines again, would you]), and punching my old license all takes about forty-five minutes. Then the signature - five minutes. Then the picture - five minutes. Then: Okay, I think we have everything; that should be in your mailbox within thirty days.

Alright, thanks, now I need to register my truck. Sorry, can’t do that until you have michigan insurance. Well, I’m going to get that when my other insurance runs out. Then you can come back later and get new plates, not today. Bye.

And the whole time, the woman who is helping me is asking another lady about taking her break. A break! I was under the impression that once you got health insurance with your job you didn’t really get breaks anymore.

I can’t be too hard on them. They were pleasant, never rude, never short. The biggest problem is the slow deliberateness with which these people operate. In every service-based industry, whether it is TV, radio, print, medicine, being a landscape architect, (I’m trying to appeal to my mass-readership here), whatever, a certain amount of hustle is involved. Why? Because the bottom line is that you are trying to present your product (quality notwithstanding) to your client in a timely fashion. Why? Because otherwise they’ll go some place else. With the DMV, there is no some place else. There is only and will ever only be the DMV.

“I’ve been to hell, I spell it - spell it D-M-V. Anyone who’s been there knows exactly what I mean...”

:: Freddy F. at 10:23 PM [+] ::
:: (1) comments ::