Sunday Morning, Sunday Morning...

There was an old Spanky and Our Gang (pop/rock band from the late sixties, early seventies, best known for the civil rights guiltfest "Give a Damn") song called "Sunday Morning"...lyrics of the sort of "It's so quiet in the street, you can hear the sound of feet walking by...I'll put coffee on to brew, we can have a cup or two, then do what other people do on Sunday morning". I always wondered what exactly it was that other people do on Sunday morning.

Not important, just a sideshow.

Nice evening last night, although it seemed like half of the people I knew were either calling or accidentally bumping into me. As they say in sitcom parlance "Hilarity ensues." I think the guy who came up with that line should be shot.

Was telling a friend last night about some of my adventures when I was working in Salinas, as the combined (deep breath here) Monterey County Friday Night Live Coordinator, house counselor for Sunrise House, Alcohol and Drug Resource Specialist for Harden Middle School and Facilitator for the Youth Alternatives to Violence programs at Monterey County Silver Star Youth Facility and Soledad High School. Busy, busy, busy...but making a difference. I miss many of those people (getting to talk to Joey and his Grandmother last night really brought that back...) I will have to add Salinas to my list of options for relo when the time comes.

Also found out that, despite recent press coverage that Meth is starting to show up in West Virginia, it is already here, big time. The police and the media have just decide to slow play it. Why? No idea. I guess twelve year olds turning tricks for processed cold medicine made in local trailer parks isn't as important as the latest survey (the Top Headline in today's local paper on the the "Local News" page) of area opinion about whether or not the Catholic Church fasttracks John Paul II to sainthood.

Hey, the guy was great and you can put whatever laurels you want on him and his legacy, but Shakespeare was right (you don't hear me say that often) in "Macbeth" - about life

"It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."

People we have kids dying, flesh and spirit. We have soldiers dying in Iraq. We have millions of people starving. AIDS is still with us. One in three American women will be raped at some point in her life and in 85% of those cases alcohol will be a factor (anyone for another beer ad with cheerleaders?). North Korea has both nukes and the means to deliver them.

I'd like to see some enterprising news organization decide to do news by priority, not the crapfest that has become of news since Rupert Murdoch got hold of it. Even CNN Headline news now foregoes the classic "all the news in half an hour" format in the evening, to compete for ratings. I don't need a half hour on whether or not Brad Pitt is banging Angelina Jolie or Jennifer Garner is pregnant by Ben Affleck. I am sure they would agree it is a waste of sound and light to report it.

We have become a nation of people who do not care if our children die or our legacies befouled, as long as we are entertained. Maybe we are so full of despair that we can't think about what is really going on around is, so we invent things we can get our arms around. As much as I despise the perverse stridency of the National Right to Life (they have a gift for twisting sloppy theology into soundbite politics) at least they have passion for something meaningful. Everybody else is busy buying Darth Vader bubblegum and worrying about cellphone ringtone uploads.

Boy, I am going to get some hatemail on that paragraph. Yeah, hatemail. Hate. The least Christian thing you can think of. I am sore tired of ignorance and those who exploit it for their own edification. I would rather lose an argument with a better or more learned mind than beat down my opposition with innacuracies and lies. This life is not about winning, it's about the truth. And we are now turning over our lives and those of the people we love to those who keep score ahead of checking facts. And wrapping yourself in a flag or misquoting the Word of God doesn't change that.