Bill's Notes

Please pray for my mother. She fell again yesterday and the doctors are unsure if she got a concussion in the fall, or if she had a small stroke and that caused her to fall.

I'll visit her in the hospital this morning. (I was traveling to Orlando for a conference.) No more info until then.

UPDATE: She's in the hospital for some tests. Test results due back today. The good news is she seems to have shaken off whatever happened. The bad news is what's happening may be a precursor to something more serious. Thanks to those of you who prayed. Means a lot.

What surprises me is not what she said, but that so few people are saying it. Everything, especially our political culture, is turning into entertainment.

The role of culture, however, must go beyond economics. It is not focused on the price of things, but on their value. And, above all, culture should tell us what is beyond price, including what does not belong in the marketplace. A culture should also provide some cogent view of the good life beyond mass accumulation. In this respect, our culture is failing us.

Hesse's Age of Feuilleton [replacement of serious thinking with journalism] was optimistic. Huxley's trivialization of everything is looking more prescient.

And worse, I'm so numb to it I'm starting to accept it ... I feel like going on a soma holiday :)

For some reason, I thought it was amusing to find out that China is the "biggest emitter of greenhouse gasses."

Perhaps I'm just in a sophomoric mood. Better start eating the beans, boys. We cannot allow there to be a Gas Gap.

Thought: Does it seem that whoever we support in the Palestinian situation loses? We support Fatah, so Hamas wins a war in Gaza. All those arms we gave Fatah now belong to Hamas.

I'm beginning to think the answer is to disengage. It seems that we can't do anything right, and everything we try backfires and blows up in our faces. Not only that, but it seems that other "superpowers" in their day have had the same experience: Turks, Brits, the French, Byzantines, the Romans, Greeks and Persians. Didn't the Turks have a saying, "Do not intervene in Arab affairs?"

Exactly what is our national interest in Gaza and the West Bank, again? Not Israel's interest. The United States -- what's at stake for us? What are we trying to accomplish?

I dunno.

Quick roundup:

1. Antioch College is now defunct. The "boot camp for the revolution" has been destroyed by declining enrollment. Good. Antioch was the intolerant neo-fascist PC-totalitarianism at its worst. Not to mention faux-bohemianism. Want a real bohemian? The Dude from the Big Lebowski. Somewhere, the Dude is smiling. The Dude abides.

2. Tony Soprano is dead. The camera cuts establish a pattern of points of view, and the black shot at the end is when we were due to see Tony's point of view again, as per the pattern. Tony is dead. Paul is dead. I am the walrus.

3. The ending reminded me of two movies -- Taxi Driver, which also had a surprise cut, and the crappy The Rules of Attraction, which drops off the page. I couldn't tell at the end of Rules if the guy crashed his motorcycle (possible) or not.

4. Speaking of the Big Lebowski -- saw it again this weekend. Man is that a great movie.

5. I was totally wrong about Cleveland. The drought continues. I'm not even sure Cleveland rocks. Never been there.

6. That's all ... gotta get to work. Have a good one.