I'm not doing too well today.

Mostly because I made the mistake of thinking about the news, and about what the Great White Father in Washington is doing. And about all the consequences, social, moral, political and so on, of what he'd like us to do. And about the fact that I've heard far, far too many people falling happily along with his drumbeat, or taking his example as a reason to be utterly idiotic - 'freedom fries' my ass. Bet your grandmother ate 'liberty cabbage' too and THAT did a whole lot of furking good. I'm just tired of it all, so very tired - tired of being ashamed of being an American, tired of the voice that wonders in the depths of my soul whether there's anywhere else on Earth that would be any better at all, tired of writing and pleading and talking and not being heard...

I can't think about it any longer, because if I do, someone's going to get hurt and badly. A few years ago I saw a local theatre group perform Sweeney Todd onstage. I turned to my friend Deirdre, who was sitting next to me, and said "Dee? Just so you know... if I snap, it's going to look like that." If I let this stuff get to me I'm going to go Sweeney Todd on the world around me, and God knows I don't want to do that. I'm not ready to give up hope yet, not willing to give up faith that there are good people and that something might change...

I have to let go of the hopelessness and the anger somehow. The Buddhist teachings can be very useful for that, especially when combined with the love-your-neighbor, pray-for-your-enemy Christianity I grew up with. It doesn't quite get rid of the urge to rage, though, so for now... well, for now I'm going to pull back from the Sweeney Abyss and head for an utterly different, totally irrelevant target for my bile.

( Namely, the comics page of my daily newspaper. )

Okay, that's enough ranting. I feel a bit better now. Sorry about that... thanks.