At approximately 3pm this afternoon I leaned against the sunny side of my office enjoying a cigarette when my body began to buzz. My initial thoughts raced around the crazy lines of logic I followed last summer -- imagining that the resonance of my body was operating at a different frequency, as if the electricity which was racing through my cells was evolving my DNA and all that nonsense. I stomped out my smoke and passed through the security checkpoint, walked up the stairs and sat in the middle of a complex filled with cubicles as far as the eye can see.
Currently I'm involved in the redesign of a major corporate website. My job is to switch outdated code with the current trends. Typically I entertain myself by listening to podcasts such as Democracy Now! Since Monday they've been interviewing Noam Chomsky along with his friend and fellow philosopher Howard Zinn -- who just so happened to author a book I'd love to get the Cliff Notes for: The People's History of the United States. (I say Cliff Notes but actually I would prefer a YouTube video. I am the child of the media culture for Your sake!
To illustrate my point: On the car ride to the movies with my two little ladies I was attempting to interest my daughter on The People's History of the United States. I said that "I'd trade something to get you to read that book in tandem with your lessons at school." Undoubtedly she's forgotten the proposal and the name of the book by now. Still, I feel it is my duty to come up with something tempting enough to get her to read the book.)
In the last series of interviews, Noam Chomsky told a story about listening to NPR and becoming so angry that he didn't notice he was speeding -- apparently an unacceptable excuse to the cop that wrote him the ticket. The story on the radio told all about the "Great Black Hope," Mr. Barak Obama. "He got a really good response from the crowd. Everybody seemed to love him. There was a lot of energy amongst the crowd on such a cold and rainy day."
And I heard the sales pitch that Mr. Chomsky pointed out when he said that "the same people who sell you toothpaste sell you the next President of the United States." And I knew that I wanted to vote for Mr. Obama in the next election but I didn't know why until then. But when the show on the radio suddenly started talking about an actor on a popular television show considering his name for the Republican ticket, I knew every mention of the word Reagan was intentional (from a radio station I considered to be unbiased).
At the age of 33 my interest in politics absolutely astound me. What I'm piecing together about the process of information being filtered from the AP newswire to appease the advertisers -- I realized that it took me too long to begin to see the world around me for what it really is. And I wondered how my little girl would ever see past the bright lights of the millionaires to see what she was put here to do; or if she would have to wait until her thirties just like her old man.
When I heard Noam mention that "if the War in Vietnam was actually taught in schools the War in Iraq would have never been fought." What little manages to make it to the media struggles to make a mark in the publishing world. As far as the history books which our children study are concerned, the war was fought and America left, with a bunch of hippies doing things kids shouldn't do in between. Thankfully I had He-Man and G.I. Joe to teach me right from wrong. That's more than I can say for my daughter now that the Powerpuff Girls are off the air.
After the three of us managed to inhale a bag full of burritos we bought our tickets to see The Last Mimsy. Up until this point I was assuming we were watching a movie about time traveling bunny rabbits. The plot sounded a lot safer than the rash of Mexican PETA porn we've been watching. By the time we got to the real toys I was amazed. I felt as if I was watching my daughter's generation's Neverending Story; her Dark Crystal, or Labrynth. The crazy part was that the movie inspired every interest I had last Summer -- of the Mayan maps of the universe and the Evolution of our Species.
Every reason why I write this blog is stuffed inside The Last Mimsy. What's more is that those same voices which help guide me through the packaged products my government is selling to me, my daughter now has the most important thing of all to give to our youth: Hope. If my crazy theories are correct, that resonance carries outward and shapes the world around us. The message of the Bush Administration is Terror, which leads to fear -- shaping the very fabric of our DNA and destroying our race.
Bug whispering sounds a hell of a lot cooler.
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