scrapiana

Most blogs are created for the purpose of bitching and moaning. Now I'll readily admit some do celebrate the joys of knitting or the wonders of golf. I'm sure that someone is covering the excitement of philately. I actually saw a blog yesterday devoted to the presentation of a daily adorable kitten photo. Yes, there are a lot of sweet and happy posts out there...but I am in a phase of life where situational depression is just another term for waking up every day.

Since I have two blogs...this one and Kitty Shroedinger's Box (see sidebar); I have determined that one shall be for complaints about the world in general (bitching)...meaning those events that I find either outrageous, but rather remote from my sphere of influence, while the other blog will pertain to my own personal woes (moaning).

Henceforth, Scrapiana is being transformed from literary scraps to reflections of public scrapings and Kitty's box will contain my personal droppings.

Of course that does not mean that I will necessarily be any more regular in my postings. But at least I have determined a purpose that reflects my current mood.

Rant du Jour

Word of the moment...funicular. It's common enough I suppose, but I just like the way it sounds. A mechanical rail car designed to conquer steep inclines. Prone to breakdown, like all kinds of man made contraptions. My proposal however, is to use it as an general adjective in politics. It somehow implies a complex-clunky-funky/nuclear slightly foul and obscene process. It has an echo of ontomonpoesy. Maybe I had too much oatmeal in my childhood, when I learned the word or there might have been a personal trauma, now thoroughly repressed, that I unconsciously associate with it...funicular.

Yes indeed, the funicular aspirations of our leaders are obvious. Take Karl Rove and his boy George. A funicular pairing, if I ever saw one. Georgie's cable is currently tangled up over his administration's lack of adequate disaster plans, and his car is rapidly sliding downhill. To be fair, I dont know if anyone on the planet has adequate plans for much of anything. But this current clown show is just not funny at all. All the posturing and outright lying (as in 'no one could have foreseen that the levees would break'), all the cutesy promises and speechifying about how the South is gonna rise again....barf. Rise again on whose backs Georgie;the backs of impoverished children or on the seniors trapped in their nursing home beds as the waters of Medicare costs rise? Will your 'billions for reconstruction' flow like the sewage in the streets of NOLA into the gaping maws of your corporate best buds? Will the new New Orleans rise up on the shredded scaffoldings of a gutted Social Security System or a disenfranchised EPA? Do you actually have any real plans at all, George? Will they be as effective as your grand scheme for folding FEMA into Homeland Security?

Oh yeah, with this administration's talent for political management, be assured that there will certainly be uprisings. Just dont be so sure that the boys from Blackwater and Halliburton will be able to handle the job next time.

Am I dissapoined? bitter? cynical?
yes...and I am just another citizen.
...who votes...
regularly. And I am not the only one who feels this way.

I dont really hold out much hope for the Dems abilities either. Will America 'send in the clones' next year? Who or what manchurian option will the people be manipulated into voting for/against? Last time around we were titillated into upholding family values and opposing threats of gay marriage. Meanwhile matters of genuine value like global poverty and climate change were smothered with the cries of 'terrorists-terrorists-terrorists'.

We are surely ripe for a populo/fascist solution...indeed these are dangerous times. It is going to take real leadership to put the car back on the tracks...and I just hope we dont get fooled or cheated again.

I'll send help to the refugees, but I'm counting the moments until the next election when we'll all be able to send our government some real assistance by hopefully electing some competent leaders. Unless of course, God sends a message via Osama or the weather..or whatever and martial law could finally be declared. I fear some folks in Washington would probably like that, it would make their jobs so much easier.

Anyway, here's my current note of advice for the boys and girls inside the beltway-this is of course if everything stays relatively stable and we get to have another election. (maybe even a real clean one this time)

Be prepared to find a day job, and pray for a living wage. Better yet, why dont you do yourselves a favor and pass a living wage law now? After all, where do you suppose your funicular aspirations are going to take you?