But like your own brain droppings, it's my bullshit.

Always kindest regards,

z

I wish you wouldn't have been so perceptive, because, after all, in the end, Hobbs did stike out trying to regain his lost youth and optimism.

z

And you are welcome to it.

Jack

Had I not also found a certain beauty in this babble, I would not be so convinced we are capable of better. Tit for tat implies a certain frivolity of motive. Give and take concerns itself with a regard to the truth; as I see it.

z

I just love reading your writings.

Thanks for doing it.

And I hope zuko is correct about the tit-for-tat stuff being replaced.

Freditor: Check, please!

No sarcasm here. Let's get busy.

Part of the problem here at the Fray, z, is that the "kids" honestly don't have a clue as to how we got here.

For example, here are the lyrics to a very famous song that Frank Sinatra sang at Reagan's second inauguration ceremonies:

<link>

A beautiful American sentiment, right? How could it not be "unAmerican?" It was sung by freakin Frank Sinatra at a Reagan inaugural ceremony.

But here, as Paul Harvey says, is the rest of the story that the "kids" here don't know:

<link>

The blacklisted guy who wrote the music, Earl Robinson, is the same guy I mentioned to watt4bob in my post here:

<link>

It's going to be very difficult to get the "kids" to realize that the pitiful choices they're being offered now are the result of a tremendously successful "BigLie" campaign waged right here in the US from 1918-1980, or whenever the "Wall" came down.

Goebbels himself couldn't have done better, and he had all the overt apparatus of the SS behind him.

I am glad you enjoy them. I am.

Without giving away a secret, I try to write things people enjoy reading. As a cook enjoys a table of faces, or a candle maker basks in the heat and spice of a quiet evening cutting the darkness.

z

Does anybody else hear the music to "We didn't start the fire?" as you read this?

No we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it...

It's been burning since the world's been turning...(That line isn't exactly right.)

But yeah, I'm the next generation, and as I round off my early twenties, it is slowly hitting me that the stubborn teenager I once knew who said they could solve the world's problems was wrong.

But, but, but... everyday is new! I don't mind new wrinkles as long as they're not all on my face.

Great musings even if they are a bit jaded.

MichaelRyerson:

"My life didn't turn out the way I expected."

Mine neither, but then I didn't expect it would.

I don't get the words you are using. You have a scale with "frivolity of motive" on one end and "regard for truth" on the other -- but the two aren't really antonyms. Plenty of frivolous posts are true, and plenty of false posts (meaning -- posts that contain incorect information) are serious. Plus, you can't know motives. You imply a correspondence between style and substance that I don't see. People who act like jerks are often right.

But mainly, I don't think there can be any consensus about whether a given post fits your categories or not. It's very, very common that a strongly worded post will seem to some like a stand for truth and to others like snark. Attempts to make us better will seem to many as dragging us down.

I'm boring even myself. If I were to evaluate your top post, I would say it is one of the few lately that I've really enjoyed. I also think it's mostly wrong. My conclusion: truth does not equal beauty.

One of the best posts I have ever read, thank you, Zuko.

Oh, you do know that garbage incubated with solar produced hydrogen, a bit of heat and a catalytic converter produces oil, don't you ? Be very careful to exclude (most) oxygen.

Most of us already like the nonsense. And if the right and left abandon 'positions' for 'observations' that does everyone good (pretty much your main point, said better than I ever could).

So.... things are pretty good ... bargain real estate in California too.

Dr. Matt

(who, at age 50 is far cuter and runs 5 miles faster than when he was in High School).

I'm glad you enjoyed the read.

Not really sure where the Cali real estate comes in, but funny you should mention it. I left California, along time ago, to see the world. I did. A lot of it. In the end, all I found out was that I could sit on Pier 39 in SF, drink a coffee before the tourist's show up and then drive less than 5 hours in any direction and see 8 out of my top ten places on the planet.

I envy that you own a piece of it.

z