What World is This?

Man oh man yesterday morning I was watching the Today Show while drinking coffee and they were interspersing a segment from one of the aircraft carriers (the crew lined up on board, standing at attention for the duration of the today show, a show of what force, fortitude, attention?) with a segment on The Use of Torture. There was nothing ironic in their presentation of this. There was nothing critical about it, just a candid discussion of The Use of Torture. They were debating minor issues like is it Okay to LEVERAGE a terrorist's CHILDREN to get information. Sure it's okay to send a terrorist or even a suspected terrorist to a country like Egypt because they DO THINGS WE'RE NOT ALLOWED to do here. Sure sleep deprivation is Okay in the U.S.A. no question about that but once you start getting into the really HEAVY HANDED PHYSICAL shit you really need to run a FALSE FLAG operation. I'm really glad that they got the Al Queda guy, and I'm sure that a lot of people would like to see him tortured to death but the fact that the chirpy tea-drinking hostess of the Today show is talking so matter of factly and cheerily about The Use of Torture while the entire crew of an aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea stands at attention for the Today Show's weatherman, well that just scares the living shit out of me.

Which reminds me to recommend that Wallace Shawn's play The Designated Mourner be taught in high schools. I just have this eerie sensation that the dystopia Shawn described in that play is here already.

Coffee, bran flakes, decorating tips, and The Use of Torture.

Bush reiterates that he shall not be moved by protests against the War. Kissenger calls the fact that members of the NATO alliance are working against the U.S. effort to get the U.N. to rubberstamp a war resolution a moral outrage. Many American restaurants are dropping the “French” from their “fries.”

I went to New York a couple weeks back and walked Central Park in the rain. Old snow was melting and the joggers were all stern-faced. There's going to be a war for no clear reason, we're getting torture for breakfast, many many people are unemployed and the New York I remembered seemed gone, in its place a sad city, anxious and gray.

I miss the nineties. Remember that optimism and that ridiculous energy? Manhattan was teeming with it. I want 1999 back again.

The winter has been hard and long, I can't wait for spring, except for the fact that the blossoms will be greeted with daisy cutters and spectacular explosions viewed from afar. We're unlikely to smell the burning flesh on the nightly news.

All of this makes me sad.