I'm between thoughts at the moment. Reading Boer on Henri Lefebvre has left me in a bit of quandary. I really want to say . . . something . . . but there are a whole host of reasons why I keep hesitating.
The State of the Union gave me very little new to think about. Forced to sit in my car on the way to work and listen to a bunch of stupid people talk about the speech made me wonder if NPR could be prosecuted for mass murder; all that stupid, reaching out through the radio, sucking the life out of thousands of listeners, left gasping out their final breaths wishing the last thing they heard had not been Mara Liasson droning on about how much "people" care about the deficit. Had NPR decided to put Cokie Roberts in the same studio with Liasson, we might well have had the first intellectual black hole form, a stupid singularity drawing in even more American listeners, trapped and never allowed to exit.
John Boehner, pressed to say something contrary, claimed the President said nothing about "American exceptionalism". The entire speech was a paean to American exceptionalism, which means either Boehner wasn't listening or decided to say something meaningless to make conservative Republicans happy. Forced to choose, I think it is probably the latter.
Sarah Palin says the USSR won the space race. Because Democrats were in control of the country at the time, and wanted us to lose, just like they wanted us to lose in Vietnam. I made that last part up, but it makes a kind of insane sense.
Rather than winning the future, I'd much rather win the past. The future will take care of itself.
On a more serious note, I think it would be nice if discussions of the Tucson shootings would name those killed, rather than refer to them in passing. Since we still have little to no idea what prompted Jared Loughner to do what he did, for all we know the dead federal judge, or 9-year-old girl, or some other of the dead may have been his intended target. Their lives are in need of more than just a passing mention as we follow the recovery of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
I will admit that I doubt it will happen, but a Tunisian-style uprising in Saudi Arabia would be more earth-shaking, and more welcome by many (including me) than anything since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in that region of the world. Why the US would prop up a dictatorial hereditary monarchy in the face of a popular uprising may force the US to stand aside. If it should happen. The ripples from the Tunisian revolution have yet to settle.
I have great friends and family, and without a doubt the most beautiful wife and most marvelous children. I am truly a blessed man.
On that rather smarmy personal note, I think I'll sign off for now.
