I got a little self conscious yesterday when I was on the subway carrying a small package with no distinguishing markings on it. Plus when I looked up at the LED display it was giving the message about being aware of suspicious packages. Perhaps it’s just my own paranoia, but I felt like there were more eyes on me than usual.
Whenever I hear these announcements I feel like we’re only this far away from that droning voice that exists in so many stories or movies about a dystopian future. It’s like in the Simpsons when Marge says “You know, Fox turned into a hardcore sex channel so gradually I didn’t even notice!” Like from this perfectly legitimate announcement we’ll eventually turn us into a completely paranoid society where we’ve allowed Homeland Security to violate even more of our basic rights in the name of our own safety. That’s when we’ll have the voice like the ice cream truck in Invader Zim which drones on “You like ice cream. You love it. Your life is meaningless without ice cream…” But for you know, things other than ice cream.
I saw a random bag inspection desk for the first time today at my subway station. I didn’t get stopped though, thin Asian guys with glasses don’t exactly look like primary terrorist suspects these days. It’d be interesting to hear the briefing these guys get, because we all know it must be something like “Okay, so you’ll be checking mostly the bags of Arab guys obviously, but try to get a black or white person every now and then so it can look like we’re still being somewhat random. But try not to stop a white person if you can help it. Also, stopping old people gets us on the news so don’t stop them either.”
I understand why people feel the need to visit Ground Zero. Obviously living here it doesn’t need to feel any more real to me since both I was there when it happened and I’ve already been down there for other reasons. When I hear people saying they’re going to go visit Ground Zero I just picture them going down there and realizing there’s really nothing to see, because if you didn’t have the connect of what it looked like before then you really might as well have visited an empty lot.
Debates are a good idea, if only they mattered. Obviously no one is going to say anything or fess up to anything that puts them in the wrong. It only matters if what people want to hear you say is better than what they want to hear the other guy say. Did that make any sense at all? Because I’m realizing it didn’t sound like it made much sense. Basically your bullshit has to sound better than their bullshit, there, that’s clear.
Even then though, if you won the debate it doesn’t seem to matter all that much in the end. General consensus seemed to be that Kerry did a better job discussing the issues than Bush did, even if no one was awake in the end to realize it. Then even after all that the vote wasn’t rocked, the young people didn’t get out to vote and Bush still won. So what’s the moral of this story? Move to Canada, better healthcare.
Not too much to say about this one, just that it really happened. I was at the AMC Empire theater in Times Square and the line ended up being hugely long. Thank god for the fools who go to the movies and sit in the way back. I was able to get the seats that I usually get close to the front. My favorite is when there are two sections of seats, and the front row of the back section usually has a railing you can put your feet on.
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