Tempus Fugit

It's been one of those fortnights where everything electronic and utility-oriented has been futzing, I'm afraid, (oh thank you, Shaw and Fido) and since I don't like to post from work, things have been quiet. At least I've got my phone working again...

News in brief:

1) The car is working nicely, thank you.

2) I'm currently sorting out some "miscellaneous" boxes that have become jumbled full of things-post Japan, Japan, Juanabees, Grad pictures (both grads), programs of shows I was in, programs of shows my friends were in, you name it. These are those stereotypical "last boxes to be packed" at the very end of a move where the box is the only thing available , so it inevitably shatters later and the items get mixed in another box, and so on, and...slowflowing chaos. Wrenching, wearying worktrying to sift it. And then I think about how I get to pack my life back up again in boxes in...9 or 10 months? Dee-lightful.

3)The family is well.

4)The cat is fascinated with our bathroom doin's. No, I have no idea why.

Gathering of the Wryes

So I was over on the Island on the weekend to see some long lost relatives, and had a blast. The sailing was on time, Georgia Strait was like glass, and the weather was warm enough I could stay ondeck for more of the two hour voyage in a muscle shirt. Paradise. Everyone is hale and healthy, and sends their love.

(Disclaimer: Wrye is not our actual family name, although it is, I am given to understand, a name with a proud lineage of its own that I first accidentally appropriated way back in the heady days of 1998.)

Anyway, when three wings of the clan Wrye gather, politics get discussed. When my right-wing Albertan and Island cousins are in agreement with me and mine, it's a rare event. And we all agree we're all mighty angry about New Orleans indeed. But I presume you've read all about that catalogue of murderous incompetence by now...

In other news, Lady Wrye hasn't been impressed with my blogging efforts so far.

"I'm hardly in it at all", she says.

I try to explain that this is a blog about comforting the uncomfortable, discomfiting the powerful, and witnessing history, but she's having none of it.

"It's all facts and news and things. Where's your sense of humour? Why isn't it more like Fafblog?"

Well, I explain, there already is a Fafblog, but she assures me I'm even funnier. Hrm.

Later I check my email, and there's three messages from Fafblog, wanting to get ahold of Lady Wrye to confirm that they're going to see the soup poets exhibit on Wednesday.

Bloody Fafblog. I hate those guys.

What makes me Canadian...

1) The sudden urge to see the government announce it will be taking in a number of refugees from hurricane Katrina;

2) Not wanting to post this on any of the very shouty America blogs I frequent, so as not to contribute to the problem.

Still, if PM PM were do announce this, I'd cheerfully have his baby, biology be damned...

Await Lightning

We of Gen X have been waiting for doomsday since we first grasped the concept, so I suppose we're stopped clocks on the subject of zero hour--right twice a day at best. For us, it will always be 12-31-99, waiting for the bomb to fall. So we're pessimists by nature, but on the other hand, I find myself somehow primed in times of war and disaster, overdosing on information. Trying to understand what the hell is going on. And the thought occurs:

Is it just me, or has American discourse completely disintegrated?

I don't mean it in that tiresome "America is going down the tubes" sense, either. Wolf wolf wolf wolf wolf. I just find it hard to read anything on an American website that doesn't disntegrate into partisan screaming.

Well of course it does, you say. But look, that's not normal. In most countries, if the government fumbles in a crisis, you criticize the government. If Ottawa messes up, whoever is in charge wears it. It's that simple. It doesn't make you a Conservative to criticize Paul Martin, PM, anymore than criticizing Mulroney made you a liberal--he's your employee. You have the right and the obligation to criticize the PM.

So, Katrina.

Looking at the hard questions that are starting to emerge over the failure of leadership south of the border-criticizing the government's response seems to instantaneously trigger counter-accusations of "seizing the moment for partisan adavantage", "Is there anything you won't seize on to discredit Bush?" and the like. Democrats are burning with righteous fury, Republicans are indignant (so much so it suggests fear and denial) and the entire media coverage of the tragedy seems shot through with sensationalism, race, and class. I mean more than usual, o jaded ones. The actual event itself gets lost amid the struggle over the idea of what it will mean. Will GWB wrap himself in the flag once more? Will he get away with it? Will the opposition be able to take advantage? But there is no opposition, now is there? America is angry. Corpses in the streets. The butcher's bill for this will be in the thousands. And George Bush--whose only real job is to show up, look like things are being done, and act, you know, like the goddamn President--plays guitar. My Pet Goat, take 2. It's all completely batf-ck insane.

Well of course it is, you say. America was always that way. But you'd be wrong. America can't long survive like this. Not in the form we've known. There's no longer a there, there. Nature abhors a vacumn--and into it comes...what?

Futurelessness, is what this feeeling is called. Where the hell is this all leading? And can we get past our own apocalypse fixation long enough to do anything about it?







It's finally happened--the blinding flash of Light!

No wait, it was only lightning...

Workin' in the coal mine...

Hmm. I see blogger's interface looks much more sane on IE than Safari...one more temptation to procrastination. bah.

In blogging tonight: When countries go mad.