"Dead Presidents" by Jay-Z

on the religious right
What is the difference between Pat Robertson and Muqtada Al-Sadr? The latter is a terrorist, calling for the death of our nation's leaders; the former is a man of god, protected by freedom of speech in his calls for the death of another nation's leaders. The punchline? Well, I'm not that great at writing jokes, folks.

By now everyone has heard about Robertson's statements on his late night ABC Family program The 700 Club, so I won't bore you with them here. I will say that these statements are a testiment to the type of hypocrisy we see when politics, especially foreign policy, is combined with a religious worldview. Is it not a tenant of Christianity to love your neighbor and not call for his death? Here, Pat Robertson, a man claiming to be of God, has called upon his country to assassinate the leader of another country. Wow.

So, what is my point? Pat Robertson and the rest of the religious right (i.e. Jerry Falwell, Dr. Dobson, et al.) need to stay in their realm of expertise (i.e. bedtime stories, fairy tales, et al.) and leave the foreign policy decisions up to those in charge. As a matter of fact, get your fat asses out of politics altogether. The country would be a lot better off without your rhetoric involved.

The Jobey Poll
So, how's yer mama?

FRIDAY UPDATE

Yesterday at Colonial Estates, I found the Valkyrie I lost last Saturday at the scramble. Finding that disc gave me a lot of hope for awhile. If the fact that it sat at the bottom of the creek without being discovered for nearly a week doesn't inspire some form of hope in you too, well, you must be a robot. Now, go fix me some dinner, robot.

"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" by Bob Dylan

I'm moving back to Norman tonight. That's right: Tonight. Travelling a 90 mph straight shot under the cover of night to make my untrumpetted return.

The summer is over. The season wears on, but its spirit has been irreparably broken. I sit here in mid-August, when Oklahoma has been known to have 100-degree days coupled with insufferable humidity, and for the last five days there has been a 50% chance of rain, clouds, and upper-70s to mid-80s. If that doesn't bode the end of summer, by God, I don't know what does.

As much as I hate this rotten weather, I must say it's exactly the way I would choose to end this summer if I had the choice. Summer ending just the way I felt through must of it--a constant gloom with the ever-present chance that everything could go to hell and immediately be washed away in a downpour. How's that for your classic metaphor?

This was my summer on the edge. Not so much that I lived all that dangerously, but that I had a hard time coming to an understanding with this summer. I just felt that at any moment an unexpected something, anything, could happen that could send me into a freefall to oblivion which not even a return to school could rescue me from.

I like to say that this has been a summer without a theme, but that isn't true at all. My summer, I believe, touched on some part of the human experience. The loneliness. The fear. The fact that, with all my freetime and imagination, I wound up waking up at noon and playing disc golf everyday from the beginning of July should reach people on a gut level. This is what can happen to anyone without a plan.

I was recently asked to define failure for myself. The answer I came up with was that failure and doing nothing were the same thing. Failure is not in the result of trying, but in not trying at all. By that criterion, this summer cannot be judged a failure, although, plenty of my readers will think otherwise.

I've tried plenty this summer. I was willing to try much more, but fate and resources caused me to fall short. From the two-day job and George Carlin, to Mass Media and American Politics and disc golf, from fantasy draft and "fishing," to walking and therapy, my summer can be called eclectic, hectic, schizophrenic, but never a failure.

I'm lookin' California, but I'm feelin' Minnesota. Oh, yeaaah.

on our nation's legislature
I was just watching some of the hearings on the Liability of File-sharing Software Providers from last week and I got to thinking about another piece of legislation regarding liability that was passed recently. That would be the bill that eliminates liability for gun manufacturers and dealers in the event of crime.

I think I'm missing something here. Congress is worrying enough to slap restrictions on people who make and provide software that allows people to share songs, movies, etc., but they aren't worrying about keeping the gun manufacturers honest with the threat of legal action being sought against them in the event of gun related violence.

Basically, what I'm hearing from Congress at this point is, "We don't want y'all givin' folks a way to swap mp3s all willy-nilly, that's stealin'. But y'all providin' folks a way to kill each other with them guns, y'all are fine."

The gun industry has bought itself a big win, and the record industry looks to be doing the same. I guess all the families with uninsured children across the country can learn something from these scrappy Little Interests That Could: With enough hard work and tenacity and huge soft money donations, you can get anything you want from a Republican majority.

on the sweetness
Dude, seriously: I'm looking California. And, I am beginning to feel decreasingly Minnesota, as Chris Cornell might so eloquently put it. I'm jogging again, I'm lifting, I'm trying to eat right. Plus I'm starting to get a bit of a tan. My hair is still bad-ass. I ditched the laze-growth beard I was rocking in July.

School's about to start up, which will give me a reason to wake up in the morning. I know that sounds bad, but it's very true. Being a bum has taken a toll this summer, but I think I'm getting back on track. I feel pretty content. Maybe my feelings are getting drawn back toward the coast along with my look. Or at least they'll be in Wyoming or Colorado, you know.