News
Sometimes its easy to forget that not everyone has a job that pays them to sit around on the internet all day and keep abreast of current events. And I guess not everyone goes home and watches CNN Headlines News all night or sits around drinking coffee and reading newspapers either (although if they did I think people wouldn’t be half as dumb as they are these days), and thus, the general youthful populace seems to have an, at best, tenuous grasp of the current state of world affairs. Even people who do sit around all day on the internet, tend to know more about what their internet friend who they’ve never even met than the recent Chinese military build-up or the impending shift of power in the United States Supreme Court. And though it’s not my business to tell someone else what they should or should not be doing in their free time, I for one find it exceptionally disappointing when you try to talk to some dude on the street about whatever news of the day and they look at you like you just said some shit in Latin. Luckily for me, I just so happen to be in a position to do something about this. By usually writing about drinking booze, doing stupid shit, emo bands and other meaningless garbage, I have successfully conned people into taking the time to read this space while they’re taking a dump or eating a slice or whatever. And most of these same people, who know the difference between whisky and whiskey or exactly when A New Found Glory became just New Found Glory, couldn’t tell you shit about the recent record rainfall in Bombay, India ( over 32 inches in one fucking day!) or how the cops in London shot a Brazilian electrician to death at point blank range because they thought he was a suicide bomber. So this week, I’ve decided to, very briefly, run down a few of the more compelling stories making headlines this week.
China: The Chinese military are currently preparing to eat your babies and drop nuclear bombs on American suburbs because that’s what they wish they had. Well I guess the first part is not exactly true, but the second part is. A leading member of the Chinese government recently declared that the Chinese military was more than ready to use nuclear weapons on American cities, which is kind of scary if you ask me. Less nefarious but equally interesting is a recent trend in Chinese housing projects to mimic the suburban tract housing all-to-familiar to Californians, right down to the tasteless Western-themed décor.
Supreme Court: With the recent resignation of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, President Bush now has the opportunity to appoint himself a judge to America’s highest court, which is incidentally a lifetime position. Though many thought that this would be yet another step in the Republican Party’s dream of becoming the Christian Taliban, Bush’s eventual pick, John Roberts seems like he might almost be almost fair. I guess when people are brimming with joy that a judge on America’s highest court might actually uphold the laws regardless of his personal spiritual beliefs its kind of a sad day. Even sadder for some (but happy for others!) is the fact that the poor health of Chief Justice William Rehnquist means that the President will probably get at least one more appointment to the high court before he is done. Make of this what you will.
The World is Pissed: Regardless of whether you believe in God, Jesus, Allah or whoever, you have to admit that whatever power controls our world is seriously pissed. Record heat in America, record rainfall in India, and an increasingly longer and worse hurricane season in the Atlantic are just the more recent evidence in the now accepted FACT that global warming, or more precisely, global climate change is taking place. There was a story on CNN the other day about Midwest farmers, who are suffering through one of the worst droughts in recent memory, a drought that is killing crops, cutting yields and threatening their prosperity. But I couldn’t help but laughing, albeit in a sad way, at all their boo-hooing and “my life is ruined” whining. These are the same people that, for as long as there has been an environmental movement, have sought to block it; who probably all drive Chevy Tahoe’s and Ford F-350s with giant tires that get 3 miles a gallon; who run diesel water pumps day and night with no emission regulations; who grow federally subsidized crops that we don’t need and get paid overly inflated prices for their crops at taxpayer expense but rail against “welfare” at every opportunity; who pour pesticides into the land and air without a second thought. But now that their soy beans aren’t growing and they might not be able to afford their new truck this year, man! Something must be done! It’s like the people back in Willows, who constantly complain about how the hunting has “gone to shit,” and that there’s not hardly a duck to be found anywhere as they harvest their 1000 acres of rice that just happens to be planted on what used to be one of the busiest migratory bird routes anywhere but now is just a cog in what’s left of the rapidly crumbling US agricultural economy. But hey, if farming gets too tough, they can always just build a couple thousand shitty tract homes on that land. Because if you can count on anything in this world today, its that people—American, Chinese, Hindu, whoever—are always gonna want some shitty house to park their fucking big stupid car and raise their fat stupid kids. Feel informed?
