WHERE SHE STOPS NOBODY KNOWS

little waterfall

Hearing the so-called news cracks me up any more. Got into a day of several hours before a canvas getting a new one going. NPR talk radio on, Diane Rehm, World Have Your Say, The World and some others I didn't pay much attention to. The soothing quality of white noise, human voices talking nonsense syllables in the background, what I'm doing with the brush in the foreground. So far, it's ok, but it needs a lot of work. I laughed like it was comedy central. The recession, the worst since the Great Depression, is "officially ended." My first thought: is this the next Mission Accomplished? Makes good tv. Except nobody who works for a living believes it. Because it's so difficult to believe I suppose they had to give it the label, "officially." Thus Spake Propaganda Central. If you believe this, it doesn't really matter if you do or if you don't, I tell myself, it's a leap of faith. And I don't have that much faith in the people who make such pronouncements we're expected to believe just because They said it.

Often today I heard the word change batted about like a tennis ball. Much of it had to do with democracy Iran. The various people talking, "activists," in Turkey for democracy, fighting for democracy in anti-democratic places, they'll be beating their heads against prison walls soon, questioning if it was, not to mention worth it, anything other than stupid. I expect in a Turkish or Iranian prison as a political prisoner they'll come to the conclusion they were stupid before the end of the first day. I don't get this notion that Democracy can be enforced by military take-over against a people's will to the point the people become the enemy, especially when it is the anti-democratic forces back home in the US of A that are spreading Democracy by killing as many people as possible, calling people fighting for their own country insurgents and terrorists. It's become something of a b&w John Wayne movie with a heavy metal soundtack. Talking about change. They want change. Change is good.

I'm hearing "change" more and more from people talking in the news. This is how it happens. When the need for change reaches the point of civil unrest, the measure of the given dictator is recorded by what comes next. Whichever way it goes, it's change. I am in the midst of a culture that has faded away before my eyes, and I see that all over the world. In Mongolia the people that herded sheep, camels and lived in the grasslands, one place in winter, another in summer, in balance with the natural world, have had to move to the cities, because that old way of life doesn't work anymore. But the cities don't work either. Desert is taking over Inner Mongolia under Chinese supervision. Plenty of change there. I live among people who don't want change, who want to hang on to the old ways that were moral where people seemed to have some use for one another, very different from the culture that is moving in, changing the culture such that kids dress like California kids. Walmart. Corporate culture informed entirely by corporate sponsored tv.

Another news item that held my attention, a prosecutor someplace charged with texting the wife of the man he was prosecuting, "Meet me at an autopsy wearing high heels." That's not all, just the one that executed his credibility. Either the guy has a zany sense of humor or he's severely twisted. I'm inclined to suppose the latter. Things are changing fast in his life about now, caught being stupid. A couple days ago I saw on YouTube a scene from an elevator camera of a young Asian girl with a backpack getting on and punching the button for her floor. A guy comes running and gets in just in time. When the elevator arrived at her floor and the door opened, he punched the button to close the door and set about attacking her with rape his intent. She pummeled the hell out of him. When the door opened he scrambled to get up and out of there. He ran down the hall. She ran after him. One of the many great YouTube moments like the dog dancing merengue with a smile on her face the whole time, doing what she loved doing most, dolphins blowing bubble rings, the Rolling Stones doing King Bee live, Joy Division doing Transmission live.

A lot of talk about the internet making changes, because an individual voice has great possible distribution, talk about the democracy of the web. So one side of a given argument can be presented well on the internet. It's counter argument has the same forum. Where is the advantage? It strikes me as the ideal entertainment. I can fuss with it for hours, watching something 3 minutes, 2 minutes, 5 minutes, and the time goes by. I find comedy on there almost as funny as the news. You can see Lyndon Johnson lying with a straight face to the American people about the Gulf of Tonkin non-incident. At least he left office in disgrace. I think when I paint tomorrow I'll play Philip Glass's Einstein On The Beach. I heard enough news to last me awhile. It was a humorous day, laughing at the lies I'm expected to believe, lies I would make myself believe if I were on the climb, but I am comfortable with no status and surely don't want to get in the climb up the assets ladder where everyone is known by their net worth and pretend self-image. Like David Bowie said in a song, "Gonna be some strange changes." Things are changing so fast now I don't know what to but hang five and see where it's going.