jims musings

Saw this in my local gro­cery. Some­how, I was reminded of “Where’s Waldo?”

I’ve been say­ing this for years now, but am only now get­ting around to post­ing this thought online.

Mankind has reached the pin­na­cle of soci­ety. Actu­ally, we prob­a­bly reached it around 1980, give or take a decade.
It is this: Air con­di­tion­ing, tele­vi­sion and beer. These three things keep Amer­i­cans (and other west­ern cul­tures) sedate and com­pla­cent. Take one away, and every­thing will come unglued.
“Why should I go out there and protest? It’s much more com­fort­able here, in my Lazy Boy.” These three com­forts rep­re­sent the pin­na­cle of soci­ety. After obtain­ing these lux­u­ries– really, what is there to com­plain about?
Think about it. Where do we see mass protests? Coun­tries where this magic recipe is incom­plete. In west­ern coun­tries, in the rare rally or demon­stra­tion, who is involved? Largely the poor, or peo­ple who eschew the ben­e­fits of mod­ern life. (Yeah, you gra­nola I-don’t-eat-it-if-it-casts-a-shadow peo­ple, I’m talk­ing about you.) Lets call these ABC — Air con­di­tion­ing, Beer and Cable TV. There are vari­a­tions, of course, but it cap­tures the essen­tials.
The dan­ger is, gov­ern­ments are aware of this fact, and will exploit it. This sounds evil, but the iron law will require it. Gov­ern­ment will expand and increase its pow­ers, and it will do so along the path of least resis­tance. Gov­ern­ments have already learned they can do almost any­thing, so long as ABC is pre­served.
Ask your­self this ques­tion: what are you will­ing to let peo­ple get away with, if they leave your ABC alone?

Dear Ms. (Mrs?) Spears–
Your life is a mess, and truth­fully, it is intrud­ing upon mine. Please stop doing… what­ever it is that you do these days and go find a quiet place and recu­per­ate from your woes. I am sorry that your life stinks, but it stinks for me, too. There are far more impor­tant things going on than your hair, your career or who has cus­tody of your chil­dren. I under­stand this is blunt and you are not used to being talked to this way, but there it is.
Frankly, if you can han­dle some con­struc­tive crit­i­cism, you should just walk away from the dis­as­ter your life has become. Some will crit­i­cize your for ‘aban­don­ing’ your chil­dren, but they do now belong to your ex. You can’t aban­don some­thing you don’t have. Go find a quiet lit­tle town some­place. Mon­tana would be good– it’s remote, peo­ple will ignore you and the paparazzi will soon get bored of fol­low­ing you around. Buy a Ford Truck and blend in. Get to know reg­u­lar peo­ple. Redis­cover your­self. Maybe in a few years, you can begin a new career in coun­try music.
What­ever you do, ignore the likes of Madonna or Paris. They haven’t been good to you.
Should you not heed my advice, should you remain on you cur­rent course, I’m afraid you’re going to end up a less-glamorous ver­sion of Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe, or per­haps Princess Diana. This out­come seems nearly inevitable, unless some­thing dras­tic occurs. Like Mon­tana. (The Car­oli­nas are nice, too.) I am espe­cially adverse to this, as it would result in a vast increase in pub­lic­ity (not all of it good, and none you would be in a posi­tion to enjoy) which would be dis­taste­ful to me. Though our needs be dif­fer­ent, I’m assum­ing we have sim­i­lar goals regard­ing this.
Drop me a line; I can give you details on how to get away from your present predica­ments. Please. I’m tired of see­ing your name– and your life– in headlines.

Par­en­thet­i­cally, I won­der what Google will make of the con­tent of this posting?