Every time we seem to make any progress as a species, we tend to immediately slump back from the effort, exhausted. Then, we invent something to take care of the new problem we've created from our initial efforts, and go on with our lives -- satisfied with a job well done.
In other places and times, this might have been called playing to a draw, but in our country, it's usually called Progress.
One of the most hair-raising and intriguing dances is life itself, of course -- although global climate change, religious conflicts and wars of all kinds are spine-chilling, too. Those dances are all still in continuous motion, as is the case with the most intricate, hypnotic motions.
Here are some steps I've fallen over lately, ( just call me Dances with Gooney Birds ), and which have yielded curious results on examination:
For example, who would have ever thought it possible that this sentence was true: White Castle restaurants, Blue Bell ice cream, Dixie cups, rooms at the Marriott, and Angel Soft bath tissue are bad for America?
And that's not all: Waffle House, Gold's Gym, Brawny paper towels, and catching some flicks at Regal Cinemas aren't much good for the country, either.
The cause? They all feed right-wingnut attack ads.
If you're all right with that sort of thing, you should party a little harder with your brands, and help ratchet up the din and the roar of the political crowds and crews. (There are more levels and layers beyond our mere, current "Psychotic" reading that -- believe it or not -- the current political attack-ad climate has not yet quite reached.)
If you're not so fine with such things, you should check out the list of brands who support such actions, then decide if you want to support them with your actions.
Rev up your favorite search engine that gives you good mileage (or smile-age) per search, and go fishing, go a layer deeper than the reflexes Madison Avenue installed in your brain with each brand that comes to mind. (There's a beginning link, below.)
- One step back: Citizens United, drowning the political system in cash.
- One step forward: All one thing, but going by various names -- information, ease of access via internet, a desire to know, a desire to take responsibility for one's own actions, to want to know more about what we choose to do or not do.
After all, mindless decisions are still decisions. It's the dance we all do. Failure to partake in the dance usually means the dance music you like least will probably come to stay a long while. (All the worst options seem to always be designed to take the path of least resistance -- and greatest human weakness -- for some mysterious reason.)
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OK, new example: Religion. Humans continue to do cartwheels and twirls around this subject, square-dancing and round-dancing so fast, it's difficult to tell which steps are forward and which ones are back.
Some of the steps back: Panicky thoughts and actions that lead people to believe their local way of life -- businesses, courts, schools, government in general -- are soon to be suffocated under Shariah Law. (There is a lot of this in the south. Is it the heat -- or the rigidity? The cupidity? Lividity?)
Then, we had the death of a Catholic cardinal in Milan not long ago. In the last interview he gave before his death (make of that timing what you will, of course), he said the Catholic Church was "200 years out of date." (The Vatican has always been conservative. Speaking as one raised Catholic, I'd place that figure closer to a thousand. Still, a little fresh air is not a bad thing there, and I'd recommend tons more.)
Then, there was the recent death of Sun Myung Moon, who had set up the Unification Church, often accused of brainwashing members, marrying paired strangers they'd selected, busting up families, and pocketing all that they could in the process.
(Great Caesar's Gold! Shades of TBN!)
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For some time now, it's been comforting to realize we can get all the latest news from comedians, as all the mainstream media and anchors have opted to do comedy.
There was an especially embarrassing piece of business, if you'd missed it, at the DNC in Charlotte: Religion was trying to get slipped back in as a plank in the platform. If you were looking for a classy operation, here is where it walked its own plank, tanked, and sank.
It took three tries to jam religion back into the platform, over loud opposition that appeared to have been utterly ignored on each of three voice votes.
Thank goodness Jon Stewart had already commented that there was a renewed vigor for Democratic spine-growing, just in time to, um, collapse, as it were, on this pre-determined point -- voice vote or no.
Still, it was a bright spot for eye-rollers whenever God's name is invoked for a few mandatory seconds, then put away again.
The Democrats' performance here may be the beginning of a new rule, joining, No running with office scissors around the edge of the pool! The new one might be something like, No running for office in America without some mention around the edges of God!
So much for separation of church and state.
* * * * *
A last example of our crazy human dance, although the point is admittedly stretched on this one:
Many people thought -- and still think -- that nuclear power is a horrendous mistake, a real step backward, if things go desperately wrong at a generating plant.
Most people tend to subscribe, or re-subscribe, to those ideas periodically -- say, around the times of still-active catastrophes, like Chernobyl and Fukushima.
Here's where the point becomes stretched: There's a story of a nuclear growth that has everyone scratching their heads. This new webby growth has a fondness for spent nuclear fuel.
To suggest some goo found in Georgia is a step forward is likely premature -- but, then... Who can know?
Maybe it's a new life form that enjoys that diet just enough to consume all the nuclear waste we've been forced to stash and warehouse -- having no other options or ideas -- since we turned on the first commercial nuclear power plant in 1958.
If so, I hope this new form of life has a really great appetite. We're predicted to have 72,000 tons of the stuff by 2015. Plus, I hope it's easy to deal with. Most other "solutions" used by humans generally trigger new problems.
(Kudzu, anyone? Or, how about the extinction-level consumption of tortoises started by pirates in the 17th century at Galapagos, not to mention the problems their ship-borne rats brought to those islands and still create to this day?)
Well, if nothing else, the Georgia Whatzit has me craving some 1950's sci-fi radiation movies, shot in black and white -- comfort food of a sort: rare and classic cheese worthy of any connoisseur's pursuit.
Let us hope these films remain the fiction of their times, via Hollywood, and not actually be the remnants of an era filled with predictive, prophetic, time-travel-driven documentaries.
To put it in stark relief, in black and white, that would be way too much of a good thing, and probably way too far a step back for any of us already-reeling dancers to handle.
Consumer brands:
http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/07/19/543801/consumer-brands-conservative-attack-ads/
Religion:
http://www.npr.org/2012/09/03/159378918/fears-about-shariah-law-take-hold-in-tennessee
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/02/catholic-church-archbishop-martini
Moon & TBN:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19459604
http://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/2012/03/23742/
Dems' platform & Stewart:
Nuclear growth:
http://chronicle.augusta.com/news/metro/2012-09-06/srs-nuclear-growth-biological-what-does-it-eat
