The Year of the Ostrich

"Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule." 

- Friedrich Nietzsche

The acrid tinfoil taste in our mouths from these ugly times, I imagine, is the same taste that inspired legions of young folks and open minds to take to the road in the late 60's to experience what Kerouac and Ginsberg and Cassady were on about - the hallmark of the culture that bore the hippies and All of That. And rightly so, we are in an Era of Change. These are tipsy times, and it stands to reason that no teetotaller should remain standing. One cannot see with one's eyes closed... I'm looking at you, ostrich.

So the mighty ostrich is our current culture's spirit animal. A beast, a fowl, pretending to be a bush with it's head in the ground. I beam with pride. In the same way that in the 60's, The Man was so dismissive of the beats and that entire un-understandable youth culture, now we see the same dismissive attitude toward Millennials. Their ways confuse us, their motives are subversive, their insatiable appetite for sriracha & avocado flavored Tide Pods is alarming. They stand to destroy everything we stand for, after we finally destroyed everything the previous generation stood for. We can't catch a goddamn break.

Maybe they're onto something. Maybe Facebook should just be a scrapbook between consenting adults, maybe Tide Pods are delicious. They might rise to the occasion, and I hope they do. Because if not, I'm going to wake up one day in something resembling a cold war era Soviet nursing home for criminals and ex-pats eating table-cheese and longing for the days when I could casually unplug my inter-cranial datajack and enjoy the solitude of a quiet, warm, sunlit deck on June morning, without having to report back to our cybernetic AI overlords.

Occupy Sesame Street

What started as an idea that I had in the shower today, actually turned out to be a thing already. From the internet, Occupy Sesame Street:

 

So there's that... but the correlation I intended to draw was much different than this weak meme. It is clear that Occupy Wall Street has legs, and it obviously has sleeping bags - and those sleeping bags have paid off. What was initially written off and subject to a widespread media blackout, has lasted long enough to be taken Not Seriously by various pundits, then written off as un-American, and now, finally, been given credence. 

How the idiot pundits could not get it, I kind of understand. It's like this - those wretched talking head types are so used to The Game, and how ideas are bundled, packaged and gift wrapped into little dumbed-down, bite-sized morsels for mass distribution and consumption, that when a Genuine, Earnest idea makes a splash, they scramble for the Real Meaning, assuming that any political notion is just a sweet candy shell surrounding a bitter, nasty husk of some back-room truth. They can't cope with the possibility that an idea could be, on the face of it, the very idea that it's supposed to represent. Their circuits become scrambled, and there's a waft of blue smoke as the motherboard begins to fry. But, you know, these are our trusted news sources.

So yes, these young people are gathering to be collectively Anti-American, Anti-Capitalism Commies who's main intent is to be a slacker burden on society. OR, they are of the generation who grew up through the Dot Com bubble and a few huge economic dips, and feel disenfranchised by the pervasive notion that a stark few control most of the wealth, while people are losing their homes because the very few rich, when left to their own devices, just couldn't help themselves, and had to defraud and raid the retirement of the middle class. All while shareholders have just enough control of the major employers in the US to ensure that any job worth working gets exported to China in the ever-quest for rising stock values. Like that poor horse in True Grit, American Industry will be ridden until it falls exhausted, only to be shot in the head by Rooster Cogburn, or, in this case, those Super-Wealthy 400 families who, I suppose, will need all that money so they can live on the Moon.

All this while Politicians are doing a very short-sighted version of The Dirty to fill their pockets on what's left of the American Dream, selling off any local government property and revenue that isn't bolted down, so to speak.

Take these raw facts, push them through the Play Doh Spaghetti Factory of Michael Moore and Matt Taibbi and a few other choice voices, you get these little focused pills of rage that the youth eats up like hot cakes. They get mad, they all instinctually know that the system is fucked up, and they organize -  much like their Grandparents did in the Sixties.

And the pundits don't get it. "What does it all mean?" they ask from behind their cheap Formica and pancake makeup. It's like Sesame Street. Sometimes a huge yellow bird reciting the alphabet is just a huge yellow bird reciting the alphabet.

TSA Sexual Revolution

"No place for hidin' baby, no place to run, you pull the trigger of my love gun..." - Kiss

It is no surprise that National Opt Out Day didn't work. In theory, it made sense - the American Public, invigorated by inconvenience and the vague notion that everyone's rights were being trampled, was called to action to Opt Out of the new Airport Body Scan on the most traveled day of the year. This was supposed to bring all travel to a grinding halt and forcing the TSA to abandon the widely criticized Scans.

There was no crash, no grinding halt - and it much had to do with misinformation. The day picked for National Opt Out Day was November 24th, the day before Thanksgiving, which is widely regarded as the most traveled day of the year. Not so according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, who says statistically the most traveled day of the year is the Sunday after Thanksgiving. That's boo number one.

Boo number two is that Americans, when called to action over the internet, will make huge promises to the idea that they would never keep in real life - that's the beauty of the internet. So it was a case of too little too soon... And yet the National Opt Out Day Website claims that it was a "rousing success," siting, as failed causes often do, that the purpose of the event was to "raise awareness."

Well folks, this awareness raising failure doesn't have to be in vain. I have devised a brilliant follow up to the event and I think we could even get corporate sponsorship. The target would be the day after Christmas - the Second Most Traveled Day of the year according to the BTS. The plan is this: Sildenafil Citrate, trade name - Viagra. Every traveler takes the recommended dosage of Viagra a few hours before arriving at the airport. Whether you Opt In or Opt it is of little concern, the boners will have spoken - either in the form of an erotic TSA photo or a romantic pat down. We shall call it National Opt Up Day.

Ladies, I know what you're thinking: Should women participate by taking Viagra, too? Absolutely. Viagra is proven to increase female arousal, so women can act as Pheromone Beacons, mixing with the already potent Male Pheromone Fog, producing a Pheromone Cocktail that would whip the whole Airport into a frenzy. It'd be like the 60's all over again. Sodom and Gomorrah.

I suppose the next step would be to get Pfizer on board. They could help with advertising, perhaps supply samples to the masses. After all this would make brilliant ad campaign for them. Invest now: PFE (NYCE).

EDIT: Thanks Jim for pointing out this relevant link Bad Touch!