Click images for desktop size: "The Lava Pit" by Ravena A lot of years ago I was in Paris. A bunch of French and Italian friends of mine all went to a restaurant. It was a middling fancy one. Pricey but not absurd.
A big table was filled with about 8 loud Americans. They were from Kansas. High school teachers on a two week vacation. I was sure of this because they told anyone who passed by their table. They always said it in English. As most of the people in the restaurant didn't speak, or at least acknowledge that they spoke, English my countrymen's solution was to shout each word distinctly and slowly, as if they were talking to a slow student.
For the 30 minutes we were in the restaurant with the school teachers I heard them insult the culture of the French, the Italians and the Jews.
They did it loudly, arrogantly and with a smile and a laugh. They talked to everyone, especially those who tried to avoid and ignore them. The hostility they were generating was palpable. After an insult they kept saying things like "I bet you don't see much courtesy like this. It takes an American to show you how."
When they eventually got around to me i just called them "bloody foreigners" which got a big laugh from my table but didn't do much to ease my embarrassment.
That was one of the few times I've been ashamed to be an American.
Yesterday was another.
Yesterday a new law was passed. A law that destroys the Constitution. It permits the government to spy on us at their whim. It allows giant corporations to spy on us at their whim.
This law removes protection and it removes redress. It means were consumers and we have no standing other than to consume and to be consumed.
Barrak Obama voted for this odious law.
Now I have to find another candidate to vote for.
I can't vote for McCain. He's looking more and more like the slime that our nation presently reveres.
I can't understand why the Democrats aren't going after McCain for being a traitor. Why do they constantly call him a hero? Their is a film where McCain is collaborating with the enemy.
Click images for desktop size: "The Birth Of Europa" by Mcindows The only evidence he was tortured is his word for it.
It was easy for the Republican's to call the acts of heroism by John Kerry misleading and false because two or three guys made unsubstantiated claims but the Democrats can't make anything out of McCain filming propaganda pieces for the Viet Cong.
They can't make anything out of a multi-millionaire claiming a 50,000 buck per year disability claim? They call him a hero . . .
I can understand the desire to run a "clean" campaign and to avoid mud slinging etc. But, gee, shouldn't you just refuse to comment on the guy's war record? Why call a man who sure looks like a traitor a hero?
Why agree with these kind of guys that we Americans have too many rights, too many freedoms. What happened to "better one thousand guilty men go free than one innocent man be unjustly condemned." What happened to "Give me liberty or give me death." "Don't tread on me."
The terrorists have won. They've destroyed America. We fought with bullets and Coca Cola and they exploited our cowardice and our greed to destroy a once great country.
So I'm going to have to find some fringe candidate to support. They all seem sort of whack to me but that's the reason they're third party candidates I guess. There's always a Green Party candidate. I can always get behind not destroying the world.

Rah. There are a lot of Buckinghams' fans out there. I never realized.
The band is still together. It looks like they even still have a website and are playing gigs even as I write.
I don't know how I feel about that.
I like the Cocteau image of our loves dying young and beautiful in the snow, untarnished by age or reason.
But that's just me.
I'm sure the band is a lot happier still out there and still making noise.
I wonder if they still play, "I've Been Wrong Before"?
If I did some research and got some facts I might never say the things I say and where would the fun be in that?