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Of operating systems and viewpoints.
11.24.03 (6:53 pm)   [edit]
OS X (Jaguar, if you please) is actually pretty cool. I'd forgotten that as these companies develop their operating systems, they try to make them more user-friendly in addition to increased capabilties. I've successfully swapped bookmarks to Safari and address book to Mac Mail, so my world has resumed its rotation. What remains mightily weird is that much of my old software only works with the older Mac OS9, so both systems have to peacefully coexist for a while, which they seem willing to do.

I was awakened at the ungodly hour of 5:30 this morning by some very loud and squalling cat foreplay outside my window...I guess the green and blue yard lights, triggered by the motion detector, made for a stimulating and amorous environment.

Rather than fling a bunch of the usual bad news links out there today, and there are an abundance of them, I wanted to hold forth about something else as regards perspective. This may be prompted in part by the query on the message board as to whether I'm Rep or Dem. My viewpoints, obviously not shared by many Americans, are influenced by several factors:

1) Although I am a true blue American, I haven't lived there in more than twenty years. I get home once or twice a year, but it seems like a stranger place every time. What strikes me the most is that no one talks about the big issues we see discussed on blogs like this one. Instead, all the conversations I hear are about mortgage rates, kid's ballet classes, the new restaurant down the street, summer vacations, etc....one would never know the country is waging war in two countries simultaneously while rattling sabers at others. It's like an elephant in the living room that everyone seems to accept as part of their lives, and it wouldn't be right to question it, would it? Really strange.

2) I've never seen Survivor, Fear Factor, a Rocky movie, a hockey game, a boxing match, Bumfights, Faces of Death, a Friday the 13th movie, American Idol, or any of 1000 other pop culture diversions created to drag Americans down to the lowest common denominator. On the sports side, I don't see NFL football the way most people do...I see a bunch of huge knuckledragging guys dressed up like gladiators chasing an inflated piece of pigskin as if it is the most important thing on the planet. So all that "kickin ass fer "murkan freedom" crap is lost on me.

3) What I have been exposed to instead for two decades is a 95+% black culture with a LOT of issues left over from the slavery of 150 years ago, (I think for some people it was just last week) a white culture for whom abolition was more traumatic than slavery, and a distaste from both groups for an American expat who for some unknown reason has chosen to live among them. The animosity bubbles below the surface while everyone puts a friendly face on for tourism, but every once in a while it emerges full blown and hissing in your face, as it did for me this September. My friendly smile or greeting during my morning walk is often met with a hostile and icy stare, and I have no idea if it is from shyness, their social ineptness, because I am white, because I am American, or because of George Bush waging imperial war on the world. Maybe a t-shirt that just reads "I'm sorry." would help. After two decades here, I am in many ways an outsider, and will be after 50 years as well.

4) So, here I am, between the frying pan and the fire. On re-reading Herman Wouk's classic "Don't Stop the Carnival", I realize that the protagonist fled his island experience after only a few months, while I've attempted to ride it out, with mixed results. Now, divine irony being what it is, at the precise moment when I start thinking about calling it a day with the Caribbean and going back to my "homeland", said homeland begins a radical morphing into a frightening police state while a nation of Marching Morons watches the Michael Jackson coverage on Fox. If you think I'm exaggerating the police state business, try making a joke in an airport and watch what happens. Today, airports. Tomorrow, your grocery store.

5) For the benefit of Homeland Security, CIA, NSA, or any other monitors reading this blog, I'm not a terrorist...more like a Constitutionalist. I was once appropriately accused of growing up in a Norman Rockwell painting of pure Americana, and I wouldn't trade it for the world. I grew up hearing about the Bill of Rights and the Founders' wisdom and Jefferson and Madison and the Battle of Bunker Hill, and it all left the enduring sense that America had the right idea and needed to share it with the world. But somehow these noble ideals have been corrupted to the extent that all that is left now are buzzwords, like "freedom" and "bringing democracy to the world", emptied of their meaning. They exist now only as an excuse to wage war.

At this point in history, the only people who can stop America's march to fascist totalitarianism are not the bloggers or the protestors or certainly not the spineless Tom Daschle Democrats....it will be the CIA agents recognizing the perversion of their resources, or the military men who see just what worthless cannon fodder they are to the Elite who control the government. Once you've trained your cannons on the White House and removed this gang of thieves, America could put its money where its mouth is, and foster geniune Democracy and Freedom throughout the world by providing food, water, sanitation, shelter, and education instead of shredding children with cluster bombs on behalf of Halliburton and General Dynamics.

6) To tie some kind of ribbon on this rambling perspective, I guess it comes down to this: I'm not your average American, but not a Caribbean man either. By choosing the road less travelled, I've run into a cul-de-sac.

And I would probably come back home.

If only home was still there.
 
Just moving into the neighbourhood.
11.24.03 (6:28 pm)   [edit]
Since I have been a little frustrated with the limitations of my existing blog hosted at blogdrive.com, I thought I'd give this one a whirl.
I suspect I will be opting for the "Pro" package very soon....