Too Much Politics

     Just the other day I found myself pulling out loose carpet threads strand-by-strand from the roller of the vacuum so it would work right. Keeping an eye on the trash filling up the containers and taking it out. Making sure there are towels in the clothes washer and milk pails in the dishwasher. Those are the kinds of things I've been doing this summer.
     Oh, and watching Amy. 8-year-old little girls, especially if they have special needs, can take a great deal of watching. But most of the time it isn't too bad.

     There's been a lot of Mario Kart over the last week. That's been fun to watch Caleb and Trevor's excitement about that. And Mario Kart is awesome. So I've been playing it a lot, too.

    A couple of Glory's and May's kittens were picked up by the Nolands this afternoon, so it's good to know that they're heading for a good home.

     Last weekend watched The Barefoot Contessa on Friday night, Inside Out in Okmulgee at the Orpheum, and then Sunday night rewatched His Girl Friday. I'm not a huge Humphrey Bogart fan, and really see nothing attractive about Ava Gardner, so that was distracting, trying to figure out how she was now the world's most famous actress. And it seemed like everybody talked in riddles the whole time. That was confusing. But most of them sounded like they'd be worth writing down on a second viewing.
     Inside Out was strange, but a very good strange. Only Pixar could go into someone's mind like that....And having Amy Poehler and Kyle McLachlan didn't hurt, either. I really enjoyed it.
     His Girl Friday was better the second time(of course, the first time I was editing an essay for a friend while watching). The rapid-fire dialogue was awesome. And Cary Grant is terrific.
    Also rewatched The Incredibles the other night, and it's fine; the dialogue is really good throughout. The jungle of Nomanisan Island is amazingly detailed, and the spy/superhero references are cool, but there's a little too much emphasis on the melodrama in "family melodrama" for my taste. Firmly in the middle of Pixar's pecking order in terms of story.

     Filled out a lot of paperwork at RSU this week. I changed my major to Liberal Arts with a focus in English, so now my schedule is American Lit, Lit Traditions, Poetry Writing and Shakespeare. Those might change, classes have a way of usually doing that, but those are probably what I'll be taking in fall.  w2 (Rags stomped on the keyboard there.) Anyway, not sure what to expect out of those. They could be really good, or really bad. Anyway, I think there's only about three more semesters left.

     The Supreme Court apparently overturned the state's rights to ban gay marriage yesterday...you can't go anywhere on the internet without hearing about it. My first thought? "Well, not really surprised. Looks like there might be a fight on the horizon." I've heard it said pretty often that my generation will probably see the end of the United States, and I kind of agree. I don't really like it, but it's probably true.
     My reaction on Facebook was to quote from J.R.R. Tolkien's Fellowship of the Ring, from chapter three, page 50:
     "Always after a defeat and a respite, the Shadow takes another shape and rises again."
     "I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
     "So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. And already, Frodo, our time is beginning to look black. The Enemy is fast becoming very strong. His plans are far from ripe, I think, but they are ripening. We shall be very hard put to it. We should be very hard put to it, even if it were not for this dreadful chance."
     Gandalf continues ten pages later: "But you have been chosen, and so must therefore use what strength and heart and wits as you have."
     And also to quote Jesus' words to the disciples in Matthew 10:16-20:
     "I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as serpents and as innocent as doves. But be on your guard against men; they will hand you over to the local councils and flog you in their synagogues. On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses yo them and to the Gentiles. But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say, or how to say it. At that time you be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you."

     In addition to what seems to be the entire internet bending over backwards to cheer yesterday, there's also been a huge anti-Confederate flag thing going around, which is equally hard to take. I wrote in that post about honesty in social media that it's a lot easier to make your side heroic if you conveniently skip over the more brutal deeds of your own country's people. Reading Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind a couple weeks ago furthered my thinking that had I lived in the 1860's, I probably would have been on the side of the CSA. Ashley's and Rhett's questioning whether they could actually win raised some good points, but I think they potentially could have. As Atticus would say seventy years later in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, "Courage isn't a man with a gun, son. It's knowing that you're licked before you start, but fighting anyway."
     Scarlett probably deserved most of what happened to her; especially after marrying Frank, but I still felt sorry for her at the end.
     So, yeah, back to the Stars and Bars. The CSA might have been in existence as an actual nation only for about five years, but you can't wipe out the most important symbol of a civilization without losing many great treasures. Does that mean you have to throw away ALL Civil War-themed games and apps? (If you're Apple, then yes.) Does that mean tossing out the literature of the South? (GWTW, Mockingbird, all of William Faulkner, Jan Karon, John Grisham, Flannery O'Connor, etc... And not yet, but possibly in the future.) The TV shows? (The Andy Griffith Show, The Dukes of Hazzard, Nashville, In the Heat of the Night, Matlock, etc.) Movies? (GWTW, Hope Floats, Days of Thunder, Steel Magnolias, Mockingbird, Forrest Gump, etc.)  And true country music, as well? (Alan Jackson, Garth Brooks, Miranda Lambert, Collin Raye, Sara Evans....) Brad Paisley's song Accidental Racist would be not allowed, then, too?

     Borrowed Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, from the DeSpains yesterday afternoon and finished it this morning. I didn't like it much(too much like 1984), but it was worth reading. Neil Postman(author of Amusing Ourselves to Death) was right, though - Brave New World is an alarmingly accelerated view of where our society could likely end up. (Lot like Fahrenheit 451 that way.)

     So, right. All those things that I mentioned I can't really do anything about. All I can do, really, right now, is to keep the dishes and laundry running and help take care of Amy, so everybody else can get finished the stuff they need to. Not glamorous, or exciting, or newsworthy, but it needs doing. And it keeps me busy. Too busy to write much, lately.