• The wind is howling and the naked branches talk to me through the glass. The rubbing sounds like laughter and a child's whisper. I made love to a beautiful woman tonight. She is fast asleep in the bedroom behind me. I can still smell her on me and it keeps me warm against this cold, unheated living room. Tonight is a night similar to the thousand before it and those yet to come, but it still somehow feels different. It is my awareness. I am alive inside, but in a somber and patient way. I am becoming complacent.

    Videogames and marijuana have begun to replace the anticipatory feeling that I must escape from the mediocrity which consumes all who settle down in this small mountain town. Maybe they too love their high-definition flat screen TVs so much they don't mind leaving the house either?

    Maybe they too type into white text boxes, allowing a corporation to convert their HTML for them into a superficially meaningful message which others like them may relate to. Maybe so. But that's for them. At the very least, they'll have reality TV. What's left for me?

    This is for me. A great author once said, "You don't write because you want to say something. You write because you've got something to say." And what is it I have to say? Why am I clicking away at this old, scarred up brown desk?

    The central problem facing America, and indeed the near-entirety of our Western culture (and that includes the population of Gaia, even with all its "Eastern" influence) is that the news, the media, fails to report on the sponsors who change the shape of the history it is meant to be recording. You see, it used to be War and the struggle for Power that changed the shape of history, and the media was free to report on it. After all, this is a Democracy and part of that means having a government Watchdog - the media, to keep our leaders as truthful as possible.

    With the spread of globalization, however, and the dominance of the almighty dollar over cultural - and indeed even religious - values, it is not militaries and blitzkrieging dictators we have to think about. The newest model M-16, the next WMD in Iraq is a briefcase and a businessman. Once again, your civil rights are on the line and here we are watching the post-election "After Party" on CNN, as though some elected official can dramatically alter the Zeitgeist in a positive way. What a joke of a news program; what a joke of a time we live in. A tragic joke. There is no Desert Storm by which to monitor Decency's Warriors on the front lines. There is no cultural divide. We have only commercials, name brands, and AT&T. What are we really protecting ourselves from? Do we truly know our enemy?

    The election is a sideshow. Great, a new president representing hope for us all and a step forward for his race. I took that journey when the ballots were counted. Move on. Show me Rwanda, show me genocide, show me the telcom companies buying the rights to fair internet right out from under our noses, show me the pharmaceutical companies advertising on your news channel, "sponsoring you" so you don't report on the mass doping of our brains that still eat the s**t you feed us through the digital tube we all have to buy converter boxes for by 2009 (who do you think profited there? Do you honestly believe we need four signals per satellite channel? Does anyone need the s**t they've given us no choice but to buy?). But please stop showing me the smiling liars wearing red ties on "the most trusted news source in television."

    In a sidelines interview, I've personally spoken with the woman who married the guy, and ******** the guy who ******** the truth daily (the head honcho, the big cheese, Mr. T [but not the A-Team, fellas]), and I could tell you right here and now the extent to which "the public's right to know" is circumvented but you would probably just think I'm being hyperbolic. You wouldn't believe me. Let's just say your talking heads are currently pushing for the legalization of "brain-boosting drugs" like Adderall and leaving out LSD which is medically, scientifically and clinically proven to cure schizophrenia but is a threat to the hundreds of millions of dollars being made off the 'incurably' sick. And this is just what goes on publicly, for those of us who keep one ear to the ground.

    I had not even an eye on the mountains all day, let alone one extended nerve to the vibrations of world events, but I was lucky to have the wind in my ears tonight, or I would have gone straight to sleep, cozy and warm next to a warm, cozy woman, all without consulting the good brain once. To think.

    Keep on howling, mountain wind. I am listening.


    "Either you think, or else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you." ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald