Labann may be old school, but wonders whether he’s a tribal elder or village fool. Age doesn't ensure wisdom. Truth sets you free, but won't save anyone. Have been both delighted and disappointed by fruit, bitter shriveled rather than juicy sweet. Doesn’t mean one should give up picking and trying, just make better choices, not be persuaded by outward appearance, rather use logic and weigh all evidence.
Pitiful and powerless people might be tempted to subrogate personal responsibilities to a popular demigogue. Accepting substitutes never turns out well. Governance demands care and understanding. Entertainers, rock stars, and sports champions garner praise and rationalize immunity for diverting masses from productive endeavors. Anonymous workers who provide comforts, necessities, nourishment, and shelter are mostly taken for granted when not prosecuted for unintentional mistakes. This is wrong on so many levels, society should be ashamed. Yet those forgotten only fancy acknowledgement and fulfillment, often lost to jealousy or redundancy.
Some may ask, “Why bother reading anything not written by an expert?” then deal away precious hours perusing MetaX comments or viewing some trendy Teddy Tik Tac reel by avowed idiots who can’t capitalize correctly, choose vocabulary, diagram sentences, express cogently, match spellings, punctuate appropriately, or write understandably. Professional wordsmiths know all this but not necessarily about topics in which you’d be interested, plus they sell stories to highest bidders or work for secretive patrons who only provide to public if profitable to them. Official sources can be as puzzling as redacted palimpsests. Certain amateurs who experienced events firsthand have often been the best reporters, plus they tell you what they know gratis should you express slightest interest.
Do you deserve access to eyewitness testimony? Why should hands-on presence go the distance to inform you through persistence? Readers have no idea how much data must be gathered and skills attained just to write one accurate sentence, while volumes of hip hop vacuity and vicious agitprop corrode convention and erode education. Blameless innocents who warrant salvation get sacrificed.
While all bad grammar and misspellings rankle after producing 150,000 pages as a career writer, the worst of all is when "that" is used instead of “who" to describe people. Anyone "who" does that dehumanizes, because "that" is reserved for inanimate concepts, institutions, or things. Seems they see others as subhuman objects because of misogyny, racism, schadenfreude, xenophobia, or zombie horror, but such an attitude discloses zero empathy.
“I'm a substitute for another guy... The simple things you see are all complicated. Look pretty young, but I'm just back dated... Substitute your lies for fact... Now you dare to look me in the eye... It's a genuine problem, you won't try to work it out at all; you just pass it by...” Pete Townshend, The Who
Axe grinding anarchists, disgusting novelists, drug addled goofballs, sanctimonious clerics, shameless politicians, and vicious televangelists lie with a glint in their eye right to your face and reckon it a victory if they hoodwink you successfully into doing something self destructive or stupid in totality. Gullible youth buy ugly metaphors and whatever rings false. Though scripted spectacle, reality television is popular, particularly sports rigged for allegiance leverage.
Every video documentary picks soundbites from a small percentage of otherwise boring, normal, ordinary segments to create drama, discredit interviewee, relay some biased fiction, or work agendas. Acts of self preservation include assessing urgency and ignoring hype. Sure, every day you have to make decisions and take risks, but television will forever be a battleground for your soul.
Enlightened, literate 15% of society often categorize sports as a sector that broadens economy though a silly pastime to mollify fools, but do not speak for masses or underestimate their effects on productivity and waste. Imagine having jetliners carting athletes around like royalty and using valuable resources to produce an ephemeral competition that does nothing to feed or house people or provide durable goods? It's an environmental tragedy underscored by commercials encouraging more of the same in ads for ATVs, SUVs, trucks, and unnecessary choices of transportation.
Meanwhile, loathsome owners of media outlets increasingly use Artificial Intelligence (AI) for cold-blooded content instead of emotional poetry and experiential synthesis readers don’t know they desperately need since so long denied because of greed. AI will soon replace white collar workers and world’s wordsmiths. B&C tried to be comprehensive infotainment and ethics inquiry, but soulless outputs by Alexis, Jarvis, Robin and Siri dovetail with Labann’s dour prose because all avoid fanciful metaphors, hysterical laments, and radical passions that computers can’t comprehend.
On other hand, advertisers, journalists and politicians are masters at manipulating emotions giving them power over all who don’t just wisely ignore. Orange personality snagged a cult win to begin presidential election cycle on half of 15% of registered Iowa Republicans to show in snow, probably 2% of state’s voters. Meanwhile, self professed pollsters concoct phony estimates for whoever pays them. What did you expect when amoral, drug addled, hard partying boomers finally seized power in America? Leary’s dropouts and Nixon’s lackeys destined nation for death, debt, deceit, disease, disrespect, duplicity, and skullduggery. Democratic policies and social justice will surely slip away if all citizens don’t fight for rights wholeheartedly. But when superior minds point out lunacy of tolerating tyranny, it incenses idiots all the more and invites a deplorable dictator though nation's front door.
When you care nothing about what others are doing, and contentedly spectate from sideline, eventually you’ll fall prey to own apathy and their treachery. On other hand, unless behaviors of others break actual laws, their business isn’t yours. What makes you think you know better than they about what affects them? You have no control over chaos, only yourself. Felons claim society is to blame, excuse self, justify atrocity, and when caught scream they’re victims of a witch hunt, none of which is legitimate.
Exposing deceit, delusion, and hypocrisy becomes a snipe hunt. Compulsive liars, con men, and lax slackers never relinquish their long winded swindles. Words are their weapons; they evade blame, extort victims to commit crimes for them, so hide their involvement from law enforcement. If you too want to apply mind control over masses, merely compile an indelible book of itinerant peasants and declare its meandering metaphors divinely inspired. Wars based on ill begotten ideology and the vanity of sociopaths sacrifice millions and threaten all life on earth.
Gone are days when a cathedral or cross on a hill dominated city skylines; skyscraping pinnacles to pride long since dwarfed and shadowed religious influence. Churches used to anchor neighborhoods, now overrun with drug dealers and sex peddlers. Periodic police busts don’t slow illicit commerce in the least. Overfull prisons have revolving doors. No use bemaoning loss of what once was. Must be busy in present to bring forth a better future. Punishment ought to match level of harm and number of victims. Mass murderers, public enemies, and treasonous traitors, like previous American president, deserve severest penalties. You'd think bad actors might beware of a comtemporary Curia of Pompey where Romans ended Julius Caesar on Ides of March. But duty to humanity is no longer valued as much as service to self. Evil examples are praised and showered well with wealth, while demons develop a befitting place for them in hell where they're headed.
