10 Einstein, 35 A.T. (Nov. 19, 2003) - 3:26 p.m.

In which it occurs to our plucky young zero that he is America. He is talking to himself again.

Asia is rising against me.
I haven't got a Chinaman's chance.
I'd better consider my national resources.
My national resources consist of two joints of marijuana millions of genitals an unpublishable private literature that jetplanes fourteen hundred miles an hour and twentyfive thousand mental institutions.
— Allen Ginsberg, "America" (1956)

Every time I think I have something worthwhile to say about politics, someone like Joe Vecchio or the Mighty Reason Man says it much better than I ever could. I'd give it up entirely, save that every once in a while, I come out with something that makes me proud to have a speech center in my brain.

One such comment went to this post by the Tick. For those of you who got here from that link, I have a correction to make. I state that:

The UK and Australia are the only places in the free world where the adsinistration's policies aren't met with the laughter of a man who laughs because the alternative is to start screaming and if he does that, he might not be able to stop. They're also the places where Rupert Murdoch has the highest percentages of media ownership.

I neglected to mention Canada and Japan. To the best of my knowledge, neither of these countries has any significant media penetration by News Corporation. Nonetheless, they have large percentages of populace that do not consider the pResident's policies as motivated primarily by a desire to continue the American Century indefinitely, and I left them out. We apologize for any convenience this may cause.

(But I'm still proud of calling Airstrip One by its right name.)

-30-

last time, on The Slack Shack - our next inciting exstallment