I can't believe the US media.

As you may have heard, a normal, middle-aged, middle-class, well-educated, white man flew a small plane into the IRS building in Austin, Texas yesterday morning in a fit of rage with the government, killing himself and one federal employee, and wounding one other. Or maybe you haven't, because nobody is talking about it.

HOWEVER, after listening to and watching the news today, here is what they ARE talking about:

1) The Christmas Day Bomber. This man failed miserably. Nothing at all came of the incident, except that now airports feel they have the right to put all travelers through an ADDITIONAL screening process, the full body scanner - in which they see the naked body of all who pass through it - men, women, CHILDREN, the religiously orthodox - there have even been incidents of TSA employees printing scans of celebrities and passing them around the office. This was essentially a non-issue, but - BUT - he was an Arab, and he had a funny name, and so he's still talked about on the news, two months later, because he is a justification.

2) Tiger Woods. Words cannot express how profoundly I do not care about Tiger Woods. It's the same issue I had with the Bill Clinton scandal - if he cheated on his wife, that's between him and his wife. It has nothing to do with the public, it makes no compromise in his relationship to us, or his ability to serve the public in whatever way is his duty. It is not our business, and the media needs to stay out of people's private bedrooms and private lives.

3) The Tea Party. For the most part, a group of old, confused republicans - 90% of whom admittedly never followed or had anything to do with politics before now. They don't understand the policies they oppose, and are only upset because their party is no longer in power. They want lower taxes and increased medicare, and fiercely oppose health care reform and support Sarah Palin as their political leader and, eventually, President. They say they're against big government - which is fine! So am I! But why is it that they're only NOW against big government, as opposed to 5 years ago, in the reign of the Biggest Brother-est government in recent memory? Easy - because THAT government grouped themselves with the same party as the people who make up the tea party, and, like they said, they don't follow politics enough to know the difference between what an administration says and what an administration does. Oh, and lets not skirt the fact that the President is now black (not really, but blacker than they), and most of the "Teabaggers" (teehee) grew up when coloured people still had to use different bathrooms and drinking fountains.

In scouring the internet for SOMEONE saying SOMETHING about the willful destruction of the IRS building yesterday, I found a couple of articles, wherein people who call themselves journalists have decided, without any discernible evidence (aside from a distaste for the government and anger over 'taxation without representation'), that Joseph Stack, the late pilot of the unfortunate plane, was a member of the Tea Party - even going so far as to say that, "After months of threats on the United States government, and government institutions, the Anti-Government forces known as the teabaggers have struck with their first 911 inspired terrorist attack". The worst part is, that was from the Daily Kos, which is supposed to be better than that.

When this happened, I thought, "Wow. This is big. This is going to be a really big deal." In his suicide note, Joseph Stack wrote about being repeatedly ignored by his political representatives, being ignored by every government agent he applied to (except IRS agents, who came to take his retirement fund) - about having so much to say and nobody to hear it. So he thinks to himself, "How can I get people to listen? How can I be heard?" And, in a dramatic and fiery show of frustration and hopeless desperation, he helps America raise the bar ever further on just how much important information and free thought they can trivialize and ignore.

adventures are better in the movies.

We're recovering from a large and semi-magical snowfall - the biggest in this part of Virginia in twenty years. It was about the size of the yearly snowfalls we get in Vancouver. Everything shut down - ha!

To be fair though, I wasn't prepared either - I didn't expect to encounter such weather and neglected to bring appropriate clothes, or even boots, with me on my journey. The sudden change in weather (from 16°C to below freezing) hit me hard too, because I was fighting sickness all weekend in the form of aches and pains and intense weariness. But now it is warming up again. I even went out without a coat on today! Crazy weather.

I am mostly sad that I didn't have appropriate clothing to walk to the beach in during the storm. Mr. Andrew recalls to me that the sea mist was freezing in mid-air and blowing every which way, whiting out one's entire field of vision.

I am disappointed that I will likely miss the Winter Olympics in my hometown. What a time to go traveling! It may be a horrible capitalist perversion of a most beautiful city, but damnit - at least it's interesting.

But I, I just laid in Mr. Andrew's apartment all weekend, thinking about my future. And to that I say: at least they have cheap liquor in America.


-- love, miki.