That's the trouble with normal

Kris Kristofferson wrote, "There's nothing short of dying, that's half as lonesome as the sound, of a sleeping city sidewalk, and Sunday morning coming down."  I suppose, but I also think Monday mornings in the winter carry a similar sense of isolation.  Driving in, I pass clusters of downcast-eyed and slump-shouldered students waiting for buses, almost none talking to each other, just standing in the cold and dark. There is something excruciatingly empty about being alone in a small crowd.  Its like so much dark matter, holding them all together and holding them all apart.

Having spent last week out ill with some sort of viral crud, it is nice to be moving again.  This past week was a bad week to have extra time on my hands, time for keeping up with current events.  Any doubts about the staggering lack of qualifications (or the intentions) of our new President and his minions have now been thoroughly erased.  No President in history has ever hit majority disapproval ratings in 8 short days, until now.  It usually takes several hundred days to get to that point of electorate disillusionment.

"I'm just saying, look out the bloody window, George." - John Le Carre, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

There's a parasite feeding on
Everybody's bag of rage
What goes out returns again
To smite the mouth and burn the page
Under the rain of all our dark tomorrows 

I can see in the dark it's where I used to live
I see excess and the gaping need
Follow the money - see where it leads
It's to shrunken men stuffed up with greed
They meet and make plans in strange half-lit tableaux
Under the rain of all our dark tomorrows 

You've got no home in this world of sorrows 

   - Bruce Cockburn, from All Our Dark Tomorrows

On the plus side, this administration's cavalier handling of the Press (and facts, in general) has re-awoken at least some journalism in this country. That, and stirred the pot of democratic protest, raising a collective voice of resistance. We're going to need to sustain both, I think.

Art
what do they care about art
they go from being
contemporary baby kissers to
old time corrupt politicians
to self-appointed censorship clerks
who won't support art
but will support war
poverty
lung cancer
racism
colonialism
and toxic sludge
that's their morality
that's their religious conviction
that's their protection of the public
& contribution to family entertainment
what do they care about art 

   - Jayne Cortez, from, The Oppressionists

By casting the world in dystopian words and visions, whipping up unrealistic fears and, importantly, "enemies" with branded names and faces, they sell a return to "normalcy" that profits a few and takes from the many.  Give up your freedoms and rights and we will protect you from [insert contrived horror]!

Strikes across the frontier and strikes for higher wage
Planet lurches to the right as ideologies engage
Suddenly it's repression, moratorium on rights
What did they think the politics of panic would invite?
Person in the street shrugs -- "Security comes first"
But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse 

Callous men in business costume speak computerese
Play pinball with the Third World trying to keep it on its knees
Their single crop starvation plans put sugar in your tea
And the local Third World's kept on reservations you don't see
"It'll all go back to normal if we put our nation first"
But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse 

   - Bruce Cockburn, from The Trouble With Normal

That's the trouble with normal.

Today's Playlist:

• NPR, Morning Edition