A gramme is better than a damn

Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm awfully glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able to read or write. Besides they wear black, which is such a beastly colour. I'm so glad I'm a Beta.

Oh, such a brave new world, that has such people in it.

Going to the Feelies this evening, Henry?

Nah, I prefer the centifugal bumblepuppy, myself.

I just finished watching the film All the President's Men with a friend. This film portrays the journalistic investigation of the Watergate Scandal which ultimately led to the resignation of President Nixon in 1974.

What surprised us the most was that the entirety of the scandal was simply a stupid bungle that started with the placement of listening "bugs" in the headquarters of Nixon's opponent for the 1972 election. This bugging was dopey on a number of levels, Nixon was widely favored to win in 1972 anyway, so there wasn't a need to sabotage the opposition, the night the "plumbers" were caught in the Watergate office was the second time they were there because they screwed up the bugs on their first visit and they were caught because they stupidly left some tape holding a door open which a security guard found.

Aside from being a stupid operation that wasn't needed in the first place, what ultimately caused Nixon's resignation was not the bugging, or the break-in, but foolishly abusing his power to get the CIA to slow the FBI's investigation of the break-in. Put another way, Nixon went down because he bungled a cover-up of a useless operation. And this was a scandal that made the world tremble.

The second thing that surprised us was that the people of this fair nation at the time cared about such things. The nation's newspapers covered this one story for two years and 80% of Americans watched some part of the final hearings on television. By contrast, the most popular story on USAToday today was "Airlines upgrade service for wealthier fliers" and their political lead piece for today was What people think Bush's presidency will be remembered for. Why USAToday? Because according to their claims they have twice the circulation of The New York Times and The Washington Post combined. I shan't even mention television journalism out of embarrassment.

Have we fallen asleep? Zuzu's synchronicity reminded me we probably have, or worse still, have been put to sleep. In his book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, Neil Postman describes - rather prophetically - how we will be burried in trivia. And that few will read; indeed most of you may not have made it this far into this post. Postman's book is an excellent read, but better still, his forward encapsulates the entire thesis of the book, chillingly:I'm glad I'm a gamma.

There is such anger. Dont you know that
There's always soma to calm your anger, to reconcile you to your enemies, to make you patient and long-suffering. In the past you could only accomplish these things by making a great effort and after years of hard moral training. Now, you swallow two or three half-gramme tablets, and there you are. Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your morality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears-that's what soma is.

Wow! Thanks for the advice, I took four grams of soma and everything is peachy keen. I don't know what I got so upset about.

I knew I could count on you Betas for good advice. Please forget my prior comments - I have already.

Lets all have an orgy porgy!

Zuzu - I know your remark is tongue & cheek, but in reality, you are SO on target with this that it's terrifying. I see it everyday. People like zombies.

It was a stewardess on an airplane that pointed it out to me, all the people who were drugged up just to fly (I understand that a bit). Then I began just watching, how people had to be drugged just to function in this society in general. Why?

I saw them at malls, walking like zombies. In the city center, in the doctors office, in the hospital, at work, all over the place!

I'm not making a moral judgment here on the individual, what scares me is a society that is so dysfunctional that it has to drug a larger portion of it's members in order for it to function.

Unfortunately, people who do not take their "medications" have outbursts that previously in society would have been energy funneled in some other manner or would have been ignored - today - these people are arrested and wind up in prison or on the street unable to find jobs. People who are probably perfectly normal but happen to be "round" and society is forcing them to fit into the "square" peg.

I'm not saying that people who take medication for legitimate chemical imbalances and psychological disorders fit into this category. That's a different issue all together. I'm talking about borderline community created disorders. Like schools putting 50% of our kids on Ritalin. Doctor’s prescribing Xanax to someone going through a divorce when really, they need counseling and good friends & family.

Got a problem? Take a pill for it.

I dunno - scares me. Just my 2 Lindens.

now now, Rose.

was and will make you ill!

Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand.

So sayeth Zuzu in the year of Our Ford 241.

The greater a man's talents, the greater his power to lead astray. It is better that one should suffer than that many should be corrupted. Consider the matter dispassionately and you will see that no offence is so heinous as unorthodoxy of behavior. Murder kills only the individual-and, after all, what is an individual?... We can make a new one with the greatest ease-as many as we like. Unorthodoxy threatens more than the life of a mere individual; it strikes at Society itself.