Another Day in Das Kapital

It's finally raining here in the big town - that combined with the Secret Service/NYPD lockdown brought on by the Clinton Global Initiative headquartered across the street and some UN rigamarole going on on the east side (along with Sarah Palin and Katie Couric checking out the midtown tunnel) is making it all feel like some scene out of Blade Runner. And I keep waiting for something to blow up.

Zardoz responded to Jeffrey Simmons at the post a comment section below - maybe go check it out. Jaime Piscitelli responded on Facebook (thus giving Zardoz something to do today besides downloading last night's episode of Grey's Anatomy on iTunes):

"A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."I miss Saul Bellow. Even though towards the end he sort of looked like the creepy old guy from Poltergeist II.The fact is that if John McCain were to come out tomorrow with a plan to end America's dependence on oil by drilling for it in the foreheads of every grandmother in the country; or if Sara Palin were to announce an initiative to scrap sex education in favor of gunsmithing/quiet reflection time...the people of whom you speak would still vote Republican. They may even be aroused.You see, people need their totems. And for people who seemingly need to cling to the dying, if not dead, 1950's/80's conception of America as infallible (middle class, and white) bulwark against the Communist/Asiatic Hordes...John McCain is their "wooby". The reality that the policies he's proposing (and the type of governance he stands for) will largely continue the stunning pace of America's decline doesn't really enter into it. After all, a fetus is divine until it grows up and robs a liquor store...then the state can abort it by lethal injection and bury it in a potters field. There's a healthy ethos.But hey, 8 years later, with bin Laden still living in Pakistan somewhere, I'm just glad we're all Georgians...because lord knows that's important.And regardless of what Keith Obermann says, I'm confident that Palin can, in fact, find Georgia on a map.I'm just equally confident that her finger would rest squarely on an area above Florida.It has nothing to do with intelligence. It has nothing to do with facts, trends, or likelihoods. It's apparently (to me, at least) about some people's belief in one America over another, and in that regard John McCain is as much a symbol to those people as that bronze age hippie nailed to a cross is...well...to many of the same people.Of course, the bronze age hippie, alive today and un-punctured would probably vote for Obama.