ahhhhh

it's nice to toss everything with a battery and/or a power cord into the glove compartment, toss the car keys to the bottom of the duffle bag, and live barefoot for a week. it surely is.

there are more stories to share than this, but none more needing to be told, so i'll start with a quick recap of an evening conversation with a genuine 60's lefty counterculture "we shall overcome" idealist--a jen-yoo-wine freedom-riding article in the flesh. his point, and spittle-spraying frustration with my refusal to yield to it, was that the US government needed to pass a law modeled after canada's radio act that would likewise make illegal the broadcast of any "false or misleading news", and enable us once and for all to rid our airwaves of one particular network.

now, to be clear, i am appalled at the factual inaccuracies that are lobbed like so many hand grenades into our difficult national debate by the irresponsible and semi-literate folks at that particular "institution". i believe there is no single greater force against reason or reasonable government here than rupert's reactionaries, and the world would be a far better place without them. but, see, i was also around while nixon's plumbers were playing their practical jokes on our democracy, and cannot believe even for an instant that handing the government the means to censor news could ever end well. yet this man, who had BEEN THERE outside the hilton hotel in '68 to chant "the whole world is watching" for the cameras, was seriously advocating to me that the government (now of all times) should be empowered to decide what can and cannot be broadcast.

chilling.

i hugged my children a second time that night for sure.

have the lefties all lost their memories as well as their minds????


edited to add a nod to cameron's government's moves to disconnect "social media" so as to take away citizens' ability to communicate with each other in london. yeah, riots are ugly, but take a look at the news from syria if you'd like to see something uglier.