you're dead, but here's this star and other depressing news...

having desperately needed a vacation to avoid the fast-approaching onset of complete insanity...I spent an extended weekend in a real city, near a real body of water, with a real band in town (not to mention multiple chipotles). and so having spent time on the ocean, taking in foggy spans, walking through noise and crowds and enjoying public transportation and shopping I was feeling reborn, finally able to fully enjoy my newfound calm. and then LAX hit me...

so with time to kill in one of the worst airports in the world, I sat down for some beer and the news captioned for the hard of hearing. needless to say, I immediately recalled why it is that I needed a mental vacation in the first place...

there was a rather lengthy piece on the local news about a soldier's funeral, the second local one in a week. young kid, full of piss and vinegar shipped off to the desert to "defend freedom" (or occupy and inspire hatred...it is such a fine line between the two). well...he came back dead. not that you would have seen it, because the boy king won't let you honor those he has killed when they come home...they stealthily slip those boxes containing all those kids back into the country so they can be closed for the ceremony and nobody will be the wiser. and so the family mourned their dead son...and met another family that earlier mourned their dead son. and there was talk about honor and toughness and insurgent garbage. and the flag was displayed and handed over to the family. and another boy will never enjoy his manhood.

but do not fret...because on the day of his funeral he was promoted. and so this is how it ends. "thanks for dying in a war that none of us who ordered it had the balls to fight in and we can't honestly say we supported your efforts fully or even had any semblance of a good reason for sending you to your death. please accept our sincerest apologies...and this extra-special title that you will never even know was yours and will never reap the benefits of...unless of course jesus and the judeo-christian god really are that much on our side - because regardless of what lincoln said, we'd be willing to bed god gives american soldiers one hell of a party." and to the family..."your son is dead. sorry. here's a star."

so run out and sign up at your local recruiters office people...because if you are lucky enough to die, you might even get a promotion.

and the news just got better...with war and death raging they moved on to the genocide in darfur. of course that garnered all of about 2 minutes of coverage. apparently it was not as important as how painful this time is for paris hilton...who got about 10 minutes of coverage because she has to turn herself in to serve a whopping three-nothing-like-jail-really-is weeks. so they had interviews with her about how hard it is to be insanely rich and not be able to get away with anything...never mind that we had literally just been reminded that countless africans continue to be slaughtered while we watch, too busy "liberating" the arab world to have even a token show of force. too busy ending lives to save any.

yea...welcome home.

we're just a million little gods causing rain storms turning every good thing to rust...