holy crap

[rm]

Another one of those theoretically minor yet disturbing events in the new world:

Guy gets his bag searched boarding the ferry today. Person searching the bag tries to confiscate a book he has in it.

Read the post:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/mephron/349969.html

Meanwhile:

"The New Freedom Initiative proposes to screen every American, including you, for mental illness. To this end, the president established a New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, to study the nation’s mental health delivery service and make a report. It’s interesting to note that many on the staff appointed to the Commission have served on the advisory boards of some of the nation’s largest drug companies."

http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=830

Better mental health is a good thing, but I don't my government, or the pharmaceutical industry to be involved in the diagnosis process. I've spent the last 8 months doing media analysis on the pharmaceutical industry, and it scares the crap out of me.

Comments

[rm.livejournal.com]

OKay... I take that back about my neighborhood not being too bad during the convention -- apparently one of the protest activities planned for my neighborhood is a "Roman-style vomitorium symbolizing Republican gluttony".

Can someone please... _please_ make the world go back to normal?

[lanthinel.livejournal.com]

Oh, my, doesn't that sound sedate. Certainly not sensational. No, not at all. And I'm sure it'll draw the appropriate and needed attention to the issues at hand.

My sister has half-joked (at least I think it was half a joke) that she thinks that the world was supposed to end in 2000 or so, but when it didn't, reality got confused and started cracking here and there, and it's only getting worse as it goes on. Some days...it certainly feels like it, eh?

All I can say is I'm glad I live in a fairly liberal college town in North Texas rather than a lot of the other places in the state, especially the smaller burghs. And I'm glad I'm not on the cleaning crews in NYC for those sorts of things.

[rm.livejournal.com]

There was a great piece in Paper Magazine several months ago supporting the theory that "we're all already dead".

The conjecture was that 9/11 was much worse than we realize, we all bit it, and we're now in some bizarre mirror-world purgatory.

It was one of the funniest things I've ever read, while also one of the creepiest.

Certainly, "well, we all are already dead" has become one of those random out of context phrases amongst my social circle.

[lanthinel.livejournal.com]

It's both amusing and troubling when the universe seems to demonstrate existential irony for our benefit. I thought things were going bizarre enough back when American Gladiators was around ("My...how...Roman..."), but the last few years have done a lot for upping the weirdness quotient. A lot of people, when 2000-2001 came around, were asking "Where's my $&^*! flying car?!", but I think we've only seen the cliched tip of the iceberg so far.