In honor of Mr. vonnegut's passing, I have been rereading Breakfast of Champions. It is particularly fitting in the context of the VA Tech shootings. Here is one passage in particular:

I had become more and more enraged and mystified by the idiot decisions made by my countrymen. And then I came suddenly to pity them, for I understood how innocent and natural it was for them to behave so abominably, and with such abominable results: They were doing their best to live like people in story books. This was the reason Americans shot each other so often: It was a convenient literary device for ending short stories and books.

Why were so many Americans treated by their government as though their lives were as disposable as paper facial tissues? Because that was the way authors customarily treated bit-part players in their made up tales.

And so on.

I am a staunch proponnent of public transportation, but reliance on PT would, in fact, make us an easier terrorist target. When a bridge or road is out, people just take alternate routes. But it only takes one tree falling accorss the railroad tracks to make it impossible for me and everybody else to get to work on the train. Also, trains and busses are excellent targets for terrorists. I still think we should tax gas up to $6/gallon (if it doesn't get there on its own) and use the money for PT, but I understand that leaves us with some risk.

We as Americans need to come out and say it. Our culture may be f-ed up, but the cultures of a great many nations remain inferior to ours. Stop celebrating multiculturalim. Quite a few other cultures are bad and deserve no respect.

The reason people can now finance a new car 96 months is because cars (even Chryslers) now last an exceedingly long time. Why would you need a new car every four years when any decent car will last 200,000 miles, or, at 15,000 a year, over 13 years? Yes, I'm completely sick of the '90 Corolla I bought in 1997 but the damn thing keeps running.

Dude, those Idol guys never sounded better this season than they did in their Miracles number. The girls were less convincing, but Gladys Knight stole the show without trying, and its nice to see her not singing in Mormon.

The Beatles thing was phenomenally bad, worse than any theme park revue. Why the hell did they follow up Sgt. Pepper w/ A Day in The Life and have With a Little Help from My Friends at the end? Oh yeah, to finish wioth a song about friends - oh God it was so horrible. Like the Brady Bunch Variety Hour.

And why Tony Bennett? I mean, he is always awesome, but why?

That show was a cluster--- but I rather enjoyed it. Although I did read a book with the sound way low for most of it.

I'm interested to see if Jordan will be a star - she's not very black but still too black for Country, which is the only place I see her wholesome churchy image working.

men come into their own later than women. probaly always have, it's just that men and women weren't on the same career tracks. yep, girls are into their first job, great apartment, while guys are still playing video games or watching movies in their parents' basement. but at 30, the guy pulls it together and the girl is either stuck at a low rung on the ladder or leaving the workforce to have a baby. ten years after that, we've lost a lot of both sexes, but then casual dining chains need cooks and waitresses don't they?

Jordan Sparks is gorgeous and I would say an ideal size and shape. I seriously doubt a fit person of her weight has anything to worry about in the health department.

we tried to get r.e.m.'s it's the end of the world as we know it as our prom theme but alas, it lost to wonderful tonight, which sucks.

I can't believe Mike Hucksterbee isn't getting traction - the guy is fantastic on the stump. Worries me a little actually. This is a pretty sad field - I can't see how any of these guys can win unless Bush ends the war.

okay, i was also 12 in '91 and dangit, it WAS a better time for music. that's why all these little hood rat 12 year olds i see riding skateboards are still wearing Nirvana t-shirts even though cobain died before they were born. They are still into Green Day, RHCP, Oh man, I feel old.

since home prices went up for no apparent reason, why shouldn't they fall? as for me, i paid 250K for a house that would have sold for 150K five years ago. as a result, i have no money left over to buy a car, have children, go to grad school, etc. not that i could rent for less. it doesn't make sense to me how prices could have gone up so much when the population didn't.

i don't see how the world's thirst for energy can be sustained by anything except nuclear power - if only we could get rid of that pesky waste.

Dangit,it's true - if we went back to 1980's acceleration, we could hit those numbers easy and still have our big cars. My '89 Camry, a midsize, has 115 horsepower. There are just a handful of tiny subcompacts sold in America today with such low horsepower. Of course, I also want a car with a little more pickup, but the HP of some of these cars now is just stupid.

Newark isn't a city, it's a minimum security prison. So Dickerson's right - why do we bother to enforce all these laws? Why spend all this money to send people to an expensive jail? Might as well just build a wall around Newark. Camden too. Who would notice?