FLOTSAM & JETSAM

Flotsam: Goods lost in a shipwreck.
Jetsam: Goods thrown off a ship to ease it’s peril.

I’d meant this weblog to be only about the War on Drugs. The trouble is, I’m interested in everything so I end up with a lot of ideas that are related only in the greater web of worldly thought. So, today I’m starting a new section – for those moments when I have to shake the loose ideas out of my head in order to better focus on the task at hand.


***
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE MAKES ME HAPPY


It had been a pretty rotten week. I was rather cranky by the time I took a break on Friday afternoon. When I got to the street I discovered an anti-war demonstration. Well, it was actually anti-Pentagon.

“There’s a demonstration”, I announced as I returned.

Karen replied , “Oh good, that always cheers you up”.

We laughed. It’s true of course. I read Thoreau and Emerson at twelve years old and completely identified even at that tender age. There’s something in me that loves rebels. I like seeing the younger generation active in a cause, questioning the wisdom of the status quo, getting interested enough to get educated and becoming sufficiently outraged by the knowledge to act - to participate in the process.

Great costumes. There was a Statute of Liberty with big paper tears on her face and words in duct tape all over her costume. It was exactly the right color green. She was playing a fiddle. There was a huge mouth that opened and closed and other participants fed it money and other symbolic items, like the heart of the country. There weren’t many of them, maybe two dozen and they took stations on each corner. At every crosswalk cycle they would all march across the intersection, pausing in the middle for a little street theater. They all held signs that said the pentagon spends 45 million every minute of every day.

I hung out at my corner in mute solidarity. More people honked in support than shouted in derision and I defended them when someone I knew walked by and raised his eyebrows in disbelief.

“I love it.” I said. “My heart is totally with them. They’re doing the right thing”.

I think some of them heard me.


***
JUXTAPOSITIONS

I so enjoy irony. I love incongruous pairings. I’ve seen a few great ones on bumper stickers lately.

At the intersection, two cars side by side:

KEEP YOUR LAWS OFF MY BODY beside PRO CHOICE = PRO DEATH.

THERE IS NO WAY TO PEACE, PEACE IS THE WAY beside I LOVE MACHINE GUNS.

One car had three stickers.

AMERICA RULES THE WORLD, HAPPY NOW? , an upside down flag in the middle, and GREED IMPERIALISM and WAR, NO THANKS GEORGE.

Beside

PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN, JUSTICE and VENGANCE and VIET VET.

I saw three in row on parked cars also:

I LOVE MY COUNTRY BUT I THINK WE SHOULD SEE OTHER PEOPLE.

HAVING GIVEN UP ON SEARCHING FOR THE TRUTH, I’M NOW LOOKING FOR A GOOD FANTASY.

I’m NOT LOST, I’M EXPLORING.