Venting

It’s summertime, and the livin’ ain’t easy for too many of us. With Barack Obama off, showing the world what a U.S. president could and should be, my urge to vent has become too strong to resist. Some thoughts have reached the festering point in my cortex, and require airing.

Let me start out with Olympian madness: the best boom to the pharmaceutical industry and rampant, insistent nationalism. I cannot stand the Olympics, and although I live in Virginia – where to precede anything objectionable with a “Bless her/his/their heart/hearts” is an all-purpose form of redemption – I do not bless anything about this regularly scheduled orgy of nationalistic chest-beating.

Which reminds me of a recent statement made by our current semi-literate president. While opining on the wonders of the event, his trip to China for said event, he confided his pride in “ath-a-letes.” It would appear that no one in his star-studded administration slipped him the news that the word is a two-syllable one, not three.

Something else that has been troubling me are the constant echoes of something H. L. Mencken said. This master of satire mused that “No one should underestimate the ignorance of the average American.” (Please give me a little slack; I may be paraphrasing…).

I firmly believe that guilt is the most useless of emotions, and therefore, feel none at all when I state that I will never, ever again buy or read The New Yorker magazine. A publication I long admired. Yes, I know the cover – the despicable cover – of the Obamas has been defended on the basis of “satire,” but as one who has long labored in the fields of same, heaping her sentences with this spicy, savory condiment, there is nothing but ugliness in a cover depicting a presidential nominee’s family as terrorists. The cover confirms every psychotic suspicion of those individuals and organizations who worship at the shrine of right-wing family. Who sponsor, put forth and support organizations with “Family” in their names, and who revel in the depiction The New Yorker presented of the Obamas.

Whew! Hey, I feel better, and welcome comments, opposing and concurring views. As a forever Luddite, my view of this means of communication is not to air one’s personal ego, but to inspire a forum-like environment, where give and take reign.