-> MY GLASS HOUSE
To read this article in Deutsch, Francaise, Italiano, Portuguese, Espanol, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, copy and paste the complete URL("http://www.g21.net/mars308.htm") and enter it in the box after you click through.
| g21 #310: Full Moon Woman
AMERICAN DREAMS G21 AFRICA G21 BARNES & NOBLE BOOKSTORE G21 Digital Internet Postcards JOIN OUR MAILING LIST. You'll be glad you did. Surveys that affect our look and feel and much more. Be part of the In-Crowd! G21 EUROPE G21 MIDEAST G21 NEWS *GLOBAL BEAT* HOT LINKS IRISH EYES MY GLASS HOUSE POWERSSOUND QUEER PLANET RDR THE SEX COLUMN VOX POPULI RECOMMENDED DAILY REQUIREMENT ARCHIVES. LAST WEEK's EDITION MEET THE G-CREW! These are the people behind this jam-band every week. |
NEW ORLEANS - 28 APRIL, 2002 - I'm not sure why I keep searching for well-adjusted people in a dysfunctional city like New Orleans. I guess it's my indefatiguable belief in miracles. No miracles to report in this week's Life of Rod news, though. So I figure I'll look around at the news of the world first and then get back to the tragedy you love to read.
There are twin headlines, both of them awful, in the minds of most of the Europe Watchers I know this week: Le Pen's "earthquake" victory and shot at the top job in France and the high school massacre in Germany. Both are the type of events you'd expect to read about in the news of 1932, not 2002.
I can't help but feel like I'm living in some kind of Orwellian Present where the Mouthpiece Media is re-writing history faster than all the drones that a proverbial Big Brother could recruit!
LISTEN: The day of the high school shooting in Germany, my roommate Carlos went for drinks with a couple from Minnesota. The woman, who is Jewish, told Carlos that she does not believe the German people under Hitler knew their country was perpetrating the Holocaust. My friend Dragana writes that it is more troubling for her that there are young people celebrating Hitler's birthday in Russia, more skinheads, though it was the Nazi regime that killed 22 million of their people in the last horrible BIG war, than that Le Pen could become President of France. Both examples tell me that somehow, for these young people, history has been re-written.But not only for these anecdotal young people. All the mallrats of the day are living in the same Revised Version of human life prior to the emergence of multinational, corporate, consumerist, post-modern society. We have fed them hefty helpings of MacEducation for thirty-plus years. We have told them that it's a sign of status to wear the emblem of corporations on their backs and asses.
I cannot but think that Dinesh D'Souza was not speaking philosophically about "The End of History," but that he was, rather, verbalizing a reactionary wish-fulfilment of America's elite.
The vast tapestry of human history over the last five thousand years during which it was recorded proved unacceptable to their ideological obsessions, so, by making all the means of information their property ("There is Freedom of Speech... as long as you own the printing press...") they crafted a new history more their liking.
The final exception to that trend might be the medium you're using now. But it is withering and/or succumbing quickly.
BACK TO THE NEWS: What has gone less noticed, at least domestically, is the plight of our "great friend", Vincente Fox of Mexico. My friend Darryl, in a telephone call, laughed about Fidel Castro's release of a telephone conversation he had taped between himself and Mexican President Fox in which the latter felt it would "complicate" matters if Fidel was still in Mexico when U.S. President Bush arrived for a summit. (See New York Times, 26 April, 2002) After his visit to the Western White House in Crawford Texas, back when His Fraudulency took over, as first foreign leader, Fox thought his program for liberalizing immigration between the United States and Mexico would be smooth sailing. After all, he was a corporate transplant to government, NAFTA is in place. Why not?America's response: Later, pal. We got some ragheads to bomb.
Mr. Fox has lost face with his own people because he failed to understand that in Realpolitik the aspirations of empire take precedence over consanquinity.
Some Germans are saying that it is the impact of the Americanization of the planet that led to the tragedy that ocurred there last week. They consider it the dark side of what Ben Wattenberg celebrates as the expanse of America's Universal Culture. (If you haven't read the book, pick it up. It ranks right up there with The Bell Curve as an example of the neo-Manifest Destiny ideology of our ruling elite.)
Lately, among my intimates, I have had a lot to say about how the most recent news items validate my personal theory that the United States is now at the apogee of its era of empire and the ramifications of that position. I've been much more explicit than I dared be even two years ago about this stance and how it has engendered my sense of foreboding and desire to live elsewhere. I would just like a quiet place in which to write and America, the bellicose, the self-righteous, is no longer a quiet place. I'm not certain any longer if it ever was.
When World's Collide
29 APRIL: X out another job. (Yes, this is the Life of Rod section of this epistle.) I made the mistake of asking my new boss for a weekly schedule. She felt that that was an indication that I was "not cut out for this kind of work." I took my final paycheck today and came back to finish this effort. And do my laundry.
As I have done with all the other catalysts that, with another temperament, might lead to drama, I am being sanquine about the recent setbacks. My optimism seems to boundless. What other excuse could there be?
So what happened is that this misanthrope decided to pay me my salary for the 47.5 hours I worked this week but reneged on the promised commission on my sales. I won't act surprised. I have enough money and time now to do my laundry and complete this magazine.
I called The Computer Shoppe to order the part that might bring My Darling back to me. (They are guessing, since they don't keep replacement parts in stock.)
Everything is riding on my grant to teach at the Novi Sad School of Journalism. I have to take things on faith. I am nearing the conclusion that enough of The Big Easy is enough.
My other two computers are in storage in Pennsylvania. My good brother Darryl, during his telephone call, asked me if I wanted him to send one of them here. I said no, as I didn't know where I might be a month from now. Such is my impulse to act, again.Having the newest Memory Machine of the two would mitigate some of my difficulties but also make moving around that much harder. I have the feeling I should be light on my feet.
I feel I am being haunted by Henry Miller, Vincent Van Gogh and all the other destitute dreamers who have preceded me. I see no Plan, this time, that can redeem my situation. All I can do is wonder which words I write shall be the last to be read. That makes each word more important.
I imagine the words glistening on the page. (There is not an adequate Web effect for that yet, is there?)
My high school friend, Pam, reading these "Glass House" entries, has commented that my life reads like a novel, the cities, the (failed) love affairs, the unending mishaps. That observation reminded me of something I once said myself: "When I stop writing fiction, I live it." That simple equation may explain all of this.The truth of my retreat from fiction seems to be that my own best efforts, the limits of my fictive imagination, could never match the stories, both exultant and tragic, I gleaned from looking at the variety of human experience the actual world presents. I have gotten those from you during my travels. No less is true of the last hejira (one I can't but feel isn't over yet.)
It is time for a new flower.
THINGS I'LL SEEK THIS WEEK
1. The favor of the gods.
2. A "well-turned ankle."
3. The path to the next station of my hejira.
Thanks for coming back this week."Work like you don't need the money,
"Love like you've never been hurt,
"Dance like no one is watching..."
Rod
Rod was a columnist for the Andover News Network, where he wrote over two hundred articles on web design and development issues. He was also principal writer and Editor for IT Manager's Journal, where he reviewed technology issues weekly, producing 383 editorials. He became the Managing Editor for Electronic Mail/Newsletter Publications at Andover.net at the end of February, 2000, and left in September of the same year. He was a contributing writer for ACCESS magazine, which appeared both on- and offline for 10 million readers in 100 newspapers like the San Francisco Chronicle, New York Post, Boston Herald, Austin American-Statesman, Denver Post and Orlando Sentinel, among others. Rod was the US reporter for Silicon.com, a division of Network Multimedia Television in London, UK, reaching 3.5 million European readers, until May, 2001.
This year he worked as Assistant to the General Manager of a Big Easy company that does restaurants and nightclubs. (Think: The Boy.) Oh yeah, Rod's designing Web sites for other people. And he's the instructor in Editing for Internet Publications at the Novi Sad School of Journalism in Yugoslavia. In his spare time, he chases women. 
Rod lives in New Orleans, Louisiana, right now. He wants to live somewhere civilized when he grows up. Wish him Luck.
He continues to be committed to integrity, chastity and a dose of humility.
| HOME | THE PREVIOUS GLASS HOUSE | THE NEXT GLASS HOUSE
CREDITS || AWARDS || SEARCH ENGINES || LINKS ||
VOX POPULI is YOUR PAGE to talk back to us. I'm glad you're not bashful. Keep those cards and e-mails comin', Kids!
Our Editor does listen!
© 2002, GENERATOR 21.
E-mail your comments. We always like to hear from you. Send your kudos, brickbats and suggestions to rod@g21.net.