7:05pm on the clock on my microwave, and the sun's light, half way across the world, glints off a cruise missile

And I find I don't really care.

Peter Pan is on my television out front, my 3 year old Godson making
forts and trampolines out of my couch cushions. His mom and dad are in
their room, getting some after-work smokey treats in before they
settle down in front of the tube with a glass of wine. They'll
probably tousle his hair a couple times, read him a story and put him
to bed in about an hour or so, right around the time I finish typing
this out. 

Here I am, in front of my computer, posting to a hip hop message board
after bouncing around the internet, checking movie news, checking
sports news, looking for some music to download so I have something to
bump in the morning on the new car stereo I just paid to have
installed. I just posted a message about DVD's, and read an in-depth
article on the history of Superman's origins in the comics. 

Our president, a career fuck-up who has never once succeeded at ANY
venture he chose to pursue, is essentially annexing an entire country,
for reasons that are stated to be purely democratic--pursuing freedom,
ensuring liberty. Noble, golden words and ideas, right? But when I
hear things like 'Setting fire to the oil fields will be war crime,'
when I find that Halliburton was already contracted to go over there
and handle any oil problems--I start to wonder if we just picked up a
51st state or just a really big gas station. 

But aside from those very typical and overplayed left wing liberal
worries that have been voiced ad nauseum to the point where they
almost don't carry any weight anymore, the truth remains that our
country, under the leadership of a man we didn't elect, is putting the
final stamp on his diplomatic split with most of the rest of the free
world. And as a result, many tons of explosive will fall on the heads
of a LOT of people I don't know and properties I've never stood on in
a country I've never seen. And right now,  as the rain lightly
spatters off my bedroom window, as the low light cast by my cheap 9.99
Wal-Mart lamp bounces off my 4 blank walls, the sun is just now coming
up in Iraq, and it's light is glinting off of anti aircraft weapons,
off of cameras and camera crews, off newsmen and anchors and people
running and ducking and talking and pointing to places on maps and
drawing lines, dotted, straight, curly-q, and all of them are doing it
with the same kind of passion and intensity I'm typing this post with.

Absolutely fucking none.

Seriously. I'm nonplussed. So are the reporters. I saw Wolf Blitzer on
CNN as anti aircraft fire ripped behind him and Cruise missles began
slamming into the ground, and I thought I saw him stifle a yawn. I
went back into my bedroom and checked ESPN.com. My roomates flipped
open the life section and started talking about some stupid celebrity
quote. I remember coming out and telling them about the latest Shaq
quote about Mike Bibby, and we all had more of a reaction to that than
we did to the fact that people were going to start dying shortly. 

And I'm still nonplussed. I'm still here, posting this. Why aren't I
freaked out? Why aren't I worried? Surely the entire world is falling
down around my head, right? The president the people didn't want has
told most of the rest of the free world to fuck off, has effectively
told the people in the organization our own country practically
CREATED that we're above them and their mandates, and has made such a
mess of this war situation that even IF a different president is put
in his place in another 2 years, there's no way to try to reverse the
damage already done. Where would this guy start? How would that person
even begin to TRY to attempt to fix the wrongs that have been done
here? How could the UN, NATO, the other countries we're supposed to be
allies with trust us as a people when they're busy peeking out the
corner of a blackened, swole up, spit on eye? How does that man begin
to build up the trust and respect Bush just shit all over? How do we
repair the damage done by the logic that states "You have to comply
with the UN's resolution, but we can ignore the UN and invade your
fucking country whenever we goddamn well feel like it?" 

yes, good WILL come of it. With the US occupying, Iraq will finally
have the economic choke hold loosened, and it's people will start
getting the resources it needs. An egotistical dictator who put his
peoples needs FAR below his own will be removed, finally. But
apparently, in order for that to happen, we had to go through some
long, protracted struggle that further isolated our country from the
rest of the world, and now there are people dying by this country's
hand. Right now. There is someone getting blown the fuck up. There is
someone getting shot dead. In my name. And I yawn, and I stretch, and
I look for a quote or two from Ari Fleischer or Donald Rumsfeld, I hit
refresh at CNN.com to look at the pretty green tinted pictures, I put
my headphones on and check my bank statements online, check the
balance on my credit cards, and a bullet wings through someone's
intestines, the shrapnel from an exploded missle decapitates someone,
but burning an oil field is a war crime, and I'm more worried about my
NCAA bracket picks.

And I think most of the world is with me as far as that goes. The
Oscars are going off without a hitch. CBS is making deals to make sure
we don't miss a minute of Creighton's first round heroics on the
hardwood. The news networks have been running a morbid little death
clock ever since 2 days ago, and I half expect the sick glow in every
news anchors eyes to explode, the suits and ties to come off as they
break into glorious war dance and smear pigs blood on their eager
grinning deaths head faces. And I just yawn and turn the channel.
People have stationary cameras bolted down to probable targets just to
make sure they get the footage. the Production level of this war
rivals Lord of the Rings.  Everything old is new again, and the Gulf
war was okay, but this is Gulf War, Special Edition, with all new
digitally enhanced special effects and all new footage, restored and
remastered for your enjoyment. 

I feel enough to know that it's kinda bad that I'm comfortably numb.
I'm 25 and I'm completely sedated. I'm worn out. I'm tired. The
corrupt plutocracy that our governmental structure has become has worn
me down to the slowly blinking plebe it wants me to be. What's to
fight? The structure our government sits upon is fortified too thick
now. It can't be changed. And what's worse is most of us DON'T EXPECT
it to change, either. We know what's wrong, and the politicians know
we know, but they also know that we're poor and defeated, mostly, that
we're mostly all have-nots, and have nots don't fund campaigns, they
don't get special interest kick-backs. The fact that I can drop the
term "special interest" without even blinking an eye at the nepotistic
corruption the phrase inherently implies should say something, right? 

I'm defeated. I'm tired. I'm completely selfish, I'm worried about me,
and The US bombing the shit out of Iraq is an abstract. It was an
abstract when I was 13, but I was 13. I'm 25 now. But I grew up in a
fairyland of freedom and I'm completely disconnected now. 

And there's a lot of you with me. And there's a few of you that
aren't. 

Let's hope those few of you have enough strength to make up for the
rest of us. 

I gotta make some CD's now.
Fatboy