How Civilized People Behave

Just a quick observation on the reactions in Great Britian.

From high officials and "common" Londoners, we're seeing how civilized people behave in the face of adversity. We hear lots of talk about "carrying on" and "not being defeated" and "preserving the English way of life."

We're not hearing "evil doers," "bring it on," or "payback's a bitch."

We're not hearing a lot of bravado from Scotland Yard or British Intelligence about how "We will track these mad dogs down and they will be punished." They don't have to talk about it. They're just going to do it. We probably won't hear much from them until the mission's accomplished. And when they tell us the mission's accomplished, it really will be.

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In contrast, I forced myself to listen to an hour or so of American Kool Aid radio today. Lots of "boot in their ass" talk. Lots of "time for us to show them we're serious." Seriously--$200 plus billian and tens of thousands of casualties isn't "serious" enough for these folks.

I heard three callers to this show trot out the "Fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here," line. Still. Again. Yet. The significance of the London attacks had completely gone over their heads. Predictably, none of the Big Brother Broadcasters pointed out the proven lunacy of this line of logic.

Man

Kinds of people I've learned through hard experience to shy away from:

-- People whose "wit" consists of repeating jokes they hear on TV and who think they're really funny.

-- People who repeat Rovewellian talking points they hear on Fox News and Rush and who think they're really smart.

-- People who tell the first two kinds of people that they're funny and smart.

Time to get back to work on the latest fiction work in progress. Titled 2020, it's supposed to be a satiric, illogical extension of today's America. But I'm having a problem with it. No matter how absurd a scenario I try to create, it seems no more absurd than our present reality.

Jeff