Tuesday, September 19, 2006

A friend will soon become competition - cranked out of one of the many schools in town that continue to balloon the ranks of massage practicioners with new-agey teenies who just "hated math and science". He's a good guy who will most certainly differentiate himself from a sometimes mentally slothlike pack and will do very well for himself. He's an artist, who can do as much on paper as he does on bicycles. The ability to see in 3 dimensions and his personal knowledge of what the body can do when pushed will serve his future clients well.

I did a search on the American Massage Therapy Assn website not long ago for my zip code and came away astounded that I have any work to do at all. It seems as though the number has decreased recently though: a result of the statewide license requirements, I presume. Either way, there are alot of folks out there, as I put it, "rubbin' butts" for a livin'. I get by because the LW busted her butt to make it through KU on student loans and actually has, what I consider to be, a real job.

Reading the book from the right sidebar over there ----> has me thinking what a joke it is to hear our supposed president talking about how our job is to spread liberty, freedom, and democracy. His real job appears to be spreading contracts and maneuvering for more of them. As long as there's a religious war combined with oil fields, there will always be work for Bechtel and the other money laundering contracting companies. All the while we're being lulled into passivity by the great distraction that parades as entertainment on the idiot box in just about every public and private room in this country. Ever wonder why the morning "news" people always talk about some celebrity's private life as if it really matters? That's because it does. As long as we, as a society, are worried about which scientologist psycho does what, then we'll not really see what's going on in our name around the world.

Try this some time - watch the News Hour on PBS. Sit there and see just how out of touch most people really are. Do you recognize any of the topics being discussed? You should. Here's the interesting part. Watch what they show at the end of their broadcast every now and then. It's a quiet slide show of all of the dead armed forces personnel that have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Watch the ages and rank of all of these guys stream by in silence. You'll see senior enlisted guys and a few junior officers, but watch for what isn't there. Rarely will you see a senior officer. Then look at all of the faces of those PFCs, SPCs, and L.Corporals. We'll be told that they're spreading democracy and freedom while Halliburton et al funnel their contract money through the Caribbean so they don't have to pay taxes on it. I watched CSPAN recently as Durbin and Dorgan questioned the Halliburton lawyer until he resembled a stammering moron. Money is going out of our treasury for these contracts, being handed right back to these contractors, and all that we're left with is a disentigrating mess of a middle eastern country and dead kids whose parents cling to the hope that they were there doing the right thing for the Iraqi and Afghan citizens.

I got lucky a few times on the deck of an aircraft carrier and didn't end up as fish food. Another time and one of those guys could have been me. And for what? What would my mother have been handed the folded flag for? A token of thanks for a Bechtel, Halliburton, or KBR contract? An apology for training Bin Laden and his ilk? An apology for toppling elected leaders in the middle east and other places for the last 50 or so years?

I watch events unfold and wonder what in this country will still be viable when my daughter is my age.

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