Potato looks up after readin' some of my stuff and tells me my style's good for loosin' squares. Yeah I guess it gets a little KryptOgraphic and lingoed out, kinda pushin' the bounds of readability. And I ain't even claimin' I'm up on it all, but I am down with 4:20. It's like teatime in the Ozarks. which reminds me I must remember to thank my gracious herb broker for his heroic service. So I guess that means most of the folks that groks this are crazies like us. Preachin' to the Choir? I prefer to say, building from within. Lady at the booze shop takes my check and sez, "Now, I'm gonna need something that says you're you, Eugene." "How 'bout a driver's license," I say, as I whip it out. "Work phone?" "None, I'm self employed," I say. "Well I hope you screw the government out of as much as you can," she says as she writes my date of birth on the check. "I do my best," I reply. She does a hail Mary and says, "bless you my son," as I walk out with a fifth of vodka and a six pack. Yeah right, me in my worn out boots and crusty jeans with blown-out knees screwin' big old uncle Sam…I don't think so.
	I relate the story to Kathy, and her take is that the lady could have been coming from a right-wing perspective, some of them being pretty anti-government, ya know. Hmmm… I think that without the huge distraction of the morality issues, we all want similar things. Quality of life, 'freedom,' the opportunity of the American dream. And I have to say, I think government should be leaner (but not meaner), more efficient and less of a burden on its citizens. I also think that people and communities should be encouraged to be more self sufficient and less dependent on the machine central. Of course since they've co-opted 'morality' as their rallying call, I have to name myself something other than them, so I guess I'm a liberal.And you know it ain't 'cause I'm shirking a code of ethics, it's just that in my experience morality is something that must be open and broad and capable of balancing a lot of issues, otherwise it becomes separatism, which I do consider immoral. Clinton was promising to put 100K more cops on the street when we first elected him, which is fine if you happen to be on the cushy side of the law. It's not too hard, though, to find yourself on the other side of one of those lines, as many of them as there are and all the crooked ways they're drawn.
Gotta keep the world divided up into usses and thems, otherwise we'd all be us, and there'd be no thems to kick around. Got hungry out there, stepped back into bio-reality, and everything is flipped around. The republicans are trying to stop the hawkish democrats from bombing Iraq, and some of my liberal friends actually sound more supportive of the machine, feeling that it's best to work your way into it and accomplish the good from there. If business and the money system is the what makes the world turn, then why not accept it as humanity's current form of energy exchange and work to sculpt it in positive directions? Environmentalism doesn't have to be opposed to commerce and good financial sense, in fact, I have one friend who argues enthusiastically that the two forces can be made to work very well together. Yesss, yess, me I'm a pan-theorist, I believe everything. (for this I borrow Emo for his excellent impersonation of the wispy old asian wise man who just came in from the hills) "Yesss, yess, it is all for the good!" And then someone mentions how the crime has gone down in NYC as a result of more law enforcement, and I think, Yow, glad I'm not one of those thems. Some folks get pretty worried about more law enforcement (government troops?) on our streets, fearing that it makes a potential crackdown much easier and quicker for the powers to achieve. Me I dunno, but I suspect that crime, and the tending thereof is big business on the open seas and highway robbery stateside, as seems evident by the frequently flashing lights of the Elkins patrol cars. Some of these little rules are just a little too juicy to let loose of. Pop quiz: which statement is the type of language used by our well-paid politicians? A) "I think you may have a very good point there, sir, and because of your most eloquent argument, I will reconsider my opinion on the matter." OR B) "I'm about ready to come over there and knock the crap out of you!" The sad truth, laddies and gentlewomen, is that thanks to one of our fine representatives (Mr. Bryant), B is the correct answer.

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