Stick It to The Man

I did some traveling this Summer. I went from one end of this country to the other (top end to bottom) and during that whole time saw only one Hummer. It seems I can't go a day here without seeing 10. I get it, you're rich and don't care about anything but yourself. Move on.

Similarly... kind of, I was in some very conservative parts of the country, I saw very few Bush Cheney stickers on cars. It makes me wonder what's going on with people around here. Why do so many Glendorans need to display their fealty? Are they more loyal, or less loyal so they're compensating? Do they imagine they are protesting something- it's a stick in the eye to anyone who drives too far east on the 210? Is it out of guilt for having a gay Congressman? Are their lives so devoid of meaningful relationships they yearn for even the shallowest connection that comes from knowing glances shared at an intersection? I dunno.

I do know I was in Cape Girardeau, a town on the Mississippi so conservative they're naming a courthouse after Rush Limbaugh... well a Rush Limbaugh- one that didn't take Oxycontin or Viagra while on sex tours in the Dominican Republic- anyway- I don't remember seeing a single Bush Cheney or W'04 sticker while I was there. And I was looking.

I wonder if these prominent external displays of identity are meant to make up for internal confusion. You know- so many teenagers work so hard to identify what they are externally because they are uncertain about who they really are, who they want to be, what they are becoming, etc. They're still learning how to look critically at themselves and fumbling with ways of distinguishing themselves from what they might see as imposed identities. Maybe there's a bit of that going on here.

Or maybe, more like pre-teens, some people see certain stickers as a mark of approval from authority.

Good Job.

Anyway, I returned home on one of the last flights- for who knows how long- that allowed carry on luggage and liquids. I suppose I could go on about the irony of surrendering so many of our freedoms to people whom we are told hate us because of our freedom. I suppose I could write about how it was good old fashioned police work and not an Imperial Crusade or airport screening that caught the alleged would be bomb-makers. (Though how "alleged" and how "would be" seems to be less than crystal clear.) But I'm sure other people have done that... probably a while ago by now. Still, with that I wonder how long before a would be bomber tries to board a plane with a stick of dynamite in his butt. Won't that be nice?