cynical about cynicism

No one is more cynical, skeptical, and fatalistic than a disillusioned Romantic.
Yet, once the disillusionment has lost its shock, and the first flush of infatuation with fatalism fades, one may turn cynical about cynicism, skeptical of skepticism.
One's Romantic tendencies, like flowering weeds on a burned-over prairie, may well reassert themselves, their vitality increased by the scorched earth in which they grow.

Overheard....

I should start an "Overheard in Boston" routine.
But we've only got a couple hundred stories in this naked city.
Give it up for the Big Apple, y'all!

New model blogginess....

This is the way, step inside....

What part of "Infallible" don't you understand?

Unfriendly to Catholicism as I am, I'm still baffled by how badly it's misunderstood.
People talking about 'who the Pope should be,' 'what the Pope should do,' listen up: YOU DON'T GET A VOTE.
THE POPE TELLS YOU WHAT TO THINK, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND.
IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, YOU'RE NOT A GOOD CATHOLIC.
IF YOU WERE BROUGHT UP CATHOLIC: EITHER SUCK IT UP, OR FIND A NEW RELIGION. Don't piss'n'moan about how much your religion sucks when you're free to adopt a better one.
If (like me) you're NOT Catholic, either gloat about it, or show some pity. But, please, don't pretend anyone cares what YOU think about how they should run their stupid religion.
Telling the Pope he should recognize freedom of thought, freedom of conscience, married lesbian priests, or majority rule is like telling the U.S. President to serve and obey the UN.
Like telling a witness to commit perjury.
Like telling the Queen of England to hand over her crown and scepter.

O.G.B.

Bauhaus, Sisters of Mercy, Joy Division, The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees: no one cares what THEY thought they were doing (the Sisters, laughably, claimed to be playing 'Heavy Metal,') but everyone who still cares about those bands knows they count as the Original Goth Bands.
The Velvet Underground and The Doors were the 60's fore-runners of Goth.
Bowie, Lou Reed, and, to some degree, Pink Floyd were the early-to-mid-70's forerunners of Goth.
But the term "Goth" only caught on (in America, at least) in the mid-80's, in the wake of "Punk-slash-New Wave," at the same time as "Hardcore" and BEFORE "Alternative" or "Indie."
Bauhaus was 'Bauhaus' because they weren't, for example, 'the aging baby-boomer hippie blues travesty.' The name evoked cold, modern, white European intellectualism. Kind of a 'fuck you' to all the white English rockers trying to ape black American blues artists (hello, Robert Plant, Eric Clapton, Mick Jagger: were you guys a little overplayed in the late 70s/early 80s, hmmmn? Just a little, yes....)
The original 1980s goth aesthetic, depressive and eclectic as it was, drew on post-WWII existentialism and early 20th century modernism as well as the Victorian romanticism which, along with S&M/bondage/fetish crossover, has come to dominate the "goth scene."
Dead Can Dance mark the transition point between earlier, 'existential-despair-overwhelms-pop/rock-band' Goths and latter-day 'quasi-victorian-latex-fetish' 90's mall-Goths.
That's where I washed my hands of it: adolescent angst and pretension isn't a good look for most aging hipsters, so I've moved on.
Ask somebody else where 'Goth, per se' is headed these days.
But - "where have they been?"
That's where we've been....

Oil and Diamonds

Petroleum....
Oil....
The raw material for plastic, rubber, and gasoline.
Many well-intentioned people (especially 'environmentalists') worry we will run out of it.
Most of these folks also believe oil is the remains of dinosaurs and plants from long ago that sank into the earth, rotted, and turned into oil (hence the name "fossil fuel.")
They are wrong about that.
Oil is not any kind of 'fermented dinosaur juice:' it is a natural mineral liquid, and we will not run out of it anytime soon. Calling it a 'fossil fuel' is like calling the Sioux "Indians" because Christopher Columbus mistook America for India.
(See "Abiotic petroleum.")
On the other hand, those same well-intentioned environmentalists also worry that the oil industry pollutes the air and water, causing health trouble for people and animals.
And they are right to worry about that stuff: it's all true.
Diamonds, by the way, are not rare either: they're as common as pretty quartz, give or take an order of magnitude or two, and ought to be priced accordingly. The price of diamonds would fluctuate like the price of gold, if logic and free markets were in charge.
This artificially enhanced scarcity, of course, benefits the diamond merchants.
The 'fossil fuel' theory of oil similarly benefits the oil merchants.
The eternal law of supply-&-demand rules every market.
Artificially inflating the perception of scarcity generates increased profits, whatever you're selling.
Until some of your customers wise up, and become your competitors....

Hubert says:

The right to be heard does not include the right to be taken seriously.
-- Hubert H. Humphrey