No Direction Home

I've been thinking about a lot lately, what with the whole "world coming to an end" business surrounding this past Saturday (I guess the guy called it wrong...again. Worse than a weatherman). Not just that, but a lot of stuff around my family is going down, I won't go into it but suffice it to say that nobody has a "normal" family, and anyone that claims to do so is lying.

Also, I've been reading about the Civil War, by which I mean The Civil War, by Shelby Foote. I always meant to pick up one of the massive volumes of his masterwork whenever I used to see it on the shelves of the library, and now that I have (and am currently 300+ pages into the first, 800-page volume), I like it pretty good. You might remember Foote as the grandfatherly figure from Ken Burns' film The Civil War, a folksy oldtimer who could very well have been there on the battlefield by virtue of how authoritativly he talked about it.

It got me thinking, when I went to BAM yesterday and saw all the anti-Obama books that are (shockingly) still being put out, considering this is the same man who, oh, I don't know, took down the greatest terrorist leader to threaten our shores. It made me sad to think that the history of this era won't be written by a clear-headed, sober-minded gentleman, but by an overwrought collection of belly-aching racists. Yes, I said racists.

You see, people call Obama a "socialist" because if they called him what they really wanted to (starts with "n," ends with "-er," and in the middle are some other letters), they'd be justifiably labeled as racists. How do I know this? Because I'm a Southerner, I've grown up with people who thought nothing of using such a word (then again, they weren't trying to sell books to the public at large), and I'd like to think I can tell a bully at long distances. You might think that, if you knew me and how much I opposed Bush, I was ignoring the anti-Bush rhetoric of that era and focusing solely on the nasty Obama haters. I see your argument, figurative internet audience, but let me say this: when we put a Hitler moustache on Dubya, it was stupid. When the other guys put a Hitler moustache on Obama, it was stupid and racist. There is a difference.

Lately I've been looking for an outlet for such thoughts as I might have on the things I care about, something that could help me find a wider audience and perhaps some financial gain as well. If you, figurative internet audience, can think of a place for me to trade my wares, let me know.