Information Overload, Paris Hilton 101 & Clean Bathrooms

[mallorys_camera]

Benazir Bhutto assassinated…

About an hour and a half ago.

Given that it was a suicide bombing, you have to assume Al-Qaeda was behind it. Although maybe not. Who knows to what lengths Musharraf would go to avoid elections? Now he can impose martial law in perpetuo.

Don't you wish Pakistan didn't have nuclear weapons? I know I do!

And aren't you hoping and praying – even the agnostics and atheists among us – that this is not the World War III equivalent of Archduke Franz Ferdinand's death? I know I am!

And I'm doing the usual crazy-old-lady-talking-to-her-coffee-cup muttering about what crap these dueling instant news relays are. Did I really need to become obsessed with this first thing in the morning? It's not as though I can actually do anything about it.

More and more I'm starting to think that at least half of what's wrong with our culture can be traced back to the absence of any kind of refractory period between news cycles. There is no time to process incoming data in any meaningful fashion. One is always being bombarded with fresh data. This constant rat-a-tat-tat assault of information makes it difficult to separate out the relevant from the irrelevant.

In other news much boring, book-keeping type stuff needs to be done for the Little Store and I continue to poke around sullenly, feeling hugely sorry for myself, seeing slights where I'm sure none are intended. I am imagining the great Hall of Karma, a kind of celestial Student Union, where the lives of various individuals function as classroom curricula. A bunch of excited souls are gathered round some computer printouts taped to the wall –

"Oh, look! I got Paris Hilton this reincarnation!"

Squeals of happiness.

"And I got Uma Thurman!"

More squeals.

"Oh, no. I got… DiLucchio."

Commiserative silence.

The plus side to moods like this is that I end up cleaning the bathrooms. Scrubbing toilets soothes my huffy soul somehow.

Comments

[pageeater.livejournal.com]

I don't watch the news but once a day... and that somewhere mid-day. That way I don't mess with my morning mood or my nighttime rest.

I would hope, if I am with the gathered once again in the Hall of Karma, I will 'get' Amma, Mata Amritanadamayi. Truly.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Good strategy viz news. Is Amma the kissing guru? My sister is a devotee. My sister is kind of a whack job; you, clearly, are not. Tell me why Amma moves you.

[pageeater.livejournal.com]

She hugs more than she kisses.
When she holds a person, she becomes the Mother of us all. It is the way she gives to this world - and it's profound. Her soul sours - and you see this in her eyes and in her eyes I see her heart and in her heart I see a spirit I wish to aspire. She will spend ten to twelve or more hours - as long as the line lasts each day - simply holding each person... without respite. And the person who last receives this Love, receives the same quality of unbounded caring as the first person to reach her. And she smiles and she laughs - and as the river flows, so does her Love, so does her heart-healing hold.

And thanks for the vote of confidence - regarding my non-whackiness. lol. :-D

[lethe1]

The assassination was a non-accident waiting to happen. Never for a moment did an impending WWIII cross my mind, though. But of course that could have more to do with my lack of understanding politics than with logical thinking.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

I agree Bhutto set herself up to be martyred.

Never for a moment did an impending WWIII cross my mind

I'm not sure that's due to a lack of political understanding on your part. it's very possible I'm paranoid.

[alexkaufmann]

This assassination seems to be an internal Pakistani issue.

Franz Ferdinand's assassination was far more globally relevant, mainly because of the military buildups, intense rivalries and secret alliances in Europe at the time.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

This assassination seems to be an internal Pakistani issue.

Are there such things as "internal Pakistani issues?" Pakistan is where both the Taliban and Al-Qaeda arose. Terrorism is a global threat -- although I rather think it's less of a problem for the Chinese, say, than the U.S.

[alexkaufmann]

Actually, the Chinese have their own problems with the ethnic minorities in their western provinces, some of whom are Muslim and allied with groups like al-Qaeda.

Bhutto's assassination had more to do with her chances of winning the upcoming elections than any global geopolitical statement.

[slfisher.livejournal.com]

Franz Ferdinand was my first thought too.

I wonder what this is going to do to the U.S. electoral process.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Hard to say. It catapults terrorism front and center into the political dialogue again, of course (though I'm not sure Joe Q Citizen really cares about things that happen in Pakistan.) This is good news for mcCain and Giuliani.

But more importantly, it raises the price of gas. Which I personally don't see dropping any time soon. This might be good news for Clinton.

[alexkaufmann]

Why would gas prices drop significantly at all?

The US population has shown a willingness to pay $3 a gallon. Why would any Exxon/Mobil (who sets new records for corporate profits every quarter) ever bother dropping the price of gas again?

The real crime here is that no one in the Bush administration (who has closer ties to oil than any other in our history) has picked up the phone and asked the oil companies to maybe only have a $500 billion profit this year by cutting the price of gas in half.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Anything that destabilizes the Middle East raises the per barrel price of oil.

The US population, sadly, is over that oil barrel. You live in a place whose administrators were smart enough to invest in a public transportation system. This is not the case for much of the rest of the country. In the SF Bay Area -- I live on what you might call the exstreme edge of that -- it is common for people to commute 100 miles/day between where they live and where they work. They have no real choices because of how the grids are laid out around here.