RANT

There’s a film I’ve never seen that I have wanted to get my hands on for many, many years called Resurrection. It’s out of print and has never been released on DVD; Ellen Burstyn was nominated for Best Actress in 1980 for her work. Her character is visiting with her mother; at the end of the visit, Mom supposedly tells daughter: “If we loved each other like we say we love God, I suspect there wouldn’t be so much bother in the world.”

For a long time now, the bother has been bothering me. I see it every day in the course of my work as a process service clerk. As the papers pile up and I enter them into our “sophisticated” computer system, I can only imagine what goes on. Children being born out of wedlock to irresponsible and negligent parents. Divorcing couples who apparently can’t see past their rage toward each other, if they ever could in the first place. Corporations jousting against one another, apparently competing to see whose lawsuit is bigger and ironically required more trees to be sacrificed. And car accidents! Too damn many car accidents, and too many insurance companies baring their bloody fangs.

All this can be avoided, you know. No one seems anymore like they think before they act. No one considers the consequences of sipping the umpteenth Southern Comfort. Lookie here, that guy is gonna have it away with the little blonde tart, never mind that he has a wife and children that look up to him. And that seat belt sign flashing at the driver while he does sixty in a forty zone? Well, who cares? Who? Does no one care about the consequences of their actions? Can the siren song of wolf-like news reporters and bored cameramen be that loud and seductive? Has no one any shame anymore?

I dunno. I look around this world anymore, and I am aghast at what I see. It galls me that I live in a country where more people vote for a pop music idol than they do their president, and are encouraged to do it more often. I do not find Paris Hilton, Britney Spears or any of the other trollops and harlots attractive, and I am bewildered that millions of others admire them. Men do things every day that make me ashamed to be one; rapes, robberies, murders, and beatings. Up until January 20 of this year, I found it just upsetting that three hundred million people should hate one man so much and so deeply. I turn on the radio in the morning, and I hear the same two guys with the same first name talking about the same two things in the same zombiefied tone of voice. On my drive home, Dr. Michael Savage says I am a schmuck, a schmendrick, a putz, or a combination of all three. People get conned out of money in Ponzi schemes. Homeless people make the choice—the choice—to beg for money as I walk past. I could go on and on with this. But I can nothing that Paddy Chayefsky didn’t say far more persuasively in Network.

And have we listened to ourselves lately? Jesus! At my office, when I’m not hearing gossip, I only hear variations on about fifty key words and phrases. And I myself am falling into the trap; on the phone I hear myself saying the same thing so often I am turning into a walking, talking tape loop. It is so hard anymore, at least for me, to hear sentences that are structured properly, with nouns, adjectives, verbs, modifiers, etc., and to hear words consisting of fewer than three syllables. Far greater intelligences than I have referred to the “dumbing-down” of America. They fret, rightfully so, that Americans are becoming dumber, less cultured, and even more desensitized than they already are. These intelligences, I hope, will be happy to know that I don’t like to follow along in gangs.
Sorry to sound so negative, folks. Thanks for letting me rant. I do wish the world were full of roses and tulips, that families were stable and corporations didn’t run amok, drunk on power. I do wish we loved one another like we say we love God. No God I know would let this world stand at the precipice of its own ruin.