The Banzai Chronicles

Bruce keeps saying we're moving to Iceland next week
(I mean, he's been saying that for about six months....)

If we pool our money, maybe we can buy it!

why didn't I think of that. I'll be sure to put that option on the table tomorrow!

im in :)

I am so sick of the government thinking that they can empathize or sympathize with the american people. I am also done listening to the left wing media back Obama and dis Palin... Let me know what country you're going to. One more rant...The american public that are acting like sheeple. Have they not ever heard of researching their candidate? Ok, done now. Thanks.

BTW, Chuck and I finished our ballots today.

Hooray for being done! Now you can ignore all the buzz from people who are clearly not up to date. It's like you're living in the future…

...If I vote now, can I get a "mute" button for all the political noise? Done is done, after all...

mailing mine out in the morning! i think we should be able to wear our "I voted" stickers around our necks like a press pass. then when ppl start to get crazy we can just flash them our pass and they have to move along.

That is absolutely brilliant. Top notch!

Good thing I've been using the laminator at work for personal projects - I'll make a couple of these for us! Fab idea. :D

do it! i don't have a laminator so i'll have to put mine in an old flippy-type wallet.

then, at just the right moment i'll flip-flash it like i'm an FBI agent.

NICE. so official.

How is righteous indignation about rigteous indignation any different? Is there only one kind that is more suitable?

Mine has an "h" and I wear an ironic trucker hat.

Got it.

righteous indignation about saving the life of a child instead of saving a can or a piece of paper is completely different

Whatever side of the proverbial fence people happen to be on (we're likely very similar), I usually don't doubt most of our motivations—we tend to focus on what we really believe to be important. While think it's possible and sometimes certain that our opinions can be wrong (a blasphemous position in postmodern Western culture), what's behind them can be very good and even constitute some common ground at times.

What gets hard for me is that we're now so connected to one another, yet we still use our "outside voices" in the dialogue (such as it is). I want to tell my fellow citizens, "I can hear you. So can almost everyone else. I don't want to stifle anyone's freedom of expression, but we really don't need to keep shouting and repeating the same things. Just because we don't agree doesn't mean we don't hear each other."

That desire to be heard is sometimes overpowering, especially when it doesn't take into account our super-connected society. We need to stop hammering on each other and flooding the channels with opinion and information if we're going to be good neighbors. Basically, we could all do better at exercising both respect and good editing.

this comment deserves its own post.

i love it.

hangs head

No head hanging allowed! I think you and I completely agree that, while some of the political debate would make perfect sense with all things being equal, all things are far from equal, and it'd be irresponsible to pretend otherwise. I didn't mean my mini-soapbox (I have so many!) to feel directed your way at all.

The short version of said mini-soapbox: I get why people don't think there's a difference between the two (or why they may think that difference goes in the opposite direction). I disagree with them, but I get it. And since I get it, they (and I) can probably turn down the volume.

I work at whole foods and i get ever so tired of having to keep my mouth shut while people rant and rave about what they think is right and wrong and how anyone that disagrees with them is bound to be a mindless idiot or a backwoods hillbilly "christian" liar. I want to get up on a mountain and proclaim that they havent the foggiest idea of who GOD is or isnt, or what right and wrong is or isnt but i just love them and pray for them because that is what i feel called to do. But this election has brought something up in me that cant be kept down. I cant watch and be silent while the slamming goes on. I know there is a place for that but there is a place for speaking the truth as well. Someone will argue that it is only my truth but that is not so, it is ancient truth. Built in the blood that God put in our veins. Thou shalt not KILL. You cannot refute that. you can cut this if you want to its ok with me :)

I'm just ready for all of it not to be attached to Presidential candidates—because really, it isn't. The truth will stand long after McCain, Obama, Palin, Biden and all the rest are dust (it stood long before any of them). We're using them and "issues" as surrogates for conversations we should actually be having with one another. Unsurprisingly, it's not working very well.

There are plenty of things to care about and plenty of really evil things to be righteously indignant about. Being angry about evil is never anything, in my opinion, that should ever be dismissed because it is generally in support of what is good and what needs to be protected. There is a principle being defended, or actual people. So I don't agree with this. I think that righteous indignation is the same at it's root whatever the cause. Perhaps the problem is that many of us who feel it just trick ourselves to believing that we are only entitled to giving it, not receiving it. Because God is on our side. For me, thatt is when things get deluded because that is not of God.

Hate to tell ya, but I'm 7,000 miles away and it's still everywhere. But I can go into a really loud pachinko parlor and let the noise take me away... :)

This may be the fist time I've been jonesing for a pachinko parlor…