All the networks will be there

Between Bush invoking God as the basis for wisdom over his Iraq/anti-terror decisions and God telling that guy to kidnap that Utah girl, God needs a new address book.

Perhaps this is the frustrated Catholic in me talking but I think we've been running on blind faith for just a little too long. It's time we had a new, more media-friendly covenant with the Almighty. Would it be too much for God to show up every once in a while? Nothing regular; I know s/he has business in other parts of the universe. Once every 100 years would be fine. Just a little something to hold over the troops.

Yes, I understand that the idea of God revealing itself in full glory to the mortals does kill the whole mystery of faith and religion, but it also would be gangbusters for attracting new members to the flock if they had something visible to justify their devotion. No more Virgin Mary sightings on tortillas or in oil stains in a Jiffy Lube in Knoxville. Once every 100 years, God makes an appearance to see how the humans are doing. If they've made some progress in getting along, the Almighty might see its way to, oh I don't know, wiping out a famine here or a drug-resistant disease there. If God shows up at the end of the century-cycle and we've only made wars and been cruel to one another...well, imagine a five-mile long titanium spike driven deep into the San Andreas Fault or a decade-long blight of corn crops around the world.

It's time God stopped being an absent-minded creator and started showing up for TV interviews, too. Nothing major. Larry King Live would be fine. I'd imagine God would look smashing on HDTV, all radiant in those white robes and perfect hair. I'd have to think that the first question, after "Hey, where did you get those cool shoes?", would be "Why do good things happen to bad people?"

And, in a baritone that would make James Earl Jones weep with envy, God would reply, "Well, geez, Larry, did it ever occur to you that bad things happen to bad people, too? If nothing ever bad happened, you wouldn't know what anything would be worth. I'm not a micro-manager, well, outside of my century gifts to you all, but I gave you folks the power to be kind to each other, to harness science to find cures for cancer and AIDS and the common cold. Earthquakes, volcanoes and the lots, yeah, I can see how that would suck for all of you out there, but you have to understand that the Earth is a living, changing organism. You also know better than to live at the foot of a volcano, and I see some engineers out there are working to create shake-proof buildings. You all fail to stop and see that you have to live in tandem with nature. You can't conquer it, nor will it always win out over you. Be creative, damnit. That's why I gave you a left and a right brain.

"Oh, and Larry, the shoes are Reebok crosstrainers. Very sweet for a deity on the go."

Interesting. Tried www.heaven.com, and got a message back saying the specified server couldn't be found. This site, however, looks more promising.

Just occurred to me

"What is not in doubt, in President Bush's mind, is that Saddam Hussein will be disarmed."
- Ari Fleischer, White House PR flak.

Okay, I get that. I think we all would like Hussein disarmed. My thought is, if Bush doesn't doubt that Hussein will be disarmed one way or another, why is he all hot and bothered about invading now? I mean, if he knows for sure Hussein will eventually be empty-handed, it's got to be a reassuring feeling. Being in a push to invade isn't, well, a move that a confident, reassured man would take, now is it?

More on the Motown

I made an entry yesterday which touched on how I didn't want to be stuck in Detroit on a layover on the long flight I hope to be on in a few weeks coming home from Paris.

I knew I was going to get a comment about my Motor City slight, and I did from The Vinman.

For the most part, I think he was in a joking mood, and I do remember seeing the Joe Louis fist, a combination of dominant cool and sleek-scary like something out of a fascist propaganda poster.

Ever trying to be a diplomat, and attempting to prove I meant no offense, I wrote back The Vinman:

My memories of Detroit come from some hazy trips I had made in the late 80s/early 90s, long after the go-go Gordon Gecko-era of slashing American industry by corporate raiders looking for a quick profit overseas drained the once-powerful Motor City into nothing more than an emasculated husk of a metropolis. The city reminded me Chicago's tougher, more no-nonsense brother...full of racial division, crime and a decimated economic base, a gleaming jewel of industry tossed to the side like other towns in the Rust Belt when the Japanese started to make more efficient cars. We had no way to retaliate, so we let Detroit take our collective blame. It's inexcusable.

And so Detroit became a warning to all cities in America, the ghost town we whisper about in bedtime stories to children. Study hard, work harder, innovate or we'll rot away, too.

I think, in the end, all we are going to see of the world are hermetically-sealed airports. It's sadly the only introduction most people get to any major destination these days, mostly through sterile, assembly-line connecting flights. When I go to Europe in a couple weeks, I'm only going to have a view of Amsterdam via some airport porthole; and the city of Anne Frank, bicycles, quaint canal bridges, cheap pot and display-window whores beckoning to come play will remain isolated because my layoff is far too short. We're merely looking at fluid images of cities growing or dying as form of purgatorial entertainment, until the next plane is refueled and we wing off to our final destination.

When I think of Detroit these days, I think of the "Robocop" films, all jazzed up on media overload and cyborg fetishes and set in a crumbling Detroit overrun by gangs, criminals, druggies, overwhelmed cops and a hungry corporation looking to use the city as its own testing ground for bleeding-edge anti-crime technology or new, Darwinian methods of urban planning.

I know, not exactly stuff to draw in the tourists.

Today's Word: Antenna

From One Word

I'm listening all the time for new things to write about, items in the news or snips of conversation. It's a different kind of survival instinct, tweaked like a clay sculpture to go from protecting oneself from raiders and vicious animals to dragging out interesting nuggets of life.