Digby:

What we do about Islamic fundamentalism is a topic we must deal with. I suspect that it will take a global effort and a willingness to deal intelligently with the impending global oil crisis. There will be other challenges as well, including potential wars and regional strife and any of the other things that have marked civilization from the beginning. All peoples must deal with such things.

But there is no war on terrorism. The nation is less secure because of this false construct. We are spending money we need not spend, making enemies we need not make and wasting lives we need not waste in the name of something that doesn't exist. That is as politically incorrect a statement as can be made in America today. But it's true.

It's a lie and a scam and a sham and a show, but it's a meal-ticket a lot of lazy fatbacks are riding, and which a lot of paranoid juicers are drawing power from. It'll be right hard to get rid of.

Our national leadership class is remarkably small and entrenched. They resist change and it's much easier to stop things than to start them. Yeah, the Democratic party is getting an infusion of new blood, and that's all good, but the revolution isn't really happening in any meaningful way.

Maybe we'll get healthcare though. That'd be nice.

I don't know what anyone's complaining about. This was just as good as the other ones. FWIW I didn't think the others were any more than popcorn-munching fun, so maybe I'm out of synch with the expectations game.

Also, the bit at the beginning w/Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen coming to visit young Jean Grey... those two old British dudes so totally want to make out.

Very likely, based on the opening weekend take, there will be a fourth. Maybe we'll finally get a little Gambit action.

I've been packing stuff up, going through all my buried boxes and bags of clothes I never wear, books don't read, etc. I'm gonna make a good shot at relieving myself of some of this burdin. Sal Army and the local library will get gifts; maybe someone's life will be brightened.

It's been filling me with a great feeling of sadness, actually. Even just walking around the corner past the bustle of Prospect Park, friends on the street, bought a lime fruit bar and two tickets to the last showing of X-men tonight... The humidity in the air I won't miss, but it feels sorry and low to be leaving all this energy behind.

This life I've been living for the past eight months hasn't been right for me. I don't try to pretend otherwise. Still, I can't escape the sensation of something valuable -- the last true fillaments of youth maybe -- slipping through my fingers. I imagine shortly I'll start going bald. Oy vey. That's kind of a maccab image, and overblown to say the least. I don't mind growing up, really, but I want it to be on my terms, not a matter of settling into one of these ruts that civilization hollows out there for ya.

The great problems in life are never solved, of course. It's the challenge and engagement that gives us meaning, yes, but I wish I didn't always feel so out of place. I wish I had bigger piece of the world called home.

I wish I didn't want to try and make all women love me all the time. I wish I were simpler, maybe a vegetarian; maybe a meditator; maybe married to my first girlfriend. I wish I didn't read the news. I wish we were smart enough to not be at war, brave enough to live honest and true and close to the soul.

It's a terrible dark thing sometimes, the future, especially in phases like these where I feel more or less weak and helpless in the face of everything, disconnected from my fellow man even though here we are packed in like sardines. G-D it. I know that I'll be allright, but I'm tortured by ambitions and wishes and that out-of-placeness that secretly (don't tell, I swear) drives much of my desire to change the world.

But tomorrow is another day. The thunder is rolling on in.

Finally got around to watching the two-part finale. It was pretty decent, although I think the path of "explaining" things is fraught with peril. I've always felt the show works because it exists in parable-space, making up meaning without really having to engage a chain of logic (e.g. "Who are you?" "We're the good guys" -- that's f'ing brilliant!).

So, I'm basically comfortable with a lot of things not getting explained -- that piece of statue, polar bears, etc -- because I think the fun of the show is in projecting your own explanations and theories onto it, and because I fear that attempting to tie up these loose ends will be a dissapointment. But so far so good.

Also, always a pleasure to see Clancy Brown at work. I dig his acting. He was on back earlier this year as US Military dude who interacted with Saed in Iraq. The two times he's appeared the characters have had different first names, but the same last name, but could be the same person. Or not.