WikiLeaks peeled back a layer of civility if nothing else... Now we have to ask if we wouldn’t rather have that layer back.
I’m not one of the great thinkers. To much thinking makes my head all foggy, and makes me want to drink even more whiskey then I usually do. This isn’t to say that I’m not capable of deep thoughts I just often wonder if they are worth the effort.
Take math as an example. I remember learning about it. I remember looking at columns of fractions, and decimals, and percents, and mentally asking myself now only ‘how’ but ‘why’? The key for me was reducing, once I realized what reducing was and how it worked, then I was able to break the complex problems down and see them as smaller, and more manageable. Suddenly math wasn’t as intimidating, and then it just became work, like cleaning a house or building a brick wall, you just wade in and do it. Step by step, brick by brick, and after awhile the house is clean, or the wall is built. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like math, but I did manage to absorb what was required, pass the course, and I can do most problems that I encounter in my daily life in my head.
With that introduction in mind, lets move on to this fat, 40+, bald, happily married guys opinions and thoughts on Wikileaks.
As I mentioned before I am all about reducing. So, lets reduce the whole world to the size of a large family reunion. I think this is an adequate reduction because I can easily imagine this world as our shared domicile, and all the peoples on it as part of an extended, fucked up, dysfunctional family. Kind of like my real family.
The reunion starts out fine, soda pop, iced tea, and juice on one table. Chips, dips, vegetable trays, hard boiled eggs, appetizers, and all kinds of munchies on another table. The grill is fired up and steaks, burgers, bratts, hot dogs, and everything else you can imagine will be served in a couple of hours.
The women of the family are gathered under the pavilion catching up and comparing notes about their lives and the trip to the reunion.
The smaller kids have claimed the playground equipment and are swinging, teeter-tottering, digging in the sand, wrestling, playing trucks, playing dolls, hitting each other with sticks, and so on and so on.
The men are gathered around someones truck, pouring whiskey into their coke cans, smoking cigarettes, drinking cheep beer, that’s come from someones cooler, adding vodka to lemonade, and discussing crop prices, hunting, fishing, the economy, the markets, the weather, gas prices and on and on.
The older kids have all vanished down by the river, they are smoking, talking about how bored they are, confiding that they didn’t really want to come but their parents made them, discussing boyfriends, girlfriends, cellphones etc etc. Some are smoking weed, some are lonely, some of the boys are thinking how their cousin is sexy, some of the girls are noticing how much bigger the boy cousins are then last year. No ones falling in love or anything like this but teens will be teens and where are you safer to notice and learn the basics about the birds and the bees then with family.
This reunion is like any other, nothing spectacular, just a bunch of family getting together to catch up.
Suddenly a stranger walks in the pavilion with a cardboard box. The women frown at him and the men wonder up, wondering who he or she is.
Without a word the stranger pulls out a slip of paper and reads as loudly as he can.
“Gramma says to Donna.. Dawnita is a tramp and will probably burn in hell for getting an abortion.”
The color drains from Grammas face. Dawnita who has just wondered up from the river runs back towards the river crying, Donna turns gray.
Without pause the stranger pulls out another piece of paper.
“Fred says to Debbie... Fuck him, I’m not gonna make his bail, Jody needs to learn and 60 days or so in Jail will do him good.”
Fred stares at Debbie open mouthed, Jody looks to Fred who swore he just didn’t have the money, and looks to the ground.
Another paper withdrawn and another proclamation shouted out.
“Dinah said to John. I guess she gets what she gets when she runs around with niggers.”
another paper
“Jody says to Marie... I don’t believe in hitting women but if I was married to her I would probably beat Aunt Dinah too..”
“Rosemary said to Jim.. How can she be a lesbian and have two kids? She’s not a lesbian she’s a whore.”
“Gramma said to Dinah.. Jim likes to wear panties sometimes when he is at work.”
“Jody said to Tony.. Kennys a fucking crack head and will never amount to shit.”
“Tony said to Fred.. Jody says hes so creative but what he needs to create is a fucking job.”
“Rasemary says to Donna... I guess Patsy must have just laid down for it, because no one ever filed rape charges.”
“Dana says to Dinah.... When I told Patsy that Gary made a pass at me she just ignored it.”
“Tony said to Jody.. I hate my wife and want to kill the bitch.”
“Judy says to Gramma... It’s so hard to keep giving my love when he is dieing sometimes I just wish he was dead so I could move on.”
“Eric said to Sara... Chads wife has gotten so fat.”
“Stacy says to Chad... She is so jealous of me, I can’t stand Sara”
“Judy says to Jody.. the only difference between my kids and her kids is I didn’t have the money to keep bailing them out of trouble.”
The papers keep coming out and the proclamations keep being shouted....
The sad part is that it’s all true, everyone said these awful things. Everyone meant it when they said it. No one is without blame, no one will go untouched, no one has any defence. Everyone talks shit, everyone gets shit talked on them. We all have different faces, we are like diamonds like that. Yet somehow someway we all still manage to get along, every day the sun goes up, and back down, on a world that hasn’t been annihilated with nuclear missiles. Trade still happens, prosperity is still attainable, deals are still made, dictators are still apposed, and the world still moves on.
To me wikileeks does nothing more then demonstrate the need for diplomacy. Diplomacy is not saying everything to everyone, diplomacy is negotiation, diplomacy is biting your tongue, and leaving skeletons in the closet, diplomacy is not getting everything you want but getting some things and being happy with it.
If all these things are being said then they should all be made public, some will say!
Kill the messenger and burn the box others will say!
Diplomacy is set back 100 yrs!
All of these things may be true, or none of them may be true, but it is what it is.
I’ll tell you what I would do. I would invite the idiot with the box to leave my family reunion and not return. I wouldn’t beat him with a ball bat, or kill him, or lock him away. I would just ask him to leave. Then I would begin negotiations again. I would begin diplomacy again. I would be willing to simply pretend for the sake of the family that the stranger had never come. I wouldn’t offer apologies or ask for any. I would hope that everyone else would too and then we would go eat some burgers. The rest of the reunion would probably be a bummer and people would leave early but there would be a reunion next year and we would keep on keeping on.
I’m not one of the great thinkers. To much thinking makes my head all foggy, and makes me want to drink even more whiskey then I usually do. This isn’t to say that I’m not capable of deep thoughts I just often wonder if they are worth the effort.
Take math as an example. I remember learning about it. I remember looking at columns of fractions, and decimals, and percents, and mentally asking myself now only ‘how’ but ‘why’? The key for me was reducing, once I realized what reducing was and how it worked, then I was able to break the complex problems down and see them as smaller, and more manageable. Suddenly math wasn’t as intimidating, and then it just became work, like cleaning a house or building a brick wall, you just wade in and do it. Step by step, brick by brick, and after awhile the house is clean, or the wall is built. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like math, but I did manage to absorb what was required, pass the course, and I can do most problems that I encounter in my daily life in my head.
With that introduction in mind, lets move on to this fat, 40+, bald, happily married guys opinions and thoughts on Wikileaks.
As I mentioned before I am all about reducing. So, lets reduce the whole world to the size of a large family reunion. I think this is an adequate reduction because I can easily imagine this world as our shared domicile, and all the peoples on it as part of an extended, fucked up, dysfunctional family. Kind of like my real family.
The reunion starts out fine, soda pop, iced tea, and juice on one table. Chips, dips, vegetable trays, hard boiled eggs, appetizers, and all kinds of munchies on another table. The grill is fired up and steaks, burgers, bratts, hot dogs, and everything else you can imagine will be served in a couple of hours.
The women of the family are gathered under the pavilion catching up and comparing notes about their lives and the trip to the reunion.
The smaller kids have claimed the playground equipment and are swinging, teeter-tottering, digging in the sand, wrestling, playing trucks, playing dolls, hitting each other with sticks, and so on and so on.
The men are gathered around someones truck, pouring whiskey into their coke cans, smoking cigarettes, drinking cheep beer, that’s come from someones cooler, adding vodka to lemonade, and discussing crop prices, hunting, fishing, the economy, the markets, the weather, gas prices and on and on.
The older kids have all vanished down by the river, they are smoking, talking about how bored they are, confiding that they didn’t really want to come but their parents made them, discussing boyfriends, girlfriends, cellphones etc etc. Some are smoking weed, some are lonely, some of the boys are thinking how their cousin is sexy, some of the girls are noticing how much bigger the boy cousins are then last year. No ones falling in love or anything like this but teens will be teens and where are you safer to notice and learn the basics about the birds and the bees then with family.
This reunion is like any other, nothing spectacular, just a bunch of family getting together to catch up.
Suddenly a stranger walks in the pavilion with a cardboard box. The women frown at him and the men wonder up, wondering who he or she is.
Without a word the stranger pulls out a slip of paper and reads as loudly as he can.
“Gramma says to Donna.. Dawnita is a tramp and will probably burn in hell for getting an abortion.”
The color drains from Grammas face. Dawnita who has just wondered up from the river runs back towards the river crying, Donna turns gray.
Without pause the stranger pulls out another piece of paper.
“Fred says to Debbie... Fuck him, I’m not gonna make his bail, Jody needs to learn and 60 days or so in Jail will do him good.”
Fred stares at Debbie open mouthed, Jody looks to Fred who swore he just didn’t have the money, and looks to the ground.
Another paper withdrawn and another proclamation shouted out.
“Dinah said to John. I guess she gets what she gets when she runs around with niggers.”
another paper
“Jody says to Marie... I don’t believe in hitting women but if I was married to her I would probably beat Aunt Dinah too..”
“Rosemary said to Jim.. How can she be a lesbian and have two kids? She’s not a lesbian she’s a whore.”
“Gramma said to Dinah.. Jim likes to wear panties sometimes when he is at work.”
“Jody said to Tony.. Kennys a fucking crack head and will never amount to shit.”
“Tony said to Fred.. Jody says hes so creative but what he needs to create is a fucking job.”
“Rasemary says to Donna... I guess Patsy must have just laid down for it, because no one ever filed rape charges.”
“Dana says to Dinah.... When I told Patsy that Gary made a pass at me she just ignored it.”
“Tony said to Jody.. I hate my wife and want to kill the bitch.”
“Judy says to Gramma... It’s so hard to keep giving my love when he is dieing sometimes I just wish he was dead so I could move on.”
“Eric said to Sara... Chads wife has gotten so fat.”
“Stacy says to Chad... She is so jealous of me, I can’t stand Sara”
“Judy says to Jody.. the only difference between my kids and her kids is I didn’t have the money to keep bailing them out of trouble.”
The papers keep coming out and the proclamations keep being shouted....
The sad part is that it’s all true, everyone said these awful things. Everyone meant it when they said it. No one is without blame, no one will go untouched, no one has any defence. Everyone talks shit, everyone gets shit talked on them. We all have different faces, we are like diamonds like that. Yet somehow someway we all still manage to get along, every day the sun goes up, and back down, on a world that hasn’t been annihilated with nuclear missiles. Trade still happens, prosperity is still attainable, deals are still made, dictators are still apposed, and the world still moves on.
To me wikileeks does nothing more then demonstrate the need for diplomacy. Diplomacy is not saying everything to everyone, diplomacy is negotiation, diplomacy is biting your tongue, and leaving skeletons in the closet, diplomacy is not getting everything you want but getting some things and being happy with it.
If all these things are being said then they should all be made public, some will say!
Kill the messenger and burn the box others will say!
Diplomacy is set back 100 yrs!
All of these things may be true, or none of them may be true, but it is what it is.
I’ll tell you what I would do. I would invite the idiot with the box to leave my family reunion and not return. I wouldn’t beat him with a ball bat, or kill him, or lock him away. I would just ask him to leave. Then I would begin negotiations again. I would begin diplomacy again. I would be willing to simply pretend for the sake of the family that the stranger had never come. I wouldn’t offer apologies or ask for any. I would hope that everyone else would too and then we would go eat some burgers. The rest of the reunion would probably be a bummer and people would leave early but there would be a reunion next year and we would keep on keeping on.
( My Mother who I love like air was very upset about this blog and suggested that any other of our family members might be too. Too all of them I apologize and I want to point out to my readers that although I used my name and the names of other people in my family in this blog this account is purely fictional and was written simply to make a point about shit talking in general whether you are in a family or a nation in our global family.. peace & sorry Mom)
