Uh...?

If I were forced to cancel all but two of my magazine subscriptions, there were be no difficult choice. The first I would keep would be the National Geographic. There is no magazine on the stands that can stimulate both my sense of beauty and my intellect and emotions as deeply as the NG. The last time I was on public transportation, I brought a copy of the NG to read while at the same time I listened to NIN’s first real album, "Pretty Hate Machine." Reznor and company do not label their CD’s with the names of the albums, but instead call them "halo #- whatever number they are at now." I do have a list of the halos, but my brain can’t make the connection between the album names and the numbers. I think it’s the number part that frustrates me. I never was a math wiz, which is why I wound up dropping college algebra half way through the first semester. Also, the nazi (note the small n, though the man was indeed German) who taught it nearly brought me to tears, not for failing to understand the concept, but for failing in accuracy. I was also nearly brought to tears by the story I read that day in the NG about the failure of relief aid for disaster victims. Pledges from many countries have not been met for financial aid for those in the areas devastated by the tsunami. Surprisingly, both the UK and Germany are far ahead of their promises for tsunami relief, while, not surprisingly, the US is far behind in actually committing the funds promised. The US funds, naturally, are going for an entirely different project. (Here’s a familiar trail I’ve been down too many times. I’ll not fall for it’s lure again--for now, anyway) And it will not be all that long before we forget we had any obligation at all. We will forget Indonesia as we have forgotten so many of the other "under developed" areas of conflict, such as Uganda. I once had an acquaintance who had spent several years in Uganda, post Amin. I call her an acquaintance, not a friend, because she played the accordion, and I admit to a certain level of prejudice against bigots and accordian players. It’s not as if I ever heard her play. But I was, at one point in my life, subjected to Myron Florin on a regular basis and that was enough to last me through more than one life. Lawrence Welk always seemed to be a jolly, retarded child, but I suspect he was more of a conniving tyrant. I bet he had more in common with Amin (does human flesh really taste "sweet" as he claimed?) than all those lol adoring fans could conceive of. Whenever I inadvertantly surf into a Welk rerun on PBS, I quicky hie myself out of that box. I wonder if my young acquaintance hangs on every Florionid note. I’ve completely lost contact with with the woman. The last time I saw her, she was headed for...Indonesia. That was back in the days of political upheaval, but pre-tsunami. I hope she changed her mind about going, though someone who delighted in her time in Uganda, probably wouldn’t be put off by a little thing like an incipient war. I have no idea what part of Uganda she’d been in or if she ever had any contact there with the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army), which I first read about in my other favorite magazine, Harper’s. Harper’s–where else can I read laugh-out-loud snippet articles about human foibles; articles on politics I can agree with; reviews of books that don’t stagnify my mind ( contrary to the Evanovich books I’m addicted to); and much more, including art, though the art accompanying the articles is forced–made to fit the mood, unlike the photographic art in NG. Of course, I have at least one friend who would disagree with me about photography being art and I still have the exchange of emails to prove it. Why can’t I just delete all those way-too-many emails? It must be a case of OOCD (Online Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Or is the "D" Disease?). I guess it doesn’t matter. As long as I’m making up a condition, I can name it any damned thing I want! Harper’s was the first place I read about the condition called Asperger’s Syndrome and the fellow who was fixated on the NYC trains to the point that he would pose as a worker and actually take control of them. Imagine riding home from work and not even realizing a stranger had virtually kidnapped you! Too bad that the children that the LRA storms in and kidnap in the middle of the night don’t suffer that same unaware fate. I’d say that their kidnappers are nothing short of inhuman, except that the older I get, the more I realize the capacity for inhumanity we humans have. One of the most memorable pictures of inhumanity I’ve ever seen was in the NG–a sewer worker in India, of the Untouchable class,without any protective gear, rising up out of the manhole, covered with what no human should ever be covered with. The first memorable layout of pictures, for me, in the same magazine, aside from those in the bound volumes my father kept, was of the Olympic National Park in Washington state. The pictures were so lovely and I was so young that I never considered why they were so lovely–the nearly constant chilling rain that created the forest. No less chilling than that rain was the Harper’s interview with one of Daniel Pearl’s eventual kidnappers (published before the event took place!) about his bumbling previous attempts. And how, I ask, when I had never read the RL Stevenson story, did I immediately recognize that it was a production of "Kidnapped" on the PBS station that I’d surfed into? Damned if I....Oh, look! There’s a ranger station straight ahead! WhoooHoooo!