waiting for apocolypse

I've been reading the news.

Prepare yourselves.

Usually when I read the news it's because I'm bored and haven't anything better to do. Part of the fallout of having given up my life of music is that I now have the attention span of a goldfish, which Snapple bottlecaps have informed me is a grand total of 3 seconds.

Three seconds isn't so bad in the overall panorama of time. Goldfish have it better than the late lamented Quibble and Quirk did; their combined attention spans clocked out at 2.1 seconds, which is how long it took to move a seed from the seed bowl into a plump cheek. Unfortunately, with my three second attention span comes a three second memory, which occasionally -- okay, almost daily now -- causes me to think that reading the news at the start of the day might be an interesting thing to do. A smart thing to do. A good thing to do. After all, how can we function if we willfully blind ourselves to the events that shape our world?

I used to read ABCNEWS.com, which had a calming effect on me because of the paucity of anything resembling, well, news. Then I started going to the bbcnews.com site which, while slow, bears up embarrassingly well by comparison to any American news site.

And this is why in the last two days I've read about:

1. The rape and sodomy of a one week-old baby in South Africa, part of an ongoing wave of brutal sexual assault taking place against children under the age of 3, possibly because witch doctors in South Africa, (may ants eat their eyeballs, their testes harden, and their members crack open like desert dirt) claim sex with virgins cures AIDS. (BBC)

2. Two middle-aged men beaten to death by a Chicago mob for driving a car that accidentally skidded and jumped a curb, resulting in the injury of three women. (ABC NEWS)

3. Starving villagers dying in Zimbabwe because their new "duly-elected President" is blocking international aid from going to people registered as voters in the opposition party. (BBC)

4. The US is attempting to use famine in Zimbabwe to force genetically engineered corn into a market that traditionally prohibits genetically engineered foodstuffs; if Zimbabwe accepts the unmilled corn, some of it could be planted and the notoriously aggressive corn pollen would cause genetic changes in second generation crops, which would then be prohibited from transport and sale in most other countries in the region (due to patents held and enforced by American industries that have been enforcing these laws against American and Canadian farmers using surveillance equipment) and possibly result in the widespread collapse of what's left of their agricultural industry.

5. College students, most of them foreign nationals, dead in a bomb explosion in Israel that Hamas claims in some unfathomable way compensates for the dead in the earlier death of innocents and Hamas terrorists. (BBC)

6. The Olympics, symbol of nobility and honor in sports, the subject of scandal after Russian mafia arrested for fixing the games. (BBC)

7. In Pakistan, testimony from a 12 year old boy, stating that he himself was raped and sodomized by several men, then locked into a shelter with an older woman so they could then accuse him of flirting with her. Silly boy, everyone knows that the legal punishment for flirting with an older woman from a more powerful clan is the gang-rape of your older sister. Quid pro quo, right? (BBC)

8. Our Great and Powerful Oz, George Bush "Re-election on the backs of the dead!" Jr., is considering going after the same Wicked Witch of the East, Saddam Hussein, that his daddy couldn't depose ten years ago. (BBC)

9. The US wants to send money and arms to support local militaries in Southeast Asia, incidentally the home of just a few military dictatorships that gosh, are having this trouble with these locals that don't like their dictatorships and -- hey! if they don't like us, I bet they're terrorists! (BBC)

10. Two girls kidnapped at gunpoint just outside of Los Angeles. (ABCNEWS)

11. A brand new "kidnap for kicks" business in New York, where people actually, yes really folks, pay to be violently kidnapped for a certain length of time, just for kicks. (BBC)

12. The Grand Canyon might be growing. (ABCNEWS)

So, yeah. I'm a little bit irritated at the world today.

But on the upside, the Guy bought me sheep. Reverend Yuhri is starting her own flock!

These last few days we've been attempting to cook our own meals -- hah! -- in what I at least consider an experiment in cost management, if not necessarily gastrointestinal delight. The average eating arrangement for the members of our household involves an empty refrigerator, a pantry full of instant noodles, and nearby restaurants, some of which will deliver if begged nicely. An average evening costs about $15 per person on dinner, including tip.

This week, my roommate, the Guy and I have been rotating the cooking responsibilities in what seems to be an equable exchange of services. We've set up a few unofficial ground rules in order to conduct our business in a civilized and just fashion. Rule number one states that the person that cooks does not have to do the cleanup afterwards. Rule number two states that if the Guy is responsible for the cleanup, he will probably forget to take care of 1) putting away left out condiments and food; 2) cleaning up around the stove; and 3) cleaning up the inside of the sink.

Rule number three states that I am responsible for reminding the Guy about items 1, 2 and 3, because after all he's my Guy, and thus I'm in charge of Guy-related things.

I entertain myself sometimes with imagining the moment when society decided that someone had to take responsibility for the acts of individuals. It probably happened about the time people started domesticating animals. Once ownership was established, it was only a matter of time before that concept evolved to ownership of people.

Here we have an Upper Paleolithic ancestor of your local McDonalds' clerk, Gagh, meeting up with his man Gurgh. "Dude," says our main man. "Check out what I just domesticated."

"Ugh?" asks Gurgh, "What the hell?"

"I call it a dog," says our protagonist, proudly.

"Son of a flatulent mammoth," snaps Gurgh. "I domesticated one, too."

Gagh scratches a flea bite in his armpit and burps. "They look identical," he comments.

"Not absolutely identical," says irritated Gurgh, reaching for a club. "Your dog is mating with my leg."

Not so much later, Gagh and Gurgh have become Billy Bob and Jumbo, hanging out at the local bar. "Dude, says Billy Bob, "Check out what I just domesticated."

"Ugh?" asks Jumbo, "What the hell?"

"It's a girl," says our protagonist, proudly.

"Son of a bitch," says Jumbo. "I domesticated me one, too."

Billy Bob scratches a mosquito bite in his armpit and burps. "They look almos' identical," he comments.

"Not absolutely identical," says irritated Jumbo. "Mine's got bigger tits, and your bitch is makin' eyes at Bubba. Wanna borrow my belt?"

In case I haven't mentioned it, I have a low opinion of the human race today.