Touching all the Bases

Mike I would say that there is a very good chance we could turn this into a Lost blog. I mean without any contributions from the other members, I think its safe to say we can meld this blog to our own nefarious purposes. For instance after every episode we could have a running conversation, followed by a chat (which is definitely nothing like this) or even better we could turn it into some kind of all-encompassing encyclopedia of some sort, which I'm quite sure no one has thought of yet. On the Lost front, though I will be sad to see it go I'm really glad they decided to cap it at six years. The only time this show has lost its focus was in the middle of season three when they were obviously killing time (pardon the pun). But there has been no let up since the end of season three. In all seriousness if you and I end up taking this shit over, we can have a long in depth discussion about this.

I don't have much to say about the larger topic because I'm curious about Kyle and Zach's thoughts on it. I do want to back up your point about American individualism. In the U.S. we definitely do promote individualism, but I think some of the problems spring from our "melting pot" theory. When you ask someone who is a U.S. citizen where they are from they always place the "American" first. Not in the sense of American-French of American-African, but the origin they most associate themselves with is the United Stated. Comparatively, in Canada even people who are intensely Canadian still associate themselves with their country of origin first. I remember when I moved here people used to ask me where I was from. I would say "The U.S." and they would say, "But where are you FROM?". So there is an individualism America, but only as far as that individualism is part of our larger identity as a people and culture. People from the U.S. have a hard time understanding why anyone would ever leave to live somewhere else. And I think your right that the basis of that lies in our immigrant base. Whether it is because of that or something else there is a pervasive sense in the Unites States that no matter what happens America is still better then everywhere else. That collective ego often gets us in an awful lot of trouble.

Finally, I just wanted to respond to the person who commented on my post about boomers and pot (her blog is here). I certainly did not mean to lump all boomers in to one category and it is as easy and intellectually lazy as saying "gen-x" or whatever the hell our generation is. But in the collective sense I do think they set the table for us. This is not a terribly original though but there it is. The larger marijuana conversation is an interesting one and I think worth delving into in more depth at some future time. I certainly think a pot smoking ritual would be preferable to the time honored American alcohol ritual, however I am skeptical that I will be sparking up with my mother any time soon for myraid reasons.

Oh! and I won a donut so you guys don't have to put up with that nonsense any more.

Alright Kyle or Zach TAG YOUR IT