A few days back an incredibly interesting scholar spoke on BBC about the misconception that the escalating madness in the world today signifies the onset of the end times. In fact, contrary to popular belief, this ‘bringer of good news’ believes we are living in the most peaceful era in many, many generations. In fact, the likelihood of dying by violent means has not been this low for literally hundreds of years.
What I want to know is who shot him with a B-12 blast of positive sunshine?
Don’t get me wrong…I’m all for uplifting headlines. God knows we have our share of violence, war, and money woes, but to say these are docile days is hard to wrap my anxious arms around.
Maybe things aren’t as bad as they seem, but could we just agree that life has become more complicated? We either have to learn to turn off all technology plugged into a wall socket or headset and risk seeming ignorant and unaware, or we embrace the fact that we have become news junkies. Either way…it feels a little like insanity.
A perfect example? Today's news. Ugly from start to finish…and I sat riveted to every last sordid detail.
First up...a real head scratcher. The IMF leader has declared from his private cellblock that the sex he had with the Sofitel maid was consensual. So, I guess what they would like me to believe as I’m traveling around the country is that all these women scrambling from one room to the next to meet their cleaning quota, are really just looking for hookups. How dumb does this guy really think we are?
Now I suppose one could retaliate by saying… “Well, how do you think Arnold met his special friend?”
That’s a good point, although a woman who has worked for a powerful figure and his family for twenty years and has become a part of their household is one thing. That being said, no matter what your status...having an affair out of wedlock and fathering a child curb-stomps the most basic need to connect with another through trust, loyalty, and basic common decency. A violation of such faith short-circuits the brain, especially...as in this case, the lies and deceit took place under the same roof for two decades. But what makes this governors infidelity even harder to swallow (no pun intended) is that while Arnie was bench pressing the housekeeper, he fathered one of his kids with Maria. Creepy. I can just see the two woman comparing pregnancy notes and commiserating over swollen ankles and heartburn. No, to me there is only one solution for Arnold…send the Sperminator back to an Austrian alpine valley to get his Tyrolian horns trimmed.
On the other hand…there is the maid from the Sofitel. A 32-year-old widow who moved to the U.S. from Guinea 7 years ago with her small daughter and lives in a house exclusively for patients with AIDS and HIV. It is unclear if the woman or her daughter are infected with the disease, but it stands to good reason that neither mother nor daughter have had an easy go of things and it’s just about to get worse with the media at their doorstep and an ensuing trial. I can only hope that she is not portrayed in court as some sort of insatiable horngun...a temptress that Strauss-Kahn had no other choice but to lock in a bathroom and hightail it for the first Air France flight he could park his first class derriere.
I’m telling you…It’s crazy out there. OKAY…that's it! I've made a decision. I'm wiping my hands of the news. Unplugging everything that could hold an electrical currency and heading for the beach. Care to join me?
