A New Leaf, A New World

All right. I'm consistently disgusted with myself at my inability to post on a regular basis ... not quite as disgusted as I am with the fact that I've had a novel in progress for three years and am on page 80, but still, pretty ticked off. So I've decided to make this blog more of a writing exercise, in the hopes that the two failures are somehow connected, or at least that they might feed off of one another if I get on a roll.

Here are the new rules. Every day (yes, every day, part of my brain that would prefer naps or TV!) I open the dictionary randomly and stick my index finger down. I'm using a real dictionary, not merriamwebster.com -- they still exist, although I believe this one used to belong to Macy's, much like 40 hours of my life each week and my 401k.

Whatever I land on, I have ten minutes to think about. I then have twenty minutes to write about it in a semi-intelligent way. When those twenty minutes are up, I'm done. No cheating. It's a jump-start, not a marathon. That was a mixed metaphor, but I'm moving on. See? Not deliberating endlessly and tweaking and refining as I go, but just hitting period return.

Today's word: George III. To be honest, I briefly considered discarding this one as a trial run, because it pretty much blows. But since I'll no doubt be sending even suckier ruminations out into the blogosphere, let's roll with it. Definition: King of Great Britain and Ireland (1738-1820) whose policies fed American colonial discontent, leading to revolution in 1776.

So this is the King George, the big kahuna, the one who touched off this whole crazy and beautiful thing we call America. I say beautiful because, for all its faults, it was a country founded on ideals and created in one of the ballsiest, most brazen ways possible. You have to admire the huge middle finger George III saw floating back at him across the Atlantic, along with his tea.

Which brings me to the recent "tax day tea parties" and the voicing of dissent in this day and age. I don't necessarily agree with those groups' rhetoric, but they deserve to be heard just as much as I do. That's what I love about America, and what most people take so for granted that they really should be ashamed: if you're unhappy with something, you can say so. You can shout it in the streets, and nobody's going to knock on your door in the middle of the night and drag you away to rot in a political prison. Unless you did your shouting from 2000-2008 and Dick Cheney happened to overhear you, which, given the wiretaps, he probably did.

What? A little liberal humor, you say? Get used to it. I'm a midwestern chick with a very open mind and a very low tolerance for bullshit.

Here's the problem with free speech, though. It's all or nothing. You can't put restrictions on it, even for groups like the KKK, whose sole mission is to espouse hatred (and boy, do we need more of THAT floating around these days!) Because who decides what's acceptable and what's not? I mean, besides the majority, and what if you're not in the majority?

That, I think, is what many people fail to consider. What if your party wasn't in power? What if you didn't grow up with food on the table? What if you couldn't afford an education, or health care, or housing? Forget being born a different race or gender or sexual orientation, I'm talking that fine line of chance that divides the haves and have nots. If the recent economic crisis taught anybody anything, it might have been how close the fortunate are to being "unfortunate" ... often just one paycheck, just one step off the path, and we find ourselves heading in a direction the world chose for us, sent on our way powerless and hopeless.

But that's when it's most important to have a voice. When nothing else can speak for you: not your money, not your status, not your job or your connections. The Founding Fathers gave all Americans that voice. Of course, they also gave all Americans AK47s, according to the NRA, which also get messages across pretty effectively. So really, guys, you're 1 for 2, and thanks again for being so vague.

If I can quote Jerri Blank in every episode of Strangers with Candy: "I got somethin' to say!!" And it's true. Everybody has something to say, and thanks to modern technology, they can say it ... 24/7/365 ... even if it's stupid or offensive or just the most effed-up thing you can imagine (she typed, realizing she was adding her own two unsolicited cents to the cacophony). And while this is certainly no giant middle finger protesting injustice to anyone in particular, I've said my piece.

Now I'm laughing, because I just imagined George III logging onto the internet (in a very humorous, anachronistic way), and reading thousands of angry comments left by the colonists at his website: www.norepresentation.gov.

ps. Editor's note: I just spent an hour on this, so we're going to have to revisit that 20-minute rule.