[Tfug] Politics, Religion, trolls and Linux

[Quag7]

You know, there are probably thousands of lists I can subscribe to where 
people discuss, dryly, nothing but computers.  There are web forums, and 
there are print magazines.

One thing I miss from the BBS era is that sense of community and shared 
experience; localized or regional lists can foster this in unique ways, and 
while I rarely post here I read most of what people say, and it's not for me 
to say, not my list, but I'd far rather subscribe to a list that was about a 
bunch of people who had an interest in common (as a sort of facilitator) 
rather than a list that was always on topic, all of the time.  The on-topic 
all of the time thing seems to pervade the internet, and I'm pretty bored 
with it.  For me, the internet has always been about people and 
personalities, to the extent that I find people, and especially wit, 
entertaining.  It is not a binary choice anyway, and looking at the subject 
headers in my mail folder, this list is a perfect example of that.

As for divisive political, moral, or social issues, there's a third way of 
looking at these things that, unfortunately, people miss.  And I can't be the 
only one who, borrowing a line from Hunter S. Thompson, can state for 
certain, that it *still hasn't gotten weird enough for me.*

Consider the horrible genercization - New Jerseyfication - of Tucson that's 
going on now.  We're forced into this phony binary choice (again) of either 
having some perverse knock-off of free market capitalism wherein the entire 
landscape becomes marred with garish corporate logos, cruddy food (why in 
hell does Taco Bell even exist in Tucson?), and shoddily made, fetishized 
consumer products that do nothing but serve as a poor fit for the empty hole 
of a soul so many consumers are trying to fill, or else we go the pretentious 
Santa Fe route which locks out young entrepreneurs, affordable products, and 
puts up a synthetic southwestern veneer for us to ooh and ah at while we fork 
money over for Japanese-imported "authentic locally made" blankets and the 
like.  Well, screw that.

All I have ever wanted is for places to be different.  I want weirdos, freaks, 
religious nutcases, adherents to a rainbow of ridiculous political 
philosophies and sexual orientations, mainstream Christians and Jews, and 
fire jugglers and astronauts.  Auto-erotic defenestration.  Kennedy 
assassination buffs at Japanese grills, discussing the follies of vanguardism 
with primitivist anarchists wearing felt hats and Tales from Topographic 
Oceans t-shirts.  Fruitarian objectivist geolibertarians screaming at 
Marxist-Lenininsts about Hegel while preparing, jointly with Food Not Bombs, 
a regulation CRON-diet compliant meal complete with local offerings like the 
superb cheap chipotle peppers you can get down at the 17th Street Farmers 
Market.  I want to see the Rabbi from the Rincon Market there refereeing the 
debate.  I want to see Bob Walkup in full infantilist getup, diapers and all.  
I want to see a Woodstock-sized horde of Ronstadts massing on Pusch Ridge in 
kilts.  I want to see a poisonously drunk Diana Ross hang glide into town 
with a meth-addled Glen Campbell singing MacArthur Park in a salute to the 
songs of Jimmy Webb.

In the middle of it all I want to see a massive LAN party, maybe down in 
Presidio Park, but with a new, ported version of M.U.L.E. that 500 people can 
play simultaneously.  I want schwarma, gyros, and tamales hot, cheap, and 
available.  And lots of beer.

I want to see tit for tat exorcisms between warring Pentecostal factions, 
warrior monks showing up at Joy Division tribute concerts, flying, burning, 
screaming Fruit of the Loom Y-fronts as the only thing blotting out my view 
of the beautiful mountains that surround this town.

So a Creationist museum?  You know what, I'm not a creationist, but I'd sure 
as hell rather see one of those downtown than another Taco Bell.    The 
opportunities for everything from Subgenius devivals to avant garde 
performance art to fry bread sales in front of this thing alone would make it 
worth it.  I'd like to see more Scottish Rite freemason temples built next to 
it, encircling it in league with, perhaps, a Mormon Temple and perhaps a 
modern version of PHOTON - the original laser tag.

F this Rio Nuevo crap.  Down with everything that is boring and trite and 
played-out and safe and inoffensive.

Now that being said, I wanted to tell you what I think of Richard Stallman:

Just kidding.

Seriously, bring the Creationist museum here.  Perhaps they could have a war 
of words with Antigone Books in the Tucson Weekly.  We could have Tom Danehy 
and Emil Franzi each take a side and them arm-wrestle each other to settle 
it.  We could have Jimmy Bogle, naked and covered in Nico's superb green and 
red hot sauces, on the newly announced Alpine slide down the Tucson 
Mountains.  Anything but more McMansions!

This isn't about ridicule.  This is about not being boring.  This is about 
originality.  I will take a snake-handling creationist in Mormon 
undergarments who has a spark of originality in his soul over the dry 
rationalists who I agree with but bore the living crap out of me every day.

My priorities have changed.

KDE is objectively better than Gnome.

  -Quag7