1994 was the year of the Republican "Contract with America" where the conservatives vowed to sit on their collective asses and complain about six more years of center-left politics. I think they fulfilled their vows, and taught a new crop of insane liberals how to bitch about center-right politics. For me this was a crazy time. I live in North Idaho where the Nazi's used to have a permanent home base with a steady crop of 20, count them twenty, idiot skinheads who are stupid enough to think they're going to start a race war. Besides the Aryans, there were a few Militia groups back then that weren't exactly racist, but weren't exactly pro-government either. I actually attended a few of the Militia meetings and read some of their literature. Like I said, it was a crazy time, but luckily I managed to wander into a church and learned that there was hope to be found outside of fear.

I was born in 1979, which according to some reckonings is the very tail end of the marketing industry invented "Generation X." Well, whatever, never mind. In the last ten years we've seen acts of terrorism perpetrated by insiders on our soil, acts of terrorism perpetrated by outsiders on our soil, and the crazy reactions to both events. Our supposed individualism has been raped by corporate culture and the marketing industry that promotes things like the Friends Finale and Howard Dean. We've somehow endured and even embraced the ridiculous notion that The Real World is actually "real" and Survivor is somehow related to "reality."

Maybe now that Friends is over we can move on and leave the depressing past behind us.

You can read this and other interesting things on my blog.