IT BEGINS...

So, yeah, this is it. That blog I've been talking about doing for a while. Like so many things in the early stages, it will take a while to find its stride. (Even "Star Trek: The Next Generation" didn't really get good until the third season.) Plus, those of you who know me understand I am consistently inconsistent about getting certain things done. Bear with me if it takes me a while to warm up to this blogging thing. (I've never even been able to keep a journal.)

Anyway, folks - we're living in Interesting Times. As the (possibly apocryphal) Chinese curse suggests, this may be both good and bad. Cultures and ideologies spread, mutate, and interbreed faster than they ever have before. This is stimulating and exciting, but can also cause a great deal of strife. We can fly around the world in a day, but some folks still have trouble getting a bus downtown (let alone a cab.) And, of course, we may be at a point where we ensure our species will be around for a long and happy future, or UTTERLY DOOMED.

This blog may be about anything and everything. I'm going to write about whatever I'm thinking of or interested in at the moment - whether it's in my own head or happening somewhere else in the Universe. Feel free to point me to topics you think I and/or other would find intriguing.

To start us off: a couple of related stories you may have heard about in the news recently. First of all, my current adopted state of Georgia may be about to drop its highway adoption program due to a tizzy about how to handle an application by the Ku Klux Klan: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/13/uk-usa-georgia-kkk-idUSLNE85C00K20120613

http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/06/12/should-the-kkk-get-to-adopt-a-highway/
What do you do when a villain makes overtures towards philanthropy? (If Darth Vader left cookies in the Death Star break room, would you eat them?)

I have a Black girlfriend, so you can guess I'm no fan of the KKK, or of "hate groups" in general. However, I also think we have to allow people to express opinions, even when we find them repellent. Also, plenty of rural areas of Georgia could use whatever lift they can get. On the third (fourth?) hand, it would be terrible publicity for the state. (I heard that the stretch of road the Klan were interested in carried a lot of incoming traffic from South Carolina.)

About the same time as this story surfaced nationally, along came this one, which is enough to make your jaw drop and your eyes bug out, Tex Avery cartoon-style, in a delicious melange of shocked amusement:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/klu-klux-klan-protests-westboro-baptist-church-video/2011/05/31/AGgoiPFH_blog.html

Haters gonna hate haters. Interesting Times!