"I think Stewart would win, definitely. Obamafs soul has been sucked out by pointless nuke-talks with N. Korea, while Stewart stays witty and fresh making up jokes. It would be like 50cent now versus 50 Cent two years ago? Onefs raw and the otherfs... cooked."
Fish, The Church, and Cupcakes

AS WE PLUNGE OUT OF THE HOLIDAY SEASON and into the New Year, it might be pertinent to take a look back. At just how--for lack of a better word--we got this way. All over, people are talking about how terrible these last ten years have been, and how glad we should be to be done with them. Indeed.

Therefs no question that things have changed immeasurably, whether over the last ten years or over the last hundred. Ten years ago nobody had much of a problem with Muslims, we somehow got by without social networking sites, and you could bring a knife onto an airplane. That last part hasnft changed much ? now you just have to take off your shoes first, and make sure itfs a ceramic knife. Still, now fellas named Mohammedc know theyfd better look out.

I donft need to belabor the last hundred, either ? wefve doubled (almost tripled) our population, used up almost all (or at least half) the oil in the whole wide world, and gone from riding horses to talking about how long it'll be before we figure out a way to instantly nano-port our tweets.

If all of this is a little, well, repetitive, itfs at least interesting to reflect on where, if wefve come this far in the last few generations, wefll go in the next few. Up? Down? Sideways? To enlightenment? To Hell? Donft forget, Mormonism is the fastest growing religion in the world, so pretty soon we might just all be going to Temple. All of these options have been put forth as serious possibilities, by serious people, in serious books.
The ends, though, are basically the same as theyfve always been ? eat, sleep, and find someone to walk on the beach with ? and many will point out that we are freer to do these things, at the cadence and location of our choosing, than we have ever been before. Someone else, (a pessimist), might then point out that this is arguably because someone recently figured out just how much easier it is to control the means than the ends: who needs a population forced into worship in your churchc when theyfll pay to eat in your fast-food restaurant?

Not Warren Buffett.

The consideration of who is more venerated, when you consider how much more time people spend working than they ever did praying, is wherein lies the rub. Somewhere along the line we ended up worshipping somethingc that none of us can quite identify, and that most of us arenft getting anything out of. When was the last time Costco answered your prayers?

A car sits parked at the beach, engine running, lights shining over the water, the owner is kissing a woman. Hefs thinking about titties. But the fish in the water are probably thinking that the world is ending, or at least that the moon has sprouted a twin. In fish-talk these two things probably sound a lot alike.

Meanwhile, back in the McDonalds that replaced the Catholic Church in America, meaning is protein and the establishment appears to be out of anything but cupcakes, and so the hopeful wait, trying to figure out what, exactly, Apple meant when they told us to, gGift An Ipod to Someone In Our Community This Holiday Season.h
Every two seconds someone, somewhere, pauses mid- debit card-swipe to think, gWait, isnft a gift supposed to have meaning? Isnft a community supposed to be something I can rely on? What does that mean about my online gaming community?h

I would posit that, at that exact moment, nine out of ten paused swipers have their trains of thought derailed by well-meaning but subconsciously scent-trained sales clerks asking them if they might also like to purchasec a cupcake.

It was a dead horse, but I thought Ifd beat it for good measure.

Despite it all I get the feelingc that people are beginning to look at it all a little askew, and beginning to think. Maybe not the very same things, but along the same lines. I canft say I know how wefre going to react, as we move from supposing to suspecting, from suspecting to understanding, and from understanding to finally having to deal with the thing itself. I am not a defeatist: Farms are springing up, people are gathering, and it looks as if we might just be beginning to realize what, over the years, we have lost.

It seems only right that I should set aside this, my first column, to introduce myself. I know itfs been a bit confusing. I hope Ifve let you know a bit about who I am, whatfs on my mind, and what Ifd like to do here.

Amidst the gloom and doom brought to us by the old order, the perfect machines and the perfect tyranny of the sign-boarded soul, we have found out how possible it is to despair. In the smiling New Age, we have found out how easy it is to escape. And now, so recently, amidst the injured fear of the post-ironic, extra-urban hipster-ism, we have found how easy it is to lose our humility, our respect, and our ability to be genuine.

I hope I can be here, and be genuine, with you. I want to resist the despair, but no less strongly also the branded hope, the false optimism, and the comfortable defeatism that calls itself irony. I want to tell the stories I find, and I hope that here we can explore something together.