I've been ranting about terrorism since September 11, and frankly, it's getting old. It's almost May 2002, coming up on 8 months later. Let's review our progress:

President George W. Bush is still a moronic dipshit, Homeland Security Advisor Tom Ridge is spinning his wheels as a glorified Nationalist Bob Ross, Senate Commerce Chairman Fritz Hollings (R-Disney Corporation) is extending copyrights and locking down consumer appliances so a stereo won't be able to play songs by independent artists in five years. Secretary of State Colin Powell says he's seen no evidence of massacres in the Middle East, while Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks (the next in line to the throne) says he's hasn't seen Osama bin Laden too recently either.

Former Vice President Al Gore is writing articles to the Washington Post alongside Former President Jimmy Carter telling the nation in chorus how fucked we are, and Wired News Reporter Declan McCullagh has my cell phone on speed dial so he can be the first to tell me with a snicker that the Bill of Rights has been repealed in favor of a version more conductive to our interminible War on Terrorism.

It takes me two hours to get on a Baltimore-bound airplane in Milwaukee's General Mitchell Airport, standing a line so long that it folds back on itself in the concourse. All so a khaki clad woman flanked by a National Guardsman with an M16 Rifle can run a metal detector between my ass cheeks to make sure I don't have a nail file hidden up there to jab in the neck of a flight attendant and crash us all into the outstretched wings of the Milwaukee Art Museum on takeoff.

And for what? Any passenger worth the patriotic bumper sticker and window mounted U.S. flag on his minivan will disembowel anyone who makes a run for the cockpit door. He and everyone on the plane will fight like hell so he can see his wife, kids, and the latest Seinfeld rerun at the end of his flight. We aren't scared anymore, but somehow we still stand in line for inspection as if we were the terrorists ourselves.

Everyone in the Senate and the House is so worried about re-election that they're aiming straight at the party line without a remote thought of moving to the left or right. The only thing they can agree on is security over liberty, and the Republicans are already starting to grumble a little about that again. Meanwhile economical passenger vehicles and drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge both fail because nobody wants to step off the party line to compromise.

The Maryland State Legislature is doing a wonderful job of resolutely maintaining a firm status quo with the occasional $25 fine for an open can of beer in the passenger compartment. Maryland Governor Parris Glendenning hasn't done anything amazingly pro-criminal like outlaw bulletproof glass in convenience stores, and Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley is doing a great job of not screwing up the parts of Baltimore that are actually working for a living and not shooting heroin in their eyeballs.

Gas is cheap, the recession is over, and it's time for everyone to go to work, go for a drive, eat a good meal, spend time with their family, download an independent musician's MP3, write an email to or call their elected representative with their opinions, spend time with friends, help out the community, smoke a joint, clean a firearm, sweep their porches, give thanks to their deity of choice (or not) and get a good night's sleep.

Only then have we truly won against the narrow minds and shallow thoughts of those that would take away our lives and liberties: terrorists and the cowards among us.

In spite of my rantings, though, this is a truly wonderful place to live.
There are few places in the world that I could be sitting where I am writing this without fear of reprisal. I know I have a lot to be thankful for.

I'm thankful for the wonderful life that I've been allowed to lead up to this point and hopefully well into the future. I'm fortunate to have a fun job doing something I really enjoy alongside intelligent and interesting people.

I'm thankful that Dale has been such a great friend over the short time that we've been friends, and that Dale and Sara are such patient and tolerant housemates, two facts which I believe keep me from suffering bodily harm every single day.

I'm thankful that my girlfriend Karen Suzanne is such a wonderful and amazing gal that I absolutely relish talking to and being around. I'm thankful that we managed to find each other even though we were 900 miles away, and that we are so happily in love with each other today.

I'm thankful for my friends here in Baltimore (too many to name, but they know who they are) are a smart and upright group of great people that I can enjoy good times with, and still count on to help me out when I need something.

I'm thankful for all my old friends from South Plainfield who looked out for me while we were growing up, put up with all the quirks and nonsense of my younger self, and still welcome me on their doorsteps today.

I'm thankful that my parents are wonderful people who did (in my humble opinion) a fantastic job of raising me and turning me into a intelligent, rational thinker and helped me over the years to know who I was and still be able to see from the perspectives of others.

I'm thankful that my whole family, in as much as they may wrings their hands and worry about me every day, still understand that the choices I make may not exactly agree with what they believe, but they're still my choices.

I'm thankful to be alive.

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