Laugh or cry?

It's a tough choice.

We live in a fucked up society right now. I really ought to renounce my chosen profession, all my worldly possessions and retire to a cave somewhere to work on inventing a time travel machine, wherein I could go back in time and fix some of the horrible, horrible misdeeds that have occurred. For one, I'd re-enfranchise the thousands of people in Florida who "decided" that last election. Or at least get enough good blackmailing material on Scalia and Thomas to sway the vote the appropriate direction. Whatever works.

In any case, this humorous tidbit makes me chuckle a bit and then get very, very, very sad. Why? Well, the funniest part about it to me is that someone with the name Edward (or Ted) Kennedy is on a no-fly list. Or similar to that. I would love to see what other odd names have made it onto the no-fly list. This highly protected document is undoubtedly chock full of incorrectly identified names. And to Shakespeare, I say, apparently a lot is in a name. And no, it doesn't smell quite the same.

In any case, I wonder if in the hands of someone with a more humane and human sensibility, if the tragic events of 2001 might've given rise to something incredible, something that may have changed the face of this world, something that could have miraculously taken hold of the outpouring of goodwill that a tragic incident can sometimes cause. I wonder if in the hands of someone with an ounce of compassion or even a smidgen of empathy (or, hey, a group of someones with either compassion or empathy), what intelligent and worthwhile movements that they may have crafted, using goodwill and healing instead of hate and fear and terror. It may have been a wondrous century to live through. Instead, it is nothing more than where all the rest of human society has trampled before, through the Genghis Khans and Alexanders and Caesars of history's tomes lay waste. I guess it would be too much for me to hope that we might rise above being base and crass and unruly and fearful little creatures, like cowering mogwai waiting for our inner gremlin to commence smashing things up. Maybe if the world were more matriarchal. But even that would give rise to the same sort of sharp vituperation, I imagine.

Perhaps the time machine would help save this world from itself. But, more likely, it would just wreak an even kookier future that would make Orwell think things were amiss. To think, he was only 20 years early in his date predictions. I wonder if we'll make contact with a large monolith in 2021.