North of Normal

Now let me get this straight

Over the weekend, we attacked two compounds in Afghanistan, killing a total of eleven children, and didn't even get the guys we were going after in the first place??

Best equipped and trained military in the on the planet, and not only did we biff on the objective, but we also managed to wipe out half a kindergarten class?

Listen, the extent to which I am turning into my mother is horrifying enough as it is. I don't need to find myself one day carrying a sign and chanting some modern variation of "Hey Hey LBJ . . ."

And anybody who wants to point out that I was in favor of this invasion as well as the war in Iraq needs to remember that I have always thought that it is both a moral imperative and that it serves our own national security to encourage democracy and oppose tyranny everywhere. Which is, allegedly, what we went there to do.

It seems to me, that what we should be doing in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Kosovo, in Alabama, in every damn place we've screwed up on our own or got screwed up by someone else, is making sure that everyone gets fat and gets happy. Build some schools, arrest some litterers, set up some health clinics. Make sure everybody has the freedom to cast a ballot in a fair election and then bitch loudly about the result.

The fact of the matter is that fat happy people don't blow up buildings. Fat happy people by and large are not fanatical about anything except sports. Fat happy people sit around getting fatter and happier and watching their children get fat and happy. If you want peace, whether it's on the streets of inner city Detroit or the sands of south Asia, then you want to do whatever you can to increase the fatness and happiness of the people who live there. And by "fat" I don't necessarily mean pudgy, I mean full. A fat happy person is a person who has gotten everything they have needed (from food and shelter to education to a moral code to opportunities and challenges) and sees that their children will, too.

A world of fat and happy won't be a utopia--we don't get that, remember? Eve ate the apple--but it'll be several damn sights better than what we've got now. There's always going to be irritating, cantankerous, violent-minded, intolerant people. When you are hungry or repressed or feel hopeless, whatever garbage that kind of person spews sounds pretty good. Or at least, better than what you've got. But when things are pretty okay, when the kid's got great dimples and an A in math, when your soccer/football/rugby/cricket team is headed for the playoffs, when dinner is almost ready and The Simpsons is on, you don't have the time or the energy for the ranting nutcase on the corner.

Which, yeah, means that I'd be spending a lot of time talking to myself, but I pretty much do that anyway.