The Clusterfuck Nation Chronicle

Commentary on the Flux of Events

I traveled to Arlington, Texas, Tuesday and Wednesday, to give a talk to the chamber of commerce. Having not ventured into the Sunbelt for a few months, I was shocked to be reminded first-hand of what self-made wastelands many Mid-Americans live in.
Arlington occupies an area that appears geographically as large as Greater London, but it is composed of little besides tilt-up drive-in pawnshops punctuated here and there by Darth Vadar Corporate towers. Its "historic downtown" looks like a bombing range. Its economy revolves around a "Six Flags" theme park and the Texas Ranger's baseball team. The chamber of commerce is struggling to come up with "a winter attraction" because they view their economy as being based on tourism.

The ballpark is a stunningly well-designed building for its monumental type, rich in exterior details -- friezes, arches, rusticated base, handsome entrance marquees -- but there is absolutely nothing around it for miles except parking and highway infrastructure. It stands amid the off-ramps and the free parking like a terrible ziggurat of a lost civilization.

I talked to many of the movers-and-shakers in the chamber of commerce and they were uniformly clueless about the predicament they faced. They can't imagine a way of life based on something other than continual driving. I told the luncheon audience that their way of life was liable to dry up and blow away unless they started immediately to change their living arrangements. They took this rather harsh message politely, but I can't say how seriously. Alas, I had to leave for the airport almost at once after finishing my spiel because of longer check-ins.

The very palpable ambience of hyper-religiosity was a disturbing counterpoint to the ghastliness of the built-upon landscape. One senses that these Americans feel that they will be excused from any foolishness as long as they are pious enough. I told them that history was indifferent to the success or failure of American civilization. I don't know how they felt about that, either.

These Americans will send their sons and daughters off to die in the desert sands half a world a way to defend a collection of off-ramps. How long will it be before those sons and daughters are demoralized by their assignment?

Northwest Airlines was operating with a skeleton crew -- only two flight attendents on any leg of the journey, out and back. Landing in Detroit, the crew had trouble hooking up with the jetway, as if they hadn't practiced it enough. No more meals on domestic flights except first class. Airport security seems only cosmetically improved.
I note today that CNN is running a piece saying that it's Americans' patriotic duty to go out and shop for the sake of the "consumer economy."