| Subject: Hussein and Rogers |
Author:
Scott
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Date Posted: 05:48:35 02/27/03 Thu
Author Host/IP: 4.40.37.110
I went to sleep last night watching an interview with Saddam Hussein and Dan Rather. Very interesting. I think Saddam had a neat idea, a debate between Bush and himself. I wondered if the translator was giving accurate translations. I wonder, if the translator was telling the truth, that if Saddam was telling the truth in the first place. I just didn't know.
Then, fade to black, and I fell asleep. I woke up just 2 minutes ago, my brother was watching TV, and there it was. "Fred Rogers died today of stomach cancer." It barely registered. I wondered, could this be a different Fred Rogers? Well of course it couldn't, because the next thing the TV announcer said was, "Fred Rogers was best known for his work on the PBS television series...."
"What the fuck?" I asked my brother. "We're going to war, and Mr. Rogers is dead. I'm pretty sure this is some kind of damn apocalyptic sign here."
"Shut up," my brother said, and he went back to his room to play on his computer. So I just made myself some coffee, and I logged on to View Askew, the official web site of Kevin Smith ("Clerks, "Mallrats," etc.). Betty Aberlaine was there, you know, "Lady Aberlaine" from Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. She had also played a nun in Kevin Smith's "Dogma," so she frequents that message board. She was posting in very short sentences this morning, sad references to the show like, "I'll be in the clock with Daniel."
So I replied to her with a virtual hug, and a lot of this post is taken from my reply to her. And just replying to her, telling her this stream-of-consciousness, made me feel better. 31 years old here, I don't care, "Mr. Rogers is dead" is not a very decent thing to wake up to.
Not when there's troops sitting on Saddam's doorstep, Saddam wants to talk, Al-Qaida inevitably has people walking our streets right now waiting for the U.S. to do something stupid, other nations are turning down their noses at us...and Mr. Rogers has hung up his sweater for the final time.
I am an atheist. I do not believe in any great afterlife, or reincarnation, or infernal punishment, or eternal reward. There are so many views out there, that the only standpoint I could possibly have is detached skepticism. I respect all other religious beliefs that do no harm, but in the end, I believe the only way we can honor the dead is to continue living.
No more heroes. It's time we outgrew that, stood on our feet, and understood life for what it is -- quite possibly our only chance in this universe to do any bit of good, before we all hang up our own sweaters for the final time.
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