Nothing like a few little skirmishes to make life interesting, eh wot? In asian news, North and South Korean ships are firing at each other. And the good guys won, sinking one North Korean ship and damaging another. Well, I suppose the South Koreans are the good guys. I mean, sure, they're fending off their northern neighbors from a lucrative crab fishing ground, thus robbing the starving North Koreans of an important food and export source, but hey, at least they aren't godless commie bastards.
But hey, why does that matter, as long as we have a good supply of cheap humor? All the world's just a comedy, let's laugh and laugh until the Chinese nuke our sorry asses with all those missile secrets they've been stealing. After all, no point in worrying as long as there's anime to watch.
But no, we can't have cheap humor and anime, can we. Think of the children! No, no, we don't dare expose the children to anything unsanitary, that might breach the white-washed security dome we seem to desperately attempt to construct over them. Well, let me just put it this way. What's worse, children seeing something inappropriate (which according to studies, doesn't seem to cause most of them any harm, and if their parents weren't idiots, they would know to avoid already), or children realizing they're being used as pawns to ban whatever the current Republicrat target is. Don't think they're not smart enough to figure this out, either. Or, well, they would be if we hadn't dosed them so heavily on television, caffeine, and the designer drug o' the week. What do we need? We need an alien invasion. Sad but true, it doesn't appear that anything short of that will kick American society out of its current path.
This weekend, I watched one of those 'PBS Specials' on nature, which was about the loveable lemurs of Madagascar. Cute little buggers, they're intelligent primates which spend most of their time scurrying around in trees and making squeaking noises at each other. And producing more lemurs. 'Play' for a lemur seems to involve scurrying around in tree branches. For younger, more foolish lemurs, it involves scurrying around in tree branches while scuffling with other young lemurs. Or just scurrying around in tree branches that probably shouldn't be scurried on.
Occasionally this results in a fall.
Occasionally a fall will result in whacking against a log and dying.
Whereupon many of the lemurs look very sad. And, oddly enough, it's not just that precise species of lemur that hangs around looking concerned, either. Almost unique among animal types, other lemurs of different groups and species actually look genuinely perturbed whenever another lemur falls out of a tree and dies (this seems to be one of the few causes of death for lemurs, other than being eaten by snakes). Closely related lemurs will often hang around for hours afterwards, looking sad in a lemurish sort of way.
These are obviously not American creatures. If they were, there would be focus groups formed to find the best way to prevent young lemurs from falling out of trees. They would come to the obvious conclusion that the best way to avoid falling out of trees is to get people to come in and cut down all those pesky trees. After all, if anyone has access to trees, it might encourage young lemurs to go scurrying around in them.
And then they would form focus groups to figure out why they were all starving, and everyone would blame everyone else (or perhaps those damn ring-tailed lemurs in the next valley were responsible), and while they were doing this, they would all be, suddenly and without warning, eaten by snakes.
The 'American Way' is to eliminate risk, not only whenever it's wise to do so, but whenever it's possible to do so. And anything is possible if you're properly deluded.
What's the point if there's no risk? If we cannot fail, neither can we succeed. There has to come a point where you say "Yes, this could possibly hurt someone, somewhere. Nobody fucking cares." But that's not the American Way, is it. Because in the American Way, we have lawyers, and when you have enough lawyers, you can batter anyone into submission. It's like the woman who poured McDonald's coffee in her lap, sued, and won. Hey, lady, it's coffee. Coffee is hot. Pouring hot things on yourself hurts. Hello? Hello, McFly?
We have to have the freedom to make idiots of ourselves. Because sometimes the only way we learn is to pour the coffee of failure into our laps and remark "Ow! Damn! Let's not do that again." But if we can turn any situation into a winning one by suing someone, somewhere, for millions of dollars and winning, then what have we learned? We've learned that we don't have to be personally responsible for our own mistakes, and we can always blame someone.
If we're to have a chance to climb, we also have to have a chance to fall. Otherwise the climb means nothing at all.
And sometimes when we fall we get hurt.
Is it too much to ask for a society that says "It's your own damn fault, dumb ass. Take your lawyers and go home."?
In America, yes it is.
You know, for a while, I've wondered why I occasionally rag on America. I mean, there are a lot worse places out there to live. Like Cuba, the communist paradise which large portions of the population would love to not be stuck in. But frankly, we're a success despite our faults, instead of... er, some other way. With such a massive population and industrial base, we can't help but be massive and studly. Even if only one percent of the population are not idiots, that's still a whole lotta smart people, and in America, they've got the infrastructure in place to actually use their intelligence to innovate, create new companies, build new products, and be priced out of the market and ruthlessly crushed by massive, entrenched megacorporations.
Damn, there's that cynicism again.
What's the cause of all this ranting? Perhaps because we're built up in schools with the image of the United States of America as a bastion of free speech, the democratic process, and liberty and justice for all. And the reality is so utterly and completely different that despite the fact that it could be much, much worse, it's still a bit dissillusioning to someone who's had that civic image beaten into him by years of the Mandatory Duty Bonus known as 'Social Studies' aka 'American Propaganda Class'.
But that's enough surl for today.
Vegeta, meanwhile, zips right past Krillan, then pauses, looking back in an 'oh, did I forget you?' sort of way. He harasses Krillan a bit to try and get him to cough up the Dragonball (which Krillan, of course, doesn't have), then notices Guru's abode and floats over. Guru's Namek henchguy and Krillan manage to delay Vegeta long enough for Guru to finish with Gohan, and out pops the kid, freshly powered up, to glare at Vegeta. Gohan, it seems, like most anime half-human/half-alien kids, has Great Potential(tm). For a moment, Vegeta actually looks impressed as he considers the three, then bursts out laughing. They're still clearly no match for him... or so he thinks.
Meanwhile, Goku is nearing Namek, and sets the artificial gravity back down to 1 G so he can get used to it again. His training has made him seriously buff, but he realizes he also stinks like a brigade of Marines after a month in the wilderness, so he takes a shower, snorks a soda, and falls asleep.
Guru, meanwhile, informs Dende the mini-Namek that he senses a great force approaching the planet. Dende scurries out and informs the four posturing fellows about this fact. Krillan and Gohan leap to the conclusion that it's Goku, which worries Vegeta... but then when they get a better sense of the power, they realize it can't be Goku. Vegeta fills them in on the Ginyu force, and, worried now, tries to bully them into giving him the last Dragonball. He makes the (perfectly valid) point that if they want to beat Frieza and the Ginyu, they'll need to let him have his wish for immortality and vast power. They could give the wish to Gohan, who has similar potential, but Gohan doesn't have Vegeta's combat experience. But Krillan is unwilling to give up the wish to Vegeta, since he still needs to bring back his companions from the Next Dimension. That's when the Namek henchguy reveals that these bigger, better Dragonballs grant three wishes. Vegeta and Krillan can get what they want, with a wish to spare.
Although Krillan doesn't totally trust Vegeta, in the face of Frieza, he has no choice but to make an alliance. Vegeta, for once, seems to be perfectly honest. He may not like the heroes, but he really hates Frieza, and is smart enough to know he can't beat the super-villain alone. So off the three go to retrieve the last Dragonball from Bulma.
The Ginyu force's pods slam down beside Frieza's (still full of holes from the battle with Vegeta) command ship, and out they hop. And then the posing starts.
It really is rather mighty posing. The five Ginyu Force members each strike a pose and announce their names in classic Martial Arts Villain manner, with the last one taking it over the top by facing away, bending over, and looking backwards between his legs to yell out his name. And then, they pose some more. It's so wacky that even Frieza is rendered speechless for a moment, just staring at this mighty act of showmanship.
But everyone's favorite purple villain soon regains his composure and laughs evilly as the Ginyu Force pose some more. Then he exposits about how the Dragonballs will now be his, etc, etc. The Ginyu Force, after all, brought plenty of Scouters. No more can Vegeta and the guys hide...
Bulma is hanging out, looking at a swimsuit magazine (?!) with the Dragonball firmly anchored to her leg this time. Well, until Krillan shows up and yanks it free. Bulma hurries after in time to see Krillan, Vegeta and Gohan take off towards Vegeta's stash of Dragonballs. And she gets left. Again. And panics as she tries to figure out what the heck the heroes were doing working with Vegeta...
Guru, meanwhile, senses the evil power arrayed against the heroes, and sends his Namek bodyguard to do battle on the side of good. After all, Guru realizes he's dying of old age anyway, no sense holding back any resources which could be better spent in posing on the battlefield.
Next episode: The Ginyu Force's Square Dance of Doom!
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