Ya' know, I've got to hand it to the guvmint just this once. Fact is we really haven't had any earth-shaking followups to the trade center thing. I know that they are doing things which we probably don't want to know about, but it seems reasonably effective.

But fact is, the message went out that we're vulnerable. And there are crazy people all over the world and zhit happenz. Our infrastructure is starting to crumble. Our economic situation in tatters, a defense force that isn't necessarily defending us from everything, because they can't. Energy and telecommunications networks in unstable fiefdoms. We're all the builders of this nation and we stopped building, mostly because we couldn't figure out what the heck we were building anyway. Our leaders quabble about everything and half of us don't like the direction the other half leads us. Then there are those like me that don't particular care for either half.

Collectively, I could easily make a case for diagnosing our society as in a manic depressive state. Manic depression is a frustrating mess..., I'm reminded.

The studio is moth-balled and mostly dismantled. Parts of it running the music for the store. Other parts shoved into available closet space. Save it for another day. By then, it will be technically obsolete and I'll have to start over again. Sold half of my guitar collection. But then I didn't need 'em and didn't really want 'em anymore. I need the space more than I need to be plugged into various media 24/7 these days.

But what it's really all about is leading ourselves anyway. Have to if we're gonna' make it through this mess.

Time for a new plan. Build something different this time. Individually and collectively.

And then as if to punctuate that idea, Castro Street erupts into an anti-war rally. About five hundred to a thousand folks. Not a huge crowd, but that's significant in this decidedly agnostic and politically apathetic region.