Silver Cord Parables New America 1994

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"How do you make sense out of it all!" Joseph's punctuation ended another self-examination.
As an obsessive introspective, he had never sought the position as one of
the Hundred. He never wanted the responsibilities. As a matter of fact, for years after
the VA. rehabilitation he had become a sort of gypsy with his beautiful custom van, long
curly hair and disability pension, traveling from race to race, marathon to marathon
promoting the abilities of the handicapped. He had won a small mountain of trophies and
later cash in his "chopped", custom racing wheelchair. It was specially designed with
"refined aerodynamics". He laughed loudly! The computer designed wheelchair was
another layer of humor upon many others that lightened a world grown too heavy, too serious.

Over the years he also became the ultimate consumer of world and national news. At
first it was in a battle over boredom. But quickly it became a pleasurable obsession.
Obscure magazines and newsletters were common sources to him. When CNN gathered
force, his television was on more than off. During the Iran-Iraq mess and later when Iraq
took its peculiar stand against the West, it was on 24 hours a day. Joe was captivated by
the ability to watch events as they unfolded in all its raw unfiltered drama. While on the
road, his mini-satellite dish picked up the signals. The latest quality radio gear, including
short wave, was either at his fingertips or hanging from his ears. News anchors quickly
became glaringly transparent to him, especially those on the prime channels for national
propaganda consumption. Public control seemed to be their only true message. When he
listened to their shallow display of "news", he was always grieved by the half truths and
entertaining manipulations that came out of these all too often homogenized voices for
corporate-political America. There was always an edge of desperation mixed with
theater in trying to control and shape the audience, conveyed in endless sound bites. At
first it all seemed so comic. Later, as Joe watched the entire country begin to slide down
the drain, these voices became like malicious gossips exacerbating the economic and
moral decline of a country he had been proud to go to war for back in his youth. Now
everyone was a "victim", and most everybody had minority rights they reminded
everybody else oft Then came the pc's along with something called the "internet".

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