FCF Re-post Oct. 6, 2005 - SUICIDE IN KANSAS IS REDUNDANT

INJECTING THE
33% SOLUTION
OR
WHEN MARTIAL LAW MEANS
“NEVER HAVING TO SAY YOU ARE SORRY.”
BY MICHAEL CADDELL
FIGHTIN’ COCK FLYER, NORTH JEFFERSON COUNTY, KANSAS,
United States of Amnesia


MANY MORNINGS IN KANSAS are a time of both great hilarity and somber reflection for my family on workdays. My son wakes each school day morning and at eight years old chows down on his favorite bowl of cereal with an admirable appetite. Despite my persistent effort to educate him on the virtues of a high protein and low carbohydrate diet, fried eggs and meat, he insists on munching like one of my horses on a crunchy grain diet. I surrendered to his arguments long ago knowing that the comfort he finds of devouring his allotted bowl was akin to the wildness that surrounds the ten acres we share with the creatures that live here; horses, goats, chickens, cats, dogs and birds. He likes the sound of the food while basking in the glow of PBS KIDS before the school bus pulls up blinking yellow lights in the early dim lights of dawn.

Usually my wife and comrade attends to him, knowing of my annoyance for herbivorous noises and of the Great Compromise he and I had pounded out long ago – that while he ate his politically correct PBS cereal I would be listening to raucous debate on the call – in portion of Washington Journal on C – Span. She indulges both father and son in this ongoing household dispute; I rejecting the video game mentality cultivated by corporate media machines, while he escapes the disturbing strident voices of political and religious debate. He correctly equates arguing of any kind with chaos and insecurity and heartbreaking conflict, while I sometime dogmatically and loudly demand the study of contradictory discourse on everything from doing chores to defining fascism of any stripe as a way to finding an agreement toward action and mutual aid.

She wisely, perhaps, lets the dispute between father and son simmer while reminding both that the vegetable garden needs daily weeding, the small machines around our little farm need mended, the animals need fed daily and reading and writing take precedence over any electronic gadgetry.

Yet, two years ago it was my son who was the first to pound out that agreement on mutual action that established a social contract of sorts between us. He came home from school that day and ran into the house crying, shrieking and in obvious pain grabbed my pants leg and held on to it. "Why did Bush win the election," he screamed.

"Because people get fooled," I replied.