You must be This Old to ride this ride..(Revised)

Great article on the cultural significance of Farrah and Michael to Generation X. Most everything that needs to be covered, is. These larger than life personalities that we grew up with, who seemed too famous to ever die, have died. The thoughts and questions that many of my generation will now be thinking(some will articulate, others will not, of course..) include these three points:
What have I done with my life?
Where am I headed?
I am aging.

These thoughts don't relate to the deaths of Michael and Farrah specifically, except that their deaths brought them about by simply occurring. As our generation continues to age, there will be other celebrity icons that die, and succeeding generations will wonder why these people are also mourned with more intensity than they would mourn the passing of one of theirs(ex: Heath Ledger was tragic, but the outpouring of emotion isn't even close to the same). Before cultural fragmentation(Media access was approximately 3 to 5 television channels per town or city, one or two radio stations per area(rural) to ten to twenty(city/urban) one, two, or three newspapers per town and upwards of fifteen relevant magazines nationally), everyone had the same entertainment, so everyone had the same celebrities. You might not have liked them, but you knew who they were. And they were everywhere!

Twelve million people bought Farrah's poster in 1976. The country's population was just over 218 million people. Presuming most of the people who bought the poster were Americans, That's One Person for Every Nineteen in the Country. That will NEVER happen again. Whether you loved The Poster or not, you had seen it. Between "Charley's Angels", Wella Balsam, the Bathing Suit, and Lee Majors, she was It. In 1976 Everyone knew of Farrah Fawcett. In 1976, Everyone You Knew knew of Farrah Fawcett.

Farrah Fawcett Owned the late 70's,

Thriller sold over 25 million copies worldwide. That feat has never been surpassed, and nor is it likely. Bad was considered a disappointment because it only sold eight million copies! Check out his other stats. There is no artist living today unifying enough to sell 25 million copies (66 million worldwide - Now) of any one record, let alone dominate multiple musical formats for years at a time. Not that there aren't supremely talented people out there, they just can't be singled out easily in the daily cacophony of society's Entertainment Bombardment. Cultural Fragmentation(Short, Short Definition: Too many entertainment choices) has seen to that.

These people were, at times, during an impressionable time, a part of our daily entertainment diet. We were children and teenagers then. Now we are adults, and now they are dead. They are the first of What's To Come, for All Of Us.

So now, most of us.. we revisit our childhoods, and then, we wonder where the future will lead, both individually and collectively. And there are, for many, the beginnings of realizations about themselves, in one form or another. We're now the age we made fun of when we were young. Weird, huh? I hope, as a generation, what we find about ourselves when we look inward leads to wisdom or happiness. I hope, that with the passing of two people most of us had never met and didn't really know(yet were so ingrained within our childhood memories), they could leave us just one more gift: a little more self understanding than we had before..

So thank you, Michael, and thank you Farrah, for some of the smiles I smiled as a child, and for your part in the memories I have from that time. It was.. nice to look back.

Now, about the future..

No Sanford Antics, Today..

Relieved? Me too!

Argen-fn-tina?

Governor Sanford left the CONTINENT for an affair? Yeah.. I don't fully buy this, either. This, if true, easily makes the top five "I-had-to-see-you-now-take-off-your-clothes" moments in political history(King Eward VIII and Wallis Simpson still remain at number one. When you give up the Crown of England for love, you're hooked!), but it's still hinky. Sanford, his wife, his staff, the media, his supporters, none of them, has a shred of credibility left in the areas of honesty, judgement, or non-gullibility. They all passed on the Official Story, and asked no follow up questions. Or they were willing participants in The Lie. The whole event seems to be getting clumsier by the hour.

Some major points I don't understand:
*Up until last week, he still had passion for his job(Fighting the Stimulus; suing the government). What happened? Is he really that naive to think his erratic behavior wouldn't cause people to talk?
*Did he really have to go see her? She couldn't have flown to South Carolina, allowing him to stay off radar?
*The State newspaper had incriminating emails for almost eight months and didn't follow up? Would they have been a bit quicker if Sanford had a (*D) behind his name? Would they have been quicker if these emails had really existed in December and they really had received them then?(Pure speculation and conspiracy talk on my part--no proof whatsoever..)
*If he resigns, will Bauer follow through with Sanford's suit against the government?
*Sanford's biggest attacks came from within his party: Lt. Governor Andre Bauer and State Senator Jake Knotts talked to anybody with a microphone, as much as they could. They seemed to work in tandem, and whether or not they actually were, their criticisms felt very co-ordinated. Very co-ordinated.

The reason this story fascinates me is not the affair. Voyeuristic, judgemental Christians are the ones hung up on this angle. People make bad decisions when their genitals are involved, but that shouldn't disqualify them from public policy making. My interest lies in the oh-so complete career demolition of a"successful"(well liked/appropriately conservative in a super Red State) Governor and future presidential hopeful, riding a tsunami of collapsing lies and attacks from within his own inner sanctum. And the explanations(to explain the previous explanations that were actually lies)still don't feel right to me.

So, for the third post in a row, let me include:

"Everything is fine. Guhhhhhhhhh.. Everything is fine. Guhhhhhhhhh.."

Hear that? That's the sound

of crickets being squashed by the Tuesday afternoon press corps stampede. They picked up on the circus-like aspects of the Sanford Disappearance(And in a very consistent style..), but seem to skim or miss the intriguing , troubling (and this one still troubles me) points to this story, and each new tidbit of information or statement creates more loose ends than it solves. Hmm..

Leave it to the nuns to come up with the creepiest theory of them all..

Everything is fine; guhhhhhhhhhh.. Everything is fine; guhhhhhhhhhhh..

Wall to wall HLN coverage for Kaylee, but crickets when a GOVERNOR goes missing..

Are you kidding me? Politico has an update(included in the previous link), stating the Governor's spokesman said Sanford was hiking in the Appalachians, presumably far, far away from the stench of this total-pile-of-horse-shit excuse. To those without Sanford's history, hiking in the mountains and writing a book or article (according to the First Lady, "to write something.." -- a much too general statement, implying the First Lady to Really Does Not Know what her husband is up to? Also, as pointed out here, Family Man Sanford's going to leave his wife and family to hike and write on Father's Day Weekend? ), might work if you completely ignore the fact he's suing the Federal Government over being forced to accept Stimulus money! And that he filed the necessary papers the day before he disappeared? Whatever the real reason is(and we might not ever know..), the excuse doesn't fly at all, period.

Some other possibilities:

*Vice - (Outside shot, not likely, although yet another Republican morals scandal would be sweet)
*Republican party strategery - (More likely, as he's the visible point man on a judicial attack on Obama's policies for the coming months, he will continue to gain visibility in the coming months and years. If the Republican gamble of saying "No" to the Stimulus succeeds and the Democrats fail miserably, he could be The Man in 2012. A Sanford/Palin ticket is a creepy-ass prospect, indeed.. )
*South Carolina strategery(and yeah, this is a strategy/treachery combo word. I like it, but didn't make it up..) - (Possible, but not likely. Sanford and his Lt. Governor don't like each other (to put it mildly), but Sanford's out of office in 2010, and it doesn't seem like he should care that much to go scheming out of state.)
*NWO treachery - (Fomenting civil discontent and federal destabilization--maybe.)
*Anti-NWO treachery - (Fomenting civil discontent and federal destabilization--maybe.)
*He's really a spy. - (Again, maybe. For who or what, I don't know. Governmental back channel organization is a structure with which I'm not familiar. But there were these quotes: "Neither the governor’s office nor the State Law Enforcement Division, which provides security for governors, has been able to reach Sanford after he left the mansion in a black SLED Suburban SUV, said Sen. Jake Knotts and three others familiar with the situation but who declined to be identified.
Sanford’s last known whereabouts were near Atlanta, where a mobile telephone tower picked up a signal from his phone, authorities said.")
And
"Chief Lloyd confirmed that my information is legitimate," Knotts said in a statement released early in the afternoon. "He shared my concerns" about succession of power in Sanford’s absence, the Lexington Republican said.
"I was recently made aware that Governor Sanford has frequently been eluding SLED agents and disappearing at odd times," Knotts said.
"As the head of our state, in the unfortunate event of a state of emergency or homeland security situation, Governor Sanford should be available at all times to the chief of SLED," the senator said."
*He's really Jack Bauer. - (Not likely, but that's not to say that maybe Sanford fantasizes he's Jack Bauer. It seems to be a consistent fantasy scenario favorite for Republicans everywhere, so why should the Governor be any different? Dovetails nicely with "Being kidnapped by terrorists/being tortured for information regarding Myrtle Beach.")
*Murdered; Replaced by a clone or robot - (Not likely, but if Sanford returns, holds a press conference, and keeps repeating "everything is fine, guhhhhhhhhhh, everything is fine, guhhhhhhhhhhh," then we'll re-visit this thought. Nice visual though, right?)

More scenarios from godlike. All this intrigue, and not a peep from any major media outlet. I wonder what that means..

Summer Soltice, Cancer New Moon

Barbara Hand Clow breaks it down nicely in her Astroflash column. Scroll down to "Summer Solstice: June 21, 2009." These are the energies in play for the summer months. Awareness of said energies allows easier movement through the cross current of events that play out in each of our lives, every day.

When it ain't yer time, it ain't yer time..

What a disaster this could have been! Take a look at the pictures, then be astounded by the low number of casualties. Amazing..

Awesome! Society's guilty of all seven!

Another great post from Robert Wilkinson at Aquarius Papers. Einstein's right; I was born within 20 years of Gandhi's death and I scarcely believe someone this evolved walked the earth. Rationally, I know he did, but life on earth certainly doesn't feel that way. It's hard to believe that we've fallen so far, devolved so quickly, in the 60 plus years he's been gone.

While our global situation is dire, it is not ir-reversible. Not yet, anyway..