I've been in a foul humor lately; there are too many things happening at once, and not enough of them are pleasant. As is usually the case, it will pass, and I'll be back to my slightly less bitter and curmudgeonly self soon.

But until then, perhaps I should vent a little.

• Paris Hilton and the iPhone = bread and circuses. I am holding people who think that either topic is a subject worth more than a thirty-second news spot responsible for the decline of Western civilization. I don't care if you find them interesting, just get a sense of priority, please.
• Designers who look down their collective noses at people who lack their oh-so-highly-refined aesthetic sensibilities should have those noses broken, allowed to heal, then broken again so they don't forget the lesson. I'm considering extending this heartfelt desire to arrogant critics of all stripes, and anyone else who can't find it in themselves to use the phrase, "Well, that's not to my taste." Particularly middle-aged white people who claim that hip-hop isn't music.
• Hypothetically, if Ann Coulter was beaten nearly to death and then left in a ditch somewhere in east Texas so the coyotes could finish the job it would be a fitting delivery of justice. If it doesn't happen, though, it seems obvious that whatever higher power you believe in thinks that calling for assassinations and terrorist acts against people with whom you disagree politically is a-ok. Oh, and it's okay for me to say this, too, because I am now calling myself an entertainer, just like Ann. Hypothetically, you know.

Nope, it's no good. I'll forgo any additional outbursts because, frankly, it didn't make me feel any better. Livid anger and violent thoughts seem better suited to my enemies; the very fact that I am roused to such emotions means they've won a battle, and I don't want to give ground. But these days I do not have much zen nature, and I'm having trouble being a leaf on the breeze while watching America turn back into a pack of gibbering apes throwing shit at each other. I tell myself, "This, too, shall pass," but I can't make myself believe it. Not today.