I had planned a whole REALLY amusing post here but it's not ready yet, so hang on, check back tomorrow or brace yourself for a short really peevish (but we hope at least interesting) harangue.

Out for coffee this morning, pick up the two vaguely alternative Seattle free papers, the Weekly (Weakly?) and the Stranger. Free and worth every penny. But the Stranger has a piece in it today by political cartoonist and writer Ted Rall that I won't quote at length but he's right dammit. But honestly, I try SO not to get political here because I tend to dislike political "discussions" which are rants which are arguments which are not a lot of fun. But one thing touched me and it sent me spinning into space as I realized Oh How Very Much I Hated Hearing it. See if you do too.

"The system worked". Damnation, I hate hearing that phrase SO much. SO VERY much. You know when you hear it? When some guy's released from death row after serving 27 years. And people say "see? The legal system worked." The guy was imprisoned on weak testimony, or bias, or who the frap knows why. And they get a confession or DNA testing or SOMETHING happens to prove that he didn't (it's usually a he) do it and these people come out of wherever they are and claim it proves the American justice system worked.

No, not really.

Rall was quoting journalist Haynes Johnson who apparently claimed, in 1997 that Watergate proved that "the system worked". Right. Nixon was re-elected, careers were destroyed, credibility suffered, some of us never ever recovered our trust in elected officials, a president stepped down in disgrace. You call that working? And this, by the way all by way of saying that this all happened AFTER Nixon was re-elected. And how he fought every step of the way, the cover-ups, the firings, the attempts to subvert the process, threats against journalists and newspapers and editors…it worked? Aiyiyi.

Believe me, I get what's being said here but it makes me angry that massively delayed justice is used to show how "the system worked". Yeah, Killen's going to prison for his part in the murders of Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Mickey Schwerner. Forty-one years gone by. Ooo, the system worked. Why don't I feel better.

Then, as I'm snorting and pawing the ground, a piece of trash, an ad, falls from the paper. It's an ad for (saints and fairies preserve us) "American Spirit" cigarettes. They're additive free, guys, and they're "natural". So they have to be good for you, right? Ah, brings back the time I told a housemate to go sweep up the brown rice he'd spilled all over the front steps before someone fell and broke her neck and he looks at me and says "but it's orGANic."

And it's not that the lying shithead marketers are pretending this crap is good for you, and it's not that they are trying to con people with "organic" cigarettes, or that they are involving Indian/native Americans. Okay, that’s some of it; the image on the pack is a man in a feather headdress smoking a peace pipe. Tonstant weader is starting to get a little flushed here. All the warnings are there about how horrid cigarettes are for you so you now, whatever. No, it's this line that I truly love:

"Natural American Spirit was created based on our belief in the traditional American Indian usage of tobacco -- in moderation and in its natural state."

Anyone got a sedative?