...And don't criticize what you can't understand...

I was off the hook for geiger counters this morning, but still woke strangely compelled to do four things:

• Feed Click
• Rub Little Bear's tummy
• Shovel horseshit
• Write this post

It is possible, therefore, that I'm a hippie.  Funny - I never was one before.

"Hippie" is a word I've been hearing a lot lately.  Conservatives, it seems, love to hate them.  The more they cheer all "our" various wars, the more they snark on hippies.  This seems odd to me, since hippies went away more-or-less simultaneously about forty years ago, and have since been roughly as relevant as flappers or beatniks or Goldwater Republicans. 

Is there any wine sweeter than the tears of a hippie?

I wouldn't know. They're not around any more. But "Hippie" has recently become synonymous with "person who doesn't think we should be blowing up wogs in their own country, because it's none of our f*cking business." Which - technically, I suppose - makes me a hippie.

To properly have been a hippie, a person pretty much has to be 60 or older, which means most of the people currently hating on hippies have never actually met one. I don't miss that cut-off date by much, but I do miss it. So - technically, I suppose - I'm not a hippie. This is confusing.

But I do remember the world both pre- and post-hippie, and I can tell you that in their effect, they weren't all bad. Sure, there was a lot that was silly, and parasitic, and downright self-destructive. Just like a lot of things kids do. And that Hair musical really, really hasn't worn well at all.  But - if you've ever had sex outside of wedlock or smoked weed without social opprobrium, and think that's not a bad thing, thank a hippie. It's not actually bad to want transport and power options other than the Earthf*cker Magnum - though it is certainly bad to seek the power to force such things on others. Also, about that imperialist foreign war thing:

Hippies: Still Not Wrong.

Time to get ready to go to the vet. 23 Skidoo!