10PM and all is quiet in Buvrox. The road shines under the streetlights, and everything sports a soft silver glaze from the recent rain. Mortality takes a backseat as I light up another Craven and breathe a cloud of silken smoke into the night. Frogs. Crickets. Sounds of sleeping town. The air is cool and laden with the lazy essence of a place where nothing is permanent but change is slow in coming. In the shadows beyond the realm of manmade light the jungle waits, drawing on its infinite patience, always ready to reclaim the land once man has finished his stay. He will leave only ghosts. The jungle will take the rest. What, I wonder, will I leave?

Let’s talk about the world for a sec, put some shit in perspective.

China, nation of 1.3 billion people and awkward new player to the world stage is set to host the Olympics for the first time in it’s 2,229 year history, thus signaling it’s official rise into the community of superpowers and completing its formal course in modern nationalism, begun by that lovable old bastard Deng Xiaoping, successor to the even-more lovable nightmare that was Mao Zedong. Nevermind the thousands of political prisoners, institutionalized abortion, ghastly consumption rates of natural resources, those pesky, ungrateful Sherpas who obnoxiously refer to themselves as Tibetans, or the fact that the Yellow River now runs black, the country has come a long way from the days of the Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward. It just came a little too late for the 40-50 million ghosts wandering its abandoned re-education centers and collective farms.

But God also wants in on the action, so he shook things up yesterday with a 7.9 magnitude earthquake that leveled whole towns and sports a death toll estimated right now at 10,000. This, of course, was an encore performance obviously meant to complement Cyclone Nargis that pwned Burma last week, a country best known for its brutal military suppression of protesting Buddhist monks last fall and its wacky name changing. The reputation of its esteemed military leadership for batshit-crazy xenophobia was further enhanced when they first requested foreign aid, but then denied foreign manpower. The military generals, sporting their stylish Aussie bush hats, insisted that their 10 functioning helicopters and a few hundred trucks could easily distribute thousands of tons of food and medical supplies to nearly 2 million people scattered throughout the jungles and river deltas of Southern Indochina, after a rigid preferential screening of “the most needy” communities was performed and after the USAID logos were scratched out. While they organize government elections to get more power, 100,000 corpses rot in its rivers and reservoirs and thousands fall victim to disease from the conditions. Kawaii ^_^!

What a happy world it is, but it gets better! The Iranian Revolutionary Guard and its minions in Hezbollah are going after Beirut again, a move that could spark another Israeli invasion, which is exactly what the aggressors would love to see. Pakistan still creaks by on the precipice of anarchy, with its party leaders bickering on how and or when to reinstate its Supreme Court Justices that Perez swept away last year. Robert Mugabe carries on the proud tradition of African political chaos by effectively putting the government on life support and ceasing everything in Zimbabwe, as its currency continues to decline, now worth half as much as its equivalent in toilet paper (one ply). Add to that the fact that due to the food crisis, a few well placed famines could off millions in the coming years, but no one really cares about that, it’s just a little crisis now.

Up north Medvedev takes the stand in Moscow with Putin standing in the shadows, holding the strings. A few days ago Russia held its WWII Victory Day Parade in Red Square, complete with goose-stepping legions of troops in new uniforms, rows of tanks, grizzled old vets in full Soviet regalia, and even a few next generation ICBMs made an appearance to the cheering crowd. It was the biggest public show of military hardware since the old days, and if you looked closely enough at Vladimir, you could see the hammer and sickle in his eyes.

But our media and much of the world remains transfixed on a couple Ivy league lawyers and a tough but unsure old man who each think they can sit in the big chair, roll eggs on the Whitehouse lawn, pardon the turkey at Thanksgiving, and direct the most awesome mechanism for war that humanity, or the lack thereof, has created. The true capabilities of our country’s military to develop, control, and project destructive or coercive power, be it conventional, biological, chemical, digital, mental, sociological, economic, or political, could make the average citizen simultaneously swell with pride for his nation and weep with despair for his species. I hope I never find out.

The presidential race is a tedious infomercial of regurgitated talking points and vapid observations made by people who do not exist outside of TV. It’s about as interesting as watching the kicker practice into the net before the game, while you’re trying to decide whether you should start standing in line for the bathroom or get yourself another beer. Gone are the days of Hunter Thompson rampaging around the country in a mescaline haze, firing off frantic articles under the specter of Nixon and trying to maintain his press credentials as he wraps himself in the fabric of society and dives screaming into the chaotic unknown.

As it is, the Dems head to West Virginia soon, a state that has already consigned Obama to the seventh circle realm of settingkittensonfire-style hatred normally reserved for child-molesters, necrophiliacs, and furries. That really doesn’t matter because no one gives a shit about West Virginia anyway, and it’s looking like Hillary and Bill are not going back to their old dream home, no matter how many soot-covered high school dropouts they have backing them. McCain totters on, awaking from his turbulent dreams of helicopters and rice patties to hold a town hall meeting every now and then and wait for the black, ultra elitist Muslim to slip up. And somewhere along the outer edges of Mordor, talk is heard of an unholy last ditch plan being hatched by Ron Paul and his necromancers to make one last futile grab for the gold. Creepy.

Such an entertaining nightmare that we live in. It never fails to impress me. I hope the sun rises tomorrow.