Ostracon

More stitches at the hospital. My assailants have since been charged with aggravated battery, but several important lingering questions remain distressingly unanswered: Why have I been seeing so many loose groups of more or less identically dressed teens riding CTA buses lately causing trouble and with no apparent intention of paying fares? And why do they always seem to get on just a few stops after I do? Just another "young person trend" or... I don't know... Is anybody running them? Who are their parents? What sorts of neighborhoods do they come from? Home values? More or less than mine? They wouldn't happen to have any possible ties to right-wing, or even foreign, political action groups, would they? 

I would, of course, post their full names and addresses to this forum (probably in addition to others) at my earliest convenience, should that turn out to be the case. 

After all, in today's digital world, just about anything ought to be possible. If anyone reading this has any information regarding the true identity of any of the bus passengers or their possible connections, please feel free to get in touch. 

Bear in mind, however, that any Kremlin trolls will be sent to the gulag without further delay :)

Somehow it would seem fitting that in our country today, a condition characterized by intense interest in, knowledge of or passion for a particular set of pursuits or area of expertise has summarily been labelled a disease, and its sufferers alternately stigmatized and pitied until a cure for such a horrible malady can be found. 

There is but one infinite substance.

And substance is a wave.

What is a wave? 

First they exterminated the native population, and then they brought in slaves to work the fields. After a violent, bloody war the slaves went off to work in factories, keeping their former masters rich and idle while the descendents of the slaves still worked very hard, earning only pennies on the dollar. Instead of trying to make life better and fairer for everyone, as many had in the past, the people quickly forgot these noble Enlightenment goals and soon made it their business only to prosper at the expense of others, just as it had been before the advent of democracy. 

Nonconformity was at first encouraged, then only tolerated, then violently stamped out. 

Meanwhile the rivers were dammed, the trees felled, the lakes surrounded with vacation cabins and retirement condominiums to house all the people trying to escape their newfound imprisonment. What little forest remained caught fire and burned, and the Earth and even the air people breathed gradually filled in with waste products and poisons, further reducing the people's ability to think, plan, or even to do much of anything at all.  

So then, bereft of fortitude or dignity, they decided to elect a Fascist Dictator, in order that their numerous and mounting problems be solved for them, for once and for all. 

It was nice to know that someone cared about them, since by this time practically no one else did.

It is difficult to determine where the "meaning" of anything (waiting, we suspect) lies to be found...

Only that when we have found the meaning, it lies not with the thing betokened.

 ≡  Intrinsic meaning is not a feature of our universe.

One side likes to wave signs. The other likes to flash guns. Neither seems to have any particular claim to morality, legality or even common sense. 

Just where does one find such bad actors? such pretenders to the throne of decency, virtue, or humanity?

"Long live President Bacon and his Piggy Parvenu Posse!" vs "Justice for the Uninformed, Tasteless and Mediocre!"?

Please tell us there isn't a sequel planned.