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Cirque du Soleil.

Wow. Imagination and spirit. Playfulness and perfection. Beauty and grace. These productions are all that and more. This is a circus. It is hard to criticize what we have come to think of as a circus, because the performers are just as eager to entertain, just as professional, just as thrilled when the crowd applauds them, and yet, it is the difference between a Beetle and a limousine. Les Cirque is the Olympics of circuses.

I have spent some time in the belly of the beast today, browsing through various websites that I would normally shun as if they were plague-ridden (not a bad description for some of these sites.) I have long operated on the principle that you should know your adversary, so I thought I would try to get a sense of what people on the "right" were thinking.

Talk about culture shock. The worldview of the Radical Right is so completely different as to be almost unfathomable. I stand in awe of how much hatred there is of those who, like myself, dare to disagree with the direction in which they think this country should go. If they could call down fire and brimstone upon us, we moderates, liberals and progressives would be barbeque. (Isn't it interesting that the Religious Right seem to be so fond of fire and brimstone when they profess to love God? One would think the opposite would be true.)

Be that as it may, it is impossible for them to conceal their hatred of those of us who have the temerity to look at things in a different light. I am actually surprised that some on the Right haven't taken to wearing crosses on their lapels next to their flag pins (mark my words and remember me later.) I have begun my own small form of protest by continually wearing a flag pin. If all moderates, liberals and progressives wore flag pins, we might confuse those on the Right.

I am not, at least not yet, an enemy of those with whom I disagree. I yet entertain the hope, not that they will come to their senses, but that they will come to realize that they are attempting to deny us our freedom of religion by imposing their own narrow views upon the rest of us. From what I have seen of their bitterness, however, that hope is slowly dying.

Ah, the glooms are upon me again. Sorry about that. I think I need to travel the webstrands in search of intriguing apolitical sites. If I find anything, I'll let you know.

Peace.