one that is trusted, indulged, or preferred above all others

so i ran across this video.


four minutes long
"This is a simple, poignant short film, shot on a budget of $150:
a man with a survey stops passersby and asks them, 'Are you
anybody's favorite person?'"
an english girl posted a response-video that asked,
"are you the favorite person of anybody?"
and about one million other people posted their own
video replies. a lot of them were quite long -
five minutes, nine minutes - given the simple
yes-or-no question. i could really only watch
the shortest ones - mainly because they were so - you know -
sad in tone. even when they weren't replies basically saying
"i am the favorite person of nobody."


one hundred seconds
a lot of folk jump straight to whomever is their
favorite person, as if it is too risky to declare themselves
the favorite person of somebody.
a fair number protest the whole "favorite" idea at all.
often sourly. and some are defiantly proud of being
just generally unpleasant. i guess that's predictable.


one minute
there were a bunch of entries on the general internets
too, replying to "are you the favorite person of anybody?"

I don't believe I'm someones favorite person.
I'm 99,99999% sure not.
Mmm, I don't think so. But I do know that my wife
is somebody's favorite person.
What a heartbreaking question.
Two people, maybe a third.





I hope so, but I can't assume anything. It seems a vain
thing to assume.
I am my mom's favorite, and my aunt's and my other aunt.
One. My girlfriend. I have absolutely no idea why,
she's much smarter and prettier than me. I certainly
don't deserve it.
It's weard , I'd really love to , but the chances
that I'm the favorite person of someone are weak .
I'm not going emo on you guys or anything hahaha.





I'm not sure now. But I am quite certain
I once was though.
I don't know. I have a lot of friends. I guess I 'm likeable.
Of course I know I'm my dad's favorite person.
my teacher in physics.
I am nobody's favorite person.





Probebly not, I havnt really done anything that
matters much, or that people notice anyway.
No, I don't think so. Witch is kind of sad i
i don't really care.
Probably not. I don't get out much, and when I do it is just
to take my classes in silence, maybe get some lunch or something,
or spend 15 minutes in a store.
Generally speaking, probably not. I'm rather distant
from most of the world.
No one has ever told me that. Besides, I don't
really believe in single favorites.





Hoping that I am, my thoughts quickly moved to my favortie person.
Must be someone out there. Or maybe there are, erm, is none.
How should I know? Unless you count parents, I sincerely
doubt it. Now, let's see, my favorite person.
How would you know? Did they tell you? Tell me about it!!!!

thank goodness there was at least ONE video
that is QUITE happy addressing the issue
it is the favorite video of me.


two and a half minutes

brothers and sisters

i wrote this a while back:

like all poor correspondents, i spend more time thinking about how i should have written back sooner, or written at all, than i do carrying out the deed. much more. but here it is a postcall saturday and i have been in a stupor all day due to three hours of sleep last night. when i get home at night, i'm in a stupor then too. and when i have a bit of vacation of free time, i spend it bustling around, not keeping in touch. my idea was that having an online space like this right here would be a good way to write to everybody all at once. but of course those individual messages of personal caring are not included.


and i wrote this another day, when i was thinking about how stressful the last little while has been:

stressors

let's say, the last 7 years. it was bad enough that fundamentalists had taken over the government, but then 9/11. a big paroxysm, "why do they hate us?" and a news story about riding on a bus in new york, one person suddenly just started crying and in a minute everybody else started crying too. they went around asking was it actually safe to be breathing this air. no planes flying, mike listening to military aircraft overhead asking each other where they were supposed to go. then anthrax and the patriot act as fat as the los angeles phone book signed without reading, where did all those laws come from anyway? turbans as targets. sherman austin imprisoned for posting a suspect web link. enron, i told you so; no child left behind, and schools required to provide student names addresses phone numbers to military recruiters or lose federal education funding. "evil" used unironically, followed by "bad guys" and creepy little flag pins. then cluster bombs identical to food aid packages dropped all over a dirt poor third world country, and the "axis of evil" declarations. drums beating for iraq, where women start flooding hospitals requesting early cesareans so they won't have to give birth under shock and awe; then shock and awe. american tanks firing on the journalists, maybe they just didn't like the name of the hotel; precision bombings of farmers markets. propaganda ministry formed, headed by the ad executive in charge of promoting uncle ben's rice and the national campaign against teen pregnancy. onward to the department of homeland security, "homeland" used unironically, duct tape alerts. war war war; christmas toys of bombed-out family homes, camoflage chic, depleted uranium, white phosphorus, napalm, daisy-cutters now okay after all. "we" don't count iraqi deaths (16 times higher than american soldier deaths). mission accomplished, bush in a codpiece serving fake thanksgiving turkey to the photo-op troops. the razing of jenin, abductions of aristide and chavez. the razing of fallujah, the horror of abu ghraib; exciting lies about jessica lynch and rachel corrie, while lynndie england just confuses "us". karl rove and diebold knock over kerry. federal funding for everything "faith-based" including faith-based prisons. tsunami, with bush pledging 35 million, while for example canada pledges ten times as much, germany pledges twenty times as much. the chief of the inquisition, a former nazi, becomes pope; first task, fire everybody who defends homos. H5N1 starts across asia. katrina kills 2000, response time kills 2000 more; "fema trailer" and "brownie" become household words. we start to wonder about the qualifications of bush officials, for example after the west virginia mine disaster, not the first for bush's head of mine safety, after the bureau of land management slaughters wild mustangs, after the EPA is forced to close all its libraries. bush builds mexican border wall 18 feet high. bush builds hundred-acre american fortress in iraq. medicare part d allows drug companies to charge low-income seniors anything they want for medicines. warrantless wiretapping legalized, with (coerced?) collusion of cellphone and internet providers. bush fires u.s attorneys for disloyalty, such as investigating jack abramoff, and refuses to answer congressional subpoenas, including that of harriet miers, whom bush nominated for supreme court. blackwater and cholera throughout iraq. a "surge". vice president shoots hunting buddy in the face. benazir bhutto assassinated and bush starts bombing pakistan. iceland, hungary, latvia, serbia, turkey, pakistan, and ukraine all go broke. european banks start toppling, the world bank issues dire warnings, and in the u.s., banks, insurance companies, mortgage lenders, car corporations and utilities are to be bailed out with five trillion dollars; the national debt hits ten trillion; one and a quarter million jobs disappear in three months; prices of milk and bread and heating fuel shoot up; food pantries and hospitals go out of business; increase in bank robberies. in iraq, an angry journalist throws his shoes at bush and is taken into custody and tortured.


when all this started, my children were twenty, sixteen, and twelve. one was stuck in california when the airports closed on 9/11 and spent all her money; this made her dad go crazy. another hit the skids in high school and dropped out; i pulled the other out to keep the same thing from happening. i got through medical school; everybody got diplomas after all. different folks temporarily without shelter stayed with us, and some of them became permanent family. i can't enumerate all the scary things that happened to all of us personally. there were a lot. but mainly we were kind to one another, we tried to support one another, we went to the rescue and defended one another when required. we tried to eat right and take care of our teeth and hold on to our dreams. we made a hell of a lot of art and music. and most of it worked. but it was tough. it's still tough.

this is what i was saying last night: the collapse has already happened. everything crash. people who wonder what their role will be "after the collapse" should look around them and see what their role is right now. dorothy day used to say, "the worst that can happen has already happened." she would add, "and been mended," but i don't know if i can really go that far - unless to say, so let us continue to mend it.

"This is a farewell kiss from the Iraqi people, you dog," yelled al-Zaidi in Arabic as he threw his first shoe towards the U.S. president. "This is for the widows and orphans and all those killed in Iraq," he shouted as he threw his second shoe... A Saudi businessman offered $10 million to buy the shoes... The shoe, Ducati Model 271, is now renamed "The Bush Shoe."

tell it like it is

"1. I love you.



2. I support you.



3. I don't think you're crazy.



4. Your dreams are worth fighting for.



5. I'm hungry."