The world will always have it's wars, it's famines, poverty, plagues, and pestilence; it's wicked rulers wearing masks of able leaders and brave heroes. The masses will always have their American Idol, their generic alterna-schlock, and their newest action adventure heroes and box-office blockbusters, brought to you courtesy of McDonalds and the great American heart attack. But we will always have art, beauty, truth, and love. If we’re willing to look for it. 

For every eminem, we still have Shakespeare, and for every p-diddy, we still have Radiohead or Sigur Ross or Rufus Wainright or Caetano. For every Michael Jackson, some where there is Prince. Every time we must endure a Mel Brooks, we can take refuge in that there is a Woody Allen. For every Oz or Married with children or ‘who wants to be a zillionaire’ we still have opera and real theatre. For every prescription drug that is rammed down our throats by heartless corporate thugs there is a natural herb waiting to be plucked from the earth, ready to heal us with out side effects. For every acre of rainforest that is cut down by big men with little minds we shall plant a seed and hope that the evil men that lurk among us die before they find the little trees we have planted. For every mindless foul mouthed nitwitted comedian, out comes an Eddie Izzard. For every brainless fake breasted bombshell flavor of the month parading across the covers of our magazines or television screens, there are plenty of women with real beauty and substance in the world. For every rapper on MTV profiting from dropping names and labels and promoting that life begins and ends with drinking fucking and how nice his cars and shoes are, we still have real art being created all around us. For every pencil-dick Martin Bashir care of the Barbara Walters special that create their wealth by deceiving and exploiting the Michael Jacksons of the world, we can take solace in that there really are honest and trust worthy people out there. For every hyperbolic and asinine infomercial, there are still great things of value that we actually want to buy being made. We may just need to look deeper. Substance does exist.

"$75B (seventy five billion) America spends on the Iraq war could provide fifty million Americans with free health care, or six million young men with university education."