I don't know how much the cheap plastic flags were. They didn't seem to have 50 stars on them, and the top and bottom stripes were overbig, as if the machine was off when it was cutting them from yards and yards of colored plastic. An old truck, probably made in the 80s, pulled up to get patriotic. A few exchanges of words occurred, and the truck drove away with flags flying.

Stars and stripes themed Mad Hatter rave hats are big now. They dot the landscape at major sporting events. Fifty-year-old boomers smile widely under the very same hats that would have gotten a fifteen-year-old stopped for an ecstasy check a month or so ago. One of the guys at work has one. He calls himself a "lefty lucy," but times change and this is no time for dissent. This is the time for unity. This is the time for everyone to be facing the same way. Being a dissident is treasonous.

A political science professor at UNM is learning this the hard way--of course, this is exactly how he wants to learn it, so I don't feel too sorry for him. Back when I was going to school, this guy was always saying something to piss other people off. It's part of his schtik. Knowing the laws and customs of the political arena, this professor always has something off-color to say about whatever is going on. He knows he has the right to say it, so he does. Once again, someone wants to get him fired. And, once again, I'm pretty sure the guy will get to keep his job.

At a recent Social Distortion show (Social D to the Nu Skoolers), Mike Ness didn't want to get political (and, honestly, he never was really that political in his songs), but he sang what he considered to be an anti-war song. Most of the crowd, even those sporting the anarchy symbol, was behind him. Punk, usually confrontational, was communal and hippie-like for a moment. And then we all jumped around, knocking each other silly.

Irony is getting thick because no one is working hard to clean it up. When peace marchers talk about "fighting for peace," one has to wonder if their speeches were written by Reagan's old writers. No one really does because the irony is just too thick. It's hard to breathe in there. Anyone who wades in that pool comes up covered like a tar baby.

Those of us who were never in complete focus about "the day no one seems to have a good name for so we don't call it anything specific" have been wading in those waters for a while. How can I be anything other than a spectator when the best advice is to get back to normal?

Normal is boring and mind-numbing and pisses me off more than the people in the star-spangled rave hats. It's an impotent feeling, the thought that no matter what I do nothing will change. Nothing I say will start or stop "war." I won't change anyone's mind about anything. Everything is set. Either you're for it (and I see and hear examples of this everyday, everywhere), or against it (steadily uprising, mostly around the university areas of the country because students don't want to fight war) or you're nothing.

And so I'm nothing. I drive to work every week day, do the work I've been doing for a couple of years, and drive back home in the evening. I steer the TV away from extraneous exposition about what may or may not happen. I put on baseball and listen to music from the last time we were at war, or music by War or whatever gets me through.

Columbus Day is coming up. One of the more worthless holidays in our string of Monday bank holidays. We celebrate a brave but stupid adventurer who landed in the Caribbean, called it India and spread disease to thousands of natives who had never come in contact with outsiders. He wasn't the first to find what would become the Americas, he just got the most press. When I was in school, we learned about the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. They probably still learn the same story.

One story that will likely change in the next week is the story of the Major League single season home run record. With a week left to play, Barry Bonds stands one home run away from tying and two away from breaking it. Mark McGwire, only a couple years ago, was the toast of the Major Leagues. Everyone pronounced that 70 would stand for years and years. Mark started shilling Big Macs, and we all basked in the glory of our new big man. We will see the record fall before I write again.

And, as Kurt Vonnegut would say, so it goes.

Life goes on, even as I drift through the same silt I've been wading through for a while. The big change hasn't hit me, other than to think that work is even more meaningless than it was before that morning when DJs couldn't crack jokes, and there was only one TV show on the air. I'm not sure how much of a change that really is.

Matt Worley is trying to walk lightly in heavy shoes.