Dizzyworld Diaries, Part 3

dr. elsewhere here

Final reflections on my Dizzyworld visit, with emphasis on voters' moods, which will of course impact the upcoming election.

In addition to all those predictable oddities of that microcosmic metaphor of the American dreamworld, there were some real surprises. Not least among these was the fact that virtually every single person of those few I actually directly encountered was openly vocal about being Democrat and/or being really outraged by this administration.

We’re talkin’ Florida, folks; Orlando, Florida. Perhaps the reddest spot in Florida, maybe even in the US.

A guy who stopped in to check the TV connection at the cabin would not shut up about this crazy administration. With dinner on the table and three kids competing for attention, he stood in the doorway and told stories of going to school with Kathryn Harris (no kidding; never even wore make-up in school, go figure) and witnessing corruption in the state Republican party and government (can’t back any of it up, so not fair to share; sorry).

Of course, this incident was odd in itself, as most of the hired help could not speak so freely about such anti-American opinions. But this fellow’s need to talk about these things suggested a growing rage in the area, one that is confirmed to a great extent by Katherine Harris’s abysmal poll showings.

Naturally, too, there was an absence of conversation about politics with fellow Disney visitors; as noted previously, resident tourists hardly talked at all anyway about anything, other than the ungodly weather.

The most revealing and interesting and unpredictable moments occurred, though, while traveling, starting with the bizarre appearance of Tony Snow on my connecting flight from DC to Orlando.
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For those of you who have not flown since the London pseudo-alert of this past July, we were until just days ago under threat of exploding shampoo and radioactive spring water. Though now that threat seems to have miraculously disappeared (just my luck, just after my return) because the airlines were so inundated by checked luggage. Typical terror logic, save the airlines' money.

Had I not suffered this absurdity myself, I would never have believed it. But there it is, all of us reduced to ditching toothpaste and shampoo and water. Forget about the impossibility of concocting a bomb while flying; the story just gives great fear factor. Again, typical terror logic.

In light of this logic, both ways, I made a point of carrying the last sips of my water bottle right up to the metal detector, where of course the guy inevitably said I couldn’t take the water through. So I stood there, downing the last dregs as conspicuously as possible, and when I was through, wondering out loud if now everyone felt safer because the water was no longer in my bottle but inside of me. I then wondered if they’d have felt just as safe if I’d taken a hearty swig and been allowed to keep the rest of the water in the bottle. No one openly responded, but most folks laughed. Except the metal detector guy; none of them were amused.

Then, once cleared by security, you are sans l'eau, and so must purchase or thirst, the latter never being my preference. The stores are wise to their profit power in this situation, providing only the large bottles, large bottles that you must again consume or ditch before jumping through the next hurtle, boarding the plane.

So there I am, grumbling at the checkout near the Orlando airport gate for my return flight, and I look up to see the TV screen over the counter. Not that unusual, you might say, and at first I didn’t think anything of it. But then, I nearly fell over.

I’m not what you might refer to as a “world traveler,” but I have seen several international airports, from Japan to Germany, from London to Istanbul, and I have to say that for many years, all airport TVs, ALL of them, are tuned to CNN. But not here, not in Orlando, Florida, nosirree. Nope, these TVs were tuned to Fox.

Yup, Faux News. And the reason I even bothered to notice that unusual and unpredicted fact had everything to do with the startling lower third under Mahmud Ahmadinejad speaking to reporters in NYC:

“Axis of Evil” leader gives press conference at UN

I kid you not. Like I said, I nearly fell over. I gasped, audibly. The guy ahead of me turned around, curious, and I pointed to the screen. “Does that say what I think it says?” He burst out laughing. Well, he said, consider the source.

And we proceeded to have quite the interesting exchange, blasting the security rules, the exploding hair gel, the lies, the corruption, with the two employees behind the counter chiming in. They pointed out that they had to put up with the Fox “crap” (I’d have said Faux crap, but that would have been wrong) all the time, for years, and they were so sick of it, it wasn’t even funny anymore. The other customer pointed out that it seemed like Fox was just getting worse, maybe because their numbers are so low, they’re getting desperate. I pointed out this seemed to be the same non-strategy of the administration, governing by incompetent PR CYA. The employees laughed and asked what strategy? Take all our money and run? The other customer said their propaganda was becoming so obvious, hardly anyone with any sense can believe any of it. And I pointed out that it was becoming more and more like the Soviet Union, where the citizens were so wise to the lies that they just laughed at it, assuming that if the papers said it, then it was government lies and the opposite should be believed. Like opposite day, one of the employees said. By this time two or three other random travelers were laughing along with us; not just a little surreal there in the airport in Jeb and Disney's Orlando under the Fox TV screen.

I can honestly say it was an encouraging sendoff from Dizzyworld. What was half exuberant and abandoned fun with family and half bewildering and predictable social experiment actually left me with a very real sense of the shift in this country’s mood. Right there in the belly of the beast, or the snout of the Goofy, we my have something of a gauge of the nation's pulse.

And it is definitely quickening. Though this diagnosis may only be due to the intensely chaotic level of insanity we're witnessing. Which brings to mind not so much Never Never Land as The Sorcerer's Apprentice.