The noise was almost deafening. I was at work, and where the day before it was the sound of distant thunder, loud, but pleasingly natural and somehow even comforting (at least to me; I love gloomy weather and storms even more) this time it was the roar of military aircraft.
There was an air show nearby, and this was the second day of the spectacle. It was still going on as I left work. Jets were crossing the freeway at low altitude, and some idiot in an SUV in front of me was turning his head and pointing out his window at the flying death machines. He was treating the highway as his own personal viewing stand, slowing to a crawl and not watching the road. Fed up, I changed lanes and sped past him, flipping on the radio for some relief from the insanity, only to find more of it in the form of radio coverage of the event. WTF? How to you cover an air show on the radio? Who listens to that? The "commentators" were giving play by play of the aeronautic acrobatics, but it still didn't make any sense to listen to that. Then they interviewed one of the "heroes" and the purpose of the otherwise ridiculous broadcast became clear. The local commercial radio station was serving it's master the state quite well by reinforcing conformity in the general population with outright propaganda, such as the endlessly repeated variations on how "heroes" like the young pilot they were talking to "keep us free".
I finally turned my radio off and gazed at the cloud formations along my route home instead. That was much more interesting and edifying than the pro war criminal crap I'd been listening to seconds before.
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