* "This Ain't the Summer of Love"

I was a touch too young to remember Woodstock—that "Summer of Love"; what I did remember from that era—a few years later, in high school—was a radio report that heroin was being smuggled into the U.S. . . . in the bodies of dead American soldiers killed in 'Nam. I don't think the phrase "This ain't the Summer of Love" occurred to me then, but all the same, a deadly chill ran up my spine for the first time, of disillusionment regarding the whole human enterprise. And obviously, that glorious (or whatever) "season" has retreated further and further into the ideological distance [Quot. of the Day]:

This ain't the Garden of Eden—
There ain't no angels above—
And things ain't what they used to be—
And this ain't the Summer of Love—
    --The Blue Öyster Cult

Of course, the Rush Limbaughs and Jerry Falwells of the world would play the "Pat Tillman" card on me: "If you only believed, son!" Okay, we can get into the heavy theological argument about how an omnipotent "God" could allow all this murder and mayhem, about notions of privatio bono and all that. But I'm tired—and so I'll be as knee-jerk dismissive as they are: [mild expletive deleted] ME.