Well, I was going to talk about "Killer Cars", but "Invalid Litter Dept." just came on, so let the battle of my conscience begin!

"Invalid Litter Dept." is about the disappearances and deaths of some 570 women in Juarez, Mexico. All the women were beaten, raped, and strangled. This has been happening since 1993, and there are, as yet, no suspects. I suppose that means it's a good thing that a UN investigator is getting involved, since obviously the police aren't going to.

This is a disturbing trend. There has not been, to the best of my knowledge, such a series of killings in modern history, focussing on such specific targets, without any suspects. Merely another sign that women are not valued in any context in any culture.

Shows, I suppose, how disturbing this is - I have nothing to say, no pat answer. When they find the bastard son of a bitch responsible for this, I think that the sisters and mothers and daughters of the dead women should have a crack at him. With rusty tin can lids.

So back to some sort of original topic. (Insert Killer Cars here.)

So I was hit by a person driving an Expedition the other day. I'm fine, my car is basically fine - it'll be better after the bumper that she destroyed is fixed - and no one was hurt. But in a way, I wish someone had been, because ever since, I've been sitting around thinking that the Expedition is entirely too large of a vehicle and that I'd like to sue Ford to get it recalled.

This is, of course, all based on what the woman who hit me said. She reversed into me as I was parked in a parking lot, reading a book. When she got out, she kept saying that she had hit me because her car was too big and she didn't see mine. I was less than impressed, frankly.

But! The main issue to me is, who the hell drives these monster vehicles? Even if you need to haul an entire soccer team on occasion, doesn't the fact that you have to stop at the gas station every five minutes outweigh the convenience? I mean, the Excursion gets like 12 mpg city driving - the Model T did actually get better gas mileage. I don't understand the desire to have this huge gas-monster in your driveway, but obviously these people make more money than they need.

But the cars are a safety hazard. I've heard that it's damn near impossible to drive these monsters safely, let alone turn and remain in your lane.

So who's to blame? Once again, it is we, the consumers - we certainly aren't producers, here - who buy into the whole "if you drive a Canyonero, you are hot shit" mentality. Ford has said in the past that they aren't going to voluntarily put environmental requirements or safety requirements on these cars because they don't have to - we'll buy them anyway.

I don't know about you, but I'm getting damn sick of being marketed to, and I'm getting really damn sick that the marketing apparently has so much success. Why do people want to pretend to have a lifestyle they don't? Does it make you seem more interesting if you look like you drive over Yosemite every day, or do you think there is some small possibility that you merely look like one of the hundreds of thousands of people who want to look like they drive over Yosemite?

And I'm not trying to pick on SUV drivers here. Glowsticks do not a raver make. A sword doesn't mean you're an insta-Rennie, and a phaser doesn't mean that you'll get beamed anywhere, unless it's with a two by four. What it does mean is that you will buy anything that other people can dream up, as long as it makes you look more interesting.

Why don't you try actually doing the things that go along with the trappings you've taken over? Rather than buying an SUV to look like you go camping in the wild, buy a tent and a reasonably decent car and go camping for real

Don't let them market a lifestyle-through-accessories to you. Demand the lifestyle that goes with the accessories. Be authentic; be truthful.

Because all you look like, behind the wheel of that car, holding your glowsticks, or whatever the hell you pretend with - in my case, a computer, obviously - is a poser, and one that is afraid of the big kids. It's all a form of conformity - when you got out of high school, didn't you say that you were never going to do that to be cool again? So why are you doing it?

You do not look like an individual. You look like you believe marketing. Do you want to look like that?

Consider the message you give others carefully. Consider the message you give marketers even more carefully. Let's see if we can get the goddamn propaganda changed. Cause it basically sucks.

Off to my "rave" in my new "SUV" and setting "phasers" on "kill",

Channon