Brew Pubs

When I was younger, there was (almost) nothing as cool as a brew pub. The idea of drinking beer in the place that made it was somehow ethereal and uplifting.

The problem today, however, is that as I've gotten older, I've realized that some beer just sucks - no matter where it's made, or consumed.

So, with brutal experience keeping a tight leash on my expectations, I am looking forward to the reopening of the famed Dock Street brew pub. It is opening in the heart of University City - around 50th and Chestnut (?).

Dock Street beer was an early local contribution to the revolution that overthrew the oppressive regime of BudMiller. It was - and is - good beer. the original brew pub closed years ago and was sorely missed, so hopes are high.

However, its new location has my antenna quivering slightly; catering to college kids is not a strong statement of faith in one's product. Nevertheless, I will keep an open mind - and flexible liver.

You've got to let go...

Anyone who knows me knows I wear my feelings and beliefs on my sleeve. I've long said that I would love to be in with the "cool kids" of the dominant left wing orthodoxy and be able to make fun of President Bush as a liar and an idiot - and the war in Iraq as neo-colonial, neo-imperial, neo-militarist oil-mongering, etc. But, of course, because I think, I am unable to do any of that. And it is because so few actually can or are willing to think that I get so worked up and overwrought at times. It has in fact cost me one friendship - a guy I know who is so full of hatred for all things Republican that he cannot keep from baiting me at every turn. This guy is educated and intelligent, yet he cannot, or will not, engage in a substantive discussion of the facts - probably because he doesn't know any. The only rational arguments I've heard opposing the war have come from the Libertarian right - and they are (in my opinion) short on foresight concerning what happens once we leave.

But, this has taken such a toll on me that I am becoming as angry as those of whose rhetoric and actions I disapprove.

I gotta get a grip.

What I have come to realize is this: one sane man in an asylum, is going to be considered the craziest of all.

Thank God for the Internet, or I would have gone over to the dark side two years ago.