Take this badge off me

\"Mama take this badge off of me. I can't use it anymore." \nEvoking the haunting chill of a man ruminating under aluminum skies, Dylan delivers the first line of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" with a sardonic bottom lip -- the lip of a man who's lived long enough to taste the lead in the fountain of life. His sneer prongs the hair on my neck and mocks those with swollen egos. It's a purge of sorts -- a swan song about pirates defying wealth by heaving their riches overboard and letting their swords rust at the bottom of the sea. With this, so exits the ego, thus pulling out the stopper, allowing harmonics to replace the ill-tuned.\nThose lyrics, personally, have never been so tangible until now. It's like discovering an orchid under the ash of the apocalypse -- suddenly realizing that man was never meant to struggle or much less spar with the enemy.\nJournalism is a dirty game, bloated with enough sapheads and ninnies to bring shame on the otherwise beautiful art of writing. Any rube with a pencil and pocket knife can be a journalist. Because of this, our periodicals are polluted with the sludge of misogynists, racists and sneaky bullies who throw sand in our eyes. As if that isn't enough, consider all the Web sites in operation that are there to add fuel to an otherwise uncontainable fire. But for those under the thumb of word play and addicted to language, journalism is the dealer of a drug that brings word junkies back every time, craving those extra lines.\nWhat dangerous narcotic is journalism slinging? It's money -- getting paid to write. Journalism withdrawal is terrible because the smart journalist knows that with a few carefully placed innuendos, creativity does not suffer. Unfortunately, journalists are thrown into the equivalent of a cock-fighting ring, open for the dollar-clutching public to offer its scrutiny.\nIf one loiters around journalism long enough, the gloves come off the fist and what ensues is a nasty battle of eye-gouging and mud-slinging, widening the bias gap ever further. I am, of course, talking about political journalism, particularly editorials, which often pit the liberals against the conservatives. Like in any time of crisis, the conservative right rises up like a pack of flea-bitten wolves -- hungry and delirious for any piece of raw meat they can get their paws on. They come in droves, baring torches for the Lord. To see a public lynching of all liberals would make them giddy in their bloomers. If you don't believe me, flip on Fox News and watch the mob as they foam at the mouth.\nOnce a journalist takes his first sucker punch, it's tempting to boom back with a tooth-shattering retort. For those who have ever been sucker punched, you understand the blind rage that seethes in the aftermath. An unmitigated fury of revenge clenches even the softest fists. But as the tidal wave recedes and as the conscience clears, a postulate begins to form. Fox News and its confused platoon exist solely because they are the worst kind of exhibitionists -- sensationalists to the bone under the disguise of political crusaders.\nThe badge of a journalist is worn like a stinking albatross around the neck. Once one participates in combat, the glint of life begins to lose its iridescence. I figured that out at 2 a.m. while sitting in an Oldsmobile. The crickets were in orchestral form and my cigarette's cherry streaked the night like a paint brush dipped in vermillion. I'll end how I began. \n"Mama take this badge off of me .."