Fascism 101

Manufacturing a crisis in order to invoke emergency powers is something we've seen before.

It didn't end well.

Statistical Anomalies

We traveled through La Guardia airport over the holidays, and the TSA "randomly" selected my Lebanese wife for a pat down.

She was the only one I saw "randomly" selected.

It occurred to me that if life is eternal, then Jesus didn't really "sacrifice" anything.  He just had a really bad day.

And I don't mean that as a dig at Christians.  I was just thinking how much better things could be if more of us were willing to have a Really Bad Day every now and then.

Probably the worst place to build a house would be directly over the North Pole or the South Pole, because literally every room would be in a different time zone.  It would be impossible to coordinate anything, because everybody's watch would say something different.

I'm experiencing terrible insomnia lately, but the payoff is in thoughts like that one.

I turn on the porch light for the moths when it rains.  They are attracted to the light, and find shelter from the storm.

It's like lighting a tiny lighthouse.

The East Texas State Fair has instituted a tough "no tobacco" policy.  Beginning this year, patrons will literally be searched at the gate, and if they find a pack of cigarettes they will confiscate it.

You will be relieved to know that they still allow handguns.

Bloodbath

People forget what an extremist Ronald Reagan was. He wasn't a kindly old man who told funny stories, he was a demagogue who wanted to end political unrest by slaughtering all the hippies:

"If it's to be a bloodbath, let it be now."

Later he claimed that "bloodbath" was just a figure of speech. I've never heard anyone else use "bloodbath" as a figure of speech. Certainly the National Guard at Kent State didn't use it that way.  They loaded their rifles with live ammunition, took aim, and fired.

Of course this is the same man who, when called out for telling a joke denigrating Poles and Italians, claimed that he was merely giving an example of the sort of thing he personally did not find funny.

So I don't think telling the truth was of particular importance to him.

And I don't think our current political climate is an aberration.

It's more of a culmination.

If Donald Trump is ever called to testify, listen for the sound of steel balls clacking together.

At some point Serena Williams' new daughter is going to say, "But Mo-om!  All the other kids are doing it!" and it will be interesting to see how she responds.

Special

If you could travel back in time and kill Hitler as an infant, would you?

I've been asked that question before, and my answer is always "It wouldn't matter."

The question presupposes that Hitler was a remarkable, irreplaceable human being, and I don't think that's accurate. I think he was an idiot.

And in an alternate time-line, where infant Adolf is murdered in his crib, I believe the same societal forces that forced that idiot to the front would just force some other idiot to the front.

He wasn't that special.

The worst part of every celebrity death is the inevitable Condolence Tweets.

Paisley

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Grief is a weird thing. It can hit you out of nowhere.

I was in Stein Mart last week and found a wonderful paisley shirt, and as I was heading towards the checkout it suddenly hit me that the only other person who would be as excited about this shirt as I was would have been my mother, but she's gone.

So I didn't get the shirt, and it knocked me down for a long, long time.  It's strange to consider that something as simple as a pretty shirt can light the tinder.

Anyway.

Mona and I went to see ELO in Dallas Monday night, and I was still so depressed we almost didn't make it.  Mona was ready to punt and drive me home.  But I did rally enough to make it into the venue, and once we there we both had a great time. The crowd sang, danced, and were totally immersed in the experience.  This was Jeff Lynne's first tour in thirty years, and he hasn't lost a step.

It was healing.

I'm happy not knowing

I remember reading an article one time that confidently stated, "Well, we now know who Jimmy Durante's 'Mrs. Calabash' is," and I was a little disappointed. I enjoyed the secret. But then I did a quick internet search, and found a site that named a different person, and a third that named a third person.

I suppose that's the best of all worlds: the people who need an answer think they have one, the people who enjoy the mystery know they don't.

I'm happy with a little mystery.  I don't want to know what happened to Emilia Earhart, or the true identity of D.B. Cooper, or the final disposition of Jimmy Hoffa. I want to believe that Ms. Earhart circled back and lived a long and happy life with a secret lover, that D.B. Cooper enjoys a prosperous new life somewhere in the wide open spaces, that Mr. Hoffa entered the witness protection program with one hell of a cover story.

And I'd also like to believe that Elvis is hiding in plain sight as an impersonator in a kitschy wedding chapel in Las Vegas, eating peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches and laughing himself to sleep every night.

There's hope in "maybe."

No matter how many bible verses you quote me, if you are asking me to do something unkind, the answer is "No."

Still

I visited Mesa Verde with my Dad one October, and my most vivid memory is a simple, quiet moment.

As we sat among the ruins, for just a few minutes, there were no sounds at all. No electric motors hummed, no tires droned against pavement, no distant thump from a stereo; no human voices or airplanes overhead. It was perfectly still.

A hundred years ago, this would not have been unusual.

Now there are people living their entire lives without ever having this experience.

Birds

When a flock of birds is startled and flies away, there's always one bird that lags behind, looking about with a confused, quizzical look on his face.

I call this the Cat Food Bird.

Fear and Loathing in America

One candidate reduces to the second coming of Richard Nixon (favors “covert” wars, admires Henry Kissinger, has a mania for secrecy), and the other candidate won widespread support with a campaign based entirely on anger.

I really don’t think everything is going to be all right this time.

Could

Ordinary Things is on the web HERE.

19th Century Cats

A wallpaper design from 1898, via Windy Poplars Room