Feeling Despair...and Empathy....

I was drifting off last night while listening to late night talk radio...as I often do...and the voices were explaining how reincarnation works. I've always searched for what the hell all this means and seem even more interested as I grow older. Like getting hungrier the closer you get to the buffet. The host was taking calls from listeners, often with comments on their own imagined end and final destination...or nothingness. A woman called and said, "I can't imagine a God that's good...with all we see here. If reincarnation is true...I don't want to come back. I'm too tired of all this." The host and guest went blank and began mumbling about their own beliefs. And they quickly took another call. That woman reached through my radio and squeezed my heart like a rubber stress ball till it hurt. I don't want to leave this place yet. But I'm not sure - either - if I want to come back.

Feelin' squirrelly....

I like the word squirrelly. It is very descriptive of a feeling we all feel, sometimes, and a way to describe actions we observe and those actors acting that way. According to my dear friend Merriam-Webster, it's an adjective defined as: 1. -tending to move around a lot, and 2. -very odd, silly, or foolish. (Been there...done that.) I frequently watch squirrels...more than most people. For years my wife and I would see a squirrel out our second floor living room window, often twice daily, doing a high wire act across the street. He (we called him a he but I would always add "or she") would walk the wire down to a main street and cross that street from 30 feet up. Whenever we saw him one of us would yell, "SQUIRREL!" to announce the crossing. And we knew he would return sometime soon with bounty in his mouth, still perilously perched above asphalt and humanity. Then, about 4 months ago, we realized no one had yelled "SQUIRREL!" for some time...we tried to watch for him...concerned about him (or her). After weeks of watching...we understood...he (or she) became a fond memory.... Then...a few months later my wife yelled "SQUIRREL!" and we saw a smaller version of our squirrelly friend doing the same high wire act. He (or she) was the rich brown color of sugar meant for baked beans. He (or she) would take the same route to and across our main street...and would return with his bounty. That was this last Spring...the time of renewal. Done.

Federal Constipation....

I don't think I've ever felt this heaviness in my bowels before.... It's just below that feeling in your stomach when you realized you didn't do your homework and Mrs. Botto is about to ask you to hand it in. Crap! This time, though, it's connected to my own government...and it's inability to download any ideas or solutions or collaboration that will free up this backload of emotion and stupidity. We need an enema. Something to flush the crap from the bowels of Washington and pollute the seas. I'm trying envision a gigantic Fleet's device entering our Capitol and, like a heat seeking missile, finding Mr. Boner and...there...it's being adminitered...slowly...his head explodes like a pimple on a teen's forehead and...relief!...the pressure adjusts and things start moving again...ahhhhhh.

"Getting massacred is nothing new to Kent State."

In preparation for their game Saturday, an LSU fraternity, Delta Kappa Epsilon, put up a banner from its house on Dalrymple Drive in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, that read, "Getting massacred is nothing new to Kent State." Okay...they did apologize...and these are kids, but what this demonstrates is a complete ignorance of the heartfelt emotions swirling the country on May 4th, 1970. I hear voices saying we should "just forget the past and move on," "stop dwelling on tragedy." But, as with the September 11th Memorials (and I heard complaints about them) we must force these memories and endure the pain they bring. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952).

The English....

David Frost was a very likable Englishman who won the hearts of many of us in the States. His show, That Was the Week That Was (TW3) skewered his own Brits at first, and then Frost brought it to the States in 1964. He had a great sense of humor and was quick to deprecate his own people. In his book, The English (1968), he described an English Lord on holiday in France, for the first time without his butler or other personal staff. One morning, his host asked if he was enjoying his stay. He said that he was, for the most part, but that he wondered why it was that his toothbrush did not foam as it usually did at home. He postulated that the French water might be the difference, but, in truth, his butler was not there to apply the toothpaste. Well...good night Mr. Frost, and thanks for everything and for getting that apology from Nixon.

America Speaks...?

I know there are a multitude of issues we all need to confront, head-on, and talk about or argue about and vote for or against. But, come on, why are so many wringing their hands about Ben Affleck playing Batman...or screaming because the "traitor," Jane Fonda, is portraying Nancy Reagan in "The Butler." I don't need to list all the things we should be talking about. But people...get a life.

Terrible beauty....

I love morons...but I especially love oxymorons. Mirriam-Webster defines them as: a combination of contradictory or incongruous words (as cruel kindness); broadly : something (as a concept) that is made up of contradictory or incongruous elements. Such as the wonderful phrase in the title. A volcano spewing death or an atomic bomb blast fits the description. The term is often used to poke fun...as in military intelligence. It has finally come to pass, however, that a single word has been granted the gift of becoming both moronic and oxymoronic and singularly incongruous. All hail the Republican.