Saturday Basket o’ Deplorables

Yesterday Hillary Clinton said this: You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic — you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. The media will jump […]

Blasphemy Is Hard Work

This is the time of year in southern Arizona where evening thunderstorms form right about the time you want to cook on the patio. Last night’s storm was a teaser. It looked like it was going to stay parked over the mountains, so I tempted fate by lighting the grill. The first gust hit as I […]

Saturday Bag o’ You-Know-What

This election. Someone observed it’s like unexpected guests drop by after work and you’re discussing dinner options. Some want to call for pizza, some want to kill and eat the others. Even if pizza wins, there’s a problem.

Convention Watching

I’m watching the Democratic National Convention. Last week I watched the Republican National Convention. I don’t want to give the impression I’m obsessive about politics, but the coming election’s an important one and I want to know what forces are in play. Last week I watched prime time coverage of the RNC in Cleveland on network TV and […]

Underpants-Gnoming

And now, from the personal back to the political (even though my friends like the personal posts better). Re Trump’s shouty speech: loved this tweet in spite of not knowing what “underpants-gnoming” meant: Naturally, I looked it up. Google steered me to this video clip, which explains it perfectly: [youtube]https://youtu.be/tO5sxLapAts[/youtube] In the random but disturbing thoughts department, […]

Reading the Signs

Yes, the beard is gone. Like an infant discovering its tongue, I’d become obsessively aware of the hair on my face, touching it, scratching at it, thinking about it day and night. The symptoms were signs, and they read: “A shave / That’s real / No cuts to heal / A soothing / Velvet after-feel / Burma-Shave.”

The Abyss Has No Bottom

Plagiarizing Michelle Obama’s speech is an act of chutzpah almost as breathtaking as Trump’s staged appearance in a field of blinding light and mist, itself surely plagiarized from a Watchtower pamphlet’s rendering of Christ greeting the chosen at the gates of Heaven.