Political Simile

Politics are like seeds. We throw ours at others and expect them to take root, but they only do so when they find just the right combination of soil, climate, and season. Sometimes they flourish between cracks in the sidewalk and sometimes they sit atop fertile ground like bricks piled on an asphalt slab. Why do people vote against their own best interests? Why, indeed.

You're Aging Well

“You're aging well" is both the nicest and the cruelest compliment you can ever bestow on another human being. On the cruel side, it is only slightly better than "that thing on your neck appears to be getting smaller." On the nice side, it is only marginally worse than "I really admire what you've done with your nose hair."

In May I Wrote, Part 2

Varner Tower? The only way I'll ever return there is with an automatic rifle and enough ammo to take out half of the student body. You can't go home again. Trying only creates a mess.

You can fix ignorance, but you can't fix stupidity.

Kafka, updated for the teens: "Gregor Samsa woke us to find that he had turned into Bill O'Reilly." Instead of crawling under the bed to die he got a job at FOX News.

Appearance is not all there is, but it is all we have.

I fully understand that there is nothing to understand. My Zen moment. . .

Is "unfriended" even a word? Or is this just another example of a pop culture icon -- in this case, Facebook -- using their money and influence to help destroy the English Language?

I have a great idea for a new children's book. The Velveteen Welsh Rarebit. It will be the heartwarming story about one child's love of toasted cheese.

There is nothing that will turn you into a pariah faster on Facebook than mentioning the fact that you're an atheist.

I have no active believe in deity. That's what atheism means.

Life isn't fair, but it is frequently ironic.

I'd like to get even with whoever invented the alarm clock. I'd like to scream in their ear suddenly and without warning very early in the morning. Then I'd like to do it again seven minutes later.

It was all very nice with a lowercase "n." It's amazing how many people and how many things in life fall into the lowercase and how few are certifiably uppercase.

I can: eat off of the floor, defecate in the living-room, and bark at the mailman. What am I? Ted Nugent?

I don't know about you, but I find the word "mailman" somewhat redundant.

A new nutritional study blames Hamlet's behavior on an iron deficiency. B2 or B12, that is the question.

In the morning I am a philosopher. At night I complain about the day. On weekends I write poetry.

Hey, no one even offered me a blindfold.

In May I Wrote

The price of gas is always lowest the day after your last fill up.

The tragedy of life isn't that it ends, but that it goes on as long as it does. I wonder if the world wasn't a better place when life was short, violent, and eventful. A quick death seems preferably to a lingering life.

"On the anniversary of the day when I last gave a damn." Great title for a book or something, don't you think?

God is dead. We were all invited to the funeral and no one came. Everyone went to the hockey game instead. And the Wings lost. In a shootout. Of course.

It is perception and perception alone that turns a weed into a flower. Nothing else is required.

A woman in retreat is more dangerous than one in pursuit.

There is nothing so ridiculous that you can't talk yourself into believing. No one is more gullible -- that is to say, more susceptible to our own silly arguments -- than we are ourselves.

If she had really wanted to torture me she would have subjected me to her company for a month or two. That would have maimed me for life.

All these pictures of mothers have given me diabetes. Thank you, America! Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go take my insulin.

Let go. Don't let go. What are we to do?

Much longer than the weekend itself are the two days leading up to the weekend. Thursday has forty-eight hours and Friday forty-nine.

An elephant sitting on your chest is a bad way to begin the day.

You can't buy a man who refuses to be sold. Political corruption is a reciprocal process.

The soundtrack to life is garbled and difficult to understand. Most of us are just background noise.

Trumpt

Donald Trump is running for president again? Every circus needs a clown. We know he's rich, but can he juggle?

The only way Donald Trump ever gets near the White House is in small padded limo with fifteen other trumps.

Making fun of Donald Trump is like shooting rancid fish in a barrel. Every shot is a winner, but too many bulls-eyes merely stink up the room.

Donald Trump's candidacy is the exclamation mark on an already hilarious punchline.

Brain Fractures

Fractured logic. Broken brain.

Hamlet finds it hard to kill Claudius because Claudius's crimes -- killing Hamlet's father and having sex with Hamlet's mother -- are the two crimes Hamlet wants most to commit himself. Killing Claudius is like killing himself.

"In a hole in the ground lived Kim Kardashian."

No belief is preferable to a belief in the wicked. 

Cookies and beer -- no, wait, beer cookies! -- the perfect after school snack.

It isn't until you reach your mid-forties before you even begin to realize how wrong you were about the world when you were in your mid-twenties.

When you're hard of hearing the entire world mumbles.

Hope retained after your forty-fifth birthday is called "delusion."

You may as well enjoy the ride, you can't get off anyway. You're chained to the carousel and so is everyone else.

Life is more devious than the plot of Vincent Price movie. God has more in common with Dr. Phibes than with any other literary character.

I only come out of my room to eat and complain. Sometimes I combine the two and complain about the food.

Spend it while you've got it, but don't throw it away.

I found religion, but it was not to my liking, so I lost it again.

I offer only an honest hopelessness.

I couldn't see the forest for the telephone poles.

Tomorrow is a word that applies only to the living. There is no before or after for the dead. There is no future or past for those who no longer exist.

A politician calling a scientist dishonest is like the kettle calling the wedding dress black.

You don't lie to get people to do what they don't want to do. You lie to get them to do what they want to do anyway.

It's easy to be stupid, uninformed, unreasonable, egotistic, lazy, selfish, and bigoted. Any lie in support of these qualities is generally accepted without question.

Most people would not even notice it, but the days are growing shorter even in July.

Childlike is sometimes enviable, but childish is always contemptible.

You can only hold onto youth so long. After a certain point the attempt becomes merely pathetic.

In the Knowing

Don't ask me to look too closely or delve too deeply. Superficial is easier and safer. A slightly scratched heart recovers faster than one chopped into small pieces. In all things, the danger is in the knowing.

Gene Kelly Not Required

I have a great idea for a new movie, a non-musical version of Singing in the Rain entitled Talking in a Normal Tone of Voice Without Musical Accompaniment in the Rain. 

There will be no dancing in it, of course. Or rain. Although the sky will be overcast throughout the film.

$10 Bill

They just announced that a woman will be on the new $10 bill. I think it should be Tina Turner. They could put her face on the front of the bill and her legs on the back.You couldn't put Alexander Hamilton's legs on the back of a $10 bill. He looked terrible in shorts.

USAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

The United States -- by any objective standard or measurement -- is not the "greatest" country in the world. No rational, well-informed, honest person would even entertain such a notion. Patriotism is one thing; blindness and stupidity is quite another.

Only Criminals Will Have Guns. . .

He was a law-abiding citizen and a responsible gun owner until he walked into a church and murdered nine people. Gun ownership frequently comes BEFORE actual criminality.

TWFT

The word for today -- and every day -- is EMPATHY.

From the Notebook

All lusts are in the heart.

He never learned to play exactly, but he liked the sound of the keys beneath his fingers. . .

Racism is bad for the soul, that's a given, but it won't become unfashionable in political circles until it's bad for the pocket book also.

Having anything to do with her was a bad idea right from the very beginning. No matter my supposed motivation -- good or bad -- it was never anything else. No good was ever going to come from it.

Holes in the heart cannot be filled with painters' putty. Scarred tissue does an admirable, albeit imperfect, job.

Fire burns, but it is smoke that kills.

Life is a collection of cheap thrills. Roll-a-coaster ride anyone?

The universe is filled with metaphor and very little else.

Success is wonderful, but it is failure that teaches us the most. By this criterion, I must be the most knowledgeable person in the world.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Not everyone is entitled to their actions. Opinions are free, actions must be paid for.

Race is based on the concept of sub-species; an idea that has no real meaning outside of the world of scientific classification and organization.

The Confederate flag might be part of "who they are" but it should not be part of who they want to be.

Hell hasn't frozen over, but the temperature definitely fell about fifty degrees.

I don't think the picture is that bad, honestly, but the color of the wall behind it makes me want to puke.

The desire to remain a physical being drives all physical activity.

Everyone knew it was ironic, but they did it anyway. I find that ironic.

Now we know why so many people commit suicide in hotel rooms. Bad artwork.

A list of the things I don't care about could fill a library of thick volumes with thin pages and small type. Their opposite could be scribbled on the back of a business card with a small child's crayon.

We are damned not for our beliefs, but by our actions.

The Christian soldier like any other man of arms performs at the Devil's bidding.

Action

Looking at the world through envious eyes. The ghost in the machine is getting restless. He wills motion and a limb moves. He desires sound and lips tremble with air. From the shadows he ambles forth. A mystery skulled in bone and flesh. His true nature always obscured. The incorporeal and the material working together nefariously. Mind and body. Lord Vadar and his Death Star.

Time on My Hands

Time on my hands. Melting icicles chipped from a freezer wall. Water dripping through chilblainned fingers. Bluing pinkish palms. Wetting shoe-tops with dark stains. This is how the days are marked.

Time on my hands. Gloves thread bare at their tips. See-through fabric hardly covering ancient skin. Lifeline showing at the wrist. Crisscrossed with scarred tissue. This is how the years slip by.

Time on my hands. Closed around a chocolate crucifix. The faith of my youth rotting at body temperature. Brown sugar ooze sticking to nails and knuckles. Jesus withering on the cross. This is how the seconds tic out.

Final Word

"There are no atheists in foxholes." Yes, there are and they are as uncomfortable, and as uncertain, and as frightened as any believer. The only difference is that they are honest and forthright about their doubts and fears. They don't use a belief in a powerful, but fictional deity as an emotional crutch. They face the truth and they face death with a dignity that is impossibly for a true believer, whatever his or her religion.

What we tell our children to ease their anxieties should not be what we tell ourselves. The universe is a thoroughly adult place. It takes a mature mind to survive its chaos. Yet, even a mature mind only has so many days on earth. Make the best of them. Live for today, not for a metaphysical tomorrow that will never come. Don't let a happy life be marred by the desire for a happy after-life as well.

There is no other side. There is nothing to pass over to. When someone dies you lose them forever. That's life. Deal with it like adults, people. Take comfort in the fact that they lived and that you were fortunate enough to have known them, not in the pleasant fantasy that they somehow still exist and that you will see them again. Embrace the truth. Truth is all we have or can ever have. Death is the final word. Death.

Chicken Jokes

Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side.

Why did the duck cross the road? He wanted to know what the chicken thought was so interesting.

Why did the fox cross the road? Lunch.

Why did the hound cross the road? He was chasing the fox.

Why did the second chicken stay home? It was too crowded on the other side of the road.

Why did Jeb Bush cross the road? I don't know why, but he came right back and then he denied ever having been on the other side.

Why did the sociologist cross the road? Studies show that college educated white males will cross the road eight to twelve times over the course of their working lifetimes.

Why did the cop cross the road? Pre-Ferguson punchline: The Donut shack was on the other side. Post-Ferguson punchline: There were no African-American males to shoot on this side of the road.

Why did the Zen master cross the road? There is no road. There is no chicken. There is no Zen master.

Why did the climate change denier cross the road? It was still above water.

Why did Bugs Bunny cross the road? He took a wrong turn at Albuquerque.

Why did Kim Kardashian cross the road? I don't know why, but it's trending.

Why did the squirrel cross the road and then scurry right back again? I don't know why, but he's leaning towards Bush.

Why did the zombie chicken cross the road? Chicken brains!

Why did the hopeless neurotic cross the road? Alecktorophobia ("the fear of chickens")

Small Evil

I don’t know if there's a God or not; I have no idea if Heaven exists or if Dante's Inferno is fictional or real, but I do know this: every person who has ever lived is a mixture of good and bad. Most of the evil in the world is small evil, done by small people. Murderers are few and far between, but the insensitive and the cruel swarm the earth with their numbers. We damn ourselves in small ways. Every tiny inconsideration, every convenient callousness, every omission of good manners or failure to support those in need lessens our humanity and helps to deliver the world into chaos and despair. The road to Hell -- metaphorically speaking -- isn't paved with good intentions. It isn't paved at all, but laid down haphazardly by a billion blaspheming mouths, a billion grasping hands, and a billion clumsy feet.