December 20, 2013
Source: Shutterstock
Actually the world is beginning to wobble strangely, or maybe it is just Mexico. I suspect, though, that the entire planet is encountering some sort of orbital difficulty. When this happens, more wine has a stabilizing effect. I will do my best.
I suspect that the problems dragging down America result from political inbreeding that may result in hemophilia, or at least presidents with twelve toes. First we had Bush I, a mediocrity. Then Bush II, for whom mediocrity would have been an achievement, like winning a marathon while hopping backward on one leg. There was talk of Jeb Bush as Bush III; together they would have constituted a topiary garden. We had Clinton I, who at least was intelligent, and we almost had Clinton II, but instead we got Obama, whose only qualification was that he was black and read a teleprompter well. So Hillary became Secretary of State, for which her only qualifications were two terms as First Basilisk. We now have Kerry as SecState, whose only qualification is that he married a pickle heiress. They keep taking turns.
Next, I see that the FBI wants access to all telephone conversations to stop terrorism. We might be better off with terrorists to stop the FBI. What I can”t figure out, no matter how much Padre Kino I have as lubricant, is what they think they are doing. Is there a conscious plot to make the US into North Korea? Or just self-important minor-league dipsticks who find themselves miraculously at the controls of the amusement park? Maybe it doesn”t matter. Anyway, FBI guys always look like Mormon missionaries with carry permits.
The government seems to be becoming an enemy of the country. This is new. I mean, Yahoo! and the gang talk about resorting to cryptography to keep Washington from reading our email, and now that we know that the government can turn on our webcams without our knowing it, there is talk of manufacturing little plastic covers for the lens. I thought the KGB was supposed to be the enemy.
Next, I check out Drudge, who is the national thermometer: a combination of grocery-rack tabloid, Bradley Manning, and the only free press left in America. Where else can you find headlines such as “Dwarves, Evicted from Posh Hotel, Honeymoon in Cardboard Box”? I swear there was one the other day about someone rescuing a shark that was choking on a moose.
But to serious matters, if anything can be more serious than a shark choking on a moose. Today there is a Drudgeline about a robot telemarketer who, or that, refuses to admit that she is a robot. See, she calls and asks for information and sounds like a real woman, which is scary. When a listener got suspicious and asked if she were real, “she replied enthusiastically that she was real, with a charming laugh.” She didn”t quite fool him, since she didn”t know what vegetable grows in a tomato garden.
Close, but no cigar. And getting closer. Soon we will be watched, listened to, read, fondled, X-rayed, and called by machines with enchanting laughs. Things are getting eerie, I tell you.
On that hopeful note I will sign off. I need to do something to calm the planet, which seems to be lurching with greater abandon.
