THE TWO TRUTHS

""The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic. He has permitted the twilight. He has always had one foot in earth and the other in fairyland. He has always left himself free to doubt his gods; but (unlike the agnostic of today) free also to believe in them. He has always cared more for truth than for consistency. If he saw two truths that seemed to contradict each other, he would take the two truths and the contradiction along with them. His spiritual sight is stereoscopic, like his physical sight: he sees two different pictures at once and yet sees all the better for that. Thus he has always believed that there was such a thing as fate, but such a thing as free will also."
 - G. K. Chesterton
Orthodoxy

EMPATHY IS A DIRTY WORD

Watching Trump's speech last night it occurs that he has been giving the same speech for 5 years now. He is consistently loud, angry, jingoistic, belligerent and a boor. 
If you saw his speech you may have noticed he used the word "empathy" twice. Both times he said the word as if he were spitting raw chicken lives from his mouth. And both times in order to belittle Joe biden for having it. Having empathy.
Just when did "empathy" become such a dirty word?

He seems to get through his day as though he is living in the Looking Glass...
"Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

"GOING TO DISNEYLAND"

The summer of 1973 I was 16. I would get up in the morning, watch the Watergate hearings, then go to work at Red Lobster. At the end of the summer of 1974, Nixon resigned before they could properly impeach him. Here he is, seeming to claim victory even as he is being whisked away forever in a helicopter. I joined the Debate Team for my last year at Bell.
I wonder if Mr. President Trump will exit with as much style and grace?

THERE ARE SOME STATUES WORTHY OF REMOVAL

 

"I'd like to put it back up, to rebuild it. But I'm afraid I'd be killed."

Kadhim al-Jabbouri, the guy who initially took a sledgehammer to a certain statue in downtown Bagdad, 2003

GETTING HISTORY RIGHT

 

Costa Rica does statues right.

Here we see the bare-breasted women defenders of Costa Rica in pursuit of the defeated American William Walker, who intended to personally colonize the region to himself. Walker is represented by the figure hastily exiting stage right, scrambling over the bodies of his fallen comrades.

The British, who had their own interests in the region would turn Walker over to the Hondurans who promptly executed him by Firing Squad.

If we are going to use statues as history lessons, we need more historically correct statues such as this one. Well done Costa Rica!

COIN SHORTAGE

 
In 1982 while Ronald Reagan was President, I had saved $800 worth of coinS from waiting tables. Thats right, I was a waiter for about 6 months. Kept it in a giant plastic Moosehead Beer Piggy Bank. There was enough to buy a 15 horsepower outboard motor for a boat. No one ran out of change back then.

Coin shortages, Pandemics, Murder Hornets and everything else are the kind of things that happen when you elect an evil ruler. Don't be surprised when it starts raining frogs.

ON HAZELNUTS

I had this squirrel in my backyard. I tossed him a peanut. He just looked the other way. I took another peanut, shelled it for him and gave it a toss. He shot sideways 90 degrees and scrambled up the nearest tree.
A few days later he was out there. I tossed him a pecan. He looked at it, glared at me, and slowly hopped over to the neighbors porch.
Thanksgiving rolled around and I had some nice walnuts. Went to the backyard and tossed him one. He took a half step towards the nut, sniffed the air for a moment, and went back to rustling under the leaves. I said "You must be some high class squirrel to be turning down big fat walnuts" and I went and bought a bag of macadamias. 
Next time I saw him I went and tossed him a macadamia, the most Hawaiian of all the nuts. He hopped over to it, sniffed it, even picked it up in his little squirrel paws and rolled it around a few times. Then he dropped it. This squirrel sits back on his haunches, folds his little squirrel arms across his chest, raises one eyebrow, looks at me again with the glaring.
"Aghhh" I said. "What kind of fucking nut do you want you little asshole?"
And he says "Hazelnuts. I'm holding out for Hazelnuts. Some people call them filberts. How 'bout you fetch me some filberts?"