I Have A Dream

Why, yes, it has been too long since I've posted, while letting random thoughts accumulate in the junk drawer of my mind. What with the start of a new year (i.e. time to start getting serious about work again), the latest installment in the Bathroom Renovation Project From Hell, and a long business trip to Arizona (where, in true corporate-think fashion, they send us to a warm-weather site in January whereupon we spend several days in a windowless room), it's been hard to keep on schedule. But the junk drawer is now open, and out spills the contents:

I had a perverse wish last night that the Kommandant-In-Chief would start the State of the Union address something like this:

Let us pause this evening, before I begin my address, to take a moment in memory of Coretta Scott King, who passed away last evening. Mrs. King, after the tragic assassination of her husband, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., carried the torch of civil rights and equality forward with class, dignity, commitment, and eloquence. (Brief pause with required resolute look on face.) And now, I would like to formally introduce and recognize the newest justice of the United States Supreme Court, the Honorable Samuel Alito, who spent many of the same years as a member of an organization that fought the admission to Princeton University of anyone of the same sex and race as Mrs. King.

This would be followed, of course, by a cross-country PR tour, at our expense, to tell us all that sexual and racial discrimination are just fine and dandy. Because of 9/11, you know.

And now for something completely different. (Well, maybe not entirely.)

• This would have been a much more timely observation had it been recorded when it happened, but we're not hearing much about Ariel Sharon any more, are we? For a week or so, we were privy to every medical update, every new motion of a finger, etc...with the same frequency and weight of the news reports years back that Generalissimo Francisco Franco was still alive (though I prefer the SNL-parodied version that Franco Is Still Dead, delivered for the Hard of Hearing). Then came the news that while Sharon might regain some function, it would be a while before it could be determined whether he would regain "the ability to think and reason." Query: were President Bush to suffer the same fate as Sharon, how would we know when and if he could think or reason?
• And this news item: "Fines for safety violations in mines have been drastically reduced during the (fill in blank) Administration." Clue: It's after the year 2000.
• Admit it: when you listen to the intro for the BBC World News on NPR, you think the same thing as I do when you hear, "this is the BBC World News -- I'm Judy Swallow." (No truth to the rumor that she shares the anchor desk with Nigel Spit.)
• Why do people spend good money for vanity license plates that tell the world what kind of car they're driving? Yes, asshole, I can tell it's a BMW, which indicates to me that your financial priorities are already out of whack -- do you need to reinforce it with a plate that says "MYBMW?" My favorite (?) of all time, way back from the days when I lived in Concord, New Hampshire, was a car I saw from time to time, a truly-forgettable Pontiac Phoenix (think of the Chevy Citation without the cachet), with the plate "77PHNX." Why not put the money into the vehicle, for God's sake? A BMW is Excess. A 1977 Pontiac Phoenix is just embarrassing.