Pot shot

"We cannot mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate.." The former junior senator from Illinois, bloviating on January 21.

Why not, I wonder?  He does it all the time and he seems to be doing quite well with the strategy, unless, of course, this is not a strategy but rather an example of what the psychologists call projection, wherein one imputes one's own faults and shortcomings on to someone else. In either case, it hardly seems fair that He gets to project stuff and the GOP does not, and since fairness is the great mantra of the Illinois Messiah and His minions one would expect that conservatives would sue this maladministration for violating our equal protection rights under the 14th Amendment. I don't think it will happen, though; the trial lawyers are on His side. Such is life, I fear.

Nostalgia is not what it used to be

 The following is something I wrote about six months ago, at a time when it was not warmer in my refrigerator than it is on my front porch.  I just love nostalgia.



As you might have heard, the weather in the northeastern United States has been nothing short of hellish these past few days. With temperatures in the high 90's and humidity hovering close to 100%, all of us here in the Vampire State have spent the last few days sweating like Mrs. Murphy's pet pig and I fear that I am no exception to the rule. In short, it's been too hot to think, much less sit down and dream up the usual confections for the Passing Parade. The weather having moderated somewhat after last night's storms; my mother is doing well, thank you, even if she is now in her fourteenth hour without electricity, which, like the deer eating her hedges, is somehow or other my fault; I will apply myself sometime during the week and have something fresh here as soon as humanly possible. I thank you all for your patience.

Just another day in the neighborhood

Just in case you were wondering, and I am sure that most of you don’t care one way or the other, the answer is no, I did not watch Monday’s festivities. The Constitution of the United States requires that the President be sworn in at noon on January 20^th in the year following a Presidential election. This is what happened on Sunday. The former junior senator from Illinois took the oath of office in the White House’s Blue Room from the Chief Justice, who managed to get through the oath without interpreting it as a tax on anything other than my patience. The political lollapalooza on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday, on the other hand, was just a jumped up Chicago political hack’s tasteless attempt to turn the commemoration of a great man’s life into a celebration of Himself.  Yes, He is the one we’ve been waiting for all of our lives and don’t you ever forget it, you bitter clingers.

Just stuff, or more pathetic excuses for not writing

I have not been posting, which I am sure you’ve already figured out for yourselves, but I am sure you will be happy to know that the reason is not that I have been lazy or suffering from writer’s block [again!] or any of the other reasons I usually give for being neglectful of my duties here. No, indeed, I’ve been busily working away on a project that first originated here on The Passing Parade and now I am trying to see if I can stretch this thing out a bit.  If it works, I may share it here…or not, as the case may be.  I am still working out whether it is physically possible for a 215 pound man to escape from a burning building in a large cardboard box held aloft by eight giant sex dolls filled with helium.  

In any case, I will admit that 2012 didn’t turn out the way I hoped it would: the Yankees didn’t make it to the World Series, I didn’t hit the number in the MegaMillions lottery, and the former junior senator from Illinois is still gainfully employed, assuming that is the correct adjective to describe his situation these past four years, and will remain so for the foreseeable future.  As you might imagine, this disturbs my digestion no end and makes me want to ask Ann Coulter, whom I otherwise think the world of, if Mitt Romney was the only electable Republican, why didn’t the electorate elect him?  Abraham Lincoln was not wrong—Abe was never wrong—but it does cause you to think that maybe he wasn’t entirely correct when he said you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. As the recent election proves, you don’t need to fool all of the people all of the time; fifty-one percent will do in a pinch.  

While I am at it, I am glad to see that the former junior senator from Illinois is finally doing something to end the scourge of gun violence in this country. I do not expect that these efforts will come to any good; there are 300 million guns in this country, nearly one for every man, woman, and child here in this our Great Republic and you can no more get rid of them now than Mississippi can ban kudzu on pain of boiling importers to death in piping hot vats of hominy grits, but it will make the gun banners happy for a little while and checking people’s backgrounds is certainly a better idea than His original one of exporting the problem to Mexico. I am sure the Mexicans think that this is a good idea as well.