Worms and the Gnomes

We crack me up, seriously. I'm driving home yesterday afternoon and the car in front of me, a mid-Nineties Stutz Bearcat or something, has a bumper sticker on the lowest part of the rear window (because, let's face it, cars don't really have bumpers to stick things on anymore) that reads, "Give Wildlife a Brake" brought to me by some animal habitat group. Aww, that's so cute.

Fine idea, you say-what possible problem could Skippy have with such a sentiment? Well, none if that's all that was back there but, as the ads say, wait there's more. At the very top of the rear window, perfectly aligned with the brake for wildlife sticker is one that reads "Sarah Palin 2012" and one slightly below it that recalls the ticket that ran for the Republicans in 2008, and that introduced the former mayor of Wasilla, Alaska to The Show.

I prefer my Sarah Palin leavened with a touch more Tina Fey seasoning than most of her supporters, I imagine. It would be hard to refudiate their desire, though I guess they can't revoke your soul for tryin'. And for the most part, she is one of the more trying people I know. Sitting behind the car at a traffic light, the deliciousness of the irony, in terms of the juxtaposition of the stickers, one atop the other, took the edge off the BGO since I get cranky when things we do are so loud I can't hear what we're saying.

I'm talking, of course, about the moment in her TLC program where Mama Grizzly takes out Donner (though not of the party) or perhaps it's Blitzen. It ain't Rudolph, or his brother, Jack, so it's fine with me ('there you go, baby!). It doesn't seem to set too well with Aaron Sorkin who obviously has waaaay too much time on his hands and who ends up playing right into the hands, and tweets, of yet another member of the 'I know you are, but what am I?' debate club dropout crowd who are doing their best to elevate the tenor and tone of discussion in this _and of the Free (I wanted to avoid using the letter after "K" since there's a _ot of controversy about "The (other) 'L' Word" GASP!) difference of opinion (and that definition really lets the healing begin, doesn't it?).

We're getting so bad at maintaining civility with one another in political dialogue, I can easily imagine a scenario where Franklin would IM Jefferson to suggest tearing up the Declaration of Independence and make all of this hooting and hollering HRH Liz's problem again. Except George Bernard Shaw's lawsuit would bankrupt us all financially, but no worries, morally and philosophically, we did that to ourselves, long ago.

-bill kenny