I think it’s safe to come out now. I believe that was an all-clear siren I heard sound moments ago. Even as you read this (and yes, Melania, I did write it and no, Mr. Manafort, Michelle Obama did not help), thousands of our fellow citizens whose sole character defect is being a Republican are making their way home from Cleveland, Ohio.
Yes, I'm teasing about the character defect crack. Part of what has disappeared in this country in the course of my lifetime (and I’m NOT suggesting cause and effect) is how no one can take a joke anymore; unless you think those yee-haws in the Quicken Loans Center were guffawing after every chorus of “Hang her” (in reference to Hillary Clinton). Yeah, me neither. Picking an orange Oompah-Loompah with a bad comb-over, now that was pretty funny.
Sorry. Couldn’t resist. And just think, the Democratic Party kicks off their impersonation of the Divine Comedy next Monday in Philadelphia. Here in the Northeast, we have weathermen talking about heat and humidity for the next couple or three days in the middle Nineties and now, sort of as that side of cole slaw that no one ordered and even fewer wanted, it’ll be Act II, this time from the City of Brotherly Love.
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| Krebs oder cholera |
The Democratic Party platform is, in its own way, as other-worldly as that of the GOP, albeit you’d have to go some to top a claim that coal is a clean fuel while the ‘scourge of porn’ (I love Bulwer-Lytton detritus especially as a call to arms) is a public health crisis. I suspect that’s even truer if you hold your breath in anthracite coal country.
Depending on who you read and watch, it’s the other folks who will be the end of us all. I’m not sure if we’ll see swarms of Democratic delegates have 2 Minutes of Hate aimed at Donald Trump in much the way as the Republicans seemed to key in on Hillary Clinton, but that brings me back to that sense of humor issue yet again.
My dad told me many things growing up, most of which I didn’t hear even as he said them but one point he made that I did actually listen to was you need a sense of intelligence to have a sense of humor. We have become a nation suffering an acute smile shortage and who have very much lost the ability to laugh at ourselves (it’s okay; other nations’ population are doing that on a daily basis). And not so coincidentally, we’ve become dumber than a sack of hair which could still be overlooked if not flat-out forgiven if we weren’t so damn proud of how ignorant we are.
Not sure how far along that in vitro intelligence transfusion technology is but we could sure use all the help we can get on that front. But closer to home and more cosmetic than cosmic, we could remember that from a distance, a grimace looks very much like a smile. We’ve had our share of pained expressions over the last few days with the prospect of even more to come; my worry lines have worry lines.
Think of it as baby steps. Start with a frown then turn it around. Work your way to a tight-lipped no-teeth-showing smile and eventually you’ll be yukking it up with the rest of us hyenas out here on the asylum lawn. We may need to renew our friendship with Bill W to survive our own election cycle. One day at a time.
-bill kenny
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