Hero to Zero and Back Again (Sort of)

Get ready for Dave's Self-Esteem Rollercoaster Ride in three acts:

1) last Thursday afternoon, and a cold Thursday afternoon it was, my wife called from her school to report that her car was dead-- totally dead, the vehicle remote wouldn't even lock the doors-- and she wanted me to come jump start the engine, but I told her that it sounded like the battery was kaput and advised her to call AAA-- they replace batteries-- and I said I would come over and wait in the cold for AAA to arrive and she could drive my car back to our warm and cozy home, because I'm a great guy and she had a bit of a cough and some laryngitis and she called me a "hero" and thanked me for waiting . . . and it was very cold and AAA was supposed to arrive within the hour, but that turned to 90 minutes and I was closing in on the two-hour mark, shivering heroically in the car, reading and listening to podcasts, when the AAA truck finally arrived;

2) a stout African-American woman got out of the truck, and I told her the situation-- that the car had just had some bodywork done on it, and perhaps the mechanic left the lights on or something, and I believed the battery was totally dead-- and while I was telling her this, she was looking under the hood, and she jostled one of the battery wires and it sparked and she said, "Looks like this wire is loose" and she grabbed a socket wrench, tightened the screw, everything in the car came to life, and she asked me to put on my brights-- they worked fine-- and I suddenly felt totally dumb and emasculated, if I had checked the battery connections, I would have fixed the car in ten seconds and avoided this whole scenario, and if I had actually tried to jump it, I would have noticed this . . . but the AAA lady was gone before I could even apologize-- I'm sure she sees stupidity like this all the time, and my self-esteem really took a hard hit;

3) until this morning: we had a lock-down drill first period, which is when I'm in the cafeteria, monitoring the late-in seniors-- and the janitor told us all to go into the staff lunchroom, so my students and a study hall from the other side of the cafeteria, and a number of teachers who were on duty in the vicinity all poured into the staff lunchroom and we were standing there awkwardly in the dark, shushing the students, and I asked the lady next to me if the door was locked and she said, "I think so" and I said, "I'd better check" and the door was unlocked so I spun the little locking mechanism and locked the door and moments later the door handle shook-- the security team was checking to make sure all the doors were locked . . . because that's the most important part of a lockdown, that you lock the door . . . and the lady who told me she thought the door was locked reacted as if I actually saved the entire room from a brutally violent massacre, she said,"That was awesome, you locked it right before they tried to get in! It was so close! You should play the lottery today!" and so I had to remind her that it was only a drill, and that I didn't actually save everyone from bloody death (and so I probably didn't deserve to win much in the lottery . . . maybe five dollars) and while I'm the first to admit that this was not a genuine act of heroism, it was certainly an ersatz act of heroism . . . and I also passed a second lockdown drill test, but one I'm not sure I agree with-- after they rattled the door to check the lock, then the security crew knocked-- very crafty-- and we've been told that once the door is locked, we should take a utilitarian stance and not open the door for anyone-- the lives of the many are worth more than the lives of the few, especially if they aren't punctual for the locking of the door . . . and so I didn't fall for this malevolent ruse, I did not open the door, but I think if it was a real lockdown, and a person in danger (or a school-shooter posing as a person in danger) knocked on the door and pleaded for me to open it, I'd probably open the door and take my chances, as it would be hard to leave someone in the lurch just outside the door . . . but that's a dilemma for another day, the important thing here is that I acted (hypothetically) heroically and depressed that little locking mechanism in the nick of time.

The Test 76: We've Got Places All Over the Place

I go rogue on this episode of The Test and cut out the ladies (just like college!) and design a quiz for my buddy Whitney, but the questions are general enough for everyone to answer and enjoy-- plus the ladies make a much needed cameo, breaking up the bromance-- so take a load off and listen and learn about a couple of genuine American adventurers, doing their best to navigate this wild and wonderful country of ours.

Dave Almost Forgets to Write A Sentence . . . Or Does He?

Yikes . . . I got so preoccupied with soccer stuff and Texas Hold'em today (I played poker with my kids in the afternoon and then all evening with grown-ups at Stacey's house) that I nearly forgot to write a sentence . . . but I got this baby in under the wire just before the stroke of midnight-- or did I?-- I might have written it Sunday morning and postdated it . . . in Trump's America you shouldn't trust anything on the internet, as truth is a relative thing . . . especially in a world where I raise a big pre-flop bet from good position, go all in on Ace/Queen suited-- the hand I've been waiting for-- and match up well against K/J unsuited, draw a queen on the flop, nothing on the turn, and then my opponent pulls a king out of his ass on the river . . . in a world where something like this happens, you've got to be skeptical of everything.

Why Does My Phone Think It's Clairvoyant?

My phone autocorrected a number today . . . I was trying to text the digits 3241 (part of an address) but my phone kept changing this number to 532411 . . . and this makes no logical sense, as this new, autocorrected number isn't the zip code of the address, nor is it the area code of phone numbers associated with this place . . . if anyone knows why my phone (older model Samsung Galaxy) thinks it can read my mind when it comes to numbers, please explain.

Bosch (and Connelly) Do It Again

No spoilers, but Bosch (and Connelly) get it done again in The Wrong Side of Goodbye . . . and they get it done twice-- the book is a mystery wrapped in an enigma: I got so wrapped up in the interior serial rapist case that I forgot about the larger private case that framed the story, so I finished with one mystery and there were still fifty compelling pages left; not only that, but I learned why Harry Bosch doesn't eat Vietnamese food . . . when he was a tunnel rat back in 'Nam he had to eat spicy noodles and such every single day, every single meal, because when you're down in the tunnels, in such close quarters with the enemy, defusing booby traps and hunting Viet Cong, then you need to smell like them or they'll suss you out . . . and you smell like the food you eat, so it was all pho for Bosch, and that was enough of it.

Trump, Stop Being a Coward (I'd Use the P-Word, But It Would Be Gauche)

The hope that Trump might preside more moderately than his campaign rhetoric indicated has been shattered by his polarizing inaugural address and the hastily mandated executive order to ban Muslims and refugees from America . . . and while I was trying to ignore much of the day-to-day furor over his policies, I think he has drawn the proverbial line in the sand; if you're confused on this issue, I humbly present a few things you should digest and think about:

1) the new episode of The Weeds (The Don't-Call-It-A-Muslim-Ban) does a great job of parsing out the policy and the contradictions and problems with it-- you'll understand why there have been stays by federal judges enacted in regards to the ban;

2) a flat out "Muslim" ban is unconstitutional, so Trump had to make do by banning people from seven mainly Muslim countries-- but putting Syria on the list means that Trump can't help prioritize Syrian Christians-- or any other Christian refugees seeking asylum-- though Trump claims he would like to do this;

3) Trump suspended the US Refugee Program for 120 days and capped refugee admissions to 50,000 (instead of Obama's 110,00, which is still rather paltry considering scope of the crisis . . . global displacement is at an all time high);

4) in 2016, the United States accepted 12,000 Syrian refugees (Germany took in a million in 2015 and 300,000 in 2016) and Trump's executive order bans all Syrian refugees . . . this brings up the point that we weren't doing a terribly good job of addressing this refugee crisis under the Obama administration, and we certainly had a hand in creating this crisis because of our various military actions and inactions in the Middle East, and we are now presenting ourselves as an ugly selfish "America first" nation that is willing to turn its back on a heinous and horrible humanitarian tragedy;

5) if you need something more vivid to illustrate the toll of being a refugee, listen to This American Life: Are We There Yet?

6) if you want to feel especially shitty about your country-- and this is before Trump enacted the total ban on refugees from Iraq, then listen to This American Life: Didn't We Solve This One? and you'll hear the stories of Iraqi translators and defectors who helped us in the war in Iraq, were promised visas, and then were abandoned and left out in the cold . . . Trump expressed his solidarity for the "forgotten man" in America, but these people have been forgotten by America in an exponential and existential sense, and now they have no chance of receiving their due . . . this bureaucratic betrayal sounds like the perfect template to create terrorists;

5) you don't have to tow the party line on this, because tone and attitude towards immigration isn't a Democrat/Republican thing, it's a moral stance . . . for a startling example, check out the video of Bush and Reagan one-upping each other on how welcoming they would like to be and how many services they would like to provide for illegal immigrants . . . and Bill Clinton-- welfare reformer-- slammed illegal immigrants and their drain on social services;

6) Trump signed his executive order over the Holocaust Memorial weekend . . . I don't have to explain the irony;

7) America is a country with great wealth and resources and we are often big-hearted and welcoming to refugees and immigrants . . . but some of our most regretful and humiliating moments are when we treated foreigners poorly-- the Japanese internment and sending a boatload of Jews back to Europe to be slaughtered by Nazis are incidents that come to mind;

8) we are also a country where freedom of speech trumps all other rights-- this is no place for cowards-- and while it is extraordinarily rare that an immigrant commits an act of terrorism, this is a possibility-- but it is a possibility that we must endure if we are going to be a free country;

9) while I find it absurd, it's not illegal in America to literally believe in the words of the Koran or the Bible or any other outdated religious text . . . and it's not illegal in the United States to have radical religious opinions or radical political opinions or any other kind of belief, even if it be ridiculous unfounded and stupid, and because of this ur-policy, we are going to occasionally suffer some collateral damage-- but again, this is not a country for cowards . . .

10) the 2nd Amendment allows for the proliferation of guns and conservatives are fine with the collateral damage associated with this;

11) Trump and the Republicans want to deregulate environmental rules and regulations-- they're willing to let people drive around as much as they want, and pollute as much as they want, though this leads to the warming of the globe, the loss of biodiversity, and the death of lots of folks in automobile accidents . . . but conservatives show no fear of these dire consequences of their policy;

12) conservatives are also not afraid of obesity, going without health insurance, and pandemics-- Trump don't need no stinking vaccines . . . so if Great Americans, Trumplike Americans are not afraid of any of this, if they are willing to embrace death in so many ways, then I'd like to implore them-- Trump, his followers and the rest of the conservatives-- to stop being so cowardly about immigration; we love danger here in the US, whether it's getting run over by a drunk driver or shot by some lunatic in a movie theater or daring the oceans to rise and swallow our coastal cities, so let's embrace the danger and embark on a great adventure and let in all kinds of asylum seekers and immigrants-- let's expedite the system instead of drawing it to an ugly halt-- and let's do it for the forgotten men and women of the world, the people that have truly lost everything, who have nowhere to go and no one to look out for them . . . the huddled masses, the wretched refuse, the homeless . . . this is a concern that is beyond political polarization . . . where you stand on this issue determines not only what kind of American you are, but ultimately, what kind of person you are.

Cheap Delights for the Gut and the Butt

Two good (but unrelated) local reviews:

1) Healing Points Acupuncture has done wonders for my lower back and hip-- it's surprising how relaxing it is to lie under a foil blanket in a warm room with a bunch needles in your back, butt, and calves . . . in fact, I almost always fall asleep once the needles are in (although when the acupuncturist inserts the needles, it often feels like an electric shock, which is supposedly a good thing) and what makes it even more therapeutic is that acupuncture is covered by my health insurance-- there's not even a co-pay;

2) Lucy's Restaurant, which is in North Brunswick, but right on the border of New Brunswick, has some excellent, unusual, and cheap Mexican (and Peruvian) food . . . the chicken mole, which is served on the bone, is fantastic-- the meat had obviously been soaking in the sauce all day and fell right off in tender chunks; the green sauce for the enchiladas is tangy and delicious; the kids loved their steak burritos, and everyone at the table enjoyed the empanadas and the sopes (which are open-faced sandwiches with spiced pork or chorizo, served on gigantic thick round crispy tortillas coated with bean paste-- delicious).

Could William Gibson and Donald Trump Both Be Right?

William Gibson, the acclaimed sci-fi author, has often said: "The future is already here-- it's just not very evenly distributed," and not only does this apply to access to technology and first world infrastructure, but it also applies to the benefits of globalization; the Freakonomics podcast has been examining Donald Trump's claim that the American Dream is dead, and it seems that in certain places, Trump is right-- while a few decades ago, 90 percent of thirty year olds earned more than their parents, now that number is down to fifty percent-- and the effects of globalization, which economists initially thought would be a win-win for everyone, are-- in the words of economist David Autor: "slow, frictional, and scarring," and so it's not that the American Dream is dead-- plenty of people are taking advantage of the global economy, plenty of people are richer than ever before, and most people have access to first world technological wonders . . . but the American Dream is unevenly distributed, especially if you're a non-college educated male who is unwilling to work in healthcare, or someone who wasn't given a head start (not that the government isn't trying to help a bit, listen to the new Planet Money podcast Retraining Day to hear how this works) which includes black Americans . . . I just finished a treatise on how to survive in this new-fangled, fast-paced, unpredictable world, called Whiplash-- it's coauthored by Joi Ito, the Director of the MIT Media Lab and Jeff Howe, the Director of the Media Innovation program at Northeastern) and they point out that "between 1934 and 1962 the federal government backed 120 billion dollars in home mortgages" which generated trillions of dollars of equity and 98 percent of these loans went to white families, so by 1984, the median white family had a net worth of 90,000 dollars and the median black family had a net worth of six thousand dollars . . . and the trend has continued, so white or black, if you get left behind, you get "whiplash," meanwhile, even the people with money are having a hard time predicting the future, and the only certainty now is that things will move at a dizzying pace, the internet has connected all the knowledge and minds of the earth, artificial intelligence and genetic modification are going to make wholesale changes to everything we do, and while human beings are adaptable, this trait is going to be pushed to the limit in the near future, and we're going to have to have a "healthy relationship with uncertainty," so the traditional American Dream is certainly dead for some, and it may be too late for them to retrain for the new economy, and the Dream is going to be revised often and fast, like the ascension of Uber . . . so you're going to need to both hang on tight and stay loose, so you don't suffer whiplash in the inevitable crash . . . or you'll find yourself in a rusted out tombstone of a town, voting for Donald Trump and hoping for a past that never existed and will certainly never return.

The Test 75: Stacey Rules!

Another gem of a quiz by Stacey-- and she thought of it all by herself!-- listen to the rules and then identify the corresponding movie . . . and if that's not enough to pique your interest, then let me tempt you with these delights: Nick (never introduced) does an impression of Stephen Hawking singing Disney, Cunningham tears me a new one for being a condescending sexist, and the ladies reproduce the outro montage (this is weirder than it sounds).

No Good Deed Goes Unpoopished

When I walk my dog, I carry extra poop-bags in case I find some stray poop, which I bag and toss-- dog poop contains lots of gross bacteria and it contaminates the watershed-- and this is an easy-to-execute good deed, as it doesn't involve old people, children, or hospitals . . . but when I told my class about this altruistic habit of mine, they were appalled:

"You shouldn't touch random poop!"

"You don't know where that poop is from!"

"That could be human poop!"

and though the last admonition did make me second guess my behavior, I told them that despite this, I would continue to bag random poop-- because I was skilled at turning the bag inside out and grabbing the poop and there was no way that I was going to get any of it on my hands . . . two days later, I was walking Sirius on the tow road, the path between the Raritan River and the canal (which is a major watershed) and I came across a pile of random poop, and I had just bagged my own dog's poop so I was already in possession of one bag of (warm) poop-- which I placed on the ground, still open, and I bagged the random poop-- which certainly could have been human poop, I'm no scatologist-- and then I decided that I should put the random poop into the bag with my dog's poop, to consolidate the poop, and things got messy and I got some of the random poop on my hand and finger-- yuck!-- and I could hear those cautionary high school voices ringing in my ears while I washed my hands in the freezing cold water that runs over a rock spillway, from the canal to the river . . . but despite this disgustingly ironic turn of events, I vow to continue bagging poop wherever I find it, especially when it's near a watershed or a place where children play (though I will be more careful and never try consolidate bags of poop again).

Dave Averts Awkwardness!

Yesterday, a student came to the door of the English Office, looking for his teacher-- but this teacher, a diminutive blonde pixie-like person-- was nowhere to be found, and so I started to make an innocuous joke to the student-- I almost said: "She's kind of small, so sometimes we just totally lose her up in here," but-- in the nick of time-- I did some processing of the situation, caught myself and realized that the student I was talking to wasn't just rather small, he was a genuine little person-- a dwarf-- and I realized that my cavalier-losing-a-little-person-joke might offend him and revised my sentence on the fly, thus avoiding the graceless backpedalling that I usually have to perform in these situations . . . an upset victory over awkwardness!

Trump Supporters Hate Cutters

My students were typically appalled at the moral stance in environmental scientist Garrett Hardin's essay "Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor," because-- as the title implies-- Hardin believed that resource distribution is limited, and that the "lifeboat" that contains the developed nations of the world has a limited carrying capacity-- and so the boat should remain sovereign, protect its borders and beware of "boarding parties" which could destabilize the boat and make everyone drown . . . and though the lifeboat could support more people, a buffer should be maintained and the developing countries should be left to fend for themselves, to avoid "the tragedy of the commons"; the logic is a bit blunt and stark, and some of his rhetoric falls into the scare tactics of either/or logic, but the "tragedy of the commons" is a real environmental problem and one that needs to be addressed (though I don't think the solution is as grim as he paints it) but most of my students, who are liberal and despise Trump and his wall-building anti-immigrant posture, needed another way to understand how people could feel this way-- especially since most data indicates that the illegal immigrants in the United States contribute heartily to our economy, providing cheap labor in difficult professions without taking from major government programs such as welfare, food stamps, Social Security and Medicaid . . . and we've installed a system with a tacit understanding between the government and business that such labor will be available-- it's too expensive to deport people established here with jobs, many of whom pay taxes and all of whom contribute to the economy as customers and consumers-- but this is all logical abstraction that doesn't get to the emotional heart of why folks want to build a wall around our lifeboat and voted for Trump . . . so I provided my students with another, more powerful metaphor that I stumbled upon in the newest episode of Hidden Brain, Strangers in Their Own Land: The 'Deep Story" of Trump Supporters; sociologist Arlie Hochschild, a liberal, moved to conservative Louisiana and studied the narrative of conservative, white, heterosexual working-class Americans . . . she wanted to understand the paradox of why these people would vote against their own self-interest, vote against safety nets, vote for tax cuts for the rich and she came up with this deep metaphor: folks are standing in line, on their way up a steep mountain, and at the top of this mountain is the American Dream . . . and though these folks are tired and haven't had much upward mobility, they feel if they keep working, that they will make their way up the hill, but before they get their chance, people start cutting them in line-- blacks with affirmative action, illegal immigrants given a chance at the American Dream with DACA and DAPA, women, brown pelicans-- those damned environmentalists!-- all sorts of foreigners, transgender people, etcetera . . . and President Obama is signalling to those arrogant cutters to "go for it!" while ignoring them, the rule abiding working class white people . . . and, to extend this further, many of the people in the economically sound blue states are on a pretty nice plateau on the way up the mountain . . . we sometimes get annoyed with the folks way up there-- the filthy rich Wall Street elite-- but we don't get particularly angry with the folks below us, because our lives are good enough so we don't begrudge people food stamps or low paying agricultural jobs (even if they're not citizens) but the folks in Trumpland, who are farther down in the valley, are competing with those people cutting them in line, and it's making them outraged; I think this metaphor helped some of my students empathize with the Trump voters, though they don't believe this metaphor is the correct interpretation . . . and neither do I, there's plenty of room in the lifeboat, especially since most of these people climbing in are living in cities, which are greener than the rural areas that supported Trump, and I think these people contribute more to the economy than they burden it, but, of course, I'm not an uneducated white conservative working class dude in Lousianana . . . so what do I know . . . also, the working title for this post was a bit long, so I had to cut it down, but here it is in its entirety:

Trump: Make The United States a Lifeboat So That the Forgotten White Men Can Climb to the Top of the Mountain (Unimpeded by Blacks, Latinos, Illegals, Brown Pelicans, Women, Transgenders, and Other Cutters).

One For the Ladies (Nil for Dave)

The recent Women's March was very effective in empowering my wife-- she took the train to Trenton early Saturday morning, leaving me to do the laundry and the dishes, feed the children and then cart them around town, and I'm certain this scenario played out all over the country (and the globe!) and many men had to do more than their usual share of housework and child-rearing; I must concede that this was tactical brilliance: well played ladies . . . well played.

288 Page Test (Match)

If you're a straight American male and you're going to tackle Aravind Adiga's new novel, Selection Day, you'll have to take a page out of Russell Ziskey's playbook from Stripes . . . the army recruiter asks him and his buddy John Winger if they're homosexuals and Ziskey famously replies: "No, but we are willing to learn"-- while you won't be completely in the dark, as the novel has themes that parallel the U.S. sporting world: the obsessiveness, the statistics, the extreme dedication, the overbearing father, the monetizing of something that should be fun, the byzantine system in which to discover and exploit talent, the depths of corruption and the heights of achievement-- you're going to experience all this through the lens of Indian cricket, an obscure sport with opaque rules; this makes many sporting scenes a challenge to envision (there are some cricket terms in the back, but they don't help much) and the book also explores India, mainly Mumbai, outside of cricket, and this is a  foreign world for the two protagonists, brothers who have been groomed to be professional cricketers since their father's sperm met egg . . . things become even more challenging when Manju, the younger and more talented brother, has homosexual urges: this means one thing in blue state liberal modern America, and something completely different in modern India-- homosexuality is more complex, more taboo, and a more difficult path for a young person, especially a young person of cricketing prominence, to navigate . . . so I recommend this novel if you're "willing to learn," and I guarantee you'll learn a great deal (though I still don't understand the ins and outs of a cricket match, though I often watch folks play it in the parks near my home).

A Serendipitous Postmodern Encounter in My Kitchen

A magical meta-moment occurred on Friday in my kitchen; we were hosting an eclectic crowd: my good buddy Whitney and some other W&M folks, a representative from North Brunswick (Mose!) and the Highland Park regulars-- and my friend Ann, a Sentence of Dave lurker, finally got to meet the prolifically profound Sentence of Dave commenter known as Zman and she professed her profound admiration for his wit, erudition, and verve . . . and then went on to vilify all manner of Dave, my writing style, my choice of topics, my digressions, and my general character; Ann's hypothesis in a nutshell is that the only artistry present on this blog is Zman's commentary . . . she contended that there is an odd symbiotic relationship between us, and if I were to expand on this metaphorically, then I would be the flatulent tick infested rhino and Zman would be my cleaning symbiote, the elegantly marked red-tailed oxpecker, feeding off my bloated body . . . anyway, though it was at my expense, I still took great joy at this serendipitous postmodern encounter between lurker and commenter, because I had contributed doubly to its occurrence, with my prolix prose and the crowd in my kitchen.

The Test 74: These Are People That Died

This week on The Test, the premise is relatively simple: I describe a death and you identify the person that died in this manner . . . but Cunningham and Stacey still figure out a way to steer the show off the rails and into the void; join us for spoonerisms, Marlon Brando impersonations, exploding Stacey, the reason Cunningham wants to kill off multiple endangered species and much much more.

Alex and Ian: The Usual Suspects

Once a week, I've been forcing my kids to watch an oldish movie that I unilaterally select and while they always initially complain, ultimately they end up loving it: we did Pan's Labyrinth (awesome but creepy and violent) and Little Miss Sunshine (funny and mildly inappropriate in a sweet way) and The Usual Suspects (which Alex loved, especially the twist at the end . . . but I still suspect, as I did the first time I saw it, that it's not a particularly good movie, that there's no way to unravel the mystery or the plot, and that it's a something of a one trick pony) and we've got Juno  on tap for tonight, but I'm worried that we're not going to watch it because the boys are involved in some kind of bizarre epic battle that's going to result in both of them being sent to their respective rooms without dinner; Ian put away a pair of pajamas in the pajama drawer, which is in Alex's room and he left a pant-leg hanging out of the drawer and Alex told him to fix it because the hanging pant-leg was bothering him and Ian refused to put the pant leg all the way into the drawer, just to piss Alex off, and Alex sprayed water from the lizard-tank spray bottle onto Ian's bed and unless they can resolve this, they're not going to learn about teen pregnancy.

Litmus Test For Trump: Black Lungs or Clear Water

The Obama administration scrambled to finish the Stream Protection Act, a set of rules that detail how to enforce environmental protection laws already on the books-- the rules are 1200 pages long and fifteen years in the making (for more detail on the story, listen to the new Planet Money) and so now the question is whether Trump will utilize the rarely used Congressional Review Act to repeal the rules; the last time this was used, President Bush repealed Clinton's Workplace Injury rules and the backlash was fairly ugly . . . so keep an eye on this, as it will be a real litmus test as to just what kind of asshole Trump is going to be . . . and remember, there are two kinds of assholes: people who divide folks into two kinds of assholes and people who don't.

Betsy DeVos Is So Dumb She Should Be in a Sci-Fi Sitcom!

Readers of this blog are probably familiar the TV show Battlestar Galactica and the story of Laura Roslin, Secretary of Education of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol: she was 43rd in line for the presidency, but when the Cylons attack, everyone ahead of her on the presidential succession chart dies and she becomes the de facto leader of a ragtag band of FTL (faster than light) spaceships adrift in a hostile galaxy . . . and it turns out-- as these things usually do-- that the Secretary of Education is smart and savvy and principled and becomes a fantastic leader; I would like to pitch the converse version of this show (which would be a sitcom, of course) where the earth is destroyed by aliens that resemble giant grizzly bears and Betsy DeVos (who is undeniably very very dumb) ends up leading a ragtag band of spaceships into a hostile universe, but she allows the ships to do whatever they would like, without regulation, and encourages people to move from ship to ship if they don't like how they are treated-- while she basks in her ignorance and the luxury of her first class accommodations-- and her blissful idiocy is punctuated by occasional alien grizzly attacks but luckily, DeVos has a shitload of guns . . . and there are wacky subplot adventures on the different ships, but DeVos is unaware of anything that's going on, happily smiling in her well-tended bubble, praying to an anthropomorphic God and hoping that he will sort things out (but God turns out to be an alien grizzly bear, and eventually, when her ship travels through a wormhole, she meets Him and He eats her and then shits her out and she returns to the fleet to preach the Truth, because she has been eaten and defecated by the Divine Grizzly, but no one believes her and this just adds to the madness).

Dialing It In (Full of Pins)

I'm too tired to write anything coherent . . . which is odd because instead of exercising this afternoon, I went to the acupuncturist . . . which means I took a nap under a lightweight foil sheet, my body stuck full of pins (and I'm going back tomorrow, so expect more of the same . . . also-- note to self: apparently, I tried acupuncture four years ago, enjoyed some success with it and then promptly forgot that it's covered under my health insurance . . . but I won't forget again, because this lady told me that she does acupuncture on her dog and he loves it-- he even fetches the box of disposable needles and brings it to her-- and if it's good enough for a dog, it's good enough for Dave).