Posts
March 31, 2018
Rosemary O’Hara – Editorial Page Editor
The Sun Sentinel
500 E. Broward Blvd.
Ft. Lauderdale, FL33394
RE: The unintended consequences of life being like a box of chocolates.
Ms. O’Hara,
The sun was doing its best Trump MAGA imitation. It had not yet burst past the restraints placed on it by the ca-ca for brains modern American Liberals who believe, deeply, unreservedly, and perpetually that raising taxes and the minimum wage in tandem is the one true path to eternal choruses of “Happy Days Are Here Again” with “Kumbaya” as the back-up ditty. Plus, as a serendipitous bonus, farting through silk.
There I was, motoring slowly through the McDonald’s drive-thru lane, when I heard your voice and Nancy Ancrum’s dulcet tones on WIOD. There was another Hecate, a harridan wannabee, whose name, a la Cervantes, “I chose not to remember”.
We can all learn from this teaching moment.
#1 – Exact change. Always. While not quite in the realm of imaginary numbers or pi slicing don’t try to “stretch the chain” by gong past ordering by the numbers and expecting a quick solution to the problems of addition and subtraction at the take-out window. That extra burden may be the one more brick on the load that will cause the hod carrier to stumble. And since we know that this particular wage slave is both over-worked and under-paid the trauma may be eternal. She may have to get out of the country and sneak back in pretending to be an illegal alien – Is that racist per se? – and qualify for all free stuff that my grandparents never got
But then, like Juliet and the sun, your voice flooded my gas guzzling, polar bear killing SUV – Is this the year the Sun Sentinel turns off all it’s A/Cs? I’ve been asking that for 20 years – telling me about this millennium’s Children’s Crusade, the one led by an academically challenged little shit from Douglas High School named Hogg. Perhaps a “Deus vult” moment is upon us. Lord knows, but now that Papa Francisco has made all my pre-paid indulgences worthless, all things are possible.
#2 – Somebody then said that ‘the conflict between the 1st and 2nd Amendments would be settled in Court”. That was quickly followed by her saying, “Trayvon Martin was murdered”. I must confess that the role of being the “turd in the punch bowl” falls gently on my broad shoulders. I take no joy in telling this lady boob – Would “boobette” pass the Fowler muster? – that since she believes the Court will settle all things, the matter of the supposed murder of Trayvon Martin has been settled. It has been res adjudicated, so to speak. The only one accused of his “murder” was acquitted, remember? It reminds me of the scene in the Pallisers, and thank God for Trollope, where Phineas Finn, MP, is accused and tried for murder most foul. Having been acquitted he is sent home by the Judge who tells him that there is no shame because he is the only man in the Kingdom who has been found not guilty of this homicide. The conflict that she expects the Court to settle, perhaps approaching the Antigone threshold, does not yet cover an open homicide. Too bad. That means the matter will always be in Purgatorio.
#3 – Beware of what you pray for. You may get it. Or may not. Prayers are always answered. Sometimes, alas, the answer is no. As Senator Lard Kennedy said at the Democratic Convention in Madison Square Garden in 1980, the one where Jimmy carter chased him around the podium trying to get a photo-op, “The fight is never over. It goes on and on. The dream never dies.”
Thus, the aspirations of modern American Liberalism are writ large. Think of the horizon. No hope of ever reaching it makes it the ideal ideal. To be judged on efforts rather than results makes Bernie Believers and Pocahontas Warren blood brothers and sisters uncomfortable when someone mentions the Super Bowl or the Final Four. The buzzer sounds; the game is over. Affirmative Action doesn’t count. Only the team with the most points. Don’t you hate that when it happens?
Except at McDonald’s.
Kevin Smith
No comments:
Post a Comment