Le Sequoit

Dissembled Still, But Plowing Ahead

My brain is still sloshing along, much like the rum punch in my stomach while on a catamaran cruise Tuesday (some pics up here). In an attempt to recover whatever one might call the flow like thing that drives this opus, I'll go with scattergun.

In the toy box in the garage are my baseball mitt, football and basketball, in amongst all the nerfy stuff we Spockians invented to make our little darlings all safe-like. The mitt (that's what we called them) is a little worn from distantly remembered company softball team seasons, and the football is practically virginal. the basketball, however, is on it's way to that fuzzy, one pound light twilight of its career―a kind of faux suede advanced middle age of somewhat slippery elegance.

How did things get that way? Why does this simple spheroid object rate such attention over it's close cousin, the sleekly tapered football with it's ability to be launched in a perfect, forty yard long, four dimensional parabola to meet the outstretched fingertips of a leaping, sprinting playmate? What about that "having a catch" (I don't know anybody who didn't say "play catch") thing ? "Baseball, hot dogs and apple pie" and that kind of stuff?

You see, football and baseball are necessarily social. Basketball can be, but it doesn't have to be.

There's my self-revelation for the day.

Moving on:

A great American died this week. I'm sure thousands of great Americans died, so let's say an extremely influential and determined American, Betty Friedan. Author in 1963 of the book "The Feminine Mystique", Friedan examined the frustration of the fifties and sixties women, discovering that those who were involved in activities outside the home were far happier with themselves and their men than others. She founded NOW, but fell into disfavor with most radical feminists with her insistence that loving men was a defining process for woman, achievable with ultimate quality only by the elevation of women to an equal status with men inside and outside of the home. Her book was the non-fiction bestseller in 1964, an astounding year in so many regards.

And on:

Things have quieted considerably on the Republican scandal fronts. The media have failed or chosen not to emphasize the scale of the collusive governmental/corporate intrusion into our lives. The same public that believes Saddam was in league with OBL believes that this spying bit is all about a few "wiretaps" on messages to or from Al Qaeda agents. The same public that entrusts their sons and daughters to our Commander in Chief paid little attention this week to the revelation that he once was considering sacrificing twenty or so of them by putting them into planes with phony UN markings and instigating an attack from Hussein, thereby starting the war he was insistent on starting. Nice. At least Al Qaeda takes care of its suicide bombers' families. The shepherd of our "Support our Troops" flock dreams up these little scenarios to sacrifice American lives while he simultaneously cuts veteran's benefits, or works to make accessing those benefits so arcane and convoluted that so many give up altogether. Though at least 95% of the Abramoff scandal is Republican, that other 5% is enough for the ill-informed masses to dismiss the whole thing with a "they all do it".

And on:

Wisconsin companies supplied all the toilets at the Super Bowl. And the toilet paper. Kleenex, Kotex? You bet! Something for those Michiganers to think about, and a place to do it. Often the football championship is not a single elimination event, but we got it covered.

Quickly on:

I recommend watching the Senate Intelligence(?!) Committee tomorrow (Monday) interviewing US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, whose statements, maintaining the administration position that few Americans are affected by the NSA's and others' data mining operations, are being contradicted daily in numerous reports. Squirm city.

Enough:

I have things to do.

posted by sequoit @ 11:28 AM