Month: March 2024

Crime and Punishment, Revisited

I have a confession to make. Back in the 90’s I got a ticket for speeding in a school zone. The ticket was $210 dollars. It wasn’t like I couldn’t afford it, but it was enough to sting. I have done some illegal things in my life, but I never felt particularly bad about any of them, except for that one. It was just stupid. I wasn’t paying attention, and it would have been truly horrible if I’d injured or killed a kid on their way to school. So I paid the fine and figured I deserved the pain.

However, in light of recent events, I’ve been rethinking my feelings about that “crime”, and I’ve realized that I got it completely wrong. First of all, nobody got hurt. It was a victimless crime, if ever there was one. All of the kids made it safe and sound to school that day, and I’m sure it was a great day for them—it was probably pizza day in the cafeteria or something.

Second, it occurs to me now that those cops were out to get me. Otherwise, why would they have had that cop with his lidar on the exact route that I always took to work, on the exact day and hour I always went to work? There were thousands of other drivers speeding in school zones that day who didn’t get tickets. What about them? They don’t talk about them, because it was me they were after all along.

Everyone speeds. Everyone does it. But when I do it, I get a ticket for $210, and I didn’t even run over any kids. Not one kid. Okay, so if you run over a kid, then maybe you should have to pay $210—but why should I have to pay for kids I didn’t run over? I mean, if you think about it, they should pay me for all the kids I didn’t run over. They should pay me $210 for each kid that had a great day at school that day, ate really great pizza for lunch, and grew up to be a productive member of society because of me. That makes more sense.

Did you ever hear about that guy Schindler? I heard about this guy Schindler. I heard he saved some kids from the Nazis. Now, I know I’m not supposed to say anything nice about Nazis, so I’m not going to say it. I’m not going to say that whatever you think about the Nazis, they were strong. When they wanted to take a country, they took it, and no one could stop them. I mean, it would take, like, a hundred countries to stop them—that’s how strong they were. Very strong. So Schindler, they say he saved some kids from the Nazis. I don’t know why he had to save them, I guess these were the bad Nazis. I guess some Nazis were bad and didn’t like kids or something. Anyway, Schindler saved some kids from the bad Nazis, and what did they do? They planted a tree for him. Think about that. Schindler saves a few kids, and he gets a tree—I don’t run over any kids at all, even though I could have—I could have run over so many more kids than Schindler ever saved from Nazis in his whole life, but I didn’t—and I have to pay $250 for not running over any. If they planted a tree for Schindler, they should plant a forest for me.

But then I thought, what the hell do I want with a forest? And so I said, “What the hell do I want with a forest?” And they said, “Sir, you can use the wood.” “What for?” “Sir, you can make books out of the wood.” Did you know that? Did you know books are made out of wood? I know more about books than anyone, but I didn’t know books were made out of wood. It’s true. And then I said, “The Bible is a book, right?” And they said, “Sir, we never saw anyone catch on to books so fast! You could be a publisher!” But I said, “The Bible is a book, right?” And they said, “Yes, sir, the Bible is a book.” And I said “So I could take all those trees and make Bibles.” “Yes, sir. That’s genius, Sir. The Bible is the best-selling book in history. You could make a lot of money, Sir.” And I said, “What’s on the cover of the Bible?” And they said, “Sir, usually it just says The Bible on the cover.” And I said, “If they’re going to use my trees to make Bibles, I want my face on the cover.” And they said, “That’s genius Sir. You will sell more Bibles than anyone has ever seen.” And I said, “And a full spread of me naked in the middle.” And they said, “That’s genius, Sir.” And I said

On the real “March Madness”

I am afraid to linger over anything on my Facebook feed for more than about a second and a half. Otherwise I’ll be flooded with nothing but Nazi fighter planes and videos of crocodile vs. wildebeest. Three thousand years of Judeo-Christian-Greco-Roman-Rennaissance-Enlightenment-Romanticist-Realist-Impressionist-Modernist art and thought have come down to this. Crocodile vs. wildebeest.

If Donald Trump wins the election and institutes his police state, I’ll be in big trouble if anyone outside of close friends and family reads this blog. In other words, I’m perfectly safe.

Speaking of the Man from Queens Who Would be King, The Republican Party is now led by his personal ally and his daughter-in-law. Just when this country really needs the wicked old party of communist hating, petro-billions-backed, backroom cigar-smoking, bible-thumping, electoral-map-manipulating good ole boys to stand up for itself, it just rolls over and surrenders to some obnoxious yokel from New York. Maybe you can explain it to me.

Much ink has been virtually spilled recently over Joe Biden’s mental capacity. But what about the rest of us? According to a recent article in the New York Times, “Do Americans Have a ‘Collective Amnesia’ About Donald Trump?,” Americans are having trouble remembering all the awful things said and done by Donald Trump, from the “illegal immigrants are mainly drug dealers and rapists” announcement of his first presidential candidacy to his attempt to end the democratic experiment on January 6, 2021, and everything in between. Maybe the whole country should check in to a “memory center.” I think there’s a nice one in Sweden where you get to waltz with schoolchildren in the common room on Tuesday afternoons and on Sundays you can pet a baby goat.

And the Lord spake unto his (Republican) people: Lo, I give you a New Candidate, One who does not treat women as objects of random engropement, but is even a woman unto her own self; One who is not long in years, decrepit of posture, short-term of memory, and stumbling of speech but is youthful, slim of figure, straight of posture, healthy of mental and clear of diction; One who is not a bankrupted real-estate huckster but has spent a lifetime in Public Service; One who does not bow to kiss the hindquarters of foreign dictators but will kick them therein; Yea, one who is all these things, yet still the weaselly climate-change-denying conservative so beloved by you all. And her name is Nikki Haley. What say ye?

And the Republicans spake unto the Lord: “Nah.”

By the way, I happened to see the old film version of the musical “The Music Man” recently. It’s about a charming, seasoned con-artist who rolls into a sleepy little Iowa town. He dazzles its inhabitants with imaginary projects for bringing vitality and pride back to the moribund place, and extracts as much money as he can from the town for their completion. He plans to take the money and leg it before the hoax is revealed. But he tarries a bit too long. His past catches up with him, along with news of his swindles in other towns back up the road.  But in the end, it doesn’t matter; he’s seduced the town, figuratively and (in the form of the town librarian) literally. The town believes him because they want to believe him and the flattering lies he tells them about themselves.

I used to think this movie was pretty funny. Now…not so much!