TV News LIES

Relief comes in many forms.  In one song, it was splish-splash, and taking a bath.  In one heartburn-aid classic commercial, the relief came right after the plop-plop, fizz-fizz.

When it comes to mosquitoes, we mostly still rely on swatting ourselves silly, and then checking around for any lucky-hit carcasses.  Those middle-of-the night, self-pummeling, slap-and-swat fests may be drawing to a merciful close.

The leader of the American Nazi Party has said the election of Donald Trump as president would present “a real opportunity for people like white nationalists” to start “acting intelligently”, with the aim of building a mainstream political presence similar to that of the Congressional Black Caucus.

“It’s kinda hard to go and call us bigots,” said party chairman Rocky Suhayda, “if we don’t go around and act like a bigot.”

Stop me if you've heard this one before:  Bigwigs pull some strings, and the rest of us hardly ever know what the heck is really going on.  This is how real life works.  It's like looking at a 419-car pileup on the freeway, most days:  Lots of wreckage, and no way to know what really happened, or how to easily untangle the mess.

However, this everyday, hamstrung-pulled reality also contains trainloads of Red Herring Brand fish meal scattered all over the road, for miles around, just in case it might help cover up some of the more telling skid marks, and to help keep anyone from tracing any awkward facts back to any embarrassing sources.

I'm not big on predeterminism and Fate, but even less so for parlor tricks of Faith. Coincidences may not be coincidences -- it's tempting to think along these lines at times, sure.  Movies and so on.  I should have been born in Missouri, probably, a stubborn but accessible skeptic, happy to learn... a curmudgeonly agnostic with curiosity to burn.

So, it is with a sense of skewed (if not skewered) aplomb, that I had a run-in with a berserk ATM, then managed to also have an allied discussion run equally amok. Here's what happened...

More than 200 Hamas-affiliated Palestinian prisoners have halted their hunger strike after reaching a deal with Israeli prison authorities to end body searches and improve prison conditions, the Gaza-based Prisoner's Media Office said.

The group published what it said was the terms of the agreement on Saturday. The deal reportedly includes an end to strip searches and other types of invasive body checks that are considered "humiliating", improving ventilation in prisons and reducing overcrowding in cells, among other issues.

On Monday, August 6, 1945, after six months of intense firebombing of 67 other Japanese cities, the United States  dropped a nuclear weapon nicknamed "Little Boy" on the city of Hiroshima , Japan.  This attack was followed on August 9 by the detonation of the "Fat Man" nuclear bomb over the Japanese city of Nagasaki. To date, these are the only attacks with nuclear weapons in the history of warfare.

In Remembrance of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

When the bombs were dropped I was very happy. The war would be over now, they said, and I was very happy. The boys would be coming home very soon they said, and I was very happy. We showed ‘em, they said, and I was very happy. They told us that the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been destroyed, and I was very happy. But in August of 1945 I was only ten years old, and I was very, very happy.

Most people know when something is missing.  Sometimes, it's a perfect word to finish a thought, or else a certain condiment to take the sandwich to "perfect."  Me, at this odd moment at the crossroads of the American Experiment?  I am missing certain writers.

Some writers are compasses of their eras, helping us find our way forward.  Others are beacons, to illuminate where we are, where we might want to go, or avoid going. Some are just comfort and solace --good company during whatever storms and strife we hapless, knot-headed humans have stumbled into this time.

We used to make fairly regular advances in our culture.  Some were dubious, many were trivial, but, overall, we seemed to be tracing a generally positive pathway forward.  Now, it seems we're just stalling -- unable to get a grip on things, so to speak.

This is not news.  Way back before the Earth's crust cooled and dinosaurs appeared, we used to go get coffee.  Cream and sugar were the only tricky, ponderous variables which might throw us off our games -- especially, first thing in the morning, before we'd had our coffee.