A Future Tale (Part Four)

In Part One of our Future Tale, our narrator took a walk in the city where she's lived for decades. 

She entered an alley in Part Two - a very strange alley, which we experienced with her in vivid detail. 

And in Part Three, she faced a decision on how to get out of it: step into a ridiculously out-of-place revolving door, or go back, through the terrorizing part of the alley, to the gate where she entered.  Here's where we left her.

The thought of stepping into the hug of that door was paralyzing.

I stood there for what seemed like an eternity; in reality, it was probably only a minute or two, as I considered my options. I had only two choices, I realized: try the door, or go back the way I came. Slowly, I turned my body slightly to the right, and took the measure of the alley.

Where there had been the giant screen, I saw nothing. Where I had seen all those dimly lit, frightening doorways, I saw only solid walls. I could barely make out the gate at the end of the alley, still shrouded in the confusing mid-day darkness.

I turned back to the left, towards the revolving door, and to the right again, in the direction of the gate, where this all started. I turned both directions again, and a third time, before making my decision.

Choking back my fear, I started walking.

Which way did she go? Let's find out. 

Towards the revolving door I went, with more than a little bit of trepidation. 

That was really the only choice... I mean, what sense would it make to go backwards? As I asked myself that question, the answers were numerous: I know what I'll find there; I've been there, done that, and so I know exactly what to do; they know me there, and I know them, so it'll be easier; the future is a scary place, especially right now, so why put myself through that? Why not go back the same way I came?

At the same time, I didn't want to go back through that alley, that very strange alley, with all the time-shifting, am-I-looking-ahead or am-I-looking back stuff that was, truly, frightening. There must be a better way, I thought, and that meant tackling whatever was waiting for me in the revolving door. 

I put my hand on the brass plate and gave a little push, to see if there was even a chance I could get out this way. At first, there was quite a bit of resistance. That wasn't surprising; who knows how long it's been since anyone else was in this alley? I gave another push, thinking how much this was like pushing the gate at the other end of the alley. When was that, anyway? How long have I been in here? I have no idea.

Finally, on the third push, it actually moved noticeably, if slowly, with a bit of a grinding noise, as if it needed to be oiled. Or, thinking back to when I was a child, maybe it just needed some kids to push and push and keep pushing, going round and round in their little cages within the door, like I did, chasing my older brothers... or, were they chasing me?

Thoughts of anything chasing me right now were unwelcomed, and I pushed those memories aside, focusing on the task at hand: getting this darn thing to move and, hopefully, finding a way out on the other side. I leaned in a bit, putting some oomph into it, and finally, the door moved, with purpose. 

I kept up steady pressure on the door, and then I was fully inside it, and that made me stop for a brief second. I stood, holding my breath, feeling my heart start to beat a little faster. And then, throwing caution to the wind, I pushed, hard, once more, and around I went. I couldn't tell if there was a door on the back side for me to duck through; I was moving quickly now, surprisingly fast given the outward appearance of the door. 

I started pushing again, walking and pushing, pushing and walking, thinking this has to be the biggest revolving door ever. It seemed to take forever to make it to the front, where I entered, and then to move around to where I expected an exit to be. I went fully around a second time; I'm not really sure why. On the third trip around, I slowed enough to spot an opening, right where it should have been, if this was a normal revolving door. I took a deep breath, and jumped into the darkness.

I landed, awkwardly, barely managing to stay on my feet, and waited for my senses to adjust. What did I hear? What could I see? What did it feel like, wherever I was now? As before, it seemed like an eternity for me to get my bearings. And when I did, I realized I wasn't in a room, I was outside still. 

I felt a breeze, the kind the wind makes, not the breeze from a fan or air conditioning. I could hear traffic - cars, and trucks, and the funny noise made by buses that run on natural gas, and the obnoxious sound of a motorcycle, racing almost above my head. That made me duck, and I laughed at how silly I must have looked, had anyone been there to see me.

As my eyes adjusted, I could see broken glass, fast food trash, empty cans, and a very tall wall to my right. Was I actually back in the alley again? I couldn't be!

I looked up the wall, and higher, seeing the huge beams and girders above. I put my hand  on the wall, feeling the vibrations that told me I was underneath the elevated highway that bisects my city, in one of the 'cheap-monthly-rate' parking lots, cheaper by their distance from the city center. I slowly moved towards the light I could see to my left, and eventually made it out from underneath the interstate and into the fading daylight. 

Left was west, and as I looked far down the street, I could see the setting sun off in the distance, and make out the streetlights, the traffic lights, familiar buildings, and people on the sidewalk. 

I headed in that direction, towards the place I started my walk, however long ago.

A Future Tale (Part Three)

Our Future Tale began with a woman wandering around her small city, observing and describing the places and people she saw, and ended with her hesitantly entering an alley between two buildings, the first some 100 years older than the second. 

At the end of Part Two, our narrator was deep in the alley, uncomfortably confronting the past - her past, and our collective past. Or, maybe she was seeing into the future? 

Here's where we left her.

Every recess in the wall, every dirty lightbulb, every door I encountered, brought more of the same.

Our real history

Medical care - no patients refused

Judgment-free zone 

All words welcomed here

Free hot meals

A bed for a night

There were a few more doors, offering only more confusion, until there was only a giant screen hanging in front of me, above my head, filled with images, wonderful and horrible, a cacophony of voices and music and noise, piercing the quiet that had surrounded me in the alley. It was my history, my lifetime, and histories and lifetimes before mine, all jumbled together. Good and evil, love and war, despots and dictators, politicians and orators, their words almost physically assaulting me, surrounding me, deafening me. 

I wanted to get away, to escape, to avoid what was playing out in front of me, but the cobblestones were damp and slimy as I tried to run, the trees were hitting me in the face and arms, and the din moved with me with me as I slipped and slid down the alley, tears and grime streaming down my face. 

Let's rejoin her now.

And then it stopped - the barrage of words, and music, and noise - it all just... stopped, as abruptly as it began. It was deathly quiet, and pitch black in the alley, and I stood there, afraid to move. Catching my breath. Slowing my heart. Trying to find my equilibrium. 

Ahead, I saw a light high up on the wall, much brighter than the lights above the doors. It cast a long beam, and I followed it. I moved slowly, cautiously, even gratefully toward the light. And there, at what must be the end of the alley, I saw a door.

A revolving door. 

A revolving door? It was so completely out of place, I almost laughed out loud, but caught myself at the last second. Laughing seemed as out of place as the door, after what I had just been through, what I had yet to fully process. Heck, who am I kidding? I hadn't even begun to process what had happened behind me in the alley; I didn't even know where to start, but I knew laughing wasn't it.

I stopped a few feet away from the door, all glass and brass, ornate like the doors you find in classy old hotels, and simultaneously filthy like you find in abandoned ones. I half expected there to be a bellman in the vestibule, but this wasn't a hotel, there wasn't a vestibule. I'm in an alley for Pete's sake, I told myself, not in some old movie. 

At the very moment that thought crossed my mind, about being in a movie, I became much more tentative about the door. I could get in, push it, and go out on the other side, like in old movies with happy endings, but I had no idea what was out there. What if it was worse than what I just went through? 

I could get in, give it a push, and have it stick, unmovable like in a horror movie, trapping me for who knows how long in a little cage, waiting for someone to find me, to help me. But I'm in an alley by myself, an alley that's nothing like anything I've ever seen before... Would anyone even think to look there? Does anyone even know I'm not home? And what kind of person would be in this alley, anyway?

The thought of stepping into the hug of that door was paralyzing.

I stood there for what seemed like an eternity; in reality, it was probably only a minute or two, as I considered my options. I had only two choices, I realized: try the door, or go back the way I came. Slowly, I turned my body slightly to the right, and took the measure of the alley.

Where there had been the giant screen, I saw nothing. Where I had seen all those dimly lit, frightening doorways, I saw only solid walls. I could barely make out the gate at the end of the alley, still shrouded in the confusing mid-day darkness.

I turned back to the left, towards the revolving door, and to the right again, in the direction of the gate, where this all started. I turned both directions again, and a third time, before making my decision.

Choking back my fear, I started walking. 

A Future Tale (Part Two)

Part One of this Future Tale began with a woman wandering around her small city, observing and describing the places and people she saw. Here's how that chapter ended.

The old iron gate at the head of the alley looked as if it hadn't been opened in years. Weeds, garbage, broken glass, and more encased the bottom. It was heavy with generations of handprints, rust and dust, soot and exhaust, bird droppings, coffee and alcohol, and who knows what other human or animal excretions. Layered upon layer upon layer, a challenge to the forensic experts, the anthropologists, the historians who might one day try and make sense of it all. 

I stopped by the gate, which stood chest-high and strong. It, too, offered a dare, like the building nearby. "Try me - go ahead, give me a push."  

I looked left and right; nobody was paying any attention. I gave the gate a shove; it didn't move. 

I pushed, harder, then as hard as I could, struggling against time, and weeds, and trash, and crud, and slowly, creakily, it opened. 

I snuck into the alley.

And now, we rejoin our storyteller for Part Two.

I tugged the gate closed behind me; I don't know why, really, but it seemed the right thing to do. Given the difficulty I had getting it open, I was surprised by how easy it was to push it closed. I saw my handprints and fingerprints, which formed the newest layer in the gate's long history; my footsteps would soon be added to those that had already smoothed the grimy cobblestones that made up the alley floor.

Narrow, and long - confusingly long, to be honest - the alley had a curtain of vines hanging over it several feet away from the gate, reminiscent of the beaded ‘curtains’ we used to hang back when I was in college. Or, more in keeping with the mood of the day, reminiscent of the giant spiderwebs we used to accidentally run into playing in the woods as kids; we'd struggle, half screaming half giggling, trying to get the spider's handiwork out of our hair and off our faces. Taking a deep breath, I walked toward, then under the vines.

I slowly picked my way forward, letting my eyes adjust to the uncharacteristic mid-day darkness, trying not to slide on the slippery cobbles under my feet. I walked for what felt like several minutes, dodging the spindly sumacs and scrub maples that popped up randomly, as if testing my mettle. “Does she have what it takes? Can she handle the truth?” I felt the questions, and I resolved to stick it out.

Eventually, I could see faint spots of light up ahead, not way high on the buildings, but at a more human level. I stopped, and after my eyes adjusted, I recognized that I was seeing deeply shaded lights above doorways or recesses in the alley, and I understood that I was nearing what I had been called here, by someone, somehow, to see. 

Tentatively, I walked up to the first light. In the recess, there was a chair, with a dingy hand-lettered sign resting on it: safe abortions performed inside. I paused, startled by the seeming contradiction between the sign's messiness and its promise, and by recollections of the horrible history of back-alley abortions. I was confused; where was I? Had the alley taken me into the past, or was it giving me a glimpse of the future? Was that sign old, or new? I had no idea.

I turned slowly away from the source of my confusion, and looked down the alley. A few feet away, on the other side, was a dim light, bugs flying around it. I was tempted to turn and head back towards that darn iron gate, the thing that drew me here in the first place, but I felt compelled to keep going. 

As I moved across the alley, I saw another sign, this one professionally painted but still dirty, hanging from a nail on the door: Books you can’t read anywhere else. There were several names original to the sign: Angelou, Orwell, Vonnegut, Morrison, Lee, and more, names I recognized. There were others, too, that I had never heard of: Evison, Thomas, Alexie, Spiegelman, Craft, scrawled on the sign with different colored markers. A mix of old and new, another yesterday-today-tomorrow quandary. 

Every recess in the wall, every dirty lightbulb, every door I encountered, brought more of the same.

Our real history

Medical care - no patients refused

Judgment-free zone 

All words welcomed here

Free hot meals

A bed for a night

There were a few more doors, offering only more confusion, until there was only a giant screen hanging in front of me, above my head, filled with images, wonderful and horrible, a cacophony of voices and music and noise, piercing the quiet that had surrounded me in the alley. It was my history, my lifetime, and histories and lifetimes before mine, all jumbled together. Good and evil, love and war, despots and dictators, politicians and orators, their words almost physically assaulting me, surrounding me, deafening me. 

I wanted to get away, to escape, to avoid what was playing out in front of me, but the cobblestones were damp and slimy as I tried to run, the trees were hitting me in the face and arms, and the din moved with me with me as I slipped and slid down the alley, tears and grime streaming down my face. 

A Future Tale (Part One)

It was late afternoon. 

I walked slowly down the main drag, as I've done a million times, looking through the slightly dingy windows of the shops, observing the customers inside. 

Many of them appeared disengaged, as if they were only going through the motions. They sported the worn-out look that comes from reading and hearing the same thing over and over, from the same people in the same echo chamber over and over, watching the same news for hoursdaysweeksmonths on end. They looked beaten down by it all. 

I didn't want to linger there; I wondered if ennui by association was a thing? I meandered, turning randomly, until I ended up in the old warehouse district, a jumble of multi-story brick buildings. 

The ends of giant old timbers were visible in spots, copper accents and granite keystones and old leaded windows that gentrifiers adore, and put to pricey use. Many buildings had been redone; fabulous restaurants now, condos and studios and extravagant apartments; bakeries and fancy shmancy coffee shops; places to get faux-leather wing-tips and hemp pocket squares; places to see and be seen, to be vibrant, and young, and successful, or vibrant, and old, and successful, all the while sporting the tired, worn-out look that comes from reading and hearing the same thing over and over, from the same people in the same echo chamber over and over.

Moving to a less crowded part of town, I walked past smaller mixed-use buildings housing attorneys, CPAs, ad agencies, cell phone stores, payday loan joints, cigar shops, gyms, and whatnot on the lower floors, and more apartments on the upper floors. Everyone I passed in this part of town had the same look, and looked the same as everyone else I had already passed.

My pace slowed as I neared the alley halfway down the block, tucked in between a 1970s-era office building and an 1870s-era beauty. Empty but still defiant, figuratively lifting its chin in the air, brandishing the chip on its shoulder, as if daring someone to smash the windows, destroy the inside, or tear it down. 

"Try me," it said. "Just try me."

The old iron gate at the head of the alley looked as if it hadn't been opened in years. Weeds, garbage, broken glass, and more encased the bottom. It was heavy with generations of handprints, rust and dust, soot and exhaust, bird droppings, coffee and alcohol, and who knows what other human or animal excretions. Layered upon layer upon layer, a challenge to the forensic experts, the anthropologists, the historians who might one day try and make sense of it all. 

I stopped by the gate, which stood chest-high and strong. It, too, offered a dare, like the building nearby. "Try me - go ahead, give me a push."  

I looked left and right; nobody was paying any attention. I gave the gate a shove; it didn't move. 

I pushed, harder, then as hard as I could, struggling against time, and weeds, and trash, and crud, and slowly, creakily, it opened. 

I snuck into the alley.

Who Cares if Nothing is Real?

The more extreme we become, the more people believe it. 

In this enlightening Washington Post article, we meet Christopher Blair, the author of the above statement; he lives in the woods in Maine, running the satirical Facebook page, America's Last Line of Defense. Even though the page makes it clear that it's satire (see the note below, one of the multiple disclaimers used), Blair's outlandish stories are liked and commented on over and over.

In that regard, they're treated in exactly the same manner that the president's tweets are -  liked and shared and commented on, over and over. The difference? The latter doesn't declare himself a satirist.

From the article:

In the last two years on his page, America's Last Line of Defense, Blair has made up stories about California instituting sharia, former president Bill Clinton becoming a serial killer, undocumented immigrants defacing Mount Rushmore, and former President Barack Obama dodging the Vietnam draft when he was 9. "Share if you're outraged!" his posts often read, and thousands of people on Facebook had clicked "like" and then "share,"most of whom did not recognize his posts as satire. Instead, Blair's page had become one of the most popular on Facebook among Trump-supporting conservatives over 55. 

With viewership spread to fake news sites with millions and millions of monthly visitors, according to the article, Blair was led to wonder how long it could go on.

No matter how racist, how bigoted, how offensive, how obviously fake we get, people keep coming back. Where is the edge? Is there ever a point where people realize they're being fed garbage and decide to return to reality?

Once, seeing a picture of Trump at a White House ceremony where two women - one black, one white - were behind the president, he circled the women and posted:

President Trump extended an olive branch and invited Michelle Obama and Chelsea Clinton. They thanked him by giving him the finger during the national anthem. Lock them up for treason! 

The women? Not Michelle and Chelsea - Omarosa and Hope Hicks. White House staffers, not bird-flippers (although, Omarosa did write that book...) 

Meanwhile,the article introduces us to Shirley Chapian, a 76-year-old living in Pahrump, Nevada who scrolls through her Facebook feed, liking and sharing posts she gets from right-leaning pages like Free Speech Patriots, Trump 2020 and Ban Islam, among others.

As I read about Chapian, what struck me is how easy it was to see her get sucked in. Many people believe "liberals were restricting free speech. Immigrants were storming the border and casting illegal votes. Politicians were scheming to take away everyone's guns." These are common themes, we know, from checking in on Fox News, Breitbart, and yes, the president himself, and from pretty consistent polling data, across multiple demographics.

As with Blair, the article gives us quite a big of background on Chapian, including that she wasn't a hard-core conservative until Barack Obama was elected, thinking him arrogant and inexperienced. And possibly a liar, and maybe he wasn't born here. That didn't jive with what she was seeing on the mainstream media, and she started seeking out alternative news sites to find out what she wasn't being told, ultimately following more than 2,500 conservative pages on Facebook. 

When she saw Blair's post about 'Michelle' and 'Chelsea'; it fit her opinion of the characters: Trump, a patriot, surely would invite the other two; Clinton and Obama -"demonrats" - would certainly act badly. She commented on the post, saying

Well, they never did have any class.  

Others commented too: the women were gross, and ill-bred trash; there were calls for putting them in jail (another nod to the power of the president's rhetoric). Blair's posted response to the comments was harsh, as were those of similarly-minded satire fans, who attacked Chapian and other believers. And that, really, was the point.

Beyond the money he earned, this was what Blair had conceived of as the purpose for his website: to engage directly with people who spread false or extremist stories and prove those stories were wrong. Maybe, after people had been publicly embarrassed, they would think more critically about what they shared online. Maybe they would begin to question the root of some of their ideas. 

I don't know if that's going to happen, though.  I know from personal experience that people - friends and family alike- fall for satire or fake news that's easily debunked literally as fast as you can Google the headline.

And, of course, our politicians (of both parties) and their champions - the satirists like Blair, the true believers like Alex Jones and others - share in this kind of nonsense, as if we're in some weird gang war with the goal of having an uninformed society that can be played with - and played - at will.

The article shows us how lies become the truth; the question is, how does the truth become the truth?

Random Thoughts: Dammit, I'm Mad!

Able was I, ere I saw Elba.

A man, a plan, a canal - Panama!

Was it a rat I saw?

Never odd or even.

Yep - it's palindrome week, that once a year event where the dates are the same frontwards and backwards.

And, of course, there's the palindrome in the title, which seems appropriate this week. Here are just two examples of maddening behavior from this week.

Dammit, I'm mad and horrified and disgusted and whole bunch of other emotions about the latest report of Catholic priest abuse and the associated cover up. This time, it's in Pennsylvania, hundreds of priests (a third of whom are deceased) and over a thousand identifiable victims, with potentially an equal number of others who did not or cannot come forward. And with the fact that Pope Francis hasn't directly addressed it (although a Vatican statement was issued). And we've pretty much stopped talking about that already.

Dammit, I'm mad that the national media is spending so much time talking about the guy in Colorado who killed his family. First, we got to see him on the national news talking about how he raced home from work when his wife wouldn't answer his text messages, and mentioning an 'emotional conversation' he and his wife had at 4 in the morning - at which point I turned to my husband and said "he did it" - and ever since, we've heard from friends and family, and the police and the body language 'experts' ever since he confessed and we know all about their financial troubles and all the rest, and it's only going to continue.

Meanwhile, here are the names of the 349 people murdered in Chicago this year, through August 14th. They are receiving zero attention, less than zero attention.

What the heck is wrong with us?

Wondering on Wednesday (v142)

Let's dive right in, shall we?

Kris Kobach, the Trump-loving election fraud conspiracy theorist and Kansas Secretary of State is in a primary with Republican incumbent governor Jeff Colyer for the right to face a challenger in November. Currently, Kobach has about a 190 vote lead over his opponent.  There are still absentee and provisional ballots to be counted but if it remains close and Colyer asks for a recount he'd have to make the request of, and pay a bond to, his opponent, because the Secretary of State is the chief election official. 

When the topic arose about Kobach recusing himself from the recount process, his answer should surprise no one. Check it out:

The recount thing is done on a county level, so the secretary of state does not actually participate in the recount. The secretary of  state's office merely serves as a coordinating entity overseeing it all but not actually counting the votes.

Now, a logical or ethical or reasonable person might wonder why on earth Kobach wouldn't recuse himself, but then one can simply remember that, as noted above, he's a Trump-loving election fraud conspiracy theorist and the best way to prevent any kind of election fraud and to ensure an accurate count is to serve as the coordinating entity overseeing a recount IN YOUR OWN RACE, right? And I wonder if anyone else sees a warning in the statement below?

If the margin it less than 10 votes or something extraordinarily close, I would expect any person to call for a recount. (it) would take a significant amount of time to do a recount statewide. 

As in, don't bother asking for a recount unless it's really close, because you'll make a mess of things for the whole state.  And 10 votes? Is that really what Kobach considers a reasonable recount threshold?

Another noteworthy outcome from yesterday's primaries was the strong showing by "conventional" Democrats in primaries. For example, in Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer (governor) and Elissa Slotkin (House) both defeated more progressive candidates. In the gubernatorial primary, for example, progressive New Yorker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders both campaigned for one of Whitmer's opponents, without success. There was a similar outcome in Missouri.

It makes me wonder whether we'll see another Ocasio-Cortez this election cycle, or if the progressives still have a lot of work to do to find common ground with others in the party.

And finally, a opportunity to comment on the media - who would have thunk that would happen?

Tonight I happened to capture the first few minutes of Access Hollywood (yes, that Access Hollywood) where one of the hot topics was the ugly and getting uglier legal battles between Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. Details of the ugliness were given, but I'm not going to repeat them here.

After talking about how people who are going through a breakup or divorce "must love their kids more than they hate their former partner" and focus on keeping things as civil as possible, the hosts lamented that this whole sorry death of a relationship was being played out in the media, on purpose it seems, by both camps, and how that was the completely wrong way to do it.

And then, they continued to discuss it, including the possibility that the Jolie camp was trying to slow things down, but that, according to one of the hosts who "had done some reporting on this" and talked to people close to Pitt, she learned that he was supposedly wanting to go straight to divorce without wasting any more time -- and then stated that he has to have a girlfriend and that was what was driving his haste.

I wonder, when they watch the tape of the show, if they'll see how silly their hand-wringing about media coverage sounds, and if they'll learn their own lesson and in the future commit to not mentioning this or similarly sensitive stories. Or whether they'll consider how it would feel if they were to find themselves on the wrong side of such a report. One can only hope.

They Said It 12/19/17

Some random quotes from people who matter. Or, maybe not.

First, in international diplomacy, we've got this:

At the UN we're always asked to do more & give more. So, when we make a decision, at the will of the American people about where to locate OUR embassy, we don't expect those we've helped to target us. On Thursday there'll be a vote criticizing our choice. The US will be taking names. ~UN Ambassador Nikki Haley

 And on the GOP Christmas present, we've got a few:

I oppose this conference report with every bone in my body. This tax bill is a $2.3 trillion holiday gift for Wall Street, the rich, and the wealthy, Conceived in darkness and birthed with the help of donor and funders. This bill is not for the people. It is not tax reform. ~Georgia Democrat Rep. John Lewis

If people are out there on TV telling mistruths, disguising the facts of this thing, that's going to make it unpopular. When you have a slingfest - a mudfest - on TV when pundits are slamming each other about this tax bill before it passes, that's what's going to happen. But when we get this done, when people see their withholding improving, when they see the jobs occurring, when they see a simpler tax code, that's what's going to produce the results. And results are going to be what makes this popular. ~House Speaker Paul Ryan 

While the bill agreed to in conference today makes some improvements, unfortunately, the changes do not go far enough to guarantee tax relief for constituents in my district. Californians need tax relief now more than ever, especially as the tax factory in our State Capitol continues looking for ever increasing ways to take more of our hard-earned paychecks.  Yet I still fear that, even in the revised proposal, many in my area could face higher taxes under this plan. Californians have entrusted me to fight for them. I will not vote to make the incredible tax burden they already endure even worse. California Republican Rep Darrell Issa

We think a lot of good provisions got left on the cutting room floor after the Senate Byrd bath there, so we're going to assess each of them to decide what the path forward is. ~House Ways and Means Committee Chair Kevin Brady, talking about the provisions that got dropped from the Conference tax bill when it went to the Senate. 

CEOs aren't waiting on a tax cut to "jump-start the economy" -- a favorite phrase of politicians who have never run a company - or to hand out raises. It's pure fantasy to think that the tax bill will lead to significantly higher wages and growth, as Republicans have promised. Had Congress actually listened to executives, or economists who study these issues carefully, it might have realized that. ~Billionaire businessman Michael Bloomberg

And finally, as if the news wasn't odd enough, I'll close with this.

Saying the animals would not pause for a second if given the chance, a new study published by the University of Wisconsin on Tuesday found that chickens would have absolutely no qualms about caging and eating humans. "All the evidence  clearly suggests that chickens would absolutely stuff human beings into poorly ventilated cages and then eat them without any hesitation whatsoever," said lead author Aliyah Carter, adding that the domestic fowls would not waver at all if the opportunity arose to cram people into windowless, disease-ridden coops and overfed them to the point that their legs literally could not support their bodies. ~The Onion

All the News that Fits

Pop Quiz:

(1) The NBC Nightly News is on from 6:30 - 7:00 PM in my neck of the woods. How long is the actual news portion of the broadcast (rounded up to the next full minute)?
a. 22 minutes
b. 16 minutes
c. 24 minutes
d. 19 minutes

(2) Which of these stories led the broadcast Friday night?
a. President Obama's plan to deal with ISIL
b. Roger Goodell, the NFL, and domestic violence
c. Immigration
d. George Zimmerman is in trouble again

(3) Which of these stories was not on the broadcast?
a. Israel investigates its own army for Gaza misfires
b. The US Economy
c. Endoscopy clinic medical director removed
d. Protests in Ferguson, MO


In case you missed it, here's the full list of all the news that fit on Friday:

• Roger Goodell
• ISIS
• Oscar Pistorius verdict
• School killer escapes prison in Ohio
• Crews fighting wildfires in California
• Endoscopy clinic medical director removed
• Ian Paisley died
• New Jersey songwriter died
• Toronto mayor drops out of race
• Solar flares and colorful skies

Anyone else wish for a less dumbed-down broadcast?