Five Years of Opinions

This month marks the beginning of my sixth year writing this blog. Five years is a long time. I've written an awful lot about a lot of things. Although I can't say that I've learned something, I can say that I'm in the process of learning something about myself...and that is that not every idea that pops into my head deserves an audience. Not every argument that is born in the fever swamps of my imagination needs to be aired, not every thought that bubbles up in the tar pits of my mind comes to me fully formed, not every opinion holds up to the glare of public scrutiny. Self-censorship is a learned skill which requires lots of practice.

My wife probably wishes that I was better at it. Sometimes I write about things that cause her no small degree of discomfort. She will say, "Are you sure you should say that about that when you know that so and so reads your blog?" To which, I usually reply either, "Actually, I never thought about it," or more often..."So?? If so and so doesn't like it, they can start their own blog."

But I am getting better at this whole self-censorship thing. Just yesterday I saw something on the internet that some self-loathing white liberal academic had written trying to assuage her industrial strength guilt, maligning white people for having the gall to celebrate Martin Luther King Day. Maybe two, three years ago I would have taken the bait. But this time I just let it go. The much hyped national conversation on race doesn't need my take on the matter. 

Of course, sometimes I can't resist. I hear nonsense coming out of the mouth of some politician, and before I know what hit me I've just published a thousand word takedown chocked full of sarcasm and vitriol. Or, even worse, some alleged Christian pastor somewhere tries to raise money from the widows in his church so he can purchase a private jet, and within minutes my iPad is smoking hot. Interestingly enough, the blogs that are born out of white hot anger are by far the most satisfying to write. It's insanely fun to obliterate an idiot.

Of course, over the past five years I have benefited greatly from two unpaid editors, the sainted Denise Roy and my long suffering wife. Between the two of them, I get lots of texts and emails that go something like this:

"Ok, remember...it's either/or, neither/nor!!" 

" Pretty sure you meant to say you're instead of your"

" You wrote, take your shorts. Did you mean to say, take your shots?"

Five years has flown by. Here's hoping that five years from now President Trump hasn't outlawed blogging.



Ps. Click those ads people!!!

Diva Dog

Regular readers are aware that my dog Lucy is...special. Over this past year and a half I have regaled you with stories of her bizarre psychosis, strange obsessions and general quirkiness. Now this...

The past few nights have brought very cold temperatures, this morning it is 14. Our backyard has consequently frozen over to the point where walking on the grass produces a crunching sound. Lucy's designated peeing-ground having been so befouled, she now refuses to leave the deck...without escort...regardless of how badly she needs to go. So, this morning there I was at 6:30, in pajamas, slippers and my winter coat, coaxing her off the deck out into the frozen tundra of her yard. She took a few tentative steps on the patio, then cautiously made her way into the grass. When she heard the crunching sounds beneath her paws, she began tip-toeing along like she was walking on glass. It reminded me of those videos of dogs trying to walk with shoes on. After several hilarious hops and leaps we finally made it to the four foot wide border of mulch at the back fence...her go-to urinal. Being a girl, she made several attempts at squatting, but each time she thought better of it, withdrew the offer and began searching anew for a more amenable location to relieve herself. Meanwhile, I realize that wearing pajamas in 14 degree weather might not have been my best decision.

Me: Lucy, for crying out loud. Go already!

Lucy: But Dad...the ground is frozen.

Me: Yeah? That's kinda what happens in winter. Deal with it!

Lucy: But the crunching sound scares me.

Me: Everything scares you.

Lucy: Not everything.

Me: Name one thing that doesn't scare you!!

Lucy: Peanut butter. I'm not afraid of peanut butter.

Me: True.

Well, OK, we didn't actually have this conversation because Lucy can't talk. But if she could this is exactly the type of conversation we would have! Me trying to shame her into doing her business, and her making ridiculously lame excuses. Instead, I stood there freezing while she methodically sniffed out the ideal square inch of pee-worthy real estate. Once she finally finished, she hopped, skipped and jumped back across the yard toward the deck. At the top of the deck steps there is a mat which is still covered in unmelted snow from Sunday. Lucy hesitated, would not step on the mat...preferring to tip-toe around it.

There is a word for this sort of behavior....Diva.

*** WOOF !!!

Today is Monday. Richmond's meteorologists great and small are already salivating over what they are calling an historic snowstorm bearing down on us...this weekend. Why, something called the European model is predicting 22 inches of the stuff. My favorite wolf crier is the dude on the internet who runs the aptly named website...Wxrisk.com. His latest forecast starts in all ALL CAPS thusly:

***ALERT!!!** WOOF  !! MAJOR SNOWSTORM---possibly HISTORIC SNOWSTORM JAN. 22-23

Upon further inquiry I discover that the term WOOF is one of six such designations used to breathlessly describe potential snowfall. It's all a part of an elaborate system whereby Wxrisk.com hypes winter weather. Six different alerts are used, color coded with lots of asterisks and exclamation points. Specifically, WOOF means: significant snowstorm likely which may reach major snowstorm criteria. In case you're wondering what constitutes a major snowstorm, wonder no longer: belly high to a tall dog.

It's exactly this sort of precise scientific language that attracts me to Wxrisk.com. If cool detachment, detailed model maps, and a "just the facts, ma'am" presentation is what you're looking for in your weather forecasts, well then, Andrew Freiden will do. But if you long for meteorological trash talking, hyped headlines and spittle-flying invective, look no further than Wxrisk.com.

Maybe this time they will all be right, maybe there will be historic amounts of the white stuff. If so, at least we got a five day head start on stocking up on bread, eggs and milk. But if, as I expect, we end up with a dusting because the El Niño track inexplicably veered south at the last minute, or the vortex of high level winds were not nearly strong enough to produce enough moisture to sustain the solar flex movement required...or some other ass-covering language that Wxrisk.com will employ to explain his busted forecast,...I won't be surprised.

The Stylish Connoisseur

Pam and I bought furniture yesterday. We were about to buy the exact same furniture back in June when our AC unit stopped working. We decided that air conditioning, over the summer, in Short Pump, was a greater priority. We caught everything on sale and actually saved some money over what we would have paid last year.

I have always wanted a library in my house...and now I have one. We have a seldom used living room which has now been transformed into a beautiful, old money looking library, complete with two new chairs, gorgeous, richly detailed bookcases complete with one of those sliding ladders, and a wonderful writing desk. When it all gets delivered, I'll share pictures.

I was telling one of my nieces who has two little ones how it never really stops...these money-spending demands that life makes of us. Back when we had kids in the house, we couldn't have nice things. Turns out our mothers were right. First of all, with two kids we couldn't afford nice things, but even if we could have, what would have been the point? It would have taken all of two days before one of them would have thrown up all over that beautiful Persian rug. And I'm sorry, all of the overpriced Scottsguard treatments in the world would have been useless against one of my kids' Spaghettios-fueled projectile vomit performances!!

But now the kids are all grown. Their incessant demands for every spare dime of my capital have ended. So now, all that money I thought I would be banking is now flying out of my wallet even faster than it was back when they had crooked teeth. I have a new Downton Abbey-esk library!

About the time we were about to pay for it all I noticed for the first time the marketing slogan for the particular line of furniture we were buying. I have no idea why I never noticed it before because it
was in plain view on all of their signs and whatnot:

Van Buren...for the stylish connoisseur.

I almost called the whole thing off. What a horrible, elitist slogan. I am neither a connoisseur of fine furniture nor very stylish, for that matter....and Martin Van Buren was a terrible President! Oh well.

Of course now buyers' remorse has set in. From now on, The Tempest will be written at my stylish new writing desk, surrounded by richly carved bookcases and handsomely detailed chairs. Will the influence of such finery affect my writing? Will I find myself writing sentences filled with French words like...connoisseur? Good Lord, I hope not. If you, the reader, start detecting excessive high browery, too much reliance on flowery metaphors, and a preoccupation with inheritance taxes...feel free to complain!

Oh...and to help me replenish my newly depleted savings account, please click on one of these ads!!

The Debate

There was a debate last night. I watched it sparingly, in fits and starts. I would hang in for five or ten minutes then go back to reading. It's always this way for me with debates. They are hard to watch. They agitate me, rile me up in a counter-productive way. With everything else going on in my life right now, I don't need to be riled. At this point, I would settle for a couple three days without malfunctioning intestines...but that's another story that will never be told on this or any other blog!

A few observations about last night...

John Kasich's hands look like they are being controlled by a deranged puppeteer on uppers.

Marco Rubio seems to think that he will win if he speaks faster. It's as if he believes that he's being paid by the word. He says smart things, for the most part, even eloquent things...but he spits his sentences out like bullets from an AK47. Slow down buddy. Take a breath!

Ted Cruz annihilated Donald Trump on the issue of his eligibility to run for President. Come to think of it, Cruz did a lot of annihilating last night. I don't particularly care for the strident tone he often takes, but clearly this guy has the chops to be President. He has a lazer sharp mind, thinks fast on his feet. His biggest problem is he's the smartest guy in practically every room he enters...and he knows it, often an off-putting combination. 

Chris Christie is the tough love Dad of this group. It's hard to find fault with much of what he says, and he handles himself well in this format. But there isn't enough oxygen left in the room after Trump and Cruz enter. Not his time.

Jeb Bush. Poor, nervous, pleading, nerdy Jeb Bush, he of the record breaking money raising operation and the Presidential pedigree. He can't seem to get past the impression that he's a low energy, entitled, government technician who desperately wants to be liked by the cool kids, but somehow can't break through. The way he always tilts his head upward when he speaks seems so hopelessly patrician. He has all the charisma of a throw pillow. Thing is, he would probably make a decent President. Painful to watch him flounder.

Ben Carson looks like the last man on the Titantic. At one point he spoke right after a five minute explosion of words and energy from Marco Rubio and the contrast was devastating. Good man. Horrible candidate.

Donald Trump was Donald Trump. His facial expressions when not speaking are petulant and childish. His answers are largely fact-free screeds, sentences that the brightest English majors in the country couldn't diagram if their lives depended on it. But he has two things going for him with our disaffected population...he's a funny, entertaining dude and he's the only one on the stage that doesn't look over-coached. He simply opens his big mouth and says what he thinks, all of it...unvarnished, un-poll tested, the world according to Donald. For more and more people, instead of appearing ill-prepared and unserious, it feels authentic and honest. Debate prep? That's only for "losers" who need pollsters to tell them what they believe. Here's what he believes...straight from the gut. If you don't like it, vote for the other guy.

So technically, Cruz won the debate in every measurable way except one....what voters think, which is...another win for The Donald.

Something Has Ended

I wish I could figure out what is going on. Do you ever look around and ask yourself how we have arrived at this point in our history? Is it just me? Nothing makes sense anymore. It feels like I am witnessing the end of something...and the beginning of something else, dark and menacing.

I have friends who are buying guns, scrambling to get concealed carry permits. It's like they are expecting some awful thing to happen, or maybe they think it's the cool thing to do. 

One of the leading Presidential candidates of my country has his name plastered on casinos all over the country, his own line of cologne, and has never held an elective office. Another is an avowed Socialist, 74 years old, and looks like a cross between Statler and Waldorf of the Muppets. 

I can now fill up my 16 gallon gas tank for the same amount of money it would cost to buy an entire barrel of crude oil. I pay twice as much for a gallon of milk as I do for a gallon of gas. I wonder why some democratic senator hasn't launched an investigation into big oil to get to the bottom of these dramatic price declines...since they do so every single time prices rise.

Large swaths of our population want millions of illegal immigrants literally swept up and deported, and a ginormous, impenetrable wall built to keep them out on our 1900 mile southern border. Another large swath of our population wants to pretend that millions of new immigrants pose absolutely zero security risk in this age of terrorism and even to suggest that it might proves that you're a racist.

A country who is about to have 150 billion dollars transferred to their national checking account from the United States this very week has the stones to fire a missile within a nautical mile of one of our destroyers, and commandeer and humiliate the crew of two of our patrol boats, the Geneva Convention violating photos and videos released to the world days before the transfer is scheduled to take place. Can anyone imagine the Iranians trying this crap with Russian sailors? Our State Department practically breaks it's arm patting the Iranians on the back for being so gracious about the whole thing. Someone my age watches all of this and shakes his head in fascination at our diminished statue.

A group of militia ranchers have taken over a Federal building in Oregon and been there for over a week now because a couple of their buddies got sent to prison for starting fires on some federal land. After fourteen days...they are still there.

Something has ended, and something else has begun.

Lucy and the State of the Union

I have taken my first sip of coffee. I have turned on the gas fireplace and settled on the sofa. I begin to read the news from overnight. I hear Lucy jump off the bed upstairs, then the harried, frantic sound she makes bounding down the stairs. In a graceful flash she leaps up to within a foot of my face, presenting me with this...

If she could speak, what is it that she is asking me...for this is assuredly a questioning face. Those eyes can burn holes through you. She is unrelenting in her staring powers. 

1. "Why so glum Dad? How about we go outside and wrestle?"

2. "You feel bad, don't you? You should eat something...how about a sock?"

Instead, I tell her she's a very good girl, then I scratch her belly. Soon, she leaps down and disappears back upstairs, having completed her mission. It's the same thing every single morning. She is dependable, true as the North Star. She simply must check on me and gauge my welfare each morning. Maybe it worries her how serious I become when I read the news. She probably wonders why I do it. She doesn't understand responsibility, she doesn't even know what I do for a living. All she knows is that every morning I look into my iPad screen and turn glum. Lucy doesn't do glum. She's a dog and therefore...glum-free.

This morning I read the President's SOTU speech. Yeah, I know...I could have watched it on TV last night. But, I haven't watched one since Bill Clinton vowed that the "Era of big government is over!" Don't think I've ever recovered from that bold-faced lie. Besides, the optics of the SOTU are infuriating to me, the grandstanding, the phony stagecraft, the blank faces of the Vice-President and the Speaker to either side of the President, the props that Presidents increasingly now bring with them and set in the gallery to illustrate some point. All of it is nauseating in a very bi-partisan way. I much prefer Thomas Jefferson's decision to send the SOTU to Congress in writing, which every President after him did until Woodrow Wilson started all of this anti-republican pagentry.  So, I read the speech. I have no comment on the thing other than the observation that it sounded odd to me that this President would bemoan the lack of civility in our politics one minute and then a minute later suggest that his political opponents are controlled by "hidden forces." So, apparently, for this President civility is defined as agreeing with him. Thanks for clearing that up!

Anyway, this was his last SOTU, and it sounded like it. All of the angst that Americans are feeling is the result of things that happened before he took office, in his telling, and every good thing that has happened over the last seven year, both actual good things and things that perhaps only he thinks are good, are due to his brilliant mind and pure heart. Fair enough. If I were the President and I was giving my last SOTU speech, I would have pitched it the same way. 

Still, had it been up to Lucy, I wouldn't even have read it. I would have been outside wrestling in the mud with her!