courage

I hope Beagles is okay this chilly morning, Old Man Winter's last big blast, the final tilt of the arctic vortex, like the noir detective tipping his fedora to the hard-boiled tomato?  Probably not, but somewhere on the other side of feb, deep into March the nymph of spring is tossing in her pale green gown.  When  the lately considered Dan Rather stepped into the shoes of the master it was wondered what could he say to match and that's the way the world is, and he came up with courage.  Even then it was considered a little lame, but perhaps a good word for the empire of Beaglesonia as we approach the hump of feb and the downward trek that will take us to smooth green plain of spring.

It was indeed Paul Ryan who drove me to it, the rest of them are dimwits or lunatics or grifters, but  Paul Ryan, he seems like, he has the manner of, a reasonable man, and there he was lying his head off in that glib earnest manner of his.  And then Rand Paul, singing that sweet  honest tune about our foreign policy, sweeter and more honest than any of my beloved dems, what can I say, it pushed me over the edge.


I think PTSD and shell shock are the same thing.  Neither has any hard definition (indeed they are now ascribing PTSD to people who have had a rocky road even if they have never been to a battle field.), and they are both pretty understandable.  I think it is worse lately.  During the WWs when you were back from the front you could relax, but less so in Vietnam, and less than that in the middle east with all those ieds and car bombs. 

Not only are child pregnancies down but crime is way down from where it was forty years ago, and yet people still think it is getting worse, fed of course by the drumbeat of fear of the crime crazed illegal immigrants.  Good article in the New Yorker on that subject in the latest issue, and speaking of which there was a great article in that same issue about paper jams.  Paper jams?  Shit, I thought, surely they are running out of stuff to write about, but I paid good money for that issue and I was going to at least skim the first couple paragraphs and when I did I was enthralled.  I think it will especially intrigue Old Dog with his love of complicated knotty details, but Beagles might like it to and here it is: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/12/why-paper-jams-persist

The Sun-Times, Trib and Yahoo all predict above freezing temps by midweek.  Courage.