On Not Writing

I do not know what to say. I have had a lot to say for years now. Nothing. I feel suspended in goo just waiting for the other shoe to drop. I hope I will improve. I hope our Democracy survives. Mostly I am taking Buddha's advice. "Think about other things."

It is also true that what does come from my fingers on social media is scary to type and feel and think. Yes, this is me the nonviolent conscientious objector snowflake saying, if a man with a gun and no formal insignia frightens and puts you in fear of injury or death, you kill him. That is your right and responsibility to yourself and fellow citizens IMO.

In the meantime, have some Dave Brubeck. I had the pleasure of listening to the Quartet on a June evening, under a tent, as the Delaware River flowed on by. Anybody else remember The Music Circus? "Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast." - The Mourning Bride, by William Congreve.

Flying on Thanksgiving? Shave your legs. - with Updates below the Flower Colophon

UPDATES BELOW: There is a new change in procedure at TSA since I wrote this seven years ago. Groping has gotten more sincere. Time to try my solution? Illustration from Second Story Window.

                                       

Flying on Thanksgiving? Do not even think about it. Stay home, make some hot chocolate and get out the popcorn. There is going to be a big strike at airport security. The Transportation Security Administration folks are groping the genitals of adults and children.

I am for a major civil rights action. But I say: Do not opt out of the scanner and make them grope you to protest, even though it surely will mess things up bigtime.

Too tame for me. Too much chance you will make your fellow humans mad. Make them mad and they will not support your cause. I say, give the people you are going to inconvenience some bang for their buck.

Take off all your clothes when you get to the first scanner. Every stitch. Then bend over and spread your cheeks so everyone in the airport can see your Stuff. Revolve slowly while bent over so there is a 360 degree view for everyone. Be careful, it is easy to fall down while doing this. Go slowly. Give them the Full Monty.

If you have not been tazed and/or arrested at the end of your revolution (yes, this is a pun and I intentionally committed it), calmly stand in line and put your clothes back on. Make everybody wait. Let everyone take pictures.

I think we could pay people to do this, if we have to. I did it in high heels on New York City bars for money, so I know you will not have a problem finding personnel. Be sure to have the protesters revolve (revolt?...revolutionize?) in more than one airport.  Ask patriotic porn stars to do it pro bono. Everybody wants to make a contribution.

Problem solved. Probably take about three weeks for The Suits to construct a backdown narrative and get it out there to The Media. Be the best political caucus race and general circus you ever saw. Think of the jokes on late night TV. Problem solved. Maybe I will run for President.

I wrote the initial essay above about the Transportation Safety Authority in November 2010 when folks were considering a huge protest. It is seven years later. Maybe they have gotten worse? Maybe it is time to do it my way? More information at the links.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/10/10/dying-woman-tsa-wanted-to-check-under-my-bandages/

A woman who’s dying of leukemia says that agents with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) at Sea-Tac Airport in Seattle forced her to lift up her shirt in front of a crowd so they could check underneath her bandages.

Disabled cancer patient slammed to the ground by TSA guards, lawsuit claims

Hannah Cohen, 18, was on her way home from St Jude’s Hospital when a scanner went off and led to incident that left her ‘physically and emotionally’ injured

Hands On with the TSA's New 'Enhanced' Pat-Down Procedure
The government goes for second-base. By JOHN MCCORMACK

I'm not a crazy ACLU-type. I've had no problem with body-scanners or previous TSA pat-downs. In 2009, a terrorist famously smuggled a bomb in his underwear aboard a U.S. flight. But an agent of the state should probably only touch a citizen's genitals seven or eight times if the agent has reasonable suspicion, and not because a machine is malfunctioning or calibrated, intentionally or unintentionally, to detect explosives on everyone who is tested.

I am a 'crazy ACLU type' and a rape survivor. I would announce before pat down 'Touch my genitals and I break your face.' Then do my best to break the face. I do not fly. 

Nick Sings Dixie

Way down South
In the Land of Cotton
Racism there is kind of rotten.
Oy vey!
Oy vey!
Oy vey!
It's Dixie Land. 


I am so sorry to report that Nick Vanocur has died. He is sorely missed by friends and fans. 

Mint Julep Oracle

This little essay was written in March of this year. It has become a lesson to myself that one never knows where Karma will take us all in June. Read more at Axios...

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Saturday that he plans to honor the committee's "blue-slip" rule for the Trump administration's move to nominate Jay Clayton as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Why it matters: Graham holding to this policy — in a clash over one of the highest profile districts in the country — would mean that Clayton's nomination would not be able to advance without approval from home-state Democratic senators, per the Washington Post.

Sometimes I write a perfect sentence or two. Just perfect in every syllable. Not often. But once in awhile. And then I find I have nowhere to put it. Sentence just hangs around. Has Trump destroyed the word perfect? But I digress. I wrote:

Ms. Lindsey dipped a manicured finger into her mint julep, held it up to the breeze and detected a seismic shift in the political universe. Belle's have such exquisite sensibility

Perfect. Maybe if I do the same finger wave with my morning coffee and the breeze from the hole in the floor, I can find out why hundreds of Russians are reading here again. And why, when I mention them, they all go away.

“Man is a mystery. It needs to be unravelled, and if you spend your whole life unravelling it, don't say that you've wasted time. I am studying that mystery because I want to be a human being.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky