As the Savior said to Kinky Friedman when he ran into him in the men’s room

I was listening to a conversation this morning at breakfast, and I must admit, it made me cringe…uh, think. The young men were talking about a scientific study they had seen posted on Facebook, and what it meant. They were very earnest, and taking this very seriously, and I thought, oh, how nice, they’re interested in science. Actually, no, I didn’t. My thought process was quite a bit more complex, so it my take me a little work to move through the stages of the things going through my head.

Hi, there, “coastal elites”. A message for you from flyover country. I’ve been living here for most of my life now (like, decades!) and I have been watching with fascination as the pundits have been fingering you for being out of touch, misguided, and contemptuous of those of us here in the heartland. I would just like to add my voice to the mix, as someone who has actually lived in flyover country (unlike most of the people writing the pieces about flyover country, who have mostly flown over, and decided to stop over for a night or two and talk to the first six people they met before they hopped back on the plane to write a piece about flyover country from the enormous experience they had just acquired).

Myself, I hastily indicated that I had mailed a letter that week, and then was stricken with remorse when I realized that, although I had written a letter, it repined still on my desk, and that I had not yet mailed it.  I was going to Hell!  (Sorry for the outburst—I’ve been reading Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man).  Though the responses to the poll were rather scattershot, they were marginally less discouraging to penfriend hobbyists such as myself than one might expect; the “I mailed a letter this week” crowd just about matched “I’ve never written a letter”, “I’ve written a letter this month” vote was close to “It’s been years”, and so forth, with the intermediate categories being the biggest, thus producing a quintessential bell curve.

Let me state my position up front. I am against motherhood. I am not against mothers, unless of course it is lousy mothers, scary mothers, abusive mothers, hurtful mothers…but I realize that every one of us has at some point in our life had a mother, and that many of us love our mothers. We love them so much that we all get together once a year to erupt in a giant flood of love for our mothers, buying them cards and flowers, taking them out to dinner, and telling them how much we appreciate them. That’s good, because it will encourage Mother to keep doing all those things we appreciate but don’t mention for the rest of the year.

You may have heard the different descriptions given of environmental scientists by the left and the right. The right prefers to describe the environmental scientists as Cassandras, mockingly pointing out that they spread a message of gloom and doom. The left prefers to paint them as Don Quixotes, misunderstood knight errants wandering the land in search of evil giants and damsels in distress. The preferred frame of reference you use in referring to this branch of science can immediately give away your political leanings.

Some of my favorite moments have come when I have been sitting at my desk, quietly doing my regular job, when somebody bursts through my office door in a panic,  requiring my help in determining whether a given song contains any narcotics allusions.  Many years ago, one of my most desperate clients was a co-worker who had just been told by a friend that Simon and Garfunkel were lovers and that “Puff, the Magic Dragon” was a drug song.  Although I was able to reassure him that I had never heard anything about Paul and Art being lovers, and that it seemed unlikely to me—not to mention that if they had been, they were currently engaged in the world’s longest-running lovers’ spat, I had to tell him that yes, “Puff” (to give it its actual title), was indeed a drug song.  And what thanks did I get for this valuable service?  He poutily informed me that when he listened to it, he wasn’t thinking about narcotics, so it was in fact not actually a drug song, therefore elevating the philosophy of solipsism to heights hitherto undreamt of.  So taken aback was I that I never felt able to charge him my usual fee.

About that time, I found myself wondering whether these street protests were going to become a regular feature of the Stable Genius’ tenure in office, as with the Vietnam and civil rights era protests; extended campaigns such as these require a considerable attention span and public stamina, qualities which meseems are difficult to find huge quantities of in America today.

I was reading an article related to the Janus case – you know, the case working its way through the Supreme Court related to unions. The gist of the matter is whether unions can collect fees from non-union members to cover the costs of negotiations, since non-union members benefit from the negotiations. In the past, the Supreme Court has upheld this practice, and 21 states currently have that provision. This case is asking them to reconsider it, alleging that it is a violation of the free speech of non-union employees who might object to the political activities of the union. The money collected for the fees is supposed to be used solely for the purpose of negotiations.