I have decided to be equal parts amused and annoyed at the sudden burst of righteous indignation against Donald Trump from his former supporters in the Republican party. Turns out, he made an off-color remark in a private conversation that was disrespectful to women. The horror. And now he is too crass and vulgar to be their nominee.
Does anyone remember February?
The word “young” carries particular significance for college football fans. It is full of hope, yet resigned to a mediocre or worse present. I think it’s basically a way for coaches, fans and sports writers to safely lower expectations. “Sure, they can’t block, tackle, or correctly identify their team uniforms. But what do you expect? They’re young.”
This week a Facebook friend shared some photographs taken in Upper Antelope Canyon, which is an amazing petrified sand dune in Page, Arizona. Wind and water have combined over time to erode holes, passages and crevices into the sandstone, creating formations of breathtaking beauty and complexity.
The punctuation Nazis (generally indistinguishable from grammar Nazis and syntax Nazis) come out from under their rocks and rail about the Oxford comma every few months. This, unfortunately, was one of those months.
I saw a story today about a man in Frisco, Texas, who was ticketed for speeding. Nine miles per hour over the posted limit. There seems to be no disputing the facts of the matter, nor is it in question how the man felt about the infraction. He paid the $212 ticket in pennies, brought to the ticket office in buckets labeled “Extortion money.” He dumped the buckets at the payment window and left. It took the workers there three hours to count and roll the coins.
What a jerk.
Alfred Hitchcock was fond of telling journalists of his long-standing plan to make a movie in which Cary Grant was on the run from the bad guys and had to hide in Abraham Lincoln’s nose (the one at Mount Rushmore, of course). He would give himself away by sneezing. The film could be entitled The Man in Lincoln’s Nose.
We have issues with our mailman — or mailwoman, or mailperson, or letter-carrier, whatever the politically correct term is these days. We regularly get our next-door neighbor’s mail, and we strongly suspect our own mail is being mishandled as well. When we get three bills from the same utility provider on the same day, that’s a sign there’s a wrench in the works somewhere.
It’s amazing how the Olympics brings people together. An entire nation is rooting for the same team. Longhorns and Aggies. Wolverines and Buckeyes. Dogs and cats, living together, mass hysteria. But in a good way.
But the closing ceremonies are a few hours away, as I type. And after that, Kevin Durant and Carmelo Anthony will resume their NBA rivalry as though nothing had happened in Rio.
Word this week from Rio de Janeiro was that an Olympic kayaker capsized in Guanabara Bay, the venue for open-water events at this year’s Games. He supposedly hit a submerged sofa. Not an alligator. Not a tree root. A sofa.
Enough already with the whole “tomatoes are fruits, not vegetables” thing already. I used to make that distinction myself, based on the idea that a “fruit” is a seed case by definition. I am quite sure it was because of a need (poorly hidden) to appear smarter than someone else. But I’m almost completely grown…
