Looking Through the Glass

Reality to Earth - Falling off the horse is always easier than getting back on. Saddle up.

And welcome back to the dusty corners of a writer's mind in the midsummer of an election year. Let's see, what's sitting on the back burner?

- The donkeys and the elephants are in full swing, each trying to prove their hot mess is better than the other sides hot mess, with the donkeys' hot mess currently in charge of a hot potato he's dropped so many times it's mashed. (Guys . . . A Chicago politician? Really? And all this surprised you?)

- Major movie events have joined the ranks of 'Things Crazy People Interrupt With Obscene Violence", thanks to some red-hair-dyed nut case in Colorado. I'm not sure if gun control is the answer, because it's the illegal guns which cause too much of the violence and people have the right to protect themselves, but I do think when someone orders a veritable shitload of ammunition, maybe a red flag should be thrown up somewhere. How about it?

- Prices are rising in all areas, yet the Consumer Price Index, which for as long as I can remember had been dragged to the front page and held up like a dead mouse by a proud cat every time it went up on someone else's watch, goes virtually unspoken on the nightly news. (Here's a clue - It's up, but let's not tell all of those nasty old curmudgeons on Social Security, they might actually want some more of the money they paid into that insurance system back to make up for the changes.)

- In sports - Part 1 - An Olympics has come and gone with the usual mix of feel good stories, overt over-marketing and accusations of cheating. BMX biking is in while baseball and softball are out, synchronized swimming is just as silly as ever, but on the plus side, gymnasts are looking more like athletes and less like candidates for 'Toddlers and Tiaras'.

- In sports - Part 2 - The NBA had one of the ugliest partial seasons you'd ever want to see, with games stacked end to end following a labor mess which could have been avoided, and the NHL, which had possibly one of the better season and post-seasons in recent memory, is about to do them one better by crashing a part or their whole 2013-14 season because the job they did seven years ago doesn't allow them to keep losing franchises in cities which can't support them. (Note to the commissioner - Shutting the doors four times in one term isn't anyone's idea of how to do your job properly. Figure it out or resign.)

- I'd still rather watch USA Network than NBC. Someone out there doesn't get it.

- Nice pictures from Loch Ness. Still doesn't tell us what's down there, but the unidentified swimming object in the new pictures is a lot nicer looking than the unidentifiable swimming object in the last pictures.

- On a personal note - It should take less than two years to decide 'yes' or 'no' on publishing a book, shouldn't it? Just venting, kids . . . The Business of Writing is less fun than the process of creation. By a lot.

Now that we've gotten some housecleaning out of the way, the next trick is to look over the field and see which target deserves a good harpooning. Maybe I'll add an unidentifiable picture of it.