Shavuah Tov. Impeach Drumpf.


Can you fall asleep like this? Were you ever able to?

Asleep on a Roadtrip
Asleep on a Roadtrip, Boston to Columbus.
From “In The Loop” (2009):
Lt. Gen. George Miller: Twelve thousand troops. But that’s not enough. That’s the amount that are going to die. And at the end of a war you need some soldiers left, really, or else it looks like you’ve lost.

 

From “Duck Soup” (1933):
Another Cabinet Member: Gentlemen, gentlemen. Enough of this. How about taking up the tax?
Firefly: How about taking up the carpet?
Member: I still insist we take up the tax!
Firefly: [to his secretary] He’s right—you’ve got to take up the tacks before you take up the carpet.
Member: I give all my time and energy to my duties, and what do I get?
Firefly: You get awfully tiresome after a while.
Member: Sir, you try my patience.
Firefly: I don’t mind if I do. You must come over and try mine some time.
Member: That’s the last straw: I resign. I wash my hands of the whole business.
Firefly: Good idea. You can wash your neck too.
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(Social) Media Shabbat


I imagine that your mind is probably shattering at the moment, too. There are too many mental balls to juggle, and they are flying all over the place and getting dropped. Some of them have explosives in them, others are just paint balls, and others are just trite metaphors getting overworked on an unread blog.

That can only mean one thing: It’s time for our weekly break!

I’ll leave you with this thought: It’s my former wife’s weekend with the kids. They don’t hang out with me, y’know,  being teenagers and all, but that sensation when I get back from dropping them at school, their presence still palpable (the humidity upstairs from the shower, the smell of whatever it is that my daughter put in her hair, the mug that I used to heat the milk for the hot chocolate my son drinks in the car), it is overwhelming and poignant, it fades all too fast.

And in other good news, it’s baseball season!!Pogo26

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Viscerally, I’m Glad We Bombed Syria, BUT…


you do realize that without boots on the ground we are not going to save the innocents caught in the crossfire of warring bad guys? Is there a follow up to this? Do we even have a Syria policy?

Prediction: We will not have an informed and constructive debate about how we use our military. We don’t have informed and constructive debates about anything any more. Look at the morally challenged maroons who now control all branches of government, and the cause is obvious. Lasciate ogni speranza, boys, we’re headed on a bad trip.

Remember, it’s official Urinate on Mitch McConnell Day!

A Picture Worth Reprinting.

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Polaroid of the Day


Pinhole again. 7 seconds. My cat, Zoot, under a light. She’s almost all washed out. I did some manipulation with Mac Photos. See below for the cell phone picture. polaroid of the day, april 6, 2017IMG_0319.jpg

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Tomorrow is National Urinate on Mitch McConnell Day.


I hate wishing people dead or disabled (most of the time). However, I believe that Mitch McConnell is so bad for the future of the United States and its institutions, so toxic, so blatantly immoral, that unless he quits (unlikely) or quits being one of the biggest, greediest, hubristic, partisan, and hypocritical assholes to ever disgrace the Senate (even more unlikely), the rest of us are better off with him in a wheelchair,  wanting to “spend more time with his family” (maaaaaaaaa, do we have to visit Grandpa again?), or being a treat for nematodes. Sad, but true.

Since we can’t dance on his grave yet, I’d like to propose the next best thing.

Copy out one of the following pictures onto a small but of easily degradable paper (we don’t want to gum up the works). Place it in a flush toilet, latrine, or a pile of composting manure. Take a photograph, if you care to. You can decorate the picture yourself, or leave it as a crafts project for whomever follows you. If you want, send the photo to themetabug@gmail.com, and let me know if you want acknowledgement.

Yes, this is totally gratuitous.

We don’t care. Desperate times call for immature measures.

NB: These pictures were put here without the permission of the artist. If you are the artist and want them removed, I will cease and desist with the use of your picture immediately upon request.

Start drinking that coffee!

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Polaroid of the Day


I no longer need or want the new and the shiny.

Pinhole taken with PX 600 Impossible Project Film, Natural light, 10 second exposure, 0.5mm aperture. PInhole Polaroid, Detail, april 5, 2017.jpg

I like fixing things, and if something is still usable, although damaged, I’ll hang on to it if I like it. (That’s kind of how I–and hope that those near to me–feel about myself at this point in my life. All of these items are broken, some partially repaired. The mug on the left was a father’s day gift from my daughter, with a crayon drawing of herself. I dropped it shortly after getting it, but I couldn’t bear to throw it out.IMG_0300 The Bialetti Moka is probably 6 years old. I’ve changed the gasket a couple of times. but there’s no way to replace the handle that I melted off by ignoring the fact that it was over a flame too long. I’ve done this to more than one moka. More than two. In fact, by the time I melted this one off I said the hell with new ones and I just wrap a coffee-stained towel around it to pour it into my mug. That’s just as well, too, because the Bialettis tend to drip down the front.IMG_0313 Next is a mug that states “Will Work for Slivovitz”, with a broken handle, IMG_0310and next to that is a mug that says, “It’s a Katy Thing” with the same problem. But they function. IMG_0304Next to it, a big mug (I like big mugs because you can use them for oatmeal and soup as well!) with this great logo IMG_0301and a broken handle, and in the foregound, an Army Strong mug that has been pieced together with cyanoacrylate (super glue). It still has a handle! None of the repaired mugs has ever come undone due to the heat of the liquid in it. IMG_0303

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Regarding Syria: The US Is at a Crossroads. . .


This photo provided on Tuesday April 4, 2017, by the Syrian anti-government activist group Edlib Media Center, that is consistent with independent AP reporting, shows a man carrying a child following a suspected chemical attack, at a makeshift hospital in the town of Khan Sheikhoun, northern Idlib province, Syria. The suspected chemical attack killed dozens of people on Tuesday, Syrian opposition activists said, describing the attack as among the worst in the country’s six-year civil war. (Edlib Media Center, via AP)

and we don’t have much time.

With hindsight, we screwed up in Rwanda. Nearly a million people were killed with machetes in what was a genocide that outsiders could have prevented.

On the other hand, we screwed up in Iraq, overturning a brutal dictator, but in the end making things worse (the karma due Dick Cheney falling instead on others who didn’t deserve it). Libya, where we “led from behind,” isn’t going so well.

The Assad regime in Syria is murdering its citizens. Should we stop it? Can we stop it? If we decide that we are able and willing to stop this slaughter, how will we do it? What will we do when things don’t go as planned, because we can be assured that they will not go as planned? We can’t count on our current Commander-in-Chief for moral leadership. Drumpf just received Egypt’s dictator, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, and praised him in spite of el-Sisi’s dismal human rights record. (Also, it’s worth noting that if Drumpf had been in the Armed Services he would have been court-martialed for his adultery–which he boasted about–if not more. It’s doubtful with his foreign ties to dubious regimes and characters that he would have even received the low-level security clearance required to be an officer.)

And who will pay for this? The Iraq war was paid for on the credit card, and Afghanistan continues to fester, although on the whole most Americans ignore it except when they piously say “I support the troops” or stand oh-so-reverentially at a sporting event. A war requires a tax. That’s worth repeating.

A War Requires a Tax. 

A large one, and it needs to be progressive, with war profiteers and the underrepresented (in the military) wealthy bearing a larger part of the cost.

More importantly: How many American lives are you willing to pay for this?

We’re not even having the discussion. Time is running out. I want to help Syrian civilians, but to do so means occupying Syria for, I imagine, at least a decade. Will this make things worse? Will our allies help us?

Put Gorsuch on the back burner (where he deserves to be). If we are who we say we are, we should be debating this in Congress all day, every day.

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Polaroid of the Day, and The Story of My Writing Career, zikhrono livrakha


How to open a cat’s mouth

This is one from the archives, it never made it into a journal. I’m guessing I took this picture (in truth, someone else must have taken it, because those are my hands–I think) when I was still doing some veterinary journalism, and that it was for an article.

Opening a cat's mouth

Writing used to be a great gig. I would write a number of articles per year. I’d do research, interviews, and then an editor would go over them with a fine tooth comb. Sources would be checked. Interviews would be transcribed. I would rewrite them to the editors’ specs, and then we’d go over the final product. For all of this work, I’d get paid enough to make it worth my while, and in my best year freelancing made up about a third of my income.

Then came the internet.

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