olio

• First of all, does anyone else notice our [P]resident behaving as if he still has another twenty or so years to craft a legacy. He’s been working backwards from ‘Mission Accomplished’ for most of this term. I couldn’t blame him for being underwhelmed with the idea of a Presidential Library just yet. The Supreme Court who put him there is now a little more firmly casted to keep him there, and with all the bandying about of ‘executive privilege’ and being the ‘decider’, he may well have decided that the result of a general election would show weakness to our enemies. They’ve all been hard at work re-imaging democracy in ways we’re still finding out about daily- don’t take ‘bloodless coup’ off the table just yet.
• To the disgraced Singing Senator from Idaho: If ‘take-backs’or ‘do-overs’ worked in Congress, you’d be at the back of a very long line.
• "Just leave Brittany Spears alone!" I could do that. If only she weren’t such a compelling example of the sanctity of marriage between one out-of-control pop diva and one dancing boy with aspirations of being the next Vanilla Ice.
• Ron Paul: I don’t think anyone realizes you’re not Pat Paulsen yet. A slogan like "I’m already an elected Representitive" might help you break away.
• Mark Wahlberg: Every day I go to work, you’re there. Are you stalking me?
• I’ve been moonlighting, painting a set for a dinner theater production of ‘Hello Dolly’. I’ve overheard the cast to say things like "Hey kids, let’s rehearse the [blah blah] scene!" and "C’mon, kids, we open next week!" The theater is a converted barn. I’m painting a feed store and a hat shop. For four hours a night I am firmly in the middle of Garland-and-Rooney-ness. . Everyone (they all have day jobs too) maintains the level of enthusiasm for dancing and gossiping past eleven at night that I reserve for glasses of bourbon and pillows. Words fail me here, but the expression on my tired face says it all.
• More about traffic. No one likes to wait in a long line. Most people are rightfully piqued when someone butts in ahead of them. But insomuch as some intersections only designate turning lanes on the completely obscured asphalt, place signs for junctions less than fifty feet away from said turn, and not everyone hoping to turn holds as much hope for getting to their destination alive, much less early; could someone please let the guy in the wrong lane who’s holding up two miles of angry commuters in. It may not seem fair at the time, but it just makes the world a better place.
• Litmus test for the Obsessive/Compulsive. Could you ride behind a Teamster four times a day, fixated on the wild hair growing a half an inch straight out of his otherwise carefully attended ear and resist the urge to reach the fourteen inches forward to yank it out. (Teamster, don’t forget to factor that in). And remember, your job is to wait for the camera to notice the unrusted head of a new screw in the hinge of a doorway and to hold up the entire production while you make it disappear-the Teamster's job is to get you there. Not much time left, but my only hope is that it’s twin will grow out of the other ear, providing an excusable symmetry.
• Congratulations to Hung Hyunh, the new ‘Top Chef’. If I hadn’t actually tasted Head Chef Tom Colicchio’s gnocchi appetizer and his scallop entree I might have thought that sixteen ingredients couldn’t push a scant piece of duck any closer to delicious than it should already be. Bravo.
• Finally, my follow-up to ‘goodbye middle class’. I here go on record for being for employing Indians and Mexicans so long as they can join our national interest of not employing Indians and Mexicans. We live in a paradoxical time- (among other things, I might be a humanist). I believe it was Katrina Vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation, who spoke the "...stole his Daddy’s car..." line on a broadcast of ‘Hardball with Chris Matthews’. And, I can only imagine why Chinese people might want string lights, except that the demand for diffused lighting will always be there.