We shouldn't... right?

Thinking back on the collapse of SFX and the many, many, many other things lately that are running amok (meaning: stupidly) in our society, I am coming to the conclusion that we have lost the voice of the grown-up in the room. That would be the voice of sanity and reason, the one who stops a bad idea in its tracks by saying, "That's a bad idea."

Or maybe even, "I appreciate your enthusiasm, but allow me to explain why that's a bad idea."

That voice seems to have gone silent, or has just been drowned out. 

I'm sure you can think of many examples. I have a dumb example for you, but I think it's pretty on-target. 

Maturity is not something one thinks of when the topic of comic books comes up, but compared to what we see in the comics and their stories in other media now, the past eras of the form show that at least once upon a time there were some adults somewhere along the line. 

Undoubtedly the high-water mark of the Lee-Kirby era in the 1960s at Marvel was the three-part Galactus saga. Galactus the planet-eater was such an awe-inspiring menace, so massive and impersonal, that he isn't even seen on the first issue in which he appears (above; that big guy is the Watcher). They built up to the danger, and did it slowly, When Galactus is seen -- gigantic, brutally powerful, completely uninterested in the planet and its people he intends to consume, and utterly beyond any power even superheroes can muster -- it's a shocking reveal.  

I heard Kirby once at a comic convention -- back when the whole thing fit on one floor of a New York hotel and no one dressed up -- talk about this famous storyline, how he first created the cosmic Silver Surfer, the herald for Galactus (he gave Stan Lee no credit, by the way). Kirby said he realized that if this Silver humanoid was like Gabriel, the herald of God, then he would have to create a god for the Silver Surfer to serve. And that was the unstoppable, unappeasable, implacable Galactus.

I hate to spoil a 50+ year old comic book, but the only way the Fantastic Four can save Earth in this one is by being given a deus ex machina -- the Ultimate Nullifier, a tiny weapon that inspires fear in Galactus himself. It was one of those classic "I swear I'll blow us all to pieces" moments that comic book readers of the era would not have expected. The good guys always outthought or overpowered their enemies, or both, but against Galactus there was nothing that could be done but use a weapon of ghastly power, even if it meant collateral damage of the highest degree. Galactus agrees to leave and not threaten Earth again if the Fantastic Four turn the weapon over to him. And you can trust him, because even Kirby's villains have their own sense of honor that they will not offend ("So swears Doom!"). 

So it probably would have been a good idea to let Galactus be for a decade or so after that. But of course, Marvel couldn't; the trilogy had been too good for sales. Fans wanted more Galactus! So the next thing you know, Galactus was back on Earth looking for his herald, or Thor was off in space looking for Galactus, or Galactus was back for a second bite of the Big Apple, and so on and so forth. And yet for a long time, even while not always the most powerful entity in Marvel's pantheon, Galactus was treated with great awe.

Then the new kids started writing books. Guess who defeated Galactus more recently?

Yep, Squirrel Girl.

Now, I don't want to pick on Squirrel Girl; there's always been room in the comics for lighthearted characters. That's how they got the name "comic" in the first place, as reprints of newspaper comic strips. And SQ has some genuine superpowers -- leaping like a squirrel, climbing like a squirrel, talking squirrel talk, and I guess the proportional strength of a squirrel. 

But you know someone in the edit room one day said, "You know who Squirrel Girl should fight....?"

"Who? Doctor Doom? Ha ha ha ha."

"No... Galactus!"

Much laughter -- then, silence. Then, "Seriously?"

"Yeah... Why not?"

"Nah, we shouldn't."

"Yeah... But why not?"

"Because he wouldn't even notice she was fighting him!"

That last line was what the mature -- or mature-adjacent -- person in the room would have said, but these people don't exist anymore. Instead it would be...

"Okay, so how's she gonna beat him?"

"She'll... she'll talk to him. Lookit, he's probably lonely, right? Been around as long as the universe, even longer, actually, and everyone's always mad at him. Wah, you stole my boyfriend to be your new herald. Wah, you ate my home planet. Wah, you parked your humongous ship on my house. He needs a friend!"

So, good-bye awe, hello the first buddy Galactus has had in 14 billion years. The might G-Acty reduced to a 1980s episode of Strawberry Shortcake. 

(And don't even ask about Galactus's daughter....)

The problem is that this kind of thinking doesn't just happen in comic books. It happens everywhere. It's happening in boardrooms and banks, funeral planners and hospitals, palaces and churches. Not one idea however stupid gets defenestrated; instead they get adopted. No one knows how to say no to something that sounds cool, or at least different, no matter how horrible it is. They're afraid of missing out on the next Apple, or Google -- or worse, at the chance to be further out into politically proper insanity so they can look back over their shoulders at their fellows with contempt. 

This is how jaded people who don't believe in anything bigger than themselves behave. It's especially fun for them when they're playing with your investments or your nation or even your faith in God. They aren't at all afraid that someone will say, "That's that idiot who believed in SFX crypto! That kids under 10 should have puberty blockers! That Jesus technically was trans, and that BDM teddy bears with little children should sell clothes! That what people ought to have in the movies is more wokeness, good and hard!" 

And why would they fear it? The others whose opinion they care about are just as idiotic as they are and believe in all the same things. 

Every time you see something like this in the world, you know once upon a time someone would have told them to knock it off long beforehand and explained why. 

My argument today was going to go from the ridiculous to the sublime, but nowadays it's just ridiculous to more ridiculous. For more outrage at the behaviors of our societal titans, you can't do better than Andrew Stiles in the Free Beacon last week. I just wanted to add my two acorns, as Squirrel Girl might say. 

Muddy buddy.

We used to let Tralfaz run in the yard off leash because he was very independent but (mostly) good about knowing the boundaries. We used to let Nipper do the same, but just in the backyard, where he too was able to get an idea about how far was too far. 

Izzy? Well, I was playing fetch with him yesterday -- something I've hoped to teach him to help burn off the zoomies -- and he was doing great. Until he ignored the world's greatest stick on the fourth throw and bolted into the weeds. 

Oh, he didn't get far. He didn't have to. The area is a flood basin, and within fifteen feet of our property it turns into that kind of thick, black mud that only golden retrievers and slow children seem to like. 

Goldens are duck retrievers by breed, so mud is just mother's milk to them. I should have known something like this might happen, even though Nipper was the same kind of dog and never launched himself into mud that way. 

Not Izzy -- my hands were too busy to 
get any pictures -- let's just say this is
a fair representation of the breed in action.

Fortunately I was able to stop him before he got any deeper into the quicksand, but as it was, his legs, butt, chest, and undercoat were pretty filthy. It's times like these that having a bathtub downstairs is a major blessing. 

My wife had jinxed us a little by saying just that afternoon what a good boy Izzy is, maybe the best behaved of the ones we've had to date. He's a cuddlemuffin, which is helpful. But he is a retriever of waterfowl at heart, and he's never going to scared of a little muck. 

So, I don't blame him, and I just need to be more aware of breed behaviors. All dog owners should, inasmuch as their dogs' breeds can be determined. Fazzy was a farm dog, so either I could build him a wagon to pull as I went to check the back forty (first would have to buy a back forty), or I could let him patrol the perimeter, but one way or another he was set on doing farm dog stuff. Greyhounds gotta run, corgis gotta herd, rat terriers gotta kill rats, pitbulls gotta bait bulls, and Chihuahuas gotta... be sacrificed to pagan gods? 

Well, let's just say that while a dog doesn't have to do what he was bred to do, we ought to bear in mind what he thinks he's supposed to do, and where necessary find fun murder-free activities to fulfill his mission. Since I am no duck hunter, I'll have to start Izzy on competitive fetch or something. In large, dry, fenced-off areas, for sure. 

FTX? No, FFTW!

Hello, friends! It is I, your friend, friendly Fred of Fredcoin, the friendliest cryptocurrency in the world! How friendly is it? Just look at that smile!   

I've been hearing from a few of our happy customers in the wake of the FTX crypto collapse, what with rumors of police involvement and Congressional hearings and the founder playing video games poorly during billion-dollar-meetings and all other sorts of unpleasantness. They say, "Fred, you'd better not be running Fredcoin the way those unbathed, drug-addled twerps ran FTX!" And "Fred, why should I trust you any more than I'd trust those creepy nerd-frat kids?" And "Fred, where in the Bahamas are you burying my money?" And "Fred, you'd better turn my Fredcoin back into real dollars right now or you're going to get a mouth fulla teeth!" And "Fred, why does 'polyamory' always look like it involves people you wouldn't even want monoamory with?"

To which I say: Please, friends! Be calm. There's no need for all this hue and cry, this brouhaha, this hullaballoo, this foofaraw. Can't you see that this is just a case of everyone being tarred by the same brush? Why, it's like the famous bank run in Bedford Falls during which the Bailey Brothers Savings & Loan was almost ruined by the unscrupulous Mr. Potter! The company and the town were saved when people took a breath and left their money in a place that was solid, just as I'm asking you to do right now. 

To reassure you, I want to give you some answers to some of the important questions I've been getting. Just to put your mind at ease. Here they are:

💰 Yes.

💰 No.

💰 Maybe.

💰 Probably on Thursday.

💰 Of course not! Not Switzerland or the Caymans either, although I did have a law professor who recommended going to the Caymans for the turtle races. No, it's under the mattress, and that box spring is under constant surveillance.

💰 I agree -- anyone who couldn't tell Sam Bankman-Fried was crooked just by his hair should expect to be ripped off constantly.

💰 Obviously the answer is: Rosey Grier on Match Game '74.

💰 No fresh-ground pepper for me, please.

💰 It's just a spot, nothing to worry about.

💰 Do you want Mary to be a spinster? Do you want Nick to throw out Mr. Gower out in the snow? Of course not! And think of little Zuzu!

💰 Beetlebomb in the third at Delta Downs. Cannot miss.

So there you have it. Please forward any more questions to frederick_key AT yahoo DOT com, our high-class business email address, and we'll be happy to answer them in eight to ten busin

Sorry, just had to look out the window. Thought I heard a siren.

Cheers, all, and remember: Fredcoin is the only cryptocurrency with Sookie, Sookie, Sookie, Sookie, Sookie, Sookie, Sue! We couldn't say it if it weren't true! 

Abraham.

Advent begins today. It has me thinking of a much more ancient section of the Bible, though. 

When I was a young uneducated moron, the only thing I knew about the Sacrifice of Isaac from Genesis 22 was a Saturday Night Live sketch and Bob Dylan's song "Highway 61 Revisited." I learned more later. 

For what is a key moment in the history of human and divine relations, the whole story is quick, only 10 verses in any standard Christian Bible: 

Some time afterward, God put Abraham to the test and said to him: Abraham! “Here I am!” he replied.

Then God said: Take your son Isaac, your only one, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah. There offer him up as a burnt offering on one of the heights that I will point out to you.

Early the next morning Abraham saddled his donkey, took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac, and after cutting the wood for the burnt offering, set out for the place of which God had told him.

On the third day Abraham caught sight of the place from a distance.

Abraham said to his servants: “Stay here with the donkey, while the boy and I go on over there. We will worship and then come back to you.”

So Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac, while he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two walked on together,

Isaac spoke to his father Abraham. “Father!” he said. “Here I am,” he replied. Isaac continued, “Here are the fire and the wood, but where is the sheep for the burnt offering?”

“My son,” Abraham answered, “God will provide the sheep for the burnt offering.” Then the two walked on together.

When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. Next he bound his son Isaac, and put him on top of the wood on the altar.

Then Abraham reached out and took the knife to slaughter his son.

But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven, “Abraham, Abraham!” “Here I am,” he answered.

“Do not lay your hand on the boy,” said the angel. “Do not do the least thing to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you did not withhold from me your son, your only one.”

Abraham looked up and saw a single ram caught by its horns in the thicket. So Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering in place of his son.

Depending on who's doing the reading, the sacrifice of Isaac may the craziest or greatest action ever contemplated. We know at this point in the Bible that Isaac is the long-hoped-for son of his father and mother, one granted by God in their old age, when all hope had been lost. And now God wants Abraham to kill Isaac? And Abraham goes right along with it, right up until his hand is about to strike the killing blow? 

Surely anyone doing that now would be thought crazy, and rightly so. (Those of us who believe in the story think that it's very unlikely God would do the same exact challenge twice.) 

After thinking about it for a while, a few years ago I came to a realization that undoubtedly many before me had as well. God wasn't testing Abraham here; He knows everything, and He knew Abraham would follow God's command in this greatest test. But Abraham had to know that his obedience would go to any lengths. After this, Abraham never need doubt his devotion, or the strength of it, again. Most of us do, and a lot.

As the Bible is intended to recount a history rather than tell a modern tale, we don't know much about Abraham's (or anyone's) inner life during such tribulations. What was he thinking? If it were me, I might have thought, I will do as God commands, but I will lie down next to Isaac as the fire rises and be a second sacrifice. 

Or I'd just leave it to my wife to kill me when I got home after I told her what I had done. Sarah was no mouse.

Jesus's followers show again and again how hard it is when God calls one to complete obedience. Andrew is not known for much, but when called he dropped his nets immediately and followed. Peter needed proof. The rich young man followed the Commandments, but when told to sell all he had and follow Jesus, he turned away, devastated. When Jesus told his followers they would have to gnaw on his flesh and drink his blood (!!!!), there was mass desertion. These stories make perfect sense to us, and they also throw Abraham's devotion into stark relief. He became the father of a great people, because he was completely obedient to God.

What, I wonder, am I do say if I'm being called to give up something I truly love -- maybe the only thing I truly love? 

I don't know the answer, and I've been thinking about it a lot.

Deer me.

 

Needing a little Christmas.

On Thanksgiving I took Izzy for a long walk around the neighborhood early in the morning. I was clearing off some room for calories, and I wanted to make sure he had enough exercise so he'd not be jumpy later. We didn't see a soul -- which can be good; at least no one threatened to sic the cops on us. But I was surprised to see that a lot of people had already started decorating for Christmas. And not just the Italians! (Sorry, people of Italian extraction, but you're always first up with the lights and you know it.)

I mean, sure, the stores have been full of lights.

Uh... not this kind. Think we'd be seeing these in Lowe's
if New York hadn't caved to the cannabis lobby? (I call it Soma Lite.) 

But why were Christmas lights coming out this early? 

It surprises me because it's been pretty chilly lately. If November had been warm, I could understand people getting the outdoor décor up early to avoid doing it in frigid temps, but that's not been the case. I think it may be warmer next week than it has been. So what's the secret?

Maybe we just need a little Christmas. 

The Swan is back!

"We Need a Little Christmas" -- undoubtedly the most famous song from the 1966 Jerry Herman musical Mame, based on the 1958 film and before that the 1954 novel Auntie Mame -- is often heard as a Christmas song, and I guess it has to be. But the point of the song is that it is too early to actually have Christmas Day (complete with gift-giving), because it's just a week past Thanksgiving. And yet we must, because everything is wrong and we're in the dumps. The wealthy Mame Dennis has lost her fortune in the Wall Street Crash of '29 and has to go to work -- something she's not accustomed to, to say the least -- and gets sacked promptly. She goes home to her nephew, who will be taken from her if she can't support him, and her loyal household staff, whom she can't pay, and she herself is staring penury in the face. So they decide that whether it's too early or not, they're going to celebrate Christmas, because what better way to find joy in the depth of darkness? Mame was a YOLO / Live in the Day type before it was popular.

It's a great moment in the show. But behind it is the genuine threat of loss, pennilessness, and separation. (Everything turns out fine -- spoiler alert! -- because a wealthy customer from the store she got fired from shows up and marries her almost immediately after the number. Because it's a Broadway comedy, not Tolstoy.)

Anyway, my point is, maybe the people in my area feel the need to get that garland up. Our taxes and living expenses have skyrocketed; our salaries, not so much. Our part of New York mostly voted to change the political and economic direction in the state, but the places where they have tons of money or live off the government think things are just dandy and they outvoted us. The news talks about idiocy and corruption at all levels of society, about violence and killers running free, about social breakdown, even about war. 

So, maybe we need a little Christmas. 

Sounds good to me. I plan on getting some decorations up during the week, if I have time. I may even get the tree started today, which I never do before December. Christmas is all about light in the darkness, and I'm sick of darkness. 

Well begun is half done.

Viral holiday!

Happy Thanksgiving to all our American readers! And as I mentioned yesterday, even if you're not in America or hate America or whatever, I hope you can still find something good to be grateful for today. 

I hope no one's plans are ruined because of the Chinese Death Virus -- Year #3 of it ruining almost everything, and enabling bad actors to ruin everything else. I'm glad I'm not a Foxconn factory worker in China, where it sounds like they're going through absolute hell with months of lockdowns in the factory. I'd like to point that out to people who despair that a representative government is bad at getting things done -- here you go, here's an example of things getting done in the other kind of government. Good job, Apple! 

So I'm glad I don't live under the ChiComs. 

I'm also grateful that when it came to sickness at Thanksgiving, the worst I can remember starting the day with was a cold. I feel like I had a cold every Thanksgiving when I was a kid, and I probably did. There are more than 200 rhinoviruses that bring us the colds we enjoy, and I guess I had them all by the time I was 12. Of course, my immune system forgot about them as we went along and we had to start all over again. I just remember a lot of car drives on rainy, chilly mornings to Thanksgiving afternoons at relatives' homes, feeling pretty crappy. However, I loved my family, and I loved pie, and I apologize to my family for bringing cold viruses into their homes. 

As to the pie, I regret nothing. 

It was kinda sucky to be sick on the morning of Thanksgiving, but they'd let me nap if necessary and I would rally. Much worse was to be sick day after Thanksgiving because the turkey had salmonella or the baby that was brought over to visit had norovirus. 

Either way, it was good to have the Friday off. 

Sick or not, eating pie or not, I hope you can find some joy, maybe even some fun on this most spiritual of national holidays. We're here, we're not faced with lockdowns or enemies sieging our ports, we're not personally on fire (well, I'm not), and we're able to read wonderful blog posts. Who's got it better than us?

New PilGRIM sequel.

It's been quite some time, but there's a new entry in everyone's favorite bloody massacre of a Thanksgiving XBox game: PilGRIM III! 

Of course it's a fake sequel to the original fake game and the first fake sequel. I almost wish I could try these. I don't usually play violent video games, but I think to get in the spirit of the day it would be worth a try. Pretty sure a zombie turkey would take me out in no time, though.  

But it wouldn't kill my appetite, however gory. As the meme says:

So as for eating, I wish you a very delightful Thanksgiving feast tomorrow, and if you are not American, well, I wish you something to be thankful for even if it's not your holiday. I'll have something for you on the blog Thursday, although I have no idea what. On Friday, probably indigestion.

Evil machinations vs. puppy.

So my neighbor, the one who will be led out of his house or place of business one day with a raincoat over his head -- not that I'm rooting for it; I just expect it -- added his latest entry into the dog-hating Olympics last week, and it really made a stink. 

No, seriously. 

He's always hated my dogs, even though we keep them on our property and always, and I mean always, clean up after them. I've even cleaned up after other dogs on the block in the hope of being neighborly -- and, it must be confessed, for fear of being blamed for something neither I nor my canine chums did. 

This guy has never liked me, actually, long before we had dogs. Looking way back, I think it may be because I didn't accept his invitation to a house party for the neighborhood and never explained why. I couldn't. The fact was I was putting down the drink, and couldn't risk being at a function like that. He never asked about it -- but he's said a thing to me since except to scream angry words about anything else. 

I can accept that. If that was the cause, I wish I'd handled it better, but who knows? It wasn't his business what I was doing. He never had another neighborhood party, so I think it wasn't a success anyway. Did he blame me, thinking I was giving him the high hat? I had nothing against him.

Now it's been so long it just seems impossible to ask. While I was going about my business, he was getting tied in his own private Gordian Knot. I just pray that he finds something better to do with his mind. 

But he oughtn't pick on my dogs. 

Last Saturday I had Izzy out first thing in the a.m. and was walking past his place when I was stunned by an exceptionally strong scent of garlic. I figured the crows had ripped up his trash bags again, but trash pickup was the day before. I turned my handy flashlight on (real dark in the mornings now) and lo and behold, he had sprinkled chopped garlic all the way up his property line on both sides of the sidewalk. 

Now, this is interesting for a couple of reasons. The first is that this would be the second time he'd ever done anything on his lawn by his own labor in decades; he hires people to cut it and only once has ever been seen to fertilize it. For a guy who doesn't give a damn about the grass, he sure gets mad about the dogs. 

And that's the other thing. He yelled at me and the late Fazzy once, and all Fazz was doing was lying on his lawn for a moment as we passed by. Sure, my dogs have gone on the grass by the sidewalk, but that's what they do. It's not illegal. It's not even avoidable. They sometimes pick a spot fast as lightning. But none of my dogs has ever made it a habit to go on his grass, because they're just getting started when we set out or they are almost home, and they want to put a little distance between themselves and HQ when they go. I do know some other regulars whose dogs make his lawn a common spot (my lawn too), but I have to suspect the garlic ploy was directed at me after his hysterics. He always pretends to be a nice guy around others, inasmuch as he is able (which is: not much). 

So, okay, about that garlic. Garlic is bad for dogs, but not really dangerous in tiny amounts. Dogs dislike it. Onions too -- I've seen them rear back from all things Amaryllidaceae. I'm not sure he did it the best way (there's a method for garlic spray at this site that seems more economical), but whatever. He put enough down to repel me, personally. 

At first I was angry about this and wanted to do something to him. I thought about little signs along the grass saying Follow me for more recipes! Or a large sign that said DOG HATER LIVES HERE. I thought about adding some lettuce and tomato, too; really get the meal started. But finally I realized I was doing exactly what he does -- sitting in my house and seething at others -- and I started laughing. It's just stupid. If he'd ever asked me to avoid his grass, or put up a little friendly notice about it, I'd have taken my dogs into the street to stay away, but no -- that's not how he does things. He sulks and fumes until any slight becomes a monstrous injustice and must be avenged. 

Anyway, once I knew Izzy was not going ingest any of the garlic, we resumed walking past his place on the public sidewalk. 

There's a punchline to this. Repellent scent be damned: Izzy was very curious about this garlic thing, and finally decided what to do about it -- starting Sunday morning, he's been peeing on it regularly. He never did on their lawn before. Maybe he wants to kill the scent. But when I saw him doing that, I was torn between laughing out loud and breaking into song ("Did you ever know that you're my HEEEEEERRROOOO?"). Now he's made it a regular weeing ground. 

I'm not going to let this guy infect me with whatever he's got. He can have mental illness or something, but it's only contagious if I let it be.

However, if he escalates to rat poison, as some do, and my dog gets some of it, I may be blogging from the lockup. A man has to draw the line somewhere. 

Monday go to memein' time!

Some Thanksgiving memes go get you sparked up for the Thanksgiving week. Clip, share, throw away, I don't care. Hope you laugh.

I have my doubts about some of those dishwasher commercials. And how much water do they think we're using to rinse a few dishes, a 55-gallon drum?

Okay, this last one's not Thanksgiving, but I've been hoping to put this together for a long time.

heh

Thanksgiv-a-lingle.

So, this was making the rounds.

And . . . yeah. It's hard to argue with it, actually. For such a popular holiday as Thanksgiving we ought to have some popular songs to celebrate it. Instead, what do we have? What comes to mind for you?

"Over the River and Through the Woods" -- I think this old wheezer got its second legs by being sung at the end of A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving by the gang riding -- in what now would be ILLEGALLY! -- in the back of the Browns' station wagon. And what is that song all about? Going to Grandma's house for a celebration in a snowy season. Sounds more like Christmas than Thanksgiving to me, unless you live in Buffalo, God help you. But indeed the poem was published under the title "The New-England Boy's Song about Thanksgiving Day" in 1844, according to Dr. Wikipedia. No one knows who set it to music. 

So that's one, but I guess it doesn't count as a "banger." Neither do a lot of our popular Christmas songs, though, and I'm not sure I'd like to see a lot of them done in a modern style, let alone as Thanksgiving songs. "All I Want Stuffed for Thanksgiving Is You" may seem to have a kind of charm, but -- nah.

It's easy to say that Thanksgiving's theme of gratitude is too solemn for ribaldry, but come on. It certainly can't top the night of the birth of Christ for solemnity, and we've been celebrating that in every degree from contemplation to drunken spree for two thousand years. So let's try digging a little harder in the hit holiday mine shall we?

I have to say, it doesn't get much easier. Even Mark Steyn, the radio deejay turned political commenter, wrestled with it in his book A Song for the Season. For Thanksgiving, he chose the utterly unexpected song "Jingle Bells" -- unexpected, that is, unless you'd read his essay about it when it originally appeared on his blog.  

Just in time for Thanksgiving, here comes, er, "Jingle Bells" - which was written not for the Yuletide season but, allegedly, for Thanksgiving. In Boston, in the fall of 1857, the city's leading music publisher, Oliver Ditson, introduced the world to a new song called "The One-Horse Open Sleigh".

Steyn notes that racing about fast as possible in unprotected sleighs pulled by speedy nags -- and maybe with speedy nags, IFYKWIM(AITYD) -- was quite the pre-Civil War craze. New England certainly can get cold enough by Thanksgiving to let loose the horses. (It's 36 degrees in New York City as I write this, and you can usually subtract a few degrees and add a couple of inches of ice and snow to estimate the weather in Boston.) Steyn writes: 

...what I find oddest are the claims of Christmas Songs Made In America and many similar books that the song was written for "his father's Sunday School class on Thanksgiving 1857". I'm willing to believe that at Thanksgiving a young man's fancy turns to snow, at least in those distant days before Al Gore's global warming project sent the mercury rising. But no Massachusetts Sunday School is going to teach its charges a song whose lyrical preoccupations are racing, gambling and courting:

A day or two ago
I thought I'd take a ride
And soon Miss Fannie Bright
Was seated by my side...
Now the ground is white
Go it while you're young
Take the girls tonight...

Hmm. He's got a point.

But it's no good; all songs about snow activities are eventually sucked into the Christmas oeuvre, and "Jingle Bells" got there a long time ago. 

What are the other choices, then? "Turkey Lurkey Time" from the 1969 Broadway show Promises, Promises sounds promising, but it's A) all about Christmas and B) got a title that makes me want to Hurly Wurly. Adam Sandler did a comedy song on Thanksgiving almost 30 years ago, but we're not looking for parodies here, and if we were, we'd look for better ones. (It's no "Chanukah Song," is what I'm saying.) I applaud Ben Rector for giving it 100% on a country song:

It's fine -- it's got the usual country song lists -- goin' home, my town, families, football, love -- and maybe it's made it to the PA in your local supermarket, but it hasn't cut any ice here in the northeast as far as I can tell. It has some real heart, so thumbs-up on that, Ben.

A couple of years ago I noted that Irving Berlin took a crack at Thanksgiving for the film Holiday Inn, in which all the songs are pegged to different holidays with mixed results. The number "I've Got Plenty to Be Thankful For," is one of the better ones, but it's never become a standard -- maybe because Christmas does shove aside all Thanksgiving numbers, or maybe because it's a love song, and in the movie Bing does a rueful duet with his own recording, having a lonely Thanksgiving after his girlfriend has been stolen by Fred Astaire. As far as I can tell the song has never had a successful cover version. 

Surely the old-timers 100+ years ago in Tin Pan Alley coughed up a Thanksgiving song or two, right? Well, probably -- God knows they churned out songs on all kinds of topics, all day, every day, hoping one or two would stick in the public consciousness. I note there was a number called "A Thanksgiving Song" in a book of Tin Pan Alley tunes, but I can't track down whose it was and who may have recorded it. 

I admit I'm no musicologist, though. 

A search through the AllMusic site brings us many songs with Thanksgiving in the title, and I hope you'll enlighten me if any others have really made it to the big time. 

However, I do have a suggestion for an older number that really does suit the day. It's from a Broadway show, almost as old as Promises, Promises, but like that show also had a breakout hit (in the case of the former, "I'll Never Fall in Love Again"; in the latter, "Day By Day"). I'm referring to Godspell's "All Good Gifts," which hits every note in the purpose of the holiday of Thanksgiving. Yes, it's hippie music, but it's grateful hippie music. 

 And there it is -- we thank you, Lord, for all good gifts. Sounds like Thanksgiving to me. 

Crushalogs III: The Secret of the Ooze.

They're back, and they're fabulous. 

Every three years on the dot I blog about the load of catalogs I've gotten for Christmas, usually around the middle of November. 

The original Crushalogs piece in 2016 was one of my most read posts ever, as I noted in the sequel in 2019. Since then Google got out of the practice of referring blogs to other blog users on the Blogger platform, and readership across the board has plummeted. I guess Google hasn't figured out a way to get us to buy phony visitors as Twitter has done and TikTok still does. They probably don't care anymore. "Who reads blogs? That's old-man stuff." And so they leave the Blogger upkeep to the the virtually unemployable, the habitually stoned, and the dumdum interns.

But enough complaints. Above you see most of the load of Christmas catalogs I have received since the season started around mid-October. A few got away, I'm sure; for example, I get frequent mailings from the wholesale club, and they sort of ease slowly into the holiday theme before they go all-in on Christmas, so it can be hard to tell when they're nearly Christmas or really most sincerely Christmas. I only want to include the latter in the annual roundup. 

Also, I'm sure a few made it into the recycle bin without any consideration for the importance of this blog. That may be due to my forgetfulness, or to the actions to unnamed others in this home. 

The question remains, however: Have I yet received enough Christmas mailings to outweigh a ream of paper? 

There was a time when you'd ask that about the phonebook. Many things were compared to the size, girth, and weight of the phone book, especially the Manhattan Yellow Pages. But the phonebook has become the phonepamphlet. Geez, I'm old-fashioned and even I ignore the phonebook. So instead I'm comparing the load of catalogs to date against a fresh ream of 20-pound copier paper, the kind where you want the printout to be legible but not necessarily suitable for framing. So, using my handheld luggage scale, let's see which weighs more! 

Ream of paper: 5 pounds

Fred's catalogs to date: 2 pounds 

I think I can safely say that catalog mailings are down from previous years. Could be the lousy economy, or just that more and more people ignore mailings as time marches on. 

I will say this: It's been a couple of years since Restoration Hardware sent me their enormous card-stock catalog set, and that would definitely have tilted the fight to the catalogs. That would have weighed close to the same as the ream of paper all by itself. Hell, if you request the lot, that’s 2,500+ pages right there, and not cheap local coupon-clipper-mailer paper! Looks like RH discovered that I work in publishing, though, and so I don't have two thousand clams to throw around for hairy ottomans. But if you have someone on your list who wants a good doorstop, or a beginner's weightlifting set, request all their catalogs and that's one person off your list for free! 

Well, now it's to the recycling bin with you, catalogs, where after you will join your brethren in the landfill, because no one wants recycling and they won't burn scrap paper for energy like they should. Cheerio!

Sail and hull.

A small ship battered close to shore

No harbor finds it to secure

Left its sails up far too late

In drowned hope to escape this fate

Now too close, and keel to pole

Twisted, tossed against the shoal

The wind too strong to pray escape 

The stones that grind and shred and scrape 

As lashed and racked with wind so full

Sails rounder, tauter than the hull

Now chewed upon by teeth of stone--

The able-bodied, fate unknown. 

The ship appears to bob but not

The ruinous wind pins to the spot--

And when the wind its whim will change

And tide is turned, and disarrange

The sails and shrouds, no more near break,

Drop dead, and low tide moved to wake

And drag the ghost ship toward the deep

The water full enough to sleep.

And so then down, into the sea

With no more mighty blast to be

Ground above as teeth on bone

Illusive life, no more is shown.

Mailbox of doom?

We all know, or should know, that ATM use has its risks. People in urban areas (what we used to call cities) are routinely warned to be cautious when using any sort of cash machine, especially at night and especially in dodgy neighborhoods. Dumb punks will rob you as soon as you have your dough, even force you to take out more. Smart punks will use skimmers to get your card data and clear out your accounts. When security cameras were placed in the machines and the surrounding areas, they helped deter some of these bad acts, at last for a while. However, these days our big-city district attorneys don't seem much interested in prosecuting even violent crime, so why should the criminals worry?

And even in places where they do prosecute theft and violence, you might get jugged. 

Jugging is the delightful practice wherein the punk follows the ATM user for some distance, sometimes far from the point of cash withdrawal if by car, and when the victim is in a less secure location, helping himself to the cash. 

"The robber then follows the customer outside the establishment before taking the money from the victim or breaking into the person's vehicle, most often at a new location but sometimes outside the bank," as the Austin American-Statesman describes it. "'There, they are approached, threatened with violence, or assaulted while the suspect demands the money or aggressively takes the cash bag,' the Austin Police Department said in a statement."

So the common ATM is increasingly a hotspot for crime. But what of the more mundane, totally anodyne United States Postal Service mailbox? 

Glad you asked!

"Whether you’re sending holiday cards or gifts, or just mailing your monthly rent check, you may want to avoid using those large, blue collection boxes—at least for the next few months, United States Postal Service (USPS) officials have advised," writes Elizabeth Yuko at Lifehacker. Well, that's all right; no one sends any mail around the holidays, do they?

You'll be hard-pressed to find the relevant press releases from the USPS's own site, which has a tendency to BAD REQUEST you out of anything that isn't brand-new, but according to KY3 in Springfield, Missouri, here's the problem:

Before you drop an envelope in one of those blue boxes, United States Postal workers want you to keep a few things in mind.

USPS reported an increase in thefts from these boxes during the holiday season. Here are a few precautions to make sure your gifts are delivered.

First, look at the time of the last collection for the day on the front of the blue box. Make sure you are putting your mail in the boxes before that time. You don’t want your letters or packages sitting overnight or over holidays and weekends when thieves could target the boxes.

“One of the best things that you can do is hand it off directly to your postal carrier, obviously, then it’s already in their hands, and it’s into the system,” said United States Postal Inspector Paul Shade. “The other option would be to take it directly into the post office. And obviously, it would have to be during regular business hours, but that’s the most secure way to protect your mail.”

Yeah, well, the one time we had something stolen in transit it was a Home Depot gift card in a birthday card, and it was stolen right out of the USPS processing center in Brooklyn and used at a Home Depot in that borough before we even knew it was missing. Of course we filed a complaint, but we never heard anything -- and of course the money was gone forever. So your trusty postal worker, especially some asshat hired to help out during the busy season, may also not be so trusty. 

Still, I guess it's better than leaving anything in a secure mailbox, which is secure. Everyone knows tampering with the mail is a federal offense, and that means real trouble, right?

Ha. Yeah.

What's going on out there? We can't use ATMs, let alone the bank itself. We can't answer our doors, because burglaries are on the rise, especially in cities. Every house in America is getting security cameras, willfully pushing along a dystopian end of privacy for the fear of violence and theft. And now we can't use the friendly blue mailbox? Meanwhile, despite the cameras and guards, retail giants like Target are losing hundreds of millions because they can't stop organized shoplifting rings; no one gets arrested and no one goes to jail. (I'm no fan of Target, but this is ridiculous.)

You know, the whole rampant crime issue was supposed to be the real needle-mover on the midterm elections, and is certainly a prime issue with which most adults have been grappling. But there seems to be a lack of understanding among freshly minted idiot voters. In City Journal, John O. McGinnis writes: 

When I get together with friends, the conversation often turns to their children’s political views, which are almost always significantly more liberal than theirs. Sometimes, their children’s stances are so far to the left as to baffle them. The daughter of one friend supported prison abolition, but she could not explain to her father how this policy could possibly work in practice.

This last bit really caught my eye. I've heard the term "prison abolition" before, and when it's accompanied by the slightest attempt to suggest a replacement for imprisonment, it's a thin goo of psychological service promises and equity spending. 

We've been using psychology on criminals for over a century; we've been social-spending out the bazooty since LBJ's Great Society; and yet crime and our cities become worse. There will always be human beings who would rather steal than work; there will always be psychopaths who want to kill and destroy; there will always be sociopaths and narcissists who think they deserve whatever they can take; and there will always be people whom a decent society will have to incarcerate to protect the innocent. Attempts to reform the guilty are admirable and important, but they are a distant second to providing protection for the innocent and justice for the injured. Anyone who can't understand that has been educated beyond intelligence and into a world of pure emotional nonsense. 

In the end, there are only three ways I know of to keep bad actors away from their victims:

1) Lock them up for a period society finds fair for their crimes;

2) Butcher them and drop them in mass graves (a favorite of socialist revolutionaries, who like to throw in political opponents as well); or

3) Let the beasts run wild and force everyone else to live imprisoned behind high walls, sharp cameras, barred windows. 

Hey, kids! You're all about the fairness. Does choice #3 seem fair to you? Does it seem like equity that your grandma can't leave the house, or mail you a check from the postal box? Maybe your college professor or online influencer or favorite musician has his or her head up his or her behind? Just a thought.

Bunch o' critters.

We often hear that animals have curious names when they get together. One raven is okay, but you get a bunch in the same place and you have a conspiracy. Owls, on the other hand, prefer to be a parliament. And a bunch of otters is a family. Which is nice. 

A "mischief" of rats

Some animals seem to have chosen the cool names themselves, like a pride of lions or a sounder of pigs. Others got stuck with the leftover names, like a sloth of bears or a smack of jellyfish. Some seem to have taken more deserving names from others -- while the pandemonium of parrots comes across as pretty appropriate, did anyone ask the pandas what they thought?

Along these lines, I have twenty animals that I thought could use new and better collective nouns. Let's see what you think. 

A dress parade of chinstrap penguins

A beer run of  Clydesdales

A coatrack of ibexes

A cuteness of red pandas

A hellspawn of mosquitoes

A dropbox of koalas

A cuddle of anacondas

A film noir of pandas

A classroom of hamsters 

A catastrophe of turkey vultures

A chorus line of blue-footed boobies

A bloodbath of honey badgers

A bluh-blah-bluh of vampire bats

A laugh track of hyenas

A Targetful of ladybugs 

An outbreak of spotted salamanders 

A fart of blowfish

A Jonathan of jackrabbits

A shelling of snails

A lotl axolotls

I was going to come up with one for egrets, but I have no egrets.

🐠🐙🐘🐗🐖🐌🐍🐎🐏🐅🐂🐃🐄🐈🐉🐊🐋🐟🐞🐝🐜🐥🐭🐮🐨🐩🐫🐪🐭

That's all I have today. As always, your further suggestions are welcome in the comments.

Some writers go through hell.

Straight as a two-dollar bill.

Got my hands on one of these old beauties while collecting money for a cause last week. You certainly don't see a lot of $2 bills in circulation anymore. 

The United States originally issued two-dollar bills along with the other paper currency after the Legal Tender Act in 1862, and continued to do so until 1966. They always featured Thomas Jefferson, so were sometimes called Toms. The bill never seemed to be as popular as ones, fives, and tens, though, and were thus not printed in as high quantities. In the time the $2 was first printed, it went from being a good deal of money (two days' pay for an unskilled laborer) to a lot less (two hours' pay for unskilled farm work), but neither time nor inflation raised the profile of ol' Tom.  

In 1976 the bill was revived, but the ten-year hiatus had not made it more popular, and it went out of print in 1981. Now they're as seldom seen as the Ike or Susan B. Anthony dollar coins. The Sacagawea coin went out of mint in 2008, so you still see some of them around, but not a lot. I seldom see the newer presidential dollar coins and none of the new "innovation" series, so I think the casinos are hoarding them. 

We just don't like dollar coins in America. I think all coins have an association with cheapness here. The Canadians loved their dollar coin so much they gave it a cute nickname (the Loonie, from the loon on the back). The same goes for their two-dollar coin, which also has a nickname (the Toonie). So even the money in Canada is looney toons. (rim shot)

But coins always got looked down on in the US. I'm not sure when the expression "folding money" (rather than the jingling kind) came into the lingo, as cash worthy of interest, but the oldest reference I know of came from a wartime Fats Waller song, "Cash for Your Trash." The listener is enticed to bring her household trash (old pots and pans and such) to the scrap drive for war use, and receive some money for it, and then canoodle with ol' Fats:

In between we'll do some lovin'

Wide handsome turtle dovin'

Will you listen to me honey

Get plenty of the foldin' money

Yeah, don't settle for that nickel-and-dime stuff; get some actual bills!

As for the two-dollar bill itself, I'd often heard that it was unlucky, but didn't know why. According to Mary Piles, CNB St. Louis Bank Historian (who knew that job existed?), the bad luck tag came from the two being called a deuce, which is also a nickname for the devil. But that's not all! She adds:

One of the reasons the $2 bill was never widely circulated is thought to be due to its negative reputation.

• An urban legend claims that at one time, election rigging was common and the reward for a favorable vote was $2. There was a belief that politicians would purchase votes for $2 therefore, having a $2 bill could be seen as evidence that you had sold your vote. While most likely an urban legend, the myth still gave the bill a sinister reputation.
• In the early 1920s, Prostitution was $2.00 a trick, leading some to refer to the bill as a “whore note.”
• The gambling tracks have a $2.00 window, and if you won, many times you were paid in $2.00 bills. If you were caught with $2’s in your wallet it could lead people to assume you were a gambler.
• The $2 bill was often thought to be bad luck, as “deuce” was a name for the devil. Recipients would tear off one corner, believing it would negate the bad luck of the bill. This caused many of the bills to be taken out of circulation as mutilated currency.

I worked as a teller for a while when I was in school, and I used to buy up $2 bills from other tellers when we cashed out on Friday. That way when I went out drinking with my buddies I would have weird money to draw attention to myself. And I can tell you for a fact that, whether the $2 was lucky or unlucky, I never was. And no, that was not so long ago that (even were I so inclined) I could hire a lady of the evening (ahem) for two bucks. 

There is just one song I know of that mentions a two-dollar bill, by the way (I'd be interested if you know of others). That's Hank Williams's "Hey, Good Lookin'" from 1951. I suspect Hank liked the way it sounded, like money but not a lot of money -- the federal minimum wage in 1951 was 75 cents:

I got a hot rod Ford and a two-dollar bill

And I know a spot right over the hill

There's soda pop and the dancin's free

So if you wanna have fun, come along with me

Less than two years later, Hank was dead, dying on New Year's Day 1953. Was it the mention of the unlucky two that did him in? One has to wonder. 

Let's hear from the spleen.

There's a woman I have known for a number of years, and the odd thing about her is that while she has changed many things about herself, she has herself remained unchanged. I'm not sure that's a good thing. 

In a way it shows consistency, but it may be of the hobgoblin-of-little-minds variety. I am not without any respect for her, so I'll say it's somewhere in between consistency and a failure to learn.

Everything about her seems to have changed in many ways, including attitudes, religions, politics, dietary preferences, work ambitions, and on and on, but they're all keyed into the fact that she is ruled by the heart. Intellectually it looks like she's all over the map -- and not a well-drawn map either -- but emotionally I think she's straight as an arrow, following a rule of kindness and love. It seems to me that without the intellectual virtues of prudence and justice, this kind of compass can lead to horrible whimsical decisions, and also hatred for those who get in its path, ending in destruction and misery. 

Then again, my wife thinks I am a logical person, and I've heaped my buffet plate with my share of destruction and misery too. So who knows what's best?

And yet whenever someone uses that aggressively stupid expression "The heart wants what it wants," I chime in with "Could you at least please give the head a vote?"

They might be better off if they polled all the organs, in fact, rather than just cave in to whatever that ignorant thumping dumdum in the chest says all the time. I'm sure the other organs might have interesting counsel. Like:

STOMACH -- "I don't care. When do we eat? Not now? In a little while? How about now? Not yet?"

GENITALIA -- "Who? That person? That GORGEOUS SEXY THANG? YES! LET'S GO! LET'S -- What? We're just here to compare home equity loans? DANG wake us when its over."

LUNGS -- "This nonsense leaves me breathless, although everything does in time. On that note, don't listen to the genitals. They just want to get into everyone's pancreas."

Pancreas: "Hardy har har, lungs."

LIVER -- "I'm just sick of this behavior. I always have to clean up your stupid mistakes, whether it's the Beer Pong World Championships or the Nuclear Wings Cookout or the gas-station nigiri. How about we just say no to everything for a couple of weeks and let me catch up?"

KIDNEYS -- "We are down with Liver on this, as we are with many things, and for the same reason -- we always have to deal with the fallout. Sorry to rain on your parade. Don't even ask Bladder; he never says anything unless he's all full of himself.”

LARGE INTESTINE -- "I think I speak for my partner Smalls when I say we are just flushed with relief. It bowels us over. Let's move on with this decision right away."

SPLEEN -- "What do I think? I think I'm furious, that's what! And if I don't start doing some venting, there's gonna be trouble around here!"

ISLETS OF LANGERHANS -- "Well, gee, thanks for asking! After all, I'm not really an organ, just a group of pancreatic cells, but since you -- Hey! Where're you going?"

Memes to rent, memes to borrow.

It's another Saturday meme day, kiddies! Not a lot on tap due to the final deadline crush Friday, but I trust you'll find these original creations to be on target. 

Purple Hearts and others.

I regret that I have only discovered that the National Purple Heart Hall of Honor is here in the lovely Hudson Valley, on the non-insane western side, at New Windsor. I don't get over that way often, but I did last week. Unfortunately I was driving Izzy to an animal hospital at the time for his pernicious eye infection (still not gone entirely at this writing) and could not stop to have a look. 

Picture courtesy of the American Legion

"The mission of the National Purple Heart Hall of Honor is to collect, preserve and share the stories of all Purple Heart recipients," says the hall’s site, and I hope a lot of people will want to visit on this Veterans Day. They do have special events today, of course. If you are or know someone who has earned the Purple Heart, check out the online search feature for inductees. 

I don't think it's a particularly large facility, and is not affiliated with the government or run by the US military or its branches, not even prominent veterans' groups like the American Legion or the VFW. It's administered by the New York State Parks Department’s Recreation and Historic Preservation squad, which would make this one of the exceptionally few really good uses of my state tax money that I know about. I've been threatening to flee this dumb state, but before I do I want to go to the hall to offer my respects. 

Closer to home, or my home, is a much smaller monument but another of interest. Even people who live around here may be unaware that the Missing in Action flag, the familiar black MIA flag, was first flown in the village of Harriman, New York, on 1974. I stopped by to have a closer look. 

The American Legion post mentioned in the marker still exists, right around the corner. The spotlit flag is right next to the marker in a little memorial area fenced by wrought iron. I’m sure the flag has been replaced many times since 1974. I wonder if the Legion post still has the original.

For the whole background about the MIA flag, check out this Veterans Affairs page. 

Two years later after the first MIA flag flew, the town buried a time capsule for the Bicentennial, to be opened in fifty years. Four years from now. Geez, what fun is that? Still plenty of old farts around that could tell you (whether you want to hear it or not) about America in 1976. 

"Disco! What a disaster! The Big Bus came out that year too. And you know what else happened in 1976? 'Muskrat Love,' that's what!"

Within walking distance of this capsule is a town park, a pleasant spot with a picnic area, baseball diamonds, basketball hoops, and Canadian invaders. 

It also has another flagpole.

This one also has a plaque at the bottom: 

I wish all our veterans a day of honor, with the thanks from their country for their service. 

Veterans Day has been leaking its public due a little more every year as we get further from the time when military service was not only universally respected but almost universal. Parts of our society would love to see this day forgotten. They only like Americans who fight other Americans. Businesses have long treated it as a "floating holiday," and every year seems to bring more such days aboard to jostle with time and space in our national consciousness.

Don't let them do this to Veterans Day. God bless our veterans, and God bless the United States of America.