Author Archives: Ben

POETS Day! Cecil Day Lewis

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[This entry is cross posted at ordinary-times.com]

I’d love to wish you a joyous POETS Day, but I don’t see my wishes making any difference. You’re still encouraged to embrace the POETS Day ethos, Piss Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday, but this time your motivation is not an early happy-hour beer and tolerably spicy chicken wings. It’s not a refreshing walk in the park with that fetching he or she that has caught your eye. It’s not even to declare independence and lay claim to time that should rightfully be yours to waste. It’s Halloween weekend, and though the actual holiday may not be until Monday, do you think those bratty little trick or treaters, hiding behind their oh-so-cute Davey Crocket, Nancy Drew, or misnamed Frankenstein costume, are going to innocently while away the time until the clock green lights their mischief? I’m telling you they won’t. They have a whole weekend, and they know that school ends at three and most homeowners don’t get to leave work until sometimes after five, giving them a free Friday reign of terror through neighborhoods unprotected by adults. Not even the cover of darkness will so embolden them. So lie, cheat, fake, disgrace yourself in front of your co-workers – whatever it takes to get out of work early to protect the homestead lest the Kinderly Ones get there first and egg your house, roll your trees with toilet paper, or sacrifice your cat at one of their Johnson’s Baby black masses.

Today I chose a selection from Cecil Day-Lewis, British Poet Laureate from 1968 – 1972, one time very active but eventually reformed Communist, friend and devotee of Auden, popular mystery writer (under the pseudonym Nicholas Blake) and father of four – among them Academy Award-winner Daniel Day-Lewis. His relation to the actor means he comes with a ghost story, which fits in nicely considering it’s the Halloween weekend.

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POETS Day! William Wordsworth

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[This entry is cross posted at ordinary-times.com]

Welcome to POETS Day! Piss Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday, and you’ll surely want to oblige the acronym as this week is the special Slipped Into Curmudgeonlyness edition so get audibly frustrated with an underling’s inability to help you sign into your email, blow your top over the sadistically icy 68° thermostat setting, cough a menacing “I’m sick and I’m going to bring you all down with me” cough, call at least two people Bill even though they are not named Bill, leave a tip for the guy from the mail room but no more than a nickel; in general, be so annoying that when you declare that your patience with the people around you has reached its limit and storm out no one will follow.

Now feel free to move about the weekend, your normally kind and ebullient self, having been momentarily overtaken by a cantankerous pensioner, once more assertive and dominant. Think happy thoughts and enjoy happy hour.

William Wordsworth lived to the ripe age of eighty, but at the age of thirty-two he couldn’t have known that. The life expectancy in England’s cities then was only between twenty-five and thirty years old. Out in the county where he spent most of his years the average time from womb to tomb increased significantly to forty-one. Still, at thirty-two he wouldn’t be faulted if he felt he was getting’ up there, so he had an old man’s “Get Off of My Wafting with Natures Glory Lawn!” moment.

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On the Cusp of Wisdom

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[This entry is cross posted at ordinary-times.com]

Wisdom is acquired. It is something that takes time to realize. I’m on the cusp. I ordered COEVALS CLUB Men’s Western Cowboy Long Sleave Pearl Snap Casual Plaid Work Shirt (Black & Gray #9, L) on October 14th. The web site said that I should expect the item on the 30th.

That’s a bit more of a wait than I’m used to (I’m a Prime member, natch) but the exercise of patience is a stepping-stone along the path. To test me further I was taunted by an email from Amazon informing me that my arrival date (because that’s what it is, really) had been revised and to expect my package on the 16th. Here I sit on the 17th lamenting the latest missive. Arrival has been changed once again, this time to the 18th by 10pm. Waiting and acceptance of disappointment deliver bitter lessons. Considerate of the amassed wisdom of Tantalus I sit.

The stage is otherwise set. I have a beard and some comfortably-fitting worn jeans. My work boots have visible scuffs (you have to look kinda close) and I live near a creek. My hair is not particularly long or stylishly unkempt but I don’t fuss with it much so it has a natural look even if it’s not the natural look and I grew up in Alabama so I can convincingly affect a southern accent. All I’m lacking is a casual plaid work shirt and I can project the same discerningly non-judgmental, soul-searching savoir faire as our modern-day Gandalf: Kris Kristofferson. But in a non-threatening way like that guy in that commercial.

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COVID Throwback

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My sister-in law and her husband went to Mexico and got COVID. My mother in-law didn’t – travel to Mexico that is. She did get COVID though through a seemingly unrelated English as a first language vector. All three have managed to have flu like symptoms. That happened to my immediate family a few months ago and, with the exception, of one throw up on the part of my youngest and a few days of sniffles and congestion on the part of my wife, you’d hardly have known we had it at all. Even the vomit could be chalked up the regular rhythms of a nine-year old’s digestive system.

The previous time my family was plague my wife lost her sense of smell for a few days and felt fluey. My kids tested positive and loved it. An infected house doesn’t have to go to school and their symptom free battle with the virus meant movies, video, games, walks by the creek, and even a book or two. I remained, at least for the time, immune throughout our ten days sequester. I lived amongst them, slept in bed with one of them, and finished their leftovers. I couldn’t catch an outbreak.

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A Vote

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[This entry has been cross posted at Ordinary Times]

Voting presupposes that there is a vote to cast, and casting presupposes that there is more than one option for which to vote. If there’s just one option, then rather than voting you’re a participant in a boring but solemn exercise in standing in line.

There are no set rules to what organizations can organize a voting process, so there are no set rules that make a choice a vote other than that it be a choice. The He Man Woman Haters Club may allow only loveable little scamps with distinctive hair or features to vote so long as they are not named Darla or otherwise identifiable as female. A group of guys who watch football together on fall Saturdays may not let Jeremy vote on what toppings they’ll get on their pizza order because he bums everybody’s beer and has poor toilet aim. You can discriminate, not discriminate, enfranchise, disfranchise, or even disenfranchise to your heart’s content and still call a choice between options a vote. Let Jeremy say that the results are illegitimate and that anchovies are the umami of the oppressor all day long. The point is that he is saying that without his inclusion the vote is tainted. What he is not saying is that it wasn’t a vote.

The rules regarding legitimate voting are up to the organization bound by the results or up to a senior organization that oversees the entity conducting the result. There are all manner of unseemly things one can do to influence a vote that may be perfectly within the rules. Jeremy can offer Bill five bucks to vote pepperoni, Darla can ask Alfalfa to sit next to her at the soap box derby, a voter can take or leave whatever enticements or advice is offered so long as the rules allow, or maybe more importantly do not disallow, them.

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A Few Thoughts About Vaping Restrictions

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It shouldn’t surprise anyone that when you make something illegal to sell you create a black market. Some things should be illegal, but any laws passed should be considered carefully with the realization that enforcement may require force. Eric Garner’s confrontation with police was about selling untaxed cigarettes.

This morning I came across this Slate article by Jacob Grier from last week: “Why Banning Juul Won’t Save Lives.” I’ll not go too far into his arguments, ones I agree with, about the foolhardiness of treating all bads as if they are equally bad. I don’t think vaping is a wise health decision but it is not as harmful as cigarette smoking and pretending it is and overregulating the vaping industry removes a less dangerous vehicle for cessation. I don’t always say this about articles from Slate, but it’s a good read and worth your time.

What strikes me is the bevy of restrictions already in place on vaping and the supposed reasoning behind it. Most states have bans on where vaping is allowed and by whom and while I’ll agree that keeping these products out of the hands the dangers to bystanders appear to be very small, ranging from ”hide the children” to inconclusive to unquantified claim that “you can find the same pollutants from vaping that you will find from everyday activities like cooking or burning a candle.”

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The Empire Strikes Back and Kiffin Blows the College Football World Apart

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Nick Saban said that Texas A&M paid players to sign with their football team and A&M coach Jimbo Fisher went ballistic. Fisher did nothing wrong as far as the letter, but he ran the spirit off like Bill Murray with an electron proton pack. Fisher freaked the hell out and held a press conference blaming Saban for everything from the Hindenburg disaster to New Coke and told the world that he was done with the Alabama coach and that many coaches who worked with him never would again.

The last time the two worked together was during the 2004 season and Fisher was so apparently disgusted by the “despicable” “narcissist” Saban who he strongly implied is a cheater, that he was done with the man except when in 2018 he talked to reporters outside the Alabama locker room praising his former head coach while waiting to congratulate Nick on a National Championship. Fish deal with waves and Fisher’s disgust seems to crest and through.

I’ve got a piece on this over at ordinary-times.com and spoke about it with editor Andrew Donaldson (@four4thefire) on his podcast Heard Tell (@HeardTellShow.) I linked to the parts that are specific to this post but the whole is worth your time.

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Amazing!

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This is a person that gets paid to talk about politics and has no idea that the Supreme Court can reverse itself.