Just our imaginations, running away with us

Today's Loose Parts didn't so much crack me up as it sent me back in time, and that's appropriate at the holidays, though when I go back in time it's not always for fluffy nostalgia.

Sometimes, it's to point out an outrage, such as this: When did parsley stop being a garnish and become just an herb?

Sure, a bit of parsley sprinkled over a baked potato and sour cream does make it look nice, but it also adds a particular flavor, so it's performing a culinary function beyond presentation.

But, back in the day, when you got a meal at a restaurant, you got a sprig of fresh parsley on the plate. And, if it was a good restaurant, one of those purple spiced apple rings.

Now, the cognoscenti can explain that the parsley was, in fact, to be eaten last as a breath-freshener. But we didn't got no cognoscentis in those days. We didn't need to listen to any steenking cognoscentis, etc. and so on.

No, the parsley and the apple slice were garnishes and now they're gone, along with the scrap of lettuce upon which they sat, and the world is a sadder place for it.

Well, the world is a sadder place. I'm not sure that's why, but I'm putting it on the list of possible reasons.

 

And I never had an imaginary friend when I was a kid, but, like Lemont in today's Candorville, I felt I probably should, because my older sister claimed to have one and kids on TV often had them.

So I'd say I had one, too, but, yeah, I was only imagining it. I'd go play in the backyard or the woods and I'd try to imagine my imaginary friend alongside me, but it never really took.

I know that imaginary friends are real, because ... wait, that doesn't sound right ...

I know that some kids do have imaginary friends because my eldest son, when he was a very young toddler, had an imaginary friend named "Johnny" whom he would talk to. The funny thing about Johnny was that he was always, well, embedded in something, like a wall or a tree trunk.

Which we didn't really understand, but it turned out to be linked to the fact that our son didn't have a set bedtime but was free to wander around and hang out with us as long as he stayed upright and in a good mood.

When he began to fade, we'd trundle him off to bed and we felt the system worked pretty well, but apparently just about trundling time, his little mind began to fade in and out of reality.

Such that, one night when it was 10:35 PM Mountain Time and the local news ended, our little angel echoed Ed McMahon and we decided maybe his imaginary friend Johnny should be sacrificed to the concept of a real, fixed, earlier bedtime.

(If you knew my eldest son, you could probably assess the effect of having hung out with Johnny for several months at a very impressionable age. Thank god Sam Kinison never had his own late-night talk show -- we'd have probably called in an exorcist before we figured it out.)

 

And while we're in the realm of the imaginary

I like Matt Wuerker's cartoon and I certainly wish we'd had better turnout and, yes, I mean "we" on a particular side of the question.

So I'm going to dance around the Prime Directive because he doesn't directly repeat, but only suggests, the current received wisdom that the anti-Trump protestors are people who did not vote.

Which turns out to be a steaming pile of mistaken analysis.

According to Snopes, it can be traced back to a methodologically nonsensical report from Portland, Oregon (Portland being a truly reliable indicator of Average America in the first place) in which a TV station looked into the records of 112 people who had been arrested at anti-Trump demonstrations and found that 60% of them had not voted in the local county.

Because those arrested at demonstrations are absolutely typical of all people at any demonstration.

And people in a college town invariably vote in the local county, not back in their hometowns.

And only local residents demonstrate.

I would looove to attribute this foolishness to a Grand Conspiracy but "stupid" is not a conspiracy, beyond the upper-management conspiracy to hire telegenic, vacuous nitwits as reporters.

And that doesn't let anyone else off for having swallowed this "protestors didn't vote" thing so readily.

When you are wrong, citing the village idiot as your source simply calls your judgment further into question.

 

And here's a cartoon nobody has drawn yet, but that I wish they would: It's Donald Trump with a laser pointer labeled "Twitter" in a roomful of cats labeled "media" and he's making them run all over the room chasing the "Hamilton" circle while some rats labeled "Trump University Pay-Off" and "Phony Blind Trust" and "Ghastly Appointments" are on the table eating everybody's food.

Better hurry if you want to be on the up-slope of the curve: Mark Cuban has nailed it, and so has Jack Shafer and, once it's out in the open, you're either one of the ones watching the rats or you're one of the ones mindlessly, frantically chasing the pointer.

Imaginary friends are fun, but imaginary journalists are a disgrace.

 

Glad to see Matt Davies keeping track of the rats instead of chasing the pointer.

 

But, meanwhile, I'm still seeing people deny what Kirk Walters points out in this analysis of "What the hell just hit me?"

They're blaming Bernie and blaming low turnout and blaming the FBI and blaming everyone and everything except sheltered, insular arrogance.

As Horace Greeley almost said, "Go Midwest, young man, and grow up."

Though apparently he did say, "Washington is not a place to live in. The rents are high, the food is bad, the dust is disgusting and the morals are deplorable."

So, want to see a video of kittens chasing a laser pointer?

 

Comments

[Mary in Ohio]

I personally loved Trump's riposte about how theatres should be places of safety. "Other than that, Mrs Lincoln, how did you like the play ?" to quote a tasteless junior-high level joke. Not to mention what the folks in Aurora, Colorado, might say of the NRA would stop shouting over them.