I am in desperate need of some fun right now.  I think we all are.  So I set aside this article, based on the headline, because I thought it was funny – “Scientists Discover Plants “Scream” – We Just Couldn’t Hear Them Until Now.”  I cannot help but ask – if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear, does it make a sound?  The latter question is about the intersection of science, philosophy and what actually matters.  So I guess the story about plants “screaming” is silly or not silly depending on your perspective.  Do sounds that the human ear cannot hear actually

A couple of days before the WHCD Jimmy Kimmel “joked” that Melania looked like an “expectant widow.”  In light of events that subsequently unfolded there is not one single ounce of funny in that.  I get it, it’s a joke, but then again, it wasn’t.  The shooter’s “manifesto” makes plain this character has imbibed regularly and deeply of what has become far too common rhetoric.  Sure that rhetoric is hyperbolic, but turns out it is not.  But that said, bad jokes and hyperbolic rhetoric is not the heart of the matter.. . .

Little is known about last night’s volley of fire at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner other than the shooter is in custody and there is little in his background to indicate he would do such a thing.  But then he is from Southern California where Trump hatred is thicker than the smog.  This marks three attempts on Donald J. Trump’s life in a relatively short period of time – and not that long after someone shot up a freaking Congressional baseball game.  The last time I can remember a grouping of so-called “political violence” like this was the late ’60’s.  I think it

In recent weeks a picture is emerging out of Southern California that is actually quite disturbing.  I have assumed that all the anti-ICE, open borders nonsense was simply reactionary – that it was born of simply doing the opposite of what Trump wanted because “Orange Man Bad.”  I am not so sure anymore.. . .

It is extremely difficult here in East Tennessee to get people to understand just how nuts California was during covid.  I tell stories and they simply look at me in disbelief.  I keep trying to explain to people that they banned church and it took the Supreme Court to stand them down, but people here think such things somehow impossible.  The worst thing about it was, the powers that be in California thought they were righteous.  They were operating with fine intent – to save lives – but they failed to understand that killing freedom in that fashion would cost far more lives than covid could dream about taking in

Everybody with any common sense whatsoever knows that there is nothing real about “reality television.”  It may be unscripted, but that does not make it real in any reasonable meaning of that word.  It is produced, staged, edited and packaged.  It is made far more interesting, far prettier, and far more engaging than reality will ever be.  Even a reality show featuring raw footage, like “Cops,” culls hundreds of hours of recording to get a 30 minute program and the encounters are heavily edited.  But I wonder if people can tell the difference anymore?. . .

News broke yesterday that may be the sickest, creepiest thing I have ever heard. Seriously.. . .

Roll Call yesterday carried a story about a case SCOTUS is about to hear.  The essence – “AT&T and Verizon have contested determinations by the FCC that they violated consumer privacy rules and owed $57 million and $47 million, respectively. They argued that the FCC process, which Congress created in 1960, violated the constitutional right to a jury trial.”  You bet your bottom dollar it did!. . .