Opinion

Over the weekend I was able to take advantage of the nicer weather (and the less muddy ground) to explore outdoors and be introduced to some spaces locally that I haven’t been to.

If a person lives in a democracy, which thus far we do, you soon learn that politics is not an orderly business like cosmetic dentistry or carpentry, it is more like pond hockey or maybe a conclave of sociopaths or an ostrich jubilee, and the messiness can drive you crazy, like finding potatoes in your sock drawer and rutabagas in the medicine cabinet, and the alternative to despair is amusement.So when the Alabama Supreme Court decides that an embryo is a human being and you see Republicans scrambling to distance themselves from this lest they alienate young people of voting age who were conceived in vitro, you wonder if someday sperm will be given the same protection and male masturbation will be considered child abuseThere is no normal anymore.

I’m an old man but not utterly clueless and as I hear music come out of the ceiling, I hear rap and hip-hop become monosyllabic, a string of shouts and macho mumbles with machinelike percussion, a sort of anti-music, and then along comes a young woman who sings actual stories in whole sentences to a real melody and you have Taylor Swift and she takes over the music business and becomes the most famous person on earth, bigger than Vladimir Putin.

With the warmer weather, I’ve been enjoying the opportunity to explore more of the town on walks with the dog.

Some may recall my prior stories of my first-born child, who serves as an active duty member of the Army in upstate New York.