Where we're going

We'll be like this forever. There are not enough tests -- and there are questions about the tests' accuracy, with patients believed to be recovered in multiple countries testing negative and then positive again. There are not enough testing sites. The Times reports that there are also not enough personnel to process the tests. Not enough chemicals. Not enough lab space, not enough scientists. It's like the resources for seriously ill patients; doctors, nurses, PAs, masks, hospital beds, ventilators, the meds you need ... so many elements, a shortage of any one of them affecting everything else in the supply chain, almost like a shortage of all of them, and then when supplies of that resource are adequate again, a shortage of something else.

A shortage of good governance and administration at the federal level. Congressional action that's also inadequate, one party too stuck trying to preserve what was the status quo, with old ways of thinking focused too much on business, not enough on people; the other party trying to profit from pandemic (and succeeding). A figurehead ... enough about him, except to say that he's going to 'reopen the economy' in the next two weeks. People will return to work, to bars and restaurants, to subways, to movie theaters, months and months too soon, with no vaccine available until 2021, likely at best. Hell, some cities and states are still refusing to 'close the economy' now, for the first time. He'll 'reopen the economy,' and then the numbers ...

Ok, listen: The numbers have not fallen. This whole thing has been story after story about how this country or that city had its number of daily deaths fall for the second straight day, like that's an adequate sample size. So desperate to prematurely declare the whole thing over, the way President Dummy keeps thinking he can fix the economy, like that too won't drag into 2021. But if you put all your stock into 'flattening the curve,' the way we're apparently supposed to, like it's not just the next step but the beginning of the end or whatever, like it's not wayyyy more important to death totals from overcrowded hospitals than it is to the end of the spread of the thing ... like we can just ignore how many never get tested, never mind how many deaths aren't counted yet for the same reason ... he'll reopen the economy, and then the numbers will look materially identical to the wave we've had, at least in states that follow his lead, and they'll need to shut down again. And maybe *then* we can elect Biden, who even my 14-year-old knew to call 'the lesser of two evils,' thanks to my brainwashing him, but who'll do better at listening to healthcare experts, at least. And most governors will ignore the lamest of ducks in history, and we can all hunker down to wait for a vaccine, which probably sounds reassuring if you ignore that even the flu vaccine, which we've had in one form or another for 75 years, has something like a 30% to 60% effectiveness rate from year to year. We won't really be like this *literally* forever. We'll be forced out into the dangerous world like babies who could die within weeks. But we should.

Doomsaying. This reads like doomsaying, right? Even I see it. Predicting the worst, the worst possible outcome short of 100 million-plus deaths worldwide, over the course of the thing. Better cheerleading. Better caution. Better we stay positive. Better we keep our heads in the sand and ignore the thing entirely, some people think. Better at least cautiously optimistic. Better you go somewhere else for that. Seemingly literally anywhere else; they sell it everywhere. Better, I think, we see it for what it is and for what it's most likely to be, accept it, find a way to live with it. Not good, maybe, but better.

What I'm thinking

I am just a formerly intelligent man who follows the news -- straight news aggregated from the Washington Post and some other more mainstream organizations, and hybrids of news and analysis and even opinion from a spectrum of lesser-known sources. Not everything I've read has been verifiable, though I try to vet before passing anything along. I don't waste time with broadcast news. I do read accounts of Trump's pressers, because it's important to know what he plans to do (today), but I believe myself adept at knowing when he's been scared straight and when he's blustering and when he's just lying. I bring my own biases to this process. I have no science background or really any science proclivities; I can only dig in so far before I'll get lost. My main strength, as I see it, is a genuine interest in gathering accurate-as-possible high-level data and anecdotal accounts and interpreting them and aggregating them into a coherent picture in hopes of having a decent idea of what's ahead of us. I want to see what's gone on elsewhere, how those places have approached it and how those approaches worsened or mitigated the damage; to compare that information against the situation here -- both how prepared we were before this year and how prepared we are now, which in turn is greatly determined by the approach in this country -- and feel comfortable about my estimation of what will happen. I haven't predicted, to myself, exactly how long quarantining will last, or in what month the peak truly will come, or a specific number of cases or deaths. I'm not remotely qualified. And I am regularly surprised by events; I did not foresee the arrival of additional PPE last week, which will make at least some difference in some places. But I can tell you that the broad outlines I've seen coming have so far proven true. I am not special for having seen back in January that we would be dealing with this. Many others got the same sense of scale from looking at Italy that I did. Plenty of people I regularly read have seen the same things I have in the administration's mishandling of it, or expected the same arrogant, defiant stupidity and disobedience from too many of the country's local leaders and people, and predicted the same trends I did in my head. But perhaps you don't know any of these others. Or perhaps you're just tuning in now. My point is, most of what I see is not represented in the media that I think most people see. Much of what *has* been in the media, of course, has been way wrong. You have no real reason to think I know what I'm talking about. But in case someone wants to hear an informed guess at what's to come, if only to treat it as a worst-case possibility in their planning, here is mine. I believe that there will be waves of infection across the country, prolonging the crisis. I believe there are waves still to come in Italy, where people from Lombardy fled elsewhere in the country ahead of the lockdown. I believe that there will be at least one more wave in China; it might already have started. I believe the infection numbers will crest in different places around this country and then shift back to some places the virus has already visited. Whether due to faulty tests or possibly recovered patients contracting it a second time, I think it will be 2021, when a vaccine is approved and made available, before infections decline to anything like acceptable. I think the only x-factor — that we know about today — that might change this is the plasma replacement being discussed now, involving plasma from recovered patients. I wonder who would pay for this, were it in fact successful. How many could afford it? What will infection rates look like in the remainder of the population? I believe that the administration, and parts of Congress, and Business will be unable to abide that timeline, and will essentially force people back to work well before it's advisable. I believe this will contribute to the incidence of cases remaining high. I believe the numbers of cases and deaths will still be high enough to cause those governors who've been smart enough to help their states, so far, to keep their states as shut down as possible at least through September. I believe there will be no baseball season, that the NFL will not begin its season in front of fans. I believe the smart states will not reopen schools in September. I believe that there will be supply problems at hospitals, and I believe healthcare professionals will contract the disease at the highest rates. This will have a snowball effect; not enough masks/etc. means not enough doctors and nurses, which soon will mean not nearly enough doctors and nurses, which will mean many, many more deaths. Even the number of ventilators will be almost immaterial by that point. I believe the actual number of cases will be unknowable, due to inadequate testing. But I believe between 50% and 70% of us will contract it, and that there will be municipalities where testing is widely enough employed to extrapolate that number, that health analysts will publicly say at some point that the rate is likely that high nationally. I believe the actual number of deaths will be unknowable, for a number of reasons, including that we won't have the resources or motivation to determine the causes of all of them. But I believe the number of deaths reported will be close to ten million, and that this is an extremely conservative estimate — and that there will be more deaths than that when factoring in those who die of other causes due to not receiving proper care due to constrained resources ... in other words, the number of deaths we'll have this year compared against the number in 2019. I *believe* that the number of deaths will actually be higher, like a hysterically high number, but I can’t find the data to support that belief right now. I would love to be embarrassed someday at how wrong I’ve been. troy 4.1.2020

How I'm Doing

I am obsessed with the coronavirus.

There are charts you can look at, ones plotting the number of cases in each country, and new cases on a given day; total deaths, and deaths that day. You can see how many more cases a country has than another country, your country, how many more deaths. How many cases or deaths that day; in your country, in that other country. If the country had an outbreak before your country did, you can see how many days behind that country your country is. Your country had X new cases today, and the other country had that many new cases 12 days ago; they had 40 times more new cases today. Your country had Y deaths today, that country had that many deaths 14 days ago. Each country has its own demographics, each country’s response has varied in how competent it has been, and how effective, so extrapolating is imperfect. But you can see that you are 12 days behind this country, 6 behind that country. You can see how many new cases and deaths that country had today. You can see the future.

There are also charts for the states now. The ones with the most cases and deaths here, up top, all the way down to the last state to report a case, though of course all of the data is imperfect, especially when a state or country likely is not reporting accurately, as if it can lie the problem away. In my country, we have all gotten to see … the president, I guess; now it seems more important than ever to call things what they are, to tell the truth, at least for as long as we can stand it. Soon the numbers will make way for visceral, firsthand experience — they already are, in some places — and we won’t be able to stand the truth about either the numbers or the experience. He is the president. Of this country, somehow. We have all gotten to see him try to lie the problem away, literally day after day. Once every few weeks someone gets through the fog of dementia and narcissism, makes him just for a second see things as they really are, to the best of his limited capabilities, and he sounds sobered when he speaks, and the things he says are not so awful, but it never carries over to the next day’s so-called briefing, or even to the end of this one.

I am obsessed with the coronavirus charts.

The charts for the states also show how many deaths have been reported today. You can see that the deaths in this one state are still plugging along, getting a real head of steam there, increasing by a higher percentage each day, though of course the whole thing is just barely getting started in this country. We did not have enough hospital beds. We did not have enough ventilators. We did not have enough masks, though we were warned. The president was warned, the president even inherited multiple resources and structures that could have helped, but he ignored or dismantled them all, they’re all gone now, it’s too late, he ignored or dismantled them because he is insecure and petty, and those are not even anything like his two worst qualities. I would not say this was all so avoidable. It seems more important than ever to tell the truth. I would say so much of this was so avoidable, so much of what’s to come.

The chart I refer to almost exclusively … sorry; it seems more important than ever to call things what they are. The chart I have had open on my screen for weeks now, just refreshing it repeatedly daily, closing it only when the page won’t cache right, immediately opening the page in a new window … the chart I always have open, so that I can see it immediately after any rare time I have an interaction with someone that makes me forget for 10 seconds what’s yet to come … the chart lists the new deaths in a column that starts to turn red as the first new death each day is reported in each state, each country. Early in the day, right now, only a few cells of the chart are red; deaths in the worst-hit states so far getting reported early in the morning. By day’s end, the top of the column is all red, but the chart gets more fascinating as you scroll down. This state didn’t have any deaths today; only three deaths since the whole thing started, it’s still early there, they have no idea. That state had a death today, its first. The column somehow is more like a map, you can see the outbreak developing; I’ve seen a graphic that was a time-lapse map of the world, showing the first dots back in January, in China, then dots getting a foothold in neighboring countries while China’s dots turn into a blob that gets bigger as the time lapse continues; now China’s blob is huge and there are blobs in Europe and dots in this country and you don’t have to keep watching, though you do, but you don’t need to, you get it.

This column of new deaths, red except for the states with no new deaths today, yet, gives off a sense of motion just like that time-lapse graphic. But without the time lapse, the virus actually becomes even more daunting, scarier, the numbers refusing to change while you’re staring at them, in real time, the virus seeming even more terrifying for it, like a slasher movie where the killer never speaks, only keeps coming, slowly. Implacable. Impersonal; nothing personal, just doing what viruses at this level do: killing people today, infecting people today that it will kill in a few weeks, today’s new cases tomorrow’s new deaths. It does not seem animate, it does not seem like it can talk; it just keeps coming. Not literally unstoppable, but close enough. Inexorable, at this point, anyway; let’s call it what it is. We don’t have enough hospital beds or masks or ventilators, and as the doctors and nurses contract it — already they are beginning to die — and staffs are halved, care will get worse. Is getting worse, already. It seems more important than ever to tell the truth. To make this anything like a fair fight, we would need enough beds, enough ventilators, enough masks, enough medical staff. Insufficient numbers of any one of these would create a domino effect; having enough of the rest would matter less and less as time lapsed. We already have insufficient numbers of all of these. The president, in his fourth year in office, blames it on previous presidents. The same people dumb enough to still not take the whole thing seriously, to purposely, defiantly gather in large groups, often against laws passed by their governors under the powers granted to them by the states of emergency they have declared, maybe these people are the ones dumb enough to believe him. Beats admitting they were wrong, evidently. For now. There were enough of these people to elect him in the first place. We will be punished with death for living in a country that lets people this stupid vote.

The column of new deaths is partly or mostly red, depending on what time of day you’re looking, on the chart of cases and deaths by country, too. But once they introduced the chart for the states, once there were enough deaths and cases that it made sense to do so, the countries chart lost some of its force, at least down there toward the bottom, where the virus has only just started to take hold, or at least to be reported. The countries chart started seeming more abstract. Terrifying, still, but in a less immediate way than the states chart.

There is no one I can talk to about any of this. One of the two main people in my life who I would be most likely to talk to has anxiety issues, and copes with them through hardcore avoidance. This person avoided the news even before any of this happened. This person also has an underlying condition, so I must keep almost all of the news — which I am following obsessively, it will not surprise you to learn — to myself; I can’t negatively impact this person's immune system. The other person I most want to talk to is 14, so I must likewise be thoughtful about what I share with him, all the experts say so. I’d much rather see him near tears over the realization that he cannot have friends over to the house on his birthday than to see him a basket case. I'm sure I'm already freaking him out plenty on my best behavior. I talk to my boss sometimes — he’s taken to checking in with us every few days, now that we’re working from home — but mostly I post. At first, I posted dire statistics, because it seemed clear no one else was taking this near seriously enough. I continued posting scary numbers once my circle began to grasp what was happening; I told myself I did it because so many around the country were still acting so irresponsibly, and because so many businesses and schools still were refusing to close. I told myself I was doing it to scare them straight. This has evolved mostly into political posts; this new detail about how unprepared the president was, still clearly is, how ill-equipped to handle this; that new story about how the Republicans, even now, are using the pandemic as another opportunity to loot the country. I tell myself I still post to spur people into action, that they’ll ultimately get mad enough and demand of somebody, somehow, that we get someone the hell in here who can tackle this competently, even though so few people respond or otherwise acknowledge even seeing the post. I even wrote my representative and senators, asking them to find some way to get that guy the hell out of there — I imagine to be able to say I did it if anyone calls me out on throwing doom and horror at them several times a day. Why are you doing it?, I imagine them asking. Of course, I am actually doing it to cope; I only realized that today, but really, that’s mostly it. It seems more important than ever to tell the truth.

Some number of people will get the virus. Some smaller number will require hospitalization. Some smaller number than that will die. But it will be a smaller number, not a small number. Some of the stupid people allowed to vote are also allowed to go on TV, and try to trivialize the whole thing — more people die of this every year, more people die of that — as if today’s number is what will end up in the textbooks, as if we can wait to act until the numbers here are terrifying. They are not obsessed with the charts. They have not seen the future. They have not read the accounts of doctors and nurses trying to convey the horror around them as they write — first in another country, by now in this one. Even some of the experts offer final numbers that just seem way, way too low to me. ‘Thousands? That’s cute,’ I post. The ripple effects are entirely unpredictable, I am convinced. It will be the biggest story of any of our lives. Today’s comparisons to world-changing events like 9/11 will seem so quaint.

It hasn’t seemed real to people, seems to be the upshot. People gather in large groups, go on cruises in the face of all logic, keep their employees at work until the state forces them to close, or just fail to work up the outrage commensurate with how it’s all being spectacularly mismanaged, because it’s not real to them. It’s something happening on another continent, and then in other states, in small numbers, at least right then. They are not obsessed with the charts, though maybe some of them look at one every now and then. Maybe they see that this state, which they have never been to, anyway, didn’t have any deaths today; only three deaths since the whole thing started, it’s still early there. That state — maybe their state — had a death today, its first. One death! More people died in automobile crashes today. They have no idea. But I am obsessed with the coronavirus charts. I have seen the future.

troy
3.27.20

Ultimate McCartney set list

This is a direct challenge to the best Beatle blogger I ever read, Meg over at the never disappointing beatles-365.blogspot.com/. We were looking at the set list for this tour so far, in advance of seeing him later this summer. Later, I started to wonder what my ideal Paul set list would look like. That's not weird; what's weird is that I then contructed it.

My guidelines: I went mostly with what I would want to hear, but I didn't put on a few of my favorite deep cuts that I thought would be unlikely (although I did put a couple on). I also gave myself a couple of peremptory challenges, which is why he wouldn't be performing Eleanor Rigby or The Long and Winding Road. They also had to be songs he was pretty close to an equal partner in, and where John really wouldn't be missed; Eight Days a Week, would (will) still be awesome, whereas you couldn't really put Hey Bulldog on there. It's a fine line, to be sure, but it's my line, so I know where it is. I also gave myself the right to excise any solo stuff I didn't want to hear, no matter how big a staple a song might be in actuality.

Also, I looked at the current set list and drew on my memory of the last time I saw him to try to pace this show the way he actually builds his. But I also tried to make it a little interesting in new; I'm sure he'd never actually put All Together Now in the second encore.

That said:

Baby You're a Rich Man
I Saw Her Standing There
Penny Lane
You Won't See Me
Hi Hi Hi
Junior's Farm
Sing the Changes
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Got to Get You Into My Life
Eight Days a Week
What You're Doing
Day Tripper
Fixing a Hole
She Came in Through the Bathroom Window
Dance Tonight
Getting Better
Paperback Writer
We Can Work It Out
Blackbird
Kansas City/Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey
Back in the U.S.S.R.
Band on the Run
Maybe I'm Amazed
Live and Let Die
Rocky Raccoon
I'm Looking Through You
Lovely Rita
Let It Be
You Never Give Me Your Money
Hey Jude

Encore I
I've Just Seen a Face
Jet
Helter Skelter
Lady Madonna
Get Back

Encore II
Yesterday
Drive My Car
All Together Now
Golden Slumbers/Carry that Weight/The End

Um ... duh

This is great.

Going with that logic, according to our own Health and Human Services Secretary, it isn’t far-fetched to think that the President of the United States could say, we need to save health care expenses — the federal government will only pay for one baby to be born in the hospital per family, or two babies to be born per family. That could happen. We think it couldn’t?

So Bachmann now wants the federal government to pay for babies to be born? Going with that logic, she has zero logic.

If I'm reading this wrong, and what she's saying actually makes sense, please, nobody tell me.

Dummy

"... Looking at the facts: Look at the debt that has been accumulated in the last two years. It's more debt under this president (Obama) than all those other president combined."

Yes. The $3.7 trillion added to the national debt since the President took office is more than the $10.6 trillion debt he inherited from 'all those other presidents combined.' Because Sarah Palin, inspired by the Republican party's groundbreaking work in falsity over the last 20 years, has made exciting new breakthroughs in math whereby the opposite of truth is now 'fact.'

And yet I swear to God, it's not even half about the stupid shit she says. It's much more about the annoying fucking bitchy way she says it. "Hellooooo! I'm riiiiiight! How stupid Democrats must be to think different!" It doesn't seem possible she's still like this as a biological adult. Isn't that what high school is for -- to pound those obnoxious mannerisms out of you before you enter the adult world, where people are killed for less?

A sobering take on Memorial Day

President Obama:

“It is my most solemn responsibility as President, to serve as Commander-in-Chief of one of the finest fighting forces the world has ever known.”

Sarah Palin:

“This is the greatest fighting force in the world, the U.S. military. It’s not just one of the greatest fighting forces. And I sure hope our president recognizes that. We’re not just one of many. We are the best.”

Ol' troy:

"For the love of Christ, will you just shut the hell up already?"

And now, some very important news ...

Hello, beautiful ...

Start with a tour in the Army

From Salon:

Sarah Palin's trip to Israel -- which has been covered a bit more extensively by the press than her trip to India -- has been a fairly predictable exercise. She said hawkish things and told high-ranking members of the Likud party that they should "stop apologizing" and she'll dine with Benjamin Netanyahu and she has repeatedly announced that she's on Team Jewish People when it comes to the various disagreements in the region.

Dear Sarah

No thanks.

Yer pal
troy (and friends)

And why the hell are we cheapening Kilimanjaro by comparing it to Olympus?

As a teen, I enjoyed .38 Special's song 'Teacher Teacher', and for years now have had it in my head that it was a really good song. Well, all these years later, I can safely say ... that I have downloaded 'Teacher Teacher.'

My nuanced view

I believe in free speech. And I believe this is stupid.

That is all.

Our girl!

Getting people killed! No, wait, that's a poor choice of words. Kind of as poor as if someone had created this graphic ...



.. and then tweeted this:

Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: "Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!" Pls see my Facebook page.

One of those targeted districts was the Arizona 8th, where Gabrielle Giffords had twice been elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Giffords somehow managed to win without getting shot, although she didn't dismiss the possibility:

The way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district, when people do that, they have got to realize there are consequences to that.

Today, a 22-year-old Arizona man shot Giffords in the head, and killed six people, a list that included one of Giffords's aides, a federal judge, and a 9-year-old.

In Las Vegas, you could place a bet that Palin would not only fail to accept any responsibility for this, but would attack the media for even suggesting a connection, but that bet now has been taken off the board.

If there's any positive slant on this, it's that it hasn't yet happened to the president, despite all the rhetoric to that effect that has come from scumbags like Palin.

Her favorite album of 2010

"I made a mistake today" starts 'Weightless,' a 17-year-old song re-recorded more recently for 'Boduvt,' the album from Agents of Venus released earlier this year. The words are sung by Allen Towbin in a sort of ethereal way over a progressive sort of guitar arpeggio that hails from a happy-enough G major chord yet still sounds ominous. The overall effect is to suggest a very bad mistake indeed; even after several listens, even knowing where the lyrics are actually going, it is still difficult to hear Towbin sing that line without imagining the song unfolding like a musical version of Taxi Driver.

But that's not the direction in which 'Weightless' goes; that would be too easy for Phil Ristaino, my good friend and favorite lyricist of all time. Instead, the song continues thusly:

I made a mistake today
And gave my whole life away
To shoulder the burden of your trust
I don't care you think I'm wrong
I'd rather be left alone
Sifting the sand for light in dust

'Boduvt' is a big beast of a record, my favorite released this year, with a wide mix of pop and rock styles, expert playing by gifted musicians on inspired songwriting, and always the lyrics, which are never what the seem except for how they so often seem to be brilliant. Phil has begun posting them over at the site, when you can also hear most of the album. (Pro tip: A good introductory sampler would include Fall Off the Earth, Stereo, The Post Relevant Movement, and, of course, Weightless.) Phil was kind enough to write a few billion words for me about the making of the album and just what the hell he means on it.

* * *

Q: 'Weightless' is 17 years old. Was there any debate about re-recording it and putting it on the album, or was it universally popular?

Can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point?

I struggle with my feelings about organized religion. A Reform Jew, I enjoyed my Temple experiences as a kid and teen. Then I stopped being observant (even for a Reform Jew) because I didn't like the menu choices for Passover. Which just goes to reinforce the degree to which my feelings about organized religion are not about organized religion but about me. Now I'm raising a son to be a Reform Jew, thanks to a very giving Catholic wife. And I don't feel like my Temple/Hebrew School/etc. experiences scarred me in any way, short of maybe making it impossible for my heart to ever side with my head and go full agnostic with a side of atheism. I can't point to anything I was ever taught at Temple that I really disagree with.

Like many of the people I despise (or whatever), my feelings about my own organized religion differ from my feelings about other organized religions. I know my fair share of friends and family who are deeply religious (well, the fair share for someone from the Northeast; probably a Bible Belter would have different ideas), and I worry sometimes that my concern for them is symptomatic of some kind of Squeaky Wheel syndrome. I have no issue with someone who takes great strength from their faith, especially in times of need. No, I have an issue with someone who won't shut up about God/Jesus. I don't think it's polite to subject others to constant outbursts about any passion to begin with, really; if someone doesn't respond enthusiastically to my "How 'bout those Patriots!" I'm not going to keep saying it. Worse, these people turn out to be human as the next guy, usually, and there's an especially rotten element, for me, to the person who talks about living up to Jesus's ideals but consistently has trouble walking the walk. These people, of course, deserve all the slack for their failings that I would hope to get for mine, but I find it hard to be that generous with someone who acts like they are asking themselves what Jesus would do at every turn and then sharing their answers with the rest of us.

As I mentioned, this is all likely unfair, at least a little. How many deeply religious people do I know who do not talk about it constantly? (And clearly, I am thinking of organized religion here at an interpersonal level; religious extremism is a much more serious charge for which organized religion has to answer, but not the one that interests me today.)

I also think organized religion gets used as a mental crutch. In the U.S., at least, there are far too many people who are against certain rights of the disenfranchised because their priest/minster/pope/whatever said to be, or because the rest of their congregation is. How many of these people, outside of the influence of their particular organized religion (but rather applying their own interpretations of Jesus's teachings), might have been more human in this way? But they never had a chance.

When I have arguments with the voices inside my head on this subject, they tend to ask me what business it is of mine, my last point notwithstanding. If I want some Southerners to stop worrying about a bunch of gays and pregnant women they don't know, and what those gays and women want to do, probably I should stop worrying about a bunch of Southerners I don't know and what they think, although that's a particularly tough Mobius strip from which to find the exit. This issue excepted, though, the voices ask, what is it to me if some minds seemingly got warped by some reverend?

And that's when some doofus GOP Representative steps in to crystalize the issue. Thanks, doofus!

We've missed you. Have you missed me?

Backstory here: Apparently Sarah Palin's stupid reality show is about to start airing, and someone at Huffington Post was nice enough to watch it so we didn't have to. The incredibly stupid quote that follows is the incredibly stupid Palin on her seemingly stupid family's reaction to writer Joe McGinniss's moving in next door while working on a book about her: They put up a fence, prompting Palin to wane poetic. Now she's explaining that they otherwise would have had to stop doing whatever they were doing before, which, wouldn't you like to know, amiright? Anyway, Palin, big thinker that she is, is ready to lead again, with the help of her magic fence:

"I thought that was a good example, what we just did," she says. "Others can look at it and say oh this is what we need to do to secure our nation's border."

Because, you know, it's the same thing.

Dear bigots

Thank you for voicing all of your stupid opinions on the 'Ground Zero Mosque' that is not a mosque, or at Ground Zero, or a hell a lot of your business. Those of us who actually work with or are friends with Muslims have really enjoyed being embarrassed by our more 'patriotic' fellow citizens. If you'd like to give Muslims, gays, and your other frequent targets a break, I will volunteer for a return to the good old days, and some tried and true Jew baiting.

Yer pal
Troy

Not a joke

The Polish have this very nice custom, as do some Spanish cultures and no doubt others, where you can tack letters on to a name to make it a diminutive to express affection; Aneta becomes Anetka, for example, the way my wife and her family tack on an -ito or -ita. I think this is something we should adopt here in the U.S. That way, I could call you Anetka to let you know that I'm fond of you, or call you Aneta to let you know I think you're an asshole.

A little love and understanding

Let me see if I've got this straight: George Steinbrenner's dead. He was an enormous asshole, I didn't know him, and now he's dead, just like just about everybody else who was ever born. He was a dink who wasn't as important as he thought he was except in a very small sphere, and even there he wasn't as important as he thought he was except that he wouldn't shut the hell up, the way a tooth you otherwise needn't pay much attention to could suddenly become important by sheer dint of how much it was annoying you. That about cover it?

Analyses of Frost's Mending Wall from eliteskills.com users

I really like what seems to be the central question - the speaker's willingness to go deeper in asking why he does this every year. Why do fences make good neighbours? What are we walling in, and what are we walling out? The missed conversation is the point at which the speaker and his neighbour could truly become better friends, and the darkness he speaks of later could be lifted.

At the time of publishing Frost was living in England with his family, having moved there a year before (in 1913). At this point in history the world was gearing up for the first world war, and perhaps the two neighbours are Britain and Germany, who had an arms race from 1912 onwards. Frost could be questioning why there always has to be separation and competition in society, and whether it is or isn't necessary. The wall keeps breaking as the tension between the two nation heats up, and at some point someone is going to try and knock down the wall, possibly an allegory for invasion. "Good fences make good neighbours" could simply mean it is important to stay out of one another's way. Obviously that is what kicks off the war when a nation executes Ferdinand. It could quite easily be compared and contrasted with Frost's 'Neither Out Far Nor In Deep'.

We think the poem mending walls is about ponies and his desperation to have a pony.

I believe that this poem is much deeper than the surface. if you look at the time this poem was written World War one had just started and the cival war was only fourty years prior. I see this as Frost's way to look at segergation.

i think,this famous poem of frost has more deeper meaning. poem not only after the good fences make good neighbors it is also up to something.!

If Frost lived where i do with punk ass neighbor kids leaving their shit in my yard[toys, bikes, footballs etc] he would burn that poem

I personally believe that educated people read poems. Poems are art and if you cannot appreciate them then you need to shut the hell up. You guys are idiots... I love Robert Frost. If you want a life lesson read "The Road Not Taken".

I think that Robert Frost doesnt really like his neighbor at all. I think that he just uses the "spring-mending time" as a chance to mess with hie neighbor. For *-sake he wants his neighbor to think that Faires are the ones tearing down the wall. (I have no problem with Faires either. They are awesome!!) Whats up with this Liam dude anyways???

Did anyone ever think that perhaps there is no neighbor? there is just the wall. Maybe Frost was being more literal than one may believe at first. Maybe, the wall literally made a good neighbor too him. The supposed neighbor character says practically nothing throughout the whole poem except that "good fences make good neighbors" which could have easily been not the voice of the character but rather the narrator's opinion of the wall. I believe that another valid interpretation could be that Frost is speaking to the wall and not the neighbor and addressing it with confusion about it's existence and why it separates him from from the rest of the world. perhaps the wall is a metaphor for the barriers between mankind such as race or religion which nature, in the form of the swollen, frozen, earth is trying to eliminate so that mankind may be one.

kill robert frost.. kill his neighbors and destroy the wall.... jajajaja...
by zombies....
ive gonna eat your brains...

This poem talks of various barriers that man has created among themselves to separate from one another. The barriers may be race, caste, religion, colour, etc. Nature does not approve this artifictial separation. It wants man to be united not be separated. Man tries to get separated going against the wish of nature. 'The wall' symbolises these barriers while 'the something' symbolises nature.

this poem is about keeping a wall between you and your wife

Here there are no cows

Our girl gets a new neighbor -- a journalist (if you want to take her at her word):

Welcome, Joe! It’ll be a great summer – come borrow a cup of sugar if ever you need some sweetener. And you know what they say about “fences make for good neighbors”? Well, we’ll get started on that tall fence tomorrow ...

Dear Copernicus

Please, for the love of God: Stay the hell out of the poetry. At the very least, ask an assistant who knows where a bookstore is to get you Cliffs Notes.

Yer pal
troy