After shoveling 8 cubic feet of steer manure and needing about 5 more, I feel like I should be on the New Hampshire ballot. I’m dubious that everything will be coming up roses after tomorrow.

It is odd that everyone seems to hate Raphael Theodore Cruz and yet he wins elections. It would be interesting if he were elected: He would lead the charge to end ObamaCare, Medicare, Social Security, federal aid to education, the Veteran’s Administration, the income tax, the EPA the federal reserve and most likely any federal program not designed to kill people. He is the Living Undo Button. (I have been reading Jane Mayer’s “Dark Money.” It should be mandatory reading for every voter. Things don’t necessarily Go Better with Koch.)

 

 

 

https://auslander.online/?p=2556

The New York Times today published a Page One story about Kenny Stabler, the great quarterback of the Oakland Raiders who died last year. It was disclosed this week that he suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a disease provoked by repeated blows to the head. Stabler died of colon cancer, but the results of an autopsy were just released.

The story quoted a doctor who described Stabler’s affliction thusly:

“He had moderately severe disease …Pretty classic. It may be surprising since he was a quarterback, but certainly the lesions were widespread, and they were quite severe, affecting many regions of the brain.”

I do not know which planet this doctor was from, but it is not possible on this Earth to have a malady that is “moderately severe.” We are not part of a galaxy that mixes moderation with severity. In this universe, the terms are mutually exclusive. One could even say they were contradictory.

Perhaps the explanation is this is simply medical parlance, and there are terms such as “benignly severe” or even “severely moderate” that have meaning for physicians. If so, God help us.

I cannot remember when the Rillito has flowed so long. It seems like a week. I would never have guessed that snow melt could have lasted so long. Moreover, it runs clear. This year seems to destined to be very different, confusingly so. My roses, before I pruned them, seemed particularly disoriented. One or two delivered blooms. A blooming rose in January. That El Niño is special.

What hath China wrought?

Copper prices have fallen 25 percent.

Oil companies have laid off a quarter million workers as prices imitate the skydiver whose parachute doesn’t open. Oil is $30 a barrel.

China created this mess. It created the demand. Now it’s going bust with the cosmic belch felt around the world.

Chairman Mao would not, we suspect, approve. It was in the time of Mao, after all, when the phrase “CAPITALIST RUNNING DOGS” was coined by the crazy commie denizens of what used to be known as Peking.

Pitifully ironic, ain’t it. So we pause amid the oil, copper, nickel, iron ore, palladium and platinum gluts to tip our hat to George Orwell: “Four legs good. Two legs better.”

I am not alone in my disgust with the weather. It was a beautiful day yesterday (Sunday). And now this. We are in the Wet. Surely snow is inevitable. This is ABnormal. It is currently 48 degrees. the rain is unrelenting. This is not my desert.

El Niño schmeaño.

Dear Mr. Krutch: What makes you fume?

An easy answer, my lad, Desert Broom.

Why is that, sir?

There’s no proper place here for broom.

It is a rotten unrepentant renegade.

It has cotton mouth and spits it into the desert like a spittoon.

The broom sucks water and takes all the room.

It sweeps up its quietly vegetating neighbors makes them weep for water.

It is oppressive, anarchical and an annoying mutant.

If it were a person, it would be Vladimir Putant.

Is it not odd how the people of this country have been content to observe the panorama of murder? Perhaps we all are Madame Defarges, just knitting and cackling with delight with the death of every American who succumbs to a crazy man’s bullet. Perhaps it is just our unspoken entertainment, secretly enjoying the cascade of blood. Whatever the reason, mass murder is uniquely American and apparently destined to be part of our national character.

California’s Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom seeks a state initiative to require anyone buying ammunition be required to undergo background checks. The fact that the National Rifle Association will spend millions to defeat it leaves one cynical at the prospect of passage. Besides, ammunition buyers will avoid the issue by buying in other states.

But the focus on bullets is correct. What if the federal government imposed a tax $20 per 9-millimeter bullet and larger handgun cartridges? Police and competitive shooters could be exempted and the police, obviously. For the rich who would pay at least there would be a fund to finance aid for the victims of crazy people with guns. Thus a doc of 50 9-millimeter shells, which sells for around $14, would cost $1,014. This proposal is based on the tobacco model. A pack of smokes that used to cost 22 cents today costs about $7.50, most of it in taxes used to finance anti-smoking programs.

In one of his standup routines, Chris Rock argued to increase the price of bullets to $5,000 each. That fine too, as long as the profits do not reach the retailer or manufacturer.

The best plan is for the federal government to acquire all manufacturers of bullets in the country and to make it illegal to import foreign-made bullets. There would be a great smuggling and black market operation, but this would give the ATF people more to do.

Focus on bullets at least makes the Second Amendment argument irrelevant. But the NRA is of such a nature as to argue that all of us have a right to stand by and watch fellow citizens kill each other en mass. There may be no such right writ anywhere, but it is what we do.

And it is despicable.