This column marks the end of compiled topics, both those on scraps of paper and whatever is on my cell phone, so don’t look for much in the way of content. Nonetheless, I am committed to this purge, so let me trot this stuff out and be over with it.
Some “Dad Jokes”; videos featuring three camouflaged hunters in a duck blind so the jokes are told in whispered tones. “I only know 25 letters of the alphabet. I don’t know why.” “You’ve heard of Murphy’s Law; have you ever heard of Cole’s Law? It’s thinly sliced cabbage with dressing.” “A man assaulted me with milk; how dare he!” “I was helping my granddaughter get dressed for school and she asked me if I would put on her shoes and I told her ‘No, honey, they won’t fit me.’”
Odd words and phrases: Are you heveled today? And gruntled? Are you traught? If not, you are disheveled and disgruntled and distraught and that is not acceptable; get it together. Ever been given one distance followed by a shorter distance described with “as the crow flies”? A sorely inaccurate description of crow flight habits, which tend to be erratic; “as a hawk flies” seems far more appropriate. Confession, they say, is good for the soul. So, fess up; how many of you admit to being librocubicularists?*
Philosophy 101 (current applicability): First-year philosophy students know the Trolley Problem offered by English philosopher Phillipa Foot. Without going into too much depth: You are the conductor on a runaway trolley with no means of stopping it and on the track ahead five men eating lunch are unaware and will surely be killed. A short distance prior to the five men there is a spur track, which can be accessed by pulling a switch lever; but a short distance down these tracks there is an unaware workman who will surely be killed. Pull the lever and one man will die or do nothing and five will die seems at first thought an easy choice: pull the lever. But this raises the question “Is it right to kill one to save five?” To take no active role or cause a death? This is known as a consequential choice and is applied in questions of morality; i.e. “Why is it permissible to steer a trolley aimed at five people toward one person but impermissible to kill one healthy man to use his organs to save five people who would otherwise die?” The above problem has been asked and answered many times in Washington, D.C., in the past year and many of the choices made surely will have consequences for the masses with benefits for the loyal few.
I don’t know what made me think about one of those favorite places of my youth, and beyond, but as I visualized the once familiar landmarks of the grounds, it occurred to me for the first time just how much of a topographical anomaly the place really is. I refer to the Sand Dunes of Greenfield Oak Park. For decades the Sand Dunes has been a separate place from the park proper, a place where adults rarely ventured because there was nothing there but sand and brush with a few Oak trees on the southern border with narrow trails winding through it all. There was one water spigot but it was never, at least in my recollections, ever abused. We drank out of it even though the water at the park was always nasty tasting, it was wet and that sufficed, and sometimes used it to fill water balloons but never just turn it on and let it run a stream. What now strikes me is that the Sand Dunes is a raised land formation primarily of sand amid a flat plain. I can’t cite exactly how high above the park grounds or surrounding crop land the Sand Dunes sit, not more than 10 feet I would guess, but access for 360 degrees is a short incline. A look at the terrain shows Greenfield Cemetery on the bench above the park and farmland; Espinosa Road follows the bench to the south, First Street to the north a short ways. And in all the expanse eastward to the Salinas River is crop land, some veggies, some sod, on land flattened by generations of farming. But not the Sand Dunes, an ancient unchanging island rising above recreation and agriculture without purpose beyond just being there.
***
When I scan social media, I see many politically biased conservative reposts by puppets of the regime who add maybe a short sentence in support but rarely offer personal words based on personal beliefs. I saw a post this morning that was in support of the ICE officer who murdered a woman in Minneapolis; an echo of justification the White House liars are spewing forth. The sad irony is the rhetoric is in direct opposition to the Republican position of five years ago. Renee Good’s death has been justified by stating she committed an act of domestic terrorism with a vehicle on a street where no other actions were taking place and no other injuries were incurred. But as part of a crowd of hundreds who with the encouragement of their vaunted leader had smashed their way into the U.S. Capitol and had assaulted dozens of law enforcement officers, Ashleigh Babbit was deemed a martyred patriot, killed by a crooked administration. Hypocrisy in its purest form. Not all Republicans are MAGAs, just as not all Germans were Nazis, so now would be a good time for true supporters of the conservative platform to take back control of their party. But to do so will mean strong resistance from within; as the Stoics noted: “It is easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled.”
Oh, yeah, this *: A librocubricularist is a person who reads in bed.
Take care. Peace.
