Wake Up and Smell the Rat

"Day after day,
Alone on a hill,
The man with the foolish grin is keeping perfectly still
But nobody wants to know him,
They can see that he's just a fool,
And he never gives an answer,
But the fool on the hill,
Sees the sun going down,
And the eyes in his head,
See the world spinning 'round.
Well on the way,
Head in a cloud,
The man of a 1000 voices talking perfectly loud
But nobody ever hears him,
Or the sound he appears to make,
And he never seems to notice,
But the fool on the hill,
Sees the sun going down,
And the eyes in his head,
See the world spinning 'round.
And nobody seems to like him,
They can tell what he wants to do,
And he never shows his feelings,
But the fool on the hill,
Sees the sun going down,
And the eyes in his head,
See the world spinning 'round."


Paul McCartney, 1967



Sergio Mendes & Brasil 66:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJlNQojJ0eQ



I don't know if allergy medicine is to blame, but I wonder if my head is set to spin off today. The roller coaster weather in Denver took us from the 70's on Tuesday to pouring down snow all day yesterday. We're supposed to be somewhere in the middle going through the weekend. On the bright side, could all of this sneezing prevent a sinus infection? That would be great, since I see by the calendar that I'm probably scheduled for one.



Maybe I would feel steady on my feet if I stopped watching the news. Because I'm married to a former bankruptcy attorney and have made my career in business, I mistakenly assumed that reporting on the Big 3 Crisis would speak intelligently about the bankruptcy process. Silly moi. But, at least some of the talking heads can whistle the theme from "Dallas" in response to a story about a likely post-Presidential residence in Texas.

No comfort to read this morning that any automobile bankruptcy would be a "government-run restructuring."



Great.



I don't know exactly what that means, but it can't be good.



(This is my brain. This is my brain on Google.)



I have another theory. My upper respiratory system may be throwing in the towel from all the outrage I've called upon it to muster over the past few months. I've mustered so much outrage, I have forgotten about all the things that outraged me previously. When the Big 3 Dudes flew to their first round of hearings in private planes and no one commented on it initially, I assumed I was alone in my disgust. Took a whole news cycle for that tidbit to make headlines.

At the same time, no one connected the dots to my almost two-year-old outrage about Princess Pelosi and her plane. Until a couple of days ago. No outrage like old outrage. Ooops! Ageism. Used the word "old" and "Pelosi" in the same paragraph.

No doubt, it's been a strange week. One strange week after another strange week for so long, I don't remember a week that was not strange.

I was reminded of the famous William F. Buckley quote during this strange week: "...I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 100 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University." How about the first 535? (That would be 435 for the House and 100 for the Senate.) I say, go for it. Pick a phone book. Any phone book.

Every time I've heard someone mention "Prince Harry" this week, I've had to replace my first mental visual of that handsome red-headed son of Diana with the surly, prune face otherwise known as the Senate Majority Leader. When a weak-kneed liberal suggested that his comment about the "smelly tourists" at the Capitol was just a "joke," I replied aloud to an empty room that he would need a sense of humor for that. I guess a sense of decorum is already out of the question.

I may now take up song dedications for my target fools on When Pigs Fly. Harry Reid earns the first one, courtesy of our friends at "Friends:"

"Smelly Cat"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETQfuzNGT58

Maybe I'm the one who doesn't have a sense of humor. I used to have one that never failed me. Humor aside, I am dispirited to acknowledge agreement in principle with Reid on one thing.

Something definitely smells in Washington, D.C.