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I hate cop shows.  I wonder what perversion it is, which is inherently common to a vast majority of human beings currently alive, which makes us want to watch hideous violence and tragedy.

This guy just confessed

But, there’s always one that comes along, which pleases me for a while, and I can say “Yeah, it’s a cop show, but…”  For a while, I was into a couple of Australian cop shows, but they turned out to be just the same.  I was into Midsomer Murders for a while, thinking “British cops are so much smoother than American cops.  There’s not as much bluster and blood.”  But, in the end, Midsomer is a darned bloody place, and the murders are as bizarre and convoluted as anything on American T.V.

Now, I’m watching “I Almost Got Away With It” which is interesting because it’s true stories, although the narrator always talks in a breathy voice, the music is dramatic, and they interview the criminals.

But, the show has one fatal flaw.  (or maybe that’s the one thing that makes it great)  Due to it’s realism, it becomes very clear that the police never actually catch anybody unless they turn themselves in or somebody else turns them in or somebody screws up spectacularly.

In reality, crimimals are not all that smart.  But, neither are cops.

There may be more to Kevin McCarthy’s total failure to become Speaker of the House for some strange reason.  Innocent me, I figured maybe he was so humiliated by Rachel Maddow, who laughed at him for saying he’d been to Hungria that he lost all political will, or it could be the Republicans were made at him because he blabbed what the Ben Ghazi hearings are all about so he knew he wasn’t going to win, anyway.

Innocent me.  The rumor now is that he’s been shtooping Congresswoman Renee Ellmers, from North Carolina, who, of course, is a big family values Republican.  As sex scandals go, it’s rather mild.  They are both adults.  Of course, they are also both married and have children – he has two, she has one -but, you know, when you work together in close proximity under high pressure like that and you’re a long way from home, shit happens.

I hope it’s true.  Because it’s funny.

By far the most significant event of my day today was my new class.

Anything new is fun, almost automatically.  At least, anything new is interesting.  A break from routine.  It wasn’t entirely a new experience.  I’ve taught kids before.  And I’ve taught at that school before.  (I was a bit surprised they called me, because my last experience teaching there was less than positive)  But, it was a new group of kids, so it was new.

I was told there would be between 20 and 30 students.  There were 11, which was maybe a good thing.  With little kids (6 and 7 years old) any one of them can demand all your time at any one moment, and the rest of the class descends into anarchy within seconds.

They were a good bunch, though.  Lively, intelligent, cheerful, relatively open  to suggestions.  Only one knew how to read, but about half of them could spell their own names.  One spoke quite good English, because her Dad’s American, but she wasn’t arrogant or show-offy about it.  They all knew ‘head and shoulders, knees and toes.’  That seems to be the very first thing Czech kids learn in English.  Over half of them could count to ten, and 3 or 4 of them could almost make it to 20.

It was called an “English Club,” and I had them for 3 and a half hours so, as you can well imagine, after an hour or so it was basically just baby sitting, but that’s O.K.  It was baby sitting in English.

I haven’t heard any updates on the 11 year old boy who killed the little girl next door (8) because she wouldn’t let him pet her puppy. I suppose the Oregon shooting, with its admittedly higher body count, is getting all the attention. Fair enough. But you have to wonder, not only how did an 11 year old get hold of a loaded rifle, but what made him think it would be a good idea to point it at somebody.

American Men

I’ve got a guess on that one. Maybe he liked her. Boys are weird like that. Boys who grow up without access to guns limit themselves to occasionally pushing a girl into a swimming pool or hitting her with a snowball. But this kid grew up in a home with guns. I don’t know his home life, so I’m just speculating, but I wonder if maybe he didn’t see his father sometimes point the gun at his mother. “No big deal,” his Dad might have said. “Just letting her know who’s boss.”
People like that do, unfortunately, exist. And reproduce.

Another thought on guns.  Of course, as after every mass shooting, the gun nuts are flooding the internet with memes about how we’re coming to take all  their guns and infringing on their God given right to be assholes, and I saw one today about “More people are killed by cars than guns, so why don’t we ban cars,” which is really a stupid argument when you think of how regulated cars are.  You have to be over 16 to drive one, you have to take a test to show you know how to drive one, you have to have insurance, etc….

But that’s not my point.  I actually agree that there is a similarity between guns and cars.  Although most owners of both use them responsibly, they are both used by many as masculinity enhancers.  That, in a crowded world, is dangerous.

Lindsey Graham, along with all of South  Carolina’s other representatives in Congress, is calling for federal aid to South Carolina because of the storms and floods they are having at the moment.

…and he thinks he should be president

Three years ago, Graham voted against the same exact kind of aid going to New Jersey in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.  Even for a Republican, it is a staggering bit of hypocrisy.

Now, do not get me wrong.  South Carolina’s been hit with some horrifically bad weather, there’s been serious damage, and they should receive emergency aid, as much as it takes, and as quick as it can get there.

Also, it’ s perfectly normal for Lindsey Graham to ask for it.  He is the Senator from that state.  It would be weird  if he didn’t.

No, the problem is not the way he is acting now. The problem is the way he acted then.  He hasn’t made the situation any better with his incredibly lame defense.  “I don’t remember voting against aid for New Jersey after Sandy.”  It was only 3 years ago, Lindsey.  It was a pretty big deal.  Made all the newspapers.  You voted against it.  That’s public record, and you can no more run away from that than Hillary Clinton can deny she voted for the Iraq war.

Emergency aid after a natural disaster is kind of an automatic vote, and should be.  It may be a wee bit of socialism, but that is what government is supposed to exist for – to help the people when they are down.

Republicans complain about big government, but that’s a false argument.  It’s not about bigger government or smaller government.  It’s about having a government that’s just the right size.  Big enough that it can rush disaster aid to a flood zone, not so big that it threatens the people.

Scientists call the zone around a star where liquid water could exist on the surface of planets the “Goldilocks Zone.”  Not too hot, not too cold, but just right.

That’s the way I feel about government.