Random Notes from a Crank

This Thanksgiving was the first one for me without both my mom and dad. Back when they still lived in their house, they'd always have the same argument. My mom would want my father to cut the turkey right away, and my dad, being a man who knows many things about meat, would always blow her off and say, "The meat has to rest." My mom would stomp off angrily, and after a short while Virg would mosey into the kitchen to cut the bird. 

I've tried and tried, but I just can't seem to like green bean casserole. I like green beans, but the casserole is just so damn bland. There has to be a way to make this concoction better. 

Over the past couple of weeks, I've bought some turkeys cheap from our local grocery store. If one uses the market's "max card," the turkey is $ .39 a pound. I got a couple of turkeys for later use. 

Instead of eating them at the holidays, people need to eat turkey all year round. You read that turkey industry, I"m trying to promote your birds for the whole year? Why don't you throw some sponsorship money my way? Write the check to "cash." 

I read an article in Utne about philosophical therapy, but it originally appeared in the UC Observer. In "Move Over, Freud," the author talks about a trend in therapy in which folks with a strong background in philosophy help others work through important questions and quandaries in life. 

The practice makes a lot of sense to me because I have gotten much more out of reading philosophical works than studying psychology, especially Fred, who has now become an intellectual anachronism in psychology, a guy often used by scholars in the humanities to support lame-ass analyses of this or that. 

Here are some stats from the the November and December versions of "Harper's Index":

• Estimated number of voters purged from Georgia's voter rolls from 2008 to 2012: 750,000
• From 2012 to 2016:  1,500,000
• Percentage change from 2000 to 2017 in US consumer spending on music: +25
• Percentage of music-industry revenue that is received by musicians: 12
• Percentage of US teenagers who "often" find their parents distracted by their phones during conversations: 14
• Who "sometimes" do: 37
• Number of counties in which no local newspaper is available: 176
• In which only one is available: 1,449
• Estimated number of US newspaper jobs lost since the year 2000: 241,000
• Amount of FEMA funding that has been transferred to ICE this year: $9,800,000
• Minimum number of US cities that have announced plans to establish supervised drug consumption sites: 5
• Estimated minimum number of cities that have such sites worldwide: 100
• Number of people who have ever died of an overdose at one of those sites: 0
• Percentage of interviews with professional baseball players that feature a variation of the phrase "one game at a time": 7
• That feature a variation of "a heck of a game": 50

From the stats above, the one that disturbs me most is the purging of the voter rolls in Georgia, which stole the election for Kemp along with minor mismatches between signatures such as Quin Nasty and Quintilian Nasty. 

The lack of local newspapers is also a problem because the fifth estate even in those small towns keep on eye on what's going on locally whether it's the local city council or local sports. 

Bunny Colvin's idea of "Hamsterdam" in whatever season of The Wire that was was right. Supervised sites makes sense. 

I know Andrew Luck is having an outstanding, comeback season this year so far, but I'll offer him a bit of advice for the hirsute among us. He needs to shore up his beard game. I get that he wants to grow a beard. I've grown one since my dad's funeral. However, Luck needs to shave his neck to make his beard look more presentable, more kept. Step up your beard game, Luck.