we'll make great pets

People get along so well with their pets because they are the most unequal of their relationships. Though sometimes it may be the pet that has the upper hand in the duo.

digital death match

Watson v. Google: Let the games begin.

at winter's end

Pot holes can be thought of as negative space speed bumps.

unshared carnage

The all-volunteer armed forces makes war less visible to large portions of the population. The draft, taking young men without their consent, makes all of the nation keenly aware of a war’s wasteful carnage. As it now stands, the volunteers come from two classes: Those conscripted by poverty or lack of prospects. Those with romantic notions of patriotism or adventure. The rest of our youth (and their parents) remain unscathed by the foreign wars.

relative scale

The spectacles got grander and the people grew smaller.

it takes two

When the dialectic has danced itself out.

too much too little

When to elaborate would be to obfuscate and to summarize would be to lie.

corner story

In the labyrinth, keep telling yourself that the end of Ariadne’s thread is around the next corner, because many times the lost have been brought out to the light by such false hope.

wordless world

The TV on, no sound, yet I could understand everything.

what wealth is for

The sacred duty of the rich is preservation of cultural capital (art, architecture, libraries, etc.).

relatively succesful

I was top among the underachievers.

tongue oil

Talk is the lubricant of the mind. Thought, reading, and writing have their benefits, but there is nothing like articulation on the fly to clarify.

find a pulse

Pleasure is the pulse of life.

invasive species

Number one inimical invasive species: humankind.

flimsy

It proved to be a brittle kind of celebrity.

there's no there there

The only thing we can be sure of about the future is that we’ll have a lot to talk about when we get there.

neither here nor there

locus-pocus

word problem

The news account stated: ‘X was found sleeping in a restroom’. That kind of makes sense.

whose money

When I hear someone say ‘I want keep more of my money’ or ‘The government wants to take all my money’, I want to ask that person to take a bill from his wallet or her purse and to read it: That bill has ‘The United States of America’ printed on it, and the only reason it’s worth more than the paper it’s printed on is because a strong government supports the rule of law, infrastructure, security, education and the social programs that give value to that currency. That money is a gift of your good government.

just say no

Why does society confuse the lack of prohibition of an act or a thing with the promotion of that act/thing? Society could decriminalize narcotics and at the same time promote drug avoidance and addiction rehabilitation programs, and do so at a cost far less (in dollars and lives lost) than is spent on interdiction, prosecution and incarceration.

oversimplified

To simplify is to lie.

jealous city

A city afflicted by skyscraper envy.

liberal media bias

If a person pursues a field that requires openminded attention and thoroughgoing inquiry, like journalism, it’s natural that they’d be liberal-minded. The narrow and closed-off conservative mindset need not apply.

no hero here

Is it possible to be a hero on the side waging an unjust war?

gold bug, gold slug

Gold is an inert metal, and an inert investment, in the sense that gold merely holds value: It doesn’t have the creative and generative economic value of an equity or bond investment.

last parking place

Two things that create dead space in cities: parking garages and cemeteries.

divisible eye

To update a 60’s protest chant: “The whole world is watching different channels!”

discomfiting thought

Comfort mongers among us.

only ankle deep

The rich claim they’re being soaked when the bottoms of their pants’ legs get wet.

slack learning curve

Some workers think that experience is knowing where the restrooms are and how much time you have for lunch.

one myth too many

Show me a self-made man, and in seconds I’ll scratch through to the social clay from which he was molded.

scar shaped like a smile

To see gloating global capitalism get its comeuppance was almost worth the financial pain of 2008-2009.

nothing obscured

Birds will alight on the branch that gives them the best vantage point.

nostalgists

Either they are aghast at the present or afraid of what lies ahead.

not mass enough to ignite

Remember, Earth, that planets are but failed stars.

untested

If you trust, you don’t need to test.

utter clutter

To live through a catastrophe in which everything has been taken away from you except your life. After that, all life must seem a dream cluttered with things, people and events.

house lust

I am desirous of a very large house so that I can have houseguests, and never see them.

paradise wasted

It’s sad to think of a place called Paradise after the fall. A place of great beauty and bounty that just goes on and on, all wasted, with no one there to experience it.

weak tea

What the American middle class most lacks is a sense of appreciation.