Analyze This?

Some things make no sense to me. Like a statement/opinion I just read: "Literary analysis kills literature."
I think I know, in spirit, what the writer intended but I have to ask myself: What about political analysis, the analysis of art and music, theater criticism, not to mention self-analysis.

I think too much. Lately I've been thinking and listening a lot. (This is my rationale for not tweeting and blogging as much as usual lately.) Sometimes you need to take a step back--especially if you are nearing a cliff. (I didn't say in which direction, did I?!)

Here's what I'm thinking: A lot of stuff gets said, covered, reported, digested, analyzed, and considered. Even more is left unheard and unknown by most of us. (It's mostly really really sad or extremely boring so not to worry.) And still we feel the need to handle it again atop all those other fingerprints. We choose to add our postmark to the package we, as a society, are carrying. We are each other's Mad Libs.

Amid all the clamor yesterday concerning Pizza Cain's extra cheese, Gov. Rick's number-fumble, and Newt's being a chameleon I noticed something very funny on the MSNBC homepage. Under the Travel section there were two headlines, one after the other. Permit the paraphrasing:
          "Cell phone use on planes not allowed; no one knows why"
          "Iphone spontaneously combusts on plane"
I'm thinking that the second headline pretty much answered the first one but then I'm a sucker for a good spontaneous combustion story. (You'll recall the whale incident...)

Surprisingly, however I did not combust over any of the political foolishness of the past week or so, though I would like to add my name to the list of people agitated at the fact that Huckabee and others feel that adultery is worse than sexual harassment/assault. Granted if the former was ever done to me it would result in the latter. (Hi, Honey!) But given recent collegiate headlines--and freaking common sense--such "philosophies" should find no purchase. Oh, and on a more obvious note--the dude wears a BLACK HAT! We should have seen this coming.

And speaking of Newt, thanks a lot, Lawrence O'D! I could've gone my entire life without knowing about The Speaker getting his microphone checked in the driveway--by another man's wife--while his own kids walked past the car. Geez! W. W. M. D? (What Would Monica Do--in case you were unclear about the nature of the "relations".) But I love you anyway, Larry, though I doubt I'll get that little head-bobber out of my mind any time soon.

Oh, Republicans...always good for a laugh. But these takeaways keep me sane:
1. Looks like the Payroll Tax Holiday will be extended, possibly with an even greater percentage savings for the Middle Class.
2. No matter how many people are repressed by over-zealous police forces, it seems that the Occupy Movement is determined to carry on. I hope so. We need a good revolution every 40 years or so, though in this case 15 would've suited me better. (I'm looking at you, Ronnie!) But I'll take it. Even when idiots ask, "Where is the leader?" Even when morons co-op peaceful protests for their own nephariousness.
3. It's the holiday season. 'Nuff said.
4. The Affordable Care Act is beginning to have major impacts on the formerly unemployed children in our nation, Dodd-Frank is getting better understood by Standard & Poors who now say that 'Too Big To Fail' is addressed in the legislation, and economic numbers are improving. All this makes me hope that the Dems are actually gonna fight this time. Well that, and the "Mitt-v-Mitt" advertisement. Tee-hee. (You know if they do a Newt ad it'll have to air in the same cable-only time slots as the OnlineBootyCall.Com ads.) "Newts Gone Wild!" Ewwww.....

But I will miss Barney Frank when he retires in about a year. He'll likely stay in the political arena, just not in the freak tent we call Congress. Not a Tea-drinker, no doubt. But you can ask Scott Walker how all those mesmerized 2010 voters now feel about the Teapot Dome. Ooops. Re-do, please!

So I have hope. Hope that as long as we have social media to further DEMOCRATIZE the conversation--more voices into the fray--knowledge will blossom into understanding which may explode into full-blown (apologies to Newt's special lady-friend) compromise. It could happen.

And that's coming from a cockeyed optimist whose state borders Arizona: Land of the Stinkeye, home of Santa's Slay. (I'm working up a whole bit on that god-awful BS. I'm thinking of leading with Toby Keith's "War on Christmas" then branching into a sure-to-piss-off rant about the evils of the NRA and its flimsy understanding of the Second Amendment. There's a war for ya!)

But let's end on a happy note...like G#!