Scott Douglas’ Terse Bloviation

A recent CNN poll reports that a majority of Americans think that money from the federal stimulus package has been wasted. Because, you know, everyone has a firm grasp of how the money was allocated and how it’s been spent. Just once it would be swell if pollsters asked follow-up questions like, “You’ve replied that the money is being wasted. Can you list three programs receiving this money and detail the ways in which the money has been wasted?”

Twenty-five years ago Neil Postman wrote this about the Iranian hostage crisis in Amusing Ourselves to Death:

Nonetheless, everyone had an opinion about this event, for in America everyone is entitled to an opinion, and it is certainly useful to have a few when a pollster shows up. But these are opinions of a quite different order from eighteenth- or nineteenth-century opinions. It is probably more accurate to call them emotions rather than opinions, which would account for the fact that they change from week to week, as the pollsters tell us.

I’m in one of those stages with no big projects or adventures or cool trips to look forward to, so I need to remind myself to not forget quotidian items that reliably pierce the clouds. Ten off the top of my head:

1. Solo trail runs.
2. Trail runs with friends.
3. First 83 cups of coffee in the morning.
4. Dinner with Stacey.
5. Harold Mabern at full force.
6. For some reason, merino wool tops make me very happy.
7. A good chai is nice.
8. Interesting e-mail exchanges.
9. Perusing Slate.
10. At some point during the day, each of the pets does something that makes me smile.

Your list?

In 1990, my training partner went to see them–all the way from Australia–with my then-girlfriend, while I stayed home to rest for a meaningless Baltimore Road Runners Club cross country race the next morning. Idiot.

Don’t bang car doors into the place on your shin where you have a bump from an ancient stress fracture, especially if you are about to drive an hour and use the shin muscles the whole way to work the gas pedal.

Also, the easiest way to peel ginger is with the side of a spoon.

Come back, $4/gallon gas! All is forgiven! Someone has been running a leafblower for the last several hours now. Given the size of yards in my neighborhood, they could have raked the damn thing three times over by now. Thanks to tinnitus, I gots me enough going on in my ears as it is, so the moan of the leafblower is that much more irritating. If I’m lucky, the ladies a couple of houses down will soon start their daily chainsawing and drown out the yard worker.