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An annual repost. Know, all who see these lines, That this man, by his appetite for honor, By his steadfastness, By his love for his country, By his courage, Was one of the miracles of the God. — Guy Gavriel Kay “The Green Field of France”, by Eric Bogle Well, how do you do, young Willie McBride, Do you mind if I sit down here by your graveside? And rest for awhile ‘neath the warm summer sun, I’ve been walking all day, and I’m nearly done. I see by your gravestone you were only 19 When you joined the greatDown the rabbit hole….

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This United Airlines fiasco is quite the thing, from the bizarre legality of a business being allowed to sell more of a product than it can actually provide (most other businesses would be accused of fraud if they tried that), to the police being deployed to enforce the whims of a corporation. For me, the most depressing aspect is all the people online excusing United’s behavior, on the basis that “Them’s the rules” and “It’s in the fine print.” Blind acquiescence to corporate authority cannot be that good a thing. (And I’ll leave unmentioned the awfulness of some news mediaDown the rabbit hole….

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This really hasn’t been a very hard winter, in terms of snow. In fact, there’s only been one or two really “big” snow events, and one of those was really only notorious by virtue of when and how the snow hit: intense snowbands that stalled in place right during late afternoon and evening rush hour, back in November. That made a huge mess, and there were even kids stranded on school buses or who didn’t even make it out of school. So now the “big storm” is hitting the Northeast, and it’s not sparing Buffalo. We’re not really on theDown the rabbit hole….

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UPDATE 3/14/2019 I see this post is getting a lot of traffic all of a sudden, so if you like this sort of goofiness, check out my similar post from last year, which features a newer video in which I may or may not get pied. (Spoiler: I get pied.) Happy Pi Day, everyone! UPDATED below! Yes, it’s Pi Day, 3-14, the funnest of all the various goofy geeky holidays! (Well, May 4 — Star Wars Day — is right up there.) UPDATE!!! I posted the earlier material to hold this space until I had my own material ready toDown the rabbit hole….

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Dear Mr. President, Yes, you are my President. But I do not support you, and I do not expect good things from you. I do not expect good policy choices, nor do I expect good outcomes. My expectations for you are astoundingly, confounding low, because that’s where you put them. You did it by appealing, day in and day out, to the very worst instincts in the American psyche, right from your campaign’s opening address when you warned us all about the steady stream and rapists and murderers surging into our country from across the Rio Grande. You did itDown the rabbit hole….

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Dear Mr. President, I honestly never thought writing something on the occasion of your impending departure from office would feel so bittersweet, but my God — I didn’t expect a lot of things. On the night you won the Presidency, there was a surging feeling that America had done one of the truly spectacular things that it has done occasionally in its history. It felt, in some way, like putting a human being on the Moon, or maybe like sending wave upon wave of thousands of soldiers onto those beaches in France to finally start putting an end to WorldDown the rabbit hole….

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Well…I dunno, folks. I personally have had a relatively decent 2016, but outside my own little sphere, my God, this year has been a disaster. What year was worse? 1914? 1929? 1939? I’ve no idea. And the year ends with the likelihood that the darkness that dominated 2016 is just starting a prolonged period of settling in. So I’m finding “thankfulness” a bit more difficult to come by right now, if you must know. Nevertheless, I remain convinced that no darkness lasts forever, and that we have in our power to limit the darkness that’s coming. As a wise wizardDown the rabbit hole….

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Because. I think that she is genuinely the best choice in this election. I believe that she would and will be a good President, and that she also represents the best chance to avoid electing a truly awful one. Her chief opponent has said almost nothing that has made any sense at all and a whole lot of things that are terrible. The “third party” options — which are generally a giant waste of time anyway — are all laughable in one way or another, whether we’re talking about the loopy Libertarian, the oddball Green, or that other guy whoDown the rabbit hole….