RANDOM RANTS

My mind is cluttered, disturbed, boggled, full of sloshing debris like the tsunami wash. Many thoughts, observations just flooding through, eddying around.

I might attribute this condition to the anticipated SUPERMOON. Seems like every time a month goes by, there's another lunar anomaly to worry about. Closest in 18 years! But 18 years is nothing in the large scheme of things. I can remember 18 years ago, and I don't remember that moon.

Or it may be from watching news because there's so much of it right now, but never enough of the right kind. Where is Walter Cronkite when we need him? Once in the evening was enough to calm us during the Cold War. But CNN, as sloshy as my mind, where newsmen not only report the news, but make it, interviews the husband of a New York Times reporter among four missing in Libya. He is, according to the CNN reporter, a "Reuter" bureau chief in New Delhi. Reuter? It's Reuters, people. (Although someone named Reuter did found the company.)

Anyway, that bureau chief says of his wife, who has been indulging in some sort of humanitarian aid in Libya, "She has to come home, we've got to have kids." In times of nuclear ambiguity, overwhelming natural disaster and war on several fronts, that's the first thing I always think of!

And then, later, a beautiful woman, not Mr. Reuter's wife, loses the feed to a correspondent and says, "I hate when that happens." Would Cronkite ever have said that? Or something like another reporter, somewhat ditzy, the kind that used to be an excuse for why women should NOT report the news, "The tension so palpable you can almost feel it." I suppose there are excuses for all this, but it seems to me standards have deteriorated.

Or maybe it's the Chantix ad, a drug commercial that I wasn't sure what it was for at first, mostly endlessly listing horrible side effects from skin rashes to suicidal urges while a middle-aged couple chat in their kitchen. Chantix is an enchanting "stop smoking" drug. If the side effects aren't scary enough to make you quit, continuing to smoke might be the better alternative. And who names this stuff? Drug naming and Google account visual word verification seem to use the same algorithms.

So one half hour of TV news makes me crazy. I'm going to go back to watching DVDs of Eagle Shooting Heroes tonight where the subtitles offer better entertainment and edification. In the last episode, the endearingly cute kung fu mistress is kidding with her goofy sidekick. "Would the Emperor like some flesh fruit?" For all I know, that's exactly how the Chinese script reads. Once finished with their dallying over kiwis and pomegranates, they go to seek the magical coveted manual of "splendiferous" kung fu. That sounded a little too Akbar and Jeff to me to take seriously...until the Wizard said, "No, that's a real word. Look it up."

And indeed it is. Although, according to my American Heritage dictionary, best used ironically. And not recognized by the Google blog spellchecker which wants me to change it to "splenderous." I expect to hear some CNN reporter use it tomorrow.

"In a splendiferous effort by Japan's National Defense Force, with the assistance of Gamera, nuclear disaster has been narrowly averted. Flesh fruit has been delivered to all affected. Here to speak with us, is that Giant Turtle...oops, sorry we lost the feed. I hate it when that happens."