Go to all that trouble to get rid of a king and what happens? A couple hundred years later six unelected bench-warmers give him back to you.
‘A republic, if you can keep it’
Category: Bad news
R.I.P., Kinky Friedman
Adios, podnah. Jehovah must have a soft spot for you. He’s saved you from even having to think about watching that fucking “debate” tonight.
Off to the races
Well, hell, here we go — we’ve had a few warm-up fires this season, but looks like the main event just kicked off at Ruidoso, where everyone has been advised to git while the gitting is good.
“We were getting ready to sit down to a meal and the alert came on: Evacuate now, don’t take anything or plan to pack anything, just evacuate,” Mary Lou Minic told KOB-TV. “And within three to five minutes, we were in the car, leaving.”
Here’s the latest from New Mexico Fire Information. Ruidoso News has a story, updated last night. The Las Cruces Sun News trotted out a backgrounder from 2019.
The long view
“Jungle?” you say. “Looks more like desert to me.”
Indeed it does, especially when you gain some perspective by leaving the mean streets behind and hoofing it a mile or so southeast and about 500 ankle-twisting feet up into the Sandia foothills, just below the Candelaria Bench Loop.
But it’s a jungle, too, down there. And for a cyclist, well … let’s just say we’re not the apex predators.
I was reminded of this on Friday when I got the word that one of my riding buddies had been hit by a car at Alameda and 4th.
He and another riding bud were eastbound on Alameda, preparing to turn left onto 4th. Alas, auto traffic being what it is down there, RB No. 2 made it to the left-turn lane without incident while No. 1 got boxed out. So No. 1 hung a right, planning to make a quick U-turn and head north on 4th.
But there was this car, and the laws of physics were applied, and our riding buddy got carted off to the hospital with what I’m guessing was a pretty significant elbow injury (a couple breaks and a dislocation, according to RB No. 2).
It’s particularly disheartening because he was riding so well and with such enthusiasm last Wednesday. And then this happens.
Still: It could’ve been a lot worse. A lot worse. I ride Alameda west from Guadalupe Trail now and then, to get to the bosque, and I always feel like a rabbit on a rifle range.
Let’s all us cottontails be extra careful out there as we’re hopping down the bunny trail. They’re always locked and loaded on the firing line.
Up the Wazoo
DeeCee being a rather long slog via Subaru, I decided I’d settle for a short mood-altering run on the neighborhood trails yesterday.
I won’t travel by air, as you know. And if I did, the airline probably wouldn’t let me take my torch and pitchfork, even as checked baggage.
Anyway, what do I know about taxidermy? Sure, I could collect a few souvenir heads in our nation’s capital with my handy-dandy Gomboy folding saw, but then what? The TSA says you can board a plane with fresh meat, but they may decide to add a cautionary note about “the severed heads of Supreme Court justices” after running your lumpy carry-on through the scanner twice because they didn’t believe what they saw on the first pass.
And if you do manage to make it home without incident, preserving and mounting your prizes for display in the den is not a chore you want to hand off to anyone who doesn’t owe you a really big favor.
Shucks, even a six-pack of ears pinned to a cork board in the garage can make for some pointed conversations you’d rather not have, even if you explain that the fuckers never used them for listening, only to keep their trifocals from falling into their black robes or onto the bench, and anyway, with the fat stacks of attaboys they get from their rich pals they can have a new pair grafted on before you can say, “Case dismissed.”
So, yeah. Herself and I went for a nice trail run in the sunshine, and afterward I decided I was still not in the mood to update myself on the latest news, so I changed costumes and took the Voodoo Wazoo for an enjoyable 90 minutes of light gnar-shredding in the Elena Gallegos Open Space.
Today I see the courtroom drama has shifted back to Manhattan. Time for another run. I can’t remember where I put that saw.
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