Unconscious village

If you woke up thinking about beer, you may have a problem -- not alcoholism but "targeted dream incubation."  Those pranksters at Coors "encouraged people to watch a short online video before bed, then play an eight-hour 'soundscape' through the night."  If you are one of those people I have only one question:  What the hell is wrong with you?  TDI has been used to make subjects smoke less and be less racist, so it was a matter of time (probably no more than thirty seconds) before someone saw the money-making possibilities.  Do the benefits outweigh the horrific possibilities?  Do you trust the Federal Trade Commission to protect you?  I don't.

It's not just breweries who are coming to steal your dreams.  Coors, meet Moors!  Police in Wakefield, Massachusetts, easily outmaneuvered eleven members of Rise of the Moors when these sovereign non-citizens stopped to gas up on I-95.  (Carrying military weapons at the pump is bound to attract attention.)  They don't consider themselves bound by our laws, based on a unique interpretation of a 1780 treaty between the United States and Morocco.  Their "sovereign nation" seems to be located in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and it's not clear where they were headed on Saturday.  

Late Saturday night several dozen members of Texas-based Patriot Front, white supremacists who believe this land is their land, marched past City Hall in Philadelphia.  The little parade was unannounced, the men wore masks and grabbed the phone of a reporter who was taking pictures and then slipped away as if a little ashamed.  But that can't be, they were from Texas.

While we heated up the grills, fired the cherry bombs and gobbled hot dogs at Coney Island, dark forces were gathering at the margins.  This time there was no violence, physical or otherwise (apart from the routine gun killings, hardly worth mentioning).  Six months without anyone trying to overthrow the government.  All is well with America.  Sleep on. 

I celebrate July 4 as the birthday of  Louis Armstrong.  He was born in August but this is the day he chose for his birthday and who can say he wasn't entitled?   He invented jazz, period.  My efforts to have "West End Blues" declared the national anthem are continuing, despite its lack of words.  We can all scat along with Pops.

But I did enjoy the reception Margie Greene got from the people of Tallapoosa as she rolled through town in a Humvee decorated with flags and her name.  I hope she wasn't thinking of running for the Senate next year.  Or the House.  Or agriculture commissioner.

In a spirit of charity (what?  I have some) I try, from time to time, to remember what a miserable childhood Rudolph Giuliani had even when his father wasn't in prison.  He grew up in Brooklyn with a lisp, a little Yankee uniform his parents made him wear, and the name Rudolph.  Come on.  He was irredeemably warped long before he hooked up with the degenerate from Queens.  And now he wants the degenerate to pay him for the legal work that cost him his law license.  It's hard to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge, Rudolph, but I'll bet it's not impossible.

I love this: