What Now? The Sillies, or the Willies

Presidio Sentinel San Diego, October 2012

What Now? The Sillies, or the Willies

by Laura Walcher

Leonard Cohen: I forget to pray for the angels, and the angels forget to pray for us …

Item:  I’ve already attempted to diagnose Barney, our Cairn Terrier’s evil obsession with the parking meter scooters – or their drivers? -  but sadly, I continue to fail in this mission. Yet I have stopped fretting about it, even if this powerful little dog nearly pulls my arm off and would gladly fly into heavy traffic just to kill one.

But, it’s turned out - I think  - that diversion may be the solution, per Barney’s highly expressive attitude after a particularly dramatic episode.

My interpretation: “I was so furious the minute we got outside ‘cause there was the parking meter guy and I had my total fit but right in the middle of it I smelled a snack on the sidewalk so I stopped my fit to eat it then I continued my fit and then I choked.” 

Maybe retribution, instead of diversion, is the ticket.  Keep you posted. 

Item: We think every competition should have a booby prize. Like the “onion” in our own American Institute of Architects’ “Orchids & Onions” awards. Not only do these inspire better work, or better behavior – even if only in fear of being recipients – but it’s … fun. So we’re thinking the Navy should design one for their Sub-Skipper Commander Michael P. Ward II, who faked his death in order to end his extra-marital affair. Instead, they merely kicked him out of the service, or court-martialed him. Effective, I guess, but no fun.

Item: In Iran, two young women beat up a cleric who berated one for not sufficiently covering up in public. The battered cleric landed in the hospital. We don’t yet know whether the cleric has learned his lesson. “They told me to just cover up my eyes,” protests he. He didn’t sue: he only cares, he says, that women adhere to the laws of Islamic hijab (the veil worn to cover women in the presence of non-related adult males). Anyway, says CNN, he is expected to survive.

Item:  Salman Rushdie. The good news: PR works!  Where haven’t you read about him, or seen/heard him interviewed? His new memoir, “Joseph Anton” (which we’ll get back to in a sec) relives the years of the “fatwa” that descended upon him by The Ayatollah Khomeini because of his “Satanic Verses,” considered to be insulting to Islam.  Well, publicity is good, and the reviews have been impressive and sales are soaring. Uh-oh! Has he invited yet another fatwa? We’re not aware that radical Islam has become less extreme.

(“ Joseph Anton”: Mr. Rushdie has used the first names of Joseph Conrad and Anton Chekhov, his pseudonyms while enduring the fatwa.) 

Item:  the fine, spine print. Unlike Salman Rushdie, this is one you could’ve missed; that’s why I’m such a value to my readers. The not-even-1/8-of-an-inch spine of a slim summer issue of Pacific Magazine carries this message: “I don’t know what’s more embarrassing in this country – that Michael Phelps fell from the graces for smoking marijuana or that you looked up to a swimmer in the first place.” Quotes comic Danial Tosh, Publisher Perloff must be one heck-of-a-fan.

Leonard Cohen:  “It’s time we began to laugh and cry…and cry and laugh about it … all again.”