Loads of Bon Mots

Welcome to a special non-topical version of these Adventures! Take this one internally and let it work globally!

There are a couple of reasons for going the non-topical route this week. One of them, which also may apply next week, is the little fact that even editors are human (!) and want Christmases and New Yearses off. So I have to turn this in several days before Christmas so that somebody else can have a Wonderful Life.

The other reason that this column is going to be utterly non-topical is that six days ago I fell off a rolling platform and got a significant “owie” involving pain in multiple places. I don’t know about you, but for me pain induces an impatience for the minutiae of the daily news, and turns my thoughts to the universal and timeless. And, where my thoughts go, there I must Adventure also, or my thoughts and I would become separated. (Get it? Advent; advent-ure.)

So what I thought I’d do today is share some little sayings that I either have lived by for years, or just made up recently out of crushing boredom.

“The essence of humor is clown squeezings.” A lot of people misread this one as saying we should go squeeze a clown for jollies. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying hurt begets humor. Some of these are metaphoric, damn it!

“A baby is nothing to sneeze at.” I think that can’t be said often enough.

“When life gives you lemons, pucker up.” I know, it doesn’t quite work, but the meaning comes across anyway, doesn’t it?

“Honesty is the best front.” This is one of my all time favorites. Remember kids; don’t waste your lies getting dimes and candies, cigarettes and kisses. Save your fibs for the big stuff, like escaping the death penalty, or truly worthwhile wide-awake debauchery that you’ll be able to remember when you’re in the rest home while being “tidied up” by the nurse after your daily business.

“Politics is never a dirty word.” Sometimes politicians will counter critics by saying, “You’re just playing politics.” They want to make it a dirty word so they can have it all for themselves. They know that all politics is about the exercise of power, that’s why they want to alienate you from the very word, so you can’t exercise power that you are entitled to. So whenever someone, even be they on your own side, says someone else is just playing politics, you should make vigorous expressions of disapproval.

“If you let a wild pig eat off your ass, it's your fault when he bites it.” That was the cleaned up version. At the moment I’m imagining Karl Rove as the pig, but it could be anybody. “Codependence kills,” is another one in the same vein.

“Never do anything you would be ashamed of. First, stop feeling you should be ashamed of it. Then do it.” Some of these are just plain obvious.

“When a 250 pound man gives the seat next to me to a 90 pound woman, and the bus slams to a halt, the 250 pound man will collide with my face.” I learned this one long before Homelessness Czar Philip Mangano cooked up the whole “house the chronically homeless first” line he’s been selling. I still would add to it though: “Better yet, buy bigger busses, seat everybody.”

“Beating your neighbor’s spouse doesn’t show how much you love your own.” These days what passes for patriotism is really national chauvinism. No one loves any one country that doesn’t first love humanity, as a whole.

“Language matters.” Sticks and stones may break my bones, but the constant abuse of language, especially by authorities, is making slaves out of us all.

This one’s just for me: “My mind is like a Border Collie, it needs to drive sheep.” While you think about that, I’ll get next week’s column ready.
Have a Happy, and may Bono be pleased with the New Year.