One thing about being an older, retired parent of young children: you don't have the normal excuse for ignoring "volunteer opportunities" at the kids' school. And so today I found myself getting reacquainted with the sound it makes when a school bus, capacity 71, is loaded for a field trip with two teachers, two "chaperones," and 67 fourth graders. On the ride I had a flashback to one I was on about fifty years ago, with my mom in my role for today. We kids started singing a song of our invention that went:
Marijuana, marijuana!
LSD, LSD!
Scientists make it!
Teachers take it!
Why cant' we? Why can't we?
At the dinner table that night, my mom commented on our singing, and my dad, who worked as a physicist, having elicited the details of the song lyrics, emphatically denied that "scientists make it." Am pretty sure the only reason I remember this small event so vividly is that I had in my approximately 10-year-old brain the distinct thought: Well, he's not denying that teachers take it.
With all the financial advice shows on television and radio, I'm surprised no one has recommended imitating yourself while afflicted with a viral infection of the digestive tract. I went around five days without spending five cents. Wasn't running low on groceries, liquor, or gasoline, either. Then yesterday, feeling a little better, I ventured to Target to pick up a few things I needed, like food for the kids and bathroom disinfectant, and escaped with a bill under $50. You don't need money if you feel shitty enough.
As you can imagine, I've been putting in some time with the cable news personalities. Yesterday, during Sarah Huckabee Sanders's daily press briefing, I had a Eureka moment, which I'll relate even though it's probably obvious and reflects poorly on my powers of observation. I've always been annoyed by how so many of her answers, if not an outright lie, qualify as what a trial lawyer would call "nonresponsive." That is, her response plausibly answers some question, though not the one she was asked. She also has this curious and I think off-putting habit of staring downward while the reporter is asking her a question. Why not look at the person who's talking to you? What I realized yesterday is that the two phenomena are related. She undoubtedly has a cheat sheet of talking points on her lectern. She can't anticipate the exact questions, but she can guess the general topics she's going to be asked about, so the content of her cheat sheet is essentially: if the subject is x, say y; if the subject is a, say b; and, if the subject is l, say n. When she calls on a reporter, she looks at them for as long as is necessary to comprehend the general topic of their question. While they finish the question, she looks down at her sheet and finds the talking point for that subject. They finish, she looks up and recites the line from her sheet. This happens over and over again. I think I can pinpoint the moment of my low-grade insight. A reporter asked about Team Trump's payment of $130k in hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels. Sanders, looking up from the lectern, answered that the matter had "already been won in arbitration." The reporter followed up with who won what when and where. Sanders said, "The arbitration was won in the president's favor."
Next!
Comments