Bedlam By The Lake

Bedlam was the first insane asylum, back in medieval England. Which wasn't quite as Merry as the brochures make it out to be...

There were no psychiatrists, no psycho-tropic drugs, no concept of compassionate care for the inflicted, not even a padded cell. Of course, everybody was scared shitless of a vengeful God and the seemingly arbitrary punishments of the Church and State, but even with all that "law and order" hanging over them there were still lunatics and the criminally insane roaming about.

They didn't really know what to do with "them", so they just locked 'em up. Theoretically safer for "them", definitely safer for society as a whole. God alone knows what went on in the bowels of Bedlam.

But, you know what they say, "out of sight, out of mind."

So, what I'm thinking is, we get some big padlocks and lock all the doors of Cleveland's Quicken Loans Arena while they are all inside.

We can worry about compassionate care and possible treatment later.

What's going on in the deep recesses of the Republican convention is as appalling as anything that went on in Bedlam. In fact, the incestuous reactionary racist circle jerk that surrounds Der Trump would probably make your garden variety medieval lunatic retch.

PS Ya ever notice Melania's eyes? They're dead. Like a doll's eyes. Or a shark's.

Oh, by the way, I plagiarized that...sort of...

PPS Scott Baio and Antonio Sabato Jr.? Oooooh, they pullin' out the big heaters now! Where the hell is Ted Nugent?!

The Only Thing You Need To Know

The only thing you need to know about the Republican Party as it is currently constituted:

When you are crazy, you don't get better.

You don't get saner all of a sudden.

You may, however, at any given moment, get crazier. Much crazier.

And that's when the fun begins!

Once upon a time, there was only one political party, "the property party", as Gore Vidal memorably described it. Oh, the Democratic wing was a little more liberal and the Republican wing a little more conservative, but they both had essentially the same vision of and for America.

Now...? Well, now one "wing" has been taken over by a bunch of anti-government, anti-tax, anti-minority, anti-union, anti-science, anti-education, anti-progressive, antediluvians.

That's a lot to be against. Most of the 20th Century, in fact.

What are they "for"? They are definitely pro-gun and pro-Bible. Oh, they claim to be pro-life, too, but what they really mean is pro-patriarchy/anti-women. You know, "Barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen."

They accept no "facts" except their own. They accept no history except their own. And, because of this, they believe all sorts crazy things.

But, as I was reminded while watching The Who in concert last night, you shouldn't try to go backwards. It can be very painful.  More importantly, it is, ultimately, pointless.

The world moves in one direction. And nostalgia can be deadly. Especially when the things you are so nostalgic for never really happened--at least not in the ways you imagined they did.