The Plot

Everyone knows (I hope) that eerie sensation when the repetition of a word, however simple, leads one to suspect its spelling. Even the most common and phonetic of words strike us strangely when they rear their heads too often—our very a’s and the’s begin to achieve a Hopkinsville look. It’s still more disconcerting when the experience happens with faces—when you begin to notice, for example, the curious shape that an eye has, or a nose, or a chin; when for an instant you see in your own race the characteristics that are blindingly obvious to members of other races or, more frighteningly still, when you begin to see the oddity and uniformity of your whole species with the eyes of a preternaturally conscious dog or cat.

The Anniversary

Today is approximately the one-year anniversary of the day when I started this blog. As with most blogs (I suspect) not everything’s turned out quite as expected. For starters, politics appeared far more often in posts than I had intended it too. That’s as it should be: the year has been a strange one in DC and consequently, everywhere else in the country. Some of the top news stories of the year: