Insatiable deformity

The Speaker of the House has described

the proposal of a "wall" sealing the

Mexican border as an "immorality." To

be fair, she has also gone on, to ob-

serve its inevitable futility, never

going so far as to describe it as the

monument to cynicism many say it is.

Or is it. Is it, rather, only the most

grotesque expression politically feas-

ible today, of an insatiable compulsion

to inflict humiliation and pain, already

market-tested in two years in power and

another in purloining it. The pretended

constituency was never satisfied by the

rape of the Treasury or even of the land.

It wants a final solution, though, in a

gold standard all its own. Human life.

If there is anyone who believes that the

achievement of a showy, wasted erection

is where this manipulation will end, he

forgets addiction to the Laffer Curve.

A voter's guide to the evening's farce

The police chief of Sycamore Springs
sidles up to an open hamburger joint
at the town rail station:

Give me a cup of coffee and 2 aspirins.

The wondrous Nora Charles, in full up-
per East Side couture, approaches him:

Hello, Mr MacGregor. I'm so glad you're
here!

Always glad to see a member of the
Charles Family ...

There's a man here. I want you to
arrest him.

But what for?

Does it have to be for something?

Oh, ho, no! No, you just pick out
anybody at all, and I just put him
in jail for life.

But he's trying to leave town . . !

Look, Mrs Charles. I can't arrest
anybody unless they do something,
to get arrested! Get that? They
gotta do something!

I think you're being very tech-
nical, Mr MacGregor!

Nora Charles stalks off, stage right.

Make that 4 aspirins.

One resists raising hopes for any

resemblance between a Presidential

address on the greatest crisis to

affront a Christian nation since a

slave discovered the underground

railway, and a miracle of wartime

scripting from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer,

but there we are. The Fates have

summoned our Buchanan, nay, our

Andrew Johnson, to guide us toward

the great panic they knew would

come, if only they could bring it.

Richard Thorpe
  director
Robert Riskin
Dwight Taylor
  screenplay
The Thin Man Goes Home
MGM, 1945©

Much agit, no prop

 It was Gérard, someone reminded us last evening, 
 who advanced a notion so captivating to our lit-
 tle band, as to engage even the Republicans' be-
 loved general population. Oxford and Cambridge 
 have their dueling wine tasting teams, Laurel 
 and Hardy their slapstick slaps, Jekyll and Hyde 
 their Susan Collins. Why shouldn't we have a twit-
 ting society, for contestants who get up from the 
 wrong side of the bed, to spend the day refuting 
 themselves? It could only elevate our name for wit, 
 and make us all illustrious. Alas, an unknown de- 
 fect in this fad, was that it had already worn out.

 Gérard then proposed a game of chance, but with
 the twit still at large, nobody was taking any.

Sunday nibbled sleeve

   Why, of course, Martin, I believe

   you, I suppose. But, what strikes

   one as uncanny, even for him, is

   how he could have known that some

   speak Russian in Ukraine. My dear,

   this would explain so many things.

Jaguar E-Type

  Eagle Speedster