It's been a day

I was dragged to a park in Dundalk, my absolute favorite place in all of Maryland, where an aging minstrel named Dennis DeYoung (previously unknown to me) played various ditties, some of which I vaguely recalled from some Reagan-era nightmare. The temp reached 105, the humidity factor was enough to turn mashed potato flakes into mashed potatoes right in the box, amplified music from the unbeloved 80s reached ear-splitting levels, and I was surrounded by...by Dundalkians.

I'm trying to think of a way the situation could have been more hellish.

Maybe if I had been manacled to a Randroid. Yeah. That would have been worse. A Randroid who kept insisting that Mistress Ayn's philosophy was the quintessence of morality because something something initiation of force something something John Galt something something this city is afraid of me I have seen its true face the streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown...

Where was I? Oh yes. Dundalk.

A street fair. In a park. With music. I did some sketches to pass the time.

At one of the stands, someone was giving away these strange, rectangular objects which the Dundalkians (much like the apes in 2001) regarded as alien artifacts. These artifacts were, in fact, books.

I picked up a copy of Gore Vidal's The Golden Age, the finale to his American history series. This volume covers the era from 1939 to the 1950s -- and goddam right that was a golden age. Vidal probably uses the term ironically, but I would apply it, with neither blush nor smirk, to entire era of "New Deal normal," 1933 to 1980. We were all Keynesians then, which meant that our many problems were reparable.

Before the fucking libertarians and neo-liberals and neo-conservatives commandeered America's discourse, we had hope. There was war, there was racism, there was madness and corruption -- but there was also prosperity, international prestige and a respect for education. Now, we've whelped up a generation of dimwits capable of the hilarity documented here.

Apparently, there are scads of right-wingers so outraged by the Supreme Court's ACA decision that they are tweeting threats to move to Canada. Yes, Canada. Examples:

I'm moving to Canada, the United States is entirely too socialist.

#SCOTUS holds up free healthcare for everyone?! Screw this commie country, I'm moving to #Canada #whoswithme

Anyone who thinks that the ACA equals "free healthcare for everyone" has achieved a truly Dundalkian level of doltishness. I like this response:

By the way, don't let anyone lie to you about Canada's health care system: It's great. I've seen it up close and personal. Next time a libertarian spreads falsehoods about the way those damned bolshevik northerners doctor you up, ask if he or she has ever actually spent time in a Canadian hospital.

If libertarian ex-pats overrun the place, they'll turn it into a terrifying corporate wasteland. The national anthem will need new lyrics:

O Canada
Belongs to Saint Ayn Rand
Never expect
to get a helping hand
With Nietzschean will we say the rich
must always live tax-free
And if you're poor then just lie down
and take the rich man's pee.
Sick folks should just
die quietly
Oh Canada
Upon the poor we pee!
Oh Canada
Upon the poor we pee!

And on an unrelated topic: Pepsi is now adorning cans of pop with images of Michael Jackson. I hope his heirs got paid in advance. The company burnt him once before.