Visit from Keith and Other Observations

I went walking a while ago in the beastly humidity. We have Basic Instinct on TV now, on a commercial channel -- an obnoxious movie with many obnoxious interruptions. Earlier, watched part of a taped Conan O'Brien, a show I haven't seen for perhaps a year. I suppose it was a rerun. At the beginning he did a satirical "State of the Show" address, and at the end a comic had a cartoon of a superhero called "Paleman," and both of those were pretty funny. I'd also taped Friday's Countdown, which showed a Letterman blurb (a tape of a tape, I guess) in which David commented on Ann Coulter's recent assertion that Bill Clinton is gay. Letterman showed Clinton's "rebuttal": Clinton had merely told Coulter he was gay so he wouldn't have to hit on her "bony ass." A caption below Ann's picture reads: "Clinton is gay only around evil crazy bitches." Keith Olbermann always shows the picture of Ann with her black eye-patch. Aarrgh!

Another Keith I like is my friend from northern Indiana, Keith McW. Keith graced us with a visit this afternoon, on his way home from Tennessee, where he'd been visiting with his parents and his "redneck brother." (He likes his brother very much and I think I would too.) Keith is so much the consummate gentleman that it is well nigh impossible to believe he has a redneck brother. (Keith was not too refined to send me the email about the poll of "total fucking morons.") We had lunch, caught up a little bit, and watched Uncommon Valor (1983). Keith said that Randall "Tex" Cobb, a Nam vet who kicks the crap out of Patrick Swayzee in this movie (some might like that) and then buys it in the raid on a Laos prison camp (Cobb was memorable as "Ben Dover" in a jail scene with Chevy Chase in Fletch), reminded him a great deal of his redneck brother.

Keith's older daughter Emily has come down with a chronic illness and I am sad for her and Keith's family. She is coping well and has in fact changed recently to a new, better job. Of course she cannot be discriminated against because of her illness and I know she is capable and a tough kid. Keith's wife, Mary Ann, has gotten a good job as an accountant at a liberal arts college. I look forward to our going to church with Keith and Mary Ann in the country again to hear Phil Gulley, the iconoclastic Christian clergyman who believes that God's grace doesn't exclude anybody. At all. And after church I hope we go back to that excellent cafeteria in Mooresville for Sunday dinner, and maybe their younger daughter, Molly, who works nearby, can join us. I'll save up for that meal. (Butterscotch pie!)

I will take a moment to rail against Las Vegas, which has passed an ordinance forbidding the feeding of the homeless in public parks there. I'll just say that our Christian nation might base its jurisprudence on the Ten Commandments, or brag that it does, but sure as hell not on the Sermon on the Mount. I wonder if the casinos might be taxed 1/20 of 1 percent to pay for feeding the homeless. Meanwhile, drug companies provide sumptuous lunches for doctors to entice them to prescribe their drugs. The House passed a law to raise the minimum wage by $2.10 (by 2009 -- don't want to wreck the economy by drastic upheavals!) with the proviso, of course, that the estate tax be reduced for the ultra-rich. Of course. And right away, right?

Saturday night, at almost the end of July. Beastly humidity, but the sun came out toward dusk. And thank God for a-c. We're having tomatoes and corn and green beans and peaches and other wonderful things for this time of year in good old Indiana. Ain't God good to Indianny? Ain't he though? (We have more than one kind of corn, sorry.)