Week of August 11

Earlier this week:
I refused the dare to "lick a jicama" on social media.
But wondered if my jicama could get the jiccups.

Mermaids.
I know that you can adopt "washed-up" greyhound racing dogs.
I wonder...is there also a niche for adopting retired mermaids?
Or are they called "mermaid tribute artists"?

Being amazed that you find yourself laughing at a movie or TV show
that you thought would be pointless or boring or inane:
I guess you could all that "snicker shock".

The teacher yelled out: "Name an instrument that you don't have to tune!"
I replied: "A scalpel!"

As we approach the middle of August, a quick tabulation reveals that I am closing in on 300 haikus for the year. That's a little more than the number of "mass shootings" in the United States this year.
I wondered what, exactly, a "mass shooting" was, seeing as how we're about thirty weeks into the year, and we're averaging about ten a week. How many have made the national TV news, the final arbiter of what's "really" going on each day? Obviously, far, far less than that.

If you check out the websites, it appears that anytime four or more people are shot in one event, it's called a "mass shooting". I think that's sweet, because a lot of minimum requirement mass shootings appear to have happened in the African-American community--either at bars or in the parking lots of apartment buildings. So, in a sense, we have welcomed our black brothers and sisters into the holiest of holies: gratuitous gun violence. (I have no doubt that soon we will see--and hear--the voice of Martin Luther King, Jr. exhorting us to have a dream of driving a new Toyota. Can we call him Marty?)

Then, I wondered.
What if all of these acts of gun violence were committed by Islamic jihadists, hell-bent (but heaven-bound) on destroying the United States? Well, first of all, it's pretty obvious that the number of such mass shootings would never be allowed to reach such astronomical numbers. After a fraction of this number (fifty? twenty? ten?) the mighty arm of American Justice and Vengeance would swoop in and solve the problem. How? you ask. Well, what do you think? To imagine all Muslims being kicked out of the United States is simply ludicrous. I mean, that would include innocent women and children, and we certainly don't...never mind.

So, think again. Incarceration of all Muslims? Probably. Confiscating the guns of all Muslims? That, too. I'm guessing that the 2nd Amendment could be completely ignored in cases of such extreme emergencies, wouldn't you? Wait, aren't we in pretty much that exact emergency right now?
Never mind. Better not go there.

Anyway, there's a monster truck Christmas special coming on in just a few minutes. And the only thing that can stop a bad guy in a monster truck is a good guy in a monster truck. (Spoiler alert?)