Wintering in the Balkans

Good news!

The end-of-year moratorium on blogging has apparently been lifted. I received word this morning from Blogger Overseer #11 (name omitted due to a surge in death threats e-mailed to Overseer headquarters in Vilnius, Lithuania, of all places). The following caveat, however, was included in the message:

Despite the lifting of this moratorium, usual exceptions continue to apply, specifically the prohibition of blogging activity in the following locations: China, certain African and the Middle Eastern countries, Taliban-held regions of Afghanistan and all those areas in the USA where literacy is virtually non-existent and reading is regarded as a form of devil worship.

Or as an Alabama State Representative Buster Putz so succinctly put it: "We don't do no readin, we do huntin. Shootin animals for fun don't require no fancy book-learnin.  So take that there blog and shove it up your elitist East coast liberal-biased butt!"
No surprise that "Putz in 2016" is already being touted by halfwit right-wing radio hosts.
 Just what we need, another conservative Republican putz in the White House.

The Overseers go on to say:  We also strongly advise that blog content be restricted to what might be readily construed as family-oriented material, wholesome and upbeat in tone, while avoiding all subject matter of a prurient,  politically provocative or pusillanimous nature.

Pusillanimous?  Is that even a word?   

 Interestingly enough, based on fairly murky statistical evidence from anonymous sources, people in Alaska are reading my blog. At least one of them, anyway.  You can guess whom I hope it is. I have this recurring fantasy that Sarah Palin reads one of my blogs, has a spontaneous orgasm and almost bursts into flames. She then dons her body armor and rushes out to shoot a moose. Because despite all her ill-gotten millions, "the Palin family still hunts for food!"

And speaking of deadly weaponry and the culture of murderous freedom, it's heartening to learn that the American response to the recent mass killings has been to rush out and buy more guns.
Hey, I get it. Guns are pretty cool and fun to shoot. At inanimate targets, not at anything that breathes.  When I was a kid my father bought me a .22 rifle and took me hunting. I ended up shooting a chipmunk, the bullet separating its little head from its little body. That was the last time I went hunting, and I still have scary, guilt-ridden flashbacks about the chipmunk.

The latest spin from the far right gun brigade is that we don't need less guns, we need greater scrutiny of the mentally ill, because it's only the crazies who are doing all the killing.  "Normal" Americans apparently only want their guns to shoot helpless animals and call it sport, or if the opportunity arises, maybe an illegal immigrant or two, and also to be ready for the next inevitable insurrection against the federal government, which is clearly hell-bent on stealing all our precious freedoms. Yeah, these are the sane people, no question.

Anyway, here we are in 2013. Who could have guessed the human race would make it this far? Not me. Certainly not the Mayans.