Morbid Filler

Should I pitch a fit about motorcycles?

Actually, why would I? It accomplishes nothing useful.

Then again it is also true that the latest Bug Martini brings to mind less pleasant associations with the two-wheeled demons.

Like how it seemed really weird, once upon a long lost youth, how it turned out that as everyone fought over loud music to the point that they had to make up general noise ordinances, someone somewhere tried to exempt Harley Davidson motorcycles specifically. That kind of hurt the rebellious glamour of the legendary bikes for some, but nobody really cares. The thing is that if I try to compare rap music and McDonald’s, it wouldn’t make any sense to you, but that actually has a small chapter in the story.

Never mind.

There are the bikes that can still be heard racing along the state highway near my home, and I do mean racing.

Or the time … I mean, you know, the first time your child sees a scene and knows someone has died. Seriously, the bike pretty much exploded when it hit the car. Maybe not in the fiery sense, but it was scattered in small pieces. Luckily, the body was out of view.

I don’t hate motorcycles. I just need filler. And, well, I don’t know, blame Adam.

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Image note: Triptych detail of Bug Martini by Adam Huber, 11 June 2015.

Evil (Snyder Michi-Mix)

God save the children of the Great Lake Beast.

The Michigan Legislature is playing a dangerous game of chicken with the children in its care — and now Gov. Rick Snyder has exacerbated the danger by signing cynical legislation into law.

On Wednesday, Republican majorities in both chambers approved a bill that would allow faith-based adoption agencies — including those who take taxpayer dollars to place children who are in the state’s custody — to discriminate in the practice of their work. They can deny services to families that violate the agency’s religious beliefs, including unmarried couples, same-sex couples and those who hold different religious beliefs.

The legislation is a craven attempt to cloak discrimination in faith, and it leaves the best interests of the 13,000 children in the state’s care — entirely out of the equation.

Even worse, it sends Michigan in the exact wrong direction just weeks before the U.S. Supreme Court could invalidate all legislative or constitutional provisions that permit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Should that happen, this statute, along with bigoted laws in states around the country, would fall like their predecessors — Jim Crow-era laws and regulations — after landmark rulings in the 1960s.

(Detroit Free Press)

Nothing hurts.

Actually, that’s wrong.

Something hurts.

Perhaps this is why people believe in souls. Because sometimes something hurts and it is hard to explain just what.

No, I cannot tell you where it hurts.

It just does.