The World's a Small Place

As I wove through the streets of Antigua, sidestepping trash and leaping onto the curb just in time to avoid a motorcycle shooting through traffic, I wondered why I didn't feel disoriented. Over the scene loomed a mist-haloed volcano - it wasn't active, but the other volcano on the other side of town had been spewing lava down its side all day, a track of glowing orange in the distant night sky. The smell of frying meat and melted cheese (mixed with the ubiquitous Diesel fumes) made my stomach grumble. Musical Spanish voices crowded the night air; I had to focus to pick out my meager vocabulary from the jumble, respond, and then shell out a few Quetzales for a meal. 

And bizarrely, I felt right at home.

Man Named Moore Opposes King With Many Wives

Satire                                                                                                                                                         

Once upon a time there was a king who knew what he wanted. Bombastic, paunchy and orange, the king was born with a silver spoon in his mouth—a classy spoon, a whole set of cutlery, in fact, the best spoons. The orange king was flexible, changeable, a really strong man. If the king didn’t get what he wanted, he didn’t care if it meant splitting the Christian world in half, he’d get it done.

The king had a difficult relationship with his wife, largely because he was tired of just having one. “We’re gonna split up,” he said. “Maybe we’ll build a wall between us—it’ll be a yuge divorce, I mean, really big, a great divorce. We’re gonna make divorce great again.” So that’s what the king did, discarding his first wife and marrying his mistress. Even then, the king was not satisfied and sought a third, model wife. “I can’t help it, they like me. Alpha males have lots of wives,” said the king. Classy!

Recapping the Debate With an 81-year-old Political Junkie

Yesterday evening, I had a chance to interview an 81-year-old on one of her favorite topics: politics. A mild-mannered, middle-class white Republican widow, she lives quietly in a small town, but loves to observe the excess and drama of political theater. She chose to remain anonymous ("oh, honey, they'll come and lock me up"), but said she wanted to go by the pseudonym Jane Eyre ("no kin to" the other one), and quote her thoughts on each of the candidates who participated in the latest debate. As she was a bit sleepy and distracted, some of the answers may appear a bit more focused than others, but I found the whole thing very entertaining. She has...a unique perspective.