A snippet of my day:

I had been talking to a fellow at a luncheon, and he, having picked up that I must be some sort of right wing nut job (people jump to that conclusion if you even mention homeschooling your kids) is sharing with me his own right-wing-Calvinist-libertarian view of the world and saying that the "worst thing they ever dun" in Washington was pass the Federal Reserve Act, and that most of what the government was doing was unconstitutional, and that our country would eventually collapse because of fractional reserve banking. The another woman at our table, patently uncomfortable with the conversation, probably wasn't set at ease by my response that there were so many reprehensible things that have been done in Washington that I couldn't pick a "worst" one, and that as to whether our government was constitutional or legitimate, we'd have to look farther back than that, because in reality, we're all, sitting in Missouri, de jure subjects of the rightful king of France, probably Luis, duc de Anjou (given that this part of the world was sold to the United States by the illigitimate government of France after the regicide, and such sale being made without right or authority, was void, etc., etc.). She left before I made the point that would have set her at ease, that (as the royalists in France themselves say) even if we don't recognize it as legitimate, we are, for practical purposes, are sentenced to live in it. Then again, she wouldn't have liked my next point, i.e., that the notion of a "social contract" and "governance by consent of the governed" was just a political fad invented by a bunch of leeches bleeding the upper classes in the 18th Century France, and that the fad had already come and gone.

A kid I met asks what courses he should take in college: "Should I take philosophy so I can be open-minded?" I respond "No, I'm pretty close-minded myself, and I do alright. You don't need to be open minded."

Mrs. Curmudgeon at home walks in on two of the little Curmudgeons, who are hanging over the footboard of our sleigh bed with little religious booklets, singing. "Mommy, we're pretending to be at church, and we sing Rubber Duckie* at our church." To which Mrs. Curmudgeon can only respond, "Well, dear, that wouldn't be too far off at a lot of churches, but thankfully not ours"

Mrs. Curmudgeon asks, "Hey can we move to Malta?" To which I can honestly reply "I've looked into it; I don't know of any Latin Masses there."

--Curmudgeon

*Rubber Duckie is, of course, a Sesame Street song, but it's one the kids learned from Mrs. Curmudgeon; they have never seen (at least in MY house) Sesame street, and couldn't know Bert or Ernie from Adam, and if I have anything to say about it, they never will .