I can’t figure out if I’m the sane one or the insane one here
Bookworm on Feb 16 2012 at 10:28 pm | Filed under: Uncategorized
My mother, who lives in a retirement home that, so far as I know, was built in the 1960s, tells me with great aplomb that her room was once occupied by WWII soldiers, and that one of her caregivers has been scolding her for daring to use an oxygen tank in a room that soldiers once used.
One of my clients asks me to research a legal issue to write a complaint, and is unperturbed when I inform him that the known facts in the case directly contradict the legal action.
Mr. Bookworm insists that the children watch TV with him, even though both are telling him that they have to finish their homework and go to bed. “No, you need to watch TV with me.”
The Obama administration uses the entire weight of the executive branch of the federal government to mandate that religious organizations must subsidize the costs of birth control pills, sterilization, and abortifacients, and asserts that, by doing so, it is advancing freedom of religion under the First Amendment.
I spent a lot of time telling anyone who will listen that I’m surrounded by insane — or, at the very least, monomaniacal — people. It’s beginning to occur to me, though, that I might be the problem. If I’m at the center of a Venn diagram of insanity, maybe I’m the crazy one.
A joke:
As an old man was driving down the freeway, his car phone rang.
Answering, he heard his wife’s voice urgently warning him, “Herman, I just heard on the news that there’s a car going the wrong way on Route 280. Please be careful!”
“It’s not just one car,” said Herman, “It’s hundreds of them!”
Related posts:
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- Even I could figure this one out
- Trying to figure out why I like the military
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5 Responses to “I can’t figure out if I’m the sane one or the insane one here”
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No, Book, don’t doubt yourself. It’s just that the world is growing more illogical and perverse by the day.
In fact, I’m thinking of positing a new kind of particle. Just as we have matter and anti-matter, and visible and dark matter, I believe there is logical and illogical matter. Every galaxy has pockets of illogical matter. It doesn’t rotate with the rest of the galaxy, but the rest of the galaxy rotates through it. Why doesn’t it rotate, you may ask? And that’s a logical question. But why ask a logical question about illogical matter?
And the Earth is entering such a cloud of illogical matter. Where it meets logical matter, both are destroyed in a burst of incredibly powerful energy, which unfortunately gets converted into illogical waves. Why? you may ask, but again, when you’re dealing with illogical matter, you should not be asking logical questions.
Illogical waves affect the brain in strange ways. You believe it when someone proclaims “Hope And Change!” And when they say, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for”, you nod sagely, never wondering why in the hell you were waiting around when you were already there to begin with. And when He says Hee is going to drop the water level in the oceans, you actually get excited, you believe in Him so much.
And when She says “We have to pass this bill so we can find out what is in it,” again you nod at such sagacity. Such wisdom. You are certain such wisdom deserves reelection. Illogical waves. And you wave back.
Book:
The Obama administration uses the entire weight of the executive branch of the federal government to mandate that religious organizations must subsidize the costs of birth control pills, sterilization, and abortifacients, and asserts that, by doing so, it is advancing freedom of religion under the First Amendment.
What is ironic here is that Muslims can opt out of Obamacare.
One of my clients asks me to research a legal issue to write a complaint, and is unperturbed when I inform him that the known facts in the case directly contradict the legal action.
I have been my HOA’s attorney liason in several lawsuits, so I have gotten a fair amount of exposure to the way attorneys operate. The attorneys have all been very straightforward regarding what we could get and could not get, given the existing laws. In no case did an attorney promise the sky. It was always “what you can get.” In each case, they were right.
http://www.examiner.com/small-business-management-in-phoenix/if-you-are-muslim-you-can-opt-out-of-the-obamacare-health-care-reform-laws-with-no-penalties
I recommend a bit of poetry to ground your concerns.
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
…
–If…. by Rudyard Kipling
And if you doubt that the crazy is coming from the outside,
I submit the 3 codes under Obama care for burns from Flaming Water Skis « Neptunus Lex
You’re suffering from a collision with the way the brain works, that’s all. People will do anything, if they are given an excuse for it. Hell, it wasn’t that long ago the most cultured, literate, and cosmopolitan people – not just in Europe but probably on the planet – followed a raving lunatic to destruction.
For your mother I’d make an exception. She’s dealing with a different set of issues, among which confusion is likely to be a big one. And if the place was built in the 1960s it’s entirely possible that WWII soldiers occupied rooms – a WWII soldier currently occupies a room in my house (built in 1996) on odd weekends – and she’s conflating that sort of simple reality with something half heard, and only partly understood. Consider the situation and give her a pass.
As for legal clients, come on – you know as well or better than any of us that lawyers have so f***** up the law that any jerk spouting any idiocy has the same 50/50 chance as does the guy with all the writing, all the witnesses, and all the facts on his side. If it goes to the top he’ll even get a positive vote from at least Kagan and Ginsberg. He may well prevail, so screw the facts: take the shot. Could be worth it.
I would firmly believe you exaggerate the home front for effect, except you keep assuring me you don’t.
The insanity was electing Bailout Boy in the first place. Once he was in place, intelligent people recognized that all bets were off and are not surprised by any kind of nonsense. The only thing that comes as a bit of a surprise is how readily the left goes right along with it, and is willing to screw the country. (Goes to show how few of them understood it, I guess.) It’s also a bit of a surprise, I guess – to some people – how fragile the structure of the country really is, but even that shouldn’t be news to anyone who paid attention to Reagan. It turns out he wasn’t kidding when he pointed out that you have to fight for it all the time, never stop, never give an inch, or it’ll be taken away from you. Generation F***-up (that would be us) who did such a swell job raising our kids, educating them, passing along some recognizable values, caring for what we were bequeathed, and reducing political discourse to the 30 second nonsense-but-it-sounds-good sound bite apparently forgot that one, too.
You’re just being you. But the definition of ‘insane’ has changed, and ‘normal’ may well have shifted, too.
If you’re crazy, what does that make me?