One for the record books

I have come across something so stupid I can hardly believe it is real. In fact, I would be sure that it was fake if it were not for the source. Not that the source is anything great, but you would think that a newspaper would get the news in their own back yard right.

The thing that makes this particular act of stupidity so amazing to me is that I cannot understand for the life of me why it was ever undertaken. Most of the time when the government does something stupid it is because there is an ideological reason to believe it will work or somebody’s pockets are being lined. Often both reasons are in play at the same time.

But in this case I can’t think of any particular ideological reason to push the “solution” that was chosen. And while somebody undoubtedly got paid to put this solution in place, but I can’t think that it was very big money. If I had the talent to sell this type of scam, I would choose a more lucrative scam. So I am at a lose to figure out why anyone would be so stupid as do what this government did.

Now I am deliberately hyping how stupid this is because I want to get your expectations up. I want to see if even when you are expecting to read about something really stupid you are expecting something as inexplicably stupid as this.

The link above is to a blog post. I clicked the link embedded in the blog post to read that actual news paper article in hopes that it would tell me why they thought that this insane idea would work. But it was a waste of time because no explanation was given. All you need to know is in the blog post.

And Dwelt Among Us

Gazing heavenward
or only to the light
in the ceiling of our train,
a Spanish man sits and sinks
into his sockets, eyes
the size of billiard balls
His swan neck bends around itself
to lift his slackened chin.
Reddish whiskers fill his cheeks.
His hands, slain on the tray before him,
demand to be believed.
Though I see no thorny crown,
though his ears aren’t filled
with blood, I can almost see the strokes,
the single strokes that give him life–
El Greco’s Christ is breathing,
and here am I, the donor on the right,
asking how it can be, and whether I
–me–should fold my lace-sleeved hands
and gaze beyond him
to the light that floods His face.

Ellen Orner

Chapel, 4 pm

Spine pressed against
a pew, I eyed the sun.
Light split on my lids,
like in microscopes,
and under fists.
It hung on my lashes,
floaters bobbing
in vitreous humor,
like diatoms on fire.
Filaments split and decomposed,
spontaneously generating
purple. And behind the purple,
marigold, roaring through
the phases of eclipse.
White fire worked arcs
unbending like skeletal
petals, sprung from a few
dead specks–
magnified and glorified,
fragmented and polarized,
kaleidoscopic, cobalt-green,
gaseous, red-flecked
sight. The sun withdrew
to the west and I
was left with my pew
and colored panes.
But I thank You,
for I might have gone blind,
staring at Your substance
on my lashes

Ellen Orner