The Fat Man Today

Terry Pratchett passed away yesterday. I never read a lot of his books - The Light Fantastic, The Colour of Magic, Sourcery, and Good Omens are the only ones I've read - but I loved his work. The literary and fantasy worlds have lost a champion, and so soon after losing Spock, too. Sir Terry also suffered from Alzheimer's. This frightens me, because my family has a history with the disease. But I digress. Terry battled his ever-worsening dive into the well of dementia with what Neil Gaiman called an unusual kind of fury. Which, somewhat paradoxically, translated to the kind of unabashed situational humor you'd find in his work. Death, for example, has been shown to be a bumbling parent unable to resist the charms of his teenaged daughter. The most efficient travelling suitcase in the world is one possessed of many legs and an uncanny sense of humor that, in my opinion, probably influenced the character of Alladin's magic carpet in the Disney iteration of that character....

I have a lot of friends who don't understand how some folks can't agree with the current administration. Most of these friends work, in one way or the other, with the government. So I can understand why they feel so strongly about the admin as they do. But I respectfully beg to differ with their views. There was a point in time where I agreed with what they had to say - I even supported the BBL for a time - but as the years went on, and the chinks in Noynoy's administrative armor began to show, I started souring of whatever respect I had of the man and his cabinet. I imagine it all started, for me, with his lackluster response to typhoon Yolanda. People tell me that Yolanda was am isolated case that we weren't prepared for. I agree! The fact that we responded so terribly after the fact , though, does nothing to make things better. I appreciate how difficult it must have been for the people in charge to react positively to the disaster, but if they can't accept that ...