I hope you dislike the title of this because I do, and it’s nice to once in a while hope some readers will agree, a little, maybe.

Anyway, the title and its thought was inspired by hearing bits of news and politics. I try to avoid the media in all its forms. My half-decade-old cell phone is an infant compared to the experienced phones of many others.

Actually, I don’t feel it’s either handy or human to have some annoying gadget pretending to represent actual interaction. I’m equally keen for old-style phone calls, and of course relish with all my heart Zoom meetings where there is bound to be at least one pompous ass with a point to make every two minutes. If you’ve ever done online courses you know they are generally tailored so the typical garden slug could enroll and come out looking butterfly beautiful.

The empty blah-blah-blah in so much political and news talk is, to me, draining of spirit as vampirism. Too much opinion over too little information is the sorriest service.

I’ll wager that for you as for me it sometimes takes only a single thing to trigger the BINGO buzzer. It’s feels odd that I wonder if I was alone noting the BINGO petard.

One such boom that struck me as way under considered was the Roger Stone raid. I’m not a Stone fan or defender, but I was much struck by government raiders inviting a news crew along on the gotcha. I know, news crews ride along for entire shows, so what’s my point?

If you think it through I believe you’ll see a difference between a drug raid and a political raid.

They are different, to me anyway, and I worry about being alone with the feeling I was unwittingly dragged into complicity with secret police activity.

What, you’ll ask, where does that come from?

Well, think on it. Is it better for society to have secret raids where people disappear in the night or a media version where the accused is swept up in full view?

To me those are versions of the same thing.

There is cause for pause and concern when accusation becomes punishment. It’s worth a moment’s consideration to recall how a tactic so in line with state secret police activity was presented as legitimate in form and content.

Impossible, yes I mean not possible, to visit stores without hearing Siri or Alexa or their electro kin bopping out the most recent untalented jive.

That’s criticism, people, but given with great appreciation that in the U.S. musical world you don’t need skill to be a huge success.

Once any of the electro kin adopt you you’re in with noisy repetition of modest ability.

If a writer were to work to the same theme here’d greatness be. Bo-bo-bo-do I’m good, I’m good, bo-do-do, I’m good bo-do-do, an’ great, great, great do-do-bo, I’m great, great, I’m greater great, grate do-do-bo-do. Now all I have to do is sit back and await the prizes and rewards. Um-hum-Um-hum-Um-who.

Among things I’ve not seen or heard questioned much is the cost of and who pays for all the free vaccines and extra protection gear entering the waste stream after each doctor or dentist visit, etc.?

And haven’t we been generously providing free vaccines to other counties. Do you wonder just a little how hundreds of millions of vaccines in the U.S. get paid for? I’m not thinking this is a case of drug company charity. Do You?

One reason not to ask too many questions rests in placing health first and costs second or somewhere else. But it still costs something and it’s not all that much a part of the discussion to look at costs.

In some of the successful past cases it was possible to essentially wipe out smallpox and polio. Doing the same for a virus will probably pan out the same as for flu viruses, now second or third fiddle to the better income stream of COVID care.

A long time ago a country doctor told me, “I can give you a $25 treatment for a 25-cent cold. Go home, rest, and drink fluids.”

Not a bad reminder, that. Not a reminder too off from the poet Blake telling of the invisible worm that flies in the night with dark crimson love to destroy our joy. See the parallel?

Students hated when I’d do that. How about you? Do you hate it or go “HMM, I’ll think about that” while going on your way as I do?

When did political persons begin saying the spending of tax revenue was an investment? It’s a large linguistic jump to go from tax to invest.

Taxing is something done to me whereas (in the sorry old past) investing was something I could voluntarily do, though apparently not enough so someone else (wiser governmental heads) should step in to do it for me. In any case, making an investment sounds a lot better than paying a tax, maybe enough better I’d want to invest more, you know for a brighter future with new investment horizons.

Maybe that’s the idea. Taxing as an investment in the future sounds awfully good, awfully, but does run a risk similar to giving a credit card to a teen or relative prone to inebriate activities.

Put either (along with many more versions) behind the wheel of an investment and gosh-only knows where they’ll go or what crash might result. Might be fine. Might not. You don’t know until you’re successfully on Mars, have arrived without resources to survive, or have hit a wall before arriving.

We don’t know until it happens, do we, and it doesn’t take loads of experience to reckon with Fortuna’s face grinning at plan (or intention) versus result.

If you ever had a good idea that wasn’t, you’ll know, won’t you? And there, as Shakespeare (can he yet be employed) said, is the rub.

The rub of reality. Intention does not equal result. Ideals, too, have consequences.