Had the other rider been passing to his right, then it would have been proper to have offered him a greeting. 

2222:  The Zombie Apocalypse

200 years from today will be the Zombie Apocalypse.  It's not too early to start stocking up.

Another day, still no zombies 

The Barbershop

There's a dungeon
in the basement of the barbershop,
and that's where the barbers
would throw little boys
if they misbehaved
and didn't sit still.
They threw you down there
because there were no stairs,
and the fall would surely kill you,
unless you landed in the tank
with the alligators
(which were way too big
to fit under any bed),
and before you were completely wet
or even had a chance to scream
they would have eaten you whole.
But if by chance you missed the tank
and survived the fall,
there was absolutely no way out
of the dungeon,
because the walls
were slimy and impossible to climb.
And there you would have to wait
for whatever it was
that lived in dark damp slimy dungeons -
Rats and bats and snakes and spiders
and probably even the Creature himself!
And that is why
Billy Balinski barely breathed
when the barber cut his hair.

James K. Polk:  This President Goes All the Way to Eleven

President's Day:  A day set aside for one president

Presidents' Day:  A day set aside for multiple presidents

Presidents Day:  A phrase that makes no sense at all.

 

With that in mind, this year on Presidents Day, here at HGP were celebraing the presidency of James' K. Pok.

 

James "Just Call Me Jimmy" KaNox Polk was the 11^th President of the United States.  Sandwiched between Johnny Tyler and Zachary "Not Zachariah" Taylor, he served only one term, from 1845 to 1849, and is best known for a massive land grab, adding more territory to the United States than any other president with the exception of Mort Humgartner, but you don't know about him yet.

 

Polk was born in November of 1795 to a privileged North Carolina family.  After college, which is what privileged children do, he went into politics, where he became buddies with fellow North Carolinian-who-also-became-a-Tennessean Andy Jackson.  And if you don't remember our 7^th President, Andrew Jackson, he was so polarizing he caused the creation of the modern two party system, and we all know how well that's working.  He even claimed a Presidential election in which he lost was rigged (never mind that it probably was).  Stop me if any of this sounds familiar.  Jackson was especially nasty when it came to anybody who wasn't white.  He waged wars on the Native Americans, stole their land, and was responsible for the Trail of Tears – a forced death march if ever there was one.  And let's not forget the black folk.  Jackson grew up with slavery.  He bought and sold slaves (as did Polk).  He supported the westward expansion of slavery and opposed anyone trying to end it.  His argument for not ending slavery was that it would cause a war.  Never mind the money he was making off of slavery.  You know, there just isn't a whole lot to like about this guy.  And he was Polk's buddy.  In fact, Polk, who served in the House of Representatives during Jackson's presidency, was known as one of Jackson's Chief Lieutenants. 

 

Back to Polk.  After serving as Speaker of the House, Polk became the Governor of Tennessee, his adopted home state.  In 1848 he quite successfully stumbled back into national politics.  Polk was originally being groomed as the vice-presidential candidate running with Martin Van Buren, who apparently wasn't content with already having been the 8^th President.  But then Polk's buddy Andrew Jackson got involved, and he convinced Polk that doing what the public wants is what wins elections, and the public was wanting a land grab.  Since Van Buren wasn't for annexing Texas, the party dropped him at the convention and made Polk their candidate, and Polk won.  And that's the definition of a dark horse – a little known candidate, opponent, or whatever who rises from seeming obscurity and unexpectantly wins. 

 

And win he did, because Polk was willing to give the people what they wanted.  And what they wanted was Manifest Destiny – the belief that American expansion over… well… everything, was the Will of God; therefore, it was both justified and inevitable.  God says it's OK.  You can take all you want. 

 

And Polk got most of what the people wanted.  In fact, the only place he didn't get everything was in Canada.  Originally Polk had wanted everything south of Alaska (54-40 or Fight!) and west of the Continental Divide, which is all of western Canada – all of British Columbia, the Yukon, and a good hunk of the Northwest Territories and Alberta.  Britain, who was running Canada at the time, said, "What the bloody hell?"  Fortunately, we avoided a war, and eventually we signed a treaty that gave us everything  south of the 49^th Parallel, except for Vancouver Island, and Canada got all of that.  So stop asking.  

 

Shortly thereafter, in 1845 we annexed Texas.  Promises made, promises kept.  As you know from your Lone Star history, after winning its independence from Mexico in 1836 Texas was its very own Republic, capital "R" and everything.  President Van Buren wanted to make that territory part of the United States from the start, but Mexico was still a bit pissy about having lost all that land, and was still deluding themselves that they would ever get it back, so they were threatening war if the US actually did annex it.  They'd put up with Texas as their neighbor, but not the entire United States.  I mean, seriously, can you blame them?  The threat of war with Mexico was enough to keep Van Buren (both times), Harrison (that's Henry William), and Tyler from annexing Texas, but not Polk.  Surprisingly, though, Mexico did not go to war… not then.

 

Polk then tried to buy everything else he wanted from Mexico, but Mexico said, "Gracias, pero, no."  So we just took it anyway in 1848, in the Mexican-American war.  We ended up getting over half of the entire land mass of the entire country of Mexico.  Any way you look at it, that's a lot of land.  No wonder they didn't want us as neighbors.  We got all of present day California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico, along with a good hunk of Oklahoma, Colorado, Kansas, Wyoming, and Montana.  Although we may have gotten those parts of Wyoming and Montana in the Canada deal.  It gets confusing.  Thing is, we got it all. 

 

In all, Polk added the entire West Coast to America, hell, pretty much the entire West, including all of the Southwest.  And the people loved him for it.  But, yeah, that's pretty much it.  That's pretty much all he's known for.  God wanted us to have all that land, and Polk took it.  Amen.

 

Of course, with all that new real estate came the quandary of expanding slavery, which would become one of the deciding issues in the Civil War, but that wasn't Polk's problem.  He was through with it all.  Polk had promised to serve only one term, and that's all he served.  He returned home to Tennessee and died just three months after he left office.  Talk about upstaging the new president.

Dreaming of Heaven

The nun stood in front
of the boys' Sunday morning
sixth grade CCD class,
as big and black and unmovable
as any mountain there ever was,
and from somewhere behind
all of those black clothes
she dreamt out loud
about heaven,
while Billy Balinski,
with his mind out the window,
tried to figure out what the heck
CCD stood for.
One of the C's had to be Catholic,
but durned if he could get the other two.

"And in heaven the wine
flows from fountains like water..."

Billy's uncle had given him wine once.
Billy still remembered
running to the bathroom
to spit it out
while his uncle laughed like a lunatic
Billy had seen once in a movie.

"...and in heaven the streets
are cobbled with gold..."

Billy couldn't ride his bicycle on the street
in front of his grandmother's house
because it was cobbled.
But if it must be cobbled,
why not chocolate?
At least you could eat chocolate.

"...and only good little boys and girls
get to go to heaven..."

Billy wondered if anyone
would be able to hear
Judy Jefferson screaming
from inside the cinder block box
where the janitors burned their trash
on the playground,
or if anyone would see
Billy running away.

Billy knew that he was slowly strangling,
but he dared not fool with his collar
unless he wanted his necktie to fall off again.

Jesus hung over the blackboard
looking down on the nun
with sad, swollen eyes;
the blood on his hands
still looked fresh.
Billy couldn't help but imagine
that Jesus would rather be someplace else.

Shadows of Shadows Passing:  Contrary to Popular Belief, the Groundhog is Right More Often than Not

So there I was, thinking about Groundhog's Day.  Thinking about that prognosticating rodent.  Thinking about how he's usually wrong.  At best, he gets his predictions right about 40% of the time.  If you were randomly flipping a coin, it would come out better than that.  But the Groundhog doesn't.  And the reason why is because the Groundhog's predictions are not random.  The Groundhog doesn't have it wrong.  We do. 

 

If we are going to check the accuracy of the Groundhog (or anything, as far as that goes), we first need to quantify the information that we are trying to measure.  We must convert it to numbers.  Obviously, no matter what the Groundhog says, we're still going to have wintery days and spring-like days for the next six weeks.  There will be days that are cloudy and cool, and days that are sunny and warm.  We can measure that.  We can count how many days there are of each.  If there are more warm, sunny days than cloudy, colder days, then we can say that spring came early.  If there are more cloudy, colder days, then it didn't. 

 

Let's use the World Series as an example.  The team that wins the first game in the best out of seven series goes on to win the entire series almost 2 out of 3 times (63.7%).  Sure, teams do come back and win it all, but winning that first game switches the odds in favour of the winning team.  Whereas the other team now must win 4 of the next 6 games (67%), the team with the first victory only has to win three of the next 6 games (50%).  Because there is a finite amount of games, the odds of winning the most games shifts dramatically in favour of the team winning that first game.

 

It's the same principle with Groundhog's Day.  There is also a finite amount of days between Groundhog's Day and the "official" first day of Spring.  If the Groundhog gets the first day right, then it shifts the odds of his prediction being correct for all of those days.  But that's not how we do it. 

 

How we've always done it is if the Groundhog sees his shadow – if it's sunny on Groundhog's Day – then there will be six more weeks of winter.  Nice weather today means bad weather for the next 42 or so days.  On the other hand, bad weather today means good weather for the next six weeks.  And that's just nuts.  There's a reason why it makes no sense.  It's like a team in the World Series losing the first game on purpose.  No wonder the Groundhog is usually wrong.

 

But if we flip it, then the Groundhog suddenly becomes right 60% of the time.  And that's better than any weatherman.  Way better.  Whatever the weather is on Groundhog's Day is what the next six weeks will more than likely be, if for no other reason than we already know what the weather will be like on one of those 42 or so days, and that changes the percentage in the Groundhog's favour.  It's that simple.

The Alligator Under Billy Balinski's Bed

There's an alligator
under Billy Balinski's bed,
its idiot-grinning teeth waiting
for that very instant
Billy's foot hits the floor
to suck him in,
like his mother's Hoover
had done to his sister's doll,
only his sister's doll
hadn't gone all the way down;
it's feet were left sticking
out between the rollers.
Billy imagined that's how he'd look,
only his feet would be kicking
and he'd be yelling like crazy
with his head deep down inside
the alligator's belly.
But no one would hear him,
because no noise can penetrate an alligator.
But Billy Balinski
wasn't going
to give that alligator a chance,
even though Billy
had to pee so bad it hurt.