• The last time that this blog featured back-to-back editions of Thoughts at Large was over twenty years ago, when Charles Kuralt hosted the blog.  We obviously made a few changes since then: for one thing, we do not allow Eugenia Zuckerman to appear on the blog unless she agrees to play the kazoo, and our much-beloved nature segments are now sponsored by Monsanto.  Other than that, it’s pretty much sunshine as usual here.

• Mother Teresa (pardon me, Saint Teresa of Calcutta) is a Saint in the same sense that Barack Obama is a Nobel Peace Prize winner and Merrick Garland is still not a Justice of the Supreme Court.  There are criteria to be met, and then seven or eight old white men get together in a room and decide.

• Maureen Dowd and Ann Coulter.  Though political opposites, they reside on two sides of the same snarky coin.  They never seem to tire of voicing their gray, cynical negativity.  One difference between them is that I once enjoyed reading Maureen Dowd.  The other is that Ann Coulter traps and eats children.

• Our Artsy-Fartsy Line-of-the-Week award goes to Chrstine Aiken of Asheville Aerial Arts, as quoted in The Laurel of Asheville, September 2016:

Each piece addresses a transformation such as captive/free, dreaming/awake, same/different, grounded/flying, etc.  It is all about embracing and celebrating the inevitable changes that infiltrate our lifetimes.

Honorable mention goes to painter Deanna Chilian, as quoted in the very same magazine:

I began going crazy with color, first infusing it into quasi-abstracted landscapes I painted when I lived in Colorado.  Then came steps into leaving behind material representation altogether — then more discernment and sophistication in my palette.

• The reason that eating corn-on-the-cob is so much better than other ways to eat corn is because the gnashing of our incisors reconnects us with our inner cave-person.

• I have concerns about Target MarkeTeam, the firm that does direct-mail marketing for UNICEF as well as charities such as CARE and The Humane Society.  UNICEF just sent me this envelope, with a nickel glued inside, bearing the message “This nickel could save a child’s life!”  Wow!  To think they would entrust a child’s fate to the US Postal Service!

• Every second that you and I are alive, one hundred trillion neutrinos from the depths of the universe pass through our bodies.  I have no idea what these damn neutrinos may or may not do to us, but it’s no wonder we only live to be eighty, and that’s if we’re lucky.  Damn neutrinos.

• North Washington is 82 miles north of Washington, PA.  West Liberty is 52 miles north of East Liberty, PA.  Berlin is 123 miles west of East Berlin, PA.  Weston is 62 miles west of Easton, PA.  North Branch is 102 miles east of West Branch, PA.  Centerville is 134 miles south (or north, take your pick) of the other Centerville, PA, and both Centervilles happen to be 230 miles more-or-less west of Centralia, PA.  If you are planning to visit any of these Pennsylvania towns, pack a compass, and a lunch.

•  Lucy:     Ricky?
   Ricky:    Yes, Lucy.
   Lucy:     Do you feel them?
   Ricky:    Lucy, what are you talking about?
   Lucy:     The neutrinos!
   [Ricky looks up - barely - from today's edition of Variety.]
   Ricky:    The Neutrinos?  They haven't worked for me in years.
   Lucy:     Haah? 
   Ricky:    They couldn't do the rhumba -- I had to fire them!
   Lucy:     Ricky, do you know what neutrinos are?
   Ricky:    All I know is they are no good.
   Lucy:     Well... I just read... just a minute ago... that we... waaahhh! WAAAAAHHHH!
   [Just then, Fred and Ethel enter the apartment.]
   Fred:     What's all the wailing about? Did the washing machine break?
   Ricky:    Ay-ay-ay!  Lucy seems to be upset about The Neutrinos. I told her... 
   Lucy:     Waaahhh!
   Fred:     The Neutrinos?  They stunk!
   Ethel:    Gee, I kinda liked them.  Sort of... penetrating.  All over my body!
   [Fred and Ricky, mouths agape, raise their eyebrows and stare at each other.]
   Fred:     Ethel, we better beat it.  This is the Fifties. 
   Ricky:   Vamos, Fred.  I need to talk to Lucy!