• If Donald Trump is the “national embarassment” that GOP Congressman Richard Hanna says he is, then so must be the 36% of registered voters who are solidly behind Trump, none of whom read this blog. Most of my relatives don’t read it either, which is an even worse embarassment.
• I went on Twister the other day and tweeted for the first time. At first, I felt really stupid getting down on my hands and knees, but then I started to enjoy making cuckoo sounds and taking up contorted positions. Now I understand why Donald Trump goes on Twister — he likes to do the very same thing.
• Leonard Cohen, composer and performer of songs such as So Long Marianne, Suzanne, Hallelujah and The Future, will soon turn 82. I never saw him perform live (other than live on video) but wish I had… though I could say that about hundreds of performers.
Former co-workers, with whom I played poker once a month way back when, mocked me for having the temerity to play a Leonard Cohen album one night. They would remind me of my affront to their sensibilities on many poker nights afterwards, but I went on playing. (Leonard, however, would not be played again). To quote Cohen from Beautiful Losers, “My interest in this pack of failures betrays my character.”
• What? Oh it’s Twitter, not Twister. That’s different. Never mind. Love, Emily Litella.
• I am pleased to have a new friend, Enrique, whom I have not met in person but hope to one day. I encourage you to introduce yourself to Enrique, via his diverse and eclectic blog Prior Probability or his personal, revealing bio, “The Evolution of a Latino Law Professor.” It is so nice and unexpected to encounter kindred spirits at my age.
• The “fresh” fruit sold in Asheville supermarkets sucks. Yes, I know, we live in the hills, not the citrus belt. Still, the produce in upstate New York supermarkets was much fresher than what is available here. Take plums, for example. 
Here, even when you buy them in the middle of summer, our plums are hard, reddish-black orbs that must be allowed to “rest” in a fruit bowl for three days. But even after that, the outsides have become mushy, the insides mealy, and the juiciness, to put it tactfully, compromised.
I love fruit, but I think seasonal fruit was better in the 1960s. It may have been available only a few weeks a year, but those weeks were memorable and juicy.
• Seems that I’ve fallen out of the photography habit over the last few years. I no longer feel compelled to record every scene of natural beauty/graceful decay or every intriguing composition that is presented to me. More often, it seems, the eyes suffice.
• Do you know what extra-virgin coconut oil is good for? It’s good mostly for lining the pockets of people who sell coconut oil. Coconut oil is a commodity that costs 75 cents a pound in bulk but goes for ten times that much when it is sold in a jar with a colorful label at the local Walmart. The designation extra-virgin means nothing, by the way, but doesn’t it sound impressive?
• To my dismay, almost every time my wife and I spend an evening with another couple, the conversation will devolve into separate man-to-man and woman-to-woman threads, no matter what effort I make to promote or restore groupwise discussion. I like listening and talking to women as much as men — why do I get pigeonholed?
• What? Oh it’s Thoughts at Large, not Tots at Lodge. That’s very different. Never mind. Love, Emily Litella.
The New Season of Klingon’s Got Talent
Well, that was quick. One week ago, I downloaded Windows 10 for my Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro laptop (late 2013 vintage) as a purported “upgrade” for my schizophrenic but functional Windows 8.1. As of today, I have booted Windows 10 out the window and returned to 8.1. Thank you, Microsoft, for giving me a thirty-day grace period to get out. But that is all the appreciation I can muster for you.
Another Little Town crime edition. Really, sometimes they make it so easy. These stories recently appeared in Citizen-Times, our remotely-published “local” Gannett newspaper.
Man assaults officer with metal wash board
Now, this is not a laughing matter, but where else would this happen but in the heart of Appalachia USA? The text of the article did not go into detail on the washboard incident (which took place at the County Jail) but it did say that the perpetrator, one Jason Smith, was charged with “assaulting a government official with a deadly weapon.” It gets better:
Earlier in the evening, as Smith was being arrested by two Asheville Police Officers, he refused to get on the ground and place his hands behind his back, warrants state. He attempted to hit officers with a large piece of cardboard and threw it to the ground in the middle of the street. Officers charged Smith with resisting a public officer and littering, which are both considered misdemeanors, according to court documents.
That littering charge is going to be especially hard to beat here in Asheville. I hope Smith has a good lawyer. And I hope that whoever left a washboard out in plain sight at the County Jail, where anyone could pick it up and use it to attack someone, will learn to be more responsible with deadly weapons.
Asheville man charged with several area break-ins
Joshua Frantz, a South Asheville man, was jailed by the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office after being accused of breaking into a number of homes on the very street he lives on. According to the article, Frantz “took more than $5,000 and $4,000 in valuables from his neighbors.” (Note to Citizen-Times: $5000 and $4000 usually adds up to $9000.) But there is much, much more to this story. I am reposting a sizable portion of it here, so that it will not be lost to the winds of internet time:
A deputy interviewed a woman at one residence who said someone was in her house, and when she came out of the bathroom the person ran out through the backdoor, warrants state. The woman told a deputy that her boyfriend had gotten a better look at the person. The deputy then spoke to Frantz, who lived with the woman.
Frantz described the man as having the “same build as him but had hair and inch or two long. He also said that he was wearing orange shorts and carrying a backpack that had red or orange on it,” warrants state.
Deputies searched the couple’s home and surrounding outside areas. They saw a pair of black gloves sitting on the countertop in the living room, a crowbar lying on the patio table in the backyard and a backpack that appeared to have red or orange on it.
In the bathroom Frantz had been in, a deputy saw what appeared to be a towel filled with hair as if someone had just gotten a haircut, warrants state. Hair was on the sink and all around the bathroom. A pair of orange shorts also had been thrown on the floor in the basement, according to warrants.
When deputies went back outside the house, they noticed Frantz was wearing a cap and his scalp was white appearing to have just been shaved, warrants state. He also had some “random longer hairs on his neck and around his head that I believed would be consistent with a quick cut,” according to warrants.
After piecing details together and obtaining evidence, authorities named Frantz as the person who had broken into neighboring residences stealing various items.
I don’t know if reporter Abigail Margulis intended her story to be quite so entertaining, but I would find it hard to write this account with a straight face. It would have been fun to be in the newsroom (in whatever city that may be) when her editor reviewed it.
As for Mr. Frantz’s neighbors, the lesson to be learned is this: if you can’t trust the guy who lives next door, you better hope that he is either very stupid or a bad liar, or both.