Goliath was a Wimp: Random Observations for the New Year

The first measurable winter precipitation of the season rolled through town last Monday night, on the heels of sixty-five degree temperatures on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I found out on Weather.com that this mediocre, unimpressive two-inches-of-icy-crap-producing storm was given the name Winter Storm Goliath. I really hate that every winter system that produces a snowflake gets its own special name, but if we’re going Biblical with storm names this winter, I have some suggestions. Nebuchadnezzar. Zerubbabel. Mephibosheth. Habakkuk. Melchizedek. Ahasuerus. Or we could go short with something like Eli or Ham. If we have a winter like last year and run out of names, I’ve got some good New Testament ones as well.

If at this time in 2017 Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, or Ben Carson is President of the United States, Jeanne and I will be wishing everyone Happy New Year from Canada.

At an after-Christmas, multiple birthday party at Jeanne’s brother’s house on Long Island this week, there were three generations of her family present (hard to believe that we are part of the oldest generation). This included six kids representing the newest generation—I don’t recall my cousins, brother, and me being that cute and precocious when we were in single digits of age. Or at least our parents didn’t act as if we were.

What’s with the inflatable snowmen, reindeer, and Santa Clauses that seem to populate more and more yards every holiday season? I don’t like them. At least eighty percent of the time they are not inflated and look like a bunch of large and colorful used condoms. Really—think about it.

While writing one of the days before Christmas I put Handel’s Messiah on Spotify for my listening pleasure. I had a classic WTF? moment shortly afterwards until I realized that I had forgotten to turn “shuffle” off. “The Trumpet Shall Sound” followed by “There Were Shepherds Abiding in the Field” and the “Hallelujah Chorus” was as disorienting as scrambling the verses of the Twenty-Third Psalm would be. Didn’t quite work.

Good news on the broken ankle front–it has healed well and I don’t need to see the orthopedist again. I asked him if there was anything I should still avoid doing; his advice sounded like a Henny Youngman joke. “If you do something and your ankle hurts, stop doing it.”

From the Un-Fucking-Believable file: I read on Facebook this week that certain conservative elements are interpreting House Speaker Paul Ryan’s new beard as a sign that he is soft on Islam and perhaps moving toward conversion himself. I’m not making this up.

Did Paul Ryan GROW A BEARD to show SYMPATHY with the MUSLIMS?!?!

Beards are important, though—just ask fans of the 2013 World Series Champion Boston Red Sox. I noticed the other day that one sharp dividing line between my side of the philosophy department wars and the other, dark side is that the males on my side all have beards and the guys on the other side are, with one exception, beardless. By the way, there’s only one woman out of twenty-one philosophers in the department—certainly a huge part of our problems. I never thought I would have a moment of solidarity with Paul Ryan, but as my sister-in-law from Brooklyn likes to say, “what are you gonna do?”

A friend of ours who is going through major life changes is trying to get Jeanne and me to give his dachshund a home. We have two dachshunds and a Boston Terrier already who all compete vigorously for Jeanne’s attention—adding a fourth Jeanne-loving canine into the mix does not make sense. But something tells me we’re going to do it (Lily likes me too, so maybe I can co-opt her). Stay tuned.

Here’s hoping that 2016 delivers a President that rational people from all sides can live with, a country that acts more like Canada, another Super Bowl for the Patriots, a deep NCAA tournament run for Friars basketball, a repeat national championship for the Friars hockey team, a publisher for my new book, my book rocketing to the top of the NY Times non-fiction list, the miracle of sanity and collegiality for my philosophy department, no snow storms stronger than Goliath, a Red Sox return to the top, and the keys to a new car under everyone’s seat. Is that too much? I don’t care—Happy New Year to all!