Seeking a world of ten thousand years

• “‘We ain’t got nothing but Baptists in town,’ Mayor Mike Fitzgerald told board members May 12.” That’s the leader of Dillsboro, N.C., explaining that: A) His town board meetings will open with sectarian Christian prayers, and B) He hasn’t got a clue what the doctrine of believer’s baptism actually means.

I suppose the next logical step for Dillsboro will be to start baptizing all residents as infants. After all, if they “ain’t got nothing but Baptists there,” then there’s no reason to separate church and state.

• Thylacine! (To help you feel a little bit better about the eradication of the amazing “Tasmanian tiger,” here are the Top 10 New[ly Discovered] Species for 2014.)

• After the adolescent growth spurt in which I shot up to a gangly 6-2, my mom used to take me with her to the local fabric store. They did things the old-fashioned way there, selling cloth by the “yard” by having customers count out an arm-length, and Mom wanted to get her money’s worth.

Ah, simpler times, people say when they hear that, feeling a rush of nostalgia for a time when life seemed so much more innocent. Nonsense. It’s not easy finding dress shirts with a 36-inch sleeve because most people don’t have yard-long Inspector Gadget arms. That store’s “simpler, old-fashioned approach” was ripping off its customers for decades.

• It’s your typical romantic comedy. Boy meets girl. Girl schools boy in proper New Testament Greek exegesis of Ephesians 5. They fall in love. …

• “In a recent congressional hearing about oil and gas operations in national wildlife refuges, Noah Matson, the vice president of Defenders of Wildlife, had the temerity to display pictures of oil pipelines shoddily repaired with duct tape and garbage bags as if that were a bad thing.”

Here’s how Louisiana Republican Rep. Vance McAllister responded:

“You took a picture of someone who was innovative, and rather than leaving the fluid to drip on the ground, repaired it with duct tape and a garbage bag, and yet you seem to be very upset about that,” McAllister told [Matson].

“We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t,” McAllister added. “We take a garbage bag and fix it and keep it from leaking and yet you’re still not happy, and come to Washington and testify before Congress and want to throw fits because some guy took initiative.”

The most telling thing there in McAllister’s ridiculous defense of this is the congressman’s use of the word “we.” He uses that word four times — all referring to himself as, primarily, one who identifies with, represents and is part of the energy industry. McAllister can’t even be bothered to pretend that he represents the citizens of Lousiana’s 5th District and their interests. He does not think of himself primarily as a public servant who has taken an oath to defend the Constitution. He thinks of himself as a representative and a member of We the Industry.

And McAllister has been put in charge of oversight of that industry. Thank you, again, Justice Roberts, for telling us that money is speech.

• Rick Wiles is the former marketing director for “Christian” broadcasting giant Trinity Broadcasting Network. Wiles left TBN in 1998 to become even more of a raving right-wing loon. Talking on his radio program last week with anti-immigrant activist Jessica Vaughan, Wiles offered his idea for dealing with non-white immigration: “Hey, you put ‘em on a C-130 cargo plane and strap a parachute to ‘em and you push ‘em out the door. It’s solved.”

So then, here’s Emmylou Harris with Arlo Guthrie, singing Arlo’s dad’s song, “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)”: