TV News LIES

.. If it makes any difference at all, it's probably not the Halloween stuff at the stores and at home, even though the kids always go nuts for this "creep out" stuff.  More and more adults, too, looks like -- some say it's the second-biggest holiday of the year, if not THE biggest.

Ca-Ching, goes the cash register, and another angel costume gets its wings bent, straight out of the box -- isn't that how that one goes, from that "It's a Dunderheaded Life" movie they always play this time of year?

Sorry, I know what it's really called, it's just that life has pretty weird lately, and you know how we always joked around about movie titles, like the...

The original Twilight Zone series had a timely episode involving a kind of a stopwatch:  Click the stem, and all time stops.  Except you.  Maybe you're already hearing the tell-tale series music and its four-note loop.

40-year-old Patrick McNulty realized the stopwatch offered many intriguing possibilities, if its secrets could be unwound.  In the teleplay by series creator Rod Serling, the [spoiler alert] watch is dropped and broken -- forever stranding McNulty in time.

Except for that being-stranded-in-time part, I could have long used a stopwatch like that.  (You too?)  It sure would have shrunk down those 75-hour weeks to size.

Welcome back to another edition of Field Guide to Humanity: The Strange and Puzzling Account of Homo Confusus.

This time out, we tackle the political animal (Spotlightus Selfinterestus) yet again, continuing to fine-comb through behavioral traits and observations, examining myth and lore, and then on to some leap-of-guesswork field scrutiny to discover the innermost secrets of this strange and almost disturbingly gregarious tribe.

Political animals, as you remember from last time, come in a handful of subsets, with two main co-ruling -- and constantly warring -- parties:  "Republicans" (Boneheadus Maximus) and "Democrats" (Spinus Missingus).

Ancient history is alive and well today -- and is, in short, old hat.
Submitted for your consideration, a tale of two worlds:

In the UK, a man is trying to decipher the intricate subtleties of symbols on a clay tablet from 3200 BCE that speaks to the current status of the home group, using the language of the time.

Across an ocean, in the US, two men will meet tonight, in 2012 CE, and use modern speech, attempting to speak to their own audience about current affairs within the home group -- providing observers can decode the oblique, nuanced language used.

Chalk up another win to tee-shirt philosophy, with an added twist.

Many have long said, "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should."  The current version of such qualitative evaluations in life might be, "Just because you can, why on Earth would you want to?"

Upholding that basic concept, especially with that newest wrinkle, may be a sign of intelligent life down here after all, but I'm not blistering the flooring in a panicked hurry to get out and place bets.

The longer our country's history, the faster and more extreme we become, tearing off into all directions at once.  Even as we progress and go forward, it seems, we can grow in opposite directions -- while trying to juggle and reconcile our parallel lines, already skewing to the extreme, pointed and going everywhichway at once.

Some extremes may be related to the increased population effect you've noted from time to time, in which it seems there are thousands of people in every conceivable hobby or belief group, from The Intercontinental Plaid-Toaster-Cozy Aficionados to The Society of Tap-Dancing Proust Performance Artists.