November is. . . .

International Drum Month, Peanut Butter Lovers Month, Slaughter Month, Aviation Month, Good Nutrition Month, National Epilepsy Month, Latin American Month, Hunger Awareness month, National Diabetes Awareness Month, National Red Ribbon Month, National Stamp Collecting Month

1. All Saints' Day, Dia de Los Muertos, Plan Your Epitaph Day, St. Marcel's Day
2. All Souls' Day, Dia de Los Muertos, National Deviled Egg Day
3. Sandwich Day, Housewife's Day, St. Martin de Porres's Day
4. Election Day, Waiting for the Barbarians Day, St. Charles Borromeo's Day
5. Gunpowder Day, Guy Fawkes Day, St. Elizabeth of Hungary's Day
6. Saxophone Day, Marooned Without a Compass Day, Basketball Day, St. Leonard of Noblac's Day
7. National Bittersweet Chocolate With Almonds Day, St. Willibrord's Day
8. Dunce Day, The Four Crowned Martyr's Day
9. Sadie Hawkins Day, Chaos Never Dies Day, St. Theodore's Day
10. Forget-Me-Not Day, St. Andrew Avellino's Day
11. Veterans Day, Remembrance Day (Canada), Air Day, St. Martin of Tours's Day
12. National Pizza With the Works Except Anchovies Day, St. Emillion's Day
13. National Indian Pudding Day, St. Francis Xavier Cabrini's Day
14. Operation Room Nurse Day, St. Josaphat of Polotsk's Day
15. National Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day, St. Albert the Great's Day
16. Button Day, St. Margaret of Scotland's Day
17. Take a Hike Day
18. Occult Day, St. Odo's Day
19. Have a Bad Day Day, St. Nerses I
20. Absurdity Day, St. Edmund's Day
21. World Hello Day, False Confessions Day, St. Gelasius I's Day
22. Start of Sagittarius, Start Your Country Day, St. Cecillia's Day
23. National Cashew Day, St. Clement of Rome
24. Use Even If the Seal Is Broken Day, St. Colman of Cloyne's Day
25. National Parfait Day, St. Catherine of Alexandria's Day
26. Shopping Reminder Day, St. John Berchmaus's Day
27. Pins and Needles Day, St. Maximus of Riez's Day
28. Make Your Own Head Day, St. Catherine Laboure's Day
29. Square Dance Day, St. Sermins's Day
30. Stay at Home Because You're Well Day, St. Andrew the Apostle's Day

The Illegal Immigration Problem

The following was received as an email forward by my dear wife, so the providence is questionable at best, but, nonetheless, it is quite witty, so I am re-printing it here.

From the MANITOBA HERALD, Canada (a very underground paper):

A flood of American liberals sneaking across the border into Canada has intensified in the past week, sparking calls for increased patrols to stop the illegal immigration.

The possibility of a McCain/Palin election is prompting the exodus among left-leaning citizens who fear they'll soon be required to hunt, pray, and agree with Bill

O'Reilly. Canadian border farmers say it's not uncommon to see dozens of sociology professors, animal rights activists and Unitarians crossing their fields at night.

"I went out to milk the cows the other day, and there was a Hollywood producer huddled in the barn," said Manitoba farmer Red Greenfield, whose acreage borders North Dakota. The producer was cold, exhausted and hungry. "He asked me if I could spare a latte and some free-range chicken. When I said I didn't have any, he left. Didn't even get a chance to show him my screenplay, eh?" In an effort to stop the illegal aliens, Greenfield erected higher fences, but the liberals scaled them. So he tried installing speakers that blare Rush Limbaugh across the fields. "Not real effective," he said. "The liberals still got through, and Rush annoyed the cows so much they wouldn't give milk."

Officials are particularly concerned about smugglers who meet liberals near the Canadian border, pack them into Volvo station wagons, drive them across the border and leave them to fend for themselves. "A lot of these people are not prepared for rugged conditions, "an Ontario border patrolman said. "I found one carload without a drop of drinking water. They did have a nice little Napa Valley cabernet, though."

When liberals are caught, they're sent back across the border, often wailing loudly that they fear retribution from conservatives. Rumors have been circulating about the

McCain administration establishing re-education camps in which liberals will be forced to shoot wolves from airplanes, deny evolution, and act out drills preparing them for the Rapture. In recent days, liberals have turned to sometimes-ingenious ways of crossing the border. Some have taken to posing as senior citizens on bus trips to buy cheap Canadian prescription drugs. After catching a half-dozen young vegans disguised in powdered wigs, Canadian immigration authorities began stopping buses and quizzing the supposed senior-citizen passengers on Perry Como and Rosemary Clooney hits to prove they were alive in the '50s. "If they can't identify the accordion player on The Lawrence Welk Show, we get suspicious about their age," an official said. Canadian citizens have complained that the illegal immigrants are creating an organic-broccoli shortage and renting all the good Susan Sarandon movies. "I feel sorry for American liberals, but the Canadian economy just can't support them," an Ottawa resident said. "How many art-history and English majors does One country need?"

Mrs. Walker's Birthday!

Today is my beloved wife's natal day. I will not say which one, as that would be telling, but I will say that it is significantly fewer than my own. Happy Birthday, Sweetie!!

Zombies

As a wee lad, I found particular horror in stories of the reanimated dead. Monsters made up from the parts of dead bodies and, by far the worst, the zombies. Zombies carried the visage of the deceased, but they were forced to the will of the voodoo witch doctor who summoned them from the grave. This horror seemed the most complete to me, as my sympathies lay with the poor zombie who was under the impression that he had earned his eternal rest, but was now summoned forth to do some asshole's wicked work. I hated that.

Then, I grew out of it, and the concept no longer bothered me. The movies went from horrifying to stupid and inane, and they passed from my regard.

Then, one day, I came to realize that these movies and stories were parables. They are parables that tell of a horrid truth.

You see, also as a wee lad, I had a profound affection for certain icons of American commerce, most notably the ancient and steadfast Abercrombie and Fitch. It stood at 55/57 West 35^th Street in Manhattan, and they carried all the best stuff. They had hand-made fishing baskets and THE safari shirts – the ones preferred by Teddy Roosevelt and Hemingway and everyone who was anyone in the early twentieth century. It's where Dad got his Greener shotgun. It's where I learned to tie a fly and cast a bamboo fly-pole. It's where Mom got the fishing pole she gave me for my high-school graduation. Hem died in '61, and Abercrombie and Fitch declined. The store began its death rattle in the late '60s, and it died in the mid seventies. It was sad, but they were gone.

And then the voodoo witch doctor came. He carried the ominous moniker of The Gap, and he summoned the corpse of A&F back to life. The store now does more business than it ever did, but it is an abomination, carrying inferior Chinese made crap aimed at teenagers who don't give a crap about quality or the history of Abercrombie and Fitch. Teenagers who have more money than brains, who want to look like or to attract the current sex-bomb from the TV, and Abercrombie and Fitch feeds that frenzy. Hem would turn in his grave.

The saddest part is that it is not a phenomenon unique to A&F. Eddie Bauer went the same way, and before A&F, but, at least, they pretended to be similar to the older store for awhile. The one that really gets me most recently, however, is L.L. Bean. I knew something was horribly wrong when I called them to find out if they could send me a Norwegian Sweater, and found that they no longer carried it. L.L. Bean with no Norwegian Sweaters? How could it be? I will tell you how – the witch doctor has come and has streamlined and modernized their business, and it is becoming another reanimated corpse of what it once was. Soon it will be in a mall near you, and you will be able to buy inferior Vietnamese made khakis that will, startlingly, look exactly like the khakis that you can get at Abercrombie and Fitch and The Gap and Eddie Bauer and The Banana Republic and every other store on the mall.

For a Halloween fright, I don't need to rent a movie nor dig out the Lovecraft. I only need to stroll down to the mall.

Mama's Birthday

My beloved mother, rest her eternal soul, would have been 94 years old today, had she lived to see it. By the time she passed on, she was quite decrepit and her mind had left her. I deeply wish, however, that she had retained her faculties and that she had lived another decade. I miss her very much.

The Perils of eBay

I have been quite fortunate on my many forays onto eBay, only having been duped once, and that by an idiot who may have actually believed that "Self Published" equated a sheaf of poorly done photocopies. Otherwise I have been very lucky, and, as time has gone by, I have become more careful.

Nonetheless some of the criminal behavior I find on eBay when hunting for antiques truly startles me. When searching antiquities the biggest thing is, of course, misrepresentation. Things like the numerous modern Chinese made chess sets that are being sold as antiques are obvious and malicious attempts to bilk the uninitiated or the uninformed, and, I am sorry to say, I do wish that eBay would make some attempt to regulate these, but I do not know how.

On the other hand, things like the pair of mismatched cufflinks I found this evening that are being sold as "Two Vintage Antique Lapel Pins Studs Gold Tone" offends me on so very many levels. Either the seller is painfully stupid, or he is practicing upon the deep stupidity of his clientele. I suspect the latter, but, in either case, he needs to be run off of eBay on some sort of digital analog for a rail, if not as a criminal then as an idiot.

Projekt Brutus