1. Short term memory. Since the weather was set to turn frosty, I made a giant pot of chicken barley soup Sunday afternoon. I enjoyed exactly one bowl of it. Then I cleaned up, put the soup on the counter to cool before sticking it in the fridge, did some evening reading, and then promptly went to bed while my lovely soup sat out at room temperature for the better part of 14 hours. Could I have eaten it and not gotten violently ill? Probably. Even so, the soup is now feeding the wildlife across the fence line in my backyard woods and I’m utterly disgusted by my apparent inability to remember one simple thing to do.

2. Standard time. It’s my rant every fall, but it needs to be said. When you work in a room without windows, it’s pretty irrelevant to your life how early in the morning the sun comes up. Even if I did have a window, what it’s doing outside is of fairly limited significance. It could be dark until noon and it wouldn’t change my typical day in any meaningful way. But sure, I guess there are people who for no explicable reason put a premium on driving to work with the rising sun directly in their eyes. Personally I’ll take my daylight in the evenings when there’s a chance I might actually be able to do something with it. Maybe I should just work a deal with the boss to spring forward and fall back my work schedule periodically since we can’t seem to stop fiddling with the actual clock.

3. Impeachment. We should all, regardless of party, be deeply embarassed at how the House of Representatives impeachment hearings are being covered. The impeachment of a sitting official is the real “nuclear option” afforded by the Constitution. Far from a moment of deepest gravity, both parties have inevitablely contributed to the breathless media coverage that has given the whole process thus far a carnival atmosphere. We should all be embarassed that this is the best the elected representatives of the world’s oldest continualy operating republic and the professional journalists who cover them can muster. We should be embarassed, but we shouldn’t be surprised.