I hear Michael Bloomberg has announced a run for the presidency.

Get yer slogans here!

"The New York billionaire who's always 'correct'."

"Vote Bloo! More 'correct' than yoo know hoo!"

"Mike knows etiquette."

"Let's ask Mikey. We'll try anything!"

"He is the Bloo man, they are the blue men. He is the Wallrus, blue Bloo g'Bloomb."

"Orange man bad!"

Opossums seem to be everywhere! Which reminds me...

Once, I had a dog named Sam. We were on the road together. I raised him from an (abandoned) pup, and trained him to walk, off-leash, in the city (that's where we were, when he was a pup). Sometimes, when he was young, he would roam (Oakland, CA), and I would go looking for him. I can recall sitting in a coffee shop in the Lake district, on one such search, and, looking out the window, spotting him at the traffic light, waiting to cross the street. When the light changed, he crossed, with a gaggle of people.

But later, he and I, on the road, were walking along a sidewalk in Portland, OR, and a 'possum was flushed out of the shrubbery, practically under his nose, and fled across the street, through traffic. Sam was after him in a flash. Well, Sam was a fair sized dog, about bumper-high, so he was punted about 10 yards down the road by an oncoming car. I never saw a dog walk on tip-toe before, but Sam did, that day. The 'possum became 'possum road-kill. No great loss, it seemed to me at the time.

Sam and I went on about our business, such as it was.

I happened across the story of (the late) David Bowie and his invisible mask encounter. It was perhaps a little interesting, but...

When I was younger, and much thinner, I was sometimes told I resembled Bowie (if it was true at all, a shorter, much less flamboyant Bowie). But I guess that, while I might have resembled him in some superficial way, I am also not like how he was, at all.

I never made an invisible mask. I do have "circuit breakers" (my analogy for the process in my head which has (for as long as I can remember) disconnected some part of my sensory processing when things come in too fast, or with too great an intensity, or both, but certainly not a mask.

After some years, of going comparatively maskless, and learning, perhaps more than most, the things which may be learned as a consequence of that habit, other people began, apparently, putting invisible masks of their own invention over my face, I suppose, to avoid seeing more of me than they feel comfortable with.

About the circuit breakers- I have an electric kettle that I use for making tea. One day, years ago, I carelessly let it boil dry (normally, it stops automatically, when the steam inside reaches a heat sensor, but, because I left the lid unlatched, or started it without water, I can't remember which, now, that sensor did not function), and, at some point, it stopped heating. When I discovered the situation, I refilled the kettle, but, operating the power switch no longer caused it to heat. I supposed the heating element had burned out, or an internal fuse had melted, and I would have to repair or replace the kettle, or return to boiling water in a saucepan, but, the next day, I tried again, and, it worked perfectly. There must be a backup overheating sensor, probably in or near the heating element, which does not reset quickly. The reason I include this story is, if you have circuit breakers in your head, it is good to have the kind which automatically reset, even if they do not reset quickly.

Oh. And, in technology, at least, you can never have too many backups.

I watched Candace Owens interviewing Burgess Owens (no relation) this morning, and thought:

The central idea of socialism, and the central idea of the US Constitutional republic, are at once the same, and opposite:

They are the same in hoping, and working for, equality, but, world socialism's idea of equality is every person, of every race, a slave (to an all-powerful state), but the US Constitutional republic's equality is every person, of every race, as equally free of coercion by the state as is practically possible.

Ultimately, it's a choice between slavery to the collective, or individual liberty under law.

The Candace Owens Show: Burgess Owens