What is there to say that is truly astonishing? Rush is a pill freak and Arnold is going to be governor of California--real life is turning into an episode of The Simpsons. Forget about the "Death of Outrage" (that old thing trumpeted by Bill "Slot Monkey" Bennett)--what we are experiencing is the Death of the Surreal. If EVERYTHING is normal, what then? How will we know we are "out of whack" when we don't even know what "whack" entails?

I express outrage at people cutting keys off old typewriters to make tacky costume jewelry because that's the level of outrage I can deal with. Anything worse is too horrible to wrap my mind around, and so it flows over the dam, so to speak. Which is not to say that it doesn't register. It does, but I cannot express my reaction to it. If I started crying, I don't think I'd be able to stop. Every time I hear Ethel Waters's recording of "Travelling All Alone" it runs over me like a truck--it's schmaltz, but it kills me. Someday I'll hear it at just the wrong time and probably just explode.