Stickybuffalo.com

Amidst the recent kerfuffle (I would like to think it’s the beginning of a genuine “backlash,” but as of this writing the law of low expectations applies) about the TSA’s ever-more ludicrous and invasive “security” measures, I was struck by one Economist blogger’s suggestion that at some point sanity has to reassert itself. Right?

Yeah, I wonder. But there is, at least, some historical precedent.

Nearly a century ago, America had one of its occasional collective crazy-fits, and got so caught up in the fervor that it actually wrote its hysteria into the Constitution itself, where it remains to this day. Fortunately, however, sanity did at last reassert itself and the 18th amendment was nullified by the 21st, ending Prohibition 77 years ago today.

So that’s at least some evidence that a national headlong rush toward institutionalized overreaction need not be irreversible. Granted, it took 13 years and the Great Depression to sober people up (as it were).

Still, it’s something. Celebrate.

things that washed up in our yard:

we can’t figure out how this got here, or where the other half is. the nearest state patrol field office is in cedar rapids.

we think the picnic table may have come from the park about a half-mile upstream.

tripped on this huge jug of deadly poison while hauling up sandbags from the neighbor’s house. happily the seal was intact, but makes you wonder what else is in that water you’ve been slogging through…

this is my favorite find. as you can see, it’s from the famous Ayinger brewery in Bavaria and traveled a long way to become my new fifteen-gallon brew kettle under the sacred law of Finders Keepers.

items not pictured that also drifted by during the flood: two trash barrels, a door, several trees, and something we think was a buoy that got loose from the reservoir.

i try to be tolerant of the elderly, but somebody should tell john mccain (bless his heart) about the 21st amendment.

Speaking about his use of the veto pen to eliminate wasteful spending, he declared, “I will veto every single beer, um, bill with earmarks.”

mccain and his allies in the temperance movement can take my beer when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers. this aggression will not stand, man.