A few things I am having trouble understanding this week. . . .

1. Why is it that this new trend in Conservatism trades on the label "libertarian" while at the same time trying to put more and more people in prison for the smallest of crimes and also eager to stop people from exercising their true sexuality and stop women from controlling their own bodies?

2. Why do teen age boys dress like clowns (literally) and stil think they are cool?

3. Why to teen age boys, dressed as they are, still attract teen age girls?

4. Why have I met so many parents who stop their children from watching the often brilliantly satirical television show The Simpsons, while at the same time letting them spend hours every day engaged in virtual killing in horrendous video games?

5. And while we are on the subjects of parents; why do so many parents pretend that they never did nefarious things when they were teenagers, while trying to control their own kids and stop them from learning about the world for themselves? (You know who you are)

6. Why do so many people praise and laud the great poets and artists of the past who struggled to practice their art despite the hardships, while at the same time calling anyone that they know who commits their lives to art or poetry irresponsible, shiftless, and lazy?

7. Why are people so blindly partisan that they praise their political allies for doing things that they would rabidly condemn in others?

8. Why is it that late at night I just can't get the last moments of my father's life out of my head?