Musing of one thinking about the atheist who absent-mindedly wandered into a church, encountered a priest, and tried to sell him a box of nothing...

All of the scandal going on in the Federal Government reminds me of some remarks I made about the nature of government not long after I established this blog.  I said in effect, that government is not a separate being but rather (paraphrasing Chief Justice Marshall) "...an artificial being, invisible, intangible..."  It's affairs are conducted by fallible human beings who are no smarter than the rest of us.  It follows that government should be as small as possible and that it's employees should always bear in mind that they are servants of the people, not rulers.  This position has about as much chance of prevailing as one who tried to shoot down a drone with a BB gun. 

Apropos of nothing, the other morning, one of my caregivers and I were sitting at the breakfast table and somehow the conversation turned to handkerchiefs.  She wondered what we did with them in my younger days.  So I told her.  When a guy went out on a date, unless they were going to participate in a sport, such as tennis, he wore a suit.  And in the breast pocket of that suit, he usually carried an extra handkerchief.  This was for the use of his date if she needed it.  The girl usually carried her own dainty handkerchief in her purse along with her mad money and cosmetics.  (Kleenex existed at the time but apparently was not widely used.)  If she needed the handkerchief, he would offer it to her and she could use it for the rest of the evening.  She would take the handkerchief home, wash and iron it, and return it to him at the next opportunity.  If she was interested in the guy, the return of the handkerchief might be accompanied by some encouraging hints; if not, there would just be a routine thank you. 

Somehow my caregiver, a young woman, found this screamingly funny.  And so I'm happy that even though I'm not a comedian, I was able to amuse a member of the younger generation.