I have a feeling today is going to be the last possible lake day of the year. Cold weather is supposed to be barreling down on poor old Utah as we speak. I spit at it, hitting it right in the eye.

Two more things:

1) You have to appreciate friends who have friends who go to California and bring you back a case of wine for $24.

Three things today:

1) Friend Kendra is telling me something by removing my link from her blogadoodle, appropriately renamed the stylish "The Fall of Whom" from "The Summer of Why." I look forward to "The Winter of Which." (I might just rename mine "The Winter of our Discontent" to carry on the Shakespeherian theme.)

2) Traipsing about town to go to University Writing Center grand openings and ribbon cuttings really doesn't take as much time as it seems, and is quite fun. (Sub point 2a: University students will unknowingly stand in line for anything as long as there is a rumor of some sort of food in the end.)

So momentarily I considered getting overly worked up about some TV preacher I stumbled upon this morning after stupidly turning on the TV to see if anything amusing was on. It is not that I am in a foul mood this morning, but just that I am in the mood for something funny--something like the Three Stooges, or, conversely, some horror movie. Now I don't know why horror and comedy would be linked in such a mood, perhaps it is the same emotional release. So in a moments worth of TV preacher I was told why the world was going to hell in a hand basket and how wonderful and glorious the good old days were. He even used an example of the Great Depression to show that "poverty is not linked to crime" and that it is nothing but "ill will." He made the claim that the good people of the Depression era did not sink to crime because of their poverty. I guess he has never heard of Bonnie and Clyde or any of the countless other blood thirsty criminals of that time. I guess they really didn't exist. Everyone was so saintly in the olden days, weren't they. If one is going to consider the argument properly one must look at it this way: poverty does not necessarily lead to crime (that seems to be the red herring right wing preacher-man was arguing), but it may be a contributing factor in the path to commit crimes. One might look at it analogically: a person who has had too much to drink loses inhibition and senses of propriety and is much more likely to act on impulses that may be harmful to the self or harmful to others. Likewise a person who is in poverty--we're talking extreme, perhaps starvation-level poverty--is much more likely to take on a life of crime to make a livelihood. (Of course I have no empirical data to back up this off-the-cuff argument, but bare with me.) I am not saying that all people who are poor turn to crime--just as I would not argue that all people who drink or even get shit faced do things that are harmful to themselves or others. I am merely arguing that the propensity is more likely than it would be for someone in preacher man's, or his reactionary congregation's obvious middle-class level of income. It is nice an comfortable up in their nice little houses on Mulberry street, you see. No need to worry about starving or wondering why you've been in such a crap hole situation your entire life. No need to really hope and pray that God will really provide when you have a job that pays enough to buy it all yourself. Buy it all. Something about rich men and camels comes to mind.