Keeper of the Clown Bell

Dracarys There are some TV shows that I associate with a political era as they are conceived, go through pre-production negotiations, financed and "brought to life" as it were during a particular political reign and their popularity reflects a change in our social Zeitgeist. Looking back I think of All in the Family as springing from the Nixon years (same with M.A.S.H) and Dallas + countless other prime time soap operas born from Jimmy Peanut's America and riding the Reagan wave like everyone else. Geo. Bush #1 have us The Simpsons and Seinfeld and other shows about nothing. The Clinton years gave us The Sopranos which exalted (and tried to explain) the humanity of a criminal family striving to act like normal people. The Shield is the show representing the Geo. Bush #2 age and the compromise required to keep a lid on things which devolved into Breaking Bad during the Obama years. Obama's time on the throne of power is epitomized by Game of Thrones and the bleak m

There is a force in nature that can not be underestimated or ignored and that force is consistency. In my part of the world, what I like to call John Bell country (otherwise known as The Heart of America ),  that consistency comes every vernal equinox when the cercis canadensis prepares to bloom and over the next 6 weeks erupts into a fiery ball of life. Our State tree is the Dogwood and it is beautiful to see the flowers bloom in early spring against a backdrop of still dormant woodland with the yellow swaths of Forsythia and dabs of Daffodil. But when the Redbud starts popping and flowering along the branch it is magic to the eyes and it happens so slowly and with such consistency that you can actually watch the petals unfold. It happens every year the same as it has happened for millennia before humans walked this land and, God willing, it will continue long past my time but I sure do enjoy it while I'm here - in fact, I'd have to say, just by itself my annual spectatin