NUMBERS AGAIN: To pay back a trillion-dollar debt we had taken on and agreed to pay back at a rate of a dollar a second would take 32,000 years. One hears, however, that we, the people who make up the United States of America, owe varying pluralities of trillions here and (especially) there. Former Senator Everett Dirksen would have agreed, after a while it starts to add up to real money: hundreds of thousands of years. Mild but tempered Query: Might we not have pinched off a few billions, here (especially) and there for free schooling, a bullet-train, a few bridges, and a road or two? We mightn’t. I see.

I CAN’T STAND TO LOOK AT YOU: It is more than passing pleasant to turn away from a half-black face and encounter by eye countenances much more handsome and comely. Gohmert, perky devil; Sessions, un-baked dough-face, but enriched, if bleached, and a real southern gent; Cruz, a portly tankard of self-promoted command, a mask; Cantor, chief planner of waste-paper basketry; Ryan, sous-chef wiper of clean pan; Boehner, visage of Simpson (Homer) complexion; McConnell, a class with one member in looks; a Koch and a Koch and a Bush and a Bush and a Bush, yes, much easier on the eyes than that unsightliness presently-seated in a White House. I can’t stand to look at you.