intermission: you can’t moral outrage without breaking eggs

I’m taking the day off from flourescent lights and following people around today to sit squirreled up in my room, supposedly writing a grant application but mostly doing busywork and catching up on some internet reading—various “sputtermatter” websites and the news. Around a few minutes ago, I thought I’d cook myself up a soft-boiled egg as a little snack. The eight-minute soft-boiled egg is in a league of snackdom rivalled only by the deep fried chicken butt on a stick, and is also just about the only place where my famously lacking sense of time manifests itself. But today I ended up sputtering so long that by the time I got back to the kitchen the egg had exploded in the pot. I guess I’ll go out for some chicken butt later; in the meantime I guess I’ll just keep reading and sputtering as I spoon up what’s left of the egg. And the grant application I’m supposed to be writing is about “ethical values,” of which it now seems that I have a few too many. Who would have thunk? By the way if you have always felt that there ought to be a psychotropic cure for political depression, you might want to ask these people if they have any plans to create one.