Nostalgic vertigo

I have a friend who contacts me once every year or two, for old times' sake. (Or else it's to have someone to preach at, I'm not sure. He's what I'll call a "born again Enlightenment seeker".) Every time I realize more fully how estranged we are these days and why.

It's very weird. Looking back to the past, then seeing where we are today, gives me some kind of mental vertigo. How odd the paths we tread; how little I could have predicted then. Is this what growing older does? We see stuff like this more often, and our minds make us dizzy with it?

Dave Barry on the RNC

Dave Barry wonders why the Republican National Convention is being held in New York:

Politically, New York is very liberal: 68 percent of the city's registered voters are Democratic, with the remaining 32 percent evenly divided between Ché Guevara and Mao.

I can't wait 'til the RNC comes to the San Francisco Bay Area.