Garrison Keillor's Blog, page 80

The president of visuals

So it now appears that the president has deep feelings about the sufferings of infants, or, as he would say, “very, very deep feelings, believe me.” This was apparent when he talked about the gas attack on Syrian civilians last week. Scores of people were killed but it was the sight of dying babies on TV (“it doesn’t get any worse than that”) that particularly moved the man to reconsider his hands-off policy toward Syria and send the USS Ross and USS Porter to the eastern Mediterranean to launch 59 Tomahawk missiles against a Syrian air base. Presumably, no infants were housed at the base.

Read the full column at the Washington Post’s site →

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Sisyphus would have been a Democrat

“Whan that Aprille up in Minnesota the drought of March hath pierced to the roote and bathed every vein in sweet liqueur which makes the corn grow, and it helps to use manure,” wrote Chaucer, or words to that effect.

Read the full column at the Denver Post’s site →

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It’s poetry month, so write one, Terence

April is Poetry Month, a painful reminder for some, who suffered under English teachers who made them write about the cherry tree wearing white for Eastertide or “The Love Song of J. Alfred Pruneface” by T.S. Eliot, that small dark cloud of a poet.

Read the full column at the Tulsa World’s site →

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Trump has no idea how to tend his garden

What a world. I spend an evening looking at a friend’s video he shot in Uganda, impoverished people dancing with hands over their heads, overjoyed that a well has been dug and they can drink good water without having to hike for miles. The next day I read about a foundation grant to create storytelling programs in small towns to create radical reimaginings of narratives that lead to healing. And then the Boy President is on TV with Angela Merkel looking at him and thinking, “Who is that old game-show host standing at the lectern? What movie am I in?”

Read the full column at the Denver Post’s site →

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The Donner Party understood health care — so does Trump

Last fall when he was winning hearts and minds in the Midwest, Mr. Red Cap promised to remove the curse of Obamacare from the nation and replace it with something beautiful that would cover everybody. Now that Trumpcare is out for previews, he is still upbeat and says he is in a “beautiful negotiation” and will wind up with a “beautiful picture,” but it’s no longer about everybody. And the picture seems more like a watercolor than a photo.

Read the full column at the Denver Post’s site →

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The Epic of Donald Trump

The $54 billion bonus heading for the Pentagon is a beautiful thing, and so far I haven’t heard a dog bark against it, even though we don’t appear to have $54 billion worth of new enemies and we’ve now come to admire former enemy Vladimir Putin, and the idea of throwing billions at the Islamic State is like going after bedbugs with bazookas, so there it sits, a big lake of cash waiting for water skiers.

Read the full column at the Washington Post’s site →

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Confessions of the most important man in the universe

Joe Biden is following me. I go to lunch at Mickey’s Diner and he’s sitting two stools away, wearing a stocking cap and a fake mustache with a fake nose and glasses but he says, “Hey, how’s it going, fella?” It’s Joe Biden. So pathetic. Sad.

Read the full column at the Denver Post’s site →

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Trumpology is your old uncle with better lighting

“Maniacal” is not a word you care to hear about the president of the United States, especially not from his close adviser. Previously, “maniacal” was reserved for the Joker, Doctor Doom, Dr. No, Lex Luthor, and the boy fuehrer of North Korea, but there it was, uttered by Stephen Bannon to the conservatives congregated in Washington — “maniacally focused” — which tells you why Mr. Bannon is not allowed out very often: he would scare the bejabbers out of the good Republican voters in the Midwest. He is a Crusader and out here in flat country, where we don’t have huge boulders to hide behind, we try to get along with the neighbors.

Read the full column at the Denver Post’s site →

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Donald Trump’s tremendous Sermon on the Mount

The Lord is my shepherd. OK? Totally. Big league. He is a tremendous shepherd. The best. No comparison. I know more than most people about herding sheep. And that’s why I won the election in a landslide and it’s why my company is doing very very well. Because He said, “I’m with you, Donald. You will never want.”

Read the full column at the Denver Post’s site →

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Strangers meeting in a snowstorm in Vermont

I flew into Boston in a snowstorm Sunday, coming in low over little white houses in the gray murk, and my connecting flight to Vermont was canceled, so I rented a car and set out into the storm. I had told Vermont I’d be there and once you start canceling things, where do you stop?

Read the full column at the Denver Post’s site →

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