Where we're going we don't need roads

When you're going after the big fish make sure you bring the right bait

I'd like to think that somewhere in America there is a high school couple who are both black and are both on the Track and Field team, and the guy runs the 800 meter and 1600 meter events, and the girl is a sprinter and runs only the 100 and 200 meter events. When they talk to their friends and classmates they refer to themselves as a "mixed race couple" because they run these different events and they realize that it's a fun play on words but that using plays on words like that suits their personalities so they just go with it.

I bet that at least some of the people they interact with are made somehow uncomfortable by this phrasing, but they dare not speak up out about it, because it seems like that would only get them into more awkward territory, but again, in ways that aren't really totally clear. You could imagine the local scandal that might be caused if a well-intentioned white male teacher approached them about how they were using the words wrong because he didn't understand that they were joking.

Is this making anyone uncomfortable when you read it? Would it have been more or less weird if I had used a different ethnicity for the couple? What if I made them a same sex couple too? What if the teacher was actually a fellow student? We're really walking on eggshells here. Probably a good time to bail out.

The meeting was scheduled nine days in advance

According to a recent Pew (pew! pew!) Survey the number of Americans who are "absolutely certain" that God exists has dropped from 71% in 2007 to 63% in 2014. The number who simply "believe in" God has dropped from 92% to 89% in the same period. That's still a lot of people, but there's a trend there towards fewer God people.

Over the same time period, there has been roughly a four-fold increase in prescription opioids sold in the United States, despite no increase in the amount of pain reported by people. There has been a similar increase in deaths from prescription opioids.

Both of these trends have their own merits and explanations, but it's pretty clear to me that things which are literally opiates are on their way to reclaiming their title as the "opiate of the masses". Religion has had a good long run here, but opiates have a bright future with the masses. Twenty years from now when social scientists survey random people on the street and ask "hey, what is the opiate of the masses in this country", the person will respond with something like: "It's opiates. Our opiate is literally opiates.", and they'll both have a good chuckle.