Wonderful Matters

Have you been seeing this image, or really a very fine GIF used in memes? I don't know, maybe it's been employed much more often and I just haven't noticed, but I've seen it a few times. The latest was something about this being the IT guy coming into work after this morning's major global Microsoft update disaster that grounded flights, impeded distribution center activity, and messed up hospital care, among many other bad things. I discovered it is from a scene in a Pirates of the Caribbean  movie when some huge 18th century battleship is obliterated -- I mean utterly destroyed -- with lots of massive explosions and wounded sailors flying all about and parts of the ship crushing bodies and cries of agony filling the air and a culmination featuring a gargantuan fireball reaching to the skies and all the rest of it. All the while the captain is confidently but of course morosely resigned to his quite imminent wretched demise as he saunters down the ship's middle...

Huh, I just heard for the first time when this year's US presidential election day is. November 5th. Huh. Didn't know that. Because as you know, "Remember remember the fifth of November, gunpowder treason and plot. For there is a reason why gunpowder and treason should ne'er be forgot." What does that mean? Does it mean that because they once tried to assassinate our beloved king by detonating a gazillion kegs of explosives under the Parliament building we'd better be sure that kind of thing just doesn't happen again by ferociously prosecuting those we all are told did it? And if anyone tries to do it again they know they'll get it right in the ----?! Or is it a reminder that any time a king even once even remotely even a little bit tries to be a ::gasp::  -- TYRANT  -- then we all know what to do? So don't forget it, okay, don't forget what they tell us needs to be done to keep the bad tyranny away...  In the great glorious name of DEMOCRACY!...