Tom Jones said, It’s Not Unusual

and he was right.  The word for this week is not ‘Unusual.’  It’s not even really unusual.  It’s just a little archaic.  Fresh off a Christmas and New Year’s feast soaked in turkey fat, I give you the word

UNCTUOUS

1. characterized by excessive piousness or moralistic fervor, especially in an affected manner; excessively smooth, suave, or smug.
2. of the nature of or characteristic of an unguent or ointment; oily; slippery or greasy
3. affecting an oily charm

“How like a fawning publican he looks.”  A publican being an innkeeper or pub (public house) owner – a distinction without much of a difference – a businessman who had to wrangle an establishment full of drunken customers for his income, without driving them away.  A little butt-kissing seldom went astray.  The difference between a brown-noser and a shithead – is just depth perception.

Publicans were not the only ones to perfect this art.  Many politicians, Christian Apologists, religious leaders, salesmen – con-men, again, not much difference.  Recently, that began to change.  Oh, there are still lots who seem to have graduated from Shell Oil U, or Wesson College, but more and more are becoming outspoken, rude, and aggressive, turning to bombast and vitriol.  The servile have become volatile.

Whether in politics, or religion, he who shouts the loudest, and hurls the nastiest insult, carries the debate.  These guys…. actually, the women are getting to be just as bad – I’m looking at you, Lauren Boebert – are as polarized as the plugs on my lamp cords.  There is no give, although many are still busy taking.  Donald Trump is not the cause of the American social and political decline.  He is merely a symptom.  In the United States, citizens have the right to remain silent, but far too few have the ability.  Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.  😮