It has been awhile. Apologies. Got tied up.

For the moment, if you’re so inclined, you can check out my post today on the Brodeur Partners “open” blog. (I’m starting to split my writing between the two.)

The title: Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire. Pretty juicy, eh?

Will be back with an original shortly … zeroing in on books and covers.

More, later.

For those of us who travel a lot, one of the many headaches is traveling with liquids.  Specifically, not being able to take your water bottle with you.

Water.

Very, very dangerous stuff.

In the TSA handbook it is potentially lethal.  And we’re not talking drowning.  Who knows what that colorless liquid could be?  A potential molotov cocktail.  Battery acid.  Ammonia, chlorine and other colorless liquid material that when shaken (not stirred) will blow the cabin to smithereens.

The result?  Each time you go through the TSA lines you pass mountains of perfectly good (and expensive) Aquafina, Dasani, and, Fiji … yes … Fiji … the water that traveled thousands of miles to reach a store shelf only to be jettisoned out of fear that it could explode in transit like some South Pacific volcano.

Well, the Chinese have the simplest and best answer to this nettlesome security problem.

You can only bring it if I see you drink it.

According to wire service reports, as part of security in Bejing, “commuters are being asked to take a swig from water bottles on the subway to ensure they do not contain suspicious substances.”

It’s the “take a swig” test.

You want to bring it?  Then let me see you drink it.

If you don’t choke, vomit, blow smoke, writhe in pain, or otherwise groan and complain like the fat guy in the Batman film Dark Knight … well then you get a free pass.

As the folks at Guiness would say … BRILLIANT!

[NOTE:  The Chinese also ban anyone from coming  to the Olympics who has “mental illness” or a “a sexually transmitted disease.”  There will be no streaking (a sign of mental illness) or waving of insulting signs (no worry … football is not an Olympic sport).]

I think China’s on to something.  They don’t let you get on a domestic plane with a lighter (we do) but you can go on board with a liquid as long as you are willing (and able) to drink it.

The TSA allows lighters, but not water.

That is, they make it easy for you to start a fire, but not to put one out.

Do you believe in evolution?  Survival of the fittest?

A big part of the theory of evolution is that over time we get better.  Or if not better we get stronger.  Or taller.  Or healthier.  Or better looking.  Or something that we could chalk up to “improvement.”  Indeed there are quite a few people who’d make that claim and quite a bit of evidence to support it.

While I think we’ve evolved, I personally, don’t see much improvement over the millenniums.  I think there’s a lot of evidence that we’re not much better than the alleged brutes that proceeded us.  You look around at all the stupidity, violence, and overall creepiness that infests society (and us!) and it is hard to see how this is progress.

I bring the history of humor to support my case.

According to Reuters, there earliest recorded joke could have come right from an elementary school yard.  And those close behind will hearken you back to locker-room humor.  Here, according to Reuters, the world’s first known joke was a saying among Sumerians (currently Iraq) went something like this …

“Something which has never occurred since time immemorial … a young woman did not fart in her husband’s lap.”

OK, I’m sure something got lost in translation.  But the fact that the first joke ever recorded was a fart joke says a lot about how far we have not come.

We keep looking around and remarking about how much has changed.

In so doing I think we miss all the stuff that hasn’t changed … and likely never will.

Understand that and you’ve got insight.