Gathered Sundries

-- The real problem with an Alabama sheriff who bought a house with money from a fund supposed to be used for food for jail inmates is not that it's illegal. Apparently, it is legal, which sounds like a much bigger problem.

-- A Facebook meme says that President Trump is the first president since 1897 to not own a dog. On the one hand, I wonder what the meme creator's got against William McKinley (who did own a parrot, a couple of cats and some roosters, leading to some speculation that Tom and Jerry is actually sly political commentary on the Gilded Age). On the other hand Trump's inability to understand basic economics like trade policy bugs me a lot more (It's the first item on this list).

-- A professor says that when her students are discussing the Shirley Jackson short story "The Lottery," they can't bring themselves to condemn the practice of human sacrifice that's at the center of the story. My suggestion is to create a grading lottery that operates precisely the same way the story does, only with a guaranteed F on an assignment for the name drawn instead of death. See if they get it then.

-- United Airlines isn't going to carry pets for awhile, at least until it gets a handle on why it's sending them to the wrong place or killing them. Would have been kind of cool if Massachusetts voters had done the same thing regarding Kennedys in their 1970 senatorial elections.