I don’t know about you, but I’m always up for learning things. And lately, I’ve learned a lot. Cops really don’t like it when you turn around rather than approach a DUI checkpoint, for example, even if you turned around because you thought all the flashing lights were an accident you wanted to avoid and hadn’t been drinking at all. When you do that, they will chase you down. It’s a good thing to know.

But there’ve been more than a few “teachable moments” in our very recent history, some of them not so mundane as police officers looking for drunk drivers.

Some of those moments, of course, have not so much been new information learned as simply reiterations of things already learned, just in case we were thinking that maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t really true after all. But alas, it is all too true that there are those amongst us who either willfully twist the words of other people to mean something completely different or else lack the comprehension skills necessary to understand what they’re hearing.

We see this all the time in the halls of Congress. Congressman A says that his bill will do X and cost the taxpayers less money than they’re paying now. Congressman B comes along and says A’s bill will bankrupt the Treasury. Usually in such cases, the truth is somewhere in between. Or, either one of the congressmen could be right and the other completely wrong.

The Henry Louis Gates affair reiterated to me that we still have a long, long way to go in this country before we can say we are a post-racial society. You probably noticed that too, because regardless of whether you believed Gates’ side of the story or the Cambridge police sergeant’s side, there was virtually no middle ground. If you believed the sergeant, Gates’ story was bullshit. If you believed Gates, the police report was bullshit. And both sides ignored information that played against their views. Considering only Gates, some cops and a few neighbors were actually at the scene — and that much of the story took place inside Gates’ home between Gates and the sergeant — the rest of us frankly don’t know what actually happened. But that doesn’t stop us from acting as if we personally videotaped the event and have been watching it ever since.

Then of course there was the reiteration that my colleagues will focus on anything at all to avoid dealing with the real issues. That, too, came courtesy of the Gates affair. President Obama called the incident “stupid,” which it was, and my dear colleagues were off and running … ignoring the real debate we should be having as Congress prepares for its August recess without having passed any health care reform bill. And on top of that, my moronic colleagues have the temerity to say that it’s Obama’s fault they were focused on his Gates comment to the detriment of the health care debate, as if they had no fucking choice but to spend hours upon hours discussing whether his comment detracted from the matters at hand.

It’s not that my colleagues, especially those who work in Washington, are stupid. Well, some of them are. But it’s really that they’re so caught up in the twirlings of politics inside the Beltway that they have no clue what the rest of the country cares about. Sort of like federal politicians, actually.

Other things I’ve learned recently:

Some people cannot readily discern the difference between hate and anger. If I say, for example, that Mitch McConnell is an obstructionist or that Rush Limbaugh is the Supreme Leader of the Republican Party, it doesn’t mean I hate them. I actually don’t give enough of a shit about them to reach that level. But I am angry that their bullshit is fucking with our lives.

Humor is a complicated thing. Satire is often too sophisticated for huge portions of the population. Conservatives put out racist cartoons and jokes and then tell us they’re not racist, we just don’t get their humor. That just kinda reminds me of 15 year old boys who think that every fart and mention of boobs is hysterically funny. I don’t get either. Is it just me? Maybe, but somehow I doubt it. Conservatives don’t think it’s funny when I refer to them as teabaggers either. But then, they kinda brought that on themselves. I understand that. I am the queen of setting myself up and walking headlong into jokes on me. Ask anyone who knows me. The difference is that I may make a little noise about “ouch, that hurt,” but in the end I’m gonna laugh along.

I also learned this week, from Conan O’Brien no less, that the reason we’ve been unable to comprehend Sarah Palin all these months is that we’ve been trying to make sense of her words as prose, when in fact, Sarah Palin is a poet. Now, she needs some work on her delivery, but Conan took care of that by having William Shatner come by and dramatically read part of Palin’s good-bye to the governorship. Very 50s beatnik. She makes much more sense now.

Who knew? Maybe we could have saved ourselves a lot of grief during the campaign if we’d just understood. Like when Katie Couric asked if she’d ever been involved in negotiations with the Russians, it might have made more sense if we’d transcribed it like this:

We have trade missions back and forth
We do
It’s very important
When you consider
Even national security
Issues with Russia
As Putin rears his head
And comes into the air space
Of the United States of America
Where do they go?
It’s Alaska
It’s just right over the border
It is from Alaska
That we send those out
To make sure
That an eye is being kept
On this very powerful nation
Russia
Because they are right there
They are right next to our state.

Just for the record, I don’t hate Sarah Palin, nor am I, as some conservatives seem to think we liberals are, afraid of her. I do think she’s a bit of a pathetic creature, a perfect symbol for a pathetic segment of society that has long since outlived its usefulness but refuses to just fade away.

Finally, I’ve learned in recent weeks that good friends may not be many in number but they more make up for their scarcity in what they provide, that saying upfront what you’re thinking or feeling can avoid much trouble on down the road and even if the police officer doesn’t like what you just did, a little levity and a little respect, along with a thank you for doing his job, can help you avoid a citation.

Unfortunately, if you’re not a coupla white girls just ridin’ around, none of that is likely to matter much.