A Curmudgeon's Take

 

Seems the only way to approach this is as a curmudgeon. There have been two stories which have dominated international cable news; Gabby Petito’s disappearance & Britney’s legal plight. While the first is certainly tragic, how can it be that this story – this one story - is international news? The second - a ‘poor-little-rich-girl’ story - is only deserving of the National Inquirer, yet it, too, is international news.

Additionally, Facebook and Instagram are in deep doo-doo for bringing low the self-esteem of young girls. How the social-media giant(s) were able to accomplish this mean-girl feat is bogglesome, at least to this curmudgeon. 

Apparently, young girls following other young girls on Instagram are dismayed by the presentation of good times, prosperity and blooming love-lives by ‘influencers’ who are rewarded for presenting idyllic fables for their subscribers to drool over. According to reports, the on-line display of enviable lives devastates the confidence of some young women; purportedly. 

If the curmudgeonly attitude towards the real-life stories of young women seems cold and unfeeling, it’s because the incessant coverage of them makes so little sense.

First, are these troubled teens troubled by the fact that there is inequity in life? Can they be forlorn due to the Tik-Tok narratives they view? Slice-of-life narratives showing others at exotic vacation sites, dressed in cutting-edge fashions, replete with fairy-tale romances and high-ticket accoutrement apparently ushers in crushing depression amongst those viewers for which the aforementioned glimpses of life among the Rich and Famous are well-beyond reach.

Why the media attention? Do people fear that Gabby’s estranged fiancée might be a serial killer and so, warrants a multi-state manhunt? The inclusion of Dog, Bounty-hunter of reality-TV fame makes for a real media circus. Is the despotic junta in Myanmar not an issue anymore?

Do people fear that they, like Britney, will fall under the court-ordered control of a demonic conservator? Are these stories to be taken as emblematic of all women? Is ‘#FreeBritney’ on a par with ‘#BLM’?

Perhaps those poor, unfortunate Instagram followers might take solace or at least, glean cautionary tales from the tragedy of Gabby Petito and, in Britney’s case, the horror of parental conservatorship with this simple observation: “Gee, they looked so happy.”

But, that just might be the curmudgeon talking.

 

COVID and Group Psychosis

 

 

There are crazy people everywhere. It’s a fact of life. Each one of us has had to deal with crazy people. Sometimes, they’ll be seen on the street railing against unseen entities, scolding a wall or shaking their fist at the sky. Sometimes, the relationship is much closer; on the job, where a co-worker will share inner-most thoughts which should only be heard by a psychiatric counselor.

Full disclosure: I am not a mental health-care professional. I used to be, though; a Psychiatric Aide in a state mental hospital. That experience was revelatory and educational. The crazies I observed were not only the patients on the ward but the people I worked with; the supervisors and administrators I worked under. 

We all encounter crazy people as a matter of course. They may work at the local shops or deliver your Amazon packages, flip your burgers or collect your trash. These are functioning members of society; even if they go home to an inflatable doll dressed as their mother. Even if they beat their children, their spouse and their dog for inconsequential violations of their private and psychotic code of behavior, they may function fairly well in their job.  They may hold positions of responsibility such as teachers or lawyers or Congress members. Gym Jordan, MTG, Mo Brooks and a host of others may spring to mind. 

Clearly, these folks ‘aint wrapped tight’. Their cheese has slid off the cracker. Their oars don’t reach the water. They have two wheels in the sand. Their elevator doesn’t go to the top floors. The lights are on, but nobody’s home. They’re a few bricks shy a load.

See how easy that is? The euphemisms regarding those of, shall we say, an ‘occluded’ view of reality are legion. It’s a fact of life that we encounter crazy people all the time.

That leads us to anti-maskers, anti-Vaxxers, COVID deniers, COVIDiots, QAnon-ninnies and MAGA-mutts. These people have dipped into a pool of group psychosis that is filled, stirred and replenished by Fox News (sic), NewsMax, the Sinclair Network, Breitbart and too many other sources of misinformation that cloud the mind and tip the scales toward insanity for far too many.

To be clear: throwing off the basic instinct of self-preservation at the behest of a ‘talking head’ is insane. To risk the lives of your children, your friends, your family at the injunction of a political hack is criminally insane. To detached oneself from a common, shared reality is insanity in a nutshell. COVID is the reality. COVID-insanity is the new shared psychosis.

Wear your mask. Wash your hands. Keep your distance. Get your jabs. To do otherwise is insane.

 

America's Longest War Is OVER!

 

War has always generated euphemism. Pentagon spokesman, John Kirby referred to the withdrawal from Afghanistan this way: “We have begun retrograding…” Even the word ‘withdrawal’ was too loaded for the bruised national ego, so ‘retrograding’ was purloined and twisted to fit. Make no mistake; what we witnessed was a retreat.

GOP criticism of the ‘retrograde’ has been harsh and dutifully ignored the role that the Former Doofus and Pompous Mike Pompeo had in its calamitous execution. The traitorous deal made in Doha was called by Trump's first national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, "… a surrender agreement with the Taliban". 

In a presser on the eve of America’s final day in America’s longest war, John Kirby was asked again why the evacuation – the ‘retrograde’ – hadn’t gone better. Mr Kirby’s answer brings a clarity which has been obfuscated by GOP bluster. 

America had a partner in Afghanistan; it was the Afghani government supported by the Afghan military – the same military that was supplied and trained for decades by America. Unfortunately, TFG and Pompeo hadn’t surrendered to the Afghani government; they had struck their craven deal with the Taliban! 

When the rubber met the road, Biden fleshed out that ill-advised surrender… er… ‘retrograding’ with the Ashraf Ghani government in Kabul; the one party who had had no part in the surrender to the Taliban in Doha. That is the worn nub upon which this calamitous carousel wobbled its final revolution.

America had depended on the existence of the Afghan government and the Afghan military to make secure the withdrawal…er… ‘retrograding’ by protecting the airport and facilitating the processing of Afghan civilians whose live were forfeited by assisting the American occupation. 

Then, reality struck; the Taliban were resurgent. The Ghani government was gone with the wind and with the cash. The Afghan military evaporated like dew on a hot rock. That left the US to depend on the trustworthiness of an untrustworthy accomplice to secure the airport and secure Kabul. It left the US dependent on the undependable. Striking a deal by which your generational enemy provides cover for your retreat…er… ‘retrograde’ is ludicrous on its face. 

That more than 122,000 were evacuated from Afghanistan is remarkable considering how TFG and his doltish minion, Pompeo the Paunch, left Mr Biden holding a soggy paper bag of diarrhetic feces.

 

Malapropisms, Mondegreens, Spoonerisms & Eggcorns, Oh My!

 

Okay, now for a bit of fun.
Some malapropisms, mondegreens, Spoonerisms & eggcorns (as well as some simply bone-headed misstatements)  for your enjoyment and edification.

"If you have that, the world is your walrus."

"I've got ears like a hawk."

"He looks like he's three sheep in the wind."

"I am going to let you move around more, just to break up the mahogany."

"We don't want to screw ourselves in the foot."

"I think it's time to get our sleeves dirty."

"You can't see the forest if you're barking up the wrong tree."

"We need to get our ducks in the fire."

"We don't want to go barking up a dead horse." 

"We're going to come out of this smelling like geniuses!"

"The ball is squarely on our shoulders." 

"It's like those who can't, don't have to!"

"Your work is late, but that's neither hide nor there!"

"Sometimes you have to turn a blind ear to these things."

"The best way to learn is from the school of Fort Knox." 

"Don't do anything in public that you wouldn't do in private." 

By e-mail: "... Does anyone have a concern?  Speak now, or hold your piece!"

"The Indians are nervous at Waterloo."

"Throw that monkey back over the fence." 

"Let's not put our dandruff up in the air."

"Those new salesmen are still green behind the ears."

"She really rubs me up the wrong tree."

A former CEO made the following statement. "Some of you think that only half of the Board of Directors do all the work and the rest do nothing, actually the reverse is true."

The receptionist asked me, "Do you still live at your current address?"

"Well, I'm just busier than a one-armed naked man."

"It depends whether you are drinking from the side of the glass that is half-full or half-empty."

 My manager once said, "We triumphed over diversity."

Symptoms of a Sick Society

 

Pundits have been claiming for years that Donald J. Trump is not the cause of the insanity which is MAGA; he is but a symptom. The same is said for Tucker Carlson, Ron DeSantis and a host of other MAGA-mutts.

That’s a decent assertion to make; all of the racism, bigotry, greed, authoritarianism and disdain for education witnessed in the writings, bleating and clamoring of the alt/right can be traced to earlier times in the noble, yet flawed, American experiment. 

Much of the fault and many of the tragic missteps could be accounted for by the on-going changes in social mores. As Martin Luther King, Jr. reminded us; “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” The sins of the past – slavery, disenfranchisement, etc – are rectified and addressed by the newer generation with a more ‘modern’ sense of justice and righteousness. 

One can, furthermore, understand the desire to mitigate the corrosive effects of psychotic personalities by claiming that political actors such as Trump, Hannity, Cotton, Gaetz, MTG, Cawthorn and Boebert are not truly indicative of inherent political and social rot but, rather, are merely symptoms which can be handily dealt with by level-headed care-givers and the application of analgesics. 

However, Trump and his MAGA-cult cannot and must not be dismissed simply as ‘symptoms’ of sickness in the body politic. To do so would be a monumental error. It would be akin to dismissing the inability to breathe as just a symptom of COVID-19 or pneumonia. Indeed, shortness of breath is a symptom but it is a life-threatening one; one that indicates the need for drastic action; hospitalization, intensive care, a prescribed regimen of pharmacological treatments.

That is where we find the democratic republic known as the United States of America; gasping for life. The symptoms are dire and life-threatening. (Think January 6^th) They must be handled with thoughtful aplomb and rational action.

As the pandemic tightens its strangle-hold on society with increasingly infectious and fatal variants, the metaphor could not be clearer; we must, as a nation, as a society, bite the bullet and take the bitter pill which will alleviate and ultimately eliminate the diseases of racism and economic inequality and thereby remove the symptoms such as Donald Trump from our body politic. 

My Dumb Over Your Smarts

‘My ignorance is better than your expertise.’

‘My lack of information trumps your encyclopedic knowledge.’

Hence, the MAGA disdain for education.

Critical thinking? Feggetabodit.

Go with your gut. If a primal emotion is triggered, then that’s what we imprint.

Needles bad! Vaccine Bad! Fauci BAD!

“My inability to grasp basic facts of the real world is the truth that I live by.’

My dumb is better than your smarts.

An indignant and cretinous woman at a public hearing on June 8^th, tried to testify to Ohio Republican lawmakers, that she had been ‘magnetized’ by the COVID vaccine. She claimed that she had just learned this new ‘truth’ over lunch. She then proceeded to demonstrate her newly gotten magnetic qualities. She placed a small metal object (a key?) on her nervously perspiring chest. The object adhered to her skin for a moment. This is a trick learned by children and demonstrated by adults at drunken parties. This woman, though, offered the sticky nature of human skin in warm conditions as ‘PROOF’ that she had been harmed by the vaccine; she had been magnetized!

The late night shows had a field day with her hysterical query to the room; "Any questions?"

‘Actually, quite a few...’ was a typical retort.

Questions such as; ‘What planet are you from?’ and ‘Did you sleep through all of your school years?’

(It would also be very tempting to ask how being magnetized caused harm and was undesirable. Sounds more like a low-level super power.)

Magnet Girl’s nonsense was preceded by testimony from Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, an Ohio osteopath who wrote a book called ‘Saying No to Vaccines’. Dr Tenpenny (I flash on Dickens every time) claimed that the vaccines made you magnetic because there was a ‘metal’ in the serum.
She stated (ahem...)

"I’m sure you’ve seen the pictures all over the internet of people who’ve had these shots, and now they’re magnetized. They can put a key on their forehead, it sticks. They can put spoons and forks all over them, and they can stick. Because now we think that there’s a metal piece to that."

To be clear, this is utter and absolute rubbish. Also, clearly, Dr Tenpenny and I go to very different parties.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had to address this preposterous non-issue on its website because they’d gotten so many questions on this bunkum.

“COVID-19 vaccines do not contain ingredients that can produce an electromagnetic field...”

The plague is not COVID-19 and its variants. The plague is brain-deadedness. 

Stay safe. Get your jabs.

Father, Son and Holy Warrior

 

My very good friend recently went to visit his folks in Florida; the peninsula that time forgot. His folks are in the mid-90s and are staunch Eisenhower Republicans. His parents are also my dear friends and have been since time immemorial. How does a progressive maintain a friendly relationship with a GOP devotee?

You match ignorance with obliviousness. For the sake of courtesy and despair that they will never change their minds. 

My friend, a Marine Corp vet, ignores all news and commentary during his visits. He enters the Cone of Silence, the Bubble of Isolation. His parents oblige his apostasy from their political faith by remaining silent on the subject. However, on occasion, someone in earshot blurts out a talking point which is a signal for a litany of talking points, barbs, rhetorical questions and excoriations of socialism.

In my friend’s presence, the Fox News (sic) scripted list of exclamations ends abruptly. He takes that moment of silent discomfort to muse on the appropriate retort. Often he remains silent both from a spirit of goodwill and to avoid the pain of beating one’s head against a wall.

During dinner one evening, the image of Trump appeared on the ubiquitous TV tuned to Faux Gnus, as is all too common in Florida.

(Nota bene: Televisions showing Fox Noose are ubiquitous in Florida, perhaps there’s a local ordinance...)

In response (ding-ding!) an elderly male diner proclaimed that ‘Trump was a warrior!’ and lamented that Biden was not up to the task of meeting Putin. With the name of Trump being invoked, ripples of approving mutters spread round the table.

My friend was gobsmacked that these people actually and truly believed that Trump, the draft-dodging, bone-spur claiming twat-waffle was a ‘warrior’. My friend was a warrior (Semper Fi!) He fought the fight that Trump wimped out of by getting his rich-daddy to pay a doctor to falsify the Donald’s medical records.

This is what we’re up against; a segment of the population who believe - heart and soul – that Trump is a savior, sent by ‘god’... or is part of the ‘godhead’.

Father, Son and Holy Trump, the Warrior POTUS.