CSotD: And another thing …

I’m with Wiley on this Non Sequitur (AMS). It’s nice and peaceful at this moment, but it seems another dose of chaos is probably just around the corner.

So, yes, be grateful for peaceful moments, such as they are.

“Such as they are” based on the current state of social media. I think we’ve become a nation of whiners, whingers and mewlers, and, with Dear Leader out of the way, people are having to stretch to find things to whine, whinge and mewl about.

But they’re managing somehow.

It makes Facebook and Twitter more annoying than invigorating. It used to be that someone would complain about Stephen Miller promoting some white supremacy thing, with a nice link to whatever the little nazi had said, and you’d click and go read it and get all het up yourself.

Now we’re getting het up over nothing, simply out of habit.

Well, if it’s practice, perhaps we should keep it up.

After all, the other side came to power by getting their people het up and we proved that responding to them with reason and logic didn’t work.

However, by getting our own people het up, Dear Leader fell and the Senate came into an uncomfortable balance.

It’s not actually a 50/50 split between Democrats and Republicans.

But Angus King and Bernie Sanders, who are Independents, caucus with the Democrats.

And Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema, who are Democrats, caucus with the Republicans.

While reporters and editors are dedicated to being fair, which means presenting both sides, even if that’s not the actual story.

So here’s today’s first Homework Assignment:

Esquire has an excellent interview with Mehdi Hassan about how the press is failing in the wake of the Trump presidency, still insisting on finding fairness and equivalency where there is none.

It has, he says, become a desperate stretch that distorts the truth:

 

On more of a street level view of the times, Brian Gable (Globe & Mail) points out something most of us, I hope, already know: If you aren’t already a player in the housing game, it’s too late to join in.

In the days of Bush the Younger, we had a housing bubble caused by careless lending, but the bubble we’re in now is pure greed, as homeowners simply jack up prices in a seller’s market.

You can’t blame them, but it’s hardly healthy.

Even raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour and forgiving all student debt would leave a lot of young people priced out of the market.

 

Though, as noted in Barney & Clyde (WPWG), things are okay if you happen to be an Alpha, or, with some luck and planning, even a Beta.

Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they’re so frightfully clever. I’m awfully glad I’m a Beta, because I don’t work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don’t want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They’re too stupid to be able to read or write. Besides they wear black, which is such a beastly color. I’m so glad I’m a Beta.

The strip is an example of dark humor. The situation wasn’t supposed to be funny in Huxley’s fictional dystopia and it isn’t particularly funny in today’s nonfictional one.

So here’s some more homework on the topic, an analysis of a dangerously exploding market from Politico:

Inflation helps people who have fixed-rate debts, but it won’t solve the problems of wage stagnation and an insane housing market.

 

Speaking of dark humor, Jeremy Banx notes the lack of impact applause has on the level of compensation nurses receive.

Granted, nurses are paid better than most of the other “essential workers,” who we thank with our applause but then pay at the legal minimum.

I have already posted a link to the devastating video on covid nursing in Phoenix, but, if you’ve already seen that, check out this recent All Things Considered interview with a traveling nurse.

He has been in the business long enough to retire, but he feels a need to stick around because so many other nurses are dropping out from the stress and exhaustion.

He estimates he’s watched 3,000 people die in the past year.

People who haven’t seen inside those hospitals still think masks and social distance are theories and political choices to be debated.

On the one hand and on the other and thank you for your service.

 

Not everything going on at the moment requires extra reading. Jack Ohman (WPWG) offers this vision of Honest Abe addressing the Party of Lincoln, and all you really need to know to get the joke is that Dear Leader seems to be mounting a schism, and sent this silly memo:

Which I guess means that he’s not so much forming a new party as taking over the old one, which seems less a coup than simply a fact.

Think of it as a mash-up of “Speed” and “Silence of the Lambs,” in which Hannibal Lector has taken over the role of bus driver.

In proof of which, I note that five GOP Senators have announced they won’t be running in 2022, which could mean that Democrats might take those seats and get a firm grasp on the Senate.

But it could also mean five more new-style GOP legislators added to the Madison Cawthorns, Lauren Boeberts and Marjorie Taylor Greenes already in Congress.

 

Finally — God willing — Steve Benson (Creators) offers this response to The Interview.

American liberals are offering compassion while our flag-waving conservatives bend a knee to the Crown and accuse Meghan of lying and insist that it’s her fault and she deserves whatever she got.

Well, why not? That’s everyone’s established pattern.

But I did get a kick out of this article in the Irish Times, which more than confirms my remark yesterday that the Irish hated the original Elizabeth but consider the current one and her crew a source of bitter amusement:

There will always be an England, so thank God for the Irish Sea.