CSotD: Corrections, Amplifications and Tomfoolery
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It’s Girl Scout Cookie time, and John Darkow offers less of a commentary than a report: The bakeries contracted to supply cookies are having substantial problems in handling the extra business this year.
I went to poke around on Google News for this regional coverage, which states that Massachusetts and New Hampshire have been hit with the shortage, but found that the problems appear to be virtually nationwide.
Since it’s mostly TV stories, there aren’t a lot of details, but I suppose, with everyone running as fast as they can to stay in one place these days, adding a bunch of temporary work — welcome in normal times — simply overwhelmed the system.
“Normal times,” of course, being a somewhat fluid concept.
And cookie sales having seen better days.
Some decades ago, I had a publisher who joined other managers in putting her foot down on intraoffice pestering, for Girl Scout cookies or any fundraisers, and this was about the time Scouts and schools pulled back from having children go door-to-door.
But we still ran the smiley bright stories about little girls who sold a kabillion boxes rather than covering the less cheerful news that local Scouts were getting screwed by lower commissions on a fundraiser they counted on.
Apparently that’s still happening, according to the above-linked report out of Boston:
You might find a card table with Scouts and cookies outside your grocery store this week, though this is a nasty time to stand around outside in this part of the country.
Between the pandemic and shortage, I wouldn’t have even known the sale was going on if not for the news stories telling how badly it’s going.
Come to think of it, that’s how I know about Ukraine and our economy, too.
Continuing the topics of (A) things in short supply and (B) rampant capitalism, Barney and Clyde (WPWG) tackles the problem of public toilets, with, predictably, Barney seeking a way to profit from people’s needs. (For those unfamiliar with the strip, he owns a pharmaceutical firm, so charging people for biological necessities is right in his wheelhouse.)
And I like the way he fobs Clyde off by taking the idea for an absurdly small fee rather than giving him a cut of the take. Again, right in character.
Well, we may never get to a point where Barney’s firm has to negotiate with Medicare over drug prices, but there’s a new app — We Can’t Wait — that should take some of the profit out of his pay-to-pee scheme.
As that linked story explains:
I’d point out the Home Depot is a huge Trump supporter, so, on your way in, you may want to grab a plunger or a snake from their display, in case you find the thing blocked with paper.
Frivolity aside, I’d note that the story quotes the president and CEO of the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation, for whose beneficiaries finding a bathroom isn’t always a luxury.
Nobody should have to pay to pee, and this is just one more way Americans are different. Most countries have public facilities, many of them because, if they didn’t, it wouldn’t stop anyone.
Still on the topic of rampant capitalism, our quadrennial nightmare ends tonight, with what I’m sure will be a spectacular salute to genocide and suppression, and, for the Chinese watching at home, everything was hunky-dory and the world stands agape at their splendor.
Those with a less controlled view of things will likely remember the Beijing Olympics for that little Russian skater who failed her drug test, and it was disgraceful, though not for the reasons Michael de Adder suggests.
For one thing, the difference between her case and that of American runner Sha’Carri Richardson — suspended from the Tokyo Olympics for smoking weed — is not based on race but on who made the call. As this analysis points out, Richardson was not suspended by the Olympic Committee but by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.
The key difference here is that the USADA monitors and punishes the use of performance-enhancing or otherwise illegal drugs, whereas its Russian counterpart, RUSADA, is a scandal-ridden joke.
So they weren’t even on the same bus in the first place, regardless of who sat where.
And while it’s hard to prove connivance between the Russians and the Chinese, their leaders seemed to like each other as the Games began, and it’s not like the IOC has a record of clean hands and ethical decisions.
Valieva caught a break, but it may be temporary, now that she’s embarrassed Putin.
Though maybe she’ll get to join Peng Shuai and IOC President Thomas Bach in their “Nothing To See Here” seats for the closing ceremonies.
Clay Jones has a good essay to go along with this cartoon, expanding on the elephant’s complaint that Democrats seem obsessed with Dear Leader’s continued ranting and attempts to evade justice, while they dig up ancient issues with Hillary Clinton.
As noted the other day, the crack pipes didn’t exist and now John Durham himself has said they got his report wrong, but, hey, there’s always ol’ Hillary to drag out and pummel again.
Not that it turned out so well the last time.
Fox defenders contend that their news is honest, even if the commentators deliberately lie, which is a strange defense but I suppose it’s all they have.
Or had.
This weekend, Sara Carter, a Fox News reporter, not “commentator,” lit up the Internet with the news that a woman had been trampled and killed by police horses in Ottawa.
She was reporting a rumor without checking it out, an indefensible journalistic blunder.
Then, even after she knew it had been disproven, she left her false report online so it could be retweeted, cited and shared.
And, when police denied the report, Carter doubled-down by suggesting they were lying.
Fox seems inconsistent on the topic of police and protesters: Sometimes the cops are blue-clad heroes and sometimes they’re jack-booted thugs. Depends on who’s at the other end of the nightstick.
In any case, here’s how a Fox lie got halfway ’round the world while truth was lacing up its boots.
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