CSotD: Juxtaposition of the Juxtapositions
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I wasn’t sure which end of the Joni Ernst cascade to start with, but I like how Wuerker lays the debacle at the feet of the Republican Party.
Ernst was challenged at a townhall by someone calling out that people would die as a result of GOP cutbacks to Medicaid, to which she responded that we are all going to die sometime.
That might have merited a mention nationally, but she then went to a cemetery and made a ghastly, insulting video in which she called dissenting constituents naive and promoted her view of the afterlife as a remedy for dying in this one.
Ernst is up for re-election and is seen as vulnerable, which should have called for some diplomacy and sensitivity on her part but Wuerker shows the donkey happily publicizing her inept cruelty while the elephant sees it as an uncalled-for risk to their slim Senate majority.
Gary Huck ties her remark directly into the Republicans’ budget bill, which is appropriate given that the bill and its cuts were the subject of the exchange. Huck then uses an extreme close-up and sinister black-and-white coloring to emphasize his point that she was making not just a prediction but a promise.
As with Wuerker, he extends Ernst’s statement to her entire party, pointing out that they have, as a group, agreed on the Medicaid cuts that will result in people losing health coverage, and stating that they recognized the outcome.
Jones plays her cruelty for laughs, with the outrageous suggestion that she will not only cause people to die but will then serve up their remains for lunch.
The gag requires familiarity with the Charlton Heston movie, though the tagline, “Soylent Green is people” is well-known even to people who’ve never seen the film. Using this kind of reference may limit the percent of readers who get it, but it’s very satisfying for those who do.
Of the three, Huck’s is the most accessible, Wuerker’s the most analytical and Jones’s the hardest hitting. All three are working within their normal ranges, and it would be up to an editor to decide which message to choose.
More of a coin-flip with this
Juxtaposition of the Day
A Yahtzee from three masters of the craft, proving that it can happen to anybody. Top honors, IMHO, go to Davies not just for depicting the actual weaponry but for emphasizing that the bully was outsmarted and outplanned. It was not just a lucky shot.
Morland takes a different tack, emphasizing Putin’s continued arrogance in a war that has cost Russia far, far more than expected and more than the effort is worth. There are few observers who don’t realize the status of Russia’s economy, which is more than decimated by a combination of the costs of the war itself and the resulting sanctions imposed upon it by other nations.
But you won’t hear discouraging words from Putin, so this demand for Ukraine to surrender, delivered from under the table, is a nice piece of accurate sarcasm.
It’s also less cheering for the little guy than it is a Big Picture view of what Ukraine’s attack has accomplished in destroying both expensive war machines and Russian morale, since this isn’t an action that can go unnoticed, even in an information-controlled country.
Even though Radio Free Europe and Voice of America are being stifled by Putin’s on-again, off-again bestie.
The bizarre attack in Boulder emphasizes how a single crackpot can dominate coverage, a lesson anyone dabbling in politics learns, often the hard way. In this case, it’s obviously news, just as the anti-Latino mass shooting in Walmart was news and just as the Charleston Church murders were news.
And it was more dramatic news than the clash between federal police and civilians in Minneapolis, or the fact that Pete Hegseth has ordered the USS Harvey Milk to change its name as part of an effort to erase all tributes to civil rights pioneers.
It is also an important moment for those who feel opposition to the war in Gaza is antisemitic rather than anti-imperialistic.
Benson suggests that antisemitism is the spark that sets off hate crimes, bigotry and terrorism, though it didn’t play a part in the Walmart or Charleston examples.
Certainly, it was the spark this time. But antisemitism isn’t why people believed that Haitians were eating pets, nor is it why so many people believe most undocumented immigrants are drug dealers, rapists and criminals.
It’s one seed in some very rich soil.
Summers says the media is ignoring the assailant’s motivation, but he sure must draw fast. They may not have announced it in the first half-hour of coverage but they certainly put it front and center once it was established, which didn’t take long.
It might be instructive to ask those offended by MIT valedictorian Megha Vemuri’s fiery speech condemning the school’s role in the Gaza War the names of the valedictorians at West Point or Liberty or in their own hometown’s high school, and what they spoke about.
Free speech isn’t always free, but Vemuri says her unapproved remarks were worth being barred from the graduation ceremony.
Which reminds me that we’re going to start refusing visas for foreign students who post things on social media critical of American policies or those of our allies.
That ought to fix our free speech crisis.
Would have been nice if Kirk Walters had been as specific in saying which universities are actively coming out against Jews as openly as Wallace came out against integration.
His ungrounded view of college reminds me of how we laughed at the line in Okie from Muskogee, “Kids here still respect the college dean.” I met the college dean once, so he could initial a schedule change. Three minutes out of four years.
Respect him? I didn’t even know what he looked like. All I knew was that if he came out of his office and saw his shadow, we’d have six more weeks of classes.
To end on an up-note, it seems as if Bob Englehart has met and talked to a college student in this century.
Fancy that!
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