A blizzard is forecast for tomorrow—10 to 16 inches. Everyone is rushing to the grocery store. I rushed to the library instead, making sure I have enough books to survive the confinement.
My gym—my pickleball refuge—has already announced it will be closed through Wednesday.
Driving past several supermarkets, I saw parking lots packed to capacity. Nothing induces panic quite like the promise of snow.
Storms like this create a kind of white claustrophobia for me. Movement shrinks. The walls feel closer.
A friend’s son recently closed his small Mexican restaurant. It had been doing reasonably well, but food costs made the business untenable. A case of lettuce that cost $20 a few months ago now costs $80. He couldn’t pass that on to customers without losing them, so he shut the doors. So much for affordability.
I watched a few minutes of Real Time with Bill Maher. His guests were James Talarico and Lauren Boebert. Talarico came across as smart, articulate, and measured—Senate material. Boebert, in contrast, added little of substance. I’m still not sure why she was booked.
On a more pleasant note, I watched three films this week, all worth seeing. Solo Mio (**½), a light comedy with Kevin James, Andrea Bocelli, and Nicole Grimaudo, was charming. Nuremberg (**½), with Russell Crowe and Rami Malek, was powerful and timely. Now You See Me 3 () delivered the expected mix of magic, action, and humor from Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Dave Franco, and Morgan Freeman.
We saw Solo Mio in a theater. Even with the senior discount, tickets were $13 each. A small diet soda cost $9. There were barely ten people in the audience. It’s hard to see how movie theaters survive on that model.
I’m reminded of a column I wrote in late summer 2008 suggesting—half seriously—that the election be moved up because the George W. Bush administration seemed paralyzed by the financial crisis. I believed Barack Obama had the intelligence and temperament to navigate the moment. Today, facing domestic, technological, and financial challenges, I feel the same urgency: we need capable, thoughtful leadership. The deficit of judgment in our governing institutions is unsettling.
Even the Wall Street Journal recently described one of Donald Trump’s outbursts as “the worst moment of his presidency.” Given the competition, that is saying something. I doubt we have reached the bottom.
I am a huge Bill Maher fan. I’ve been watching Politically Incorrect since it debuted in 1993. Maher could be considered the Will Rogers of today’s culture. But Maher is more cutting, dynamic, controversial and cynical than Rogers ever was. Plus Maher has met plenty of people he did not like. Maher’s style is more like H.L. Mencken. Maher and Jon Stewart are the rational minds and voices that Americans need badly.
I’d recommend Maher’s books of essays about politics, media, cancel culture, Trump, education and civil war etc. to anyone interested in current events, history and politics. But I understand that 40% of the country might prefer to listen to Greg Gutfield and The Five. Their loss! I find Maher to be a very fair interviewer on his show, civil and willing to give opposite views from him a fair hearing.
Read the varied essays at your leisure. Maher incorporates humor with his opinions and criticisms. Try it, you may like it…
I have posted some excerpts that caught my eye and mind…
A job in Congress is just so much better than racking the weights at CrossFit, which is what Marjorie Taylor Greene did before she set her crazy eyes on the prize. And once you get the gig, it’s yours for life. The re-election rate in the house for incumbents in 2022 was 95% – – that’s better job security than a pedophile priest has.
Everybody keeps asking, how could a guy (George Santos) like this happen?” I’ll tell you how: because no one cares anymore about substance. It’s all tribalism. The only thing that matters is “is he on our team?” Is he doing our schtick?” Santos is just the first one to realize you could do both sides’ schtick and get away with it because people have completely tuned out anything that doesn’t already fit their narrative.
Americans are far too dim and distracted to responsibly make a (voting) choice in just weeks or even months. Americans actually think it’s a brag to say that they’re cynical about politics and therefore don’t follow it. Don’t flatter yourself. Cynical comes when you know too much; you, on the other hand, haven’t bothered to learn anything.
This country simply has no education standards anymore – – they will let you out of a public high school and give you a diploma and you don’t have to actually know anything. Which used to be a mission of schools: knowing things.
Facebook, Instagram, TikTok – – these are not places to read in the sense of garnering real and valuable information; they are what replaced reading so you’d have more time to take pictures of your dick. Sorry, but staring at your phone doesn’t make you a reader anymore than watching fireworks makes you an astronomer, or getting a tramp stamp makes you ass a museum.
Trump calls the Mueller report “the crazy Mueller report, “and in a way he’s right, because it’s over 400 pages detailing terrible crimes by a corrupt president, yet Mueller doesn’t prosecute. If Dostoevsky had written this report, it would be called “Crime and no Punishment.”
In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump nicknamed his penis “Mike Pence” because it’s not hung like it should be.
Our economy no longer creates a middle class, it sucks it dry. Sometimes “middle class” just means you’re poor but you don’t do meth. And remember, this is the good economy, where 40% of Americans can’t afford a $400 emergency expense and 50 million have nothing saved for retirement. Sorry, but it is not middle-class when your retirement plan is a lotto ticket.
When did the American business model switch from honestly selling you a product to tricking the consumer who doesn’t read the fine print? You ever wonder, “Why is my cell phone contract longer than a CVS receipt?” If you forget to turn off “data roaming” and you go to Vancouver for the weekend, Verizon gets to keep your children. This is the way we do business, and it’s all based on the cynical premise of you fucking up: that they can wear you down, confuse you or count on you to forget.
Before we tackle any of our daunting specific problems here in America, we have to figure out how a country can solve any problem if so, many of its people are so intractably,, astoundingly, mind numbingly stupid. And I’m not saying that as hyperbole or just out of frustration. I mean this country just might be empirically, verifiably too fucking dumb to continue as an ongoing enterprise.
Colleges have turned into giant, luxury daycare centers with overpaid babysitters anxious to indulge every student whim.
Every year at graduation time we witnessed the ritual of commencement addresses, when America’s overrated, gas bags, and wisdom-free celebrities are invited by star fucking universities to come to their school and tell a bunch of spoiled, stoned, debt laden brats things like “You’re only limit is your own imagination” and The world will be a better place for having you in it.”
Before the Internet, you only had to put up with your wingnut uncle on Thanksgiving. Now he’s forwarding you proof that Trump won Arizona and Epstein was murdered by the QAnon shaman. The street corner nut with the sandwich board used to be laughed at; now he’s linked to.
Do you know the reason why advertisers in this country love the 18 to 34 demographic? Because it’s the most gullible. A third of people under 35 say they’re in favor of abolishing the police – – not defunding, but doing away with a police force altogether, which is less of a policy position, and more of a leg tattoo. 36% of millennials think it might be a good idea to try communism.
Is there anything more self-defeating than not using old people as a resource? Not taking advantage of their accumulated knowledge? Everywhere else in the world elders are sought for guidance. In America, elders are sought for TikTok pranks.
Now, I get it, Christians love to feel persecuted – – it’s part of their origin story. But it’s been a long time since anyone was getting eaten by the lions in the Colosseum. 64% of the country is Christian, not to mention every president we’ve ever had, so please don’t tell me, in what universe does it make sense when Sean Hannity says, “The liberal media’s war against religion is alive and well.”
Esot-eric 