Cold Comfort

 The race to the top of the ignorant slide is difficult not to watch as conservative Republicans slip and slide and climb over one another to try and get to the pinnacle. It is hard not to root for a proven idiot like Marjorie Taylor Greene. Last week one of her entries into the competition included this sour raspberry: "How much taxes and how much money did the people back in the ice age spend to warm up the earth?... maybe perhaps we live on a ball that rotates around the sun, that flies through the universe, and maybe our climate just changes." The current description of what just poured out of the slit beneath her nose is "word salad." Any attempt to try and pluck meaning from what she was babbling will only result in a stress-induced headache. That's why the crowd that nods in approval to her assault on common sense must be sedated in some way prior to sitting down to listen.

But I would like to enter a new horse into this contest: Wisconsin's Senator Ron Johnson. Last week during a Senate Budget hearing, he decided to go toe to toe with Doctor Michael Greenstone, an economics professor at the University of Chicago. Doctor Greenstone was there to discuss the economic impacts of climate change causing a projected eighty-five excess global deaths per one hundred thousand people every year by 2100. Senator Ron said he did not "put any stock in" the projections of Greenstone's study before arguing that it had shown climate change was "pretty good" for the U.S. and an overall positive since it would lead to warming in cold areas like Wisconsin.

"In terms of excess deaths, a warming globe's actually beneficial," Johnson said. "In my own state, your study shows that we would have a reduction in mortality of somewhere between fifty-four and fifty-six people per, I guess, it's one hundred thousand. Why wouldn't we take comfort in that?"

Never mind that Doctor Greenstone's study, based on the current global population of approximately 8 billion, would translate to nearly seven million more annual deaths. Why wouldn't we take comfort in that? Keeping in mind that Senator Ron was one of those who liked to compare deaths from COVID-19 favorably to those deaths that were flu-related.  

Senator Ron is not a scientist. Or an economist. From the biography on his own website: "Ron graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in business and accounting after skipping his senior year of high school so he could work full time." Good for him, getting out there and making something of himself. A United States Senator with little or no understanding of science or economics. Scrambling to the top of that slippery slope. 

Working

 All the little cracks can be seen at this time of the year. Nowhere is this more evident than during standardized testing when half the school spends each morning in front of a Chromebook, quietly clicking and scrolling. 

"Mister Caven, my computer doesn't work."

The good news is that most of these machine failures have pretty common solution: Turn them off. Wait. Turn them back on again. I launch into these events with a sigh and a resignation engendered by decades of managing technology for this little slice of heaven I all school. 

There are moments when the quick fix that I do out of reflex is insufficient to the challenge. In these cases, I tend to repeat the process: Turn it off. Wait. Turn it back on again. A vast majority of the time, this second trip down reset lane is rewarded with a return to service. Just as showing students and teachers both where to find the volume control before tossing a pair of headphones because they "did not work." 

This experience extends to copy machines. And coffee makers. I make very few copies. I never drink coffee. This does not relieve my responsibility to these apparatus. They have electricity in them and are therefore under my purvey as "tech." Electric pencil sharpeners are another matter. They don't tend to need a system reset as much as extrication: removal of any and all foreign bodies other than the tips of pencils that were meant for sharpening. Erasers do not require sharpening, contrary to the belief and understanding of your average second grader. 

And why are all these little bits making themselves more prominent in our collective eyes and therefore landing on my desk on this page of the calendar? Because most if not all of the hardware that is being thrust in front of me will not be replaced next year. We don't lave a line item in our school's budget for miscellaneous scratches, dents and jammed copy machines. We do, however, have someone on staff who stretches his job description to include all god's devices, great and small. 

That would be me. And once I get the soccer balls off the roof and the breakfast distributed, I will be mashing on that power button and imploring the spirits to help me heal the tired, poor, and wretched refuse yearning to breathe free. Or just turn back on again. 

Get The Tuck Out

 I am a little concerned about the estimated four million viewers of Young Tuck (Er) Carlson. I am worried that they are left in the wilderness of mindless conspiracy without a guide. I suppose I would feel more upset if they hadn't wandered after him like lemmings wearing red baseball caps, but still I can't help wondering who will lead them to the New Promised Land? 

Tucker Carlson, full name Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson, was let go by Faux News this past Monday making him one of the very few people to have the distinction of being fired by CNN, MSNBC and Faux News. If he were a baseball player, we would call this "hitting for the cycle," but since he's a TV personality we'll just call it a relief. Maybe not for those eight million slavishly devoted empty vessels waiting for a drop of Young Tuck's wisdom, but for the rest of us who maintain a modicum of free will and common sense. 

Let's take a moment to examine the bar at Faux News. Not the lounge where Jeanine Pirro loads up before her night's broadcast, but rather the levels that Young Master Carlson bounced off of without getting fired. Like the time he insisted that immigrants coming to the United States of making the country “poorer, and dirtier, and more divided." Or when he referred to Iraqis as “semiliterate primitive monkeys." As an apologist for most every incident of racism, he continued to refer to white supremacy as "some kind of hoax." Along similar lines he likened vaccine mandates to Jim Crow laws and operated as a prime source of misinformation during the onset of COVID-19.  He said the mob that stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021 “were orderly and meek. These were not insurrectionists. They were sightseers.”

And it goes on and on, but the one that may have tripped him up was when he turned his laser antipathy at the cash cow of his network. Shortly after the 2020 election, he texted, “He’s a demonic force, a destroyer. But he’s not going to destroy us. I’ve been thinking about this every day for four years.” And that's the hate that Faux News just can't afford to keep around.

So, bye-bye for now Young Tuck. He's a resilient enough talking head. He'll find a new place to shout at people. Maybe on a street corner selling My Pillow. 

Lie Barry

 Libraries are closing. Not content to simply remove "banned" books from the shelves, Missouri lawmakers have decided to defund public libraries in an effort to get words out of the hands of its citizens. Ideas like the ones found in The Hate You Give and Handmaid's Tale would no longer be available for public consumption, free to be checked out and discussed among the public. Which pretty much flies in the face of the "public" library model. For many of the rural residents, public libraries are their only point of Internet access. As with most other states, public libraries function as city centers, a place to meet and connect for free concerts, celebrations, and by the way: books. 

There is good news: clear-thinking Republicans in the Missouri Senate are likely to restore the library funding once the budget lands in front of them. But we are already digging a hole out if which it may be difficult to climb. Controlling the thoughts and words that find their way into the public's head isn't something that our First Amendment should allow. There are those who would suggest that if consenting adults have a yen to dip their toes in the dystopian Republic of Gilead, they need only to Google it. Except for that lack of Internet connection. For extreme right wing conservatives, that sort of thing is best left to the individual. The individual writing the extreme legislation that keeps Missourians in the dark. 

And what about the would-be readers in Idaho? And it wouldn't be Texas if they weren't hopping on that ultra-MAGAt bandwagon, just in case drag queens showed up at their libraries. And I'm pretty sure that books in any form have been outlawed in Florida. 

And if you thought that heading off to California would allow you any relative freedom in terms of what you or your children might read, try not to land in San Ramon. At a recent school board meeting, a parent insisted, "It's a matter of indoctrination. They're going after kids' hearts minds and souls with stuff that neither the parents want, nor is it appropriate for those kids." It is at these meetings that the frightened mobs begin with the "most offensive" books they can find, like the autobiographical graphic novel by Maia Kobabe, Gender Queer. It's a pretty sure bet that most, if not all, of the outrage was confined to those who heard the title and decided that if there was anything in it that touched on pronouns it should be banned, burned, and the publisher should torn down and the earth where it stood salted, never to be looked upon by another god-fearing soul. 

Or maybe we should let libraries be repositories for human thought, right left and middle. It's a grocery store for ideas. Just because they sell kale doesn't mean you have to load up your cart with the stuff, nor do you have to buy a case of Twinkies. Maybe you can try them out, and if you don't like them separately, maybe you're not mixing them right. 

Teenaged Hindsight

 "Reggie, did you see the Andrews sent us another card."

"Yeah. I saw it."

"Isn't it nice that after all these years they still stay in touch."

"Yeah. Nice."

"Oh, come on Reggie. You can't still be bitter..."

"Oh, can't I, Betty? Can't I? My 'best friend' in high school ends up stealing my girl and marrying into all that dough, traveling around the world on Mister Lodge's dime..." 

"But if they hadn't gotten together, you and I might never have found each other."

"Right. And I never would have lucked into this catering business that's about to go bankrupt."

"Don't be that way. You know that things don't always work out like on TV. Or comic books."

When I read Archie comics, I wasn't old enough to consider just how hormonal the whole enterprise was. Archie was fortunate to have the attention of Betty, but aspired to date Veronica. Reggie, who was part of the Malt Shoppe gang was also enamored of Veronica, leaving Betty to stand idly by while the boys made fools of themselves in hopes of landing the elusive Ms. Lodge and all that rich girl maintenance. As comic book characters, there was nothing markedly different between the two girls save their hair color and their social status. In the band, Betty played the tambourine, "Ronnie" played the organ (perhaps because her father could buy her one). Way back when, I figured it was an easy enough mystery to solve: pick the girl who puts up with you. 

By the time I was actually in high school, navigating my own relationships, many of the nuances presented by Archie and the gang began to be obscured by my own bad choices. Trying to make sense out of all that emotional, psychological and libidinal input makes "clear thinking" a thing of the past. It's not until you get into your sixties and look back at the way things were and how they are now that it all comes into sharp focus: None of us had a clue what we were doing in high school. Betty could have been so much more assertive. Reggie's Machiavellian attempts at disrupting others' chances for happiness could only turn out bad. Veronica and Reggie were more suited for one another, but that is the precise reason they couldn't end up together. And Archie? He deserved every bad thing that ever happened to him, even if that turned out to be having the life sucked out of him by his evil despot of an eventual father in law. Who among us is truly happy? 

Jughead.  

What's It Worth To Me?

 I will be honest with you: If Blogger, or its cybermom Google ever gets it into their collective heads to charge me for this platform, you might not see me much longer. My daily musings, that is. There is something profoundly ratifying about having a little corner of Al Gore's Internet where I can pontificate and expound on this and that. Recollect, reconnect, respond and relate. It's all free.

With the possible exception of the time it takes me to sit in front of the keyboard and bang one of these bad boys out each day. And you, dear reader, your time is worth something to me as well. That's why I try to make each heapin' helpin' of my online hospitality a thrill ride you won't forget until you read something else. 

I am still quietly impressed by the fact that this little slice of heaven does not require you to read pop up ads or wade through a myriad of hoops and background checks just to find out what Dave has on his mind. I should point out that there is the tiniest bit of intent in that. When I signed up for the dubious honor of having a blog here, I was asked if I wanted to "monetize" my page. I said thank you, no. 

And that was it. Going on eighteen years, I have had my way with this space without paying a nickel for the privilege. I'm sure that there is some algorithm somewhere that suggests how the clicks that got you all here helps drive traffic to other more lucrative corners of the web. There's got to be a catch, right?

Which is why I continue to watch anxiously as Elon "Gate" Musk continues to mine ways to make his forty-four billion dollar investment in Twitter pay off. For just eight dollars a month, the man with the exploding cars and space rocket wants to sell you a blue check mark that will live next to your name to show that you are both "verified" and "gullible." I suppose he has to find a way to keep making new cars and rockets to blow up. 

Don't get me wrong, if any of you out there reading this would like to throw eight bucks a month at me for the unique opportunity I am offering here at Entropical Paradise, I would not turn it down. But I have way too much integrity to keep it. I would reroute it to a local animal shelter or the World Food Program. It's no blue check mark, but I promise to keep fighting the good, free fight until the bill comes due. 

Penny Lane

So, there was that little matter of Faux News having to pay most of a billion dollars to settle a defamation suit against them. Maybe we should have pointed out the most annoying part of that equation:

They can afford it. 

Elon Musk launched a rocket into what was nearly space and it blew up four minutes into what would have been its historic first mission. The entire program that would eventually put a private company, SpaceX, in charge of pushing human beings into orbit around other celestial bodies is estimated to be around five billion dollars. That big bang you heard when their rocket failed to launch? 

They can afford it. 

It brings me back to a bit that comedian Dana Carvey used to do about Paul McCartney looking for his wallet. "Hey Linda love? Didja see me wallet? It musta got stuck in the couch or somethin'. I had three quarters of a million dollars in it." It's funnier if you add the Liverpudlian accent.

The joke remains. It's funny because Sir Paul might not miss three quarters of a million dollars if he happened to misplace it for a while. Out here in the cheap seats, we're still picking up the occasional penny and putting it aside in hopes that we'll scrape together fifty of them eventually to make a roll. When was the last time you suppose Rupert Murdoch or Elon Musk bent at the waist to pick up anything, much less a penny? When was the last time you suppose Rupert Murdoch or Elon Musk bent at the waist?

For me it's a matter of corporations being people. Roll up enough of those pennies and suddenly you don't need to acknowledge their existence. The pennies involved in the day to day business of running Faux News. Rupert Murdoch would like you to pay approximately eight thousand dollars to air a thirty second ad on his "news network." Elon Musk would like you to pay eight dollars to put a little blue check mark next to your made up name on Twitter. That eight dollars is supposed to "verify" you. 

Last time I checked, there are still a whole bunch of people anxious to pay for either of those opportunities. If you don't advertise, you don't make money. If you're not verified, how would anyone know that you were real?

I'd love to talk about this more, but I've got to get back to looking for pennies on the sidewalk.