Notes On The Collapse

About The Inauguration Protests

“No matter who won the election, H.R.C. or Trump, we should be protesting. But especially Trump. His campaign was nothing but hatred and fear. We must reject that, or be complicit in it.”
– Protestor, two weeks before

On January 21, the day after the Inauguration, a massive rally is planned in the nation’s capitol to highlight women’s issues.  An estimated 200,000 women are scheduled to attend the “Women’s March On Washington”.

Take note:  These are not, by and large, discontented college students and former Bernie Bros pining for their lost candidate.  These are intelligent professionals (more…)

Hard Rubber

The call to arms has been issued, and the young activists are marching on Washington.  It’s time to protest the 2017 Presidential Inauguration with parades and speeches and picket signs.  Why?  Well, mainly because we can’t get change any other way, right?

People have accused the President-Elect, Donald Trump, of fraud and perversion, of crimes and hate and serious nastiness.  One of these people is Mr. Trump himself, who appears to enjoy defaming himself on Twitter.  Not many politicians could survive even one of his mis-tweets; he’s given us dozens.  And that doesn’t even touch the court cases and the controversial ethical choices he’s making during the transition period.  They called Reagan the Teflon president; Trump appears instead to be constructed out of hard rubber. (more…)

Why Aleppo Is So Important

While the White House and a couple of Senators are loudly Trump-eting about the alleged Russian involvement in an email hack, we’re missing out on a major news story:  The civil war in Syria is all over bar the shouting.  (And inevitable reprisals.)

Don’t mistake me:  The email thing is important.  I believe it will drive our news for much of the next year, and the results could be extremely impressive.  But Aleppo is huge, and (more…)

That’s “Toupeed Cheeto, Sir”, Dammit!

Today’s New York Daily News featured an article by famously opinionated columnist Shaun King entitled “Here’s Why I Will Never Call Donald Trump ‘Mr. President'”.

In it, he explores Mr. Trump’s character flaws.  He writes with great eloquence about the man’s character, detailing his failings with remarkable fervor.  Much of what he says is (more…)

This Just In: “The Onion” Is Reliable News

Since their recent semi-acquisition by communications giant Univision, “The Onion” has begun putting out some surprisingly reasonable stuff in their Politics section.  The present edition features a useful infographic entitled “How To Stay Politically Active After The Election”, and there’s another interesting piece on Justice Ginsburg’s plans for the winter break.

…OK; I admit it.  My headline is a complete fabrication.  I made it up.  Much like The Onion did this.

This is how clickbait works:  You see something that’s shocking; you say to yourself, “This can’t possibly be true!”  And then you click on it, and someone makes money from their sponsors.

(News alert:  I don’t actually have any sponsors.  Too bad, too; I could use the money.) (more…)

Did Russia Hack The Election?

The Washington Post broke a story on the 9th to the effect that Russia hacked the American presidential elections this year.

As is becoming the new normal in modern journalistic practice, the story has several different headlines, each fine-tuned to appeal to the target audience.  The main print version was released as “Obama Orders Review Of Russian Hacking During Presidential Campaign”, but the regional headlines differ slightly.  The online version was titled the eminently clickable “Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House”. (more…)

Texas — Requires Burial Of Aborted Fetuses?!

New York Times headline:  “Texas Will Require Burial Of Aborted Fetuses”

Well, of course I had to read the story and see what was going on.  This doesn’t sound at all reasonable.  Not even in Texas, the legendary home of the liquor store drive-through, beanless chili, and high school football as a religious faith. (more…)

But What Can I Do?

It used to be that our exposure to the horrible things in the world was limited to the paper in the morning and Uncle Walter’s broadcast in the evening.  Now that we’ve got 24-hour news channels, though, we’re inundated.  Awful things are happening all the time and the whole universe is eager to tell us.  It’s coming from our speakers, our car radio, even social media.  There’s fear and terror and horror everywhere, and there’s no escape. (more…)

I Am Spartacus!

In the days since the election, rumor and hysteria and raw unfounded panic have swept the Internet.  The number of subjects is immense, and not all of them are horribly far-fetched.

“What is Donald Trump going to do to us?”  This is the question on everyone’s lips, and the amount of terror that it causes is pretty amazing.  It’s almost as though people lack faith in their own government for some reason. (more…)

Write A Letter?

The news is full of it.  Lots of people are crushed by the results of the election.  Folks are taking to the streets and protesting; suicide numbers are up a little.  Despair is everywhere.

And that’s wrong.

I’m not going to tell you here just how great a guy Donald Trump is or (more…)