The Irish should not be entrusted with any technology more advanced than the hoe and wheelbarrow.
Looks like I picked a good day to ignore the news in favor of fiddling with the dark corners of GarageBand (yeah, take cover, you might have to endure another podcast before much longer).
The homepage of The New York Times looks like the mounts of all Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse shat on it in a driving rain, which oddly enough is what we’re experiencing at the moment here in Duke City. The rain, not the horseshit, though that can be had aplenty too, if I am not otherwise occupied, which I am.
Even Charles P. Pierce is starting to make me nervous. When the headline is “Saddened, Angry, Sickened, Defeated,” it’s a solid tip that the guffaws will be few and far between.
Me, I’m just glad I don’t have any pressing deadlines. It was tough to bring the funny for the final Bicycle Retailer of 2016, and while delving into the mysteries of GarageBand is giving me a headache, it is in a largely unused corner of what remains of my brain.
This morning the furnace fired up for the first time this fall.
If this had happened Tuesday evening, I might have considered it an omen. But on Thursday? It’s November, man. It had to happen sometime.
And so, too, probably, did Donald Trump.
Maybe Wisconsin should have been our canary in the coal mine. This former case study in the practical application of progressive politics has turned into its Bizarro World doppleganger, inexplicably clinging to its numbnuts Gov. Scott Walker like some sort of smelly security blanket and telling Russ Feingold to go fuck himself.
Walker the presidential candidate didn’t even make it to the Iowa caucuses, dropping out of the race in September 2015, and we all had a good laugh about how his lame little act wasn’t ready for prime time.
And then Insane Clown Pussy made it all the way to the finish line.
You’ll find any number of analyses for why this played out the way it did, but I find myself agreeing with Kevin Drum and Charles P. Pierce, who think it has a lot to do with what Drum politely calls “racial and cultural identity,” Pierce calls “nativist racism,” and I call “assholes.” (Hey, I don’t have any advertisers to take offense.)
What does it all mean? There are plenty of deep thoughts about that floating around too, and I imagine you’ve already seen, heard, read or had many of them.
But for starters, it means that once again the GOP has done an “Exorcist”-style about-face on just about everything it’s claimed to hold dear whenever Democrats are in charge: Filibusters are bad; the Electoral College is good; and only “spoiled crybabies” dare question the legitimacy of a duly elected president.
What do we do next? Pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and get back after it — hopefully a little wiser for the experience.*
As E.J. Dionne writes: “(W)e cannot allow fear or anger to drive us from the field. If ever our nation needed a determined, thoughtful and creative opposition, it is now.”
* Speaking of “thoughtful and creative,” let’s not burn any flags, OK? Bad optics, don’t you know. I thought that shit was stupid even when I was a hippie.
Good thing I gave up the acid before moving to New Mexico.
Here’s a snap from around sundown, taken from the entryway to El Rancho Pendejo. Lots easier to look at than the news lately.
As James Fallows notes at The Atlantic, “the effective merger of the entertainment and political-campaign industries” continues apace with Der Trumpenführer making a playful appearance on “The Tonight Show.” Host Jimmy Fallon and executive producer Lorne Michaels — who also arranged a ha-ha handjob for Agent Orange on “Saturday Night Live” — deserve public dick-punches for enabling this particular fool.
Blue skies, white clouds and green chile. Yum.
Also at The Atlantic,David Graham wonders just why The Hildebeast is running for the presidency. A little late for this sort of thing, but yeah. And a great lede: “Hillary Clinton is back on her feet. Now, what does she stand for?”
Elsewhere, the media scrambled to cover “a major announcement” from Agent Orange that was nothing more than free publicity for his new DC hotel. No link because, duh.
“Like a five-buck violin, cable news. Like a five-buck violin,” tweeted Charles P. Pierce (@ESQPolitics).
Added Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias): “All future presidential campaigns will be lightly disguised infomercials for hotel chains.”
Meanwhile, here in the Duke City, the forecast is for puffy clouds followed by sunshine and a high in the 70s. We got that and green chile. Don’t tell the media.
Now and then I miss working in a newsroom. This is not one of those times.
Most days, daily journalism is like any other gig, only more so. Hours of tedium interrupted by moments of pandemonium.
But news in the era of what Charlie Pierce calls He, Trump, is a whole other ballgame. It’s like trying to sip delicately from a fire hose hooked to a septic tank. It can’t be done, and nobody should have to try, not even for money.
And certainly not for free.
Instead I’ve been trying — and mostly succeeding — in paying attention to the bicycle, may God save her and all who sail in her.
There’s Bicycle Retailer‘s big 25th-anniversary celebration, for example. I need to dash off a column and cartoon on that topic, which shouldn’t be too much of a stretch, seeing as I’ve had 25 years of practice.
And I’ve ridden four different bikes in four days — Sam Hillborne, Steelman Eurocross, Soma Saga, Jones Steel Diamond — and loved every minute of it. Well, not every minute — the Steelman’s low end of 36×26 is a tad tall on steep, sandy single-track for an auld fella — but still, it beats perching in front of the Mac, letting the shit monsoon wash over me.
This morning I got up, grabbed some coffee, and when Herself went out to walk The Boo, I shut off NPR’s “Morning Edition” and started playing some John Prine instead. Sometimes a fella needs a little country to restore his faith in a bigger one.
The inimitable Charles P. Pierce gave us a heads-up yesterday about the Federal Communications Commission’s plan to “streamline and modernize” rules governing media ownership, which Charlie rightly calls the prelude to “sheer unadulterated brigandage.”
For starters, the streamlining and modernization would give his old boss, Rupert Murdoch — yes, that Rupert Murdoch — a chance to get his paws on what remains of the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times.
Beyond that, it would give media conglomerates the opportunity to get your local media by the plums with a downhill pull. How would you like to have ol’ Rupe or someone like him running your “local” newspaper/website, radio station and TV channel all at once?
Credo Action followed up with an online petition drive, and there’s something similar going on over at Free Press. Adding your name to the chorus against the FCC’s holiday giveaway can’t hurt and might even help.
Meanwhile, take a quick look around your own media landscape and figure out who the player(s) are. It can be eye-opening to see just who controls your local flow of information.
Here in Bibleburg there is only one locally owned newspaper, the weekly Colorado Springs Independent, which also owns (and shares some staff with) the Colorado Springs Business Journal. I didn’t bother to look up all the radio stations, because I only listen to one — NPR affiliate KRCC-FM, a.k.a. Radio Colorado College — but I did check out the TV stations I can get via rabbit ears. Following is a breakdown of who owns our “local” media.
Mad Blog Media 