CSotD: Mondays With Mildred
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I could do an entire day of cartoons in which Trump and Putin discuss the Ukraine war while Zelenskyy remains out of the conversation. It seems nobody in the world thinks it’s fair or right for the invader and an outside party to determine some other nation’s territory and sovereignty.
I like Royaards’ piece because he’s included the EU in the parties that should be at the talks.
It looks as though Europe intends to continue to support Ukraine, which is an interesting development given the US’s new identity as an outrider in world politics. Other nations are finding ways to work around the recalcitrant Trump government, and who can blame them?
As for the notion that Ukraine should cede territory to Russia, it’s such a foolish idea that the Americans should be ashamed to bring it to the table. The idea that the Ukrainians, having sacrificed as much as they have, and fought as hard as they have, would simply shrug and give up their land to an invader is nonsense to begin with, because they obviously wouldn’t comply.
And if that weren’t obvious from talking to them today, one only has to look back at what happened when the Allies allowed Germany to seize the Sudetenland in the last century. The people who let this happen and who assured us it would bring peace in our time have gone down in history as fools and as dishonorable.
It wasn’t even a close call: I put the above meme together a decade ago, when Russia seized Crimea and unmarked soldiers began appearing in Eastern Ukraine. I’m not taking credit for amazing foresight, because anybody with the most fundamental grasp of history could see it coming, and most did.
It doesn’t take a genius to see how appeasement turns out. In fact, you have to be a fool to fail to see how appeasement turns out.
We have no shortage of people who claim to know everything until it matters, and then they turn out to know nothing.
Unfortunately, it seems Dear Leader trained for years to get through school without doing any learning and to avoid the draft via fictional heel spurs and a friendly doctor. Then his father bailed him out of one business failure after another.
And now it’s our turn to enable him.
Wuerker isn’t the only one to poke fun at Trump’s tacky decorating tastes, which have been compared here to a Byzantine bordello, but he does make the point that, while Trump is tarting up the executive mansion, he is destroying other, more important government functions.
But however much Trump’s taste reminds us of General Garcia, the critical point is not that he has vulgarian taste, and, personally, I’m just glad he hasn’t hung velvet paintings of sad clowns in the Oval Office, or put a giant wooden salad fork on the wall.
However, the real issue is that he thinks the White House is his. Rather than living there as one in a succession of presidents, he seems to believe it is his property, and it doesn’t seem as if he realizes he’s only going to be there three more years.
But it fits his clear belief that, for instance, the Justice Department exists not to see that the laws are enforced but to make sure everyone does things his way, and his belief that world trade will bend to his notions rather than operating by universally accepted rules laid down over centuries.
He owns the Oval Office and he owns the Attorney General and he dictates foreign trade and he shapes everything to his personal tastes, including the State of Texas, which he sees as one of his 50 fiefdoms.
Fifty-one, if you count the District of Columbia, which he is now having to punish, just as he has had to punish California for its disloyalty by sending in shock troops to seize control.
In any case, he’s very much in charge and on top of things and so ignore the fellow from Project 25 who is standing next to him in this video of a recent Cabinet meeting:
Speaking of things it doesn’t take a genius to see coming, Katauskas comments here on the way AI is being crammed down the public’s throat, praised for its wonders while its drawbacks are completely shrugged off.
There are valid uses for AI, but not half so many as are being touted by its eager promoters, who, as the barker says, are getting rich by flogging the stuff well beyond its appropriate uses.
For repetitive and elementary functions, like coding or creating spreadsheets, AI is useful, but you don’t need a million data farms and electrical generators to service the level of AI that makes sense.
As Sorensen points out, we’re seen a lot of improvements that have lowered our quality of life.
Slashing of budgets for things like national parks cheapens our lives, though we can survive without beauty and wonder, if the definition of life is “continuing to breathe.” But it seems awfully gray and unnecessarily drab and joyless, and, no, I don’t think losing Yellowstone in exchange for the Masked Singer is a fair trade.
I worked in local radio when it began to be replaced by satellite stations. While PBS isn’t high on my list of needs, NPR definitely is, as the final outpost in our growing news deserts.
I’ve found myself thinking about Mildred Montag a lot recently. She doesn’t care what AI is doing to the water or the power grid, and she’d be just as happy if the government switched our currency to bitcoins or baseball cards or even clam shells.
Either she would believe that all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds, or she wouldn’t notice the changes, as long as her interactive soap operas weren’t interrupted.
Dylan wrote “Please get out of the new road if you can’t lend a hand,” but the majority of people have never done either.
We like to pretend that all the colonists were rebels and patriots 250 years ago, but only the heroes make history.
Most people are like Mildred Montag and her small circle of friends.
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