CSotD: I Read The News Today Oy Vey
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I didn’t watch the White House Concubines Association dinner, but I’ve certainly seen a mountain of videos, summaries and outraged reactions.
Someone asked on-line why everyone in the room didn’t get up and walk out when he insulted Kaitlin Collins, but that’s a silly question, because the fact that they were even there answers it. The ones who felt his presence outweighed the point of the dinner were already home and they didn’t have to hear what he had to say to know where he stands anyway.
Collins was there to pick up an award. If you’ve never been involved in one of these dinners, you may not know that, even if the awards are secret until announced, you get a call ahead of time, or your boss does, saying that you really need to be there that night. As for the insults he directed at her, getting up and flouncing out of the room would have handed him a victory. By sitting there and taking it, she proved she could, which makes her a bigger person than he is.
As for criticism of the ones who applauded, that’s a puzzlement, because journalists are supposed to attend events as observers, not fans, and you should be taking notes, not clapping. But, obviously, when it’s a gathering of journalists, that rule changes. Sort of. You can applaud each other, but applauding the president undermines your neutrality, which raises the central question of why he’s there in the first place.
As Wuerker notes, the audience was full of organizations that Dear Leader has sued, and I got to read excerpts of his speech in which he insulted them all over again.
The scholarships and such are worthwhile, but the dinner has long degenerated into an overwrought embarrassment for the profession. Perhaps this year’s debacle will finally lance the growing boil and convince serious journalists to recast the thing entirely.
Fortunately for them, the attendees didn’t have to question whether they should laugh at the president’s jokes, because they weren’t funny. Hunter Biden pointed out that in order to tell a joke, you need a level of self-reflection that Trump lacks, to which I would add that you also need empathy so you know what people expect and how to flip that into a surprising, insightful twist.
I’m reading Killing Baby Hitler, a political/sci-fi satire worth picking up, and in it one of the characters tries to get his futuristic AI companion to tell a joke, but she sees things so literally that she can’t. Not being human, she can anticipate his needs, but she can’t feel what he feels.
Watching a speaker flounder can be dreadful if you are sympathetic to him, but it inspires schadenfreude if you aren’t. And if you have sufficient empathy to tell a joke yourself, you should be ashamed to feel too much schadenfreude. It’s inescapable, but it’s not admirable.
I originally filed this Mr. Boffo in my Humpday folder, but I’ll drop it here because if fits the moment. I don’t mind selfies, though if you’re going to take a selfie at Bridalveil Falls, back off so we can at least glimpse them in the background.
Vacation selfies are okay, but I really hate selfie-preachy-videos where somebody puts their big fat face right up to the camera and explains important insights and things that matter. If we were in person — which is presumably the intent — I’d take a step or two back, even if I didn’t feel the need to offer you a mint. Find some illustrations instead of just your face, or at least back up a little.
Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.
Juxtaposition of the Day
There have been a number of cartoons lampooning Trump’s putting tariffs on Canada because of the wildfires up there, some pointing out that Canada and Mexico have both helped us with our own fires, and some pointing out the role of climate change in causing them and his role in advancing climate change.
Artley is, I think, speaking metaphorically in suggesting that Iran is another stain on the world stage, but he could be literal if he’d like, because there is apparently still a refinery fire burning in Saudi Arabia from a Houthi drone strike, which reminded me of when the retreating Iraqi army lit oil wells in Kuwait, turning out a massive cloud of black, nasty smoke and pollutants. And the fact that the Saudi fire wasn’t from an American strike doesn’t erase the fact that we know who started that whole thing.
Baron poses the wildfires in Spain and France as the product of uncaring people who ignore climate change, but I’d point out that we haven’t found a way to keep smoke from crossing international borders, and, if British toffs aren’t getting any at the moment, they can credit the weather and their air conditioners, not their own uncaring indifference.
Don’t throw away your N-95s; you never know when the wind will shift. A friend who grew up in London half a century ago was telling me of going to school on bad days with a handkerchief over her nose and mouth, barely able to see through the smog, and how grit from Sahara dust storms settled on everything. The coal furnaces are mostly gone, but the sirocco remains.
It’s a small world after all.
Juxtaposition of the Day #2
Should we be afraid of the sudden resurrection of McCarthyism? Or is the relevant question “Have we no sense of decency, at long last?”
Bill Day lampoons the new Red Scare as a sign of desperation, given the dismal polls facing the GOP for the coming midterms, and he’s probably right. Huck puts a less comical spin on the strategy, and a wander through Xitter will quickly confirm that the theme has been adopted, at least by the troll factory employees.
Does anybody know what “communism” really is? And what is socialism? And what difference could it possibly make?
The Great Communist Conspiracy is a real thing, by yompin’ yiminy, and them commies plan to come out from under our beds and blow up Mount Rushmore.
Seriously. The president said so himself.
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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