Something’s not right.

Nothing new about that, of course. Something’s never been right.

But something’s not right in a way it hasn’t been not right before. Or maybe we haven’t noticed something not being right like this before.

Maybe we hadn’t been born yet.

Read more »

That’s how many names are inscribed on the Vietnam memorial. The first name is recorded under 1959. The last, 1975.

58,276 names. Sixteen years.

The first diagnosed U.S. death from the coronavirus is now dated to February 6. Since then, 54,171 have followed.

54,172 deaths. Eighty days.

Read more »

We think we can say now, with some certainty, that things are going to get much, much worse before they get better.

We’re not, collectively, paying attention to the science. We’re not paying attention to the circumstances. We’re not paying attention to the reality.

Nothing new there. We’ve been ignoring global warming for thirty years.

Read more »

Last we visited the subject, eighteen months ago, we made a startling discovery:

White people are stupid fucking idiots.

Okay, not that startling. It’s not a plot twist if you knew it all along.

But there it was, in every poll, not just recently, but going back generations: You want to find the trouble with America, how we keep ending up on the wrong side of history, it’s White Americans making the call, or at least being distressingly ambivalent about it.

And now they want us dead.

Read more »

So here’s an angle that I haven’t seen posted anywhere (you read it here first). One of Trump’s favorite talking points these days as he seeks to deflect blame for is ill-preparedness in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic (when he’s not blaming President Obama or the WHO) is that no one could have seen the coronavirus pandemic coming. The Washington Post, among others, has examined this claim and found it to be lacking.

We know, for instance, that in 2018 Trump and his team dismantled the Global Pandemic Office of the National Security Council. We also know that in early 2017, before Trump was sworn into office, Obama administration officials briefed a group of restive, incoming Trump cabinet members on how to respond to a global pandemic. Read more »

Maybe we’re indulging in some wishful thinking here. We’ve certainly seen a lot of it lately.

But we’re having a hard time seeing the normal things will return to. The normal of four weeks ago. Or forty years.

Read more »

We want him to die.

And not a peaceful death, either. Something ravenous, like vultures in the desert, peeling his flesh bit by bit, leaving some for later, inflicting great pain, unendurable pain, pain that lasts forever, pain that even death cannot relieve, because death is always near but never final.

Something like that. Something with style.

Read more »