Inspired by the spirit of our times, I have decided to throw together a gallimaufry of random observations. A salmagundi of insights, as it were, or an Eton mess of ironic inversions, a mélange of right wing virtue signaling, a potpourri of punditry. And see how you like it.
This is the sort of moment that calls for the stir fry approach. I think of Larry Norman’s Reader’s Digest or Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues, with apologies to both gentlemen, I’m sure.
Alice is a drag queen/Bowie’s somewhere in between/Other bands are looking mean/Me, I’m trying to stay clean.
Larry Norman, Reader’s Digest
You don’t need a weather man/To know which way the wind blows
Bob Dylan, Subterranean Homesick Blues
In some of Robert Heinlein’s fiction, he postulated a time between the Second World War and the first man on the moon that he designated the Crazy Years. As an uninspired prophet, his timing was a tad off, but otherwise I think we can give him an A minus for calling the mere fact of the Crazy Years. For lo, here we are.
The times dictate that every white person needs to recognize something important, especially those who are in deep denial about the insidious rot their white supremacy. Work with me here. Every white person must come to grips with the fact that whiteness is at least supreme within them, if nowhere else. Is this not undeniable? If whiteness were not supreme in you, you wouldn’t even be white. Stands to reason. And what is it that makes you white? Is it not the “supremacy” of whiteness in you? And is that not white supremacy? So what happens when you add all these white individuals up, stacking them up into a society? What do you get? You get white supremacy, that’s what! Either that, or the fallacy of composition, not sure.
If every piece of the coffee table is wood, then that makes the whole coffee table wood. Right? But if every part of the coffee table is under five pounds, then that doesn’t make the coffee table under five pounds. Right? That would be the fallacy of composition. But fortunately, we live in a time when you can choose whichever option works best for you.
The brains who are running all of this have determined that we need to draw a firm line when it comes to misogyny and all related subjects. For far too long, junior high girls have been subjected to the colonialism of what has come to be called “the male gaze.” Said brains have proposed that we remedy this grievous problem by requiring all the junior high girls to shower with any of those male gazers who are prepared to identify that gaze as actually proceeding from a girl. Seems reasonable, at least to some.
If you identify as a girl, and walk into the showers with mincing steps, and in falsetto say something like, “Hello, fellow girls,” everyone will insist that your sovereign choices be respected. Only seething bigotry could have a problem with it. But if you are a heterosexual math teacher—and math is yet another problem, but let us not get distracted—and you are sitting at your desk with a bow tie on, and you cast a patriarchal eye on those same girls coming into your classroom while fully clothed, then we have no choice but to categorize you as an unspeakable monster.
One of the greater tragedies of late has been what has happened to the long-haired freaky people. They used to sing: “Sign, sign/Everywhere a sign/Blockin’ out the scenery/Breakin’ my mind/Do this, don’t do that/Can’t you read the sign?” Now if you don’t see the “masks required” sign on the front door of their little Buddhist wind chimes boutique, and you walk in with your face all nekkid-like, they will chase you down the street, chucking rocks after you, and all while yelling strange oaths.
Nothing communicates full and vibrant confidence in our free and fair election like pitched legal battles to prevent any audit from getting completed.
Multiple choice: “When _________________ questions the results of an election that they officially lost, and they suggest that victory was stolen from them, which person’s doubts would result in the overthrow of our democratic way of life?” A/Al Gore B/Stacey Abrams C/Donald Trump D/Hillary Clinton
And a prophet came down from the hills, and as it was clear that he had something to say, a crowd gathered around him in the public square. When the time was right, he stood up on a park bench and said, “Black lives don’t matter in the way you seem to think they do.” And the people were angry and stoned him with many stones.
Free speech is literally violence, and violence is literally free speech.