Saturday, August 13, 2016

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Oblivion

In this election you can fit the Republican candidate’s brain in a flea’s navel and still have room for the Democratic candidate’s heart.

If Trump wins he will be the first American president able to call a summit meeting at which no participant speaks English.

If Hillary wins they will replace the security checkpoint at the White House grounds with a cashier’s station for the Clinton foundation.

Between now and November the late night shows can fire the writers for the hosts’ opening monologues.  All they have to do is read the transcripts for the evening “news” shows.

Clinton  has already  spent $82 million buying time to air television commercials.  Trump hasn’t spent a nickel; he gets twice that amount of air time free just for opening his mouth. The only complete sentence he has ever uttered is, “You’re fired.”  

Someone said, “The lesser of two evils is still evil.”  

“Crooked Hillary.”

“Stronger together.”

It’s the age of sound bytes, issues be damned.

Count all the cool things.

How cool is this?  There’s a thing, invented by scientists, called the “Doomsday clock.” it is intended to reflect basic changes in the level of continuous danger in which mankind lives in the nuclear age; when it reaches midnight, kaboom!, nuclear holocaust destroys the planet. Just before Bush II took office, the clock read nine minutes to midnight.  Now it’s three minutes to midnight.

How cool is this? Fifteen years after Bush II took us to war in Afghanistan, our longest war is still raging, and it’s going badly, and there’s no end in sight.  Our president boasts that we’ve bombed 18 countries, and droned still more, and we’ve just resumed bombing in Libya, which we “liberated” by giving its ex-leader a bayonet colonoscopy.  

How cool is this? Earth Overshoot Day came on Aug. 8 this year, the earliest ever.  “Overshoot Day” is the point when we have used up more natural resources than the planet can replenish in an entire year.  Now we’re living on resources borrowed — stolen? — from future generations.  Explain that to your kids and grandchildren, if you can. 

One per cent of us still own more wealth than all the rest of us.  People in blue uniforms charged with maintaining peace and safety routinely kill more innocent black citizens every year than have been killed by the dreaded Zika virus.  Millions of kids still go to bed hungry every night.  Millions of your fellow citizens still can't afford health care.  

Less than a block from where I live is a house (one of many in the neighborhood) with a three-stall garage.  In each stall is a new vehicle costing more than $60,000. Less than a mile further on is a tract of agricultural fields.  Tap any shoulder harvesting those crops and you’ll likely find a parent whose children consider it a feast when the laborers get their Friday pay and everyone goes to the nearest convenience store for chips and soda pop and beer.

Oh, it’s a hoot here in Amerika this election season.  I can’t wait for Colbert’s next monologue.