The Fortnightly Rant

An Unexpected Inevitability

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People used to expect that sooner or later, chickens would come home to roost. Recently studies have shown, however, that if you leave Republicans in charge too long, chickens mutate into vultures. After a prolonged period of uncertainty—the likes of which have not been seen since the ignominious end of Reconstruction—the basic elements of our immediate future finally seem clear: the incumbent administration will only be in charge for another three days and a wakeup. Ordinarily that’s not so long. When you’re staked out in the desert, though, as vultures circle overhead, ordinary does not apply. This is not to say that we, as a …

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Is It Safe To Come Out Now?

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Well, that’s over—at last. Yes, despite our rattled, snake-bit fears, the last day of December, in the Year of Our… No, not gonna do it. We may stray towards blasphemous territory from time to time, but we’re not about to risk laying responsibility for the past 366 days—because yes, of course it was a Leap Year; it had to be, to accommodate that much idiocy and malevolence—at the foot of the Christians’ God, or any other diety. Besides, it’s pretty clear who really was responsible for making last year the deadliest year in U.S. history. “America has been paralyzed by death and fear for nearly …

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Marvelous Monday

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Monday was disorienting. A good day? But…isn’t this still 2020? Yes, it is, and so it’s no time to let down our guard. But, as with November 3rd, it was a good day regardless: health care workers began receiving vaccinations against the plague, the worst Attorney General in U.S. history quit, and the Electoral College—perhaps the least-loved feature of that anachronistic contraption we call our Constitution—passed up a prime opportunity to bite democracy on the…posterior. We who have escaped death by the virus—thus far, anyway—and resisted, perhaps, the siren call of the gas stove, bridge abutment, or tall building, owe it to ourselves to hold …

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A Court More Pious Than the Pope

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We are in a theater. We cannot leave; the doors are locked and we’re chained into the seats. On the screen is a horror movie. We’re about 300 reels into it. We should be bored out of our wits. We’re not just the audience, though. We’re the cast, too. Half of us are screaming, “Don’t open that door!” Up on the screen, though…. Someone opened the door. Of course someone opened the door. Not only do they have every right to open it, but you, you hateful, despicable person, have shown yourself to be un-American by questioning their right to do so. Doors flew open …

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The Cuckoo Coup

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In a sane country it wouldn’t have even been a contest, but we live in Freedomland. A quarter of a million people are dead, killed by a plague the incumbent treated as a political opportunity rather than a threat to national health. The infection rate and the Dow Jones are soaring, even as Main Street is collapsing. Despite all that, the election was so close it took four days to get a clear result. That’s OK, it could have been worse. At least, in the end, the challenger beat the incumbent—never an easy trick for that office—and did it by six million votes. He even …

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The Longest Tuesday

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“I want to thank the American people for their tremendous support,” said a grim-faced President Donald J. Trump to a group of maskless sycophants packed into the East Room of the White House early on Wednesday morning for another in an extended series of illegal campaign events on government property. “Millions and millions of people voted for us tonight…,” Trump observed, conveniently ignoring the fact that several million more had voted against him. “…and a very sad group of people,” he went on, “is trying to disenfranchise that group of people and we won’t stand for it.” Here, yet again, in attempting to report what …

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