The Fortnightly Rant

The former guy is saying that he might run for President again. There it is: one simple declarative statement that all by itself could cause another pandemic. It wouldn’t be the viral sort; we’re talking depression this time, and probably with two variants: personal and financial. During the prior maladministration, the nation spent four years—years we could ill afford to lose—sliding backwards rapidly on a host of issues like the climate, racism, economic inequity, voter suppression…we’ll stop there lest we start making tasteless jokes about self-destruction. Losing four more years would be unthinkable. Our first instinct is not to believe him. After all, paraphrasing Mary …

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E Pluribus Unum? As if…. Clearly, in this day and age, our national motto meaning “Out of Many, One” is no longer operative. So, it’s time for a new one. We could go on at great length here, supplying one example after another to support this thesis, but why sift through the mountains of evidence just to insult our readers’ intelligence? Res ipsa loquitur.* Our proposal: “The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves.” Sufficiently concise to serve as a motto, this phrase far more accurately reflects the rancorous state of the union nation today. Also, thanks to the onerous working conditions imposed on the majority …

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“Be kind,” someone* once wrote, “Everyone you meet is carrying a heavy burden.” Could anyone possibly object to such a sentiment? Viewing it from a religious perspective—as is so fashionable these days—it would seem to pass muster right across the board, from Abrahamic to Zoroastrian. It would be impractical and probably unwise to pass a law mandating kindness. Surely, though, that quality jibes with the spirit of our laws. Without kindness, how could we ever expect to succeed in our “pursuit of happiness”? It seems reasonable to presume, then, that at the very least, our nation’s most eminent jurists have some nodding acquaintance with the …

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A fortnight from tomorrow, the nation will mark a twentieth anniversary of great historical importance. It would be lovely to think that we are all prepared for it, but there is no evidence of that. Customarily, the head of the Executive Branch would lead any national commemoration. Fairly or not, though, recent events on the other side of the world have lowered most people’s expectations from that quarter. Besides, everyone knows who really does the heavy lifting when it comes to conducting such national events. [Cue Frank Zappa’s I Am the Slime.*] Nevertheless, we still have a problem. Over the past two decades, television news …

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This pandemic has been going on for so long now that it feels like we’re living in “Groundhog Day”—without Bill Murray to entertain us. Worse yet, there’s a sequel coming: “Dumb and Dumber.” According to a study published last month in The Lancet journal EClinical Medicine, “People who had recovered from COVID-19, including those no longer reporting symptoms, exhibited significant cognitive deficits versus controls when controlling for age, gender, education level, income, racial-ethnic group, pre-existing medical disorders, tiredness, depression and anxiety.” The study found that the average decline in IQ was seven points. We don’t mean to mock the afflicted, but that is a loss …

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Considering the circumstances, we have decided to craft this Rant as a time capsule, intended to give readers in the distant future  a fuller sense of how the world in which they live came to be created. That may seem an excessively hubristic undertaking, even for this boastful age. On the other hand, perhaps there is no need to apologize. We are, after all, the Nation’s Oldest Newspaper.™ That unique characteristic doesn’t just invite, it requires us to imagine the otherwise unlikely survival of this flimsy bit of newsprint. Let us travel, then, into the future: here we are, face to face with…dwindling bands of …

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