Beau Elliot
There is this strange thing in the world, which is so full of strange things that it seems strange to call something strange.
Confused yet? Me, too. There seems to be a lot of that going around. I wonder if something like a flu shot would help.
But there is a strange thing called “Radio Lab,” which, from what I can tell, apparently is the Universe masquerading as a radio show. So, naturally, it’s on public radio.
And “Radio Lab” produced a tremendous show recently called “60 Words,” covering 9/11 and its aftermath, which affects us and our world all these years later. Like the flu.
You missed it, you say? There’s this strange, brand-new, high-tech thing called podcast, which is easier to catch than the flu. So catch it. You’ll know a lot more about this strange land, stranger. (Not to steal from Robert Heinlein or anything. Though he did once write, “Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.” Given his age and the era in which he grew up, we’ll forgive his use of the word “men.” This one time.)
Well, as strange as it all might seem, it’s not so strange as Donald Trump. Or Hillary Clinton, recently.
Ah, Clinton. Just when you think she’s going to lock this election up, she steps in it, and you have to wonder who’s still driving horses and buggies and leaving all that “it” on the streets for her to step in.
Yes, her “basket of deplorables” comment was, well, deplorable. Though if you read the entire comment (available on NPR’s website) and get the context, it’s a bit more understandable. A bit.
But it also gave the Trumpster the opportunity to utter his best comment of his strange campaign: “She divides people into baskets as though they were objects, not human beings.”
On the other hand, it’s the Trumpster, who steps in it nearly every day and comes out smiling like a rose, if not smelling like one.
I mean, this is the Trump who cozies up to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who seemingly cannot stick his history as a KGB thug in the closet and leave it there for the dust and the moths of history.
Or as Garry Kasparov, the Russian chess master, put it: “Saying Vladimir Putin is a strong leader is like saying arsenic is a strong drink.”
Yes, Virginia, Trump, among other things, has praised Putin for being a strong leader.
But then, the Trumpster lies all the time, so who really knows? As Clare Malone of FiveThirtyEight said, “Trump literally lacks a handle on basic facts. … He’s good on his feet, but he’s got cotton-candy talking points, not steak-and-potato ones.”
And as John Cassidy of The New Yorker points out, of all the lies that the Trumpster utters — and there are so many, you stop counting them, because who wants to count up to 1 million? Who can forget the Muslims in New Jersey celebrating the fall of the Twin Towers on 9/11? (Didn’t happen.)
But the big one, as Cassidy says, is that, as the Trumpster repeats again and again, he was against the invasion of Iraq before it occurred. Nobody can find any evidence of this, and people have searched and searched.
Yes, I know: Trump and Clinton are the two least-like candidates in memory. But people waiting for someone else are living in Samuel Beckett land, waiting for Godot.
Good luck on that one, stranger.