By Beau Elliot
So an old pal (not that he’s old or anything), in a fit of sheer brilliance or something else, has decided to give away his entire library.
Maybe it’s these times. Maybe it seems dangerous to own an entire library.
As the old pal put it, he hasn’t looked at the books in years (they’re in crate shape), but they’re probably full of intellectual malarky.
He was a philosophy major at the UI, so maybe one person’s malarky is another’s Locke-down.
Anyway, he got lots of responses on Facebook, many urging him to donate the books to a library, and one who included a screen shot from some publication somewhere in America:
“Illiteracy an obstable, study finds,” read the headline.
Ah, yeah.
Damn those obstables, they’re everywhere these days.
Luckily, we had a Super Bowl to take our minds off real life, obstables, and Kellyanne Conway.
Conway? She’s the Trumpster adviser who last week defended the Muslim ban by pointing to the massacre in Bowling Green, Kentucky, involving two Iraqis. She noted that the massacre had not been covered by the news media.
Conway was right. The news media did not cover the Bowling Green massacre. That’s because there was no massacre in Bowling Green. Two Iraqis were arrested in a sting in 2011 for trying to send weapons to Al Qaeda in Iraq. And Conway walked back her assertion, saying she meant to say the two arrests. I can understand. I, too, often mix up the phrases “two arrests in Bowling Green” with “massacre in Bowling Green.”
Meanwhile, there was a Super Bowl to take our minds off such things. (You Patriots-haters, you’re so cute when you’re miserable.)
Or maybe not distract us enough. Trumpster supporters (Trumpsterites? Has a certain ring, and we’re not talking Super Bowl) cheered the Patriots’ Super Bowl victory as a sign that the Fake-News-in-Chief is making America great again, the Washington Post reports.
I can’t quite get my head around exactly how the Trumpster aided the Patriots during the game. Did he have the CIA dope up the Falcons’ sideline Gatorade so that the players wandered off into Dreamland? The Falcons wandered off somewhere.
Meanwhile, back at the Muslim ban, it’s not a Muslim ban, Super Bowl or no Super Bowl, court decision or no court decision.
Then why, the news media asked White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, did the Trumpster tweet about the ban using the word “ban”?
“He’s using the word the media are using,” Spicer said.
And sales of George Orwell’s 1984 are skyrocketing. Probably just a coincidence. (Quick pop quiz: What was Orwell’s real name? No Googling.)
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, or in this case, Congress, Republicans have a bill that one could only call an impolite word, if one were being polite. Yeah, I know; polite is so difficult to do during these times.
The bill would overturn Obama regulations prohibiting the dumping of toxic tailings into streams in coal-mining areas, thus making those streams toxic. (Who knew?)
Good work, Republicans. Obviously, Americans in the last election voted to have toxic streams, because that’s so much better for America. If you have to ask how, you’re probably un-American and on a list somewhere.
There’s always a list somewhere. Maybe you’ve noticed, even though you’re not supposed to. As noted, sales of 1984 have skyrocketed even faster than the Trumpster’s ego, so there’s probably a list being made of people who are buying 1984. Somehow fitting.
You ever notice everything’s fitting and nothing fits?