Firstly, and most importantly, The Vernal Equinox occured at 4:06 this morning here in Denmark. That's the scientifically-correct way to say it's finally fucking spring.
Breathe.
(The Vernal Equinox is celebrated by Pagans as the holiday Ostara.)
A Danish member of parliament belonging to one of the three parties that comprise the current government switched parties yesterday. His new party is part of the opposition bloc, meaning the government no longer holds a domestic majority in parliament. (The “domestic” is in there because the members of parliament from Greenland and the Faroe Islands only sort of count. Sometimes. Except when they don’t.)
Early indications are that the Prime Minister doesn’t give much of a damn (she told reporters she was worried about plenty of things, especially Russia, but not this), and given the way Danish politics work that may be a viable attitude: the government parties still have a practical majority thanks to the unswerving devotion of a single unaligned member of parliament (sounds crazy, but Americans are reminded that Bernie Sanders is an “Independent” who nevertheless merely marches in complete and total lockstep with the Democratic party). What’s more, Danish governments don’t need parliamentary majorities to support their policies, they just need to avoid majorities opposing their policies.
That was the big news in Denmark yesterday, but it’s tedious stuff for outsiders, so to hell with it.
In other tedious news, the American left is continuing their faux meltdown (see Monday’s almanac) over Donald Trump’s commonplace use of the word “bloodbath.” The Biden campaign even made a campaign spot out of it, hooking it up with some of the president’s other favorite misrepresentations of Trump.
Everyone seizing on the “bloodbath” business is lying. They know they’re lying, and they seem to be okay with that. I hope Americans are taking note. The establishment isn’t just pushing hyperbole, exaggeration, or poetic license here. It’s taking something every journalist, politico, and talking head out there knows to be false, asserting that it’s true, and acting—acting!—offended and horrified and outraged because they think Americans are fucking idiots.
Either that or they think Americans enjoy playing the deranged and angry games of make-believe that the establishment has been forcing on them for the past decade or so.
Consider this story from November 2017:
Thousands of people across the US will mark the one year anniversary of President Donald Trump’s election by screaming “helplessly” at the sky.
Anti-Trump protesters in cities including New York, Boston and Philadelphia have pledged to attend in their thousands to “scream helplessly at the sky on the anniversary of the election.”
As one does—when one is mentally imbalanced and in the thrall of malignant manipulators.
That actually happened. The internet is still awash with videos and images of those scream sessions, most of them being used as memes to mock the screamers.
A movement to “scream helplessly at the sky” is a not a rational or productive response to anything. It doesn’t even pretend to be: if it did, it would have been a movement to scream hopefully at the sky.
But what have reason or productivity got to do with it? This is the same crowd that thought it was fabulous women were wearing “pussy hats” to protest Trump’s inauguration. Younger readers may not know this, but before January 17 the word “pussy” was considered vulgar and dirty. It was the kind of thing that got bleeped out. The arrival of the pussy hat changed all that because the wearing of vaginal headpieces signified hatred and fear of Donald Trump, which was necessary and important and beautiful.
But only until someone in this same crowd of lunatics determined that not all women had vaginas and not all vaginas were pink.
(All women have vaginas. All vaginas are pink. If you’re a woman, your vulva can be any flesh tone at all, but if your vagina is not pink then please seek medical attention immediately.)
It was apparently so much fun to pretend that men had vaginas and that vaginas weren’t all pink that the whole pussy hat concept had to be scrubbed—which is to say, one form of madness displaced another.
Pussy-hats. Sky-screaming. Make-believe freakouts over manufactured offenses. I’m scratching the surface, obviously. You know how deep the rot runs.
(I know you know, both of you, because my Substack doesn’t yet reach enough people to have attracted oppositional readers. When it does, I’ll know I’m getting somewhere.)
Are enough Americans enjoying these dystopian games to give Joe Biden—or whomever the establishment replaces him with—a victory in November?
It probably doesn’t matter: Americans can change their government, but they don’t seem interested in changing their culture. Whoever wins in November, the establishment will keep propagating lies and insanities to support their preferred candidates and policies (and oppose those they dislike).
And when I say “the establishment,” I mean the GLOB—the people and organizations who wield the most of political power, control most of the economic resources, and exert the most cultural influence in the western world today. (I offer a much more precise definition at the link.)
Where does the GLOB get its authority? One place only: the credulity of the masses. And as counterintuitive as it may seem, that should give us all hope.
As Americans’ quality of life continues to decrease—less spending power, higher taxes, increasing violent crime, increasing homelessness, increasing fentanyl deaths, decreasing life expectancy, cities overburdened by the financial and social cost of illegal immigrants, etc, etc—they will eventually, inevitably, hold the responsible people and institutions accountable.
Whether that happens in time is an open question.
Speaking of time: on March 19, 1918, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson signed the Standard Time Act, which stole an hour from every single American alive at the time. He was never prosecuted.
On March 20, 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte entered Paris and began his famous “Reign of One Hundred Days.” These were apparently Metric days—the reign only lasted 94 American days.
(Related: while driving across North America on my 2000 book tour, I chose to make the drive from Buffalo to Ann Arbor on the Canadian side of Lake Erie. I wasn’t at all used to the metric system and it took a lot of concentration to understand what the speed limit signs were telling me. Eventually I realized kilometers were about two-thirds of a mile. I had to stop for gas and lunch, and realized Canadian dollars were worth about two-thirds of an American dollar. I had Canada all figured out. As I drove into Windsor, the highway sign informed by it had a population of 300,000, and I thought, “wow, that’s like 450,000 Americans!” True story, Jack.)
Bruce Willis turned 69 on March 19th. He shared his birthday with Glenn Close (1947), Ursula Andress (1936), Phyllis Newman (1935), Phillip Roth (1933), Patrick McGoohan (1928), and Wyatt Earp (1848).
Holly Hunter turned 66 on March 20th. She shared her birthday with Spike Lee (1957), William Hurt (1950), Pat Riley (1945), Hal Linden (1931), the late, great Fred Rogers (1928), Carl Reiner (1922), Ozzie Nelson (1906), and B.F. Skinner (1904).
March 19 was Youth Day in Zambia.
March 20 is Independence Day in Tunisia.
Happy Hump Day!
© 2024, The Moron’s Almanac