The beauty of getting out into the world, meeting new people and seeing new stuff, is two-fold. First, you learn new information, from the new people you talk to and the new stuff you see. Learning new things is fun.
And second, you then can apply this new knowledge, making all sorts of interesting connections.
For instance, struggling to articulate the general numbness of watching President Donald Trump's State of the Union address Tuesday, I remembered a cannulated cow seen at Chicago's High School for Agriculture Sciences in Mount Greenwood (What? You didn't know about either cannulated cows or the ag high school? Well, I'm happy to be the one to tell you.)
MAGA types, who don't seem at all keen on either new people or new ideas, imagine liberals in some kind of pearl-clutching agony, or door-jamb-gnawing fury. But truly, nearly two hours of the State of the Union speech left me mostly bored. We've heard all this before, many times, from the moment candidate Trump descended that escalator in his monstrous brass and orange stone lobby.
"When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best," he said. "They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists."
Tuesday was more of the same. When he wasn't lying about the economy or gaslighting — for example, the shameless fraud declaring war on fraud — Trump was grinding over the threat of immigrants. Both criminals and bad drivers. That's where I thought of the cannulated cow. How cows digest their food is important to the dairy industry, and one way to keep tabs is to surgically implant a round window into the side of a cow. Students and scientists look through the window, into the cow's stomach, and watch the half-digested mash sloshing around.
That was the State of the Union speech. The same well-chewed slop of fear, hatred, lies, prejudice, nationalism and enormous self-regard that Trump has been spewing for years.
One of the many dangers of this moment is exhaustion. The liars lie nonstop, while those familiar with the truth get tired of repeating ourselves, bloodying our fingers scratching at that brick wall.
Yet scratch we must. So forgive me for belaboring the obvious for the benefit of — well, I'm not sure who at this point. Either you understood long ago or you never will. Yet truth will out.
The current war on immigrants is not only morally and economically wrong, but entirely based on lies — haters are cowards, and rather than just admit they're surrendering to fear (of new people and new things) they slur the object of their fixation. They don't hate immigrants because immigrants are criminals; they tar them as criminals because they hate them.
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"...as if parking ourselves cross-legged before a front-loading washing machine filled with barf. A spectacle that managed to both sicken and bore at the same time." So excellent!
ReplyDeleteBonus kudos for "chunder" - I doubt we've seen that word printed in a Chicago daily before. A welcome read to start the weekend - thanks.
I was just going to compliment our host for the same two phrases. I had to look for the definition of chunder. Perfectly descriptive of whatever the orange idiot says.
Delete"Chunder" was famously used in the Men at Work song Down Under. 😊
DeleteI particularly dislike the continual use of the term “illegal alien” when applied to the undocumented and sometimes more broadly to any immigrant by some of the more demented of that bunch. Shades of herr Hitler and his minions who applied the term to all non aryans.
DeleteThe Deparment of Housing and Urban Development uses the classifications Eligible Citizen, Eligible Non-Citizen, and Ineligible Non-Citizen as citizenship classifications when determining eligibility for federal housing assistance. Far more descriptive and humane than the term Illegal Alien. The dedicated.career civil service employees can and do perform their duties in an admirable and respectful manner despite the embarrassing displays of ineptitude and incompetence and disparagement and demonization exhibited at the higher levels of department administration.
DeleteWell said, sir. Organize and vote everyone!!
ReplyDeleteNever forget, when a demented, deranged, life long con man & lunatic that should've been locked up in a padded cell in a locked mental hospital 60 years ago gives a speech, of course it will be filled with lies, after all, everything about him is a lie & all he ever does is lie.
ReplyDeleteHe's never done an honest day's work in his life, he cheated his way through two universities, paid other students to take his tests, only got his degree because his filthy rich daddy paid off both universities to enroll him, had one professor say "He was the dumbest fucking student I ever had", banned the last university from releasing his student records & grades, because they were so poor, was given $400 million by that rich daddy at the age of 22 & promptly decided to outdo him & then managed to bankrupt three casinos, even while never paying his contractors the full amount agreed to in their contracts, has been sued over that thousands of times, but wiggles out of it by paying the worst shysters on Earth to fight those suits until the small businesses give up because they can't afford the fights, was mentored by Roy Cohn, a truly vile monster that was Joe McCarthy's right hand man in persecuting gay men, all the while he was gay & then died of AIDS, has sued many for lying about him, but always withdraws the lawsuits when they do fight back, would be worth an actual $10 billion if he had just put the money into an S&P 500 stock fund, but is only worth maybe $3 billion & that's due to his current crypto currency scams, has such an out of control ego, he must put his vile name on everything, even if it ruins its looks, is currently scamming his delusional followers out of millions with cellphones that have never been delivered & watches he claims are made in the USA, but are actually cheap Chinese crap he sells for up to a million bucks, has no actual understanding of tariffs & economics & is believed to have an IQ under 70, which is true moron level!
Well said, Clark.
DeleteBravo, bro...bravissimo. A litany of loserhood. And there's even more.
DeleteOne correction, Clark. It's not "never done an honest day's work", it's "never done any work" in his life.
DeleteNegotiating contracts that he has no intention of fulfilling, pointing to underlings to "do this!", talking to ghost-writers who will distill the muck into something vaguely readable; I don't consider that "work".
When he bad-mouthed Penzey's Spices because Kamala stopped in there, I thought "that man has never shopped for spices in his life; he's never *cooked* in his life."
Clark Street that is a masterpiece of a comment. Well done!
DeleteToday Paul Krugman's musical coda was a link to "You Have to be Carefully Taught" from South Pacific. We don't seem to have progressed much since WWII.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the article about the cow I enjoined it immensely but I read about trumpies speech but I will not watch him anytime anywhere
ReplyDeletePerfectly summarized Clark ST.....My takeaway from EGD today..."The same well-chewed slop of fear, hatred, lies, prejudice, nationalism and enormous self-regard that Trump has been spewing for years."
ReplyDeleteIt does seem like every claim republicans make against their "opponents" turns out to be an admission.
ReplyDeleteIf you extend that down to every other republican or conservative, it tends to make their actions make sense. It's very nazi esq. Fear of the other, only believing they are the best, desire for the ultimate control, insane double standards… it's everything.
Our differences make us stronger, they make us better.
Conservatives, MAGA, MAHA, Republicans, Libertarians… they're all anti american to their core. every last one.
anti-American you say?
DeleteWho's to decide what American is because you take a look at the history of our country being supportive of the behaviors that we engage in that are detrimental to people across the world and to many of our own citizens and the original inhabitants of this continent
Reading the liberal piss water b******* comments of this block site makes me think you people are anti-American neither one of us is right but if you don't support your country and your government and you say it's because you're objecting or protesting against it is that American? If it is half the country is constantly going to be protesting the policies of whoever's in power I guess that's American to be at odds with one another I'm not I'm not against Republicans mega libertarians just because of their political beliefs I support the notion of cooperation which it seems like you all have abandoned
Democrats and liberals LOVE to cooperate. They keep trying to appeal to the cult members to be reasonable when it's proven to be a waste of time, over and over again.
DeleteYou may be too young to recall Democratic Speaker-of-the-House Tip O'Neil helping to enact Reagan's disastrous policies. Or Bill Clinton "triangulating," such that, despite being a 2-term president, he governed in a very middle-of-the-road manner.
When there's a natural disaster under Democratic administrations, help is sent with no thought to which "side" will be benefiting. The idea that red states are helped and blue states might not be is a repellent idea cooked up by the orange felon and his minions. Try to name somebody who is less cooperative with his opponents than Metamucilini.
I long for the days when the State of the Union speech didn't bring to mind a cannulated cow.
ReplyDeleteGreat piece. Bad Bunny gave a wonderful show.
ReplyDeleteThat seems like a cruel thing to do to the cow.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Neil. Please keep on holding MAGA feet to the fire.
ReplyDelete"...parking ourselves cross-legged before a front-loading washing machine filled with barf..."
ReplyDelete"...mooing quietly while our nation sinks beneath the rising muck."
Kudos, Mister S. Loved both of those. Prose like my grandma used to make.
Hail Caesar! Canulating cows for research is exactly like this regime. We commoners are cows being canulated for research, our owners indifferent to the cruelty in their overwhelming quest to maximize profit from their human herd.
ReplyDeletehttps://seedfarm.co.ke/2025/01/28/cannulated-cows-importance-procedure-health-risks-and-future-prospects/