Thursday, September 14, 2017

Their eyes were watching Irma

...and it was awesome and terrible, so I guess the takeaway is that Rush was wrong.  Imagine.

Unseen by the preoccupied media, life went on.  For example:

Eight people were murdered while attending a football-watching party in Plano, Texas, allegedly by the hostess's estranged husband.  He was shot and killed by police.

Equifax was hacked, with personal information about 143 million Americans apparently stolen.  Oddly enough, several top Equifax executives sold their stock in the company a few days before the hack was revealed.* 

An earthquake measured at 8.1 on the Richter scale struck the Mexican states of Chiapas and Oaxaca, the country's worst earthquake in a century.  At around the same time, Hurricane Katia came ashore.  Mexico had to withdraw its offer of aid to Houston, which had been accepted by the governor of Texas but not the federal government.  There has been no American offer of help to Mexico, where at least 95 people died.  Not so much as a tweet of sympathy. 

Edith Windsor, plaintiff in a landmark gay rights case, has died.

The government of Myanmar continues its "ethnic cleansing" (the official UN term) of the Rohingya population, a third of whom have taken refuge in Bangladesh.  The Rohingya are described by the New York Times as "a Muslim minority in mostly Buddhist Myanmar," so maybe westerners will finally stop romanticizing the peace-loving Buddhists.

Martin Shkreli's in the jailhouse now.  Judge Kiyo Matsumoto revoked his bail after he offered $5,000 for a hair (with follicle) from Hillary Clinton because... I don't know.  His lawyer called it "a momentary lapse in judgment."  The judge called it "a solicitation to assault."  Smirk your way out of this one, bro.

Trump congratulated the US Coast Guard for "improving its brand" in Florida.  Nobody knows what the fuck he is talking about.

Ted Cruz was caught "liking" a porn sight.  Although he insists he didn't do it, he will forever be known as a "porn-again Christian."  So that was amusing.

The Cleveland Indians won 21 consecutive games, establishing a new American League record.  Why do we even have leagues anymore? 

Jemele Hill, a sportscaster at ESPN, was attacked for writing, on her personal Twitter account, that Trump is "the most ignorant offensive president of my lifetime" (she is quite young).  ESPN forced her to apologize, and Sarah Huckabee Sanders probably violated at least one federal law by demanding she be fired.  To prove its orange occupant is not a racist, the White House released a photo of Trump sitting next to Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina.  It identified him as "Tom Scott," but it's the visual that counts.

Something called Kid Rock is running for the Senate.  Be afraid, Michigan.  Be very afraid.

Trump is mad at those big meanies Mitch and Paul, so he's having fun with his new friends Chuck and Nancy, making all kinds of beautiful deals about DACA and the debt ceiling and letting them watch while he eats ice cream.  Again, nobody knows what the fuck he is talking about.  But the racist base of his party is pissed.  They're calling him "amnesty Don."  This is hilarious. 

It's far from hilarious that eight old people died needlessly, patients at the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills, Florida.  The power went off during the hurricane, the backup generator failed, there was no air conditioning, and nobody thought to carry them a few hundred yards to a hospital.  The place had previously been cited for its filthy kitchen and found guilty of Medicare fraud, but what will make America great again is less intrusive regulation of businesses like this.

Apple has a new phone.  It unlocks when it recognizes your face, so don't get old or grow a beard or anything, OK?  Oh brave new world.







*In the last century, when I worked for a collection agency, we never passed information to Equifax or the other two credit reporting agencies.  Not because of hacks -- this was long before every crime had "cyber" in front of it -- but because they are notoriously sloppy about correcting records, and we didn't want to louse up people's credit.  It was a simpler time, kids.








 


0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home