Other people's business

"You buy a bag of peanuts in this town, you get a song written about you!" said Charles Foster Kane, just before joining in the song he clearly wrote about himself.  In these days of media Kane could hardly have dreamed of -- imagine him on Twitter! -- it takes a lot less.  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez decided to get a  dog, and everybody has an opinion.  She got a puppy instead of acquiring a "rescue animal" from a shelter, probably because she has no time to be vetted like an adoptive parent of a human child.  She chose the wrong breed.  She won't say how she got the animal -- could it be a bribe from a foreign leader impressed by her power as a freshman member of Congress?  She failed to consult PETA, whose relentlessness makes Inspector Javert look like Monsieur Hulot on holiday.  She may well influence others to commit the same offense.  All this fallout because a single woman with a demanding job wanted something in her life which would be glad to see her at the end of the day and would never accuse her of treason.  If she asks a staff member on the government payroll to take little Deco for an occasional walk, she's finished.  No dog has caused so much trouble since FDR sent the Seventh Fleet to rescue Fala.  (He didn't.)

People with not much in their own lives can always find time to tell other people what they're doing wrong.  Journalists and others who were born too late for the Abdication Crisis of 1936 have been all over the Harry and Meghan Bugout of 2020.  A normal family would be thrilled if a thirty-five-year-old man with a wife and a baby decided to move out of the house, but the Windsors are about as normal as the Manson Family.  It appears that Grandmama has given her grudging consent to their decision to live part of the year in Canada and even perhaps to --- work --- instead of depending on the hard-pressed British taxpayers.  By my estimate, this leaves about a hundred of their kinfolk to give out flower-show prizes and open new hospitals, assuming the Johnson Government manages to build any.  So that's that, right?  And we can get back to the rising sea levels and the part of the Commonwealth which is currently on fire?

No, because the Usual Suspects have something to add, and you'll be surprised to learn that it's as racist and misogynist as the tabloids the Sussexes (that just looks wrong) are trying to leave behind.  For instance, a bunch of charmers who call themselves Men Going Their Own Way (like Incels but with masturbation) know it's all a plot by a "soulless" gold-digger to lure poor Harry away from his home and his remote chance at kingship in order to pick him clean in the chick-favoring Canadian divorce courts.  "You can just see the evil in her eyes!" writes one awe-struck MGTOW, who has often dreamed of getting a woman like Meghan Markle to acknowledge his existence.  Michelle Malkin, who still exists but not on Fox, did her research and tweeted pictures showing how much happier Harry looked in desert camouflage twelve years ago, and how depressed he looks now, wearing a suit and making chit-chat with bores -- the sort of life he wants to leave behind, unless I'm missing the point here.  With a little more work Malkin could have included this photo of Harry at a fancy-dress party (2005) in the uniform of the Afrika Korps, swastika and all.  Maybe she doesn't see anything wrong with that.

Look, I get it.  Whether you're the President or a one-shot contestant on Wheel of Fortune, you don't get to have privacy anymore.  The paleomedia, the social media and the various search engines have ended that.  A prospective employer or vengeful ex-partner can access your criminal history, your tweets, your medical records and that surpassingly stupid thing you did in high school, and so can everyone else with a computer.  When the cacophony reaches a deafening level, maybe we will all agree to leave one another alone and try to get through "whatever this is," as Kurt Vonnegut put it.  Now would be a good time.