Of donuts and holes

Pictured: the last straw.

So what country are you moving to? I usually say Canada because I have Canadian ancestors and it's basically what America would be like without the ever-present threat of a trip to the hospital ruining you for life. But now I'm thinking maybe Scotland? Why am I asking, you ask? Why because of this. It's a sandwich soon to be introduced at KFC, and it's a hunk of boneless fried chicken between two glazed donuts. Yes. Really and no, doesn't sound great.

It sounds like a textbook example of capitalism gone horribly awry and perhaps the answer to the question of whether or not our civilization is worth saving. I mean, a donut sandwich? Stop. Just stop. This is not food and it's not ok to sell this to people. You can just walk into the restaurant and buy these. There's no warning label, you don't have to be eighteen, you can just walk in and buy one like it's food, which it isn't.

Rome had the Visigoths, we have this dumb sandwich thing.

"It was the bottom of the forth
and we were down a touchdown..."

-us, telling that story again

Like at all. Not to get all nanny state on you, but just because you can sell an idiot a donut sandwich doesn't mean you're not morally responsible for the resulting diabetes. But this fried poultry sugar bomb nonsense isn't why America is doomed. We're doomed because we refuse to put on our grown up pants. I mean, we let people vape and buy assault rifles and earn shitty wages all because we're stuck in some made up fantasy of the good 'ol days of rugged whateverness and pulling up our bootstraps or something. And it was cute back when the wild west was a thing, but it's the 21st century now and like some middle aged ex-football star clinging to that time we won that big game, it's time we started adulting and got real about keeping our fellow citizens safe and healthy and our air, you know, breathable because holy shit, did you know we broke the planet?

Because we did and yet I read today that the EPA is about to revoke California's ability to set higher emissions standards than the rest of the country. Which is weird because we're still careening towards a catastrophe that will likely lead to our extinction in our lifetime. So why would anyone try to make things worse?

Because eight years of Obama made racists loose their goddamn
minds and now they just want to watch the world burn? Just speculating.

"You can't just tell the auto industry what
they can and can't do. I mean, this isn't
some woman's uterus, this is business."

-Republicans

The free market, that's why. Now, to be clear, California doesn't force automakers to meet its standards. Ford or Chevrolet or whoever are 100% free to make cars that meet the lower Federal standards, they just can't sell them here. Which sounds pretty free market-y to me but what do I know? What this move does do is take from the state the right to protect its environment-an environment that is frequently on fire-from irresponsible car companies so it's a little weird that it's coming from the state's rights people.

But surely they must know that now is the time to strengthen regulations and to make sure-well, twenty years ago was the time to strengthen regulations, but here we are. So again, why would the administration do this? Why would anyone think it's ok to put fried chicken between two (two!) donuts? Who can say? But I think the answer to both these questions has something to do with how we, as a people, have just given up.

You don't suppose it's because Donald "eats cheesburgers in bed" Trump
is in his seventies, knows he won't be around for the worst of it, and does
 not now, nor has ever in the past cared about people who aren't him?