Remember that time I killed Betty White?

Cautiously optimistic? No. Not even a little. If the twenty-first century has taught us anything, it's that one should always prepare for anything and everything to go sideways at any moment. Like, at this point, nothing would surprise me.

Sure, why not?

"You're welcome."

-Pope Gregory XIII

Traditionally, as the planet's odometer rolls over, one usually looks back and evaluates one's life and sets new intentions--resolutions if you will--for the new year. Not for any particular reason, I mean, the calendar is an arbitrary construct cooked up by some sixteenth century Pope who didn't like that Easter wasn't consistently happening in the spring. There's nothing particular 2022-ish about the planet's rotation around the sun and you can evaluate your life over any period without adhering to some meaningless three hundred sixty-five day span. You know how I know it's meaningless? Because of something called the Sunshine Protection Act. 

Too close is whatever this guy from
Kentucky most of us can't stand says it is.

You know how twice a year most of us have to adjust to either losing or gaining an hour because of some weird holdover to eighteenth century agriculture even though increasing few of us are three-hundred year old famers? Well like an inconvenienced pope, the U.S. Senate passed a bill back in March that would abolish this nonsense. And they passed it unanimously, which is amazing because these people can't even agree on anything. Anything. Not even on how close to an election is too close to let a President seat a Supreme Court Justice.  

And I'm sure the few remaining farmers not
bought out by agri-conglomerations are just
as happy to keep Daylight Savings Time.

Ok, great. I mean, it's kind of pointless now that everything with a cell connection automatically adjusts to the correct time, but fine, better late than never, right? Well, I guess we'll never know. The House failed to vote on the bill and now we're still stuck with this dumb relic of a bygone era. But the point here is that how we perceive and interact with time was up for a vote, or would have been had the relevant bipartisan committee been able to reach consensus on...something. Doesn't matter, the point is the whole thing is just something we made up.

New Year's is already a pretty thin excuse to
drink, and some "In Memoriam" list isn't going
to make it feel any more earned, so go nuts.

Speaking of making things up, the other made up thing we tend to do at this completely meaningless point in an equally meaningless continuum is list--for reasons I'm still not sure I understand--people who have died in the last year. Really I think it's because people who write things on the internet are just looking for filler material so they can knock off early and drink. But I'm not going spend a lot of time on that this year. Not because I'm better than that--I'm not--and not because we just did the whole thing about Daylight Savings Time. 

But because last time I think I may have unwittingly cursed Betty White by going out of my way to point out how dead she wasn't only to have her die like an hour and a half later. Mine is a terrible power and while I'd like to think I'd use it for good, I just can't be sure.

Sorry, that one was on me.

Today in a middle-finger to the housing crisis:

A quarter of a billion dollars. A quarter of a billion. Let that sink in...huh? What's that? You can't? Yeah, me neither, but then neither you nor I are likely to be in the market for an apartment that costs that much either. Or, I don't know, maybe you are. And if that's the case, wanna hang out? Yeah, what am I on about? Oh, right, this:

Sorry, I should be more specific. I'm talking about the
soulless, gleaming spire of excess on the right there.

Is guillotine-ably wealthy already a
 phrase or did I just coin it?

And to answer your first question, yes, thanks to You Tube, I suddenly have opinions about the architectural landscape of a city I don't live in. Don't worry about it. Anyway, that blight on the New York City skyline is Central Part Tower, and is among the tallest residential buildings in the world. It's part of the city's billionaire row. A clump of super tall, super skinny, super expensive residential skyscrapers that cater to the toxically wealthy. Like, the kind of people who, in any other time and place in history, would have been carried off by an angry mob.

And possibly, on some of the
higher floors, stunning views
of the Irish coast.

To be clear, I'm not pro-angry mob, but I just feel like there shouldn't be such a thing as billionaires much less so many billionaires as to warrant an entire row. Although weirdly, nobody asked me. but where was I? Oh, right, Central Park Tower and it's penthouse that costs two hundred and fifty million dollars. That's a quarter of a billion. With a "B". The other apartments in the--huh? No, not bollars, the "B" is in billion. As I was saying, is a quarter billion is too much for you, there are other spaces available ranging from six and a half to sixty-three million. With an "M." Which is still way too much money. Yes, these apartments have square footage in the thousands, access to rooftop gardens, stunning views of Central Park, and Manhattan, and, one presumes, an inflated sense of self worth that comes with having your ears pop on the elevator ride up. But at what cost? What's that? Exorbitant cost? Well, obviously. I mean metaphorically.

I take a shameful amount of pleasure
in knowing that that all-white furniture is
going to show stains like nobody's business.

When I say they're too much money, I don't mean too much money for a fancy apartment, I mean too much money period. No one should be allowed to have that much, right? Like, is it crazy to have some limits on the amount of wealth individuals can control? Not to get all Elizabeth Warren on you here, but the government prints money so we don't have to barter, not so some asshat can sit atop a one hundred floor middle finger hocking loogies down upon the plebs walking their dogs in Central Park. 

The average home price in the US is $350,000. I did the math and a quarter billion dollars would buy like seven hundred houses. Which brings us back to the angry mob, and again, I'm not saying we storm billionaire's row. I mean, that's not actually much of a plan as rich people usually keep their money in banks and stocks and not in a vault where they can swim in it. But maybe, I don't know, can't we tax them or something? 

I'd almost respect the ultra-rich if they swam around
in their money instead of just hoarding it.

It's -7º and people have iPhones now so...

If New York is a finger gun pointing at Canada,
NYC is down by the wrist, the thumb is trees, and
 Rochester is mid-knuckle on the index finger.

You may already know this, but while I've lived in Santa Cruz, California for the better part of the last decade or so, I am, in fact, from Rochester, NY. It's a medium-sized city on Lake Ontario, about an hour east of Buffalo. If that's more information than you need, I'm sorry, I just that I often find myself having to offer geographical context when telling people where I'm from. It's been my experience that most people out here aren't aware that New York City is attached to an entire state. I mention this because it made me feel incredibly old this morning.

"At least we're not Buffalo..."

-The City of Rochester's motto

No, not the finger gun thing, but the news. You see Rochester, like much of the country, is being pummeled by a once-in-a-generation, absolute goat-rodeo of a winter storm right now. Power lines are down, flights are canceled, and local news stations are, for reasons passing understanding, sending reporters out into the Siberian conditions to narrate how unlivable conditions are right now. The key take aways are one: Buffalo is getting this storm way worst than Rochester.

And two: Everyone on the news is twelve years old. Twelve! I mean, look at this:

Pictured: a bunch of twenty year-olds producing local TV news
 pieces that no one under sixty will likely ever watch.

Above: the kind of swagger and confidence only
immobile 1980's news anchor hair can project.

To be clear, I don't usually watch local news--I'm not that old--but I did check out WHAM's website this morning to see what's happening. I'm sure it's just because I haven't seen the local news, much less the local news from my home town in years, but the anchors and reporters used to be, you know, a hundred. Part of this phenomenon is that, as a child, anyone older than oneself is impossibly ancient. The other part is a weird assumption your brain makes when you move somewhere else that everything you leave behind remains just as you left it.

Which, of course, it doesn't. Time marches on. Our family and friends age, get married, have kids, and our local TV anchors get replaced by twenty-somethings who stand outside in sub-zero temperatures and read the news off of their actual phones. 

I mean, at some point you'd think they could let the reporters stay 

inside and just tell viewers to read the news off their own phones.

Today in rotational symmetry:

I mean, I don't know about you, but I've managed to go my entire life without accidentally drawing a swastika. It's just not a thing that happens, and yet:

"I don't see the--oh! Oh no..."

-Everyone

It suspect it's less about the anti-semitism
for Don, and more about hating the NYT.

Yeah, that was Sunday's New York Times crossword puzzle and you might notice that it looks a little, what's the word? Nazi-ish? Which has understandably upset, well, everyone. And, to make things even worse, Sunday was first day of Hanukkah. Even Donald Trump Jr. expressed outrage, declaring it "Disgusting!" Which, eww...kind of weird being on the same side as Don Jr. I think we're all going to need a shower after this one, but how even can something like this happen?

Pictured: some white nationalists seen
here waving their fun whirlpool flags.

According to the puzzle's author:

"I had originally tried to make it work in a 15X15 grid, but then decided to expand the grid out to a Sunday-size puzzle with a fun whirlpool shape. Hope you enjoy!"

-Ryan McCarty on how he came up 

with his twenty-third, and probably 

last, New York Times crossword

Really, our beef is with direct
 isometries in Euclidian space.

The Jewish Chronicle reached out to the Times' department of unsatisfying and vaguely insulting explanations and was told, preposterously, that:

"This is a common crossword design: Many open grids in crosswords have a similar spiral pattern because of the rules around rotational symmetry and black squares."

-The New York Times privilege 'splaining 

rotation symmetry to the Jewish Chronicle 

"Of course, we're the idiots!"

-all of us, apparently

Which, when you think about it is kind of a weird way to say: "We here at the New York Times offer our deepest and most sincere apologies for the harm and offense our error has caused. The Sunday crossword puzzle's similarity to a symbol associated with hatred and suffering was unacceptable and the result of a catastrophic failure on the part of our staff. We are launching an immediate investigation into how this has happened." In fact, their response sounds more like condescension from an organization that should know why they're in the wrong here.

But even if there is some logistical or mathematic reason why a crossword puzzle could resemble a swastika, and this is all an honest mistake, you'd think the similarity alone would be enough to make them avoid using that layout. You know, because of the swastika-ness.

"If anything it's our reader's fault for getting offended and for not being
more conversant in the conventions of crossword puzzle construction."

-The New York Times, basically

Today in major announcements:

Pwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha--sharp intake-- ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

-Everyone

No, body shaming is not ok. Although he
is on tape bragging about sexual assault to Billy
Bush, so I'm going to make an exception here.

Laughing at, not with. At. I mean, NFT trading cards of the former host of The Apprentice as a cowboy or a super hero or whatever that cost a hundred dollars apiece has to be a joke, like, he's got to be kind of in on it, but we're still going to laugh at him and not with him. At because of the impossible hubris of a doughy septuagenarian who lost the popular vote twice thinking that anyone but the most ignorant MAGA goon would ever shell out for--oh shit, they are going to buy these, aren't they?

The rabid-foam target audience.

Yup. And not even ironically. There are almost certainly people out there who will pay money, like actual dollars, to a deluded gameshow host turned electoral college winner who incited a mob to try and overthrow two and a half centuries of American democracy. All for imaginary trading cards. NFT's, if you recall, don't exist as physical objects, but rather data. Data that only exists on a server somewhere. A server with a massively outsized carbon footprint. Also, crypto currency is in the mix somehow?

Throw in the former president/wanna be autocrat, and you have everything that's wrong with the twenty-first century: Right-wing extremism, willful ignorance, speculative capitalism, and environmental recklessness, all rolled into one narcissistic fever dream of inflated self-worth.  

Hey, remember that time he mocked a reporter's disability? Yeah, that's
got nothing to do with this other than that's how I picture him: waving his arms and
slurring his speech to make fun of someone's physical impairment. But hey look,
you can give him a hundred dollars for a picture of him cosplaying a sheriff.

Molly Brown: it's staring them right in the face.

To be clear, it was probably
somewhat less funny at the time.

I don't know who said it, Steve Allen maybe? I don't know, the internet is kind of vague on this point, but regardless have you ever heard the old expressions that comedy is tragedy plus time? I thinks it's related to the idea that something terrible, like a natural disaster or a war is off limits as a source of humor, until it's sufficiently removed from us in time that it's ok to laugh at. For example, the bubonic plague that killed some two hundred million. Hilarious, right? Sure, because it was seven hundred years ago. 

Or World War One. It was much more recent, but it all started because one archduke was assassinated and the European political landscape was so badly designed that it triggered a bunch of treaty obligations and plunged dozens of countries into a war that left twenty million dead. So in many ways, WWI was one of history's dumbest wars.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand was evidently a load-bearing archduke.

Above: James Cameron, seen here explaining
to Kate Winslet how the door couldn't possibly
support her, Leonardo DiCaprio and the director.

And then there's the Titanic. 1912's most famous floating allegory of class inequality and hubris to ever sink into the icy depths of the North Atlantic. It's fair game now. It went down over a hundred and ten years ago. The last survivor--a British woman who was two months old at the time of the sinking--has passed away. And James Cameron has already reduced the story to a tale of two horny kids screwing in a Model T. We can look back on that catastrophic loss of human life and laugh, right? And also make two billion dollars...

There's so much find humor in. Like, did you know that White Star Lines President Phillip Alright Small Franklin--huh? Yeah, all that's his name. Rich people, amiright? Anyway, upon hearing that the ship was in trouble he remarked, in a quote that must have aged like milk, that the ship was unsinkable. Unsinkable! 

"You see when I said unsinkable, what I meant was--uh--just that, um...metaphorically
speaking it wasn't...hey, is that someone assassinating an Archduke over there?"

-White Star Line President P.A.S. Franklin,

shortly before speeding away in his Model T

Move over Oscar Wilde...

See? Comedy. But I'm not sure that it isn't too soon for poop jokes about the Titanic. Why is he brining up poop jokes? you might reasonably wonder? Because of this. I found this today while shopping for--what do you mean "This what?" This. Look at the picture on the right. It's a "Lavatory Mist" called Titanic. What's a lavatory mist? Also a reasonable question. It's a--I don't know--perfume? I guess? That you spray in a bathroom to mask the odor of, you know, the bathrooms. It almost certainly doesn't work, but whatever, we'll get to that. The problem is, I mean, read the damn bott-fine, I'll read it. It says: "It's the largest steamer in the world!" You see, because steamer can mean poop. Because word play.

Pictured: the bottle of toilet spray
I'm having an argument with.

If you flip it over, the copy on the back invites you to "Drop your trunks and relax!" and goes on to say "Forecast: Smooth movement ahead...enjoy a luxurious ride atop this mighty steamer...leave nothing but a beautiful scent in your wake." Which, couple of things. First of all, they used "steamer" twice, and also, I'm confused, you don't ride atop a boat. You ride on or in. And it doesn't even work as a poop joke. You don't ride the--look, it doesn't matter, I think they just wanted to say "steamer" again. Secondly, I'm not sure if whoever wrote this is familiar with how the human digestive or olfactory systems work, but no, there is no combination of "vetiver & rose" or any other scent, natural or artificial, that is going to convince anyone that what happened in a bathroom didn't happen. And that's ok, everyone poops. There's even a book about it. 

I guess what I take issue with here is not only the idea that the manufacturers of Titanic Lavatory Mist are turning the drowning of fifteen hundred people into a load of strained bathroom puns (sorry). It's that they're doing so in an attempt to capitalize on the sense of shame people feel over basic human body functions. It's a shitty marketing tactic (again, sorry), and it is they who should be ashamed. And yes, to answer next your question, if you know me there's a decent chance you're getting this for Christmas.

Also, can you believe they missed the opportunity to say that 
their product is endorsed by The Unstinkable Molly Brown?

Today in arm-chair prisoner exchanges:

"How dare you!"

-Some troll

What kind of person sees something like this and--like, you've got to be a miserable, bitter, troll of a human being to hear about how WNBA player Brittney Griner was freed from a Russian prison and complain about how it was accomplished. Here's Kevin McCarthy sharing his unsolicited opinion on how he would have--sorry, in fairness I guess it was solicited, I mean, whoever interviewed him on Fox News presumably asked him what he thought but yikes. I mean, just yikes...

No please, tell us how you would
have gotten her out, hmmmm?

"I'm glad an American is coming home. She was arrested for a trumped up charge...but to exchange the merchant of death for this? It's made us weaker, it's made Putin stronger, and it's made Americans more vulnerable."

-Representative Kevin McCarthy,

who didn't free Brittany Griner,

arm-chair prisoner exchanging

Hey, Representative McCarthy, I think it's pronounced: I'm glad an American is coming home. Full stop. I know it's the GOP's entire job and platform to find fault in literally everything the administration does, but holy shit. 

If the Biden Administration's cancer moonshot program cured cancer tomorrow,
Kevin McCarthy would be on Fox News blaming them for ruining Pfizer. 

Not for nothing, but isn't Walmart
an arms dealer that's been supplying 
terrorists for years? Serious question.

The Merchant of Death is the supervillain name of Viktor Bout, an arms dealer who admittedly is a monster having supplied terrorists around the world. So maybe the twitter trolls have a point? How is a basketball player worth letting this guy out? It's a fair question and exactly the kind of thing someone whose loved one isn't being held in a Russian prison might ask. Speaking of, the other criticism being levied at the exchange is coming from people who think the administration should have traded Bout for Paul Whelan instead.

"Or maybe not. I'm capricious."

-the guy the runs Russia

Whelan is a former Marine arrested in Russia for espionage. Probably erroneously, but regardless, no one deserves to be a pawn in international relations, not even a Marine who was kicked out of the corps for dereliction of duty, lying, and writing bad checks. And in fact we--the U.S. that is--have been trying to exchange Bout for Whelan for ages, but Russia wouldn't trade. But they would trade for Griner so, there you go. Also, the fact that Russia was unwilling to hand him over suggests there's something there, or at least that Russia genuinely believes there is.

"Nobody locks Americans up on
bullshit drug charges but us!"

-America

Look, I don't know anything about anything (like most people chiming in on the internet), and I genuinely hope we secure Whelan's release as well, but according to my research (of his wikipedia page, so you know, thorough) he's an ex-Marine with multiple passports who liked to brag about his Russian FSB (a post Soviet KGB rebranding) contacts. I have no idea if he was spying, but it's not impossible that he was spying, right? But Brittney Griner is definitely a civilian basketball player up on a nonsense drug charge who had the added advantage of being the one Putin was actually willing to let go.

So I guess the question is are the people loosing their shit--ok, the Republicans losing their shit--over this upset because the Biden administration got an American out of Russian prison and they didn't or that they traded for a queer woman of color rather than a white ex-Marine?

Both, it's both. 100%.