Jabberwonky
Because Nowhere is Safe
Today we are compelled to weigh in on the current state of affairs, the current political moment, the environment, the climate, and all other stock phrases, euphemisms, inelegant ejaculations of ideas best left suppressed. Jabber has heretofore kept shtum on these matters and maintained a healthy sense of superiority over those sharing, scaring, and scarring real and imagined landscapes with their apparently necessary takes. But while we’ve mostly not taken the bait, witness us now stupidly dangling from the hook.
We must no longer keep silent. Silence is not an option, to paraphrase Ezra Klein, titan of dubious prevarication. For how could we not speak up and share our stance on this most draconian overreach of state power, by which we mean the Real ID. They who wish to make us mad send us to the DMV. A tactic as old as Methuselah. Well, some of us already have passports, so I suppose we’re okay, but still, the audacity of the powers that be to penalize the culturally incurious who have yet to travel beyond these shores… utter cruelty.
We were about to dive into the policies behind this most Draconian of Congressional Acts, but our heads are hurting from small print and legalese and political speech so vague AI could do better. Suffice it to state that this measure will not go unaddressed by people infinitely smarter than we, although they are unfortunately busy at the moment frying bigger fish. Something about due process and civil liberties… we’re not sure. It’s been a long day already. And our trains were delayed. And Starbucks ran out of our favorite breakfast sandwich this morning and who wants to walk two blocks to the next one? The struggle is real.
To those who might argue that this is no forum for political discourse, or that adding our hot takes does zero to further the conversation, or that the best we might do is live our best lives and enjoy the small things or touch grass or find solace in the beautiful and tasty things life has on tap that might remind us that things are not so bad, we’ve been here before, things will improve, we’ll never let it get worse than this, we’re a country of laws, a world firmly inside a universe with a moral center and a caring god and a sense of rightness because humans are basically good when you take the time to get to know them and see they are just doing their best and that we’re trying and hang in there baby, and if I told you you had a beautiful body would you hold it against me, pass the dutchie on the lefthand side… well, we hear you. And so we’ll cease amateur punditry and return to our usual literary concerns. After all, art and politics never mix, right folks?
Staying in our lane,
Jabber (AKA: Vincent Francone, Editor-at-Large, feeling very small and deeply terrified)