I'm so tired of a news cycle that consists of "Crazy/extreme politician does something crazy" followed by "Mass violence and/or war crime," followed by "Crazy domestic politician clashes or communes with crazy foreign politician" replaced by "Crooked politician gets caught and/or commuted" followed by "Crazy politician(s) rattle sabers" followed by "New fighting in [site of long-term conflict]," on and on, all of it a sameness and very much in the mode of our always having been at war with (or in) Eastasia or Eurasia.
Call me soft and sentimental, but I want a news cycle with headlines about curing cancer or an HIV vaccine (which we almost had, until the Feds decided to cut the budget and spend whatever was left on trainee plumbers), about Moon landings or progress on self-sustaining, controllable fusion reactions. Not "Economy tanks because some nitwit pulled the wrong cord."
Sorry. If it bleeds it leads and clickbait rules. It's the 'net.
ReplyDeleteOne of the funniest commentaries about clickbait came from a vintage SNL skit from 1976- the classic "Talk Back with Frank Noland".
DeleteThe joke is that a radio host is getting no response from reasonable topics, so he turns to increasingly radical topics to get some reaction.
"How ’bout this? “Killing Puppies — It Doesn’t Bother Me” … That’s me, Frank Noland, and I LIKE dead puppies! Frankly, I’m totally in favor of using federally supported municipal bonds to pay for forced busing of Soviet Communists to come into your homes to kill your puppies!"
I hate to be the bearer of (more) bad news but they're "pausing" the Job Corps, so that money isn't going to be spent on plumber trainees or any other sort of trainee.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/osec/osec20250529
Jeffrey Smith
You mean they lied? In a press conference? The horrors! So we're only getting fewer rainbow-studies grads from Harvard (eight last year, they say) but not the more plumbers part?
Delete(Amusingly, the biggest plumbing outfit around here is run by a Philosophy Ph.D. who swings his own wrenches in addition to being the boss. I know nothing of his personal life -- nor he of mine -- and they're kind of expensive but they all do really good work.)