House of Eratosthenes

I can be fairly criticized here for being slow on the uptake, I’m sure. But it occurs to me, as I look over the events of this last week, that the entire first half of the year has been not too much different and the second half will not likely be much different either. I’m talking here, specifically, about the overall configuration of the news and not about the content of any one particular story. That’s an important distinction. The latter is about what’s happening to us, and the former is how we choose to process what we learn about these events, which ultimately says something about us. There’s that fired doctor who shot up the hospital in the Bronx, the plane that crashed into the 405, the further embarrassment of the mass media and of those who enabled them and assisted them in their downfall & disgrace; there is that terminally ill baby boy who can’t come to the United States for potentially life-saving treatment, because of the ruling of a Death Panel, and the Vatican’s utterly disheartening statement on the matter. There is the weekly accumulation of slander against anyone who seriously thinks about, or fails to properly oppose, any minute alteration of ObamaCare. The House of Representatives passed Kate’s Law and the Sanctuary City Law, although neither of those is expected to survive the Senate, but there was a whole stack of Supreme Court decisions. Perhaps the most notable among many was the unanimous vote to reinstate PDJT’s travel ban. Facebook getting in the censorship business. Trump turned out to be right about non-citizens voting in our elections.

(Videos auto-play obnoxiously behind some of those links, I’m too lazy to annotate for you which ones. Happy hunting.)

And then there are all the nerd-slap-fights surrounding Trump’s tweets. There’s a Pareto Principle on steroids here, since 20% of the news is commanding 80% of the attention. You know the people lavishing the attention on the silly stuff agree there is something terribly wrong about all this, they’re blaming you-know-who. Gosh, I had no idea that when I write stuff, it’s all up to me to decide how much attention people would pay to it. Here was me thinking my role was limited to putting stuff together & putting it out there, or not. Ah, maybe I have to get elected President, then stay up late at night putting out these “tweets.” When people decide adult-living is too much trouble and they’d rather root for one side or another in my tweet-battles, it’ll be all my fault, too. But first I have to get 270 electoral votes…

Trump's Tweets I said the entire first half-year has been like this, and I’m talking about configuration of news, not content. See the concern now? We have…news that has the potential to seriously impact the lives of fellow humans and countrymen, or has already. And then we have Trump’s tweets. Kiddie table news, I’ve taken to calling it…because it has that feel about it. You remember the kiddie table, don’t you? Your parents, and their parents and/or brothers and sisters and in-laws, or the adult neighbors from up & down the street, would dine at a “real” table that had ribs and chicken and mashed potatoes and beer and wine, and you & the rest of the juniors would sit there at the kiddie table feasting on hot dogs and mac-n-cheese. Big news, back when I was of that age, might have been about Watergate or maybe Vietnam. Little kids weren’t expected to be into that stuff, just like you wouldn’t expect a six-year-old today to have a lot of opinions about a Supreme Court decision. Possibly the travel ban, maybe. Campaign finance reform? Probably not.

If you can’t remember back that far, you can probably remember the early days of parenthood; the begging and pleading and bribing and blackmailing and threatening over three or four lousy stinking forkfuls of corn. “Special occasions” such as a family dinner or neighborhood repast might have represented, to parent & child alike, a reprieve from the burdensome ritual. FINE, let the little ingrates pig out on their grilled cheese sandwiches…

So it is with our news. And I guess for the time being, it has assumed a position with some relative permanence to it. Rather like a spinning coin on a table top, losing its inertia, flattening its pattern of motion accompanied by a sound that increases in volume, until the whole thing flattens and motion ceases. Yes, exactly like that. U.S. news has found its “resting place.” An adult table and a kiddie table, the latter is where you go to obsess over “Trump’s tweets.”

Except the analogy breaks down with the passage of time. Real kids dining at a real kiddie table, 24 hours later, will be compelled to eat their peas with a boot in the back of their necks, if necessary. The premise was that the little darlings could skip ONE night without roughage or Vitamin C, without ill effects, right? One night, not two. So tomorrow it’ll be steamed broccoli, and the clean-your-plate rule will dominate, come what may. Not so with our consumers of kiddie-table-news and their obsession over “Twitter is beneath the dignity of the office he holds.” Oh, how awkward the social-media conversations become, when the obvious question surfaces: “What are we to do about this?”

They seem to honestly think every POTUS in our nation’s history was some angelic figure. It’s adorable.

Woodrow Wilson was a segregationist. Wonder what he’d tweet. WWWWT?

There is a tragedy here. Or, at the very least, a lost opportunity. If the kids could back away from the mac-n-cheese for just a minute or two, maybe visit the grown-up news table for some more mature fare…let’s take baby steps, maybe a tiny thin slice of meatloaf drowned in ketchup? Then we could all benefit from an adult discussion about what the presidency really is. The mental-juveniles seem to fancy it as an elevated pedestal, into which we hoist the one saintly pristine individual who is the very best of all 330 million of us. Where do they get this? Maybe we can blame the public school system.

Nope. All 44 men had flaws. They were all blights against the rest of us. Furthermore, that’s part of the job. If we have a bad one, in theory that means we deserve to have a bad one. Probably in practice, too.

See, the Obama fans can’t take it that far; can’t inspect it this much. If Trump is a nutburger, that means he’s our nutburger. Just as Obama was our nutburger. We’re not Gotham, so we get the hero we deserve, not the one we need. That’s how it’s supposed to work. The President reflects the rest of us, wart and all. The wart, with Obama, was virtue-signaling; we got this stuck-up, snooty adjunct professor guy who never had a real job in His life, because He had dark skin and a bunch of our fellow citizens wanted to prove they’re not racists. With Trump, it’s impatience. The boat had to be rocked. And you know what, seeing what has to be done and doing it, is not a vice. Whereas, virtue-signaling is. It’s led to all sorts of destruction and evil.

So you have some idea of how the conversation might proceed. Perhaps that’s why the kids are staying at their table, NOT having any discussion about what’s really supposed to be bothering them…just obsessing over it repeatedly. Uselessly. Grousing like little kids.

It seems they have not sufficiently matured to the level required to really think about this, and recall: The last guy who was supposed to put a stop to the Obama agenda, was exceptionally well-mannered. Exceptionally! In all respects. And this all speaks well for him personally…but, it didn’t work. So the next candidate was rude and crude. This worked, for a number of reasons, not the least of which is this ever-present impudence which sustains a “punch back ten times as hard” policy.

Those who pulled the lever for him, are supposed to feel shame? We don’t. Or at least, this one doesn’t. But I know I can speak for others, I’m not the only one. It’s not like we gravitated toward the boorish manners. We gave the refined behavior a good, solid shot. We did. It’s a matter of record.

It’s not approval of the rudeness or crudeness, it’s approval of the solution to a problem that actually works. You know…welcome to the adult table.

Your logic may be impeccable, but there is a problem. You see, the residents of the kiddie table have made them a sign. And that sign reads “ADDOLTS TAYBULL”
And no, it’s not spelled correctly, because spelling is rasicts. Just like grammar be. And that’s close enough for Ebonics.
And it’s printed in pseudo block letters, because none of them can even read cursive, much less write it.

Now that all would be funny. Except for the fact that they have called “Law Enforcement” and reported you for child abuse. And “Law Enforcement” is taking them at their word, because after all they would never lie.

THAT, dear sir, is the state of the West today.
- MarkMatis | 07/02/2017 @ 12:54
Ashamed? Gosh, no. I’ve never had so much fun!
- Getalonghome | 07/03/2017 @ 14:52
“” When people decide adult-living is too much trouble and they’d rather root for one side or another in my tweet-battles, it’ll be all my fault, too. But first I have to get 270 electoral votes…”
Preposterous. You only have to make SURE the paparazzi hangs out while you “do” lunch at the round table at the Algonquin Hotel.
Of course, you’re going to need a vagina for that. ALL the controversial battle stars NOT in a “Real housewives…” , or ” TRUTH Panel!” outlets have one.
- CaptDMO | 07/04/2017 @ 00:51
[…] Those who pulled the lever for him, are supposed to feel shame? We don’t. — House of Eratosthenes […]
- Lurking in the Labyrinth - American Digest | 07/06/2017 @ 08:22
“Twitter is beneath the dignity of the office he holds.” Oh, how awkward the social-media conversations become, when the obvious question surfaces: “What are we to do about this?”

And it ALWAYS comes from that teenage girl in her FIRST thanksgiving at the “adult” table (by attrition), allowed to have ONE half- glass of watered down wine.
- CaptDMO | 07/12/2017 @ 07:25

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Kiddie Table NewsSunday, July 2nd, 2017

Kiddie Table News
Sunday, July 2nd, 2017