Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Keith Wheelock's avatar

Many many years ago (before TV and when telephones were only black) I was a most reluctant and recalcitrant student of Latin.

I was in awe of (and loathed) those few classmates who could translate Latin gobbledygook with effortless ease.

I would surreptitiously buy a ‘trot’ (English translation) without which I would have never known that ‘Caesar divided Gaul into three parts.’

Heather is our own marvelous almost nightly ‘trot’ to the gobbledygook that we encounter daily on social media, the press, and TV.

Her translation of the current budget babel permits us facilely to understand the difference between President Biden and the boisterous Republican backlash.

Heather provides a handy antidote to the false facts of Tucker Carlson and his Foxy foo foo dust.

Heather has us ‘trotting’ down the track of relevant history to permit us to better understand today’s topical shenanigans.

Thanks to Heather, when I follow the daily news I can say

VENI, VIDI, VICI [I came, I saw, I conquered]

Expand full comment
Will, from Cal's avatar

Guys... today was a good day. For people who care about social and economic progress, at least. I'm one of those people and I'm feeling good. You should too. 

I feel good - and you should too - because in President Biden we have a leader who isn't backing down and isn't pulling punches. No, he is not a showboat. He never has been. He doesn't need to be. We've been so starved of consistent, careful, patient, shrewd leadership that we've forgotten what it looks like. This man has stood for pretty much the same things for half a century in public life. Most of that half century was spent having our potential wasted and undermined by neoliberal trickle-down nonsense and retrogressive pandering, the opposite of everything he stood for, yet he has clearly never lost his optimism for our potential. He's wanted to be President since he was in high school. He has run several times, the first time before I was born. None of those tries came even close to being successful. Even as Vice President, no one ever really took him seriously enough as a leader. "Respectable," sure. "Likeable," definitely. "Conseqential," no. "Inspiring," you jest. 

Yeah, well, look who actually ending up being President after all. When the chips were really, really down, look who actually had the secret sauce to pull us back from fascist takeover. Look who has actually strung together two of the most consequential years of policy of that last half-century, and right after a plague too. Look who stands poised to be the one to define the next half-century in stark opposition to the last. Look who stands to be the linchpin turning the entire globe back towards democracy, and on the way to a sustainable planet.  Joe. And he did it all without raising his voice too much, or waving his arms around gratuitously. 

So... yeah. The old guy has waited this long for his dream job, and is *this* close to literally shifting the nature and trajectory of global democracy. He's not retiring, he's not reconsidering, he's not going to go along to get along, and he's certainly not going to give any of these bozos another damn budget cut just because they keep finding new ways to preen and whine. At least not without a fight. Please.

If I was Quevin, I'd be getting ready to Quiss my Quorporate-owned Queester buh-bye. 

Expand full comment
426 more comments...

No posts