For The Most Part

We can all get suckered. We can all swallow a lie that just seems too good to be anything but the truth.

But if I have car trouble, I'm going to call an auto mechanic, not some average computer nerd who thinks a car is no different from the 10-speed he rides to work.

If I have an issue with some weird trauma left over from my childhood, I'll call a therapist who knows how to help me with that stuff, and not some guru who tells me all I have to do is shove some crystals up my ass, and drink some off-the-wall tea made from a few flowers and insect balls.

If I have a terrible headache that's been going on for 5 or 6 days, I'm going to find me a certified neurologist - not a fuckin' plumber who spends lots of time "researching" on YouTube.

Trump led us all over to a red hot stove and insisted on having us jump up on it. And even though there were a few MAGA fuckwads who - even now - tell us everything's fine, we've got blisters on our butts that won't be healed up for a good long goddamned time.

When you've lost Piers Morgan, the jig is up. Call in the dogs, piss on the fire, and strike camp - this hunt is over.

The Access Economy

Ayn Rand warned us about it when she coined "an aristocracy of pull" in Atlas Shrugged to describe a system dependent on trading favors instead of goods and services with actual defined value.

Kara Swisher nails it here when she talks about how you don't need acumen or expertise or competence when you can rely on having access to the people who make the decisions about the money.

Access. How many times do we have to hear about the bullshit absolute supremacy of access (arts, communications, the press, etc - and now normal everyday commerce) before enough of us insist on putting people in charge who actually know what the fuck they're doing?

PS) I hope the Ayn Rand reference didn't scare anybody off. She was an absolutist, and a bit of a quack, and certainly a hypocrite in the end, but - you know - even a blind hog roots up and acorn once in a while.