This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

Almost 40% of Americans now watch television through streaming. For many, they have ditched cable due to the high cost. Only 26% of Americans have a movie streaming subscription. That means the biggest loser in viewership is broadcast television. You must have a digital antenna, or you do without. Most do without. Yesterday was the Indianapolis 500. For many years, watching the race was an annual event. Who won? Who cares?

You can watch the Superbowl on YouTube and the World Series too. But thanks to a clever marketing scheme by Fox, about 60 million Americans couldn’t watch the race. That’s smart! That’s real smart! Like me, most will put the event away in the closet of things we no longer care about.

Also, not news is Joe Biden’s cancer diagnosis. The man is a private citizen and it’s no one’s concern but his family’s. The contrived media go on and on for days and days, with speculation and innuendo. Largely, because it fills the empty spaces which journalism used to occupy, and it pleases the orange apocalypse. It pleases his sense of pettiness and soothes his vinegar soul.

Here’s a story that’s not news, home sales for April were the lowest since April 2009. Who remembers April 2009? Why, that was during the Great (depression) Recession. But it’s not news anymore. A jailbreak from an overcrowded obsolete county jail, that’s real news! Who is to blame? Arrest them all, it must be somebody’s fault, not a decrepit or obsolete facility.   

The failed State of Texas has decreed from on high that the Ten Commandments be posted in every public-school classroom. But who will read it to them? You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them think. I remember back in my dirty and decrepit High School in Alabama. They dedicated a Freedom Shrine at great expense. A wall with copies of America’s founding documents under God and Plexiglas. Designed to inspire patriotism and reverence in the young minds of students who couldn’t care less. No, schools don’t need proper funding or microscopes, they need Freedom Shrines and the Ten Commandments!

It’s odd to me this adoration of the Ten Commandments. The first copy was posted on the walls of the Temple of Karnak in Egypt. Then a few hundred years later, through magic and plagiarism, they suddenly appeared again on stone tablets carried by a mythical man named Moses. From the time of the Pharaohs until now, the commandments have had zero influence on the course of human affairs. It is the theological equivalent of “thoughts and prayers.” We do nothing but offer “thoughts and prayers,” tea and sympathy. You know, faith can move mountains! But it hasn’t moved so much as a stone yet.  Faith healers haven’t healed a single amputee or cured a single schizophrenic.  

On the international front; also, not news includes the orange apocalypse being told to go pound sand by Vladimir Putin. The orange Dictator told Vladimir to end the war in Ukraine and Vlad said, “no.” The orange Dictator answered, “Okay, I just thought I’d ask.” Asked by reporters if he would consider more sanctions on Russia the Dictator replied, “Whoa, let’s not go overboard!” It’s like mama always taught us, If at first you don’t succeed, quit and go away.

The great Dictator wants to reopen Alcatraz. It’s not news, but who remembers why they closed Alcatraz in the first place? It seems a prison built of concrete and steel in the middle of a salt water basin known for its poor weather, fog and salt air, eats concrete and steel like a termite eats wood in Georgia. To reopen the prison, they would basically have to level everything on the Island and start fresh or “it’s never going to happen” Just the idle ramblings of a feeble Dictator.  Real not news includes Iran boarding and taking hostage a ship from the Straits of Hormuz. High seas piracy, not news?

On the pages of Elon Book or Space Book “This space for hire, cheap!” The Elon Book pages were covered from end to end with stories of Elon’s good deed doing. And then oddly, the most unpopular man in America, with phony articles which were accompanied by phony comments, Go Elon! Then just as strangely as it all began, the articles all suddenly disappeared. It was almost like a contract had run out or something. Just watching the sight of the golden goose being strangled should almost be news. What is the credibility of Facebook today? ZERO! Only the truth which money can buy!

Ever so slowly and not so slowly all, credibility in a free press is dying. It’s not that they have to lie to you. They just don’t have to mention the truth, if they don’t want to. If it might annoy certain people in high places. A Big Beautiful Bill which will take healthcare from 14 million Americans and starve American children focuses on “no Tax on tips or or overtime.” Guess what will go next? If you said, overtime pay, ding, ding, ding!

Good news everyone! Self-driving trucks will eliminate over a million and half jobs! Ain’t that great? And they’ll pass the savings on to not you. AI will eliminate thousands of jobs, ain’t that great? Now you can get your bullshit directly from the fountain head of the thought machine!

The other day I watched a documentary about the real ad men of Madmen. New York was the home of the hard sell. Chicago was the home of the soft sell. The Pillsbury dough boy, Tony the tiger and Snap, Crackle and Pop. But it got me to wondering which city is responsible for the current policy of the Obnoxious sell? Creepy Progressive car insurance ads with unlikeable weird people? Dancing stool sample commercials. Pharmaceuticals ads with jingles. Everyone is just so happy! They might have cancer, but they’re still dancing! Oh boy, Big brother is going to up the chocolate ration! I was just out shopping for a new mansion when I checked their App. Gosh, I only have $53,000 in my savings account. Doesn’t everybody?

It’s sad but not news to watch a society sink into decadent idiocy. Unaware and unconcerned marching into the camps whistling a tune from a jingle, from a commercial they’d heard some place.

Mine eyes have seen the orgy of the launching of the Sword;
He is searching out the hoardings where the stranger’s wealth is stored;
He hath loosed his fateful lightnings, and with woe and death has scored;
His lust is marching on.

I have seen him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded him an altar in the Eastern dews and damps;
I have read his doomful mission by the dim and flaring lamps–
His night is marching on.

I have read his bandit gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
“As ye deal with my pretensions, so with you my wrath shall deal;
Let the faithless son of Freedom crush the patriot with his heel;
Lo, Greed is marching on!”

We have legalized the strumpet and are guarding her retreat;*
Greed is seeking out commercial souls before his judgement seat;
O, be swift, ye clods, to answer him! be jubilant my feet!
Our god is marching on!

In a sordid slime harmonious Greed was born in yonder ditch,
With a longing in his bosom–and for others’ goods an itch.
As Christ died to make men holy, let men die to make us rich–
Our god is marching on. – Mark Twain