This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

In a strange turn of events, Ox News’s “Money Honey” Maria Bartiromo was suddenly fired from her multimillion-dollar job. Maria was one of the old-timers at Ox News. She remembers the good ole days of Bill O’Reilly, Meghan Kelly, and Tucker Carlson. The story goes that back in July, when Mr. Trump gave one of his unhinged “Crazy Talks.” Telling his tales and fantastic fallacies of stolen elections. Management at Ox News was sensitive to the topic in light of their huge legal settlements. The Ox brass then generated a memo to all department heads and principals.

Stay away from the crazy talk! Ignore Mr. Trump and his wild, unproven claims. It seemed reasonable, enough. Just don’t touch it. Leave it alone and just lie about something else for a while. But there is some slight confusion here. Either the White House noticed that Ox News wasn’t giving their story the full Rah, Rah treatment and called Bartiromo to find out why. She was one of Mr. Trump favorites after all, despite her advancing age. Or Ms. Bartiromo freely volunteered the information to the White Palace staff. In either case, Mr. Trump was quickly hopping mad about it and on the phone to the Ox News chief of staff. Good job Don! You just got your girl fired.

Bartiromo got exactly what she deserved. You can’t babble company secrets to outsiders. Rupert Murdoch was paying her millions of dollars just to read a teleprompter, and she told tales out of school. It is a question of loyalty, even teenagers working at Dominoes’ Pizza understand, and Bartiromo failed at it. I hope she saved her money. Loose lips sink careers and ships. Who will hire her now? How can she ever be trusted with company secrets? When her full allegiance belongs to another.

If only this were your usual case of Ox News misbehavior. Sexual impropriety, harassment, or drunken buffoonery. But this wasn’t just telling anyone’s secrets; it was the boss’s secrets! So Maria is gone like yesterday’s lunch. Management waited patiently for just the right moment to put her ass out on the side of the road. So they fired her on a Thursday before a long holiday weekend. Gone on Friday and forgotten by Monday. Rumors quickly circulated that Bartiromo was in line to be the next White Palace press secretary. But it was only wishful thinking as Bartiromo is far too old to work in the Trump White Palace. At 58, Ms. Bartiromo is nearly twenty years too old for the Trump administration.

Besides, reading bullshit off a teleprompter is a different skill entirely from insulting reporters with condescending personal attacks. Bartiromo was pulling down a cool ten million dollars a year sucking at the tit of Ox News. Could she take a job now for a measly hundred thousand? Plus all you can steal. A job requiring travel, wholesale insanity, and lots and lots of unpleasant work. She was once a queen at Ox News. Maria was their one lone surviving celebrity, was.

Maybe it’s something in the air as Republican Thom Tillis calls for the removal of Duh, fence Secretary Petey Hegseth. We’re back in a shooting war in Iran again. It’s only a question of time now. Any day now the realization will come down on Mr. Trump like a burning tire around his neck. The public anger and blame has only two possible landing locations. Either on Mr. Trump’s broad shoulders or on Petey’s, or as Ox News once called him, “Colonel Vodka.” Either thee or me. So Pete is gone, even though it hasn’t happened yet.

Prepare yourself; Mr. Trump calls those reporting of low munitions treasonous scum. Then insists the reporters should earn long jail sentences for leaking such sensitive information. Or, it’s not true! Even if it is! Reports saying the Pentagon hit a wedding party in Iran are discounted largely because they would prefer them not to be true. The administration’s plans to starve Iran to the peace table with an economic D-day lasted approximately one week.

In response to Iran striking one ship (FIVE ships) with missiles the administration claimed Iran no longer has. The US went back to shooting our own missiles, which we no longer have. The economic D-day plan is all gone and forgotten. That is your true north indicator. Because the plan might change at a moment’s notice, from twelve AM to twelve PM, from shooting to sanctions, and from sanctions to shooting. It means there never really was a plan. Colonel Vodka is winging it.

Just when you thought the trade war with Canada couldn’t get any worse. Ontario Premier Doug Ford announces a 25% tariff on electricity exported to the Untied Snakes. Affecting roughly 8 to 14 million Americans the tariff is estimated to add $100 to the monthly family electric bill. Don’t forget to say “Thank you, Donald Trump!” Ford also emphasized that if Mr. Trump continues with this nonsense. Mr. Ford won’t hesitate to turn the power off entirely. Who had the US and Canada going to war on their bingo card?

For decades, international investors automatically chose American treasury notes to park their wealth based entirely on the stability of the United States. That stability is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. Thanks to Donald Trump, now investors are becoming hesitant. Maybe South Korea or China, would be a safer bet? Those crazy Americans elected Donald Trump twice and haven’t been able to remove him even once! For someone parking hundreds of millions of dollars, that is a huge risk to take. Best to look elsewhere, maybe until the US gets its house in order. Or, how Donald Trump destroyed the American economy.

The only thing that scares me more than a falling stock market in good times, is a soaring stock market in questionable times. Squeezing the last juice from the lemon or robbing the purser’s safe before the ship goes down. Licking the spoon for the last bits of the sugary frosting.

“Just as there are physical monsters, can there not be mental or psychic monsters born? The face and body may be perfect, but if a twisted gene or malformed egg can produce physical monsters, may not the same process produce a malformed soul?

Monsters are variations from the accepted normal to a greater or a less degree. As a child may be born without an arm, so one may be born without kindness or the potential of conscience. A man who loses his arms in an accident has a great struggle to adjust himself to the lack, but one born without arms suffers only from people who find him strange. Having never had arms, he cannot miss them. To a monster the norm must seem monstrous, since everyone is normal to himself. To the inner monster it must be even more obscure, since he has no visible thing to compare with others. To a criminal, honesty is foolish. You must not forget that a monster is only a variation, and that to a monster the norm is monstrous.” ― John Steinbeck,