[Seth Says] It's Not The Heat, It's The Stupidity

By which I mean "hot enough for Youth Apocalypse", because it is the younger generations who will be completely and utterly screwed by how we've pushed the climate to the brink. Us older folks (yes, I'm an older folk now)(as you know if you are younger than I am)(and if you're older than I am, I'm just your fellow older folk)(I recently saw something on social media about how neurodivergent people use a preponderance of parentheses)(oh look I've forgotten how this sentence started, let's all go back and check together, it'll be a fun group activity) will probably kick off before that, whether due to one of the other smaller but more immediate apocalypses like covid and gun violence, or just life, by which I mean, eventual absence thereof.

"Hey Seth, what's wrong with a Hello of friendly greeting? Did you know most newsletter writers start with something nice like Hello Friends or Dear Valued Subscriber and then take a paragraph to chat about something pleasant before leaping right in to the heavy and the nonsense and the heavy nonsense?"

Well, a few things:

a) I've never been good at small talk.

b) Technically, I did open by talking about the weather. According to my research, this is one of the favored topics of small talk. Hello, fellow humans!

c) I guess I'm not most newsletter writers. But that's probably just as well, since I have enough voices already.

Anyway, it's hot out, and it's likely going to become even more hot, where the "going to" future refers both to a couple weeks from now at the July/August cusp when things really heat up, and the years from now as climate change continues to worsen. Which I guess makes it a really bad time for, to pick a random example, a corrupted Supreme Court to make a blanket ruling curtailing federal ability to combat climate change.

But hey, today we got our registration to vote by mail, in the mail (appropriately), since Massachusetts is a no-excuse-needed vote by mail state. I'm a fan of voting by mail, since it means you can simultaneously avoid a car trip to the polls, avoid sharing germs with your entire community at the polling place, and try to make sure that some of the people in government might put the future of the planet above profits for corporate polluters.

Also ice cream, ice cream is good.
 

We all scream because we are reading about our world on social media.

It's gotten to the point where the elephant in the room has been stepping on people for a while now, so it's not like we haven't talked about the elephant in the room, we've talked a whole dang lot about it, and people are tired of hearing about it because they can see the elephant, they don't need to talk about it all the time because they want a break sometimes from constant elephantine doom, but also it feels weird to not be talking about it because there is an elephant stomping on people and we are in the room and we are people.

So that's the balance (read: precarious) that I'm trying to, uh, balance as I deal with life and also with my columns for this issue. Good thing there are two columns per fortnight, because 2 is a very good number for balancing things.

First: Hey, did you know there's an elephant?! Well, this time at least I try to be a little more subtle in talking about it, with this fun multiple-choice Constitution Quiz. Try it, you'll like it! (I actually do believe you'll like it; FWIW, my multiple-choice quiz columns tend to be fast reads and generally enjoyed by people. I don't write them very often because I'm not Buzzfeed and I'm more interested in writing what I think is worth writing than in generating clicks, and it's that kind of integrity that means I will probably lose my column next month.)

But maybe you'd like to read about not an elephant! Well, pack your trunks, and get ready for a shopping trip, because it's time to Shop 'Til You Drop! Also, apropos of nothing, some years ago I wrote a poem that pointed out "Pachyderm // is a wacky term", which I like as a rhyme. But I guess that's irrelephant.
 

The above being the answer to the question, "How do you make an elephant float?"

Anyway, as mentioned, this is hot out season, and for those of us without central air conditioning, also hot in season. (By which I mean hot inside season, not that being hot is in season)(which it is, I just don't mean that. If television has taught us anything, it's that being hot is always in season)(that's basically the definition of what's in season)(unless it's MSG, which is not often enough in seasoning)(yes, I said not often enough, rather than too often, because it turns out that it tastes good and isn't bad for you and a lot of the anti-MSG messaging was repeated due to racism against Chinese restaurants, which is why it was called "Chinese restaurant syndrome" in the one article half a century ago that started this whole panic. Anyway, that's why Chinese restaurants spent decades going out of their way to avoid putting it in their food and putting up NO MSG signs, even though it was in a lot of canned soup that the people avoiding Chinese restaurants were eating. Okay, this got a bit long for a parenthetical aside, but maybe you learned something, so that's fun, right?)

Anyway x2, with it being hot inside, I hope you are all taking care to not expire of heat exhaustion. Especially because there are many more fun ways to expire. Unless your heat exhaustion is caused by a certain type of physical activity. Which, since some of my family reads this newsletter, I will specify as "really fun jumping jacks". But death by chocolate has got to be preferable to the dehydration and suffering of heat exhaustion.

Which all brings me back to my main point:
 

Never let it be said that my newsletter doesn't take stances on important issues. I believe ice cream is good. It's a fine way to deal with exhaustion from heat, and exhaustion of spirit, and it's dairy, dairy important to have some in your freezer, unless you hate people who have had the front of their feet amputated, in which case you should have some other substitute that works for the lack-toes intolerant.

Anyway, drink lots of water, treat yourself to a frozen dessert, and don't overexert yourself during the peak heat. Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noon day sun, but cool cats stay inside. (If only I got paid to write that, it'd be a fee line.)

Thanks as always for reading, and we'll be back in two weeks with another two columns.



Hopefully Not Too Warm Regards,
Seth