[Seth Says] Maybe everything will be okay?

Just Squidding.
 

As if the pandemic, climate change, and Russia weren't sufficient cause for worry, now we have the Supreme Court poised to overturn Roe v. Wade. And if that weren't bad enough (it is, plenty of bad, an abundance of bad, too much bad), it's also clearly the jumping off point for a stream of additional theocratic rulings against privacy and bodily autonomy. The kind of stream too deep to Wade through, and by removing the Roe option, soon we'll be up shit creek without a paddle.

(Yes, I'm aware that Roe spelled that way means caviar and not propelling a boat, no need to have a row over it.)

I don't know if the country will hold together. Which might sound incredibly overdramatic, given America's ceaseless history of contention and internal strife, often with more vitriol than we're seeing now. But even vitriolic anger over disagreements on things like what drugs, guns, and taxes should be legal can be worked around. It's much more difficult to work around a disagreement over who is a person deserving full human rights and control over their own body. Lincoln certainly recognized this, and yet the problem keeps turning up, like a bad penny, which also has Lincoln on it, unless it's a really bad penny.

Anyway, things aren't great. And I'm sorry to leap right in with that instead of a cheery, "Thanks for subscribing!", but I figure if you want pandering, there's always YouTube. I figure you subscribe to this newsletter for... uh... whaddaya call 'em... well anyway, thanks for subscribing.

 

This fortnight's columns are a little less on the haha side -- which was actually the original name for the dark side in Star Wars. Okay, that's not true. But fun fact: Darth Vader is actually short for Dartholomew. Okay, that's also not true. That's the problem, you just can't believe anything you read these days. As I explain in last week's column, Trust Rusts.

But if you only read one of my columns this month, it should be this week's. With everything going on, as mentioned, it's clear that we are amidst a battle to determine which Americans deserve control over their own bodies. And abortion rights are far from the only front. There are also children in school learning a lot more than just Latin. And speaking of which, if the title of this week's article doesn't tip my hand, you may be surprised to learn what they're teaching kids in schools these days. You could call it A Sinister Plot.

 

Maybe it's a bad idea to open a humor newsletter by talking about abortion? Then again, George Carlin opened one of his specials with this (NSFW) bit you may have seen floating around social media. It does seem like Carlin always has something to say about whatever the current political problems are, which is impressive for someone who has been dead for well over a dozen years.

I know, George Carlin is like the Bible: everyone interprets it how they want, and can probably dig hard enough to find something they can argue supports their position. But another way Carlin is like the Bible is that I've probably spent more time studying source texts than most people, so I feel justified in my interpretations. (Unlike most people, whose Biblical and Carlinian opinions are always followed by, "although I'm probably wrong, what do I know, I'm not Joe Pesci and/or the sun!") (although actually if they made that joke I'd feel like they were slightly more justified as a Carlin expert.)

Carlin was the first stand-up comedy show I ever saw in person, my parents took me to see him as a birthday present at a theatre in the round that has long since disappeared. And regardless of how you feel about George Carlin, one can't deny that the man dove into controversial topics with reckless abandon, and then stuck around to do some recking until he got the W, which is good because that's how you spell wrecking.

 

Anyway, I didn't end up writing a column on Roe v Wade this week, but my Sinister Plot column is about bodily autonomy, and certainly with some Republican legislators already making noise about using the conservative court to continue overturning precedents to do things like restricting birth control, I think most Americans realize (or should) that all of these issues of privacy and bodily autonomy are connected. Certainly enough Republican legislators and Supreme Court Justices realize it that if Roe does get overturned, the rest of the country is going to realize it all too soon.

But you can't start *and* end a newsletter with doom. Although you could read that backwards if you were in the mood. I'm just glad you were in the mood to read my newsletter, so thanks for that, and I'll be back in a couple weeks with another two columns. Meanwhile, try to avoid the doom -- or should I say because it's doom caused by a few mf'ers, DOOM. (Just remember all caps when you spell the man name.)


Best Wishes From Latveria,
Seth