I read this kind of article and I want to retch. I also got no sleep today so I’m queasy as it is but this shit doesn’t help. An excerpt for those who don’t want to click:

Based on the excerpts now available, Fire and Fury presents a man in the White House who is profoundly ignorant of politics, policy, and anything resembling the substance of perhaps the world’s most demanding job. He is temperamentally unstable. Most of what he says in public is at odds with provable fact, from “biggest inaugural crowd in history” onward. Whether he is aware of it or not, much of what he asserts is a lie. His functional vocabulary is markedly smaller than it was 20 years ago; the oldest person ever to begin service in the White House, he is increasingly prone to repeat anecdotes and phrases. He is aswirl in foreign and financial complications. He has ignored countless norms of modern governance, from the expectation of financial disclosure to the importance of remaining separate from law-enforcement activities. He relies on immediate family members to an unusual degree; he has an exceptionally thin roster of experienced advisers and assistants; his White House staff operations have more in common with an episode of The Apprentice than with any real-world counterpart. He has a shallower reserve of historical or functional information than previous presidents, and a more restricted supply of ongoing information than many citizens. He views all events through the prism of whether they make him look strong and famous, and thus he is laughably susceptible to flattering treatment from the likes of Putin and Xi Jinping abroad or courtiers at home.

I’ve been reading a variation on this piece for a year. A year. And for just as long I’ve been writing a variation on this post. 

We are in the midst of an enormous transformation of the global economy that will affect and is already affecting all of us. And instead of talking about that, this is what we are doing? Producing outrage-generating listicles about the limited vocabulary of somebody who is not only a billionaire and a TV superstar but also the most successful US politician at the moment?

I’m reading an article on Cambodia – Cambodia! – and the byline mentions Trump in big bold letters even though the article has fuck-all to do with him. It’s like people are stuck and can’t move on. Seven more years of this collective madness? And then they’ll run Omarrosa and she’ll obviously win, and the whole crazy obsession repeats?

And then folks wonder why so many people don’t even consider voting. It’s very hard to care about any of this because it’s so completely ridiculous and divorced from any reality. 

I just almost got the Reagan Airport evacuated. I left my bag on the ground and walked away for 30 minutes while I was chatting on the phone about the complexities of learning Basque. When I came back for it, there was a police cordon and dogs sniffing for explosives. In my defense, I got up at 2 am to make this flight and had spent the last two days leaving the house to go to the airport only to have my flight cancelled the total of 6 times. This kind of thing screws with my brain something major. 

I used to like Joy Reid. And then I turn on the news to wake myself before my very early flight and hear her announce with Glee that Roy Moore is a bigot because his wife said their lawyer is a Jew and “it turned out – get this! – that he’s a Christian!” As a Soviet dissident writer once said facetiously, “we thought he was a Jew but he turned out to be a drinking person.”

I understand it’s super crucial to prove Roy Moore is a bigot because he hasn’t yet lost the election in Alabama but would it be possible to do that without outdoing his presumed bigotry? ‘Cause this crap stinks to high heaven. 

During our daytime date, N and I discussed what it feels like when one’s cherished plans collapse (like my NYC trip). N says he doesn’t get angry or stressed out if he knows the issue that foiled his plans is not his fault. That stunned me because for me it’s the other way round. 

If something doesn’t work because I fucked up, I wasn’t organized, I failed to do what I needed, then I accept it and feel at peace. What bugs me if I did everything right but things didn’t work out because of factors outside of my control. 

His reaction is a product of an angry, castigating parent and mine of an emotionally chaotic, unpredictable one. 

But hey, if you saw how calm I am right now, in the face of not being able to get to a conference that I dreamt about for 14 years, you’d be stunned. That’s personal growth, folks. 

Yes, Woody Allen’s so-called art is all about his severe erectile dysfunction. You don’t need to read mountains of the crap he’s scribbled to figure that out. I knew it after suffering through ten minutes each of two of his films. The guy is a textbook ED sufferer who never found medical help for his very obvious issue. 

Re: preceding post, it’s interesting how such extremely ignorant people love to publish lists of prohibitory commands. As if anybody were eagerly expecting their commands as to what not to do. 

Such folks’ horizons are limited by their ignorance. The world is confusing and scary. By yelling “don’t! stop! avoid! cease and desist!” they create an illusion of being in control. 

A good liberal arts education is crucial because without it you get aggressively ignorant people like the author of this shameful screed. The saddest thing is that this poor creature doesn’t have a friend or an acquaintance to help her understand that she needs to stop writing and start reading instead. 

I’m not in New York, but instead I’ll get to have a daytime date with N, after which we’ll go pick up Klara together. So I’m having a good time no matter what. Bite it, JFK, LaGuardia, Delta, and American Airlines.