American Madness Journal

 So certain is Santa’s naughty verdict, I doubt America even bothered leaving a stocking out this year. Though down in Texas, under Greg Abbott’s Freedom Grid, I’m told they frankly could use the coal. Yes, I offer season’s greetings from 21st-century America, a...

 I’ve decided to adjust my attitude about this whole Fall-of-Rome thing we’ve got going on in America; I’m just gonna rub it in young folks’ faces, all the rights and privileges I had when I was their age. “Oh yeah, it was fuckin’ fantastic, you could tell the truth...

 I don’t say it enough, at least not directly, but boy howdy, I am gettin’ mighty tired of assholes ruining everything. Look, I understand there are always gonna be assholes, that’s unavoidable, but maybe we should stop putting them in charge of shit, on account of...

 I am ridiculously, insanely, unhealthily, eye-twitchingly thankful for this holiday-shortened week, and the proportionate reduction in wingnut fuckery it brought. Anyway, I’ve got a can-shaped, vodka-infused blob of cranberry sauce waiting for me, so let’s get...

 Forgive me if I’m off my game tonight, it’s been a dark, ugly, infuriating day. I’d love to focus on the good news, like the recently-enacted bipartisan infrastructure bill, or the House passing the Build Back Better Act, but the sheer, institutionalized efficiency...

 Hey, I see that infrastructure bill finally passed the House, about nine minutes after I got last week’s post up, no doubt because Joe Biden covets my Friday night thunder. In fairness, the Democratic Party’s achievements this year, the trillions of dollars worth of...

 Wow, not the best week, huh? Well, I hate to disrupt the traditional Democratic post-electoral-defeat hand-wringing and self-flagellation, but life goes on and so does the fight. Besides, if you keep crying into your beer, you’ll ruin it, and if there’s one thing I...

 Hey, before we get started tonight, a quick pro tip for the savvy news consumer: laminate the daily paper before reading it; that way, when one of the many stories of ascendant American fascism inevitably causes you to projectile vomit, you don’t render unread...

 Lotta fun little stories this week about cocaine hippo personhood and zebra honeypots and such, and I bet having a funny animal news blog would be goddamn delightful. Alas, I’ve made…different choices. Well, let’s wade into this shit, shit ain’t gonna wade into...

 I never thought I’d wax nostalgic over the days when the sole purpose of the Republican Party was to make rich people richer, but now that they’re bringing equal guile and fervor to efforts to feed and grow their shiny new fascist death cult base, I confess I...

 This week has been…an unusually specific We Didn’t Start the Fire verse, and that’s all I’m going to say on the matter. You may want to put on something splatter-proof before proceeding. I mean, what the fuck. A whistleblower granted the world a terrifying peek...

 Kind of a slow news week, meaning American fascism creeped a little more quietly than usual, I suppose. Which is welcome enough, as is the subsiding of the Delta surge, certainly…I guess I just wish we’d managed to build a better world for John Hinckley to come back...

 Like a lot of folks, I think it’s a shame public schools don’t teach kids essential shit like paying bills and making budgets, but, reflecting on current events, the more problematic omission is clearly Rudimentary Con Man Identification; the average American is just...

 Life in America in 2021 is like being trapped in a snow globe that somebody won’t stop shaking because they’re afraid you’ll gather your bearings enough to notice the crazed, dead stares in your idyllic Norman Rockwell neighbors’ eyes. Also, the flakes are bath...

 I’m feeling kinda nostalgic tonight, for the bland normalcy of the Before Times. Wouldn’t it be nice to post some innocuous gag about the mildly irritating annual reemergence of pumpkin spice everything, and then just go about your day, free from worry about the...

 Longtime readers know this blog’s opening paragraph has traditionally been a needlessly verbose “stuff sure is crazy” sort of thing; it’s a gag that’s worked for me for a long time, but would anybody mind if today, I just…screamed? I need me a good, sturdy, primal...

 Just to rip the bandaid off right up front, we are indeed now in week three of the Won’t Take No Experimental Vaccine Pass the Horse Dewormer story, in case anybody woke up this morning hoping they’d somehow Rip Van Winkled themselves into saner times. You’re not...

 It was naive of me, but I really did believe things would be a little less crazy, and a little less stupid by now. However, here in the 297th consecutive week of the Exact Same Right Wing Pandemic Tantrum, it’s clear I was foolish to ever dream this fever could...

 Has anybody given any thought to putting the good folks at Moderna or Pfizer to work on a cure for brain maggots? Cuz it turns out it’s not enough to just create a solution to the biggest public health crisis we’ve seen in decades, there’s whole ’nother step; you...

 Big breaking news this week, friends; my sources are telling me several mammalian orders, and perhaps even a few ambitious reptiles, will shortly be making a play for that coveted spot atop the food chain, now that humanity has proven so willing to piss on the fruits...

  If you’ve ever read this blog before, you know the opening paragraph is always some needlessly verbose variation on “can you fucking believe how fucking crazy this shit is,” and I have never once needed to deviate from that format, because seriously, can you...

  Keeping up on current events, one winds up banging one’s head on one’s desk with some regularity, so I can’t be certain I’m not hallucinating most of this…that’d be preferable, honestly. I would like to request hallucinations of a more enjoyable nature,...

  Every day is a thrilling new adventure, here in th’Land of the Free slash th’Home of the Brave; you tuck yourself in at night, never knowing which of your rights the power-drunk, illegitimate SCOTUS majority will take from you next. When you wake up, you don’t...

  So, I was feeling kinda judgy about the latest cynical serving of Jurassic Product, you know, “you honestly expect me to believe they’d keep making dinosaurs after five movies’ worth of T-rex rampages” kind of stuff, but then I gave a moment’s passing thought...

  Are we absolutely certain it was heat that killed all those cows in Kansas? Did anybody check to see if any of them had, like, a Twitter account? Cellphone with a couple news apps? Because it’s been a lot lately, y’know? Just…a lot. Well, the second week of the...