Well, friendos, we made it to the end of another year, hobbling into space dock on impulse drives only because our dilithium crystals are depleted, our beryllium sphere is damaged, the navicomputer has been sabotaged, and decks four through twelve were blown apart by Klingon torpedoes and TIE lasers, and we’re leaking atmo out into space like water through a sieve. But we made it. We’d cheer if we could — one final grand HUZZAH! — but a) we’re just too exhausted and war-weary, and b) the Reavers are still coming for us. The best we can manage is a slight waggle of the eyebrows and near-imperceptible nod of the head, but we did it … PHEW!
The end of the year — these last few years at any rate — feels more and more to me like what Gandalf called “the deep breath before the plunge.” (Yes, I’m aware I’m mixing science fiction and fantasy analogies here, shuddup.) The month of December is our Minas Tirith. The Keep is currently intact, the upper levels are still holding, but the forces of Mordor are beating Grond against the outside gate. It’s the end of the year, and we can take a moment to sit and catch our breath and be grateful we’re still alive. But it’s only a matter of time before we’re jumping right back into the fray, fighting for our lives.
Rightfully, we should take a minute to reflect on the year. Where did we have our victories? Where were we overrun? Where should we turn our focus to prepare more for the coming year? Which fortifications need rebuilt and reinforced? Most important, where are we gonna find another beryllium sphere?
*Aaww…look at that little injured one. Look how they’re all helping him. Wait, no they’re not. They’re not helping him at all. What are they doing? Run! Run for your lives!*
Oh well, that’s life, I guess. Sometimes you’re the main character and sometimes you’re the disposable extra.
You might recall at the start of this year I quit social media. Deleted my FaceBook/Meta account *zip*. Deleted my Twitter account *zap*. Facebook, so I’ve heard, is quickly becoming the MySpace of the interweb, a place where all the old people hang out while the young folks flock to TikTok and Instagram and BeReal and WhatsApp. And don’t even get me started about Twitter. Elon Musk used to be the hipster-new age-visionary-innovator-billionaire who was gonna colonize Mars and give us all self-driving electric vehicles and reverse global warming and re-freeze the melting ice caps. Flying cars by 2030? Yeah! Tourist trips to the space station? Yeah! Moon base hotels? Yeah! That dude bought Twitter and just kinda went NUTS. Fired everybody. Reinstated all the previously-booted whack-jobs and gave them back their old platforms. Smeared all the moderator doors with plastic explosives and burned that place to the ground.
Did I know that was all gonna happen at the start of the year? Nope. Had no clue. I just knew those platforms weren’t doing me any favors. I wasn’t getting out of them what I needed, which was a sense of community and a place to set down my soap box and shout into the void. I was hoping to attract like-minded people to my cause, whatever that cause might have been. But thanks to the algorithms in those spaces, everything that came in and went out just got scrambled. (Picture Mark Zuckerberg as Lonestar flying around the metaverse in his Winnebago shooting raspberry jam at everyone’s radars.) Somehow my messages only seemed to reach the nutballs, trolls, and sock puppets, and who needs that?
Then, mid-year, everyone started prepping us for the midterms. What a good time that was. “It’s gonna be a red wave! No, it’s gonna be a red tsunami! No, it’s gonna be a red extinction-level event!” Turned out to be a cup of red water than kinda rippled inside the car when the T-Rex took a step.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m glad the GOP didn’t completely win both houses on Capitol Hill. In my worst fears, I pictured January 6th all over again. Except this time, instead of unauthorized MAGA crazies breaking into the capitol and smearing sh!t all over the senate walls, these MAGA crazies would be newly-elected public officials actually working in the capitol, but still spreading their deranged conspiracy sh!t all over the senate.
I’m glad the Dems maintained control of the Senate, and I’m glad the GOP won only a razor-thin majority in the House. It could have been so much worse, right? But geez, people! Did it honestly have to be that close?!? I mean, we’re talking about candidates like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert and JD Vance and Kari Lake and Herschel Walker. Herschel Walker folks! The guy who thinks bad air is floating over here from China. The guy who disavows knowledge of his own kids and baby-mommas. The guy cosplaying as a police officer. The guy debating whether vampires are cooler than werewolves.
While the media and the Dems were busy celebrating the fact that they didn’t get trounced nearly as badly as they’d feared, I’m sitting over here scratching my head wondering what is WRONG with people in this country? MTG and Boebert and Vance all WON their races. Greene won easily by a 32% margin. Boebert won by just over five hundred votes. Vance won Ohio by six percentage points. Kari Lake lost, but only barely. And the Warnock-Walker race in Georgia was so close they had to go into overtime with a runoff election, with Warnock pulling out a win at the buzzer with a freak blindfolded Hail Mary lob to the endzone.
It never should have been that close. We should not be giving any oxygen to conspiracy-theory nuts like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert and Kari Lake and JD Vance and Herschel Walker (and so many others, mind you). And yet we have WAY TOO MANY people in this country fitting them with air hoses and administering CPR to keep them alive and kicking. MAGA Republicans are a cancer to the democratic life of our republic. And instead of pumping the party with chemo and radiation, and cracking open their ribs to cut the cancer out, this country is feeding them asbestos and blowing second-hand smoke down their lungs and kicking them naked out into the sun until their skin gets nicely darkened with oversized patches of melanoma.
The problem isn’t the candidates, of course. The problem is us. There are just too many of us supporting these awful people. We keep saying we want better candidates, but that’s not really true. We HAD good candidates this cycle. The candidates aren’t really the problem. The problem is that too many people in this country have shifted towards lunacy. People in this country are no longer interested in things like leadership and integrity and ideals and values. We just want someone to entertain us, and we’ll vote for whoever does that best. No everyone, mind you — team normal is still strong enough to keep this country together. But there are enough crazies that it’s a real problem.
With the lights out, it’s less dangerous
Nirvana
Here we are now, entertain us
I feel stupid and contagious
Here we are now, entertain us
So here we are. Another deep breath before plunging right back into it. 2022 wasn’t awful. At least not as awful as it could have been. I’m still sane, for the most part. I made it to the end. I’m hobbling into port, albeit slowly, but hey I’m still moving under my own power, and that’s at least something. I’ll replenish my dilithium crystals and repair my navicomputer and be off and plunging into wormholes again before you can say seditious conspiracy.
