As IF Times

Source: The Doomsday Clock just advanced, ‘thanks to Trump’: It’s now just 2½ minutes to ‘midnight.’ – The Washington Post

You know what they say about a broken clock.  In that case, a broken clock would be more accurate than the ‘doomsday clock’ propagated by this cabal of atomic scientists for decades now.

The recent claim from this group is that because of Trump, the clock now figuratively points to a few minutes before kaboom day. Not North Korea’s version of Elmer Fudd playing with matches, not Iran enriching uranium for nuclear weapons, not Pakistan and India whom are already in possession of them and not Russia with their aggressive leader Putin.  Apparently, it’s the election of Donald Trump that pushes the minute hand on the death clock.

This of course is just one of the numerous swords of Damocles looming above the human race if you paid attention to the numerous chicken little industries that always seem to flourish.  The tin foil hat business should be booming.  When not paralyzed by the imminent threat of nuclear annihilation, people are also paying through confiscatory taxes to assuage the effects of hysterical global warming, also incidentally on the verge of irreversible damage.  Or at least, was a while ago.  They’ll have to push the date back a bit to get more money. But we get it; the end of the world isn’t always that easy to pinpoint.

No less than Stephen Hawking has raised the imminent possibility of alien takeover, not to mention the likelihood of a catastrophic asteroid strike. At various points in my lifetime, hysteria has been pushed on imminent human extinction events ranging from: starvation, disease, overpopulation, religious retribution, Y2K, global cooling, now of course, global warming, atomic war, asteroid crashes and alien takeover.  The one that will soon be in vogue will be robot takeover, so we may want to stock up on metal detectors.

Someone can certainly make a lot of money on this.  There’s no point being paralyzed like myotonic goats awaiting death. As mentioned earlier, fashionable tin foil hats can be offered for sale on Amazon.  What about worry beads? They’d have to be sustainable of course…though that shouldn’t really matter.  How about special lotion for all the hand wringing brought on by on-going angst? We hear of billionaires building bunkers in anticipation of the final kabing, so someone’s already taking advantage of the gullible.  Whatever the product, it may as well be shameless because there’s no downside.  If it all ends, well then you’ve done your bit.  If it doesn’t end, you at least get rich. Now that is a good ending.

Source: John Lewis Boycotted George W. Bush Inauguration | National Review

It’s a party.  People are invited; they don’t come; big deal.  Can’t be friends with everyone.  Ironically, if these people did not receive an invitation, we can imagine the bleating about exclusionism, racism, sexism, whatever ‘-ism’ you can think of; and they’d be bleating to be invited.

The thing about a free country is that people can follow their own conscience about what or whom to believe and can take any legal course of action they choose in furtherance thereof.

Considering Rep Lewis’ rationale for not attending the ceremonial inauguration is however, laughable in its logic.  He (and many others) cling to the straw that the recent election was illegitimate, which really means, their side lost and they are pouting.  It’s as if he can’t accept the Green Bay Packers’ victory over the Dallas Cowboys in the divisional NFL playoff game.  Like the results of the national election, no amount of breath holding is going to change that.  As noted in the article, he also declined to attend Bush 43’s inaugural as well.  The guy is a poor loser.

As the media characterizes Lewis’ position as one of principle, it’s actually reinforcing his refusal to accept stark reality and being denied his way.  This is the petulant behavior of young children.   This is reflective of the constituency which he represents.  While amusing, it’s also frightening that such a large swath of the populace are of this mindset, wherein logic is an abstract concept and reason and law are to be observed only when it suits them.   Lewis has been living off the street cred afforded him because a brick fell on his head during a civil rights demonstration over 40 years ago.  This is reminiscent of the character that Danny Kaye played in the film “White Christmas” who gestured to his arm every time he wanted his way.  Forty years have passed since then.  Things have changed.  Lewis and his followers don’t accept that.

Lewis’ stand is not, as media outlets like to portray it, a gesture of conscience.  It’s a stark unmasking of what he really stands for; a perpetuation of the division within society.  Which brings to light the issue of whether he will vacate his office if his constituents eventually vote him out.