The Red Beanie

And a good day to you, m'lady!

Captain Ahab had his White Whale, and now I have my Red Beanie. After an arduous ordeal (relatively speaking), I finally snagged the object of my desire. Hopefully it won’t pull me under the waves (metaphorically speaking), like Moby-Dick did to Ahab and the crew of the Pequod. (But only time will tell…)

It all started innocently enough. After about a decade of wearing an orange The North Face beanie, I wanted to switch to a red beanie. While we’re on the subject, I hate calling it a “beanie.” It conjures up images of a rotund boy in a propeller cap (and Tim Pool). I’d much rather call it a “stocking cap,” even though that sounds downright Dickensian. Can we find a decent contemporary name for it? Wikipedia calls it a “knit cap,” which I could certainly live with. Whadda ya say?

The only reason for switching to red was to match my winter jacket, which is dark grey (almost black), white and red. I didn’t really think the change was necessary, but who knows? Perhaps if I’d gone with the red beanie instead of the orange on that fateful day at Urban Outfitters in Uptown ten years ago, my life would’ve turned out differently. Maybe I would’ve met the woman of my dreams, gotten married and lived happily ever after. Maybe it’s the discordance of my winter jacket/beanie combination that has kept that woman at arm’s length, rather than all my emotional baggage.

Really what motivated me to get a new knit cap was being unemployed. There’s just something about being out of work that makes me wanna go shopping. I think it’s the combination of boredom and not wanting to feel economically limited by my joblessness.

Traditionally, I would’ve searched my local brick-and-mortar stores for the item, starting with thrift stores, Marshall’s and Burlington Coat Factory. But I didn’t want to spend a lot of time on what would most likely be a wild goose chase. So I started online by just googling “red beanie.” There were plenty of results, but I wanted something that was genuinely warm, like The North Face beanie.

I found a red Hurley beanie on Amazon and ordered it, but when it arrived I knew it wouldn’t cut the mustard. It was too thin to provide adequate insulation for my noggin. Next, I ordered a Carhartt cap, also on Amazon, that would surely be warm enough. I was right about the warmth of it, but the cap was orange, even though the color I’d chosen was “Red Barn.” I examined it carefully to make sure I wasn’t driving myself crazy with this orange-vs.-red obsession, but it was clearly orange.

My next purchase was the same Carhartt cap but in “Chili Pepper.” I almost thought I’d solved the riddle when it showed up, but upon closer inspection it was more of a dark orange than red. I felt like I was being gaslit (by Carhartt? by Amazon? by God Himself?!) into thinking these orange beanies were actually red, like when my best friend in high school insisted that the red Beatles 1962-1966 compilation double album was actually orange. (It’s red, Dan! Just let me have this one!)

This is one of the pitfalls of living alone. I had no one to reassure me that I wasn’t going insane, that these beanies really were orange and not the color of a “Red Barn” or “Chili Pepper,” at least not in the classic sense. (Really, Carhartt/Amazon! It’s bad enough that you called an orange beanie the same color as a “Red Barn,” but then you also had the audacity to say that the color we all associate with “Chili Pepper” is actually dark orange! How dare you!)

My salvation came when I left the madhouse of Amazon and found sanctuary in the warm embrace of a brick-and-mortar website: Dick’s Sporting Goods. Their Rosedale location had a red The North Face beanie. (It was the last one, in fact!) I bought it online and drove to the store to pick it up. It was quite the relief when the cashier brought it out from the back, and it actually looked red inside the clear plastic wrapping.

As I made my way back through the mall, I tore open the plastic, dumped it in a waste receptacle and put the cap on once I was outside. It was warm and red, the only two things I had asked for. One would think that, in the supposed consumer’s paradise of early 21^st Century America, it would be a piece of cake to find such a product or service. But it proved surprisingly difficult, even with my willingness to drop $30 (not including the earlier purchases).

What have I learned from this experience? Mostly, that my belief in the imperial decline of the US is well-founded. But, other than that, I’d say that the “wonders” of the Digital Age are, more and more, resembling blunders. (Yes, I know I’m ripping off a Simpsons bit. That’s the point.) Of course, it’ll all be worth it if Elon gets to Mars and establishes a new beachhead for humanity. (Sadly, there are US citizens who truly believe that. And they call me the traitor!)

The Supreme Court

The Supreme Court are the High Priests of Democracy, divining the will of the Founding Fathers through their interpretations of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and other ancient texts. They use Legalese to explain their decisions, for only this elevated tongue can encompass the full measure of the Founders' thoughts. 

Their interpretations tend to carve out expansive freedoms for the elite, i.e., those with the money, influence and wisdom to know what’s best for everyone. But it is beyond the laity to understand the Founders, for they wrote in mysterious ways and their reasoning was superior to our own. Only the Supremes can understand what the Founders intended and translate their intentions into common speech. 

The previous paragraphs were just a bit of fun, of course. Only fools and Democratic politicians believe that. (Not even Republican politicians are so naive.) I don't even think all Democratic officeholders buy into that bullshit. Most of them probably just use the specter of the Supreme Court as an excuse for why we can't have nice things like student loan forgiveness and abortion. It's a lot easier to explain your "failures" to your base when you've got a reactionary (but untouchable) institution standing in the way. 

We really need to get over this idea that the Supreme Court Justices are above politics. They've always been mired in the mud of politics, down here with the rest of us. But they've never had to get their hands dirty. They can deliver seemingly impartial decisions in the mumbo-jumbo of Legalese without revealing their political biases. Even now that the MSM has abandoned its slavish adoration of the Supremes, Democrats in Congress offer no more than token resistance to the corrupt decisions of a far-right-wing Court. 

Clarence Thomas has been exposed as a prostitute and Samuel Alito as a blatantly political partisan. The Court's reputation is in tatters, and yet the Democrats refuse to even try to impeach them. At best, the Dems are cowards. More likely, they're hiding their own conservative and right-wing tendencies behind the Court's intransigence. Whatever their reasons, they've made it clear that they can't be trusted to halt or even slow our march toward Fascism.

Israel is Digging Its Own Grave

 

 

What Israel is doing right now in Gaza is genocide. They're using the Hamas attack of October 7^th as an excuse to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians.

After the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel had a choice. They could’ve chosen to live in peace with the Palestinians and their neighbors. Or they could’ve chosen expansion. They chose expansion. Ever since, they’ve annexed Palestinian territory in violation of international law and carried out inhuman massacres of Palestinians and Arabs. Since its founding, Israel has killed at least 10 Palestinians for every Israeli killed by a Palestinian.

Peace does not come through oppression of one
's neighbors. It comes through recognizing their humanity and treating them accordingly. The Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called Palestinians "human animals." The Israeli government has no respect for Palestinian humanity, as they've shown through decades of cruel oppression and mindless slaughter.

Israel is eager to kill as many Palestinians as it can without the least pretense of targeting Hamas militants, much less trying them in a court of law, as a civilized society would. What are we to say about a country that targets ambulances? If these are our allies, then God help us, for no earthly power will show us any mercy, just as we refuse to show any for the sick, the old or the children of Gaza.

We’re still operating in the mindset of Pax Americana, when our actions against other countries had no consequences for us. That’s why we were able to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, killing millions in the process, without any real blowback. Israel is just following the example we set in the War on Terror. We killed over a million people supposedly to avenge the fewer-than-3,000 people who were killed on 9/11. Israel has so far killed at least 40,000 supposedly to avenge the 1,200 who were killed on October 7^th, so their revenge ratio is still much lower than ours.

But Israel is digging a hole that it won’t be able to climb out of. The US seems to be losing power quickly and likely won’t be able to protect Israel from the consequences of its actions for much longer. The Western colonial powers have kept the Arabs at bay since the end of World War I. Their desire for justice (and revenge) has been building for over a century.

When these people are released from their bonds, they will be difficult to contain. The more Palestinians Israel kills now, the more terrible the Arabs’ revenge will be. It may be too late to save all the Jews of Israel. But the more Palestinians we save now, the better our chances of saving Israeli Jews down the road.