The Crocus of Hope

“Republicans Grapple with Raising the Minimum Wage” the headline in the morning paper reads, saying everything that need be said regarding the domestic political frontier in the fewest words possible. In the photo accompanying the story The Senator Who Runs Things is wearing his cream-colored linen suit—no one knows what this means, but it means something—looking like a man who still keeps slaves. His posse—4 fellow male Senators from plantation states—form a protective semi-circle around him as he meets the press.

Across the raging sea The Prime Minister of Great Britain announces a tentative path out of that nation’s third and longest lockdown during a press conference held in front of 10 Downing Street. “The crocus of hope is poking through the frost, and spring is on the way,” he says.

Since so much of the news seems to be happening in the early morning hours when we are asleep and the algorithms are flowing, and ‘truth is an endless death agony’ as Celine so artfully put it, threatens to overwhelm even the most dedicated readers, I’m excited to announce A Revolutionary New Way of Reading the Morning Newspaper, and offering it Free of Charge to my readers as part of a 12-Step Breaking News Recovery Program that will Change Your Life.

Overview: Simply subtract The Little that is of Interest to You, which increases exponentially day to day, from The Big Picture, add a small dose or two of The Bottom Line, until you come to the Opinion Section which is stuffed full of advertisements from semi-qualified historians, social scientists, economists, celebrities, twice-a-week columnists, and the commoner who sometimes sneaks in, like the Christian from North Dakota who’s missing his right leg and promises with his hand on The Bible to ask no questions of the person who returns it.