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Journalism and other myths.
Welcome to 2016 – when the actual election starts. It would be easy to say it will be the news story of the year. But as important as it will be a bigger story is developing, as it did in 2015.
The conflict between Sunni and Shia Islam is more than a millenium old. It resonates today because the region is emerging, as so many other developing nations are, away from the thumb of Western influences.
It’s not our fight – and we can probably only make it worse. But it will be hard to stay out of.
With 2015 out of the way, it’s time to look forward. But as we’ve shown many times, the best way to draw a line into the future is an extrapolation from the past. Such is the real tradition at New Year’s – looking back and ahead at the same time.
Besides, the stillness of the present time moment is usually more of a hangover.
By the time you read this, the Fed Open Market Committee (FOMC) has probably raised their benchmark Fed Funds rate and given guidance for the next few years. More importantly, everyone has freaked out one way or the other and the stock and bond markets have probably done something that has everyone puzzled.
We still live in a financial world that defies expectations. It has to be “experienced”, just like the various things you did in your mis-spent youth that built “character”. The question becomes – what great wisdom are we learning from all of this?
Anything resembling an actual “election” is still months away. But the circus is running in full (questionable) colors well in advance. There is one candidate who knows a circus – not as the bland ringleader, but as the craziest clown there is.
There’s no value in naming this particular clown because he thrives on hearing his name. That’s probably what this is really all about as narcissistic politics finally crawls up its own backside to die. He was recently dubbed “White ISIS” (Whisis) by the still-excellent Daily Show for his desperate willingness to promote the main goal of ISIS – conflict between the Muslim world and the West. So we’ll use that term.
But that’s less important than the reaction to the big show because somehow Whisis finally crossed the line. That is, there is a line. We found the line!
The conversation among commuting comrades on the 94 bus turned to the San Bernadino shooting. More accurately, it turned toward it and then veered away:
“Can you believe this one?”
“It was like an place where they help developmentally disabled or something.”
“Yeah. That was messed up.”
“Totally.”
Details established, the words trailed off. Anything more was beyond us this Friday morning. The same conversation, more or less, repeated at work:
“They were a husband and wife.”
“Yeah, they had a six month old baby.”
“Unbelievable.”
From there it went nowhere. Where could it go? What was there left to say?
Barataria - The work of Erik Hare 