Dingus of the week: This freaking asteroid

Come on, swerve, you coward

This week, I tried to make a plan with a friend for Thursday. And he was like, “Oh, that’s the Fourth of July.” And that’s where America and I are at right now. I’m forgetting that bitch’s birthday.

And for good reason. Not much to recommend this country this week. Our institutions are failing us. The Supreme Court has ruled that the whole monarchy thing that we died to get rid of? Well, never mind, it’s back and the president can do crimes without fear of prosecution as long as they’re “official.”

And in the middle of it all, Newsweek is publishing op-eds from men scolding Taylor Swift like it’s 1872 and she’s an unwed woman of ill repute showing too much ankle in the streets of Cincinnati. I have to think people publishing takes like this — you know, that are basically designed in a lab to make people mad — have some sort of cancellation fetish. 

They walk around saying things like, “Women shouldn’t read!” and then when people get mad at them they get a job working for the Free Press writing about how we aren’t a democracy anymore because you can’t go around discussing the merits of beheading babies. Then they write a book and David Brooks studiously weighs the merits of their ideas. 

It’s barely even worth getting mad at. I say we reinstate the draft but just to stop men from writing takes like that. Sir, go to war!

Also, last week the gerontocracy reared its feeble head to remind us once again that the balance of power between the three branches of government is about as solid as the rotting floorboards of an abandoned home. The ensuing discourse — “You drop out” “No, YOU drop out” “No, I’m rubber you’re glue, whoever says I should drop out should do so too!” — was simply an echo chamber of our own institutional failings. I’ve been reading the takes and thinking about them and I’ve decided the other solution is to put everyone together and knock all their heads together like one of those Newton’s Cradle toys.

And all of those people and things would be great dinguses. But I would like to point out someone who could have saved us from all of this. Someone who could have ended this. Someone who could have with one swift blow helped us all out: This asteroid.

There is an asteroid passing between Earth and the moon on Saturday and it had the opportunity to help us all out by doing a little swerve toward Earth. But no, that ho is going to miss us by 180,000 miles. That distance is simply nothing in the grand scheme of space. Do us a little favor, Asteroid, jerk the wheel just a little.

According to Peter Brown, Canada Research Chair in meteor astronomy and a professor at Western University in London, Ontario, "This is a big object. An object of this size is going to have the equivalent impact energy in the hundreds of megaton approaching a gigaton. That'd be a regional impact. It's the sort of thing that if it hit the east coast of the U.S., you would have catastrophic effects over most of the eastern seaboard. But it's not big enough to affect the whole world."

Don’t threaten us with a good time, buddy.

The CBC article about the asteroid noted that in space we are in a “cosmic shooting gallery” which makes me think of Earth as sitting in a giant dunk tank while aliens take turns tossing asteroids at us hoping to get a hit. Last time we had a direct hit, the dinosaurs got taken out. And I can think of a few paleolithic creatures still roaming the earth that are ready for the asteroid.

And now for something good

America may be in its flop era but you know what? We have HOT DOGS.

We also have Suni Lee, Simone Biles, Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey, and Hezly Rivera. This team is gonna make me, an exhausted American with no rights, stand up and cheer, “USA USA!!”

Radicalize your holiday parties with this revolutionary mix of protest music.

BABY RHINO!

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What I am drinking

This weekend, I had to drive to Boone to pick my 13-year-old daughter up from camp because she was running a 102 temp. And god bless that camp nurse who suggested I let her just stay there and get better. Because, ma’am, what? You have a camp full of damp teenagers and you want a diseased one to stay?

I got my kid and brought her home to convalesce, which was the good call because, while she is better now, she was exhausted. I have no idea what has swept through my home this month. First I had a horrible stomach flu, then my son got it and was in the hospital with dehydration, then my daughter. Someone is trying to poison us. That’s the only conclusion I can safely draw given the evidence.

So, this holiday weekend, I will be making something easy, low ABV and delicious. That’s right, it’s time to bring back the Spaghett! Aperol mixed with Miller High Life. It’s an Aperol spritz for the American palette. 

The Spritz for those of us with farmer’s tans and a complicated relationship with Ford trucks.

Happy birthday, America. I got you absolutely nothing this year.