This is the dingus of the week, the weekly newsletter where I round up something good and bad in the news and share links and drinks. As always, if you love the dingus of the week, please subscribe. And if you can’t afford a paid subscription and really want one, just let me know.
The FSO Safer is an oil tanker currently moored in the Red Sea. The tanker has been stranded in the sea since the 2015 Yemeni civil war due to a dispute about who is responsible for it. As such, the boat has been rusting and corroding for years and is now going to fall apart at any minute, which would be a problem because the boat is full of oil.
The UN recently stepped in with a brilliant idea: A GoFundMe campaign to prevent a disastrous oil spill. That’s right. A bunch of people shirked responsibility for an oil tanker until it got to a moment of crisis. And now, the UN, a governing body comprised of the wealthiest and most influential nations in the world, is shifting responsibility onto the shoulders of individuals.
You know, the very same individuals who are struggling to pay for gas and groceries and our literal healthcare bills. The very same individuals struggling under crippling student loans in a time of high inflation and a flatlining economy. The very same individuals who were supposed to just figure out a public health disaster and did so poorly. Now these very same individuals are to help fund the cleanup of a disintegrating oil tanker? I simply do not know why we have governments or governing bodies if not to sort things like this out. Let’s just be honest, institutions are failing us, if the best the UN can come up with is to put up a GoFundMe for an oil disaster.
We simply cannot GoFundMe our way out of societal collapse. We cannot bootstrap, positive-thinking, girl-boss, or crypto-boy our way out of here. We need our leaders and institutions to actually show up for us and do their literal jobs.
I’ve seen disaster firsthand. I’ve seen people band together and struggle to cobble together nonprofit and crowdfunding assistance. It’s inspiring to see people coming together. But it’s also patchy and ineffective. People fall through the cracks. Solutions like this are incomplete and often don’t reach the people who need it the most. Crowdfunding your way out of a disaster is like trying to put a bandaid over a cut artery. And guess what, those solutions wouldn’t need to exist if our governments and institutions did the simple tasks to which they were elected to do.
We simply cannot GoFundMe our way out of societal collapse. We cannot bootstrap, positive-thinking, girl-boss, or crypto-boy our way out of here. We need our leaders and institutions to actually show up for us and do their literal jobs.
Runners-Up:
There was a lot going on this week as the Senate resumed their hearings into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. And we learned that the danger to Pence was real, like really real. And Trump’s attorney John Eastman knew his plan to overturn the election was illegal and tried it anyway. And not unrelatedly, Eastman casually asked for a pardon. Just, you know, if anyone had a few spare pardons lying around, he’d like one for trying to subvert democracy. I would also like one, just for safekeeping. I’ll put it on the shelf next to my Plan B. I’m a prepper, but the things I hoard are birth control and presidential pardons.
This is all bad. Very bad. And as the hearing unfolds, I don’t think it’s going to get any better.
And Now, for a Good Thing:
I’ve heard some feedback for a while now that perhaps, to balance out the dingus of the week, I should highlight something good or interesting. And I’ve thought about this for a while, and I think it’s a good idea. Initially, I resisted because I usually resist schmaltz. But I don’t think this is schmaltz. Often, when I sit down to write I feel very despondent. Like I’m just writing little missives and sending them down the dark hole of the universe. But I know that’s not true. I know that there are good things and good people. And I also know we all feel like that. Like we are all doing our little jobs while the world burns. But it isn’t true. We matter. Things can be good. So, I am going to try to add a contrast to the dingus every week. So this week, let’s consider the mom who said “hell no” to her racist son.
Karen Amsden is the mother of alleged Patriot Front member and Springville, Utah, resident Jared Michael Boyce. Last Saturday, members of the Patriot Front were caught by the police on their way to a Pride event in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Boyce was one of them. And after an anonymous donor bailed him and others out of jail, he showed up at his mom’s house where he’d been living, and she promptly threw him out. Boyce also told his mom not to talk to the media, but she did. She outed him to the media and The Daily Beast had this write-up about it.
If this woman had been a parent in The Omen, the movie would have been shorter. The creepy boy would have never ended up in the White House. So, thank you, Karen. I think a lot about the wives and girlfriends and mothers of the men in these organizations, how with their silence and complicity they prop up racist and homophobic organizations. And how many of the Jan. 6 rioters were turned in by girlfriends and ex-girlfriends. And I just think we need more of that. Please, be like Karen Amsden and out the white supremacist in your life.
What I’ve Been Reading:
This week, on Twitter, I asked people for their favorite essays about bars and restaurants.
The ensuing recommendations were wonderful, and you should read them all. I haven’t made my way through all of them, but here are a couple I managed to read this week:
“Not Seen on TV,” a review of Guy Fieri’s American Kitchen and Bar in Times Square.
“Dear Olive Garden, Never Change,” a classic by Helen Rosner.
“A Requiem for a Beloved Bar” by Charles Pierce. The last line of this killed me.
“I’m common as muck and I spent £150 in a Michelin star restaurant to see if it was worth it” by Kirsty Bosley. This essay is just a joy to read. The sheer happiness the author has just from the food alone is reason enough to go hug your local chef. Food is wonderful. And Kirsty Bosley is a delight.
I asked for those recommendations because this week I was writing about one of my favorite places, my local wine shop. My local wine store is closing after nearly 20 years in business. It’s the place I’ve gone to find wine to pair with tragedy, triumph, heartache, and new starts.
I also wrote a profile of Sen. Charles Ernest Grassley for Vanity Fair. The profile talks about how his 1980 campaign for Senate was helped with support from the John Birch Society, the KKK, and Roger Ailes. I wrote about how the past is prologue, and when you outlive everyone, you can spin your own myths. This story was originally 6,000 words and got cut down. There is so much there that I just couldn’t fit in and people have so many questions that I’ll be doing a separate newsletter and an AMA all about it next week. But in the meantime, read the profile. It’s very good. IF I DO SAY SO MYSELF. (And I do.)
And read this good companion piece by Laura Belin about why Iowans have a hard time trusting Grassley’s denials that he knew anything about the Jan 6 insurrection.
What I’ve Been Drinking:
Bud Light Seltzer, bitch. This week, I went to see The Chicks in concert with my dear friends. I drank a very large Bud Light Seltzer (cherry lime flavor) in a plastic cup while wearing a Coors crop top and cried as thousands of women screamed “I’m not ready to make nice” at the top of their lungs. I told my friend we were at church for angry white ladies. I even found myself doing the “praise Jesus” hand wave I learned long ago in Baptist churches in Texas.
During the concert, I looked behind me and saw the faces of thousands of women holding one another and singing, “Drank with the Irish and smoked with the hippies/Moved with the shakers/Wouldn’t kiss all the asses that they told me to,” and I just thought about how beautiful and complicated we all are. We aren’t perfect, but there is so much life and loss we all carry with us, and we don’t carry it alone. And, sometimes you don’t need a fancy drink. Sometimes, you just need to slut it up, drink a Bud Light, and scream about Earl dying at the top of your lungs. Sometimes what we need isn’t profound or complicated, it just needs to be efficient, drinkable, and fun.
I'm an eye-witness. Culver's people on campus were pissed we gave Chuck the finger! Let alone the possible theft and damage to campaign signs, even in retaliation. (I am not admitting to anything. Lol)
I am trying to decide on Mona's Friday Happy Hour cocktail. 😁
I always love your writing Lyz. But today’s Dingus and runner up and good news Karen and Bud Light / the Chicks content was a perfect blend of wit and wisdom. Thank you.