News Weakly - 1/2/21

Note: 2020 has been an exhausting year. I think this last of the old/first of the new News Weakly will be a light one just for your benefit.
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Never Enough
It was President Abe Lincoln that ended slavery in the U.S. back in 1862 and backed it up with a devastating war to enforce it. In 1879 a Boston artist, paid by formerly enslaved people, made a statue to commemorate the freeing of the slaves. Now, 140 years later, it is deemed "demeaning" and has been removed. The statue looks to me like a president telling a slave-for-life character he's free and he's finding it hard to believe, but I suppose passing it through the "anything a white man does is hating minorities" filter, it won't look like that to others. It's a shame. Sometimes there's no such thing as enough.

Reparations
Speaking of slavery, I learned something new this week. One of my ancestors came from Great Britain. As a boy his father was taking him by ship to London, but they were captured by pirates. The young boy ended up in the Caribbean as a slave. His master took him to the U.S. where he worked his way to freedom and, well, the rest is history. When you're ready, I'll give out the address for you to send me my reparation check.

Free at Last
Women seeking freedom in Argentina have won the right to murder their babies wholesale. Yippee! That's what I call freedom. Well, okay, not for the 43 million babies that were murdered in the last year or for the additional babies that will now be executed in Argentina. Certainly not for the disproportionately large numbers of minority children or unwanted girls who are often targeted. But, hey, you know, freedom for someone, I'm sure.

Solidarity
On New Year's Eve in Portland, OR, a mostly peaceful crowd gathered, broke windows, set fires, and shot off fireworks "In Solidarity with BLM." Because nothing says "Black Lives Matter" better than burning and destruction? Strange sort of "Happy New Year!"

Crazy Little Thing Called COVID
President Trump objected to the bicameral, bipartisan COVID relief bill -- "It should be $2000, not just $600" -- but he signed it. Still the ludicrosity (Yes, I made that up) is over the top. While the House has agreed and okayed $2000 checks for all, the Senate continues to dicker. Because clearly we will all be better off with $2000 back for the massive losses COVID gave us ... or is it $600? I don't know. I just know that gun stores are being overwhelmed by people exchanging their $600 guns for $2000 guns. Anyone can see that the government clearly works miracles, feeding five people with just 2.3 trillion loaves and fishes. I think it's clear that Congress has earned their $100,000 bonuses for coming up with such a great relief bill. Sure, there are those few bad pennies, like the clever American who is passing himself off as a transgender Middle Eastern woman in the hopes of getting some of that foreign aid for Middle-Eastern gender programs from the government, but all in all it's working out pretty well, isn't it?

Of course it's all true; I read it on the Internet.