The Runback: Outrage Monsters
Welcome to another week of The Runback. Have you been enjoying The Duckpin? Do you have comments or suggestions? Do you want to write for us? Let me know at theduckpin@gmail.com. And please be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Thanks in advance.
News and Politics
MPT Debate Standards Are Problematic: MPT gets a third of its money from taxpayers. Why do they get to decide who gets in a debate?
Baltimore-owned Hilton Remains a Money Pit: The idea that a city-owned hotel would underperform and turn out to be a financial drag on the city was as predictable as the sunrise.
A Replacement for Replacement Theory: Nobody ever called Feminism “Wokeness” But That’s What It Was and It Paved the Way.
The Constitution is Dying on the Vine: Too many people on both the right and the left refuse to support Constitutional rights and the continuation of elected governance.
The System Let Pieper Lewis Down: Iowa Trafficking Victim should never have been prosecuted in the first place.
Bad Ideas Never Go Out of Style: Boat Parade Enthusiasts are back on their nonsense.
Sports
With New MLB Rules, The Devil is in the Details: MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred's quest to ruin baseball continues, with contradictory and unnecessary changes.
Draped in Gold: Juggernauts Are Back-to-Back MAW Champions: Squad captures second straight Mid-Atlantic Championship
The Monday Thought
The following things I’ve seen people outraged about this week:
Republican governors shipping migrants to Democratic states;
President Joe Biden going back to Delaware to vote;
Mike Lindell having a warrant served on him at Hardee’s;
Lindsey Graham’s abortion bill;
Britain closing for the Queen’s funeral.
A Hogan donor’s alleged ties to Home Depot being why Wes Moore got water to hand out water.
And that’s a list that just gets it through Thursday. Didn’t even address the rest of the week.
I don’t understand how people operate from such a capacity for outrage all of the time. How do you do it? Where do you find the time? But a better question is:
Why do you care?
Trust me, there are things to be outraged by in this country and in this world. I’m outraged by the Pieper Lewis case. I’m outraged by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
But I am not outraged by many more political things than that right now. But then again, I don’t believe everything that bullshit artists tell me either.
That’s the real problem in society. It goes back to critical thinking and the lack of it among many politically active folks. And there is an ecosystem, particularly on the right, that feeds them outrage for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Those conspiracies, of course, are amplified by a right-wing media complex who are often more than happy to oblige the whims and passions of their audience if it gives them profile, keeps them on TV, gains followers for their social media, downloads to their blogs, or helps them sell whatever new trinket or supplement they’re offering today. I’m not talking about those on CNN, or MSNBC, or other places who are often dubbed “Conservative, Inc.” (something that we have comically been called more than a few times from those people who still didn’t realize that this was not a job nor was profit our motivation). I’m talking about the names you see on Fox News or OAN, hear on Limbaugh, or read about in The Federalist, Breitbart, and other similar news organizations.
I wrote that two-and-a-half years ago and it has just worsened over time.
My problem these days is that as a media consumer I am outraged by the outrage. I don’t watch the news on TV. I don’t listen to talk radio anymore.
I keep Twitter up during the day to keep track of what's going on. Instead of getting as much news as I need to stay informed, I see people being outraged, followed by people being outraged by the outrage.Facebook is even worse.
The outrage is driving society further and further apart into a moral abyss we may not be able to come back from. I don’t want to find out what happens if we can’t pull the nose up.
The only outrage I would have is the fact that it would be embarrassing to be busted in a fast foot drive-in
That could be a long post in and of itself.