Iran's Orgone-capturing Drones;

and he is nought but an 'umble purveyor of trucks

The fuck is going on here? (photo by Weldon Berger)

We now know, thanks to the courage of whistle-blowing congressman Jeff Van Drew (R-This Is How Stupid You Can Be and Still Get Elected, which is a really over-represented state), that the mysterious drone swarms that aren’t plaguing New Jersey and an increasing number of other locales are controlled by an Iranian mothership off the Atlantic coast.

This is not to be confused, or maybe it is, with the Funkadelic mothership. We’ll probably only know for sure if the drones start forming a giant George Clinton portrait in the New Jersey skies, or over former Maryland governor Larry Hogan’s house. Hooooooogan!

My own theory, and none of you can prove me wrong, is that Iran is suffering an orgone shortage and has traveled halfway around the world to mine America’s atmospheric stores of the life-sustaining cosmic energies that help make us the healthiest and happiest nation in the world. Our entire country is a giant orgone accumulator. What else could it be?

I AM JUST ASKING QUESTIONS.

Iran actually does have naval vessels in the Atlantic; last year they were doing a tour of South America. The U.S. was so incensed by this incursion into our backyard that we considered recalling a US Navy battle group from our other backyard in the Persian Gulf to challenge the Iranians here.

Is it legal to appoint someone to an important advisory position if they’re not wealthy?

That’s the Question the New York Times is Just Asking with a couple of stories about Tiffany Trump’s father in law, whom her dad recently named as his Middle East adviser.

It seems that Boulos allowed himself to be confused with an unrelated family of Bouloses who are quite wealthy, billionaires in actual fact. It’s not that he actively pursued the misconception; he just allowed the holding of it unchecked. His wife has some family money, but he has none; according to The Times, his share of the family truck dealership he manages, owned by his father in law, is worth all of $1.53.

The story from which that headline is pulled is fairly dripping with contempt. After all, this guy makes maybe half what the Times reporters on the byline do. The issue isn’t that he seems somewhat under-qualified—that’s pretty much de rigueur for the incoming administration if you take their jobs at face value, and besides, the campaign used him as a liaison to Middle Eastern communities in swing states, where by all accounts he served creditably.

He absolutely could not be worse than Jared Kushner.

It’s only that he isn’t rich and everybody thought he was, probably including Trump. He fooled people, or did nothing to stop them fooling themselves. He’s not exotic. He’s not special. He’s not worth breathless reporting. He’s boring.

Yr. faithless correspondent here thinks this is funny, but also worth thinking about in terms of whether we oughtn’t to perhaps support appointing more commoners to important jobs. Sure, ideally you want someone with expertise in the requisite area, but many, many people have both expertise and a pronounced lack of funds or ties to horrible people or corporations. I’d vote for actively avoiding appointees who would be taking a pay cut to serve in government, much as rich people should be forbidden seats in Congress. You’d still wind up with a lot of assholes on the make or on the take, but it’d be better.

Only one of a host of reforms we support here at the Review, including transitioning health insurance executives and pirate equity operatives from their current positions to prison infirmary patients.

Took me a few days to write this and I don’t remember all the music I listened to, but most recently it was Rock On, an album of covers from low-key 1970s not very super group The Bunch, featuring excellent but not widely idolized musicians mostly from Fairport Convention (“That’ll Be The Day”); Solid Air, by distressed, disturbed and deceased singer/songwriter John Martyn (“Solid Air”); and, at reader Hilary Held’s suggestion, actual supergroup The Oliver Nelson Septet with The Blues and the Abstract Truth (“Stolen Moments”), which is fucking excellent.

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Take care; be well.