media submission begins

night shift #2

Media cowardice begins.

Night Shift #2

01/04/2025

I live in semi rural France, self-exiled (more on this as these posts go forward.) My domestic sewer is a septic system, which requires maintenance by the occupant. me. I have friend, Thierry, who often helps, When we've worked on it, unblocking this pipe or that, we say we have cleared up the problem with the Kaka. Its the word his 2 year old grandson uses.

When NY Times columnist and Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman used the term Kakistocracy, meaning "government by the worst," I wondered if there was an etymological connection. There is: ancient Greek κᾰκκᾰ́ω means to defecate, to shit. US dictionaries say that "kaka" is child's word with that meaning in many languages. Dictionaries of slang also say that it means childish, nonsensical talk. Kakistocracy, as Krugman used it, first appears in English according to the OED in 1644, in a sermon describing an evil government the preacher saw as "a mad kinde of Kakistocracy." Krugman's use of it was in his final column for the Times. He resigned after 25 years.

Two days before Christmas our system blocked up again. Because of the holidays, I was left to cope on my own. As I scrapped away at gravel, did this or that test, kaka, was inevitably on my mind. I jumped from the backyard to the metaphorical. Kaka was what Donald Trump was dumping on America and its government with his cabinet appointments, and on our allies with his insulting ambassador appointments. I should follow this up, I thought, but I had too much real life stuff to deal with. Thus writer's block.

Then this morning I was kicked into motion. Today's NY Times reported that Ann Telnaes, the much-awarded political cartoonist for the Washington Post, 18 years at it, had resigned. The editor had refused to print a cartoon that mocked both Trump AND the Post's owner Jeff Bezos, the man from Amazon. Mr. Bezos, when he bought the paper in 2013, pledged no interference with editorial decisions. In October, however, he blocked the paper from endorsing Kamela Harris. My partner and I unsubscribed from the Post and decided we could do without the conveniences of Amazon.

Ann Telnaes is a brilliant political truth teller, a clearer of one's mental pipes and a just successor to the great WaPo cartoonist Herblock who bucked the Nazis and Joseph McCarthy. She did Trump better than any other cartoonist. She has a substack post called Open Windows. I will move my subscription money to her efforts. The offending cartoon, in draft, before she colored in the red tie, shows Trump with his little hand, receiving homage and money from Bezos, the shaved head, and a couple of tech bros. The publisher/owner of the Los Angeles Times, who interfered in the same way as Bezos, is also represented. Mickey mouse groveling refers to Trump's recent humiliation of Disney/ABC. (Click on the link to see the cartoon if it is not visible in this format.)

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/03/business/media/washington-post-cartoonist-quits-after-jeff-bezos-cartoon-is-killed.html

A 2 million dollar "donation" to Trump's Inaugural dinner gets you to the "pinnacle" table, an intimate dinner with Donald and Melania. And probably Mr. Bezos.

The Washington Post of publisher Katherine Graham and editor Ben Bradlee stood up to McCarthy and Nixon (Watergate). They were fearless people of integrity. The main stream media is the canary in the coal mine. These weak creatures are dying, submitting, one by one. The Washington Post, but not Ann Telnaes.

In 2015, terrorists murdered 12 people at the satirical French paper Charlie Hebdo. They "objected" to the paper on religious grounds. A slogan emerged. Je suis Charlie. I am Charlie. Je suis Ann, for at least a week or two. Got my septic problem fixed. Hopefully the writer's block too.