We were told the tariffs were about fairness. American workers would be protected from unfair competition, though no one could identify the American banana industry in need of rescue.
We were told the tariffs were about leverage, though the principal result was leverage applied to grocery bills.
Recent events concerning Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve, provide a useful illustration of how Donald Trump uses the DOJ when he feels insufficiently obeyed.
Must we all bow down to Donald Trump?
Who among us, after all, has not, in a moment of moral misplacement, desired to run another’s house for them?
Were it not for benevolence and kindness, some would maintain, how else could one ensure that a neighbor’s affairs remain consistent with one’s own comfort?
For centuries, humanity labored under the burden of vague goals like “a good life” or “a just society.” Now, thanks to this elegant principle, meaning has been distilled into barrels. Crude, measurable, stackable barrels.
You can’t hug virtue, but you can store oil in underground caverns the size of small nations.
The President has emphasized that he would prefer to acquire Greenland “nicely,” though he has also noted that there is another way.
It is comforting to know that kindness and respect remains an option.
A Big Problem. . .
The deceased acquired an additional inconvenience: a name. Renee Nicole Good. A citizen. A wife. A mother. A poet.
None of these facts were operationally useful and should ideally have remained undisclosed. As many of us know human details (the details of a human life) complicates administrative clarity.
