The Weekend in Foolish Attention

Bits and bytes of the week

CECI N’EST PAS UNE COCK. The planet is an amazing thing and the wonders of nature are all around us. Unfortunately, this globe in space has one thing that makes the rest of it pale in absurdist comparison: humans.

An orthopedic surgeon in Queensland, Australia, has been hit with a $10,000 fine and a stern reprimand for being physically unable to prevent himself from taking a picture of the swastika a patient had tattooed on their penis and then sharing it in a WhatsApp chat.

The story begins in April 2019. The patient needed orthopedic surgery after a pipe bomb he was making at home exploded in his hands. The swastika penis tattoo demographic tends to heavily overlap with the homemade pipe bomb demographic.

The patient with his swastika-clad penis was placed in intensive care for a week, wherein he was intubated and placed into a coma. Rather than roll his eyes and chuckle at the stupidity of a man who tattooed a hate symbol on his dick, the surgeon figured he had to snap a pic to share with his colleagues in the group chat. The homies love pictures of surgical patients’ penises covered in swastikas.

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I wish I had something clever in response but I think I’ll just let that sit, rent-free, in your brain.

OWNING MY TRUTH. A co-worker went skiing for the first time in years. He had a great time but told me at the end of the trip, his buddy encouraged him to dive down a straight down cliff run. As he looked over the edge, he muttered “Oh. This is gonna hurt.”

I looked at him and wisely said “Those are my exact words whenever I meet an attractive woman with tattoos and a nose ring.”

WHEN THE METAPHOR IS NO LONGER USEABLE. In a recent meeting at work, one co-worker received credit for a great idea. The co-worker who actually came up with the idea laughed and blurted out that it was hers first. We all laughed, she got the kudos as well and I thought about commenting that it was a Tesla/Edison moment but nope. That metaphor is too loaded now to use in polite conversation.

I mean, except for executives for the Foodbank of Southern California, buys a Tesla these days?

THE ART OF THE BLUFF. Unlike 93% of those who write things on the internet, I’m not an expert on international economics but it sure seems that the Potato Chip Cookie bluffed and China called him on it. It makes me wonder what other aspects of his first 100 days are bluffs and who will call them.

It is notable that when eggs got expensive, the Biden Administration told us that everything was fine and now that the markets are in free fall, the Trump Administration is parroting the gaslight.

“Honey. We’re broke. We can’t pay for the premium streaming service anymore.”

“We’re not broke. It’ll be fine.”
Goes back to binge-watching Million Dollar Secret.

“But, sweetie, there’s no money in the account.”

“C’mon. You just don’t fully understand budgeting and interest rates.”
Turns up volume and hopes.

This is really unfair to everyone who just voted for him for the racism. — Ken Jennings

PROTEST FATIGUE. The mass protests of 2020 were certainly motivated by racial injustice. We also, with the nasty miracle of hindsight, can see they were also equally motivated by COVID lockdown boredom, an opportunity by wannabe nihilists to burn shit down, and masked criminals smashing windows and stealing shit in the name of reparations. As a result, some change occurred, much of it has been backlashed and rolled back and the less righteous intents of those historic protests have left a sour taste in the mouths of most Americans. And yet we still gather with signs and banners to protest whatever crisis of society is next in the queue.

There’s a point where you’ve seen the same headline so many times it starts to feel like a rerun. The tragedy changes, the city name changes, but the outrage? Identical. That’s media protest fatigue—when your soul short-circuits from too much “BREAKING NEWS” and not enough actual goddamn breaks.

You open your feed and it’s wall-to-wall catastrophe: injustice in high-def, oppression in slow-motion replay, atrocities framed in digestible formats, curated by editors who know exactly how to pump your adrenal glands until you’re emotionally bankrupt by lunch. Every day, a new protest. A new march. A new name to chant. A new body to grieve. And the same tired cycle: report, outrage, argue, forget, repeat.

You want to care. You used to care. But now? You’re exhausted. Not because you don’t believe in the cause—but because the medium has turned the message into wallpaper. It’s not activism anymore; it’s programming. It’s not progress; it’s a party. And the worst part? The media knows it. They count on your rage. They monetize your burnout. Your clicks are their currency, and protest is their profit model.

So your empathy dulls. Your attention span shrinks. You start to scan the headlines with numb resignation. Another unarmed kid shot. Another law overturned. Another protest met with silence.

And somewhere in that avalanche of content, you forget how to feel—not because you’ve stopped caring, but because you’ve been cared out.

You need to remember that real change isn’t measured in clicks or selfies—it’s measured in what you do after the feed is closed.

From the brilliant Laura Washington:

“…hundreds of thousands of like-minded protesters showed up nationwide at the “Hands Off” rallies, demanding that the Trump administration back off its scorched-earth attacks on our democracy.

I heard from legions of friends and family who rallied with the estimated 30,000 marchers in downtown Chicago. They relished how good it felt to blast Trump and his ilk and delighted at the marchers carrying signs calling Trump a parasite, lunatic, even a sexually graphic four-letter word.

Venting can be nice. Giving voice in these turbulent times can ease the pain.

We are all suffering from massive federal budget cuts, the illegal deportation of innocent immigrants, and the slashing of essential social service and equity programs. As the protests kicked off Saturday, the overnight and overseas stock markets were tanking.

It may feel good to talk, speechify, stomp your feet and raise your voice about the disaster that has befallen us. But like most talk, the good feeling is fleeting. Talk is cheap, and you get what you pay for.

I hate to rain on the marching parade, but Trump and his MAGA crowd still have a firm grip on our collective throats. Much of the rhetoric of opposition reflects the same elite and ineffective talk of 2024, about how the election of Trump could lead to a fascist regime and the end of our democracy.

Perhaps if Democrats had done less talking and more strategizing, the 2024 presidential election might have turned out differently. So now, let’s stop the chat and heed the lessons of other recent developments, and build on them: Organizing and strategy.”

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“I completely agree with you. Here’s where you’re completely wrong.”

SOUNDING RATHER PRESIDENTIAL. “I like to take a nice shower to take care of my beautiful hair. I have to stand under the shower for fifteen minutes till it gets wet. It comes out drip, drip, drip. It’s ridiculous.”

REALITY TV WRIT LARGE. This past week I finished Netflix’s Million Dollar Secret, a reality show where one person among twelve has to lie about being gifted a million dollars while the rest try to find that person so they can get the cash. It was entertaining, for sure, but the experience was a bit disturbing. Ordinary people (because wanting to be on an international platform and show your ass is now incredibly ordinary) lying to each other in the name of gameplay and greed is just too close to how things really are.

Leaders of the Foodbank of Southern California, a nonprofit established in 1975 to feed the local community, allegedly stole more than $11 million in funding from the charity to use on trips to Vegas, a Tesla, home renovations, home lawn services, gas cards, phones, and even an artificial Christmas tree. The state claims that more than $6 million worth of state money was funneled to “contracts with personal businesses” that provided no services to the food bank.

This. With the criminals and circus chimps in charge of our federal government, and the grift of corporations that state unequivocally that their purpose is to hoard gold, it is the organizations created to help people who play the same game that really crawls up my crack.

BLACK MIRROR SEASON 7 IS STRANGELY MOVING. The Netflix series Black Mirror (sort of a Twilight Zone exploring advancing technology) just dropped its seventh season and the episodes have a lot of heart and inevitable sadness to them. If you’ve never seen any of the series, just watch the first installment Common People with Chris O’Dowd and Rashida Jones. Lovely, sad, and with a metaphor that just strikes at the heart of our modern economy and the technology of healthcare.

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Thanks for stewing in the morass with me this week! Remember that rain (unless it is torrential) is a good thing and that a walk outside clears the cobwebs. Also, take naps.