The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

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Did you know the world’s richest 8 people had more wealth than the poorest 50%? You think maybe this is an April Fool joke? Faux facts? No, eight people had amassed as much riches as 3.7 billion people at the bottom of the heap. Stop and think about that for more than a nano second. Stop in your tracks. Let your jaw drop down to your knees. 8 people – 8! — with more money than 3.7 billion people combined!! 3.7 billion people in poverty, some starving of famine, some refugees from wars, some just us South Enders who maybe didn’t want to work very hard and never started up a Tech Company.

I guess I knew we had some income inequality, growing wider every year, but c’mon, this seems slightly skewed. I don’t begrudge Gates and Bezos and Buffet and Zuck a few billion, but show me the trickle down. Better yet, show the 3.7 billion people at the bottom whose only trickle is maybe a golden shower. Oh, I know I got a lot of neighbors who think whatever we do, don’t tax the rich! Because they think they might be rich one day…. You know, get an inheritance from Uncle Bezos or finally get around to that start-up tech company or reap the gains from those bitcoin investments or … more likely, win the Powerball Lottery. That, or just bottle lightning and sell it to the poor.

God forbid that we redistribute wealth!! Wouldn’t want to be accused of communism or social engineering or even basic Christian values. Those eight fellows made their money the old fashioned way, with lobbyists and sweetheart deals, with ruthless monopolies and cut-throat capitalism. Why on earth would we tax them exorbitantly when we can take the money from regressive taxation, user fees, sales taxes and other old fashioned usury? Sure, we could use those trillions to feed the poor, cure diseases, fund scientific advances, stuff like that, but you know and I do too we’d probably just build a bigger military. Kill the poor, let them die of disease and starvation, pay them as little as possible. After all, they’ll get to inherit the earth, right? Not that I’m blaming those 8 fat cat rich guys, no sir, they’re probably nice fellows, the way we’ll be when we win the Sweepstakes. I’m just saying there’s billions of folks who maybe deserve a slightly bigger piece of the pie. And I don’t mean Humble Pie.

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Trump declares April National Sexual Assault Awareness Month

Somebody please tell me this is an April Fool’s Joke!! This is like Charles Manson declaring May Anti-Murder Month. Or Judge Roy Moore and Woody Allen announcing June is Leave the Little Girls Alone Month. Bill Cosby probably has July locked up for Rape Drug Truce Month. And the National Rifle Association requested an August debut of Assault Rifles for Pre-Schooler Training Month.

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These are tough times for us poor souls who are tasked every year to come up with an April Fool’s joke to slip past the gullible, the unsuspecting and the literal. What is a satirist supposed to do when every day is April Fool’s Day in the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave? Everything now is labeled Faux News, true or not, outrageous or not, phony or not. People believe what they want to believe and what they don’t, fake news!

The President had multiple affairs with Playboy models! Fake news! The Russians hacked and trolled the 2016 elections! Ho ho, all lies! Largest crowd ever at the Inauguration! Melania Trump entered the country on an Einstein Visa! What? You don’t believe it? We’re winning the war in Afghanistan another year! The economy is the greatest it’s ever been! Hillary Clinton was a traitor! The Trump kids are Martians!! Strange electric beams of energy have been seen emanating at night from the Washington Monument!!! Camano Island has voted to become a Sanctuary City!!!! Amazon is planning to take over the world!!!!! The Bots are coming, the Bots are coming!!!!!!!

If we now feel like Alice in Wonderland where up is down and right is wrong, how in the world do we sucker in the unsuspecting with some cockamamie story that sounds plausible but is actually a total fabrication when everything now is either a fabrication masquerading as truth or is a truth deemed phony baloney. Nobody tries to keep up with the lies anymore, we just take them for granted as part of the political landscape. The more outrageous the whopper the better, all part of the reality TV show we now live in. Every day is April Fool’s Day, but it’s harder and harder to know who the Fool is.

Down here on the cynical South End, sadly, we’ve grown accustomed to the Weird and the Fabulous. Reality has grown fangs and claws. Our neighbor was murdered and beheaded last week off Tamarack Lane. Faux news? I don’t think so. An underground bunker stocked with guns and ammo was hidden beneath a camouflaged hatch cover on the same property. Fake news? Don’t kid yourself. A killer is on the loose, our heroin thief is back and, I fool you not, so is the Barefoot Bandit. Phony news? Go ask Alice … when she’s ten feet tall. Meanwhile, Happy April Fool! And Colton, welcome back, Kid! We missed ya! And good luck on a new start. Seriously.

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