Three (No, two, um, make that three again) Commentaries on 2017

Commentary 1.

I was bouncing around twitter and landed on the following tweet. It may be the best commentary on where we are that I have read.

(click to embiggen or to see the whole picture)

 

Obligatory comment: I know nothing about the individual who left the tweet. To the best of my knowledge I have never seen a tweet by that person before. I haven’t checked his (her? zir?) other tweets to know whether I should endorse or denounce him (her? zir?).  But I thought the tweet was clever.

 

Commentary 2.

From The Hill:

The Republican National Committee (RNC) expanded its massive fundraising lead over the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in July as the Democrats posted their worst July haul in a decade.

The DNC raised just $3.8 million in July, compared to the $10.2 million raised by the RNC in the same month. While the GOP has no debt, the DNC added slightly to its debt in July, which now sits at $3.4 million.

The Democrats haven’t raised that little money in a July since 2007, when the party raised $3.4 million.

The dynamics that have caused this are perfectly clear to me.

 

Commentary 3.

This weekend, for the third time in five weeks, I spent around four hours writing a post… and then I simply erased the final product. Each of the three posts dealt with the same topic: how to substantially reduce the homicide rate in the US, particularly in the most beleaguered communities. Each post was supported by a different analysis, which in turn was based on a different set of data. This is, after all, 2017 America.  I almost deleted this paragraph too.