Cartagena Who wants to talk about politics and the trials and tribulations all around us on Christmas day? I’ll read the news, but try not to drown in it. The traffic seems slim. Pelicans are flying low over the waves, hunting as usual. We’re going to celebrate by journeying to an avian sanctuary, oh boy, but let me share two good stories, one about “fake news,” and the other about a dad and his daughter who have become “influencers” and social media stars, both of which I gleaned from the Washington Post, which must understand the desperate situation of their sick-of-politics readers in the nation’s capital.
One was about Bo Pettersen and his daughter Emily, who shoots, edits, and then posts videos under the tag, “Dad Advice From Bo” on TikTok and Instagram, that has been viewed more than 3 million times. He’s a heavy equipment salesman in Washington State who offers common sense advice on everything from how to change a tire to safe driving tips on snow. She is a young woman who “suffers from the ongoing effects of a traumatic brain injury; both father and daughter are devoted to finding a cure for her persistent symptoms,” which is how they use any revenue they gain from the shows to find additional cures. Emily had been a marketing person for the Seattle Seahawks until the effects of a freshman year collusion on the soccer field make it too debilitating for her to continue. The videos gave her purpose in her life. I have a soft spot for dads and daughters. Here we have plain people doing amazing things for themselves and the community; I loved this story!
A bit more upbeat and kind of hilarious was a column by Marc Cooper about “fake news.” He told about a three-year, harmless scam he and a buddy named Charlie pulled off as smart-alecky, wise-ass teenagers. They would make up names pulled from James Joyce and write letters to their local newspaper, the Riverdale Press. The topics were often absurd. They sometimes got into mini-disputes in the letter to the editor columns between their fake letter writers. To hear him tell it,
Almost every letter we sent was published. One week, “Arnold Lubetsch” advocated combating homicides by wearing dazzlingly colorful clothing. “Garb yourself brightly!” he suggested. “Mrs. Edna Purefoy” railed against a new public hazard, a metal banister installed in the center of the aisle on city buses: “Both the groceries and I spilled to the floor as the bus screeched to a halt,” she wrote. “Garry Owen” slammed as “hoodlums” neighbors who left their windows open while burning incense.
In one of my favorites, “They traded arguments about the merits of leaving streets unpaved in a rich section of town.” That should be a real campaign!
He cautions that these days this kind of prank would be dangerous, because with the internet, it could go viral. He’s right, of course. Trump proves his point almost daily as he pranks the world regularly in order to keep on the front page, as he did this week, for example, saying he wanted to buy Greenland and take the Panama Canal back.
That’s a knee slapper, until we all have to stop and say, “is he serious?”