There Will Be Fact Checking

Hands off my damn milkshake

I was going to take this week off, as was traveling on vacation. We visited San Diego, Palm Springs, friends up in Idyllwild, and explored Joshua Tree. As I write this, we’re headed towards old Route 66 in Arizona to stop at the Grand Canyon for a few days.

We hiked out to Arch Rock in Joshua Tree, a mere half mile each way, but in the 110℉ heat, that was enough. I brought several liters of water, and we drank over half of it during our visit to the park, stopping at Keys View, to see Coachella Valley and the San Andreas Fault, at Skull Rock, the Cholla Cactus Garden, Cap Rock, and other natural wonders. It’s a stunningly beautiful area, and very dangerous for those who come unprepared. I bought a shirt at the ranger station that says “Don’t Die Today,” after the preparedness signs that they have at the visitor centers.

We entered the era of extreme weather events caused by climate change some time ago, but Americans are feeling it more readily now. And we’ve gone from the disinformation that “it’s a natural cycle,” all the way to “hurricanes are controlled by Democrats¹,” in a few short years.

As someone who grew up with computers, albeit 8-bit ones, and was “social” since modem-driven Bulletin Board Systems and chat groups on Prodigy and Usenet, I continue to believe that unmoderated internet forums and social media are as dangerous as walking into the desert without enough water. Even with a 6L Camelbak hydration bladder, there were times when I felt a little loopy. I did not accuse my neighbors of creating hurricanes, but I let Sarah do the driving for a while.

Walking around Palm Springs in that heat, through misters, ducking into expensive modern design shops to escape the heat, was the same. Our brains have been baked by exposure to the Algorithm. If the Al Gore Rhythm serves it up, it must be important, right?

No, maybe you need to duck into an ice cream shop to cool down with a date milkshake. Metaphorically, or not. Both will work.

As we drove east from Joshua Tree onto old Route 66, the creeping Americana began to feel like old propaganda posters touting messages long-since debunked. When I was younger, I loved this kitsch. Now, it feels as opaquely artificial as the creations of Walt Disney. Perhaps it was all the Trump/Vance signs on the highways. Notably, the highways in Arizona turned to a shitscape as soon as we crossed the border from California. (But at least they have lower gas taxes.)

From early childhood, I’ve been force-fed a stream of propaganda that “government doesn’t work.” Rich people have been telling us this since at least the 1890s, when they were expected to pay for the protection the government gives them from guillotines. Social Security, Medicare, the Interstate Highway System, FEMA, public education, they all work. Rich people prefer to pay for private versions so they can feel above the rest of us, and don’t want to pay for the rest of it. Despite being undertaxed for decades, they want to shift the burden to funding the government onto the servant class. Antonia Malchik wrote about how societies decide who is a person. It reminded me of the meme during the pandemic, “isn’t it weird how Unskilled Labor became Essential Workers when they needed us to risk our lives?”

Her essay covers much better ground than my anger will allow me at the moment, so give it a read:

The worthless ones of immense value

For a taste of Helen Cox Richardson’s daily dives into history and how it relates to our time, this is a good start:

October 5, 2024

By the time you read this, I’ll have spent a few days exploring the Grand Canyon, and a few old desert towns in Arizona and the Mojave. They say the desert cleanses the soul. When we next meet, hopefully mine will have a shade less dirt than it feels like now.

1. Trust me, if we could control the weather, Mar-a-Lago would have been underwater years ago.