A Productive Chotining

We got jokes.

The news has been pretty grim so I don’t know how many jokes I have today. I guess there was the DC anti-vax trucker protest, which “Turn[ed] Out to Be a Complete Joke” according to The Daily Beast’s Zachary Petrizzo (who was approximately 8% of the attendees). The event went off without a hitch—and I mean without a trailer hitch, because no trucks showed up.

Dennis Miller’s career arc has taken him from telling jokes to being one, but even he has quit his show on Russian state TV network RT. As they say, when you’ve lost Dennis Miller, you’ve lost nothing much. Here he is busting out a hot Groupon reference in our present year of the double deuce:

William Shatner remains confused about his RT show, as does Potemkin hillbilly J.D. Vance about his position on Ukraine’s continued independence.

The biggest joke in international currency exchange is the ruble, which Ryan noted is worth less than either Roblox’s in-game currency Robucks or Hearthstone gold, and is also getting trounced by Dogecoin. BuzzFeed’s sex number bureau chief Katie Nicetopoulos pointed out the “not-surprising yet surprising-considering-the-context amount of donations in the number of 420 or 69 Doge” made to Ukraine’s Doge wallet. There is a real possibility that we’re watching a war partly funded by shitcoins and an NFT “based on a mythology in which Elon Musk was granted genius powers by an alien” which isn’t quite a joke but is definitely not not a joke.

Lauren Boebert is the biggest joke in Congress. Ancient social media joke Facebook reported that the most widely viewed page on the site was removed for “violating Community Standards,” but won’t say what the page was, in the name of “transparency.” Ryan has good analysis of that too. Listen Garbage Day is a banger today and I will not compare myself with my colleagues. If they do newsletter beautifully, I will enjoy it and be thankful and proud that I live in fellowship with them. The New York Times idea of fact-checking is still a joke though.

But watching this clip from Zelenskyy’s TV show it feels like maybe the joke is on all of us:

People: What do they know? Do they know things?? Let’s find out!

Politico’s Maura Reynolds talked to Trump-embarrasser Fiona Hill about whether Vladimir Putin would be ecstatic or merely thrilled to destroy us all in a nuclear holocaust, and the answer is: “Yes, he would.”

John Mearsheimer got what I would describe as “a productive Chotining” about his claim that US, NATO, and EU foreign policy are ultimately to blame for Putin’s aggression.

It seems quite clear to me that he is going to take the Donbass and that the Donbass is going to be either two independent states or one big independent state, but beyond that it’s not clear what he’s going to do. I mean, it does seem apparent that he’s not touching western Ukraine.

His bombs are touching it, right?

And Ben McKenzie (yes that Ben McKenzie, Ryan “mmmm whatcha say” Atwood from “The O.C.”) is writing a book along with Jacob Silverman on what a scam crypto is, and he seems both smart and well informed, so that’s pretty cool.

Mike Crumplar reviewed Matthew Gasda's "Dimes Square," starring Intern Bijan and some other people, and all I can say is: more like Mike Grumplar. GMG UNION STRIKES HERB RAT. Bandcamp sold to Epic Games, no one happy. “There is no need to declare the captured Russian tanks and other equipment” as income for Ukrainian tax purposes. The Shorenstein Center’s Technology and Social Change project is “tracking social media takedowns and content moderation during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine” and Parker Molloy is “getting a lot of Boss Baby vibes from this war.”

The point here is that if tomorrow we found out that an asteroid was going to wipe out all life on earth, the right would find a way to blame it on “pronouns” and trans people and “cancel culture.”

…We’re all watching now as people try to make sense of the world the only way they know how: by posting through it.

Delia also wrote about posting through it for Vanity Fair, and we’re all still going through it so I guess we might as well keep posting.

Today’s Song: “Witch” by Apashe (ft. Alina Pash) via this incredible playlist of Ukrainian artists.

~ when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a tab ~

I tweet @fka_tabs and @TodayinTabs. One a lot more than the other, so I leave the choice up to you. Tim Mak is doing good on-the-ground Ukraine tweets if you’re looking for an informative source for those. This has been: Wednesday.

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