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Sucking all the oxygen out

 


The photo here is of a recent invention -- a device meant to such carbon out of thin air. But I am more interested in a metaphorical sucking. 

Once upon a time, there might have been debates going on at this stage in the political cycle about policy. 

Has the recent spate of bad weather events at last persuaded doubters that ongoing climate change is a problem requiring human solution? Will the solution come in the form of inventions like the above? Or does it mean something that requires central planning, and sovereign authority? 

Why is the price of house rising at twice the speed of everything else? is there enough parking available in American cities and, if not, why not? do we need more pipelines to carry oil or gas from one point in the US to another?  Or would it be wiser to halt the building of any such lines? 

What (other than the scandalous presence of an inaugural poem in a library) is right or wrong about public schools?What are the risks and the opportunities posed to us or offered for  us by, well, the rest of the planet?

Has the Supreme Court gotten out of control? If so, do the political branches have any weapons handy to bring it back into the borders of its proper function? 

Who are our allies in the rest of the world? Who are our actual or potential enemies? 

Old-fashioned political stuff like that. 

But there is surprisingly very little of this right now.. Even deSantis' thing about cleansing libraries of thought crimes is disappearing from view, because ... Donald Trump and all the investigations and indictments (three as I write -- a fourth may come any day) and pending trials have sucked all of the oxygen out of the room of political news. Policy debates have been sucked away like lint from a carpet as the Roomba passes by.

I kind of miss the old days. 



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