Manhattan At War With Christmas

Flames erupt at W. 48th and 6th Ave. France Surrenders.

December 8th, 2021

The long-simmering cold war on Christmas turned hot today as, in a daring pre-dawn raid, anti-Santanista forces infiltrated the heavily fortified Red and Green Zone in the heart of occupied Manhattan and burned down the Fox News Christmas Tree.

The alleged perpetrator was quickly captured and “faces one count each of second-degree criminal mischief, second-degree reckless endangerment, fifth-degree arson, second-degree criminal nuisance, third-degree criminal trespass, third-degree criminal tampering and disorderly conduct,” but cannot be sent to Gitmo, because apparently “having a personal bias or animus toward Christmas doesn't legally cut it.” Thanks, Obama. In response, Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, guarded by her child army, called for all Christmas trees to be equipped with automatic weapons. “The woke left tried to cancel Dr. Seuss because he knew the only thing that can stop a Grinch with a lighter is a Norway spruce with a gun,” she told a group of reporters, who stood transfixed with horror by the endless black emptiness where her human eyes used to be. Meanwhile on remote anti-Santanista controlled Knifecrime Island, Christmas parties are already illegal.

That was intense. Why not have a quick ponder on the Orb Simulator.

FINE let’s talk about Kamala Harris and Bluetooth: On Monday, like some kind of modern-day Squidward & Berenstain, Politico’s Alex Thompson and Ruby Cramer triple-sourced the scoop that the VP prefers wired headphones to Bluetooth, for security reasons, and everyone read it and thought silently to themselves “yes that makes sense, after all I vividly remember hEr EmAiLs!11!!,” and that was the end of it. No, of course not, everyone either got or pretended for the sake of content to get very upset about the “Bluetooth-phobic” framing, and we have since been treated to stories from The Verge, the Daily Beast, The Guardian, CNet, and Newsweek all clarifying that Bluetooth is a security risk and the Vice President is right to disable it, and also takes from Complex, the Independent, Salon, and and The Mary Sue about the meta-story of Politico (as Complex put it) “getting clowned” online. And this has been the meta-meta story from Today in Tabs, meta-meta-clowning the clowning and meta-clowning, because we all have to put something on our websites, so why not this?

People Are Talking

I heard a rumor that The New Yorker counts all the words in a Q&A (including the subject’s answers) toward the writer’s contract word count, and that’s why the site has been so full of them lately. If you can confirm or deny that, hit reply and let me know. Either way, that is Isaac Chotiner’s whole job, and he talked to anti-abortion activist Marjorie Dannenfelser who made it pretty clear that she would like to prosecute pharma executives for selling abortion pills, and that a national abortion ban is the ultimate goal. In the new Gawker’s first good story, Tarleton Hitt landed what’s accurately titled “A very weird interview with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,” whose publicist apparently thought she was setting up an interview with Bustle:

You have a section in this first chunk —

By the way do you consider yourself a journalist or just a pharmaceutical rep? Because that's what you sound like. You don't sound like a journalist. You sound like you're an apologist for the pharmaceutical industry, and for the government agencies that are aligned with them.

Yeah I put that on my business cards. So you have a section in the book called "Final Solution: Vaccines or Bust."

Excuse me?

You have a section — a sub header — in the book called "Final Solution: Vaccines or Bust."

Yeah.

That's a pretty pointed choice of words. Did you mean to invoke the Holocaust?

It says what it says.

Can you elaborate?

It says what it says.

Right, but that's a very potent phrase, “final solution,” in that it was used to mean eradicating the Jews.

I don't think the vaccines have anything to do with eradicating the Jews.

Ok!

At The Verge, Ashley Carman talked to Media Matters researcher Alex Paterson, who listened to “over 350 hours of The Joe Rogan Experience this year and reported back on what we’re all missing.” When asked what he took away from the experience, a gaunt and hollow-eyed Paterson replied: “I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. This is my dream; this is my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight razor, and surviving.”

And Nilay Patel talked to Jonah Erlich, one of the core members of ConstitutionDAO, for Decoder. Apart from all the things I make up, I am always honest here in Tabs so have I listened to this podcast? No. But have I read the transcript? Also no. I’ve been pretty crypto’ed out lately, but listeners from the Tabs Discord rave: “Nilay is sometimes a bit hit or miss, but his style works well here,” and “I nearly did a whole performative scoff for my empty room.”

…there is an underlying sense I get from this writing that workers (and by extension work) are things to be gawked at and remarked upon. I cannot judge someone for having an easier, wealthier life - that would be hypocritical - but I can harshly judge someone for failing to reconcile said privilege with the things they’re writing.

And Tom Scocca roasted Donald Graham and Fred Hiatt for building a Washington Post opinion section where “Everything was merely an argument. Any person could have their say-so, without reference to whatever substantive power that person might be wielding off the page.”

Today’s Song: Tamar Aphek, “Crossbow”

~ exterminate all the tabs ~

Weird day. When I’m not spiraling into seasonal affective disorder related hallucinations I often tweet @fka_tabs and @TodayinTabs.

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