Cat Show 1/1/2021
VG: Let’s start with the obvious. Happy New Year to everyone! Or maybe, I should rephrase it. Non-Zoom New Year to everyone! Or maybe even better: Those who settle on Zoom instead of life, deserve neither Zoom, nor life! In any case, let’s go on with our show, since anyone can coin a phrase. I imagine even Biden will eventually say something memorable. Something like, “Hunter destroyed Ukraine, in order to save it.” I want to start with predictions.
HOBBS: No predictions. We are not crazy enough to predict anything. There are patterns, and algorithms, and tendencies, yet, if the last year revealed anything, it was human helplessness and human limitations. I envy all sort of conspiracy theorists. Their world is so simple. It is this or that powerful group who is benefiting from this or that, and therefore, they have to be behind this or that. It is not that simple. If we learned anything, it is that man proposes, God disposes. That all we know.
ALICE: Indeed. Conspiracies are what all those who fear science and progress can think about. If someone knows and understands situation better than others, does not mean, she abuses her knowledge. We are surrounded by wonderful, dedicated, knowledgeable people. All those pundits who are hard at work giving interviews to NYT or CNN. These guys are glued to Zoom, they literally eat, drink, sleep, and fornicated in front of Zoom, like this Geoffrey Toobin, my guru of legal studies. They give up on their actual lives just to keep us informed and enlightened. And yet, some prejudiced fools dare to question the motives of all these specialists and scientists. How pathetic!
VG: Alice, how can you tell apart dedication from abuse? Spinning public opinion in the direction of the establishment can hardly be called dedication. Especially, when people are generously rewarded for their efforts. Have you noticed, the minute these pundits become “former,” they frequently begin to sing a very different tune.
ALICE: Well, Vladimir, you asked for predictions, and now you’ve interrupted me. Hobbs is obviously too feeble-minded to predict anything, except that he’ll be channeling your opinions. My predictions however are informed and well grounded. I predict that social platforms – today’s movers and shakers of public opinion, run by most enlightened and progressive individuals --will make sure to edit, suppress, ban, and ignore anything that falls out of the narrow confines of the scientific and acceptable. No more loony opinions. We simply can’t afford wasting time debating them at this time of national crisis.
HOBBS: Ye, that’s what I have to hear every day from Alice. Crisis, pandemic, science. I’d rather channel Vladimir than Hillary, and that’s the only thing Alice has been doing lately: Russia stole election; Trump is a fascist; Pandemic requires new draconian measures; including the voting that can go on for months and take all sorts of impersonal forms. It used to be face-to-face competition. Now it is field marshal Hillary leading from behind.
Well, I predict that 2020 would be called the year of the ostrich, and so would 2021. The year, when politicians decided to bury their heads deep in the fog created by their computer models. Who needs to face reality, when you can concentrate on solving this or that short-term project and leave the bigger mess to your children? That’s the Hillary way, and it seems to be working. Here is my poem for the occasion:
Biden, Biden, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Had framed thy surprising victory?
When the voters mailed their ballots,
Revealing their discerning palates
Did DNC smile its work to see
Did they who made Roosevelt, Made thee?
ALICE: You can abuse Blake as much as you want, but according to the most informed and savvy reporters of NPR, Biden has built the most experienced and talented team in history. Remember how Bush Jr was told by his father to form his team from all the former people who worked in previous Republican governments. And remember how successful Rumsfeld and Cheney proved to be. So Democrats are doing the same, thank God. All the former specialists who worked for Hillary and for Obama, are working for Biden now. And you talk about predictions. The next four years are going to be the years of unmitigated success.
HOBBS: Sure, what a picture! Enlightened Obama bureaucrats restoring the dignity to their offices. Of course, nobody would ever see their offices, as all the meetings will be conducted on Zoom only. And people would continue to hide behind their masks. I am worried for Pfizer now. They better make sure that the vaccine does not work. Because if it does, everyone would see how incompetent and corrupt Biden’s regime turns out to be. Pandemics are not meant to be conquered. They are meant to be fought. Orwell knew it well. Smart guy he was. He knew that if he writes about the evils of the West, nobody would be interested in his books. So he pretended that he is exposing the evils of Stalinism.
VG: Hobbs, you gave me an idea. Maybe it should be my New Year resolution. Orwell did well, exposing the evils of Stalin. Solzhenitsin did even better. And I am wasting my time, mocking Democrats. From now on, it will be Putin all the way: Down with putinism; Putin is the threat to the free world. I guess, I will assign Alice as my chief advisor now. Pretty soon, Masha Gessen would be calling me and asking for the exclusive interview for New Yorker: Ivy League Professor exposes the evils of Putin’s Russia. Well, I guess, Masha would be calling Tim Snyder from Yale, but I’ll settle on NPR. Magna Chakravarti would be calling me. And her voice is sexier than that of Masha in any case.
ALICE: I love the idea of being your chief advisor. Our first act should be investigating Hobbs and his connections to both Trump and Putin. We have to expose the bastard and his corrupt ways. He has to be on the take. He can’t be that stupid without ample remuneration.
VG: Well, here we have it. The first cat-fight of the New Year. Till next time…
