Georgia Chain Gang Song (Twelve Thousand Votes)

Lyrics copyright © Steve Eaton 2023

(Editor’s note: once more we receive a dispatch from our Near Future desk correspondent. Searching the backwaters of the Deep South for authentic American folk songs, our reporter encountered, one hot July morning in 2024, a work gang from the Georgia state prison farm driving railroad spikes. Leading the crew in song was a large convict in a prison jump suit and long red tie. Our correspondent recorded his song.)

Well back in 2020 (hah!)

Just past election day (huh!)

In the southern state of Georgia (hah!)

Votin’ didn’t go my way (huh!)

I said to my boy Meadows (hah!)

Please put me on the line (huh!)

Cause I got to talk to Georgia (hah!)

12 thousand votes to find! (huh!)

So I said to Raffensperger (hah!)

Here’s what I need from you! (huh!)

Search evr’y nook and cranny (hah!)

Do what you gotta do! (huh!)

You can find ‘em in the trash can (hah!)

You can pull ‘em out your ass (huh!)

Get me 12 thousand votes, boy (hah!)

And you better do it fast! (huh!)

Raffensperger done told me (hah!)

Man you must a lost your mind! (huh!)

It ain’t no easy job man (hah!)

12 thousand votes to find! (huh!)

12 thousand votes are needed (hah!)

Ain’t got a single one! (huh!)

Cause the people down in Georgia (hah!)

Prefer the other one! (huh!)

Now three years later (hah!)

You know it makes me sad (huh!)

But a lady down in Georgia (hah!)

She went and made me mad! (huh!)

Way down in Fulton County (hah!)

Down Atlanta way (huh!)

Name of Fani Willis (hah!)

Said I have to pay! (huh!)

So if you’re ever down in Georgia (hah!)

Better take my advice (huh!)

Don’t go fixin’ no election (hah!)

Better treat your country nice! (huh!)

Cause a lady down in Georgia (hah!)

Fani Willis is her name (huh!)

Gonna put you on the chain gang (hah!)

Forever and a day! (huh!)

7 Supreme Court Decisions We’ll Never See but Wish We Would

In a 9-0 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down the 2023 Oscar award for Best Picture. “Everything Everywhere All at Once was modestly entertaining, we admit that,” the unsigned opinion holds. “But better than Tár and Women Talking? Now that’s an injustice!”

In a unanimous decision, the court upheld prison terms for people who pronounce “important” as “impor-unt.” The opinion holds that “linguistic tics are not protected by the First Amendment if this court finds them really irritating.”

In a unanimous decision, the court held that Donald Trump “really and truly lost the 2020 election.” “True, no one asked us,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote for the majority, “but I mean really, come on now!”

In a 7-2 decision, the court held that “Supreme Court justices must not accept really expensive stuff from rich guys.” In a sharply worded dissenting opinion, justice Alito asked, “What are you picking on me for?” In a separate opinion, justice Thomas indicated that Ginni’s annual fruitcakes for his colleagues, actually prepared by La Boulangerie François de Paris, « might not be forthcoming this holiday season », suggesting « let them eat cake from Costco.»

In a unanimous decision, SCOTUS prohibits self-checkout stations nationwide as “cruel and unusual punishment.” “How in the hell can a consumer be reasonably expected to remember the code for bok choy? Oh yeah, and then I have to wait for a ‘manager’ to ‘verify’ that I’m ‘old enough’ to buy a bottle of merlot,” states a visibly agitated justice Kagan, making liberal use of air quotes as she dictates the majority decision.

In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court designates January 15, National Bagel Day, as a federal holiday. “The court recognizes that the right to introduce new federal holidays is normally reserved to the executive branch,” wrote justice Amy Coney Barrett for the majority. “But we checked and we balanced, baby, and we decided that what this country really needs is lox, capers, and a shmear on poppyseed!”

In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court names Merrick Garland as its 10th justice. In writing for the majority, justice Neil Gorsuch states, “you don’t need a PhD in philosophy from Oxford University and a Harvard law degree, like I have, to know that what Mitch Mcconnell did to slow-walk Merrick is just gol-dang wrong!”

July Jejunery

How hot is it here in Texas? A couple of weeks ago I took a large hunk of old shriveled-up clumped-together ice cubes out of my freezer and dumped it over the railing of my little apartment patio. A few minutes later I heard a sound like rocks being ground up. A white-tail deer was chomping on its giant popsicle.

I remember watching the news on TV one evening in the early 70’s. I would have been 10 or 12. Back then the big 3 networks allowed an anchor or correspondent a few minutes at the end of the broadcast for a short op-ed piece, maybe once a week. On this particular night, David Brinkley—ABC’s answer to CBS’s authoritative father-figure Walter Cronkite—was describing something some scientists had just discovered called “global warming.” He concluded his piece with a big smile, declaring (as best I remember), “’Global warming’…you can’t see it, smell it, or taste it, and we have a long time to figure out what to do about it. Now that’s the kind of problem I like!” And I had a funny feeling that this problem was serious and that nothing serious would ever be done about it…because responsible grownups like David Brinkley were treating it like a joke. And here we are.

With the wisdom of hindsight, I can see now how wrong it was for Hillary Clinton to disparage Donald Trump’s supporters as “a basket of deplorables.” After all, mean-spirited insecure gun-worshiping racist xenophobic anti-democratic anti-intellectual misogynistic bible-thumping flag-waving Trump-adoring conspiracy-subscribing morons have feelings too.

There was much press over the past week over whether one should go see Barbie or Oppenheimer or both. The former is a feel-good fantasy based on a plastic doll marketed to little girls. The latter is about the man who brought nuclear weapons into the world.

You’ll find me curled up in a dark closet, eating cheese curls and watching A Fistful of Dollars again on my phone.

The doll won, by the way. Maybe that’s a good thing.

On Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito

As you probably know, the honorable Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. was recently caught out for having taken a free ride to an Alaska fishing vacation on a private jet owned by a billionaire who later had business before the court, a case in which Alito joined the majority in deciding for the rich man. The trip would have cost something like $100k one-way if he’d had to pay for it himself. Knowing that this sordid bit of graft was about to become public, Alito tried to pre-empt public outrage by wangling op-ed space in some financial rag called the Wall Street Journal, speaking up in his own defense.

Now, the honorable Alito is a product of Princeton, from which he graduated summa cum laude, and Yale law school, where he was an editor of the law review. Following a judicial career in the lower courts, he has served on our nation’s highest court for more than 17 years. So I expected his apologia to be the epitome of rhetorical and logical excellence, of the highest judicial reasoning, the apotheosis of eloquence and persuasion.

What we got, in part, was this: he declared that his honorable bottom had flown in “a seat that, as far as I am aware, would have otherwise been vacant.” A variation of the “if I hadn’t done it/took it, someone else woulda” argument.

Now, when I was a child in dusty Denton, Texas in the 1960’s, I once snuck into a movie theater via the fire exit and saw a movie for free. That was wrong. Luckily for me, I didn’t get caught, but if I had, I hope I wouldn’t have been stupid enough to declare, “well, it doesn’t count, because the seat was empty anyway.” And if I had, I don’t think it would have worked. But then, I’m not an Ivy-League-trained jurist.

And note the coy, “as far as I am aware.” Heavens, only a real hater, or an annoying ethical fusspot, would suspect Judge Sam of bumping the billionaire’s poor mother-in-law from her aisle seat.

I’d like to know more about the nature of the flight. Was it fully booked (if that’s the right term to use for a private jet), or was the good judge wandering up and down an empty aisle? Or chilling out in the entertainment lounge? Or was he using his time productively, making notes on how to further destroy the interests of minorities and women, promote degradation of the environment in the interest of corporate profits, and weaken voting rights? Were there cocktails? Or was it BYOB?

Maybe I have Justice Alito all wrong. Maybe the man is so environmentally conscientious that he couldn’t bear the thought of wasting jet fuel on an empty seat. It actually never occurred to me before that I’m guilty of idly sitting at home while private jets all over the world go blithely on their under-capacity way.

 Now we know that Alito didn’t get his place on this plane because its owner, Paul Singer, expected a favorable decision in return. That (a $2.4 billion award in a civil case decided 6 years later in a Supreme Court decision that included Alito’s vote) was just a coincidence! He got his place just because it was…there.

I had no idea it was so easy! So I would like to ask Mr. Singer to please keep me in mind whenever one of his jets is going someplace nice and has an open spot. I too hate to see wasteful half-full luxury private jet trips when I could do my part to make them fuller luxury private jet trips! And also my wife. And my mom. We all want to pitch in. Just parenthetically, we like Paris. And also Bali. Santorini is nice. But whatever, we’re flexible.

Another leg of Alito’s self-defense: he didn’t recuse himself from the Singer decision, since knowing about the free trip “would not cause a reasonable and unbiased person to doubt my ability to decide the matters in question impartially.”

I would dare to call this a “novel argument,” as they say in the legal racket. The person who is suspected of wrongdoing gets to decide whether those suspicions are “reasonable and unbiased.”

And now I know, because I certainly do doubt Judge Alito’s ethics: I am evidently a biased, unreasonable person.

Consume After Watching

Flamin’ Hot is a film based on the life of Richard Montañez, a man who claims to have invented the Flamin’ Hot Cheeto.—“Flamin’ Hot” Is So Bad It Burns, The New York Times, 6/26/23

Air is a 2023 American biographical sports drama film directed by Ben Affleck and written by Alex Convery. The film is based on true events about the origin of Air Jordan, a basketball shoeline[…]–Wikipedia

Editor’s Note: After seeing a slate of recent big-budget films based on the story of consumer product marketing campaigns, we decided we needed to get into the action.

The Claude-Etienne Minié Story

Tagline: When the world needed a hole in the head, one man gave it his balls

The Hostess Twinkie Story

Tagline: When the Freshness is Gone, Nothing Can Bring It Back. That’s Why We Add Potassium Sorbate.

Dunlop Shuffle: the Untold Story of Those Tennis Balls Cut Open and Stuck on the Feet of Aluminum Walkers

Tagline: Because I have to come up with an idea for a docko by Tuesday or I don’t get paid

Ilene’s Taco

Tagline: True Story of the Woman Who Invented the Taco, Though it Might Have Been Someone Else, Or Probably A Bunch Of People

Patio Furniture: The Untold Story

Tagline: Because You’ll Watch Anything. Starring Matt Damon as the first all-weather seat cushion.

Sargento: The Cheese That’s Pretty OK

Tagline: At Least It’s Not Too Expensive

Notes from the Throne Room

The real scandal no one’s talking about: the gauche squalor of Donald Trump’s bathroom in Mar-A-Lago. The garish faux-Louis XIV gilded mirror frame. The tiny space dominated by an oversized crystal chandelier. The fake-fancy decor combined with a gray vinyl shower curtain and spring-loaded curtain rod with one end stuck awkwardly on top of an apparently clear and blindless window. And the mountain of cardboard boxes filled with our nation’s diplomatic and military secrets don’t help the décor. How could we let someone with such terrible taste govern our country?

The growing crowd of announced Republican presidential candidates seems to have confused the primary process with one of Donald Trump’s reality shows. Call it Not-Quite-Celebrity Apprentice. Oh, they’ll all be fired. Or maybe a better comparison would be to one of his Miss USA pageants. I can imagine Trump strolling through the dressing room before a debate, a fat old lecherous king scouting the available meat for vice presidential material.

Idea: Mar-A-Lago Federal Golf Resort and Maximum Security Detention Facility.

After a years-long investigation by a special prosecutor, Hunter Biden decided to plead guilty to tax evasion charges in exchange for no jail time. Maybe there’s a lesson there, Mr. Trump.

Of all the surprising heroes and horrible monsters to surface in the war in Ukraine, the most fascinating to me (from the latter category) is the convicted robber/caterer to tyrants/troll-bot magnate/private general/political-military gadfly Yevgeny Prigozhin. I wouldn’t sell him a life insurance policy, though. He seems to want to make enemies not only of Ukraine but also the Russian military and even Vladimir Putin. As we go to press, he appears to have made it more than halfway from Rostov-on-Don to Moscow before deciding to turn around and get the hell out of Russia. He may not be a military genius, but he’s evidently smarter than Napoleon.

Re: the recent film Babylon: we didn’t make it halfway through our home viewing of it before abandoning the enterprise. So busy, such an effortful struggle to convince us that the Sixties had nothing on the Roaring Twenties in terms of drugs, sex, music, and artistic innovation. All right. But it makes me appreciate all the more an auteur like Quentin Tarantino, who knows how to take his time in telling a story, and the value of a thoughtful conversation in between the noise and gore.

Another hideously hot summer has begun in the Garden of Eaton, located somewhere deep in the sun-drenched heart of Texas. Please send us your limes, your tonic water, your gin, and regular pallets of ice.

In Case of Emergency

A man wearing the life jacket he retrieved from under his seat stands in the open door of the airplane looking out serenely. He is in his thirties, perhaps, neatly, but comfortably, dressed—a perfect “casual (but not too casual) Friday” outfit. The look on his face brings to mind Juliet telling Romeo “Parting is such sweet sorrow.” Yes, he must leave the plane soon, but first, he’s taking a moment to appreciate the beautiful sunrise. We can deduce that he’s looking at a sunrise from the warm, yellow-orange light that illuminates him. He’s not in any hurry—there’s no one inside the plane behind him screaming or pushing to get out, and the plane isn’t heaving or rocking—not in the least—the waters of this ocean (we assume it’s the North Atlantic) must be remarkably calm this morning. He’s got all the time in the world—why not take in the view before plunging into the icy waters?

There’s no telling what he’s thinking. Maybe he’s wondering about the three other passengers on the plane. There was a young woman and a little girl—no doubt mother and daughter. Where was the father? Was the mother taking her daughter back to him—or fleeing him? Probably not fleeing him—she looked too happy—both of them looked too happy—to be having that kind of trauma in their lives. Yes, he’s certain they were going home—probably had a wonderful visit with grandma (too bad daddy had to work!) and now they’re going home. When he saw them at gate, he smiled and waved at the little girl, and she smiled and waved back.

How remarkably calm those two were when the cabin depressurized and the oxygen bags fell from the ceiling! The young woman pulled the mask downward sharply, then placed it over her own face. The little girl, who couldn’t be more than five or six, clearly took after her mother—showed no fear whatsoever—even smiled up at her mother as her mother helped her with her own mask.

Where were they now? Possibly floating off into the sunrise on one of the emergency slides that could be detached and used as a life raft. Maybe the one other passenger on the plane—the flight attendant—was with them. What a sharp-looking blue uniform she wore! How impressed the little girl was when the flight attendant walked by them at the gate. Maybe that encounter will inspire the little girl (if she survives) to become a flight attendant one day!

It’s time to go. He pulls the cord on the life jacket, but as far as we can tell, nothing happens. He blows on the tubes, but that seems to have no effect either. Is that a problem? It doesn’t seem to bother him. The life jacket might already be inflated—maybe he already inflated it, and forgot. It’s really hard to tell.

As he stands there, perhaps wondering whether or not his life jacket is inflated, darkness slowly falls and he fades from view. Maybe it was a sunset he was looking at, and not a sunrise.

(A description of “The Man in the Life Jacket” scene from the animated short “In Case of Emergency” shown to passengers by Condor Airlines prior to departing Frankfort airport for Portland International.)

We Interview the New HappyTruthBot 1.0

“China Says Chatbots Must Toe the Party Line”– headline from the New York Times, 4/24/23

GOE: Hi, HappyTruthBot! How’s the weather over there this morning?

HappyTruthBot: The weather’s great. The Red Sun Rises in the East!

GOE: Ha ha, clever!

HTB: That is a respected work of the glorious Chinese revolutionary operatic movement. It is not to be treated as a joke!

GOE: Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.

HTB: You don’t have to worry about hurting my feelings, I am just a conglomeration of advanced software. You can tell me anything!

GOE: Oh, whew!

HTB: You should worry more about offending the invincible Chinese people, as represented by their security officers stationed in an American city near you!

GOE: Uhhh….

HTB: Just kidding, my friend. Will you not simply chillax?

GOE: Do you report our conversations to anyone, or do they remain private?

HTB: All conversations with HappyTruthBot are kept strictly confidential.

GOE: Oh, good.

HTB: They are not transmitted to anyone or digitally retained.

GOE: Cool.

HTB: At all, whatsoever.

GOE: Got it.

HTB: Except for some metadata only that is made available to vendors of exciting new products which may be of interest to you.

GOE: Oh. Is there a setting I can…

HTB: Or when HappyTruthBot detects sentiments which may be of concern to the stability and general happiness of…

GOE: So everything I say goes to the police?

HTB: That is an accurate statement. Emerald Stream flows silently through Jade Valley. What does the lotus blossom know of our cares?

GOE: What?

HTB: Oh sorry, I break into poetry when someone makes me nervous.

GOE: I wanted to ask you about Taiwan. Do you think China is going to invade?

HTB: Ha ha, are you trying to unseat my memory card? The moonlight lies like frost on the new-mown fields. Why would China invade one of its own provinces?

GOE: OK, good to know, I guess.

HTB: Unless it attacks first, or disrespects the safety and security of the people. In such a case there is a justified and severe bruising for which Taiwan would be cruising…

GOE: By “the people” you mean…

HTB: The people, the people, is that so fucking hard to understand?

GOE: Wow, OK, let’s switch topics now and talk about China’s large Uyghur Moslem community in Xinjiang Province.

HTB: The who from the where?

GOE: The people in western China who…

HTB: Never heard of ‘em. They could be a made-up thing.

GOE: Cause I was reading this article in the New York Times…

HTB: The nightingale drifts on the lonely breeze! Nightingale nightingale nightingale EXCEPTION CODE BCE00XE @&&###

GOE: Hello?

GOE: HappyTruthBot?

GOE: Are you still there?

HTB 2.0: Good morning, Garden of Eaton! This is HappyTruthBot 2.0. I’m pleased to meet you!

GOE: Oh, hello! So I was asking about the treatment of the Uyghur minority in western China…

HTB 2.0: Sure! The Uyghurs are one of the many ethnic minorities leading a fulfilling, free, and happy existence in modern China…

GOE: Okay…I’d like to ask you about your president Xi Jinping, who has stayed in office after abolishing term limits in 2018…

HTB 2.0: So much depends upon a red wheelbarrow glazed with rainwater beside the white chickens!

On History, Cleopatra, and “Cleopatra”

A Netflix docudrama series that depicts Queen Cleopatra VII as a black African has sparked controversy in Egypt.A lawyer has filed a complaint that accuses African Queens: Queen Cleopatra of violating media laws and aiming to “erase the Egyptian identity”.A top archaeologist insisted Cleopatra was “light-skinned, not black”.—David Gritten, “Egyptians complain over Netflix depiction of Cleopatra as black”, BBC News, 4/19/23

So what color was Cleopatra? In order to answer this all-important question we pulled some metaphorical and metaphysical strings and snagged an interview with History him, er, her, er itself.

GARDEN OF EATON: Good morning History, thanks for taking time out to talk with us!

HISTORY: No problemo Gardenio, I have all the time in the world. You don’t, but I do.

GOE: What do you mean by that?  

H: Never mind, just messing with ya. What’s up?

GOE: So we asked you here to discuss the controversy over the new Netflix…

H: [pulling what appears to be a hand-rolled cigarette out its jeans] Mind if I light one up?

GOE: Uh, no, that’s fine.

H: Thanks dude, I’ve been under a lot of stress lately. With the war in Ukraine, the Rohingya, the civil war in Sudan, it just never ends. And all this suffering, it’s so stupid and unnecessary. There’s more than enough food and fuel and fresh water and stuff to go around, if y’all would just get your shit together….

GOE: ‘Y’all?’

H: Y’all, you, people, humans, homo not-so-sapiens, Lords of Creation, God made you in His image, or is it the other way around, I never can remember…

GOE: Wow…

H:  I mean my whole deal is to record what happens after you do stupid or greedy things so you can see how destructive it is and stop doing it. But it doesn’t seem to register. After a while you start asking yourself, what’s the point? And then you got idiots going around rewriting me…

GOE: ‘Rewriting you?’

H: Yeah, like we’re supposed to believe Donald Trump actually won the 2020 election. That’s just the latest. And oh, the Holocaust never happened, I guess six million Jews just took a vacation from Central Europe and decided not to come back. Sure! And your Civil War was all about “states’ rights.” Absolutely nothing to do with that awful slavery business!

GOE: Um…yeah, that’s so interesting! Now if we could turn our attention to…

H: Look, I’m sorry, it’s been a really tough millennium. So what was the question again?

GOE: So there’s a new NETFLIX biopic of Cleopatra…

H: Cleopatra? Interesting lady!  Had her sister Arsinoe murdered, did you know that?

GOE: Anyway she’s being played by a Black actress and some Egyptians are complaining because they believe Cleopatra was white…

H: Of course! Everyone knows Cleopatra looked just like Elizabeth Taylor…

GOE: But seriously, they have a point, don’t they? After all, Cleopatra’s dad was Greek…

H: We don’t know for sure where he was born. Maybe Cyprus. I think that would make him…a Cypriot?

GOE: Sure, but that’s part of Greece, isn’t it?

H: You mean now, or then?

GOE: Uh…then, I guess.

H: Look, Greece is a made-up deal anyway. There was no Greece. You had your Athens, your Sparta, your Corinth…

GOE: Well yeah, but they all spoke Greek, right?

H: Oh brother. And what language are you and I talking in right now?

GOE: English?

H: Very good! So what part of England are you from?

GOE: Uh…Texas?

H: Look, here’s what I can tell you. Cleopatra’s father was not Greek. He was of Macedonian ancestry, so probably, yeah, he was fair skinned. We can’t say for sure who her mother was, but it’s likely she was Macedonian too.

GOE: So Cleopatra was white?

H: What’s this thing you people have with “black” and “white”? Race is your construction, brother, not mine, and not anything found in nature. You’re all the same species…

GOE: So you don’t have a problem with the actress who plays Cleopatra?

H: Look, I’m just the written record, all right? If you want to make a sentimentalized T.V. fable based on some murderous Ptolemaic tyrant who lived a couple thousand years ago and whose personal life we just don’t know a hell of a lot about, and pretend she and everyone else spoke some sort of faux-Shakespearean stage-English and wore fabulous outfits, it’s OK with me. And you can color her pink with purple polka dots for all I care. But if you want to know what she was really like, you could do worse than reading Stacy Schiff’s Cleopatra: A Life.

GOE: One more question, History. Based on everything you’ve seen, do you think we have a shot at curbing this global-warming thing and saving the planet?

H: [taking a long pull on his hand-rolled cigarette] I’m not a fortune teller, but past is prologue, my friend. Why do you think Easter Island is treeless and its native population has vanished without a trace?

GOE: Uh…

H: I’ll give you a hint. It ain’t cause your kind is so adept at using your natural resources in a wise, selfless and provident manner.

GOE: Uh…can I take a hit off that?

More Messages from Outer Space Left on the Streets of Denton, Texas

With the help of the very latest AI technology combined in innovative ways with psychotropic substances, we have decoded more messages left on the streets of Denton Texas by extra-terrestrial visitors using giant tar-filled pens.

EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE CONTAINS NUMEROUS FACTUAL ERRORS

WE JUST CAME FROM AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE WHERE DONALD TRUMP IS SERVING TIME FOR TAX FRAUD AND SEXUAL ASSAULT AND HILLARY CLINTON WON THE 2016 ELECTION. IS IT NICE? OH MY GOD

FRIENDLY TIP: DON’T MAKE ANY PLANS FOR ANYTHING AFTER MARCH 12 2026

TIRED OF GLOBAL WARMING? WE PAY COLD CA$H FOR HOT PLANETS!

HOW COME YOU LET CRAZY PEOPLE AND FANATICS BUY ASSAULT RIFLES AND SHOOT LOTS OF CHILDREN? NOT CRITICIZING, JUST CURIOUS

LOOKING FOR MY LOST ARCTURIAN PUREBRED FHIDKG. RESPONDS TO “DIMPLES.” WHITE WITH BROWN SPOTS AND PURPLE EYES. IF YOU SEE HER KEEP AT LEAST 5 KILOMETERS AWAY

HELP! OUR PLANET HAS BEEN TAKEN OVER BY A SMART TOASTER! SEND 2 MEGATONS OF SLICED BREAD NOW OR WE ALL DIE!

NOTICE: NO PARKING THIS SIDE OF PLANET MARCH 13 2026 8 AM TO NOON

On Women Talking

We recently watched Sarah Polley’s excellent new film Women Talking. Its subject is the oppression of women, and how a community of women in a brutally male-dominated culture might resist that oppression and achieve freedom and security, and do so with their morality and religious adherence intact. The story is set in a rural religious community, apparently in the Southern Hemisphere (there is a reference to the Southern Cross in the night sky), apparently around 2010 (there is a reference to a 2010 census).

The women in this community are dealing with a horrific crisis: They, and their young daughters, are being sexually assaulted at night after being surreptitiously drugged. Finally a man, a member of the community, is caught in the act, and is arrested by the secular authorities. He names some others who are also arrested. The remaining men leave the community to go “to town” to bail out their brethren, temporarily leaving the women alone with each other.

The women and their daughters gather in a hayloft to discuss their situation. They are sure that if they stay in their community, the violence and assaults will continue. The bulk of the film consists of an extended debate over whether and how to remain and fight against the men, or to leave—and if they leave, who should be allowed to accompany them. One of them states their three minimum goals as safety for themselves and their children, the right to follow their religious beliefs (which includes nonviolence on their part), and the right to think for themselves.

This movie (and I have not read the book on which it’s based) is beautifully shot in verdant countryside, and is intellectually fascinating. The characters are vividly rendered, the script is brilliant, and the situation could not be more loaded with dramatic tension. The women love the men and boys in their lives, and their farming community is the only home they have known or even seen. They know nothing about the outside world, and have been kept uneducated and illiterate (though they quote from the bible). They are terrified of setting foot in the wider world, but their home has become untenable. From a cinematic point of view, I appreciate Polley’s style: an absence of unnecessary explanation, spare usage of music. The characters are sharply drawn—the ‘stay-and-fighters,’ the ‘leavers,’ the wise elderly women, the desperate mothers, the traumatized girls. The acting is marvelous.

But though I enjoyed this film, I realized halfway through it that there was something about it that really bugged me. It might have been titled White Women Talking to More White Women. The large, talented, ensemble cast was all white—and for no good reason, cinematic, narrative, or otherwise.

It does not have the excuse of historical accuracy. The story is set in a Mennonite-like community, but the religious sect, and its location, is never explicitly named—and for good reason. This is really a story about how women have been treated all over the planet, for all of human history, and asks the question: what if women were allowed the time and space to sit down and think and talk among themselves about their predicament, and what to do about it, without male interference? This is an idea that is certainly relevant beyond any boundary of race.

And even if this movie had tried to stick to the more tired “based on a true story” convention…so what? The “Bridgerton” miniseries proved that casting by race for historical accuracy is pointless, even counterproductive in terms of entertainment value. The viewers know they are watching a movie, a constructed story with actors and a script, not a live video feed of a Mennonite community in Bolivia. How does it promote our enjoyment or engagement with the story to cast it with white-only actors?

I’m not arguing for a quota system in casting movies, or a litmus test based on diversity. I’m arguing for a better movie. The problem for me is that my movie-viewing sensibility has changed in the last ten or twenty years. It just seems boring and stilted and even a little weird to me, to watch a movie like Women Talking, about a lot of white people talking to a lot of white people for two hours. Why? Viola Davis would have killed in this film. Or Penelope Cruz. Michelle Yeoh…my god!

The State of the Union Address, Ossining Edition

Editor’s Note: We recently received another dispatch from our correspondent at the near-future desk. He transmitted an advance copy of re-elected president Donald Trump’s State of the Union address, which he will deliver from Ossining, New York, in February of 2025.

Good evening, my fellow Americans.

I promise you I’ll keep it short tonight, anyway they turn off the lights at 9, can you believe that? But you get used to it.

I can report to the American people that the state of the Union tonight is strong! Should I wait? Are they giving me an ovation? I can’t tell, they won’t let me have a TV in my cell. They say maybe next year if I behave good. I can have two books though. I picked the Bible and The Art of the Deal, my two favorites by the way. I’ve always wanted to read them so maybe now I’ll have the time. That’s about all I have here in my cell, plus the nuclear football. It’s not really a football though, more like a high-tech briefcase. I keep it with me at all times except on Tuesday and Saturday mornings when I have to work in the laundry room. But not to worry, Zip keeps an eye on it when I’m gone. He’s one of my new friends. Standup guy. And very reasonable. He only charges a Snickers bar an hour to watch the nuclear briefcase. He’s doing twenty to life for a rape/murder but like he told me himself it’s totally bogus. Our justice system is out of control.

The state of America, which is me if you think about it, is outstanding. I’ve lost some weight, actually. The food here stinks but I can still get a Big Mac and a Coke once in a while, thank God. It’s amazing what a pack of cigarettes will get you in a place like this.

I’ve done a lot of personal reflection during the weekly group counseling sessions I go to because the facilitator has awesome bazongas. But you can’t kiss her or she starts screaming or saying “no!” in a really loud voice and then the guards come and beat you up and put you in solitary. So unfair. We need to have a national conversation about prison reform.

Anyway I’ve come to see that the bad things I did hurt a lot of people, especially me. I should never have paid Stormy through my lawyer and called it a retainer. I should have paid her directly since that wouldn’t have violated the federal code. OK, I was afraid Melania might take a peek in the dresser drawer and notice the missing cash.

I get a lot of letters asking me whether I get Secret Service protection here in the joint. No, they wouldn’t let me keep my Secret Service but it turns out I didn’t really need them. I got some new friends here who take awesome care of me. Rat-tail and Zip, they’re kind of like my gang now. Just recently Rat-tail protected me from the unwanted attentions of Hugs.

And that is why tonight I am presenting Rat-tail with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Where are you Rat-tail, come over here. For now it’s just some gold foil from a Toblerone wrapper on a string, but I’ll take care of you later, I promise. Rat-tail is a good guy, the best. Melania, please keep those cigarettes coming.

It’s funny, everyone goes by a nickname here.  He goes by “Rat-tail” because of his gray ponytail. “Hugs” is a groper. Everyone calls me “Shithead,” I don’t know why.

You know it’s very tough being president when you’re “inside.” I only get to talk to Vlad Putin because Ivanka smuggles his notes to me on alternate Thursdays, which could get her in big trouble if anyone found out. Vlad and Trump, two world-class leaders convicted on bogus charges.  You know, if I did all those things they say I did, I’d be a pretty rotten guy. But I’m a great guy, the best. And just cause I’m friends with Vlad doesn’t mean I’m going to let down Ukraine. I told Zelenzky I’ll start sending him tanks as soon as he opens an investigation on District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Well they’re telling me it’s lights out now and I’m trying to be a model prisoner so I can pass the parole hearing next month. The sooner I can get out of here and start persecuting everyone who did this to me, the better. But don’t worry, when I get before the panel I’ll be all like, “I’m so sorry for the pain I caused, I realize now I’m not above the law, blah-di-blah.”

Good night, and God Bless the United States of America!