Evil wind
Indignity Vol. 5, No. 12
POLITICS DEP'T.
Kill the Planet, Save the Whales
THERE WAS TOO much to think about in the first 12 hours of Donald Trump's second presidency, but I kept coming back to the wind turbines. The "windmills," as Trump called them. He put on an executive order blocking all permits for "onshore or offshore wind projects" and all new leases for offshore wind. The order called for review of the environmental impact of wind power installations—"Did you see up in New England with the whales, you see what's happening?" Trump asked his post-inauguration rally audience. "They had two whales killed in about 14 years. Last year and the year before, total, they had 28"—but it kept the Continental Shelf open to claims for "oil, gas, minerals, and environmental conservation."
The more pressing contradiction came from Trump's inaugural address, when he pledged to "end the Green New Deal" after having earlier lamented the Los Angeles fires: "From weeks ago, without even a token of defense, they're raging through the houses and communities, even affecting some of the wealthiest and most powerful individuals in our country, some of whom are sitting here right now."
The fires are burning because Southern California has been baked into inflammability by a deep drought brought on by climate change caused by burning fossil fuels. Trump promised to use "that liquid gold under our feet," to "drill, baby, drill." The point wasn't even to bring back oil. Earlier this month, with the Biden administration running a lease auction mandated under the first Trump administration, no one offered to buy the right to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. What mattered was deploying the old Sarah Palin slogan in his inaugural address, fracking the liberals to pump out their tears.
Trump's first day back on the job was a performance of overwhelming, fractal malice. The corps of seething nerds who put together Project 2025 and the first stack of executive orders seemed to make a point of embedding abuses within other abuses. The anti-abortion movement's long-desired personhood standard, for instance, showed up in the attack on trans rights, with the declaration that a fixed sex—belonging to a legal individual—is created in the act of fertilization. Trump's attempt to deny birthright citizenship, billed as an effort to discourage undocumented immigration, turned out to lump together anyone short of a permanent resident with the undocumented population.
But the wind power order came across as pure spite. As when he declared his intention to revive the now-unwanted Keystone XL pipeline, Trump's position on the environment amounts to rolling coal on a continental scale. His fossil fuel promotion is essentially abstract, an act of defiance toward the message that anything ever needs to change, or that the public and posterity have interests that demand protection. The wind turbines must be stopped because the wind turbines represent a future that could be something other than stoking the flames of the already hellish present. Power is about hoarding things and using them up.
WEATHER REVIEWS
Aberdeen, Maryland, to New York City, January 20, 2025
★★★★ When the generator coughed on for a test start, it was impossible to tell if the faint glow around the edges of the shades was the first sign of dawn or just the night sky doubled off the snow. The accumulation had come in on the low side of the forecast, with stray dead leaves and the edges of rocks still showing dark on the whitened ground, but thick white stripes ran all the way up the north sides of the trees. Bird tracks looped and zigged, and buried roots made undulating rays around the foot of the horse chestnut. A pair of mockingbirds, strangers to the yard feeders in the winter, flew in and drank from the heated birdbath. High up in a tree by the edge of the yard was what looked like a small hawk or a big woodpecker, but the binoculars picked out the bill and crest of a blue jay, puffed up to some multiple of its ordinary volume. Snow brushed off the car in light sparkling flakes, till it got down to a rough ice layer. Opening the door brought loose flakes down onto the seat, where they stayed, unmelted, till the brush could chase them away. The wipers had to be chipped and yanked free. The road bending downhill into the shadow of the woods looked white and possibly treacherous, but the other way, up toward the state route and the interstate, was all but clear. Sun and salt on the open highway made it hard to read the temperature controls on the console. Mile by mile the red paint of the hood showed more color through the slowly thinning sheet of snow and ice. Cloud shade covered long sections of road and acres of the city proper, with patchwork brightness scattered ahead or off to the side. In the city, the air stung as soon as the car door opened. Along Columbus Avenue the icicles on the parked cars made solid columns to the ground. The trees in the cross street bore the same kind of stripes as their country brethren, only pointing westward and branching more on the less columnar trunks.
SIDE PIECES DEP'T.
Tom Scocca
Over at Defector, I wrote about some other messages from Trump's second inauguration:
At midday, the Capitol flags were flying at full staff in Trump's honor, on the orders of House Speaker Mike Johnson, interrupting the traditional half-staff memorial that Biden had proclaimed for Jimmy Carter. Inside, in the rotunda, Biden sat and listened as Donald Trump attacked him as a lawless president. "The scales of justice will be rebalanced," Trump declared. "The vicious, violent, and unfair weaponization of the Justice Department and our government will end."
Before the day was over, Trump had rebalanced the scales, commuting the sentences of the people convicted of sedition in the Jan. 6 attack, issuing a mass pardon to 1,600 other convicted or indicted participants in the attack, and ordering the Justice Department to drop any future cases. The Supreme Court's gift of presidential immunity to prosecution and personal exemption from the Fourteenth Amendment's insurrection clause now extended, by royal blessing, to the entire mob. The violent attempt to overthrow Joe Biden's election was categorically, entirely legal.
EASY LISTENING DEP'T.
HERE IS TODAY'S Indignity Morning Podcast.
Tom Scocca
Click on this box to find the Indignity Morning Podcast archive.
TOM SCOCCA
ADVICE DEP'T.
GOT SOMETHING YOU need to justify to yourself, or to the world at large? Other columnists are here to judge you, but The Sophist is here to tell you why you’re right. Direct your questions to The Sophist, at indignity@indignity.net, and get the answers you want.
SANDWICH RECIPES DEP'T.
WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS in aid of the assembly of sandwiches selected from A Calendar of Dinners, with 615 Recipes, by Marion Harris Neil, including The Story of Crisco, published in 1915 and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.
Pimiento Cheese Sandwiches
2 tablespoonfuls Crisco
1 cupful diced cheese
1 teaspoonful cornstarch
6 tablespoonfuls milk
1 teaspoonful salt
Paprika to taste
1 can pimientoes
Graham bread
Put cheese into double boiler, add Crisco, cornstarch, milk, salt, and paprika to taste and stir and cook until smooth, then add pimientoes cut into small pieces. Spread between buttered slices of graham bread.
Sufficient for twenty-five sandwiches.
If you decide to prepare and attempt to enjoy a sandwich inspired by this offering, be sure to send a picture to indignity@indignity.net.
