A Fruit Fly in My Wine

I've just been reading about ABC television's decision to suspend Jimmy Kimmel indefinitely for the fairly innocuous comments he made about Charlie Kirk's killing. It is frightening how readily television companies knuckle under to the USA's newly authoritarian government. This is what happens when big business puts its own interests ahead of those of the public, who are entitled under the Constitution to hear a range of views from a range of sources -- including views critical of the government and its leaders. We are in a scary place.

You probably saw that Trump filed a multi-billion dollar defamation lawsuit against The New York Times for its critical coverage prior to last year's election. He took exception to statements like the paper's assertion that Trump as president would "defy the norms and dismantle the institutions that have made our country strong." And yet, here we are! He's trying to drive the Times out of business and threatening ABC's license over comments by a talk show host. He's deploying military on the streets of our cities. He has demolished the country's capacity for providing federal aid overseas and he's rewarding red states over blue ones at home. Seems to me that's defying norms and dismantling institutions.

I commented on the Times' own story about the lawsuit, "Don't you DARE settle this! To quote Trump, 'Fight, fight, fight!'" I have no idea whether or not they published it -- I see a lot of other people said similar things. The Times doesn't have the pressure of an FCC license hanging over its head so perhaps that gives it more room to resist.

A side note -- it's interesting that Trump filed his lawsuit in the Middle District of Florida, which is based in Tampa. Long ago, when I was first starting out as a reporter, I used to help cover the federal court in Tampa. I'd pop in on my way to the office and look through all the new suits to see whether anything interesting had come in. This was when the courthouse was still located in its charming old 1920s building, not in the modern monolith it occupies now. How surprised I would have been to find a lawsuit from the president in the stack! (I'm assuming Trump filed suit in Central Florida because it's a more conservative district and one more likely to give him a win. I can't imagine why else he'd do it there -- Palm Beach, where he lives, is in the Southern District.)

I did once attend a press conference at that courthouse with international implications, when the U.S. Attorney announced drug-trafficking charges against Manuel Noriega, the president of Panama. I was a 21-year-old college student at the time, and even my editor said he'd have sent someone more experienced if he'd realized how big the story was! I helped write it, though. I remember thinking it was silly we'd indict a foreign leader, when he was clearly out of the reach of our courts. I never imagined we'd invade the country months later and capture Noriega that way. I was young and naive.

Anyway...

Last night I was lying on the couch, drinking a glass of vin rouge and catching up on blogs, when a tiny black fruit fly flew into my wine. I didn't notice it until I took a sip and had to spit the thing out. I gingerly set it on the table next to the couch -- it was no bigger than a sesame seed -- and darned if it didn't start moving around, surviving not only being drowned in alcohol but briefly being in my mouth. It stretched its legs and dried its wings, and after a few minutes it flew away. I thought, "In these crazy times, may we all be as resilient as that fruit fly!"

(Photos: Morning sun in our entrance hall, and some graffiti and a sticker I saw yesterday. I think the second sticker means that Instagram is full of spam?)