Mark your calendars: Jan. 28, 2022. Russia says, “We don’t want wars.” Why they are in Syria and Kazakhstan, I don’t know. An invasion-ready army is on the northern and eastern borders of Ukraine. They are bringing in amphibious assault vessels able to attack from the Black Sea, but war is unimaginable. Putin wants a giant hug and a big, uninhibited, sloppy, wet kiss, only. He wants to use the amphibious vessels to bring tourists to Moscow.
Biden says Russia could invade next month. Really? In Black History Month? Anyway, it’s too cold for the hordes to invade.
Bad news. The IRS now says it wants you to video your own face with your own camera and send it to them in order to access your own tax records. You’ll also have to send a picture of your state ID or passport with it.
Worse news: The IRS won’t secure the videos and IDs. They will turn them all over to a non-governmental, for-profit third party to be processed. And there will be nothing to prevent the third party from selling your facial recognition data. It’s extremely unlikely that the third party will only get the videos and IDs to work with. They will need names, birth dates, birth places, social security numbers, maybe even short bios, email addresses, the works.
Worse still: We can’t expect a lot of quality control in the process. You will have to video yourself. What if your camera isn’t up to it? What if your face isn’t up to it?
Seriously. My face has been mistaken for a mop since 1997. The camera won’t have anything to go on but my eyes, cheeks and beautiful, vibrant lips. How will they know that I look just like Paul Rudd with a beard and white hair-dye?
How many of you have ever wondered, as I have since 1968, why all women out there look like Janis Joplin? The IRS will say, well, you look like Janis Joplin, but you’re alive, so you must be a fake.
It’s now about seven years since we adopted our black cat. I took color portraits of him at the beginning. I got photos of the silhouette of a black cat with yellow eyes staring out of him. I solved the problem by setting the camera to gray-scale. All his different shaded little hairs stood out from each other when I did. He was glorious.
But how will the IRS take it if any of us adjust the camera settings that much? They’ve never been very accommodating before. Besides, I’m sure they will want to see my deep blue, bluer than sky, eyes. They are only human.
Speaking of being accommodating, a while back Joe Biden was studying the history of the U.S. Supreme Court, just for the heck of it. I mean, really, a sitting president studying history? Who does he think he is? Some kind of nerd? And he noticed there has never been a Black female justice on the court. So, he vowed to change all that at the first opportunity. See a problem, fix a problem. What could be simpler? Hey, this isn’t rocket science, America.
Mitch McConnell hasn’t organized his thoughts about all this. Now that the opportunity is happening with the resignation of Justice Stephen Breyer, I’m sure Mitch is going over all sorts of strategies. Mitch sees reality through different filters and lenses.
“The Supreme Court has only been meeting for exactly 232 years. What’s your hurry?”
“You’ve got Sotomayor. Don’t be so greedy.”
“Hey. I know some history, too. There’s never been a Japanese man or woman on the Supreme Court, either, so what’s your point, hippy?”
“We’ve had enough African Americans on the court. It’s time we had more Americans.”
Mitch and Joe are buddies in real life, so they can kid in public. Like me and Jeff Bezos. “What do you want to do Saturday night?” I say. “You pick,” Jeff will always say. “How ‘bout Mexican and a movie?” I say. I’d always suggest it should be on him. “No,” he says. And we would laugh and laugh. Jeff’s a cheapskate.
“We’ve never had a woman justice who looks like Janis Joplin, I don’t see anyone crying in their beer about that.”
Dr. Wes is the Real Change Circulation Specialist, but, in addition to his skills with a spreadsheet, he writes this weekly column about whatever recent going-ons caught his attention. Dr. Wes has contributed to the paper since 1994. Curious about his process or have a response to one of his columns? Connect with him at [email protected].
Read more of the Feb. 2-8, 2022 issue.