Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Screeching Weasels and the Gospel According to Convenient Truth

I swear, trying to follow the logic coming out of this administration is beginning to make my head hurt. I’m starting to think the real qualification for a position in the White House isn’t intelligence, experience, or even the ability to form a coherent sentence. Apparently, it’s the ability to scream FAKE NEWS! loudly enough that nobody notices you haven’t actually answered the question.

Let’s start with the terminology, because apparently words have become optional in American politics.

These people love to scream about leaks when information comes out of the administration that makes them look bad. But if the information is fake, then what exactly is leaking? You can’t simultaneously insist that information is fabricated and complain that somebody leaked it. If it never existed in the first place, there’s nothing to leak. That’s not complicated. It’s basic vocabulary, the kind of thing we should be able to expect from people who have somehow managed to get jobs running the federal government.

Then we get to elections.

If they win, the election was fair, the system worked beautifully, and the American people have spoken. If they lose, suddenly there’s fraud, corruption, rigged voting machines, suspicious ballots, and a conspiracy involving practically everyone who works in an election office. Apparently, democracy is a perfectly functioning institution right up until the moment it produces a result they don’t like.

Then the screaming starts again.

Fake news! Lies! Fabrications! Political persecution!

And here’s the part that really makes my head hurt: if these accusations are so obviously false, if the reporting is completely fabricated, and if the people reporting it are deliberately lying, why not prove it? Why not present the evidence? Why not challenge the specific factual claims in court and let the evidence speak for itself?

To be clear, the absence of a lawsuit doesn’t automatically prove a news report is true. There can be legitimate legal, practical, and strategic reasons not to sue. But when people repeatedly insist that damaging reports are completely fabricated, you would think we could expect something more substantial than a press conference featuring three people shouting over one another like a pack of screeching weasels trapped in a leaf blower.

Instead, we get the political equivalent of a toddler covering his ears and yelling, “I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”

And somehow, we’re supposed to accept that as an argument.

The same people who demand absolute loyalty insist that everyone else is lying. The same people who claim to be victims of a corrupt establishment wield the power of the establishment. The same people who insist the media is spreading propaganda are perfectly happy to promote their own version of events, regardless of whether the facts cooperate.

Truth, in this political environment, has become less of a standard and more of a membership benefit.

If a story makes them look good, it’s proof that the media finally got something right. If it makes them look bad, it’s fake news. If an election goes their way, it’s democracy in action. If it doesn’t, democracy apparently needs to be investigated, audited, and possibly thrown out of the building.

There is no consistent standard. There is only the result they want.

And that’s the real problem. It isn’t simply that politicians lie. Politicians have been lying since the first ambitious person discovered that promising something was easier than delivering it. The problem is that we now have people in positions of power who seem to believe that repeating an accusation makes it true, that denying a fact makes it disappear, and that volume is an acceptable substitute for evidence.

It isn’t.

You can call something fake news a thousand times, but repetition doesn’t transform a falsehood into a fact. You can claim an election was rigged, but that claim doesn’t establish that it was. You can accuse every critic of being a liar, but eventually someone ought to ask you to show your work.

That’s how this is supposed to function. Claims are examined. Evidence is evaluated. Accusations are tested against facts. The process isn’t supposed to depend on which political team is currently doing the screaming.

I know, I know. Apparently, that makes me hopelessly old-fashioned. Somewhere along the way, we decided that being loud was the same as being right, that confidence was the same as competence, and that accountability was something reserved exclusively for the other side.

But I’m getting tired of the noise.

I’m tired of watching people with enormous power behave as though they’re helpless victims. I’m tired of watching basic definitions get twisted into political pretzels. And I’m especially tired of the expectation that the rest of us should abandon common sense because somebody with a government title and a microphone has decided that inconvenient facts are no longer facts.

Maybe I’m asking too much. Maybe expecting consistency, evidence, and a little intellectual honesty from our political leadership has become an unreasonable demand.

But here’s a thought: if the news is fake, demonstrate it. If the election was stolen, prove it. If the allegations are lies, provide the evidence that contradicts them.

Otherwise, stop confusing an accusation with an answer.

Because right now, the only thing being proven beyond a reasonable doubt is that the American political circus has hired an awful lot of screeching weasels—and handed them microphones.

And somebody, somewhere, needs to turn down the damn volume.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Every election, every political debate, every time someone tries to explain why Americans are angry, frustrated, or struggling to get by, we hear the same familiar phrase: “It’s the economy, stupid.”

It has become the political equivalent of a universal answer. If people are unhappy, look at the economy. If politicians are losing elections, look at the economy. If working Americans can’t afford groceries, rent, or health insurance, well, apparently, we need to look at the economy.

But I think we’ve been getting the phrase wrong all along.

It isn’t “It’s the economy, stupid.”

It’s the economy is stupid.

Somehow, we have been bamboozled into believing that if we give more money to people who already have more money than they could reasonably spend in several lifetimes, that wealth will somehow trickle down to everyone else. We have been sold this economic fairy tale for decades, and we keep coming back for another helping, despite the fact that the promised results never seem to arrive for the people who need them most.

The theory is simple enough: lower taxes on corporations and the wealthy, remove regulations, let businesses keep more of their profits, and eventually everyone benefits. The rich get richer, businesses grow, jobs appear, wages rise, and we all live happily ever after.

Except that isn’t what happens. At least, not for everyone.

The money accumulates at the top, corporate profits soar, executive compensation reaches astronomical levels, and the average American is left wondering how working forty hours a week somehow became insufficient to pay for the basic necessities of life.

Apparently, the problem isn’t that the system isn’t working. It’s that we’re still waiting for the part where it works for us.

We have confused the accumulation of wealth with the health of an economy. They are not the same thing.

We live in a capitalist, consumer-based economy. Businesses manufacture products, provide services, and sell goods because people buy them. That sounds remarkably simple, doesn’t it? You need customers with money to sustain a business. Without customers, you don’t have a market. Without a market, you don’t have a business. You have a warehouse full of inventory and a very expensive accounting problem.

Yet somehow, the people running some of the largest corporations in the world seem determined to eliminate the very people their businesses depend on.

Take Jeff Bezos and the continued push toward automation in Amazon’s distribution network. The goal is to make operations more efficient, reduce labor costs, and increase profits. From the perspective of an individual corporation, that makes perfect sense. Why pay thousands of employees if machines can perform the same work for less?

But let’s take that logic one step further.

Amazon sells products to consumers. Consumers need money to purchase those products. Most consumers get that money by working for a living. If enough companies automate their operations, eliminate jobs, and suppress wages, where exactly do they expect the next generation of consumers to get the money to buy their products?

Does Bezos imagine that the robots will eventually order everything, too?

Perhaps somebody should explain to the corporate boardroom that a robot might pack a box, move a pallet, or sort a shipment, but it doesn’t need a new television, a pair of shoes, a refrigerator, or a birthday present for its kid. It doesn’t need to pay rent. It doesn’t buy groceries. It doesn’t contribute to the consumer economy beyond whatever investment its owner makes in keeping it operational.

The company saves money on labor, but if enough companies follow the same strategy, they collectively weaken the purchasing power of their customers.

Individually rational decisions can produce a collectively stupid outcome.

And that, in a nutshell, is the problem with an economic system that rewards businesses for cutting costs without requiring anyone to consider what happens when the people whose costs are being cut can no longer afford to participate in the economy.

Historically, commerce began with a much simpler proposition. Someone had something another person needed, and the two found a way to exchange value. Perhaps a farmer traded food for a service. Perhaps someone repaired a roof in exchange for livestock. Eventually, currency made those transactions easier, and increasingly complex markets developed around them.

But the fundamental principle never changed: an economy depends on people exchanging goods and services.

Money is the mechanism. People are the participants.

You can make that mechanism more sophisticated, automate transactions, develop global supply chains, and create financial instruments so complicated that even the people trading them struggle to explain what they’re worth. But none of that changes the basic fact that a functioning consumer economy needs consumers who can afford to consume.

And consumers need money.

Which brings us to the other great economic myth: the idea that lowering taxes on corporations and the wealthy automatically produces better outcomes for everyone.

Look back at periods in American history when the top marginal income tax rates were substantially higher than they are today. Consider the postwar decades, when the country experienced strong economic growth, expanding middle-class prosperity, rising wages, and the development of a broad consumer market. The economy grew while taxes on the highest incomes were much higher than the rates many wealthy Americans pay today.

Now, history is complicated. Tax rates alone do not explain economic growth, and the headline marginal tax rate was not necessarily what wealthy individuals actually paid after deductions and loopholes. Other factors, including demographics, productivity, labor organization, public investment, and global economic conditions, mattered enormously.

But the historical record does undermine the claim that low taxes on the wealthy are an absolute prerequisite for prosperity.

We managed to build an enormous economy, expand the middle class, and create widespread consumer prosperity without giving the richest Americans every tax break they could possibly want.

Imagine that.

When workers earned enough to buy homes, raise families, purchase cars, and spend money on things beyond their immediate survival, that spending supported businesses. Those businesses hired more workers, expanded their operations, and sold more products. The money circulated through the economy, creating additional demand and opportunity.

Higher wages were not simply a cost imposed on businesses. They were also a source of customers.

Today, too many Americans are working two or three jobs just to keep their heads above water. They work longer hours, take on more debt, postpone medical care, and watch the price of basic necessities consume an ever-larger portion of their paychecks.

Then we wonder why people are anxious about the economy.

Perhaps it’s because the people doing the work are increasingly unable to afford the products and services their labor helps create.

We celebrate record corporate profits while families struggle to cover the electric bill. We congratulate executives for reducing payroll expenses while wondering why consumer confidence is weak. We praise companies for increasing productivity while ignoring the question of who benefits from that productivity.

If all the additional wealth goes to people who already have more than enough, the benefits to the broader economy can be surprisingly limited.

And this is where the difference between the spending habits of ordinary workers and the wealthy becomes important.

Give someone earning $50,000 a year an additional $10,000, and there’s a good chance a substantial portion of that money will go straight back into the economy. They’ll pay down debt, replace an aging appliance, repair their car, buy better groceries, catch up on bills, or finally take the family somewhere other than the living room.

Some will save a portion, and that’s sensible. But a significant share will likely be spent because they have needs that their existing income cannot fully meet.

Now give someone earning $10 million a year another $10 million.

Are they going to buy twice as many groceries? Drive twice as many cars? Purchase twice as many houses to live in? Replace their wardrobe every afternoon?

Of course not.

They might spend some of it, invest it, purchase additional property, or finance a new business. Wealthy people do invest, and investment can support economic growth. It would be inaccurate to suggest that every dollar retained by a wealthy person simply disappears into a bank vault.

But money invested in financial assets does not automatically translate into immediate consumer spending, higher wages, or new jobs. The outcome depends on where that money goes and whether it creates productive economic activity.

There is a difference between money circulating through the economy and money accumulating in financial portfolios.

A dollar in the hands of someone who needs to spend it often does more immediate work for the consumer economy than another dollar given to someone who has already satisfied nearly every material need.

This isn’t about punishing success or declaring that nobody should be wealthy. It’s about understanding how an economy functions and recognizing that the people who do the work and purchase the products are not incidental to the system. They are essential to it.

A business cannot thrive indefinitely by making products that fewer and fewer people can afford.

A corporation cannot endlessly reduce labor costs without consequences if those reductions weaken the purchasing power of its customer base.

And a country cannot build a durable middle class by treating wages as an expense to eliminate rather than income that sustains demand.

Yet we continue to make policy decisions as though the wealthiest Americans are the only people capable of keeping the economy moving. We cut taxes at the top, weaken worker protections, tolerate the concentration of market power, and tell struggling families to work harder, learn new skills, or stop buying coffee.

Because apparently, the person earning $35,000 a year is the problem, not the economic structure that leaves them unable to afford the necessities their parents could purchase on a single income.

At some point, we have to stop confusing what is good for an individual corporation with what is good for the entire economy.

A company may increase its profits by eliminating jobs. But if every company eliminates enough jobs, who buys the products?

An executive may increase shareholder returns by suppressing wages. But if wages remain stagnant while the cost of living rises, who sustains consumer demand?

A wealthy investor may accumulate another billion dollars. But if the money isn’t being put to productive use, how much does that additional accumulation contribute to the prosperity of the country as a whole?

These are not radical questions. They are basic questions about how a consumer economy is supposed to function.

And the answers suggest that we should be measuring economic success differently.

Instead of obsessing over stock market records, corporate earnings, and the growing fortunes of billionaires, perhaps we should pay more attention to whether ordinary people can afford housing, healthcare, food, transportation, and a little enjoyment of the lives they’re working so hard to maintain.

Perhaps we should ask whether productivity gains are translating into better wages, shorter working hours, and greater financial security, rather than simply larger executive bonuses.

Perhaps we should recognize that public investment, fair taxation, and a strong middle class are not necessarily obstacles to economic growth. They can be among its foundations.

Because when workers have money, they spend it. When they spend it, businesses have customers. When businesses have customers, they have reasons to expand, invest, and hire.

That isn’t some mysterious socialist conspiracy. It’s how a consumer economy works.

So the next time an election rolls around and politicians start repeating that familiar phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid,” perhaps we should correct them.

It’s not simply a question of whether the economy is growing. It’s a question of who is benefiting from that growth, who is paying for it, and whether the system is sustainable when the people at the bottom can no longer afford to participate.

We have spent decades being told that if we make the wealthy wealthier, prosperity will eventually find its way to everyone else. Meanwhile, the gap between those who have more money than they can reasonably spend and those who cannot afford their monthly bills continues to define American life.

The solution isn’t to destroy capitalism. It’s to stop pretending that capitalism works best when we undermine the purchasing power of the very people who make it possible.

An economy should be a system that creates and exchanges value, not an elaborate mechanism for transferring an ever-greater share of that value to the people who already own the most.

We don’t need to hate the wealthy. We need to understand that their fortunes ultimately depend on a functioning society, a productive workforce, and customers with money in their pockets.

You can automate the warehouse, reduce the payroll, eliminate the middleman, and squeeze every last cent out of production. You can celebrate the resulting profits and congratulate yourself on having built a more efficient company.

But sooner or later, somebody has to buy what you’re selling.

And if you’ve eliminated their job, stagnated their wages, and made everything they need more expensive, you might discover that you’ve optimized your business right into a shrinking market.

Congratulations. You’ve won the quarterly earnings report and lost the economy.

So, yes, every election is about the economy. Every administration claims to know how to fix it. Every political party promises that its policies will make life better.

But maybe the question isn’t whether we can make the economy grow.

Maybe the question is why we’ve built an economy that can produce more wealth than ever before while leaving so many of the people responsible for producing and purchasing that wealth struggling to get by.

Because the economy isn’t just stupid when we misunderstand it.

It’s stupid when we keep rewarding a system for accumulating money at the top while making it harder for everyone else to afford the things that keep the system alive.

And if we can’t figure out that an economy needs customers who can afford to be customers, then perhaps the problem isn’t the economy.

Perhaps the problem is us.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

We Paid for It. So Why Don’t We Control It?

There is something fundamentally backward about a government that can spend billions of taxpayer dollars developing technology, subsidizing private companies, and building the infrastructure necessary to make those companies successful, only to discover that when it actually needs that technology, a billionaire gets to decide whether it can be used.

Welcome to the American space program, where we have apparently decided that the best way to explore the final frontier is to write enormous checks to private companies and then cross our fingers that their owners remain cooperative.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX did not emerge in a vacuum. The company has benefited from billions of dollars in federal contracts, NASA partnerships, and government-funded launch and transportation programs. NASA helped create a commercial market for spaceflight by paying private companies to develop capabilities the agency needed. SpaceX brought innovation, reusable rockets, and competition into an industry that had long been dominated by expensive government programs and traditional aerospace contractors.

That deserves recognition. Musk and SpaceX have accomplished things that would have seemed extraordinary a generation ago.

But here is where the conversation gets interesting: When the government helps finance the development of strategically important technology, at what point does the public interest take precedence over the private interests of the person who owns it?

Apparently, we haven’t adequately answered that question.

We have allowed an increasingly important part of America’s space infrastructure to become intertwined with the business interests and personal decisions of one extraordinarily wealthy individual. And now we are discovering that the distinction between a private company providing a service and a private individual exercising geopolitical influence can become awfully thin.

The Billionaire With the Switch

Consider Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet network, and Starshield, its more security-focused satellite service developed for government and national-security customers.

These are not interchangeable systems, and their contractual arrangements differ. But both illustrate the growing importance of privately operated satellite infrastructure to American military and intelligence capabilities.

Starlink has also played a significant role in Ukraine’s communications infrastructure during Russia’s invasion. Reliable communications are not a luxury in a modern war. They can determine whether military units coordinate effectively, whether intelligence reaches the people who need it, and whether operations succeed or fail.

Reports about Musk’s decisions concerning Starlink access in Ukraine have raised serious questions about the influence a private executive can exercise over a conflict involving American strategic interests. In 2022, restrictions associated with Starlink access affected Ukrainian military operations, including a reported refusal to activate coverage for a Ukrainian operation near Crimea. Other decisions about service availability have likewise prompted debate over who should control these capabilities and under what circumstances.

Now, let’s be clear about something: Ukraine is not automatically entitled to unlimited access to every privately operated American satellite system simply because it is fighting Russia. Contracts, operational security, international law, and the risk of escalation all matter.

But that is precisely the point.

Decisions affecting a war zone should be governed by clearly defined agreements, accountable civilian leadership, and legitimate national-security considerations—not by an individual executive’s unilateral preferences.

If a decision can materially affect an ally’s ability to defend itself, it is no longer merely a customer-service dispute. It becomes a question of national policy.

And national policy is supposed to be made by a government accountable to the American people, not by a billionaire whose corporate boardroom doubles as a potential foreign-policy control room.

The Taxpayer-Funded Paradox

Here is the part that should bother us regardless of our political affiliation.

American taxpayers have helped fund NASA, the launch infrastructure, the research, the contracts, and the commercial partnerships that made today’s private space industry possible. SpaceX has also invested substantial private capital, developed its own technology, and taken considerable business risks. This is not a case of the government simply handing Musk a fully completed space program.

But the public-private partnership raises a legitimate question: What exactly did the public purchase, and what rights did the government retain in return?

A government contract is not automatically a gift of ownership. Federal funding does not mean the government owns every resulting invention, satellite, or piece of equipment. Ownership and control depend on the contracts, applicable law, intellectual-property rights, and the particular system involved.

That distinction matters.

Still, when the government pays for a service essential to national defense, it should negotiate terms that protect its ability to use that service when national security requires it. If it fails to do so, the problem is not necessarily that a private company has too much legal authority. It may be that government officials have failed to secure sufficient authority on behalf of the people paying the bill.

And if that is what happened, why should the public be comfortable with the arrangement?

We would never willingly design a military communications system in which a single private executive could unexpectedly interrupt critical operations without meaningful contractual safeguards, government oversight, or an alternative source of service.

At least, we shouldn’t.

Yet our growing dependence on commercial space technology raises exactly that concern. The more essential these systems become, the more dangerous it is to confuse a vendor with a strategic institution.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

OK, people. This is it. The last week to vote in this midterm election. If you care about your rights, your children’s rights, your neighbors’ rights, or the direction this country is heading, then get off your ass and vote.

I don’t care if you vote Democrat, Republican, Independent, or write in the name of your neighbor’s cat. That’s your choice. That’s the whole damn point. Your vote is yours, and nobody else gets to make that decision for you.

There are very few things this country actually asks you to do as a citizen. Voting is one of them. It’s your opportunity to have a say in who makes the decisions that affect your life, your paycheck, your healthcare, your freedoms, and your future. You don’t get to complain that nobody listens to you if you won’t even take the time to make your voice heard.

And yes, I’m looking at all of you who say, “My vote doesn’t matter.” That’s a convenient excuse, isn’t it? Funny how the people who want to hold onto power seem to spend an awful lot of time making it harder for certain people to vote. If individual votes didn’t matter, why bother making it difficult to cast them?

Your vote matters precisely because power depends on people choosing to exercise it.

So, vote. Vote because you believe in something. Vote because you’re angry about something. Vote because you want things to change, or because you think things should stay the way they are. Vote because you want your children to inherit a country with rights and freedoms worth protecting. Vote because you’re tired of politicians treating public office like a personal investment portfolio.

And if you’re a Republican, go vote. If you’re a Democrat, go vote. If you’re an Independent who thinks both parties could use a good kick in the ass, go vote. I may disagree with your choices, but I will defend your right to make them.

That’s how democracy is supposed to work. We don’t all have to agree. We just have to agree that the people get to decide.

Now, a practical reminder: If you have a mail-in ballot, don’t assume dropping it in a mailbox this late will get it counted in time. Check your state’s election rules and deadlines. If you can, take it to an official ballot drop box or an authorized election office. Make sure it gets where it needs to go before the deadline. Don’t let procrastination turn your right to vote into a piece of paper that arrives too late to matter.

We’re down to the final week. There’s no more “I’ll do it tomorrow.” There’s no more assuming someone else will take care of it. There’s no more complaining about the direction of the country while sitting on the sidelines.

Democracy isn’t a spectator sport. You don’t get to sit in the stands for two years, ignore the game, and then act surprised when you don’t like the final score.

So, please, please, PLEASE GET OUT AND VOTE!

Your rights. Your kids’ rights. Your neighbors’ rights. Your future.

One ballot at a time.

And if you’re still wondering whether your one vote makes a difference, remember this: elections are decided by the votes that are actually cast, not by the people who meant to vote but never got around to it.

LAST WEEK, PEOPLE. GET IT DONE. VOTE!

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

With Halloween a week away, I find myself doing what apparently passes for seasonal entertainment: watching television shows about ghosts, haunted houses, paranormal investigators, and people who willingly spend the night in buildings where something supposedly wants them dead. Apparently, nothing says festive autumn entertainment quite like watching grown adults scare the living hell out of themselves in an abandoned asylum.

But as I watch these shows, I keep coming back to the same question: Why is it that the spirit world apparently operates almost exclusively after dark?

Seriously. Have you ever watched Ghost Hunters or any of the countless other paranormal investigation shows and noticed that nobody seems interested in investigating a haunting at two o’clock on a sunny Tuesday afternoon? No, they have to wait until midnight, turn off every light in the building, grab their flashlights, and start whispering into the darkness like they’re afraid of waking up the very things they’re supposedly there to find.

Apparently, the dead have office hours, and those hours begin after sunset.

I understand the entertainment value. A shadow moving across a dark hallway is considerably more dramatic than a shadow moving across a brightly lit room. A mysterious noise in the middle of the night makes for compelling television, while the same noise at lunchtime probably gets blamed on the plumbing. And let’s be honest, watching someone scream because a door creaked in a dark basement is considerably more entertaining than watching them investigate the same basement with the lights on and a sandwich in their hand.

But if we’re going to entertain the possibility that some form of consciousness survives physical death, why would it be restricted to the nighttime shift?

Does sunlight interfere with the afterlife? Are spirits allergic to daylight? Is there some supernatural equivalent of a union contract that prohibits paranormal activity before dusk?

And if ghosts can supposedly walk through walls, move objects, and communicate with the living, why should the position of the sun have any bearing on their ability to do so? We’re talking about entities that have allegedly escaped the fundamental rules of biology, yet apparently remain subject to the lighting preferences of a theatrical production.

Maybe the dead simply understand atmosphere better than the living.

My son once made a comment while we were watching one of these shows that has stuck with me because it was both hilarious and entirely reasonable. The investigators were exploring an allegedly haunted orphanage, supposedly inhabited by the spirits of children who had died there.

My son’s question was simple: “Why are they doing it at night? Are these kids supposed to be in bed?”

I laughed, but the more I thought about it, the more I appreciated the logic.

Apparently, even in death, children are expected to observe a bedtime. Maybe the paranormal investigators should come back during recess. Bring a few toys, leave the lights on, and see whether anyone wants to play. It might be a more productive investigation than wandering around a dark hallway asking, “Is there anybody here who wants to communicate with us?”

And if a ghostly child actually answers, perhaps the next question should be whether they have finished their homework.

The same ridiculous logic applies when these shows investigate battlefields and places associated with mass casualties. Take Gettysburg, for example. One of the bloodiest battles in American history, fought primarily during daylight hours over several days in July 1863. Thousands of men were killed in the fields, woods, and surrounding countryside.

Yet when paranormal investigators visit these historic battlefields, they inevitably seem to prefer the middle of the night.

Why?

If the theory is that people who die under traumatic circumstances leave behind some kind of spiritual imprint, why would that imprint be more active at midnight than at noon? The men who died at Gettysburg were fighting in the daylight. They weren’t stumbling around in the dark, wondering where the battle had gone. They were dealing with musket fire, artillery, smoke, and the general unpleasantness of nineteenth-century warfare while the sun was shining.

The same question applies to Lexington and Concord, Antietam, Waterloo, and countless other battlefields. Before modern warfare made nighttime operations more practical and sophisticated, many major battles were fought primarily during daylight because commanders needed to see what the hell they were doing.

So, if the spirits of fallen soldiers are still wandering those fields, are they waiting until dark to resume their duties? Does a ghostly Union soldier punch out at sunset and return to his position after midnight? Does a Confederate soldier have to wait until the paranormal investigators arrive before he can reenact the battle?

And what happens when daylight saving time begins? Do the ghosts adjust their schedules, or is that another one of those things nobody thought to ask during the investigation?

I realize that the usual explanation is that darkness makes paranormal activity easier to detect, or that spirits are more active when the environment is quiet. But those explanations seem to confuse the conditions under which people believe they experience something with the conditions under which something supernatural would actually have to exist.

Maybe people hear more unexplained noises at night because there are fewer ordinary noises competing for their attention. Maybe a dark hallway makes an ordinary shadow look sinister. Maybe our brains, which are remarkably good at recognizing patterns, occasionally find faces, figures, and movement where none exist.

And maybe, just maybe, television producers have figured out that a dark building, a night-vision camera, and someone whispering, “Did you hear that?” are more likely to hold an audience than six hours of paranormal investigators walking around a perfectly ordinary building in broad daylight.

I’m not claiming to know what happens after death. I don’t have any secret knowledge of the afterlife, and I’m not going to pretend I can definitively rule out every possibility simply because I haven’t personally encountered a ghost. The universe is a remarkably strange place, and human understanding of it remains incomplete.

But there’s a difference between acknowledging that we don’t know everything and accepting every bit of supernatural mythology without asking a few obvious questions.

If there’s another side, why should it be dark? If spirits can communicate with us, why do they apparently prefer abandoned buildings at midnight? And if a battlefield is haunted because of the violence that occurred there, why should the hour of the haunting matter?

Perhaps the dead aren’t any more active at night. Perhaps the living are simply more frightened of the dark.

Which brings us back to Halloween, the one time of year when we collectively decorate our houses with skeletons, buy miniature candy bars, and celebrate our fascination with things that go bump in the night.

I suspect the real mystery isn’t whether ghosts exist. It’s why, in a world full of unanswered questions, we’ve decided that the supernatural apparently needs a dramatic lighting department.

If I ever find myself on one of these paranormal investigations, I’m making one request: let’s go during the day.

Open the curtains. Turn on the lights. Maybe bring a picnic lunch.

And if we encounter a spirit, I have a few questions I’d like answered.

First, why do you only show up at night?

Second, if you died on a battlefield in broad daylight, what exactly have you been doing all afternoon?

And third, if you’re going to spend eternity wandering around an abandoned building, wouldn’t you eventually get bored?

After all, eternity is a pretty long time to spend waiting for somebody to turn off the lights.

Happy Halloween. Keep the porch light on. Apparently, the dead are waiting for us to turn it off.