Dwain Northey (Gen X)

“The farmers love me — everybody says so! I’ve done more for big ag than any president, believe me. Nobody’s done more!”

Which is hilarious, because the man doesn’t understand the difference between for and to.

And yes, he’s absolutely done more to Big Ag — and by extension, to farmers — than any president in recent memory. Unfortunately, “to” and “for” are not synonyms, no matter how loudly you yell them.

Now… back to our regularly scheduled farmer frustration:

Well butter my biscuits and call me gullible, because apparently it’s déjà vu down at the farm. Here comes Trump again, swooping in like a balding eagle to “save” American farmers — you know, from the crisis that he personally created the last time he tried to save us.

Look, we’ve seen this movie before. First term: he picks a fight with China, slaps on tariffs like he’s trying to patch a tractor tire with duct tape, and suddenly soybeans are piling up like cordwood because China says, “Nah, we’re good.” Farmers lose billions — REAL billions, not the Monopoly money he waves around at rallies — and Trump gallops in with a bailout that covers maybe a third of the damage on a generous day.

But hey, why stop at lighting a field on fire when you can also hand out a garden hose and call yourself the fire department?

And now, here we go again. Tariff trouble round two, crop prices sliding like a hog on an icy ramp, and Trump reappears to play the hero, offering the agricultural sector another payout that doesn’t even cover the cost of diesel, let alone the difference between what we had and what his trade war flushed down the grain bin.

The man breaks your leg, hands you a Band-Aid, and expects you to vote him “Farmer of the Year.”

Meanwhile, farmers — real farmers, not the ones posing for photo ops in brand-new Carhartt — are sitting here going, “You KNOW we can do math, right?”

But apparently Trump thinks rural America is just so star-spangled grateful for attention that we don’t notice the pattern:

Step 1: Start economic fistfight with China. Step 2: Farmers lose their shirts, their backup shirts, and probably a tractor payment. Step 3: Toss out a bailout worth half a hay bale and call it salvation. Step 4: Claim credit for saving farming. Step 5: Pretend Steps 1–4 didn’t happen.

It’s like being mugged and then thanked for accepting a coupon for 15% off your next mugging.

So here we are — again — listening to speeches about how he’s the champion of the heartland. Meanwhile the actual heartland is muttering, “Buddy, if this is what champions do, I’d hate to see what happens when you don’t like us.”

But sure. Let’s all line up for another photo-op check that barely covers the losses from the tariffs he’s planning to keep. Because nothing screams “economic strategy” like setting your own barn on fire and bragging about how fast you grabbed the hose.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Let’s take a moment to appreciate America’s healthcare system: a glorious, profit-soaked monument to inefficiency where we can’t do something as scandalously simple as basic arithmetic. I mean, if adding percentages was easy, we might actually solve problems instead of writing euphemistic reports about why nothing needs fixing.

Here’s today’s mind-blowing calculus (hold on to your pocket protector):

The average contribution between personal and business for Medicare sits at around 3% of earnings. That’s what both workers and employers chip in together to fund a basic safety net for grandma and people with chronic illnesses. Yet the average U.S. household shells out 10–12% of its income on private health insurance premiums — before deductibles, copays, prescription bills, ER markups, and the guilt-inducing $40 “facility fee” for a kidney stone.

Now here’s where the math gets juicy: imagine charging every dollar only 5% toward a nationalized healthcare system — no caps, no runaway premiums, just one simple rate — and poof! families, on average, would actually spend less than they do today. Lower premiums? More coverage? Heresy! That can’t be right… because profit margins exist. Also, logic is a socialistic conspiracy invented by algebra teachers.

Now — for the pièce de résistance — let’s talk overhead:

🎩 Private insurance companies — those heroic defenders of shareholder value — rake in administrative costs in the realm of about 12–17% of total premiums collected. These are your marketing campaigns, glossy billboards, executive bonuses, commissions to brokers, fancy lounges at industry conferences, and that inexplicable quarterly magazine about wellness that you never read.

🏛️ Medicare, that bland government program that somehow doesn’t prime executives for cushy board seats by age 45? Its administrative overhead sits roughly between 2–5% of total spending — depending on how you slice the bureaucratic pie and whether you count all the support activities in other agencies. That’s approximately one-fourth to one-seventh of what private insurers take just for paperwork and profit extraction.

Yes, technically there are arguments from the dark corners that if you measure per person rather than percentage of total spend, Medicare’s costs can look closer to private plans — because Medicare’s patients are older and use more services — but that’s like comparing the fuel cost of a space shuttle to a sedan by focusing only on how many peanuts astronauts eat. The gist is clear: private overhead is notably higher.

So let’s break this logic down for anyone clutching a TI-84:

🧮 If you pay more in administrative overhead and profit — 12–17% — plus all the other fees that only accountants pretend to understand,

and

📉 you could instead run an enormous program with 2–5% overhead and literally millions fewer billing disputes…

then

📊 rational math says: you’d save money.

But not in America! No, here we can’t do math but we can do profit margins! We love opaque pricing, inscrutable EOBs (explanation of benefits—an explanation of nothing), and denials that require an MBA to decipher. Because isn’t the point of healthcare maximizing shareholder value with a side of “hope this doesn’t bankrupt you”?

Meanwhile countries with universal systems and low administrative costs look at us like we’re using slide rules in a quantum computing lab. And we just nod, adjust our deductible, and wonder why the bill for that “routine visit” looks exactly like a small car payment.

So yes — in a world where 5% on every dollar might actually give people universal coverage and a break on premiums, we stare blankly at the ceiling and whisper, “But what will the CEOs do?”

Honestly, your circle analogy was kinder than what this whole system deserves.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

 America—the great economic laboratory where we keep running the same failed experiment and acting shocked when the beakers explode. Let’s revisit that golden era from 1947 to 1979, when the bottom tier of Americans—the people who mop the floors, build the roads, teach the kids, and generally hold the entire country together with duct tape and grit—saw their incomes rise by a truly obscene 142%. How dare they? How dare regular people experience prosperity. That’s not what capitalism was designed for!

Enter the 1980s: the decade when hair got bigger, shoulder pads got wider, and economic policy got aggressively dumber.

This is when we resurrected the long-dead, long-discredited “trickle-down economics,” slapped a fresh coat of patriotic paint on it, and pretended it was innovative. Reagan didn’t invent a new theory—oh no, he just exhumed horse-and-sparrow economics, a pre–Great Depression gem that essentially claimed, “If you feed the horses enough oats, eventually the sparrows will get to eat what comes out the other end.” Yes. That was the actual, serious economic theory. Give the wealthy more food so the peasants can enjoy the byproduct. Hooray.

Reagan just dusted it off, ran it through the Xerox machine of his youth, and repackaged it as a bold vision for the future. Same manure, different marketing.

And since the 1980s? The top 1% has watched their income skyrocket almost 300%—a Mount Everest of wealth so high it needs supplemental oxygen. Meanwhile, everyone else is down at sea level, inhaling secondhand “prosperity” fumes and checking the sky for drips that never come.

But sure—keep believing it. Keep insisting that trickle-down economics is viable. Keep nodding like a bobblehead every time a politician tells you that if we just give billionaires ONE MORE TAX BREAK, the benefits will cascade down like the world’s saddest waterfall.

Never mind that the only thing trickling down for 40 years has been stagnant wages, higher costs, and economic anxiety so normalized we treat it like seasonal allergies.

Never mind that we literally proved from ’47–’79 that when you invest in the bottom, the entire economy surges upward. Too logical. Too effective. Too threatening to the narrative that the wealthy are magical prosperity unicorns whose glitter somehow creates jobs.

Instead, we cling to an economic theory that has the structural integrity of wet cardboard and the moral clarity of a used car warranty.

At this point, believing in trickle-down economics is like believing a casino slot machine is “due” because you’ve lost your paycheck, your rent money, and a kidney. Any day now, though, right? Just keep pulling the lever.

Meanwhile, the horses have never been more stuffed, and the sparrows? Well, they’re told to be grateful for the opportunity to hunt for crumbs in a pile of economic fertilizer that just keeps getting higher.

Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

Have watched several videos about the POWs of WWII on You Tube. Most are very specific about how America made complying with the Geneva Convention an absolute priority. The ones that deal with German personnel deal with the treatment more than the idealology of where they came from and the propaganda that had been a constant in their lives. One has been specific about the reactions of the POWs with American personnel that are of Jewish Heritage. All talk about how America was described as weak and failing, and just not a good place to be. The major point that comes through is that Germany had made a conserted effort, or at least the National Socialists had made an effort to frame one particular group as being responsible for all the problems that Germany had after WWI. We have the same issue going on at present on our streets and across the country. All of the problems we have are being created by them, people with darker skin, or ones that were not born here, and in some cases that doesn't mean much. The person sitting in the Oval office, or one of his managers with a real gift for grabbing the helm, is orchastrating the rounding up and removal of people on the grounds that they are to blame for our problems. The real cause of our problems is not the differences in skin tone but the differences in opinion about more things than I have space to write about. How to govern and where does government go from a supportive role to a controlling role and what all that means. The fact that incompetence is sitting in the White House and that incompetence has surrounded himself with more incompetence is the real issue. The pick for cabinet members was not made based on ability it was made on the basis of loyalty to the leader not the Constitution. If the Congress finally decides that enough is enough and decides to remove Trump they will have to get rid of every member of the cabinet as well. On top of that we will most likely see atleast one, possibly two people tried on the basis war crimes. For all the people that felt their vote would not matter, or all the ones that said a woman can't be President, or the ones that judged competence based on genetics, shame on you. Your vote may have been the one that could have changed the outcome. If women are not capable then how is it that so many other nations have elected women to high office? If skin color or some other genetic factor is the desiding factor for you then maybe it is time to reconsider your personal bias. If you are just cheap skates maybe you should vote for a woman, you might get her to work for less money, the current President has no problem spending ours for his personal interests.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Now that we’ve cracked open the pagan gift-giving origins, let’s move further into the misty Nordic forest of “Christmas traditions that absolutely did not start as Christian, but sure—roll with it.”

1. The Lighting of Trees: Because Nothing Says “Joy” Like Bringing the Forest Indoors to Combat Cosmic Darkness

Picture this: It’s Northern Europe, it’s December, it’s dark for 23.5 hours a day, and you haven’t seen the sun long enough to remember what colors are. Ancient pagans didn’t have seasonal affective lamps or peppermint mochas, so they did the next best thing—dragged a live tree inside and lit it up.

Not as in electric lights, but candles.

Yes, actual fire.

On a tree.

Inside a wooden house.

It was a combo of natural magic and “I dare the universe to smite me.” The evergreen symbolized life surviving winter, and the lights symbolized the returning sun. When Christianity arrived, it wisely said, “Sure, that seems festive,” and suddenly the ritual of not burning your home down became a wholesome holiday tradition.

2. Wreaths: The Original Pagan Mood Rings

Before wreaths were hung on doors to say “We have good taste and probably a nice kitchen,” they were circular pagan symbols of the eternal cycle of seasons—life, death, rebirth, the whole natural Netflix drama.

A wreath’s circular shape represented the sun, eternal life, protection against spirits, and probably the ancient equivalent of “Don’t bother us, we’re trying to survive winter.” Christians later adopted the symbol, added candles, and called it Advent, but the core symbolism remained:

A decorative way of saying “We’re not going down without a fight.”

3. The Yule Log: Because Dragging a Giant Tree Trunk Indoors Once Seemed Reasonable

The Yule log is the ultimate holiday flex. Germanic and Norse pagans would haul an entire tree trunk—yes, the whole thing—into the home, shove the giant end into the fireplace, and let it burn for days or even weeks.

It was basically:

a space heater a sun charm a community bonding ritual and an ancient version of “we’re gonna need a bigger fire.”

Eventually the tradition shrank (thankfully) into a much smaller symbolic log, and then even further into… a cake. Because modern humans prefer edible symbolism over accidentally lighting the house on fire.

4. Mistletoe: The Ancient Kiss-Crime Plant

Long before it was the plant that justified awkward office-party encounters, mistletoe had a reputation as:

a fertility charm a peace symbol a magical healing plant and an indicator that druids really liked climbing trees

In Norse myth, it even plays a role in the death of Baldr, so you might say mistletoe has a complicated résumé.

When Christianity absorbed the tradition, all the messy mythology was quietly swept under the rug, leaving only the part where you’re socially required to kiss someone because a parasitic plant said so. Truly, humanity’s finest hour.

How This All Became Modern “Christian” Holiday Culture

As Christianity spread across Europe, it wisely realized that trying to ban all these beloved rituals would go about as well as banning cookies. So instead, it blended them seamlessly into Christmas celebrations.

The result is the holiday we now know—an elaborate, centuries-old remix of:

pagan solstice traditions medieval Christian symbolism Victorian sentimentality Coca-Cola marketing LED lights bright enough to summon aircraft

And today we celebrate by decorating with ancient fertility sprigs, resurrecting solar cult symbols, eating logs of chocolate, and lighting up trees like pagan disco balls—all while insisting this is very traditional and definitely not borrowed from the people who worshipped the sun on the longest night of the year.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

At this point, the American immigration system resembles a government program in the same way a chainsaw resembles a butter knife: technically, yes, but you wouldn’t use one if you cared about the people involved. ICE, meanwhile, continues its touring production of “Cruelty on Ice: Now With Extra Tear Gas!” Masked agents storming neighborhoods like they’re auditioning for a dystopian action movie, tactical gas canisters flying like parade confetti, and—because irony is dead—toddlers coughing in the backseat of family cars.

And presiding over this circus, we have Gov. Kristi Noem, whose policy instincts appear to have been shaped by the question, “What would a cartoon villain do in this situation?” Her ideological spirit animal seems to be a vulture wearing pearls.

But just when you think the whole show couldn’t get more grotesque, ICE unveiled its latest magic trick:

appearing at immigration and naturalization ceremonies—you know, the event where people who have spent years following every rule, filing every document, paying every fee, attending every interview, and practically bending themselves into bureaucratic origami, are finally about to become U.S. citizens.

Imagine it: a room full of immigrants who have done everything by the book—more paperwork than most native-born Americans will ever complete in their entire lives—finally standing on the edge of citizenship. The finish line is literally one oath away.

Enter ICE, stage right.

Agents begin singling out individuals, asking, “Where are you from?”—as if the entire point of the ceremony wasn’t that it doesn’t matter anymore. These folks have gone through security checks, background checks, fingerprinting, more interviews, and more vetting than half the country’s elected officials. And yet here comes ICE treating them like they wandered into the building by accident, like they’re suspiciously well-behaved criminals disguised as future citizens.

And then the punchline: being told to leave.

Imagine the audacity—actually no, “audacity” is too polite. Imagine the galaxy-brained hypocrisy—of a federal agency that never shuts up about “going after people who aren’t following legal processes” turning around and harassing people whose entire existence for the last decade has been nothing BUT following legal processes.

The people at these ceremonies did every single thing ICE insists immigrants ought to do.

And ICE still shows up to say, “Not you. Out. Now.”

It’s like a fire department lecturing people about installing smoke detectors and then setting fire to their houses anyway—for consistency.

But ICE isn’t done. Oh no. This is the same organization that tears up families for sport, tear-gasses children, and masks its agents as if they’re ashamed to be recognized (imagine that!) while insisting they’re defending the nation from the existential threat of… people filling out paperwork too well?

If it weren’t so horrifying, it would be slapstick.

This isn’t “enforcement.”

This isn’t “sovereignty.”

This isn’t “law and order.”

This is just cruelty, dressed up in tactical gear and supported by leaders whose moral compasses have been replaced with spinning novelty magnets from a truck stop.

When a federal agency spends more time harassing people at their citizenship ceremonies than actually focusing on criminals, we’ve officially crossed the line from dysfunction into farce.

And yet we’re supposed to keep a straight face when they insist, “We only go after people who aren’t doing things legally”? Please. They’re literally crashing the ceremony that celebrates legal immigration.

If hypocrisy were a renewable energy source, ICE alone could power the entire Midwest.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

If you ever wondered what happens when you hand the nuclear codes and a Sharpie to a man who thinks “scale” is just something lizards use to shed their skin, look no further than Donald Trump’s sudden geopolitical romance with Venezuela. It’s like watching two people play the board game Risk without realizing the board isn’t to scale—and one of them is actively drawing new territories with a magic marker.

Apparently, Trump and Pete Hegseth have discovered a new Venezuela—one that is mysteriously only a few nautical skips from Miami. Yes, in their alternate universe, the northern coast of South America must have done a dramatic plate-tectonic shimmy right up toward Florida. Who knew continental drift could be accelerated by Fox News segments and sheer presidential willpower?

Because in our universe—the boring, reality-based one—Venezuela sits a couple thousand miles from the U.S. coastline. You know, the kind of distance only achievable by a plane, a ship, or perhaps a trained dolphin wearing a jetpack. But in Trumpworld? A cartel speedboat apparently goes full Marvel Cinematic Universe, skimming thousands of miles nonstop like it’s powered by Tony Stark’s arc reactor.

But of course, maps—real maps—have never been Trump’s strong suit. This is the same man who, when confronted with a hurricane forecast he didn’t like, simply improved it with a Sharpie. Meteorology by Crayola. Geography by Crayola. National security by Crayola. Truly a renaissance man.

So naturally, Trump and Hegseth have now Sharpie-adjusted the Caribbean Sea itself. Presto! Venezuela is now basically offshore of Tampa. If they could draw a dotted line from Caracas to Miami like a treasure map, they absolutely would. “X marks the fentanyl that doesn’t exist!”

Because let’s take a moment to appreciate the pièce de résistance of this whole panic: not one ounce, not one pill, not one grain of fentanyl comes from Venezuela. Zero. Zilch. Nada. But don’t let facts ruin a perfectly good fear-mongering narrative. No, sir. Because according to Trump’s press secretary, the former president has bravely saved “300 million” Americans from fentanyl deaths.

Which is quite a miracle, considering the actual population of the United States is about 340 million. By their math, virtually every person in the country has been personally dragged back from the brink at least once.

But who cares? What matters is that Trump’s imaginary Venezuela—now positioned somewhere between Cuba and Disney World—is apparently mounting a fentanyl invasion with imaginary drugs on imaginary boats from an imaginary distance to kill imaginary populations.

It’s like watching a toddler play army with plastic dinosaurs while insisting the dinosaurs are “very real” and “very dangerous” and “nobody knows more about dinosaurs than I do.”

And in the end, that’s what makes this the biggest, dumbest game of Risk ever played. Except in Risk, players at least look at the board before declaring war.

Trump just redraws it with a Sharpie and calls it strategy.

The Great Birthday Paradox

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

From the moment a child emerges squalling into the world—red, indignant, and already judging the lighting choices in the delivery room—we begin their training in the grand human tradition of annual self-celebration. “Happy Birthday!” we cry, as though the tiny creature has accomplished something other than being forcibly evicted from their first apartment. And so begins the sacred cycle: every year, like clockwork, we gather to shower them with gifts, cake, praise, and sometimes inflatable bounce houses that cost more than diplomatic summits.

Because nothing says congratulations on not dying this year quite like a plastic toy that will break before New Year’s.

This ritual makes perfect sense—after all, birthdays are your special day. A personal fiesta. A yearly reminder that you are the protagonist of the universe and everyone else is a supporting character who should show up with a gift bag.

But then we encounter the theological plot twist: Christmas.

Ah yes, Christmas—Jesus’s birthday. (Or a few months off, but we don’t let calendars ruin the vibe.)

Now, logic would dictate that if Christmas is indeed the divine birthday party for the Christian world’s most important figure, then perhaps Jesus should be the one getting the gifts? Maybe a nice robe upgrade. A sandal warranty extension. A cloud-to-harp Bluetooth speaker.

But no. According to long-standing cultural tradition and the marketing department at every big-box store, the proper way to celebrate Jesus’s birthday is for everyone else—especially children—to receive presents. Mountains of presents. Cascades of wrapping paper. Whole ecosystems worth of Amazon boxes. Because nothing honors the Prince of Peace quite like plastic dinosaurs and glitter slime.

It’s as if the logic goes:

Children’s Birthdays: “It’s YOUR day, sweetie! Here are gifts because you’re special.” Jesus’s Birthday: “It’s HIS day, sweetie! Here are gifts because YOU’RE special.”

At this point even geometry can’t square the circle—we’ve moved into full quantum metaphysics. Jesus’s birthday creates a wormhole where all gifts are simultaneously for him and not for him. Schrodinger’s Present.

And Christian parents say this with a straight face.

“It’s Jesus’s birthday, so of course you get a new PlayStation.”

Naturally. Because when Jesus said, “Suffer the children to come unto me,” he clearly meant “bring them LEGOs.”

To be fair, Jesus himself probably would’ve shrugged and gone along with it. The man multiplied loaves and fishes; he understood the assignment: give the people stuff.

So here we are, raising generation after generation to believe:

On THEIR birthday: everything is about them. On JESUS’S birthday: everything is also about them. On Easter: still them, but with more candy and a rabbit for some reason.

At this point, the only holiday not about children getting gifts is Tax Day, and honestly, someone’s probably working on that.

So if you’re struggling to square the circle, don’t worry—you’re not supposed to. Holiday logic isn’t geometry. It’s jazz. Improvised. Chaotic. Commercially sponsored.

And ultimately, the message we send is simple:

Every child is the center of the universe.

Jesus is also the center of the universe.

And if you question the math, the Grinch wins.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

🎄 A Very Pagan Christmas: A Satirical Historical Essay on Gift-Giving 🎁

Now that we’ve compared Jesus Christ to every mythological demigod who ever bench-pressed a hydra or resurrected on a weekend itinerary, it’s time to turn our gaze toward the holiday traditions that orbit his birthday celebration — or what would have been his birthday celebration if he hadn’t been historically scheduled somewhere around late spring. But December 25th had better real estate and a prime slot right next to the solstice, so here we are.

Let’s begin with gift-giving, that heartwarming ritual in which we express love, gratitude, and the quiet, seething stress of maxed-out credit cards.

Because as it turns out, the whole practice didn’t exactly descend from angelic hosts humming “O Holy Night.” No, it came from the much rowdier — and significantly more intoxicated — Roman holiday known as Saturnalia, a cheerful week-long festival honoring Saturn, god of agriculture, time, and apparently, unrestrained partying. Saturnalia was basically the ancient world’s Black Friday, Mardi Gras, and bring-your-own-wine office party all rolled into one.

During this festival, Romans exchanged gifts — wax candles, little figurines, fruit, pottery, and whatever else you could hand someone without Amazon Prime. The entire social order flipped upside down: slaves got the day off, bosses served their workers, gambling was legal, and everyone got absolutely hammered under the sacred protection of “it’s tradition.”

So when Christianity eventually rose to power and needed to absorb the wildly popular solstice festivities, the early Church had two choices:

Ban Saturnalia and enrage every Roman within a thousand miles, or Slap a halo on it, add a nativity set, and call it holy.

Guess which one they picked.

Thus, the tradition of giving gifts — once a salute to Saturn, master of sowing and seasonal chaos — slipped quietly into the Christmas canon. Over time, the wax candles became luxury scarves, the little figurines became PS5s, and the Saturnalian spirit of rowdy revelry transformed into that timeless Christian value known as “compulsory holiday spending.”

And of course, our modern Christmas mascot, Santa Claus, is basically a cross-cultural mashup: part St. Nicholas, part Norse Odin, part Coca-Cola marketing fever dream. The man rides through the sky like Odin, brings gifts like St. Nick, and has the rosy cheeks of someone who’s been enjoying Saturnalia’s beverage traditions all night long.

So the next time someone insists Christmas was built solely on biblical foundations, feel free to gently remind them — with the warm glow of satire — that the holiday’s most cherished ritual once belonged to a pagan festival celebrating a god who’d be more at home at a toga party than a midnight mass.

After all, nothing says “Merry Christmas” like honoring ancient Roman bacchanalia with a $700 tablet wrapped in glitter paper.