Time Traveler from the 20th Century

Time Traveler from the 20th Century

Until recently, I really thought that certain things were settled law. Like, child labor — it’s bad. Nazis are bad, no exceptions. War in general is bad, but a land war in Europe is an especially terrible idea. I mean, I wasn’t exactly paying attention to every lesson growing up, but I thought we all agreed on that.

Apparently not. Because this week, the New York Times broke a story that included a company in West Michigan actively employing migrant children in highly dangerous jobs. Dilbert cartoonist, Scott Adams, and his toxic views on race relations finally became widely known. His cartooning career appears to have tanked, but that’s okay — he’s already rich and he’s got Elon Musk on his side.

And of course it was the one-year anniversary of the war in Ukraine, which is a highly complicated situation. Except for the very simple truth that if the one person who started it (Putin) wanted it to end, he could end it. (I do realize that “end it” could mean negotiated peace or nuclear holocaust. Let’s be optimists and go with the former.)

The mistakes are all right there on display in the previous century. It’s disappointing we don’t seem to notice.

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