Wondering on Wednesday 4/27/22

 

Ready... Set... Wonder!

What's on my wondering mind tonight?

Elon Musk does not yet own Twitter. Sure, he and the board have agreed that he will buy the company, but it's gonna take a while, as these deals always do. So, what's the wondering here? 

• How much silliness is Musk going to interject into the discussion between now and his closing date, and will his silliness jeopardize the deal? 
• Will he stop blocking people on the platform, given he's a free-speech absolutist? That's one of the main reasons he gave for wanting to buy the darn thing in the first place.
• Will he stop posting boner and peepee tweets about people with whom he has disagreements, or will he continue to act like a bratty kid?

And, of course, what's going to happen to all the people, including many celebrities, who are shouting from the rooftops about leaving Twitter? I wonder, will they stick around until the bitter end when the deal finally closes? Will they bail now? Or will they never bail, just like all the people who were going to move out of the country when Obama, Trump and Biden got elected? 

And what about blue checkmark people? The checkmark, the symbol of 'authenticity' on Twitter, will lose its oomph when Musk takes over, if not sooner - more people could get it, under his current thinking. Will that make the authenticated folks mad, I wonder? 

I mean, they'll be losing some of their specialhood or something - and if I'm willing to subscribe to a paid Twitter, they'd be no different from me. Well, they'd still have lots more followers, but at least 99% of mine are real...

And what about True Justice, Truth Joke, Trust Special, or whatever The Former Guy calls his platform? He said he's going to stay there, but if everyone's allowed on Musk's platform, why would anyone bother with the other one? 

What has me wondering tonight? Redistricting maps. No, not the Florida maps, the ones here in New York, which were tossed this afternoon by our highest court. The Democrats in the legislature had hoped that seven judges appointed by Dems would look kindlier on this tomfoolery, but that was not the case. So, petitions are no good anymore, candidates don't know what the districts will look like, or may want to run in a different one than they thought they wanted to run in, and it's more likely than not that part of the primary will have to be pushed out a month or two.  

So, what I'm wondering is, can we get back the money we paid the commissioners - $25K annually - and the $145K paid annually paid to the two executive staff members? I mean, they didn't do what we wanted them to do, so why should they get paid? And, how do we make sure that none of the costs associated with this debacle are shifted to taxpayers? Finally, I wonder how the heck we avoid going through this exact same thing again in ten years?

Oh - one more thing: I wonder if the Dems will stop wailing about the awful gerrymandering the Rs do, now that their own maps have been set out with the trash?  

I'm also wondering how it's even possible that flight attendants are not paid for everything they do during the boarding process. I had no idea that some of the hardest stuff they do - getting nice people, and jerky people, and emotional support animals, and screaming babies, and clunky carry-on bags on the plane, in their correct places, in a timely manner - they did for free. Especially during the pandemic - good lord, they did all that for free?? 

Starting in June, Delta will pay their flight attendants during boarding; even though it's only at half their rate, it's better than nothing. And hopefully this will trickle across the skies to any other flight attendants who aren't being paid for this critical, and often miserable, work.

That's all there's time for tonight; what's got you wondering?