This morning I’m thinking about the US Congress voting to allow internet providers to both collect and monetize user search data—because Business. Customers need not fear, we’re told, because the data would be anonymized and given a general location.

Here’s an example of how this will work—these are the recent search strings of one anonymous, typical user in the Pennsylvania Avenue, NW area of Washington, DC listed as marketers would potentially see them upon purchase:

putin, russia, shirtless, pictures

coal, how clean

coal, cleaner

coal, can it be clean

coal, political expediency

putin, russia, scuba, pictures

trump, electoral college win

trump, powerful leader

trump, brand status

putin, russia, judo, pictures

treason, definition

cover up, definition

president, list of powers

republican health reform, contents

republican health reform, good or bad

nepotism, definition

paul ryan, how smart

trump, hand size

trump, pictures

the apprentice, ratings, compared to trump

putin, shooting range, pictures

trump, tax returns

tax returns, never release, precedent

alex jones, shirtless, pictures

golden showers, videos

golf, cheating, best ways

putin, russia, mountain climbing, pictures

trump, brand, perception

erotica, father, daughter

reince priebus, expendable

deep state, what is

bannon, how smart

muslim ban, other names for

melania, work permit

genitals prefer blondes, video

putin, russia, treasure hunter, pictures

ll bean, men’s robes, order

putin, russia, bathrobe, pictures

trump, legitimate president

bannon, more powerful than potus

prenuptial, agreement, how binding

erotica, pee party

putin, russia, wolf pack, pictures

blackmail, strategies for dealing with it

bannon, hot tub, acid

treason, legal definition

nuclear war, downside

putin, russia, riding a nuclear missile, pictures

puppet, foreign power, definition

putin, russia, marionette show, pictures

sean spicer, melissa mccarthy, popularity

jared kushner, shirtless, pictures

trophy wife, average age

transcontinental wall, average price per mile

As you can see, stripped of context, this information is perfect for monetization that will increase the bottom lines of internet providers instead of going to the improvement of their broadband infrastructures.

What could go wrong?

This morning I’m thinking about what has for me always been the best breakfast in the world: A fresh, very lightly toasted pumpernickel bagel with a generous schmear of cream cheese, thinly sliced crescents of red onion, capers and smoked lox. A thin slice of tomato is optional—but if you opt for it, consider making it a seasonal addition; a tasteless trucked-in tomato simply diminishes the sandwich.

The components are listed in the order above because to be the best breakfast int the world, construction is vitally important. It’s my version of James Bond’s “shaken, not stirred.”

The schmear of cream cheese must be applied to each side of the sliced, toasted bagel. On one side, the crescents of red onion are place on top of the cream cheese; the capers are similarly placed on the other side. At this point, you’re holding the fork that you’ve reasonably used to efficiently drain the brine from the capers as you lifted them from the jar—take its heel and gently press the onions and the capers into the cream cheese. This ensures the optimum stability of the sandwich. Next, lay thin slices of the smoked salmon on the onion side—it has been my experience that the capers stick to the cream cheese more effectively than the red onions—so this is the side you’ll want to pick up and place atop the the lox. Note: if you opt for the tomato slice, gently press it onto the the onion side—and be aware you’ll be introducing a slick instability to the construction. Using an eight-inch chef’s knife, cut the assembled bagel in two.

Equally important: prior to assembly of the bagel, you have strong, French roast coffee brewing. You’ll want to pour it into a mug and—also critical—drink it black. Cream and sugar are, after all, for pussies—capice? The mug guarantees the right amount of coffee-delivery in relationship to the size of the assembled bagel. The strength of the black coffee compliments the smoked lox and richness of the pumpernickel. Ensure that there is enough coffee for two full mugs—one as you eat your bagel and and second for, well, the afterglow.

This, ladies and gentleman, is a proper breakfast—a Breakfast Of The Gods. At least it is if done right, which means farmers market red onion, a bagel from the best local shop you can find and a high-end smoked lox. I favor Crosse & Blackwell Non-Pareil Capers and old-school Philadelphia Cream Cheese.

Just how good is this thing? Well, know this: When I am finally rounded-up by Trump’s secret police and sentenced to death by firing squad, this is the breakfast I will order. If I knew I was about to give a Ted Talk and was utterly unprepared, this is what I’d first consume. If I found myself leading the last remnants of humanity into the final battle against invading intergalactic aliens, this what I’d whip up before hand. Because this is, hands-down, The Best Goddamn Breakfast In The Goddamn World.

I’m not taking questions because in this case there can be no serious ones.

I’m making an effort not to talk about politics here—after all, fully 75 percent of my tweets as kulturhack are political commentary or curation. And this place is supposed to be Something Else Entirely, not a busman’s holiday. But I frequently find that politics are on my mind upon opening my eyes in the morning. So I guess we’ll just have to put up with a little overlap—at least for the next four years . . .

Today I found myself thinking about the clusterfuck that is the TeaOP’s Obamacare repeal-and-replace—where “replace” is understood to be the same thing a pack rat does when it takes a diamond earring to improve its nest and leaves an old, crumpled piece of tin foil in its place.

What Trump and the TeaOP are about to do is shocking: For what they insist is the (deeply debatable) Good Of The Many, they’re resolutely willing to let people die like so much collateral damage. Where “people” is understood to mean specific classes of people: the poor, the old and the sick. And where “specific classes” is further understood to roll-up into a single category near and dear to politicians: “those who are less likely to vote.”

To be clear, I am an East Coast liberal, but the above paragraph is not liberal rhetoric. Because the old, crumpled piece of tin foil that the TeaOP wants to leave in place of Obamacare will kill people. Many of the poor, the old and the sick currently insured by Obamacare will lose their coverage—which means their potentially life-saving medical care and treatments. And without these continuing, many of the poor, the old and the sick will die.

It’s estimated that as many as 10 million people will effectively be stripped of their health insurance when Obamacare is replaced. And it’s not fear-mongering to assume that a percentage of these newly uninsured people will have their health catastrophically impacted by the cessation of medial care and treatments. Just one percent amounts to 100,000 people. It’s also not fear-mongering to assume that a percentage of these catastrophically impacted will die. All that remains is to quibble if it will be 1,000 or 2,000 or 3,000—numbers that fall in the range of the 9/11 death toll—except that they’re annual numbers.

But now let’s zoom back up to the top: let’s take a look at The Good Of The Many—the thing that the targeted poor, old and sick will be dying for. First and foremost there’s a significant tax cut—definitely—for households earning over $200,000 a year and for healthcare CEOs. And then there’s the promise that you can—maybe—stay with old Doc Fredericks whom you’ve been with for years. And also—maybe—lower premiums. The last two are good things in their theoretical ways. Heavy emphasis on “theoretical.” But for the sake of argument, let’s assume these things can actually be delivered.

Which leads us to this grim thought experiment: You love old Doc Fredericks—you’ve been going to him for 15 years, and you want to continue seeing him. But before this can happen, I just need you to sign-off on the number of the poor, the old and sick that annually need to die for that special relationship with old Doc Fredericks to go forward. How much annual collateral damage in terms of the deaths of others less well off or older or sicker than you best represents your comfortable level?

Hell, I’m an East Coast liberal—and therefore untrustworthy. So let’s say only half a percent of those 100,000 catastrophically impacted without health insurance will die—hey look, 500! We’re below four digits! Whooo! So how about now? Is old Doc Fredericks worth 500 people dying annually? If you see him for 10 more years, that’s—what?—5,000 deaths? Are we still good? Oh, don’t back away and avoid eye contact—and quit squirming uncomfortably. After all, the TeaOp is doing all this for you—and oh yeah, for households over $200,000 and healthcare CEOs—at least that’s what they’re saying . . .

We could repeat this experiment with regard to the cost of your insurance premiums, but those those results would be even more disturbing. Because then we could easily divide the money you save by the estimated number of the poor, the old and the sick who will die to make that possible—neatly arriving at a dollar amount for each individual life. Don’t want to give it a go? I don’t blame you—neither do I.

Here’s my thing: Maybe you’re very okay with the exchange of Obamacare for the TeaOP’s crumpled, old piece of tin foil. We could never be friends, but hey, that’s what diversity of opinion is about. But if you are for the TeaOP replacement of Obamacare, for fuck’s sake own it.

Every TeaOP politician promoting repeal-and-replace, dodges the issue of death-as-collateral damage—and these dodges are identical because they’re baked into the talking points. When confronted with the question “Can you guarantee that everyone now covered by Obamacare will be covered under the replacement plan?” every TeaOP talking head responds like this: “Well, now, I say, I say, I cannot guarantee that because, after all, there is nothin’ certain in this life, I say, there is nothin’ certain in life, am I right? I say, am I right? But I can say that what we are doin’ is in the best interest, I say, the best interest of the majority of Americans—do you read me, I say, do you read me?”

Every TeaOP booster of the replacement of Obamacare sounds like Foghorn Leghorn defending the unthinkable. Southern-fried fascism.

If you’re going to be a Bond villain—if you’re explicitly aspiring to be one (and taking a tax break and lower insurance premiums in exchange for the deaths of hundreds or thousands of the poor, the old and the sick sure looks aspirational to me)–then find some balls and own up. Tell the those targeted classes of citizens what Goldfinger told James Bond: “I expect you to die.”

In cybernetics, the term valley of the uncanny is used to describe the unease we feel when confronted by current proof-of-concept androids. No matter how meticulously they’re designed, no matter how many separate servo-controlled facial movements they’re capable of, we sense there’s something wrong. Not a doll but also not living: instead, something not-quite-human and, well, disquieting.

That’s the way I feel about late winter, 2017. I live in Greater Washington, DC, and since mid-February something that’s not-quite-spring has been creeping across the winter landscape. And while I’ve taken advantage of the phenomenon by having a beer outside with my sleeves rolled up to better feel the warm breeze, I feel the aforementioned disquiet.

This is not spring, no matter how much it looks like it. To accept its invitation requires me to first cross the valley of the uncanny—which I can’t, no matter how hard I try.

To be clear, we’re not talking here about the simply unseasonable. No, this is full-bore fake spring made a little sinister by the occasional snow shower that dusts the fully blooming ornamental trees in my neighborhood. The massive weeping cherry in my front yard is covered in pink blossoms. The day lilies are already six inches tall, the rose bushes are filling-in with new leaves, the tulip tree next door has flowered, the forsythia in the backyard is golden-yellow and the tulips are well above ground.

Only the dogwoods remain suspicious and resolutely tight-budded—which describes my own reaction to this mutant period. I woke this morning thinking that this must be what it feels like to live in a simulation: the details are all there, but the context is off (a glitch in the Matrix?) and the whole thing feels academic rather than emotional.

Case in point: There are no song birds—like me, they have resisted the temptation to treat this seeming season as the real thing. And, I think, for good reason. Whatever this flowering, grass-growing, shirt-sleeve interlude is, it sure as hell is not spring and, like the Trump Administration, I refuse to normalize it. Sinister Spring deserves its own kind of resistance.

Okay, so this is on my mind this morning: Real America. The thing that’s evoked when certain people talk about why Clinton lost and why Trump won. The thing certain people slap down on the table whenever Democrats are discussed vis a vis Republicans. The thing that certain people always bring up in discussions of the Rust Belt decline. You know—Real America.

It’s not so much shorthand as an impossibly dense, collapsed star. The term simultaneously refers to politics, elections, economics, religion and cultural values.

Real America—there’s just so damn much to unpack there, but what I woke up thinking about is the Real descriptor. Because the implication is that whatever falls outside of it is, well, unreal. In this, it’s similar to the conceptual Jiu Jitsu of Pro Life: because if you’re not “for” life, then you’re, well . . .

Thus it only seems fair to give Real America a reality check: exactly how connected to, er, the real world are its bundled assumptions?

Is there any sort of credible evidence that steel manufacturing and coal mining will not only return, but somehow return intact in all their respective mid-20th-Century glories?

Is there any credible evidence that the relentless advance of automation and its attendant disintermediation will slow, much less reverse? Automation destroyed manual manufacturing first, but it’s also disintermediated publishing, animation, the Media, the US Postal Service and consumer purchases.

Is there any credible evidence that the elevation of ignorance and anti-expertise is in any way a good thing? When you need to have a brain tumor removed, do you want a business tycoon or a deeply knowledgeable surgeon at the other end of the scalpel? When you remodel a bathroom, do you turn to Fred, the accountant, who has never built anything at all, ever, but who has a real passion for the idea of building—or do you call an experienced contractor with references? Or, say, you find yourself 30,000 feet in the air, cruising at 350 miles an hour—who do you want in the cockpit: a model plane enthusiast or, you know, a pilot? When confronted by complex, potentially life-or-death jobs, who in the real world reaches for the ignorant, non-expert? You don’t and I don’t.

Is there any credible evidence that making the freedom to own a gun so absolute that potential terrorists and the insane have equal access to weapons is working out splendidly? Mass shooting and gun death statistics resoundingly say no.

Is there any credible evidence that who someone else is having sexual relations with is in any way a threat to your own sexuality, relationship or marriage? Would it be rational to say, “Oh my god—the folks in the house three doors down painted their bedroom the worst shade of blue, and now my own interior decoration is completely invalidated.”

Is there any credible evidence that the interconnectedness of the world will somehow be arrested, much less rolled back? You have a smartphone made in China with apps possibly developed in Germany, France, Japan and elsewhere. So nationalize the manufacture of your phone and the development of said apps—are they still affordable? The point being we all want relatively inexpensive consumer goods—which is a direct consequence of an interconnected global market. And if people are now bitching about an increase in their ACA premiums, wait until they’re confronted with a now $1500 replacement for their old phone.

Bottom line, or rather, top-line question: just how much actual reality in contained in Real America? Like Pro Life, the name has been chosen in attempt to make the contained assumptions unquestionable. But they can be questioned, and are—every day, every week, every year by just moving through life. The grim and brutal reality is that if your steel mill has been gone for the past 20 years, there is probably no chance of it suddenly materializing again at the same convenient distance of your old commute. It’s a simple, nearly irrefutable fact.

I’d be less annoyed with the Real America moniker if it were more accurate—something along the lines of Aspirational Time-Traveling America, because in end all of the politics, elections, economics, religion and cultural values currently packed into Real America comes down to this: a genuine desire to live in the United States circa 1902.

If this were 1902, almost all the frustrations of Real America instantly go away. But exactly how grounded in reality is a regional desire to live 115 years ago? As someone who lives in Unreal America, I’m simply not sure if I need to make wholesale political accommodations for this point of view—it’s Amish-quaint at best and cult-delusional at worst.