Matthew Walther's proposed new holiday — "Festival of Incompetence" — such a tasty sourness

© 2021 Peter Free

 

11 November 2021

 

 

The perpetual tsunami of US ridiculousness . . .

 

. . .  should draw more attention than it does.

 

In this matter, Matthew Walther thinks as I do. But with much more creatively applied sourness:

 

 

In my lifetime “Halloween” has become a season unto itself, one that lasts from about the end of August until the first Christmas decorations begin to appear (roughly) on All Souls Day.

 

Meanwhile, even thoroughgoingly secular holidays such as Thanksgiving have been transformed beyond recognition.

 

The American people are desperate for something to celebrate between the vigil of All Saints and the fourth Thursday in November.

 

[T]he “Festival of Incompetence,” which I propose that we observe at the beginning and ending of Daylight Savings Time on the second Monday in March and the last Sunday in November respectively, was originally my wife’s idea.

 

Like most American parents she and I spend roughly a third of the year trying to adjust our children to this pointless scheme of meddling with clocks.

 

I have never met a single person who believed that [daylight savings time] was worthwhile, and I doubt such a person exists.

 

This is exactly why it is never going away . . . .

 

(An actually popular or worthwhile undertaking on the other hand…)

 

Hence, in the spirit of jubilant resignation, the Festival of Incompetence . . . a biannual celebration not only of Daylight Savings Time but of all the absurdities, stupidities, inanities, blunders, and obvious errors visited upon us by forces beyond our control:

 

not only federal, state, and local government but also major corporations, educational institutions, sports leagues, hospitals, dioceses, and departments of fish and game.

 

© 2021 Matthew Walther, The One Thing We Need: Another Holiday, American Conservative (11 November 2021)

 

 

"Exactly why it is never going away"

 

That phrase accurately encapsulates our universally bumbling human experience.

 

 

The moral? — We tacitly celebrate stupidity, each day . . .

 

. . . by actively being (and behaving) obediently clueless.

 

All without recognizing the cosmos-astonishing feat that this is. Ergo, the merit of Walther's holiday-institutionalizing idea.

 

Pertinently, do you — as 'liberals' or pretend-liberals — ever acknowledge that 'conservatives' have a more provably accurate view of human shortcomings?

 

Conservatives write better, too, for the most part.

 

 

I make these assessments from the allegedly 'Lefty' end of the political spectrum.

 

 

God help us, when actually intelligent aliens come exploring.

 

In the Meritocratic Universe, long live the lizard people.

 

Or whatever.