31 July—“Who the fuck cares?” Indeed. That’s what El Liberalissimo emailed The Monitor with reference to yesterday’s disquisition, “Joe looks alive!” Since El didn’t bother to elaborate, the etiology of his insouciance is open to question.

El has expressed approval—perhaps even admiration—of Joe Biden and his career in the U.S. Senate. So is he implying that we shouldn’t be picking on old Joe on purely cosmetic grounds? Or is he implying that nothing about Joe matters anymore, since he’s become an ultra-lame duck, old news, even non-news?

No matter, because, as Shakespeare’s long-winded, officious, conniving screw-up of a political advisor Polonius said in Hamlet, “Brevity is the soul of wit.”

Suffice to say, then, the unanimous view of The Monitor’s editorial bored is that Joe Biden is a nice guy and doting father who may have looked the other way when his younger, profligate asshole of a son did the dirty but isn’t himself any more a criminal than other politicians.

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On the subject of El Liberalissimo and Polonius (who is sometimes portrayed wearing a feathered hat), El had been good enough to volunteer in response to Monday’s disquisition, “I done it and I’m sorry”: “I count on finding one turkey feather per year to maintain my hat plumage. I found the 2024 feather just last week. If you ever walk at White memorial you may see my feather bobbing by. By next spring I will need to molt.”

(Actually, I recently performed a marriage at White Memorial but didn’t notice any feathers at all bobbing by.)

Several other correspondents commented on the ridiculous—“positively ludicrous,” as one put it—overkill of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA), noting that, inter alia, virtually everybody who innocently picks up a feather is eo ipso a criminal and that it has got to be unenforceable at the level of the casual feather finder and collector unaware of the legislation.

With that in mind, on Monday I asked Congresswoman Jahana Hayes’s office to contact the Department of the Interior (which I’ve found to be uncommunicative) for statistics on “people who have been prosecuted simply for innocently finding and keeping feathers (and nests, for that matter.)” The request was acknowledged. Will it be acted on? During campaign season? When Jahana is in an uncomfortably (for her) tight race with George Logan?

And by the way, all the contraband feathers we could find among the lawful wild turkey feathers have been destroyed to comply with the MBTA, so Big Bad Brother’s brutes can stand down . . .