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No Easy Way To Be Free

You’re probably wondering about the featured image. I’ve been listening to The Who By Numbers a lot this week. It reminds me of my misspent youth when I followed The Who around the UK as they toured in support of that underrated album.

A line from first song on the album, Slip Kid, gives this post its title: No Easy Way To Be Free. It’s true, innit?

The news cycle has been crazy this week. The Brooklyn subway shooting was unnerving to your mildly claustrophobic scribe. Is it just me or did anyone else think of this when the shooter’s name was revealed?

I should apologize for that sick cinematic joke, but laughter is the best medicine according to the Reader’s Digest even when the news is indigestible.

The Russian government is at it again. They arrested leading dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza after he did an interview with MSNBC’s Ali Velshi. This phrase must have been coined to describe Russian oppression:

I could have paired other Russian autocrats. They’re all the same. The Last Tsar, however, was better turned out than Putin.

Russia has long been a giant prison camp regardless of how the regime styles itself. No wonder Ukraine wanted out. In the immortal words of Pete Townshend, “There’s no easy way to be free.”

Tucker Carlson is lying again. Anyone surprised? I thought not:

“Carlson would steadfastly refuse to reveal whether he himself was vaccinated; asked by a New York Times reporter last year, he responded: “When was the last time you had sex with your wife and in what position? We can trade intimate details.”

The Fox News host apparently had a change of heart this month, bragging about choosing not to get any of the jabs available to him during an appearance at a San Diego County megachurch. While praising the Awaken Church for remaining open throughout the pandemic despite COVID restrictions, and claiming other religious institutions that had followed public health regulations had committed a “grotesque sin,” Carlson threw it out there that there was no way in hell he’d be getting a second booster shot, because he hadn’t gotten the ones that come before it. “I skipped the first three, I’m not getting that one either,” he told the crowd, according to Voice of San Diego.”

Fox News has a mandatory vaccination policy. Either the Mothertucker is lying about not being jabbed or he’s lying about something else. It’s what he does best.

Time for three tunes titled Lies:

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson got a lot of good press in the American media for this:

They failed to note that his trip to Kyiv was an attempt to distract attention from scandal on the home front. Remember Partygate? That’s when Boris threw some parties at number 10 Downing Street in violation of British COVID lockdown laws.

Boris was fined for these violations as was his Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak. The Chancellor has his own huge scandal over non-payment of taxes by his filthy rich spouse and the fact that the Sunaks have US Green Cards. He doesn’t seem very committed to the United Kingdom, now does he?

The opposition are calling for both their heads. One line of Tory defense is that a Prime Minister should not be ousted during wartime. Not that the UK is actually at war, mind you.

A Labour MP pointed out the fallacy of this argument:

Chris Bryant represents Rhondda, which is in Wales. Is this his constituency’s theme song?

Finally, back to The Who By Numbers. The lyrics to Slip Kid contain another truism, “It’s a hard, hard world.”

Yeah, you right, Pete.

The last word goes to The Who: