In a world currently plagued by raging conflict and unrest in the Middle East, stagnant economies in almost every country, divisive culture wars over issues like abortion, women’s rights, and sexuality in nearly every society, difficult questions of security and liberty in the United States and elsewhere, and obstructionist conservative parties making governance difficult throughout the Western world, literally every news report that is not about the royal baby has confirmed that who cares about the royal baby.
In Egypt, six people died in street fights precipitated by protests against the ouster of Mohamed Morsi. The royal baby will never precipitate street fights, because he (or she? I don’t know which one it is for sure) is not actually important in any way. Nor will he (I’m just gonna go with he) ever be ousted from anything, because kings and queens are just wealthy people playing pretend in this day and age.
In Dubai, a Norwegian woman was sentenced to 16 months in jail–for being raped. Will the royal baby ever outrage anyone to the degree that this insane misogyny outrages people? Probably not. Meanwhile, in other Middle East news, the Pentagon is laying out strategies for a U.S. military action in Syria. The royal baby will never lay out strategies for anything, because he will never be in charge of anything.
Back at home, Cory Booker, the Democratic frontrunner in the election to replace deceased New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg, has talked frankly with the press about leveraging his fame in support of progressive policies. While the royal baby is famous, he will never be able to leverage his fame for anything important, because he himself is not important. He will probably participate in dumb, ineffective charities that don’t help anything, just like every other British royal.
In Ohio, a Federal judge ordered the state to legally recognize the Maryland marriage of a gay couple living in the state. The couple filed suit against the Governor and the Attorney General, both Republicans, because one of the men is terminally ill and his husband and family expect serious complications if their marriage is not legally recognized. Although the judge made it clear that he was not striking down the state’s gay-marriage ban, he also attacked it as fundamentally unequal, possibly setting the stage for a legal challenge to the law itself. Such a challenge, if successful, would be a momentous shift in the battle for equal rights. The royal baby is a baby, and not a momentous shift in anything except the number of people in his family.
In science news, the Cassini probe took a picture of Earth while orbiting Saturn. The royal baby can’t even talk or recognize the permanence of objects. Also, marine researchers have found increasing evidence that dolphins use names for one another. Does the royal baby use names for anything? No, because he is not old enough to understand nomenclature.
And here in my city of San Francisco, the beloved “jazz man” of Embarcadero Station–known for playing wonderful saxophone jams and giving his listeners Christmas cards which said, “You are my Carnegie Hall”–turned out to be a murderer. He pled guilty to having murdered his ex-wife decades ago in Albuquerque. He had been living under an assumed identity and had crafted a new life for himself as a kindly busker. The case raises difficult questions about identity, repentance, forgiveness, and the inescapability of one’s past transgressions. It is reminiscent of the classic scene from the second season of The Wire in which D’Angelo Barksdale laments, “What came first is who you really are, and what happened before is what really happened.”
The royal baby, on the other hand, is still pooping in his own pants.