America and Its Manspread Destiny

I never thought I’d become so heartily sick of hearing the word “freedom”

A lady of, I’d estimate, forty years or so, with a pudgy face that could belong to your childcare worker, the cashier at Loblaw’s, maybe, if you push your luck, an elementary school class, separates from her group of friends and struts towards police officers we’ve just seen carrying away pieces of a barricade.

We’re in Ottawa on February 9th, 2022, the umpteenth day of the so-called Freedom Convoy, which supposedly is in town to make their dissatisfaction about pandemic restrictions loudly and unavoidably known.

Her opening salvo is shocking. “I’ll be the first! Take me down, assholes!”

The cops look around to see who this crazy person is who’s shouting at them (I wonder if she realizes she would have been shot by now in any number of non-democratic countries, from Myanmar to Manila, maybe even Minnesota?).

Launched into full-bore Karen mode, she continues: “How DARE you do something like this when we’re fighting for YOU!”