In these New York Times

The banner headline in today’s New York Times declares in horror that the snowstorm barreling into the Northeast will paralyze travel and severely disrupt daily life. This barreling storm threatens to crush all in its path, though unlike the barrel, the snowstorm derives from no human source. “Millions of people from New York to Maine were forced to quit work early, rush to get off roads and highways and take shelter as a snowstorm bore down on the region Monday night, bringing winds of near hurricane force and the threat of coastal flooding and more than two feet of snow,” the article screams. No doubt this storm promises to be a serious natural occurrence with very real human consequences. By Tuesday, of course, the dire predictions that this might be the worst storm in history for New York City did not prove true, and though the environs experienced ten inches or so of snow, and I am certain many suffered great inconvenience, well, the City barreled through and went about its business this Tuesday. I read that, too, in an on-line version of The New York Times.

But . . . underneath the five-column picture of passengers exiting a train at 125^th Street amidst the snowfall, and in much smaller type and space, was a one column head announcing that the Koch brothers’ budget for the 2016 election campaign will be set at almost $900 million. The Koch brothers’ organization will spend as much money on the election as the Democratic and Republican parties will devote to the efforts! Two people will try to buy the next United States Government.

I always despair when the weather forecaster announces a winter storm advisory. I live in the mid-West and the winters are brutal. Only two years ago we experienced a 12” snowfall on May 2. Sometimes the temperature doesn’t get to zero for a week on end. I have no doubt that the nature of character in the populace of the upper mid-West results in some significant part from the harshness of the weather. Often, of course, the forecaster’s predictions are inaccurate and they are proven wrong: I envy their freedom!! When I err there is hell to pay and my pay is threatened.

I am appalled that The New York Times devoted five columns to a headline concerning a snowstorm—albeit it one that might affect millions of people—and prints a single-one column article reporting on the Koch brothers attempt to purchase the United States Government, an effort that will concern the daily lives of billions of people around the globe. The consequences of those actions will absolutely affect the millions yet unborn who will suffer from policies that bespeak a disregard for the welfare of those whose lack of private wealth renders them dangerously vulnerable to the barreling forces of self-serving, hateful financial resources of the filty rich and infamous. The rhetoric of such rapacious brutes rings empty even as their silver clinks loudly in their arrogant pockets.

I hold in contempt the politics of contemporary America. And despair for the children.