Surprises

Broadcasting live on the radio from Grovers Mill, New Jersey on Halloween night 86 years ago a stunned reporter watched Martians leaving a spacecraft, blasting policemen with heat rays. Panic swept across New Jersey.

But he wasn’t a reporter he was an actor reading The War of the Worlds on Orson Wells radio show.

Today, suddenly, every night there’re stories on TV, the internet about “drones” lighting up the night sky in New Jersey. And panic’s back. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy told reporters “the minute you get eyes on them they go dark.”

South Carolina Congresswoman Nancy Mace, on a podcast, speculated the drones could be from “outer space.” Saying something strange was happening, President Trump cancelled his trip to his New Jersey golf club in Bedminster.

In 1938 folks got their news on the radio – today we’ve got Apple cellphones, Hulu, Fox News, CNN and the internet but when you scratch the surface down deep folks haven’t changed all that much.

A New Wrinkle

Trump just sued a pollster and a newspaper in Des Moines over a poll just before the election that showed him losing Iowa. He’s also sued Bob Woodward – of Watergate Fame – for $49 million because Woodward released tapes of interviews he did with Trump four years ago.

Fuming politicians are an old story – but suing over a poll you didn’t like is a new wrinkle.

Murder in Manhattan

The Hill reported a poll of people under 30 showed 41% thought Luigi Mangione shooting United Health Care’s CEO on a sidewalk in Manhattan was “acceptable.” That’s the worse surprise of all. What does that say about our future?

Rolling downhill, things just get curiouser and curiouser.