Please pardon a humble minion, but I wish to draw your attention to the media coverage of the “European Refugee Crisis,” which has risen to such a crescendo-of-crap (™ pending!) that I simply must disturb the serenity of Castle Gormogon.

The media discovered, just last week, that people, mainly from countries in Africa and the Middle East, are taking terrible risks to enter Europe. Now, if you’ve ever been near a large train station in a major European city (think Paris’ Gare du Nord, Roma Termini, or Milano Centrale), you would know that Europe has absolutely no shortage of people of African or Middle Eastern descent. Just try to enjoy a moment pondering the majesty of the Pantheon or the Colosseum without a flock of malodorous dudes rushing you shouting “Selfie Stick.”

But when the media picked up the sad photo of a drowned little boy, dead on a Turkish beach, then they decided…to…do…something. And what they have decided to do is to orchestrate a campaign to resettle all “migrants” because this is a “CRISIS.” And certainly for Yazidis, Syriac Christians, and elderly archaeologists in Palmyra, among others, the Syrian situation is indeed a crisis, truly a matter of life and death. Ignoring the millions of Syrians living in safe-if-not-plush refuge in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, the media has been captivated by those Syrians crossing from Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia.

I just watched a Fox News story on a Syrian refugee family in the UK. The patriarch, Ahmed, helpfully labelled “Father,” complained that it was hard to find jobs, and that engineers were reduced to menial labor. Boo. Hoo. Menial labor may be a downer, but menial labor in London beats living (or not living) under ISIS, doesn’t it?

Earlier this week, PBS “Newshour” featured interviews with Syrians camped out in the main Budapest train station or walking toward Germany. The Hungarian authorities were harshly criticized for preventing the masses from boarding trains to Germany instead of following EU law and registering for refugee status in Hungary. Pitiful little children were featured and, in excellent English, a young man who claimed to be a computer engineer explained why Germany was their destination of choice. Now call me stupid, but if I were genuinely in fear of my life, whether by the Assad regime or ISIS, I’d be damned grateful for a pallet on the floor of the Budapest train station or wherever the good citizens of Hungary asked me to go. Because, you see, while it might not be as cushy as the deal offered by Berlin or Copenhagen, I’d be safe from beheading, crucifixion, barrel bombs, etc.

Meanwhile, NPR’s “All Things Considered” did an interview with the Canadian uncle of the poor little boy whose death photo so stirred the media. The man explained that the little boy’s family had been in Turkey for a year, but decided to pay smugglers to take them to Greece. The Canadian man and his wife, the child’s aunt, had sent the money to smuggle the family from Turkey to Greece because “they had lost hope” in Turkey. The child in the photo, his mother and his older brother were all drowned, and the father must be suffering unimaginable grief. The NPR interviewer, by this point, was audibly crying, an unprofessional display that I would say falls under the description of “yellow journalism.” You’d have to have a heart of stone not to pity the deaths of those poor children, but it would seem to me that the parents made the decision to put their small children on an over-crowded dingy, leaving safe refuge in Turkey.

The media might do some good if they perhaps did some stories about the nasty smugglers who profit on the misery of others. Perhaps they might point out that little boys don’t drown in the Mediterranean if their parents don’t abandon safe refuge and put themselves in the hands of criminal gangs. Nonetheless, Angela Merkel states that Germany (population 81 million) is ready to take in 800,000 in 2015 alone, and for this policy The Economist (Sept. 5th) lauds her as “Merkel the Bold.”But there is a catch, as Merkel wants all the other EU countries to agree to mandatory resettlement quotas.

Hmmmmm… so Germany declares „ Wilkommen bis Alles “ but expects “equitable redistribution” in the interests of “solidarity.”

Translation: Hey, Poland, get ready for 11,946 newcomers! [Also sprach EU commissar Juncker]

Which is really hilarious, since there is absolutely no way Germany will ever force a single person to board a train in Bonn bound for Gdansk. Bad visuals, right?

I don’t know what the outcome of this whole experiment in mass migration will be, but I think the EU had better hope a lot more Americans start riding their trains in case there are some jihadi-wanna-be’s happen to be amongst the genuine refugees.

Yours from the Doublewide, JAB

One of the scary things about the runup to election is the Bernie phenomenon. How can so many people really believe that socialism is a good idea? My guess is that all they know about socialism is based on that All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten book. They don’t really understand that socialism is a failed economic theory that has never ever worked on planet Earth. They do seem to think of the whole thing as a kind of kind of kindergarten for adults, where the nice lady tells you stories, feeds you cookies and makes sure you get your nappy.

If we going to undo all of this kindergarten nostalgia we are going to need to give them a good working definition. I think I have one:

Socialism is a form of economics where the political class decides exactly who gets what and how much. If you are comfortable letting someone have that kind of power over your life, you just might be a socialist.

Whaddya think? Think that might work?

Signed your biggest fan. You know, the one in Nebraska.