Perhaps you’ve noticed, there’s a whole lotta hostage goin’ on.
Our president is being held hostage by his own war, which in no way is going to shake him loose anytime soon. He is not only a hostagee, however. He is a hostager, too.
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Palm Beach County Commissioner Sara Baxter was a congressional candidate for four days, give or take 24 hours, before Trump told her to sit down. She did. Still, she praised her captor.
Stockholm Syndrome.
The entire stock market is being held hostage by Elon Musk, whose SpaceX is accurately described by business writer Robin Wigglesworth thusly: A “fairly small satellite launch company, bolted onto a stagnant money-losing social media company (X, formerly Twitter) and a money-incinerating AI company (xAI, operator of the widely despised model Grok), and then sprinkled with a lot of hype about humankind going interplanetary.”
SpaceX lost $4 billion last year. But hostages gotta hostage, so a captive and captivated Wall Street valued the company at $2 trillion-ish, and now we can all look forward to Musk muscling his way into our 401(k)s.
Trump’s non-war may or may not wind up with a non-win. People may or may not get tired of presidents picking their county commissioners.
SpaceX stockholders will absolutely be breaking out the hankies for trusting a guy who gave us exploding cars, a failed tunneling company and X’s blazing dumpster fire of a balance sheet, last seen tied to the north end of a south bound mule.
All have a brighter immediate future than Nebraska’s Florida Woman.
RFK Jr. is holding part-time Florida resident Angela Perryman behind locked doors in Omaha.
Our Secretary of Health, Human Services and Edible Roadkill never met a pathogen he didn’t want to hug and send on its merry way. Imagine Perryman’s surprise when Mr. Measles refused to let her leave the Omaha quarantine center she has been held in since being exposed to hantavirus on a cruise ship.
That was early May. Perryman is one of a handful of former passengers still cooling their heels. Others have gone home.
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The CDC’s quarantine specialist wants her to go home, too. Unlike the unvaccinated who celebrate various lethal contagions by sharing them with friends and neighbors, Perryman poses no threat to those around her, he found.
But some people find their keys, some people find Jesus, and RFK Jr. found a piece of data that, while not scientific, could be, if you squint.
He has latched onto hantavirus horror and now won’t let Perryman go.
Someone stuck an envelope under her door to tell her.
I know what you’re thinking. Where were those envelopes full of science when the president was fingerpainting the reflecting pool? Why didn’t they at least consult Florida Pool Guy, who knows a scientific thing or two about wild and crazy phytoplankton parties resulting from sealing pool surfaces, painting them a dark color and adding hot standing water?
A “Powerful Dark Blue,” crowed the president.
A powerfully opaque lime Jell-O now, reflecting only the fact that somebody somewhere thought they were smarter than pond scum.
Perryman’s Omaha view is slightly more pleasing: an hour or so on a rooftop, with armed guards. “They’re polite and they’re not using physical violence,” she said, “but otherwise it’s a prison.”
It is exactly like a prison! One of the nice Norway prisons! Except their rooftop views are of majestic fjords, towering mountains and glacial plateaus. Apologies to Nebraska, but after you’ve seen one corn husk, you’ve seen them all.
No wonder Perryman has lawyered up.
But Florida Man has nothing over Florida Woman, and I’m putting my prediction market money on a great escape. A westward run for the border would bring her straight to the open arms of Minnesota, where June humidity is not quite South Florida Sponge, all the blue lakes are clear and where, to the continuing sorrow of Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security, they greet strangers with a hot dish, not handcuffs.
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Pat Beall is a Sun Sentinel columnist and editorial writer.