Marjorie Taylor Greene from Georgia and some other members of Congress took a fifteen-minute recess from regular duties to raise money for the National Republican Committee. One hundred thousand dollars was raised in a quarter of an hour when Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy pulled out his tube of used cherry flavored Chapstick and auctioned it off. McCarthy is from California so such economic disequilibrium is not surprising to Americans who follow reports of calls for five million dollar per person reparations in San Francisco and especially when Georgia’s Greene was the winning bidder.
This impromptu fundraiser took place in the halls of Congress on Tuesday, May 23rd. Such tangential matters as the then impending default on our 31 trillion dollars national debt and the 30 billion dollars worth of military armaments we have given to Ukraine pale in significance to the issue of chapped lips. Perhaps fifteen minutes spent on funding social security or avoiding a nuclear war with Russia could be squeezed into Congress’ agenda. It is certainly impressive how the essential matter of financing political campaigns could be so quickly addressed by our politicians.
Of course, America is not the only country that pays lip service to grave matters while politicians and the news media, including newspaper columnists, concentrate on bruised lips and egos. Meghan Markle sought to bring down the British monarchy before she had even joined it by demanding to use Kate Middleton’s Clarins Natural Lip Protector during a February 28, 2018 meeting of the Royal Foundation Forum. Kate and William were shocked and Meghan and Harry were offended that Kate and William were shocked. A toppling of the throne was averted by Meghan squeezing some balm out of the tube onto her finger instead of applying it directly to her lips.
The backdrop for Meghan’s royal faux pas was the first public event to initiate the Royal Foundation Forum which was established to help fund charitable causes such as mental health needs. Naturally, the failure of British etiquette by the plebeian American received more coverage than the fund raising. Harry even saw fit to highlight it in his family confessional book, Spare.
I suppose it is too much to expect the British public to be less concerned with the battle among the royals over lip gloss than the Battle of Hastings. Nor should we be surprised if our Congress can find time to quickly fund political campaigns but not the national debt. But, Gentle Reader, wouldn’t it be refreshing and bring smiles to our faces if such topics were the fodder of columnists instead of chapped and colored lips?