Send In the Attack Corgis: The Good, The Bad and The Winsome

Okay, obviously the "bad" amidst the apocalyptic shitstorm of our democracy - the lies, crimes, cruelty, idiocy - is unrelenting. But in the name of our collective sanity, rather than plunge back into the muck, we'll kick off a shiny new week by unearthing whatever fragments evince the merest glimmer of light - some righteous speeches, stellar trolling, upright judges, tips from the raccoons of resistance, and (mostly four-footed, but still) tales of hope. All we got.

While our precipitous plunge into "James Madison's nightmare, the very definition of tyranny" has multiple backseat drivers - corrupt courts, greedy oligarchs, Project 2025's Christo-fascist creators - of course it's publicly choreographed by doddering figurehead Almost-King Donald and creepy helpmate Elmo Musk, having such a swell time rampaging through government that last week he randomly posted, "I love (Trump) as much as a straight man can love another man." Umm. As Musk and his juvenile gang of techies run amuck - they just shut down CFPB, an $800-million consumer protection agency that's returned over $21 billion to Americans ripped off by banks and credit-card scammers, which he giddily celebrated with a tombstone emoji - the little idiotic prince jabbers away about all their winning, from the vast "fraud" they're finding and "assaulted" Jan. 6 thugs to his beloved Gulf of America, his right to Zelensky's "rare earth" and Gazan "imperialist acid flashback.”

Before the cameras he's theatrically signed over 80 "executive orders," each more preposterous, most heedlessly punishing the vulnerable. He's shut off billions in aid to abruptly reeling, mostly black and brown people and halting projects from Head Start to community health centers. Stripped billions from medical research, blamed a plane crash on DEI, banned birthright citizenship, terrorized trans people, gutted school libraries, announced a wingnut-filled taskforce to fight "anti-Christian bias,” imposed then lifted witless tariffs to send food prices soaring after vowing to lower them, kept up a revenge tour by removing security for anyone ever mean to him, revoking Biden's classified info access as payback, firing the federal archivist though it was another who called out his classified info thefts, fired the Kennedy Center's board - they "do not share our vision" (sic) - and hired his "amazing" self, and brought back environmentally disastrous plastic straws because he could.

As public discourse descends to whether a "president" daily, brazenly violating the Constitution in a "self coup" with the full support of his party must obey any law or legal edict, we're left wondering what in unholy Hell is next and who'll do what to stop it - when, say, Dem lawmakers charge they've been shut out of the Department of Education and the king's henchman retorts, "No such department exists in the federal government." Having been knocked to the ground by Trump's rampage, Dems are struggling to stand back up and find a way forward. Many lawsuits have been filed, judges have ruled once, twice, thrice that blocking funds, freezing jobs, ending birthright citizenship are all illegal. Yet when, in a fiery speech, Maine Sen. Angus King tried to stop the GOP from putting in charge of our money Russell Vought, whose Project 2025 is "a blueprint for the shredding of the Constitution" - pleading, "Are there no red lines?" - they said duh no and blithely confirmed him.

So that's the bad. Increasingly, though, it's being met with good trouble. Calls, for starters, as Congress' phone system gets deluged by tens of millions of aggrieved constituents calling to demand their representatives do something damnit to stop the abuses. Normally, the Senate's phone network gets about 40 calls a minute; recently, that number has rocketed to 1,600. And in dystopian, gotta-laugh-or-cry times when we often have to ask, Is this real or The Onion? - "The Himmler Institute Says This Is All Legal" - trolling has gotten pretty epic. Happily, Australia's The Shovel - presumably shit? - has offered "News You Can Believe In" since 2012. Thus we know Trump, having clicked on a "CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN TO PURCHASE GREENLAND!" link, just sent a billion dollars in bitcoin to Nigerian Prince Omar Abacha, who inherited Greenland from his father the king: "But he wanted me to have it, which is nice. He's a great guy. He's coming over for dinner soon."

The Shovel also has extensive coverage of Gaza. Most recently, the White House announced it might pause plans for the U.S. to take over Gaza because "it may have been based on a misunderstanding." "The President heard the words 'Gaza Strip,' and got excited," they explained; he envisioned strippers, porn stars, beauty queens and "felt he needed a piece of the action." But he'd still like to put in a "beautiful" golf course - thanks to Netanyahu's relentless demolition and prep work, “The place is already a hole, so all we'd have to do is add 17 more" - and create "The Adult Entertainment Capital of the World" with multiple casinos, luxury penthouses and a glitzy Gaza-A-Lago resort. "Palestinians will soon get to savor their first taste of the American Dream," .said an enthused spokesman. “Specifically, the bit of the Dream where we deport all the brown people we don’t like to places they don’t want to go.”

In more breaking news from the Middle East, a Palestinian from Gaza has generously offered to take over and redevelop southern California, expel its beleaguered residents to Mexico where they can have "a beautiful life," and turn the fire-ravaged area into "the Riviera of North America."’ "It would be a great service to the world," he argues. "Los Angeles is a soulless, vacuous hell-hole. It's just a big pile of rubble and collagen right now, not a place for people to be living. I believe strongly the only reason they want to go back to their homes is because they have no alternative. Where are they going to go, Nevada?” Also, Trump just caved on tariffs on Australia after he was reminded he relies on face toner from its crushed copper dust - “You can’t get that florescent orange look from just anywhere, mate" - and in the wake of the tragic airline crash in D.C. caused by DEI, he ordered all airplane black boxes be replaced with white boxes.

In Illinois, meanwhile, Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker took on Trump's Very Serious Proposal, on behalf of his Very Serious Priorities, to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. Standing at a lectern flanked by the usual flags, Pritzker solemnly declared that "the world's finest geographers have concluded a decades-long council, and determined that a Great Lake deserves to be named after a great state." He then issued the proclamation that, "Hereafter, Lake Michigan shall be known as Lake Illinois." Noting the historic news that the U.S. will be purchasing Greenland any day now despite the fact that almost 90% of Greenlanders want nothing to do with us, he announced that, in the same time-honored imperialist spirit and the people be damned, Illinois will likewise be annexing Green Bay to protect itself from marauding outsiders. Next week, he gravely added, he will also have some important news "regarding the Mississippi River."

Given the mess bipeds have made of things, it's gratifying to move on to some real-life glad news - "Something good happened!" - among four-footed critters clearly doing much better than we are. From Australia again, perhaps because Trump hasn't yet figured out it exists, comes an alert from award-winning First Dog on the Moon that Reece the Adventure Dog, a one-year-old Kelpie who for 11 days was missing and stranded on a rocky cliff, was dramatically rescued by a fishing father and son. After Reece went missing from his home on the NSW coast and his owner posted flyers and searched in vain, Rory Deavin and his son Matt were out fishing when they spotted Reece loudly barking - "Clever boy!" - from a ledge. Matt leapt into wild surf, swam to the cliff, climbed up, grabbed Reece, climbed down and both swam, exhausted, back to the boat. Reece was emaciated and cut up, but quickly recovered. The consensus: He should be a movie.

First Dog also made available, viaProject Gutenberg's free digital archives and its own Raccoons of the Resistance, a nifty lesson in fighting fascism as outlined in a World War ll-era Simple Sabotage Field Manual. Released by an Office of Strategic Services that became the CIA, and now Gutenberg's fifth most popular download, the manual was designed to guide ordinary "citizen-saboteurs" to use everyday actions and household objects - salt, nails, pebbles, thread - to bring legal. non-violent, low-level disruption: "Citizen saboteurs were highly effective at resisting the last time there were Nazis, and now it is our turn." Drop tools into machines, hide or lose things, delete text, be a pain - small, accessible acts of resistance to slow a war effort or curtail a draconian government's authoritarian overreach or, the raccoons suggest, otherwise help with "those ever-present 'I'm living in an omnicidal kleptocracy' blues."

Back in the good-guy, four-footed world, where good news also invariably fights off those blues, the Oregon Zoo just proudly announced, and posted many adorbs videos of, its new baby Asian Elephant. Once omnipresent in their often highly populated range countries from Borneo to India, they are now seriously endangered by development, habitat loss, conflict with humans and disease, and their numbers have plunged to perhaps only 50,000. After over 20 months of pregnancy, 30-year-old Rose-Tu gave birth to a healthy female calf weighing in at about 200 pounds. The Zoo is recognized worldwide for its extensive elephant care, conservation work and $1 million endowment fund, all of which, in our new dystopia, could now be threatened. To forget that it might and simply relish the gangly spectacle, watch the hefty calf struggle to stand, briefly wobble, then stagger much like the rest of us into its strange new life. For now, inviolate.

Finally, with apologies to James Agee, let us now praise Fu Zai, China's first Corgi police dog, who just marked a year on the job after being donated by a trainer who "spotted his potential." Last January, at four months old, Fu Zai joined the police force in Weifang, in Shandong Province, as a "reserve explosives-detection operative." His goofy smile, stubby legs, prowess and name - Lucky Boy - quickly made him an Internet star with 384,000 followers, and after a "heavy workload" of training and security tasks, he graduated in October into a full-fledged (if short) police dog. But the pressure of the job got to him: At a year-end review, he was duly praised for passing his Level 4 Assessment and given a red flower and stash of treats as a bonus; then they were cruelly, swiftly swept away for alleged "workplace misconduct" - falling asleep on duty and peeing in his food bowl. Dazed and confused, he looked on as he was told he could keep only the red flower. The Internet could relate.

Fans were outraged. "LEAVE HIM ALONE," one shrieked. Also, "Justice for Fu Zai!" and, "Send in the attack Corgis!" Some worried other dogs would now feel free to bully him. "Critics question his ability to do police work,” one politely noted, and, seeing him scamperr as his fierce, grave German Shepherd colleagues towered over him, "When you get the job via connections." Loyalists argued, even asleep or peeing, "He can stop criminals with his cuteness." And police soon assured them Fu Zai still had a good dog's life. Jan. 29, to mark the Lunar New Year, he was given a new package of treats - herring, dumplings, shark's fin soup, a dog-version of the delicacy Buddha Jumps Over the Wall. "We hope you make more persistent efforts in the future," his trainers said, "and that everyone can be kind to animals." Also, they joked, "We hope Fu Zai will grow taller." Then in grand, or short, poetic justice, they gave him the vaunted Annual Award of Defying Fate.” Man. A scumbag wannabe king is gonna be some pissed.