Dakota Beacon

Man is subject to much anxiety and fear.  Burns distinguished between the mind of the field mouse and the lot of man:

  “. . . Still, thou art blest,compar'd wi' me! 

The present only toucheth thee: 

But Och! I backward cast my e'e, 

On prospects drear! 

An' forward, tho' I canna see, 

I guess an' fear!”

There is no shortage of worries.  We have problems and concerns today we never dreamt of 30 years ago - an all-out attack on not only our founding values and Constitution but even our national sovereignty, “fluid” sexuality and forced speech, child brides, imposition of Sharia, the effects of unbridled mass immigration, Antifa riots in our cities, public spending to the point of bankruptcy, abortion, rape gangs, the failure of our education system, the rise of socialism, terrorist attacks, Teslas blowing up and infinite other issues.  We have natural disasters such as the Amazon fires, earthquakes, floods and draughts. If the real worries weren’t enough we have fake environmentalism and the de-platforming of anyone who wants to talk about any of this. And every fall we anticipate the hurricane season with dread.

I’m not exactly a stranger to this phenomenon.  Half of my family has lived in Florida and my brother’s family still lives there.  My sister was a news photographer in Florida for FOX at the time of Hurricane Andrew.  The devastation and destruction were shocking and heartbreaking. A lifelong animal lover and rescuer, she was horrified to see a horse left in a tree by the storm.  Of course I worry.  A hurricane is no laughing matter.

But we have to find a safety valve.  It is no accident that most of our humor arises from tragedy.  It is the balance needed by the human soul. Our greatest comedians have drawn on the sad realities of life to make us laugh - whether it is a joke about a business failure or a bad business idea (“TWO elephants?  Now you’re talking!”), priests and rabbis, Jewish mothers, mothers-in-law, death, being in traction, the lottery (“God said, ‘I can’t help you if you don’t buy the ticket!’”), race, plumbers, car salesman. We need to take the load off our minds with humor.  

A cake decorator in Florida did that with a party-sized cookie she frosted to resemble a weather map showing a hurricane.  You guessed it - she is under attack for, what is it? Hate speech? Hating on hurricane victims? Hating on hurricanes? What?  She said she wanted to “lighten the mood”. Well, why not? As anyone who has anything to say about anything is being de-platformed, so about the only place left to comment is on a cake or a cookie.  What are people supposed to do after they get their bottled water, gas in the tank and their flashlights in plastic bags?  Sit grimly and wait?  

We have become a nation of cake commentators.  Cake is the terrain where the First Amendment is now tested.  A Christian baker is put out of business because he refuses to decorate a gay wedding cake on the grounds that he should not be forced to use his creative talents to do something against his own morals and religion.  That should be understandable. The gay couple could just have gone down the block and given their custom to a deserving gay-friendly baker but instead they wanted to punish this particular baker. Why was it so important to force a man to write things on a cake that offended him?   We had a French muslim mayor recently who celebrated his birthday with a swastika cake. (I wonder if he demanded it be made by a Jewish baker. Hmmm.) Now we have the public scolds calling for some kind of punishment or banishment or censure of the lady who made the hurricane cookie.  The last place left to express anything seems to be on a cake. To you complainers: It’s FROSTING. Get over it.

Hurricane cakes aren’t all that new.  They have appeared in other seasons - 2015 and 2017, for example.  There is even a hurricane doughnut with the hole in the doughnut as the eye of the hurricane.  The difference is that we seem to have lost all perspective by now. We are no longer allowed to laugh or smile about anything.  Look around. There are no funny jokes any more, no amusing skits on TV. Any comic who dares to tell a joke that is funny will be banned tomorrow.  There are cultures which deny humor or any other kind of normal pleasure and those cultures have come to dominate our own. Political correctness is destroying not only the fabric of our culture but is damaging our personalities as well.  

Let me add this to the storm of commentary and tweets:  If I could buy one here I would, just to support OUR freedom of speech, which, as I keep saying is our freedom to see and hear.  When we take the side of free speech, after all, the person whose freedom is really at stake is the listener or the viewer. We have the right to see and hear the ideas of others.  I can’t stand onion bagels. I find milk generally repulsive. I don’t find pigs’ feet in the least appetizing. I hate Cream of Wheat. Other people like these things. Who am I to say they shouldn’t enjoy them?  Just because I don’t buy them doesn’t mean no one should be able to. On the other hand, I might be the only earthling who really does love fruitcake.  I'd hate to have that disappear from the stores.  So - I would buy the cookie or the cake just for that reason alone, to preserve the right to choose for ourselves. 

If the top of a cake is to be the last stand for the First Amendmen, let the battle begin.

https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/publixs-hurricane-dorian-cake-mixed-reviews