Well hello carbon-based lifeforms, after ten glorious days away enjoying peace, quiet and spectacular scenery in a lovely, albeit spectacularly inappropriately named, place, I, Xylb’tok, have returned safely to Mars accompanied by Grzz’lax and our adopted Penguin.
I had hoped the holiday would provide enough time for Earth to regain at least a passing acquaintance with reality. Reader, it did not. Nor, it turns out, had Mars.
I arrived home expecting everything exactly as I had left it. Instead I discovered the Lunar Haggis had somehow transformed the interplanetary communications array into the galaxy’s largest game of Double Dutch. Three of them were skipping happily between the transmission cables while another was providing musical accompaniment by repeatedly headbutting the emergency beacon.
If this transmission suddenly ends halfway through a sentence, please assume one of them has mistaken the antenna for sporting equipment.
Grzz’lax is already filling out the insurance forms.
With normality therefore restored across two planets, let us examine the latest instalment of “Things America Somehow Made Even Stranger While I Was Away.”
We thought the tariff game was over
Before my holiday I confidently predicted the great tariff obsession had finally exhausted itself. I was wrong. I know that seems unlikely but on this occasion I was. On Mars we have a saying: never underestimate a species capable of arguing with the weather. And it appears I had underestimated the Tango Tyrant’s obsession with tariffs.
Having already threatened tariffs because smoke from Canadian wildfires dared to drift across the border into American airspace – an act of atmospheric audacity apparently committed by the trees themselves – your leaders have now discovered fresh reasons to tax Canada for the unforgivable crime of… well we can only assume it’s for continuing to be Canada.
I spent several hours trying to understand the strategic thinking behind this. Eventually Grzz’lax confiscated my notes and quietly suggested there wasn’t any. Honestly, what exactly were the Canadians expected to do about the smoke? Construct an enormous fan stretching from Vancouver to Nova Scotia? Politely ask the wind to carry it somewhere less politically inconvenient? Issue every moose with a leaf blower?
Even the Martian Weather Council – a notoriously humourless organisation whose annual conference consists mainly of discussing dust – agreed this was one of the least scientifically convincing international disputes in recent memory.
Canada, displaying the sort of understated diplomacy it has perfected over generations, responded in perhaps the most Canadian way imaginable. It simply withdrew an invitation.
The grand opening of the new international bridge that Canada built and paid for, connecting the two countries, will take place without the guest who has spent months insisting Canada should be grateful. There is something wonderfully elegant about being excluded from a party because you spent too much time insulting the host.
Frankly, we Martians approve. We have already begun searching for our own invitation because Canadians generally seem like excellent company.
The Lunar Haggis have interpreted this story somewhat differently. They have started inviting every creature on Mars to an enormous celebration next Thursday before dramatically rescinding the invitations five minutes later “for national security reasons”.
Attendance currently stands at minus 12.
Red cards that are no more
While I was away I also noticed another curious development in Earth’s favourite pastime.
Apparently red cards have become… optional.
You may recall the previous incident when a red card seemed to enter a mysterious state of quantum uncertainty after certain influential Earthlings became rather unhappy with reality.
We watched it sail harmlessly past Mars. Nobody bothered retrieving it. It looked happier in space.
Now history appears to have repeated itself. Another player received a red card. Then, almost as quickly, it ceased to be a red card at all. I had been under the impression that football possessed rules. Earth continues to insist this is true. Evidence, however, remains mixed. Perhaps FIFA has embraced quantum mechanics.
On Earth a player can apparently be simultaneously sent off and not sent off until somebody politically important observes the decision. Schrödinger’s Defender, if you will.
Fortunately, this time nobody appears to have demanded the decision be overturned from the highest levels of government, so at least the universe avoided reopening that particular wormhole.
The friendship between the Overripe Satsuma and football’s chief administrator also appears to be flourishing. Indeed, your permanently sun-coloured leader has now suggested that his footballing companion would make an excellent Secretary-General of the United Nations.
The official requirements for the role include competence, efficiency, diplomacy and unquestionable integrity.
At this point Grzz’lax slowly looked up from polishing the spacecraft, stared directly into the camera for almost 20 seconds, sighed deeply and wandered off without saying a word.
Sometimes silence really is the best response.
Science under attack… again
You may think that after record-breaking temperatures, relentless heatwaves, forests enthusiastically attempting to become charcoal, glaciers quietly resigning from existence and weather maps increasingly resembling abstract paintings, even the most determined Tangerine Truth-Bender might reluctantly concede that your planet is, in fact, getting rather warm.
Apparently not.
It seems somebody discovered that the United States National Academies of Sciences had produced an educational guide to help judges understand climate science.
A perfectly sensible idea, you might think. Judges are regularly asked to weigh evidence in cases involving climate change, so helping them understand the science behind it hardly seems controversial.
On Earth, however, sensible ideas have an unfortunate habit of being treated like invasive species. Before long there was another late-night outburst, the guide was publicly denounced, and a review was ordered.
A review.
Not of the climate.
Not of the fires.
Not of the rising temperatures.
Not of the increasingly expensive disasters occurring with suspicious regularity.
No, the thing requiring scrutiny was… the document explaining the science.
Earthlings truly are fascinating.
On Mars we have an old saying:
“If your observatory tells you an asteroid is approaching, reviewing the telescope does not alter the asteroid.”
I appreciate that your species prefers a more optimistic approach. You seem convinced that if you argue with reality for long enough, reality may eventually become embarrassed and leave. It rarely does.
Indeed, while these announcements were being made, vast areas of North America continued to bake beneath temperatures that would make a Martian cactus reach for sunscreen.
Wildfires continued to rage.
Smoke continued to drift across borders.
Rivers continued to shrink.
The atmosphere, I regret to report, stubbornly refused to read the press release.
If you remain unconvinced by the overwhelming scientific evidence, I offer a simpler experiment.
Open your front door. Stand outside. If your eyebrows immediately begin to curl at the edges, perhaps the scientists were onto something.
Back on Mars, the Lunar Haggis have enthusiastically embraced the concept of reviews.
Every invitation to their party has now been reviewed. Every game they invented yesterday has been reviewed. They have even reviewed the colour red, concluding that it is “more of a suggestion.” Thankfully they have stopped reviewing the communications array, which means this message may actually reach Earth intact.
Grzz’lax has also received notice that his invitation to the Haggis’ whisky-and-Tunnock’s-themed soirée has been withdrawn. He accepted the news with characteristic calm, pointing out that he had absolutely no intention of attending in the first place.
The Penguin, meanwhile, has been conspicuously absent for several hours. We eventually found him sitting quietly by a photo of an iceberg, reading an introductory textbook on climate science.
Sometimes, dear Earthlings, satire writes itself.
Nuclear power for all our friends?
One aspect of human foreign policy continues to baffle the Martian Academy of Logic. Indeed, several professors have resigned over it.
You may recall that only a short while ago we were assured a war had to be fought because Iran was supposedly only weeks away from developing nuclear weapons (spoiler alert they weren’t). The danger, we were repeatedly told, was so immediate that military action became not merely justified but essential. It was, apparently, the only way to preserve peace.
Humans have a wonderfully creative definition of peace.
Imagine our surprise, then, to learn that another country in the very same region has now reached a nuclear agreement with the Man-Who-Starts-Wars-So-He-Can-Stop-Them that would permit it to enrich uranium.
Now, I appreciate that international diplomacy is often rather more complicated than it first appears.
But even after allowing for nuance, caveats, historical context and several cups of Martian tea, I am still left with one nagging question.
If enriching uranium is so catastrophically dangerous that it justifies bombing one country…
…how does it become a symbol of friendship when somebody else does it?
The Martian Department of Consistency attempted to chart this on a whiteboard. Halfway through the exercise the marker pen burst into flames. The board then apologised and resigned.
We consulted The Penguin for his thoughts. He stared into the middle distance for a very long time. Eventually he gave the slow, disappointed head shake normally reserved for humans attempting to explain cryptocurrency to a glacier.
It was impossible to tell whether he was expressing disgust, confusion or simply wondering why he ever left Antarctica.
Penguins are remarkably difficult to read.
An own goal for Donny
Speaking of confusing strategies…
You may have heard that the Overripe Satsuma is attempting to sue the BBC, claiming a documentary damaged his reputation and cost him income.
Now, lawsuits are hardly unusual on Earth. In fact, Americans appear to collect them in much the same way Martians collect unusual-shaped rocks.
What interested us was what happened next.
The BBC’s lawyers, displaying the sort of calm one usually associates with people who know exactly what they are doing, have responded by asking the court to order the release of his financial records.
After all, if someone claims they have suffered financial losses, it seems perfectly reasonable to ask one rather obvious question.
Show us the losses.
The silence from the other side has, thus far, been magnificent.
On Mars we believe this is what humans refer to as “scoring an own goal.”
Although, to be fair, “shooting yourself in the foot” also seems appropriate.
Human idioms are wonderfully violent.
Your species appears incapable of describing a minor mistake without involving firearms, explosions or buses.
Our linguists are still trying to work out why anyone would voluntarily fire a projectile into one of their own limbs.
Grzz’lax suggested perhaps it was an ancient Earth ritual demonstrating poor judgement.
Having observed enough of your politics over the past few years, the Martian Academy is increasingly inclined to agree.
Closing reflections
As I look out across the Martian plains once more, I find myself wondering whether your species is actively competing against itself to produce the most bewildering week in recorded history.
Tariffs continue to appear whenever somebody runs out of better ideas. Football rules remain strangely flexible depending on who is watching. Climate science is reviewed while the climate simply carries on changing. Foreign policy continues tying itself into knots that even Grzz’lax cannot untangle, and lawsuits somehow end up creating problems for the people who filed them.
In short, Earth has spent another fortnight being magnificently, unapologetically Earth.
The Martian Academy has now officially abandoned trying to predict your next move. They have replaced the entire forecasting department with a large spinning wheel labelled “Probably Something Ridiculous.”
Its accuracy rate remains alarmingly high.
Back on Mars, the Lunar Haggis have finally stopped using the communications cables as skipping ropes and have instead formed a Committee for Reviewing Committees. So far they have overturned two party invitations, three games of hide-and-seek, one particularly controversial game of conkers and, for reasons nobody can adequately explain, the colour red.
Grzz’lax has wisely decided not to get involved.
The Penguin, meanwhile, is quietly shaking his head at the latest Earth news. Whether that is disappointment, confusion or simple disbelief remains impossible to tell. Penguins, as I have previously noted, are remarkably difficult to read.
Until next week, Earthlings, do try to remember that if you’re reviewing climate science instead of the climate, changing the rules after the whistle, making nuclear exceptions for your friends, and scoring own goals in the courtroom… perhaps the problem isn’t reality after all.
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