Send in the Clowns

The FUBAR Frontier. Part Nine.

I just asked Siri to play something I’d like. She actually did play a lot of songs I like, and just a few minutes ago she played Send in the Clowns, the 1970’s Judy Collins version, which I remember from back then. When she sang the line, “Don’t bother, they’re here,” I realized that the songwriter, one Stephen Sondheim, had stumbled across a five-word abbreviation for everything that is going on in January of 2026, on the planet we call Earth.

Curious where the song came from, it turns out it was a Broadway musical called A Little Night Music, based on Smiles of a Summer Night, a film by Ingmar Bergman. I had never heard of the musical, and I never saw the film, but clowns, yes. I knew all about clowns, and I knew that indeed, they were already here.

The thing about clowns is that they’re supposed to be funny. You’re supposed to laugh at them. The kind of clowns that are already here are not easy to laugh at. Hamas being blown away if it does not disarm? That’s what the President of the United States of America is promising, according to the Saudi Arabian state-owned international Arabic-language television news channel Al Arabiya. Ha, ha. Greenland? Need I post links? It’s not easy being green. Ha, ha, ha, ha.

But before I start getting serious about the clowns, I’ll tell two jokes. One is Jewish, the other Soviet Russian. Jews and Soviet Russians are very good at laughing at the kind of clowns that aren’t really funny.

1. An old Jewish grandma is watching her infant grandson crawling on the beach when a rogue wave sweeps over him and carries him off to sea. Terrified, the old lady looks to the heaven and utters, “Dear God, I haven’t been very loyal to you over the years, I know, but now I need your help. I’m begging you with all my heart, please return my grandson to me.” There is a sudden eerie stillness, and after a pause, another wave sweeps up in the beach, bearing the grandson, laughing and crawling along the sand. Another pause, and again the old lady turns her eyes heavenward, and whispers, “He had a hat.”

Did you like that one? Are you ready for the Soviet Russian joke?

1. Two Soviet Russians have been waiting in line for hours at the government-run meat market for their weekly allotment of ground chuck. One of them suddenly explodes in rage: “That’s it! I can’t take this any more. I’m going to shoot Stalin!” He runs off, but fifteen minutes later, he returns to the meat market line. “What happened?” He answers: “That line was even longer than this one.”

Okay, enough laughs for now. Let’s get serious about the clowns already being here.

It has to do with technology. Specifically, thermonuclear weapons, social media, and machine learning, which is normally repackaged as “artificial intelligence.”

Back in the 20th Century, if you were a nation with a nuclear arsenal, you could threaten, at the very worst, “mutually assured destruction.” Do what we say, or we will destroy all life on earth.

By the time that social media became available, the world realized that “mutually assured destruction” wasn’t very cool, so they came up with tweets and memes and fact checkers and blocking and banning so that human beings could blow off steam while their governments and NGO’s and International Communities and New World Orders and People’s Democratic Republics, and Islamic Republics could still throw their weight around without being quite as scary as, say, a Cuban Missile Crisis.

That worked for a while, but AI souped it all up. Social Media on steroids, essentially. Not real steroids. Worse. Fake steroids, delivering fake news: deepfakes, hyperreality, the Blue Pill. The PlanScamDemic.

That’s when the clown car rolls into the main ring of a three-ring circus. However, the Big Top with AI-driven social media is not limited to three rings: it’s an n-ring circus, where n is a number the crowd picks. Or better yet, it’s an x-ring circus, where x is the unknown number. (It’s also the name of a social media platform. Ha, ha.)

And that’s where the President of the United States of American enters the picture. Adolf Hitler? Winston Churchill? Julius Caesar? The Prince of Darkness?

None of the above. Donald Trump is the Great Ringmaster of the Circus of Planet Earth.

Let me ask Grok what a ringmaster actually does in a circus… I haven’t done that yet. How far off the mark am I?

Primary Role: The ringmaster’s main job is to introduce each act to the audience with energy and flair, building excitement and guiding the crowd’s attention. They announce performers, describe upcoming spectacles (often in dramatic, hype-building language), and keep the show flowing smoothly from one act to the next.

In short: the ringmaster is the voice, energy, and personality of the circus — part announcer, part hype-person, part conductor of wonder. They’re there to make sure the magic feels seamless and unforgettable! 🎪

Now, how are things going in Davos?

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha…