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"Some Things I Could Do with the NYPD's 6 Billion Dollar Budget"

The great cartoonist, Jason A. Katzenstein, has a comic memoir coming out, "Everything Is an Emergency." (It's about JAK's OCD.)

While awaiting that, you might enjoy Katzenstein's piece in "Current Affairs," entitled: "Some Things I Could Do with the NYPD's 6 Billion Dollar Budget." (This guy is very liberal, so understand that's a part of this. The piece imagines that the NYPD has been de-funded and dismissed.)
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/06/some-things-i-could-do-with-the-nypds-6-billion-annual-budget

JAK alternates between the absurd and the real. For example, you could use the NYPD's budget to put up large Times Square billboards about your personal fondness for the comedian Richard Kind. ("My KIND of Guy....") Or, simply, you could use the money to fix the subway.

You could pay each FRIENDS co-star 1 million dollars for a special reunion episode, in which "Joey has Covid." ("The real question, Joe, is HOW YOU DOIN'?")

Or--simply--you could use the money to feed yourself while also "not killing anybody."

This is biting and energetic, and the dramatic shifts from silly to serious are pretty thrilling. I'm also fond of the picture of the smiling subway.

Enjoy.

P.S. I don't think JAK is saying Covid is funny. I *do* think he is saying, "What is wrong with the world that there is so much suffering, and yet certain people receive literally 1 million dollars for filming thirty minutes of a shallow sitcom"--? Just a guess.
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