For years we have chided that George Orwell’s book 1984 was meant to be a warning not an operating manual. It appears to have become just that. It also appears that there is a second great work of fiction that has become our reality. I’ll be more specific.

David Hogg’s wandering tribe of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School children chose Chicago, this weekend, to kick off their “March for Our Lives: Road to Change” national tour. While that sounds a bit reminiscent of the Rolling Stones, the only thing those two have in common is an artificially induced reality. I don’t think we need to be too specific about what induces that in Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

With the wandering tribe, my guess is its money fueled by the likes of George Soros and an ever-increasing sense of self-perceived importance fueled by the ever present media. We know the group had a barbecue somewhere in Chicago when they arrived on Friday. Details beyond that are non-existent. I was hoping for more information as I was curious to know if you bake or barbecue Tide Pods.

Yesterday during the pre-event briefing at the Illinois State Rifle Association’s NRA Day at the Range we were told that group would be dividing into smaller groups all of which would go to different locations where there was firearm related activity. It was not a stretch of the imagination that the ISRA Range would be on the list for no other reason that the sheer size of the gathering.

I relate this because in anticipation of the possibility a busload of these socially deviant miscreants might arrive, the ISRA spent a considerable amount of time and effort to develop an appropriate contingency plan then present it to the sea of workers assembled prior to opening the front gate. I was designated the individual who would meet the group and be their point of contact. You know, the ISRA’s official spokesperson. As a side note, I felt somewhat honored that I would be chosen for that role until someone standing next to me pointed out, “Look at it this way, they had to pick someone they were willing to sacrifice.”

At a press conference held at St. Sabina’s Catholic Church on Chicago’s South Side – seriously, they couldn’t have picked a better place — journalists clumped like turkeys to bask in the glory of the Reverend David Hogg. Hogg told the press the bus tour aims to “promote the largest youth voter turnout ever.” I haven’t a clue where they went after that but you can be sure there were others who spent a lot of time preparing for the possibility these kids would roll up in their bus and do their best to create chaos.

Since when did the most powerful nation in the world begin considering an 18 year old kid with a bloated ego and virtually no knowledge of firearms become the nation’s firearm and Second Amendment expert? The only credit Hogg has on his resume is he was inside a school when an active shooter went on a rampage. He wasn’t even personally harmed.

Now before the Birkenstock Mafia goes berserk over that let me stress I have great sympathy for those kids including David Hogg. No child should ever have to experience such a thing but what area of expertise did David Hogg gain by being in the same building? I suppose you could say he’s an expert at being in the same building and not getting shot but that’s about it.

And yet, he’s on a national tour drawing crowds to hear him speak of which he knows not. He engineered Laura Ingraham losing her show and gotten one or two other talk show hosts off the air because they disagreed with him.

This is an 18 year old child with no knowledge of the firearms industry or the issues at hand yet the Congress of the United States pays attention to him as do key members of the pro-Second Amendment groups. This 18 year old kid is wasting a lot of people’s time and money. What ever happened to children should be seen and not heard?

Which brings me to the point and it is the second work of fiction that has become our reality – Lewis Carroll’s 1865 classic Through the Looking Glass. It is a story about an alternate universe where things are exactly the opposite of what they should be. First Orwell and now Carroll; I’m beginning to understand the concept of book burning.