Opioid orphans, Amazon’s not afraid to fail and other commentaries

An Amazon Fresh grocery store in Paramus, New Jersey. Christopher Sadowski

Drug watch: Opioid Orphans

“Tens of thousands of ‘grandfamilies’ ” — where grandparents raise the kids of addicted, jailed or dead parents — are rising from “West Virginia’s opioid epidemic,” reports The Free Press’ Olivia Reingold.

“In West Virginia, which has the highest rate of opioid overdose deaths in the nation, more than half of all kids are being raised by their grandparents.”

And “it’s a national problem.”

“Out of the more than two million kids being raised by their grandparents in the US, the majority are living with their family elders due to a parent’s drug abuse.”

“The crisis has now been raging for three decades, wreaking havoc across multiple generations” and has “taken more than 800,000 lives nationally since 1999.”

From the right: Amazon’s Not Afraid To Fail

“Amazon isn’t run by geniuses who never screw up. It is run by geniuses who do, and who understand when something isn’t working,” argues National Review’s Dominic Pino.

It has “tried its own grocery stores” with the idea that “an Amazon Prime subscriber . . . would scan his or her phone on the way into the store, grab groceries, and ‘just walk out.”

But “it turns out the technology didn’t really work for grocery stores.”

Amazon also “tried to compete with physical bookstores with its Amazon Books subsidiary” and failed; same “for Amazon’s attempt at physical clothing stores.”

“Amazon is not invincible,” but “has been able to succeed” by “taking risks, evaluating the results, and cutting its losses when the results aren’t good.”

Culture critic: The March of Dimes Syndrome

Many “supposed crises are all examples of the March of Dimes syndrome,” named for the charity that “helped fund the vaccines that eventually ended the polio epidemics — but not the organization,” as its “leaders kept their group going by finding a new cause,” explains City Journal’s John Tierney.

E.g., “Most Americans now support same-sex marriage,” so “activists have moved the goalposts once again. It is no longer enough for conservative Christians to tolerate same-sex marriage — now they must be legally required to bake cakes and design web pages for the weddings.”

Not to mention the demand for “access in elementary school libraries to how-to manuals for anal sex.”

Greens also pivoted from warning that “ ‘overpopulation’ would cause billions to starve to death” and “that the ‘energy crisis’ would usher in a new ‘age of scarcity’ as humanity ran out of fossil fuels” to doomsaying about climate change.

Eye on Canada: Let’s Just Stick to LGB

“Justin Trudeau may have missed the memo, but Canadians are moving on from trans obsession,” snarks Meghan Murphy at Spiked as an Ipsos poll shows “Canadian support for ‘LGBTQ2 visibility’ is on the decline.”

“Gay rights went mainstream decades ago,” but “enthusiasm for trans rights is beginning to wane.”

“The problem is that gay-rights slogans, arguments and demands lose all meaning when applied to transgenderism.”

The trans movement “has been a destructive force” that “isn’t a fight for safety or human rights,” but “a cult that demands nothing less than unwavering devotion.”

“Canadians can see that the T isn’t marginalized, but rather promoted at every opportunity, by corporations, politicians, the media and institutions alike.”

And people “don’t like nonsensical things being shoved down their throats at every turn.”

Libertarian: Federally Funded Dad Jokes

“Did you hear the one about the world’s greatest watch thief? He stole all the time,” kids Reason’s Eric Boehm.

“But even that guy might be impressed by the sticky fingers of the National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse,” a “tiny corner” of the Department of Health and Human Services “that managed to pilfer nearly $75 million in taxpayer money last year to maintain, among other things, an official government repository of ‘dad jokes.’ It’s funny — but not in a good way.”

However “well-intentioned” the program, it’s hard to say what, if anything, it’s achieved. What a “silly way to spend tax dollars” when we face a national debt of $34.5 trillion, “which is no laughing matter.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board