From a white Republican official/yachtsman/Trump worshipper, to a black San Francisco champion of the poor, to a Chinese-American school official in Los Angeles and her Indian—origin partner in crime — and all the way up to her Hispanic Superintendent boss — the ethnic richness of our thieving class is a wonder to behold. In no other nation will you find people from such different backgrounds working – singly or in conspiracy – to remove all the public money meant to help struggling people and give it to themselves.
The COO of this hoitsy toitsy outfit (Meier/Piano architecture!) has been stealing hundreds of thousands from it for years. Nobody suspected cuz you know we’re fine, finely credentialed, people here. And yet if the museum had done a bit of due diligence they’d have found a college plagiarist (“Brady Lum, … an Honor Committee chairman … in late 1988, was accused of plagiarism.” Honor Committee!), and a guy (I think it’s the same guy) who, in a 2011 UVa speech, said
I have a simple message for you today – say “yes” to more in life. That’s really all you need to know.
Say yes to the museum’s endowment! Even if you’re making almost $400,000 a year (I know – a humiliating pittance in Lum’s world), get your fingers in that pie! Yes! I’ll take it!
This was my first encounter with Léon Krier — his obnoxious, hilarious, response to a fellow architect’s presentation of his latest project:
I don’t imagine the much-laureled Tadao Ando was too upset; but I enjoyed Krier’s contempt. He hated the vapid deadly form of modernism Ando embodied, and didn’t mind showing it.
Krier, who has died, enjoyed his own renown, though he drew more than he built, in part because he wanted large urbanist projects rather than single structures, and these were hard to get developed. But you can find his work at Seaside FL, site of the Truman Show, and a pricey, popular, resort town/tourist draw. And, in England, at the equally successful Poundbury:
[U]nlike so many lifeless developer-built estates, it combined industrial space, stores and small workshops among the housing, now employing 2,600 people in 250 businesses. It has worked: house prices are up to a quarter higher than the surrounding area, while 35% of the homes are affordable, scattered throughout the development, rather than corralled into separate blocks.
Derided as reactionary, nostalgic, and authoritarian, Krier was an enemy of capitalist excess who realized, rightly, that most people prefer living a grounded existence (rather than a remote, abstracted, skyscraper one) in a meaningful town with architecturally recognizable shops, libraries, churches, schools, cafes, and the rest within walking distance. Many of his realized projects, like Seaside, are, again, madly popular, which UD thinks vindicates his earthy, historically grounded, daily social mixing, instinct. The larger, well-known movement, New Urbanism, that he inspired, has been hugely successful here and in Europe.
Of course UD‘s own Garrett Park has many of the characteristics Krier championed; but a town a few miles away from her – Kentlands – was directly conceived in his New Urbanist style, and has been a big hit.
Krier understood and loathed and elaborated upon the perversion of the penthouse, the social sickness of sky-high surveillance states like Monaco and parts of NYC, and for that alone I am grateful.
The first I found in a review of James Merrill’s poetry; the second is from Nabokov’s Pnin. They attracted me because I’m starting my traditional end of/beginning of the year Life Wisdom blog post, and the sentiment seemed a good place to start.
But for now, just having arrived in Boston for Christmas, I’m going to take a nap.
… have gotten those schools into plenty of trouble. Hired to think and act in terms of social justice, some of these people turn out to be bullies who like to lead Children’s Crusades against perceived enemies.
For Oberlin’s demagogue, the enemy was a bakery. Her vicious crusade against its blameless owners ended up costing that school $36 million.
Stanford’s person led a group of law students in shouting down and forcing out of the room a visiting judge.
Stanford’s dean is not only appalled by this inane and ignorant behavior; she has put the demagogue on leave and apologized to the judge. She has also condemned, in a lengthy letter, the idiots who followed the fool’s lead, and she has mandated, for all current law students, a seminar in free speech.
Meanwhile, some conservative judges are planning to boycott all Stanford law grads if they apply for internships in their offices. Some of those applicants from Stanford will of course be conservatives, which is just too damn bad for them.
So … we can expect smart conservative law school applicants to decide not to apply to Stanford.
Pray tell me, Sir, whose dog are youss?”
It will not be easy to dislodge Mr. Trump. His bond with his supporters is personal — it is based on the promise of humiliating … enemies… The … current Republican Party … is depraved …
Insufficiently depraved MAGA lasses – Ivanka Trump, Kayleigh McEnany – are jumping ship post non-tsunami, leaving the head of the ladies’ auxiliary open to the woman who has long desired and deserved it — the yugely sadistic pasionaria Lara Trump, who UD believes has a clear path to leadership, not only because of her personal qualities, but because she is the likeliest answer to the question Bill Maher recently posed.
Politically ambitious, an absolutely savage lover of violence, Lara blows wannabe brutalists like Kari Lake and Sarah Palin out of the water. Unlike Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lara’s no buffoon; she’s always calm, smiling, and camera-ready. Unlike Kimberly Guilfoyle, who will never live this down, Lara would never let her fervency reduce her to a national joke. On the contrary, her frank, rational disclosure of the charismatic malignity of the Trump revolution seems likely to move her into a commanding position vis-a-vis Trump himself. Bitter and sedentary, he can hardly compete with a perky marathon runner who tirelessly carries the torch he lit but can no longer hold aloft.
Lake, Palin, Boebert, Greene, Guilfoyle – these will form the core of Lara’s Lasserators. Many more will follow.
**********************
UPDATE: Details on Lara’s master plan are beginning to come in. Here’s what we’re hearing.
A lot of people are saying that her hush-hush relationship with her father-in-law (see above) has to do with blackmailing him to make her his VP: A Trump/Trump ticket.
A lot of other people are saying that she won’t even have to blackmail him. She is in her own right the perfect candidate: Absolutely fully committed to the MAGA agenda. Young, to pull in the youth vote. Smart, articulate, fearless, with the patented Trump cruelty. A woman and a family member whose enormous enthusiasm will counteract Ivanka’s refusal to be involved in the campaign. This blog will provide updates as this intriguing story develops.
Great cast of characters there, and I’m sure she would have won if she’d added John Eastman, Rudy Giuliani, and Sidney Powell. Where were her campaign advisors?
When will Repubs give in to their deepest passion of all and welcome The Dear Leader to the next CPAC?
