Chicago recorded 650 murders in 2017. Japan, which has 46 times as many people, had 307 homicides the same year. We’ve simply come to accept a level of violence in this country that much of the rest of the world—from poor, developing countries such as Vietnam to wealthy nations such as the United Kingdom—can’t even imagine. Ignoring that level of human suffering is hardly progressive, and it isn’t hysterical to say so.

After four suicides of young people in a short period of time, it’s an empty Vessel.

Four and no more, at least for the moment; they’ve closed down the shiny new suicide-attractor, the folly that is in fact a folly.

For most people, it’s a fun place to crawl along stairways with a spectacular New York City view; for a few, it’s a beacon of hopelessness. And given the ways of contagion, the site was wired for more and more Werthers.

*************

Now, gazing at its Eschery silence, people think not of the inventive fun, the silly sightseeing, its creator had in mind, but of the absolute opposite of silliness. The Vessel’s manic sprite summons the depressive specter. It is Lear’s Fool, madcap and bitterly melancholy.

************

Yes, New York City is all ledges to tumble or jump from; no, adding inches to chest-high railings won’t stop suicides (ten years ago, Yale undergraduate Cameron Dabaghi “got a running start and scrambled over a ten-foot-high spiked fence before leaping off” the Empire State Building). But the symbolic power of certain structures (Golden Gate Bridge, NYU’s Bobst Library, Cornell’s bridges, the Vessel) happens, and once it happens it’s all about backtracking, retrofitting, barring, netting, even sometimes closing. Four and done.

President Joe Biden announced Friday that he was appointing Khizr Khan, a Gold Star father who drew then-candidate Donald Trump’s ire when he spoke at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Fuckface threw unusually vile shit at Khan, an icon of sacrifice and citizenship; and UD recalls the heartbreak and indignation she felt on his behalf. What a perfect recuperative gesture, Biden appointing him to this commission!

Read it all. It’s short.

The Cathophate to come! So much to love.

At one point, [the judge] questioned whether the magnitude of opioid shipments delivered to the community might trigger some legal liability.

“Is there some point at which the number would be so great that it would be unreasonable?” [he] asked.

Nah! 81 million opioid pills for a city of 91,000 reflects a heroic dedication to the well-being of its residents — and the proof is in the pudding! One in ten of them is now a full-blown addict.

The only possible verdict in this trial of pill distributors is Presidential Medal of Honor for every CEO who unselfishly opened the floodgates so that Huntington West Virginia could stand as a shining overdosed city on a hill.

Defrocked and living in St Louis, McCarrick now faces a criminal charge.

Fond memories of the man here.

White evangelicals represent by far the most vaccine-resistant group in the nation; they constitute America’s current greatest health crisis.

At 412 Murrieta, an evangelical church in Riverside County, southeast of Los Angeles, Pastor Tim Thompson has frequently preached against the vaccines and brought in guest speakers who do the same.

“This is not a vaccination…it’s unclean,” he said during a spring sermon, making a reference to biblical principles of purity and health.

No one knows how to solve this, and meanwhile the evangelicals are taking us all down with them.

UD proposes the following. Summon Pastor Tim to a spectacularly appointed boardroom in midtown Manhattan, where Richard Dawkins (atheist vaccination rate: 90% – highest in the country), following Ned Beatty in this famous scene, will convince Tim that he, Dawkins, is in fact God, and has chosen Tim Thompson from among all men to preach the gospel of uncleanliness. If this works, Dawkins can move on to all the other anti-vax pastors.

Problems start in the headline.

Rather than asking whether Islam is liberal enough to belong in Europe, the more relevant question today appears to be whether Europe is liberal enough to accept Muslim women.

Given many restrictions on various forms of veiling in countries all over the world, including the middle east, this is certainly not the more relevant question. With these historical trends, the more relevant question is whether countries that mandate veiling are liberal enough to stop doing this.

The hijab is more than a religious symbol to those who wear it. Muslim women cover their hair out of tradition, to maintain a connection to their cultural heritage, or for reasons of modesty. Several young European women I spoke to explained that they wear the hijab despite protests from their immigrant families, who do not want them to face undue scrutiny or discrimination at work.

This is the vague, anodyne stuff one always gets from champions of covering up. Just saying it’s a religious symbol is empty: Tell me what it symbolizes religiously, because not all forms of behavior that call themselves religious get an automatic pass.

Out of tradition? Meaning? Veiling is tribal, and very limitedly tribal. Do all of the women who veil come from a tribe that veils? And is a liberal culture compelled to tolerate all tribal behavior? Again, precision, please.

Reasons of modesty must be discussed alongside religion, no? And tribe? I mean, can we put all of this together to make a salient point? It would be something like: These women perceive themselves to derive from particular tribes. (Which tribes?) These tribes feature a form of Islam which the women believe mandates that women must hide themselves from men. You note that their families often protest their behavior. Could this be because, alongside its negative social and economic consequences, it lacks any legitimate Islamic grounding? This, in other words, might be a good point in the essay to cite any Koranic verse mandating veiling.

The rampant European misperception of the hijab as a symbol of a supposedly misogynistic Islamic culture…

Funny thing about that rampancy. Wonder where it comes from. Wonder why vast swathes of the world perceive… well, all religions as misogynistic, but Islam as king of the misogynists… wonder where that comes from.

I’m afraid, in other words, that you’re not going to be able to dance your way to your conclusions through a series of false or undercooked generalizations.

At no point in her essay does the writer attempt to understand rampant legislation, votes, referendums, against veiling – in countries all over the world. She does the pointless dance most defenders of burqas and hijabs do: Countries all over the world are Islamophobic, and hijab/burqa wearers are their victims. Here’s some advice: Get off the dance floor and do the hard honest work of figuring out why you’re losing this fight. Don’t be like Donald Trump, who loses a fight and stands there wailing like a fool. Accept your losses and analyze them.

… Joshua Koskoff, an attorney for the families, said the [33 million dollar] settlements were offered by two of Remington’s insurers.

“Ironshore and James River … deserve credit for now realizing that promoting the use of AR-15s as weapons of war to civilians is indefensible. Insuring this kind of conduct is an unprofitable and untenable business model,” Koskoff said in a statement.

The years pass, but the Sandy Hook massacre always – to quote from a Philip Larkin poem –

Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.

At least it destroyed one of the most disgusting gun manufacturers; at least insurers will take a second look at gun manufacturers.

… You’ve called McConnell a dumb son of a bitch… You’ve called almost everyone who matters a jerk a fool an idiot an imbecile a cretin…

When do I get mine? I wait and I wait and time passes and then today!

Today Nancy Pelosi called me a moron.

That was supposed to be you! I was supposed to suffer abuse at your hands and grovel for more. Instead, Pelosi takes the words out of your mouth!

Don’t let the Dems win. TALK DIRTY TO ME.”

… that at least one, and as many as three, Republican congresspeople plan to immolate themselves inside the Capitol as an act of protest against (in words that some are attributing to them) “Anthony Fauci’s slaughter of millions of innocent people, and Nancy Pelosi’s terror attack on this sacred building.”

Inspired by this iconic Buddhist monk, Rep. Jim Jordan and Sen. Rand Paul (these are apparently the most likely names) will set themselves aflame in the center of the Senate, in an effort, also, to distract attention from the ongoing testimony of policemen present at the January 6 insurrection.

Louie Gohmert, rumored to be a third self-immolater, has, according to some sources, said that he “no longer wants to live in a world in which Jake Ellzey beats Susan Wright.”

Obviously, if this rumored event actually happens, it will be an unprecedented trauma for the country, the ultimate twisted act of fidelity to Donald Trump. Whatever your politics, you’ve got to hope that their families and colleagues are able to dissuade these men from this grotesque act.

Ah, fuggedaboutit. Let’s follow another story.

Renowned for his successful defense of a career genital mutilator in Michigan, Dershowitz should have no trouble successfully defending an Israeli burial society that barred a family from their father’s/husband’s funeral because some of the people who wanted to bury him were women.

Talia, Omer, and Stav’s father passed away four months ago. When they arrived at the cemetery to say their final goodbyes to their father, they were barred from participating equally in the funeral. The local hevra kadisha – burial society – wouldn’t let the family eulogize their father. When a representative of the hevra kadisha tore their brother’s shirt as a sign of mourning, the daughters were told to do it later, at home. And when it came time for the funeral procession, Talia, Omer,  Stav, and their mother were warned to remain behind and not follow their father’s body to the graveside. They ignored the warning and were met with yelling: “Women move aside!”, “Don’t mix women and men!”, and “Women shouldn’t be here!”

The sisters felt that their chance to say goodbye to their father was ruined. They turned to us, and last week we filed a lawsuit against the town in which the funeral was held demanding 268,496 NIS (approx. $76,000) in damages for preventing Talia, Omer, Stav, and their mother from participating in their father’s funeral. 

... It is illegal to force gender segregation or exclude women from … funeral procession[s] … [B]urial societies must not impose segregation unless the family requests it.

… in a steep, dangerous part of Shenandoah National Park, suggests a few possible scenarios. UD will list them, starting with the most likely. Keep in mind that Julia Devlin’s car was found along Skyline Drive, wrecked.

1.) This is a suicide, the endpoint of a psychotic break.

Distraught, she drove erratically into the park, crashed, exited the car, and began walking erratically. She looked for a steep cliff from which she could hurl herself.

2.) Drink and/or drugs were involved. Disoriented, she entered the park, crashed her car, and stumbled about until her fatal fall.

3.) Foul play seems unlikely. A terrible fight with a lover? They drive into the park, screaming at one another. In a rage, she wrecks the car, which enrages her lover, who chases her as she runs into the park, and pushes her down a cliff.

*************

Mr UD offered something more straightforward: She drove into the park intending nothing more than a scenic drive. When she wrecked her car, she suffered, let’s say, a concussion, which disoriented her. She stumbled into danger.

UD adds yet another scenario, highly unlikely. She hit a bear. A now-angry bear. Terrified, she attempted to flee, but the bear pursued her, and she fell trying to get away from it.

The proposed Israeli government plan to break the state’s monopoly on kosher [food] certification will not only harm religious standards but also lead to an increase in sexual immorality, Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef declared last week.

Private certifiers of kashrut, Yosef claimed, could use female inspectors, leading to “licentiousness and a lack of modesty,” according to the ultra-Orthodox Hebrew-language website Kikar Hashabbat.

*************

[Jorgen Lovberg’s] first produced work, brought to the stage when he was sixty-one, was Those Who Squirm, which drew mixed notices from the critics, although the frankness of the subject matter (cheese fondling) caused conservative audiences to blush.