The dog was asleep on a chair, Mr UD was stepping into the shower, La Kid was waking up in her room at the celebrity-packed Four Seasons Surfside Miami… In short, all was well, when UD spied this headline and anxiously stopped Mr UD in his tracks.
Space and time are warping, she said.
He did one of his patented haughty dismissive gestures that so annoy UD.
Space and time, he said, I’m sorry to tell you, have been warping for approximately thirteen billion years.
So why is it a big banner headline this time?
I don’t know. Don’t worry.
It won’t affect regular deliveries of my Harney and Sons Paris? I know this sounds like a provincial concern…
No.
They’ve got all the obscenity anyone could want in their head of state.
Because this is America, that’s why. Arming murderous maniacs is just the way we roll.
“Oh, no. I can’t [support Grambling football]. No, no, no. If I support them, I condone it.”
Andrew Bates, White House Deputy Press Secretary, on Trubu and Putain:
“Two nauseating, fearful pigs who hate what America stands for and whose every action is driven by their own weakness and insecurity, rubbing their snouts together and celebrating as innocent people lose their lives.”
‘Former Amb. Michael McFaul absolutely destroyed a BBC anchor on air for interviewing a Russian official who he said spewed “ridiculous” propaganda about the invasion of Ukraine — and asked if the BBC would have given Nazis airtime during World War II.
‘AMB. MCFAUL: I want to ask a question. The BBC, if it was September 1st, 1939, would you put on the air a member of the Nazi Party to try to explain this ridiculous, absolute falsification of history and information that we just heard from Mr. Milonov? Because this is complete, utter nonsense what he just said, and I’m wondering if we’re doing a service to the world by giving him a voice on the BBC?
‘JAMES MENENDEZ: Do we need to hear, though…? And I don’t speak for the BBC, of course, but do we need to hear what the justification is in those elite circles, in the Kremlin and among parliamentarians, even if it’s not true? Put some of what he said to rest then.
‘AMB. MCFAUL: Well, it’s utter nonsense, and I really want to ask the question, let’s go back and find out was the BBC putting on Nazis on September 1st, 1939? Because I think it’s an ethical question for those that are in the business. You put him on and then you put me on. It’s here’s one view. Here’s another view, and I don’t like that. There are not flowers being thrown in front of tanks riding in Ukraine, the people of Ukraine voted, including in the Donbas, except for the occupied territories where there were no votes. They voted overwhelmingly for President Zelensky. So the gentleman you just had on was speaking under false facts.’
*******************
Between this, and their choosing Alan Dershowitz for objective commentary on the Epstein sex trafficking story, the BBC’s looking really really shitty.
Russians around the country, at huge risk to themselves, are in the streets protesting the war. Many are being dragged off in police vans.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10159080991771656&id=678231655
I’ve seen cynical desperate college athletics hires in my time, but nothing beats what Grambling – site of two very recent on-campus murders – has done in hiring coach Art Briles. At Baylor, Briles “repeatedly cover[ed] up allegations of assault, sexual and otherwise, perpetrated by multiple Baylor football players.” “[H]e presided over a culture with rampant sexual violence toward women, including a former student’s lawsuit alleging at least 52 acts of rape committed by 31 football players from 2011 to ’14.” Many of them were players he recruited, though he knew before he recruited them that they were very dangerous people.
*************************
So maybe what’s going on at Grambling is a kind of unprecedented college product-placement. Lots of people like violence, and some of those people, while being violent, would also like to be educated. At Grambling you’re guaranteed to be living near one of America’s most outstanding murder capitals, with a mass shooting not long ago at one of the school’s homecoming events; you’re also guaranteed an ethos – embodied by Coach Briles – of tolerance of sexual violence and physical assault more broadly.
Nice of them to just come out and say it. But it gets better.
What many students don’t know is that despite worries about white students being ignored or missing out on participation points, Candela offers several avenues to participation credit aside from in-person discussion, including online discussion boards that everyone is encouraged to use.
You can’t even ask questions, much less make comments, in this class at SUNY Binghamton; but haha never fear! There are many other avenues open to you!
Madeleine Albright on the butcher.
My old friend Tanja Hoggan-Kloubert recommends it. A Ukrainian who teaches at a German university, and the initiator of the very successful Ukraine-based Institute of Civic Studies, Tanja is currently fielding interview requests from German radio programs, organizing protests in the center of Augsburg, and serving cups of coffee to distraught friends.
*****************
Tanja is interviewed here.
Who knows what the rest of February will bring. Today, though, it’s spring.
La Kid‘s in Miami, at the Four Seasons Surfside, and just had lunch near Kanye West’s table.