I'm focused on scaring away the kids begging for candy tonight… and their parents. (Here, little girl, have a subpoena.) I suspect most of the parents will choose the "trick" instead — bwahahahahahahaha…
This isn't a platter of link sausages today. It's probably closer to candied apples (uninspected, labelled "imported from Chile" but the sticker has a 2007 copyright marking on it). Why, no, these aren't for young Miss White; hers is right over here.
- So ex-football-coach Tommy Teletubbyville (T-CSA) is upset that the Biden Administration won't negotiate with him on his religiously-rationalized (somewhat, but at best winkingly, sotto voce) holds on military promotions and confirmations to critical positions. During multiple this-close-to-live-fire world incidents. What's that old line about "we don't negotiate with terrorists" again? Oh, you're not a terrorist, but instead a fighter for religious freedom, liberty, and orthodoxy? Well, one man's freedom fighter…
If you want that much control over the details of military policy, dammit, run for and get elected as Commander in Chief. (By the way: This is not a dare. This is a statement of precondition.) Until then, stick to the "advise" part — you're obviously unfamiliar with "consent," especially since the Constitution grants that power to the Senate as a whole and not to individual Senators. And the downhill slide into how "consent" all too often gets ignored on the way into "out-of-state reproductive services" also bears some consideration (but won't get it) — especially considering Teletubbyville's own record of national service, or more to the point complete absence thereof. I'm afraid his idea of "good order and discipline" is far more likely to arise from sending a couple reserve O-linemen over to intimidate an opposing team's radio crew.
- At least Teletubbyville isn't threatening actual prosecution of an author for merely, in a rather genteel way in the best traditions of how democracy is actually supposed to work, advocating policy positions not held by an aspiring autocrat.
Yet. He isn't, after all, Matt Gaetz.
Yet.
- Notwithstanding Ms Roy's problems with the land of their ancestors (especially given the idiocy of Partition), perhaps Salman Rushdie — having already lived in hiding for two decades and lost an eye because his writings were and are upsetting to some theocrats — won't be in any more jeopardy, right? I wish. I suspect that the Authenticity Police are coming for him, and they're just as vicious as… umm, ok, maybe not. Frankly, being attacked for an "inauthentic background" in writing a work of fiction is akin to being on Nixon's "enemies list" — ultimately a badge of honor (even when the work of fiction in question is… otherwise unworthy). I'm just waiting for someone to call Rushdie a problematic author.
- Which leads into the still-roiling labor unrest in and around the arts. Yeah, sure, the WGA settled with management — largely because despite their centrality to the process, the writers are the least likely element of "A Major Motion Picture," or even "A Half-Assed Independent Motion Picture Presented by a Suspended USC Fraternity," to blow up the entire budget in ways that can't be swept under the rug. But that leaves the actors still (justifiably) on the picket line, primarily because the budget for on-screen talent can blow up the entire budget (in ways that can't be swept under the tastefully understated, fully authenticated Persian carpet in some studio executive's office). Then there's the usual attention afforded the infrastructure, which is to say none at all (because those top bosses are entitled to the lion's share of everything, despite the fact that they didn't do the hunting in the first place).
It's not just film/TV/other-recorded-audiovisual productions, either. Consider the Philadelphia Orchestra's labor unrest, which is only exacerbated by nineteenth-century governance models (and a potential pool of leaders that looks more like the parents at JFK's "high school" than the audience).
Starving artists don't paint daisies — they push up daisies. Although I suspect that those daisies will end up on the imported mahogany table — seats 14 to 20 — in the public dining room of some overpaid executive. Oops, it's not "pay" per se: That's not salary, those are stock options! Mind the trust fund…