Remember the Turkey Awards from three weeks ago? The universe appears to be offended that I jumped the gun on ridiculous people for the year. Fortunately, I always note "so far," but this is rather excessive — especially given how much these weeks-old leftovers are stinking up the 'fridge.
- Rudy "I Wouldn't Recognize 'Respect for Civil Servants' If It Whacked Me With a $150 Million Verdict in My Nonfunctioning Brain" Giuliani had a Very Bad Day yesterday. Because it did.
For technical reasons, at least part of the punitive portion of the damages will more probably than not be remitted (reduced). Even if it all gets remitted, though, that leaves two clear impressions: That the Orange One's strategy of claiming that there really was election fraud is probably not going to impress any jury, and that in the grand tradition of New York Heffalumps Rudy G. should consider starting an OnlyFans performer account. OK, maybe not that last one.
- That was far from the most delicious slice of Schadenfreude Pie right-wing-nutjob-related legal news yesterday, though. Alex Jones — a conspiracy theorist with a huge… platform (obviously compensating for something else that's very, very small, and of course I'm referring to his intellect)… lost an appeal yesterday on a contempt citation for missing a deposition in the Sandy Hook defamation trial. As insensitive and unbelievable as Jones's bullshit was (and remains), his lawyer demonstrated that he's even more tone deaf than his client, proclaiming
Norm Pattis, Jones’[s] lawyer, said that there is a good chance for an appeal of Friday’s ruling to the Supreme Court. "It’s a sad day when a court decides it can countermand a doctor’s orders. Wow," Pattis wrote in an email, according to the AP.
(grammatical error and bullshit-journalistic-deceptive-paragraphing corrected) Completely dropping that slice of pie on the floor, though, there's one person I can think of who agrees with Pettis's objection, although the ideology and facts were rather reversed: Kate Cox. Best wishes to her anyway.
- It's starting to get into the preliminaries to months-too-early entertainment awards, especially in film. Thus, it's also time for yet another understated article on "nepo babies" that ignores the worst of them: The political nepo babies. It's one thing to cringe a little bit at entertainment-industry nepo babies who, over time, demonstrate some actual talent. Perhaps the nepo-baby aspect did unjustly, and to the detriment of artistic achievement, shove more-talented artists away. But that's nothing compared to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., or George W. Bush, or Andrew Cuomo, or Richard M. Daley, or Marine Le Pen, or… And those aren't even hereditary officeholder assholes!
- But then, not all publicity is good publicity. I'd give a one-star review to the entire Goodreads pseudonymous-uncontrolled-"review" system, but then I'd just be accused of bombing something I never pay attention to anyway (the last time I actually read anything on Goodreads was over a decade ago, before the 'zon acquired it, so I'm not a Verified Purchaser).
I'd make further snide remarks about how the ineptness of NYC-commercial-publishing marketing and publicity efforts — and most especially the cost-cutting demands that authors ordinarily must take over their own marketing and publicity — makes both this particular situation and many others inevitable. Or maybe it's just the combination of authorial egos and general disrespect for authors. (Unfortunately, that's an inadequate explanation because it's not just authors.)