Politics Plus

The opera last night was “Marnie” – based on the same bool as the Hitchcock movie. It premiered in 2019 to good reviews and good audience response too. So it’s very new. (I’m a fan of the mezzo-soprano for whom it was written, Isabel Leonard, and was lucky enough to get to see her in person in another new opera, “Cold Mountain,” when it premiered in Santa Fe.) I’m sure the movie left out things that were in the book, and the opera has left out things from both, but it’s still a plenty twisted story.

Cartoon

Short Takes –

The New Yorker – Out-of-Practice Trump Forgets to Strand Rally Crowd in Parking Lot
Quote – “People have come to expect that, at the conclusion of one of our rallies, they will be marooned in the middle of nowhere for hours, often in inclement weather,” Harland Dorrinson, a Trump aide, said. “On Saturday night, we didn’t get it done.” Dorrinson said that the entire Trump team would be conducting a postmortem of the rally to find out why attendees were able to leave the event without incident.
Click through for details. Andy, it’s harder to strand a crowd when it’s small to begin with and much of it gets boored and leaves early.

Daily Beast – YouTube Permanently Bans Right Wing Watch, a Media Watchdog Devoted to Exposing Right-Wing Conspiracies
Quote – “What are we going to do?” he asked. Launched in 2007, Right Wing Watch has posted thousands of clips of prominent right-wing figures making controversial comments, perhaps most famously including televangelist Pat Robertson and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. In fact, Right Wing Watch’s exposure of Jones’ false and conspiratorial rhetoric was key to YouTube and other social-media platforms eventually removing his channel InfoWars from their sites. Notably, many of the right-wing outlets and personalities that Right Wing Watch chronicles are not currently suspended or banned from posting content to YouTube, while RWW has been booted for merely exposing their comments and content—something Mantyla noted as being particularly ironic.
Click through for full story. This is NOT good news. They are still on Vimeo, at least.

Independent – GOP senator says roads and bridges are ‘a woman’s problem’ because women ‘do the shopping’
Quote – “My wife says that roads and bridges are a woman’s problem if you will,” said Mr Cassidy. “Because oftentimes it is the woman – aside from commuting to work – who’s also taking children to schools or doing the shopping…. And the more time that she spends on that road, the less time she spends doing things of higher value,” he added.
Click through for absolutely not satire. Yes, Senator, women are human beings, and human beings need roads and bridges. (And your wife sounds brainwashed.)

Food for Thought