Good morning on a wet March 2, 2017, and a Thursday in the U.S. It’s National Banana Cream Pie day in the U.S., a decent pie when they use more bananas than custard, and thickly slather the top with real whipped cream. It’s also Texas Independence Day, when a handful of settlers in Texas declared independence from Mexico in 1836.
Today’s news: Attorney General Jeff Sessions apparently lied to Congress during his hearings for his position, claiming that no Trump minion met with Russians before the election. Now he admits he met with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. (a possible spy) twice—the same official that Mike Flynn met with, leading to Flynn’s firing— but Sessions and the Russian didn’t discuss campaign issues. That was misleading at best and perjury at worst, and in my view should mandate Sessions’s resignation. In any case, the Trump follies continue, with barely a Cabinet nominee unsullied.
On this day in 1797, the Bank of England issued the first one- and two-pound notes. In 1859, this was the first day of the two-day “Great Slave Auction”, in which 436 humans were sold in Georgia to pay off a slaveowner’s debt. That was the largest auction of slaves before the American Civil War. On March 2, 1946, Ho Chi Minh was elected president of North Vietnam, and, exactly a decade later, Monaco gained independence from France. In 1983, compact discs were first released in the US (remember that?), and, on this day in 1995, Fermilab announced the discovery of the top quark.
Notables born on this day include Sam Houston (1793), Kurt Weill (1900), Dr. Seuss (1904), Desi Arnaz (1917), photographer Ernst Haas (1921), white-suited Tom Wolfe (1931), John Irving (1942), Karen Carpenter (1950, ♥), Laraine Newman (1952), and the consciously uncoupled Chris Martin (1977). Those who died on this day include John Wesley (1791), Horace Walpole (1797), D. H. Lawrence (1930), Philip K. Dick (1982), Serge Gainsbourg (1991), and Dusty Springfield (1999). Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is practicing cat identity politics, co-opting the language of social justice warriors for her own selfish desires.
Hili: Check your privilege.A: What privilege?Hili: Well, for instance, the privilege of filling my bowl.(Photo: Sarah Lawson)
Hili: Sprawdź swoje przywileje.
Ja: Jakie przywileje?
Hili: No, na przykład przywilej napełnienia mojej miseczki.(Foto: Sarah Lawson)
And we have big news of Gus from Winnipeg: he’s sleeping! His staff reports:
Here’s a pic of where he is. He’s spending a great deal of time sleeping on the blanket which is now on the ottoman. [Note: the blanket was a Christmas present to his staff member Taskin, but she’s never been able to use it since Gus coopted it.]
It is also modern ballet’s 300th anniversary, well in England anyway –
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Loves_of_Mars_and_Venus
“The Loves of Mars and Venus 1717
by John Weaver
One of the earliest examples of ballet d’ action. Dancers were called upon to convey emotion and dramatic action through gesture and dance, without the use of spoken words.”
http://coreofculture.org/ballet.html
PS look at Hili’s little pink toes 🙂
Also it’s World Book Day
https://twitter.com/britishlibrary/status/837276881598689280
I didn’t know D.H. Lawrence, died 1930, was a painter. Here are some:
http://curiator.com/art/d-h-lawrence/5
Coopting is pretty much a cat’s duty.
Sessions should go and keep going. The idea that he is attorney general is an insult, even to lawyers.
Never saw a two pound note, two dollar bills, yes but not the notes.
They don’t exist any more. They, like NZ and Australia (though we have $s of course), have coins for £1 and £2.
Used to be ten shilling notes, back in the ?60’s.
cr
I don’t remember! 🙂
It was 1967 when we went decimal. Good ole Rob Muldoon was the finance minister iirc!
“In 1859, this was the first day of the two-day “Great Slave Auction”, in which 436 humans were sold in Georgia to pay off a slaveowner’s debt.”
Pierce (Mease) Butler, the man put the slaves up to auction, was an absentee slaveowner who resided in and was a native of Philadelphia. He had inherited his Georgia Sea Island plantation and slaves from his maternal grandfather (Pierce Butler), who himself was a Revolutionary soldier and Founding Father born in Ireland.
Telling the truth is forbidden for Trumpistas.
I have a theory, which is mine.
Start with, as a premise, the unspoken assumption that everybody’s thinking of but nobody wants to talk about: that Drumpf really is a Manchurian candidate, wholly in Putin’s pocket.
In that setting, it would be entirely expected that a suitable Russian “handler” — such as this ambassador — would have a sit-down with those being groomed for leadership positions in the Russian-puppet American administration.
And the Russians would, of course, make those future puppets an offer they can’t refuse.
Sessions is a lot of things, including a racist bigot. But I can believe that he’d be horrified at a Russian takeover of the States, and even more horrified at the thought of being part of it. But that Russian “offer,” remember? It can’t be refused. If he went public with it, went to the FBI, whatever, the piper gets paid.
Sessions, again, is a lot of things, but “idiot” is not one of them…
…and this would be a positively brilliant way out of his dilemma. This “honest mistake” simultaneously gets him out of play, politically, in a way that his handlers really can’t blame on him. What, he’s supposed to spill the beans to Congress right there in his confirmation hearing? And they can’t pay the piper now, either, because that really would be too obvious — and it’d cause their other puppets to make a break for it.
The bonus, of course, is that it also points the finger in no uncertain way at the Russians.
A similar calculus may well have been at play with Flynn.
…which means we may be entering a very critical time right now. This constitutes, of course, an unquestionable full-on act of open warfare by Russia, and their puppet has our nuclear football. De-escalating that without blowing up the whole world is going to take some truly heroic diplomacy from all corners.
Cheers,
b&
A conspiracy theory worthy of Putin himself. 🙂
I thought he was Putin us on. ;-o