Welcome to CaturSaturday, shabbos for Jewish cats: June 1, 2024, and we’ve reached June at last. It’s Graduation Day at the University of Chicago, and National Bubbly Day, celebrating sparkling wine. Just avoid the cheap, sweet stuff. Here’s a 7-minute video about how French champagne is made:
It’s also Dare Day, National Black Bear Day, Dinosaur Day, National Hazelnut Cake Day, Heimlich Maneuver Day, National Pineapple Day, National Prairie Day,World Milk Day, and Global Day of Parents.
As for Food Months, we have these for June:
- California Avocado Month.
- National Candy Month.
- National Cucumber Month.
- National Dairy Month.
- National Fresh Fruit and. Vegetable Month.
- National Iced Tea Month.
Today’s Google Doodle (click on image) celebrates the Men’s 2024 ICC T20 World Cup, a competition among cricket teams.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the June 1 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*According to the NYT, Trump went bananas after his conviction yesterday, but what else did you expect given the verdict?
As America began to absorb on Friday the conviction of Donald J. Trump, a first for a U.S. president, he criticized the criminal case and attacked the judge who oversaw his trial.
Mr. Trump, in a rambling and misleading 33-minute speech, derided the trial as “rigged” and made numerous false statements about what had taken place in court. His remarks came after he was found guilty on Thursday of all 34 felony counts of falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal that threatened to derail his 2016 presidential campaign.
Mr. Trump, who said he would appeal the verdict, continued to attack people who testified against him in the seven-week trial, specifically his former fixer, Michael D. Cohen, the star witness for the prosecution. He also admitted that he had gotten “very upset” with his lawyers.
He called the judge, Juan M. Merchan, the “devil.”
. . . At Trump Tower on Friday, Mr. Trump reprised his usual campaign attacks on immigrants and made numerous false representations about U.S. border policies under President Biden. He falsely claimed that American children couldn’t play Little League Baseball games anymore because undocumented immigrants were setting up too many tents.
Well, I’ll venture to predict (though I won’t be able to prove it) that Trump’s conviction will hurt his election chances in November. He is a convicted felon, and among the undecided voters that could make a difference. Plus he’s a bull-goose looney.
*Democratic Senator Tim Manchin from West Virginia, always a renegade, has changed his party affiliation to “independent”. Last winter he announced he wouldn’t be running again, but this suggests he will. And, if he’s elected, it means the Democrats will be even less able than before to count on his vote.
Manchin did not immediately say anything about his political plans. But the move allows him to possibly reconsider his plan to not seek reelection — or to run for governor, a job he previously held.
Aug. 1 is the deadline for independent candidates to file for office in West Virginia. Manchin was facing a Saturday deadline to register as an independent and still have a chance to file as an independent candidate this election.
The centrist senator announced in November 2023 that he would not run for another term, handing Republicans a likely pickup seat in solidly red West Virginia. The GOP nominee for the seat is the state’s governor, Jim Justice.
. . .For months, Manchin flirted with running for president as an independent or third-party candidate, worrying Democrats who anticipated a close rematch between President Biden and former president Donald Trump. But Manchin announced in February that he would “not be involved in a presidential run” this year.
Speculation has picked up in recent weeks that Manchin may be mulling a return to the governor’s office, though he reportedly said this week he would not enter the race. He said he is supporting the Democratic nominee, Steve Williams.
If Manchin decides to run for Senate again, he could have a fighting chance in a race that otherwise favors the GOP. CNN reported in March that Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) has talked with Manchin about running for reelection as an independent. At the time, Manchin said he did not expect to do so.
In fact, the guy is so much of a renegade that we don’t know what he’s going to do. All we can guess is that he’s going to run for something.
*The war in Gaza, now that the IDF is operating around Rafah, has become a real mess, as the three-man war cabinet has become split about what to do. The dissent involves whether to prioritize defeating Hamas or getting the hostages released (I suspect that a lot of them are actually dead.)
As the fighting continues, the debate in Israel over the necessary next steps is becoming more intense. The issue has not set the ruling coalition against all or part of the public. Rather, the divisions bisect the government and have split the three-man war cabinet consisting of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant and Chief of the General Staff Benny Ganz. The matter of who wins this debate, along with the issue of western pressure on Israel, are likely to determine the outcome of the war.
Former Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot, an observer in the war cabinet who is closely aligned with Gantz, was, according to Israel’s Channel 12 News channel, reported to have told the Knesset’s foreign affairs and defence committee last week that Israel should pause its Rafah operation in order to conclude an agreement for the release of the 128 Israeli hostages remaining in Hamas captivity.
While Eizenkot clarified in his statement that Israel would be able to recommence the fighting at a later date, this seems to be at odds with reality. The position of the Gaza Hamas leadership throughout has been that a hostage deal was possible only if Israel were to agree to a long-term cessation of the war. So if Israel really wishes to go down the route of prioritising the release of hostages, the cost is almost certainly an admission of defeat in the eight month-long military campaign in Gaza. Defeat in this context means the cessation of hostilities without the destruction of the Hamas ruling authority in Gaza.
. . .Among those in Israel who seek an early end of the war and a central emphasis on getting hostages released, this reality is accepted, rather than blurred. Thus Zehava Golan, a former leader of the left wing Meretz party, stated the matter plainly in a column in the Haaretz newspaper on Wednesday: ‘We need to bring back the hostages via a deal now, establish a state commission of inquiry to look into the events of 7 October and the conduct of this war, and stop the war itself,’ she wrote.
On the other side, Netanyahu and his allies reject the Hamas demand for an end to the war, seeing this (accurately) as representing surrender to the Islamist movement. Netanyahu, however, in a fudge of his own, was reported to have indignantly rejected the notion that he and those around him were refusing to give the team negotiating on the issue of the hostages a mandate that could lead to a successful agreement. But given that Hamas is clearly and openly demanding the end of the war as a price for agreement, it follows logically that any negotiating mandate that clearly rejects any such outcome does in fact then undermine the chance for a successful agreement on the hostages.
The reason for both Netanyahu and Eizenkot’s obfuscations is that the Israeli mainstream debate is not yet able to openly confront the horrific nature of the strategic position into which the Hamas leadership has placed it. Namely that it must either concede defeat to the Gaza Islamists, or follow a path that may well seal the fate of the 128 remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza.
This is a horrible dilemma; you lose the hostages or risk losing your country. What should the war cabinet do? They’ll probably continue going after Rafah and leave the hostages as a secondary consideration, for Netanyahu runs the war cabinet and a majority of Israelis want the IDF to persist in Rafah. The cold-hearted calculus might say that if you let Hamas persist in power and rescue all the hostages (Remember that we don’t know how many are still alive, and Hamas won’t say), in the long run more Israelis will die from terrorism than lives will be saved by recouping the hostages. But it’s still a horrible thing to do—making a calculus of lives. But this is an existential war for Israel, and those of us who pay attention now have to force ourselves to just sit back and try to disengage. After all, there’s little we can do.
*As always, I’ll steal three items from Nellie Bowles’s weekly summary of the news, called this week “The Trial of the Century of the Week“. Actually, I’ll steal four this week so I can slip in the loon Candace Owens:
→ What Chinese propaganda? A new poll of young people by the firm Blueprint finds that a huge percentage of them think America is basically hell. Specifically, they see it as “a dying empire led by bad people.” Also: they need a ride to lacrosse practice. Some 51 percent agreed that the U.S. political system “doesn’t work for people like me,” and 64 percent supported the idea that “America is in decline.” Only 26 percent think it matters who wins the next election. Now, I’m not going to say this can be traced back entirely to the fact that the youth have hooked their eyes to a Chinese propaganda machine, but it does raise the question. Like, I’m not happy about our presidential choices either, but I do think things are different if one or the other is chosen. Does that make me a patriot?
→ Candace Owens going full crazy: Our favorite right-wing influencer is not antisemitic but is just obsessed with the Jews, specifically tracking how various evil acts and empires in history can all be traced to Jewish influence. This is the vibe these days: “I will grant you that Stalin’s ancestry is still hotly debated. My Georgian friend tells me that his real name ‘Djugashivilli’ literally translates into ‘child of Judah’ and that everyone in Georgia knows he was Jewish but that is hearsay and hardly admissible as a fact. What we do know for a fact is that Stalin spoke Yiddish and his three wives were all Jews.” Hmm. Candace’s rantings—to her more than 5 million followers on Twitter/X alone—continue. [See this refutation of Owen’s tweet “the vibe”.]
Here are a few tweets I found by Candace Owens (click to go to tweet). She has 5.1 MILLION followers.
→ The polling problem is Biden, not Dems: Democratic Senate candidates in swing states are doing great, according to a new poll from the quite reliable Cook Political Report. While Biden is projected to lose to Trump in the noted states, the Dems’ Senate candidates are doing extremely well. Many are differentiating themselves from the Biden administration on unpopular-for-Dems issues like the border, in that they’re arguing they don’t want a fully open border. They’re playing up their pro-choice bona fides and displaying their youth and virility through confident, youthful exhibitions like cheering in jerseys at a soccer game. Makes you wonder: If Biden had stepped aside for another candidate, would Trump be in the lead right now? The poll results image is best on desktop, unfortunately for my cell phone readers:
→ Campus update: Harvard’s Students for Justice in Palestine group called for an escalation of “intifada,” which historically means attacks on Jews: “Escalate protests to an open intifada in every capital and city.” Columbia’s chapter of the same influential club explained: “Supporting a 2 state solution is an inherently zionist position as zionism means that you believe in Israel’s right to exist.” And Harvard’s commencement speaker, journalist Maria A. Ressa, defended herself against allegations of antisemitism with more antisemitism in her speech: “I was. . . called antisemitic by power and money because they want power and money.” Well, that clears that one up.
And then all of a sudden, Harvard decided to slow down on weighing in. They’re out of the condemnation game, they say, mostly, at least right now, maybe not forever.
*In the latest Weekly Dish, “The consistency of their genius,” Andrew Sullivan leaves the Trump conviction to one side and analyzes two pop-culture phenomena that he admires, the musical group The Pet Shop boys and the television show “South Park.”
In fact, I want to celebrate what still rocks my world: the staggeringly consistent, supremely intelligent, and self-assured genius of two unique duos still powering forward in two different worlds: South Park and Pet Shop Boys.
That those brand names are more recognizable than their creators — Matt Stone and Trey Parker, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe — tells you something of what they have in common: a commitment to their own unique creativity, rather than their fame, and the discipline and grit to explore it for decades. Anti-celebrities, in their time but never of it, perfectionist but unafraid of failure, these two duos are proof, it seems to me, that a democratic culture, even one as decadent as ours, can still spawn excellence and intelligence, spanning high and low, and generating what I can only call joy.
South Park is going into its 27th season. And it has rarely been better. (I simply can’t believe so many people I meet say they haven’t watched in years. You’ve been missing out!) The new special on obesity — a deft masterclass of social commentary — has a brutal takedown of suburban white women jonesing for doses of Ozempic like meth-heads; a definitive — and musical! — digression into the insanity of the American healthcare system; pure, character-driven humor in a figure like Randy Marsh — a far subtler parody of the average American male than Homer Simpson; and, of course, Eric Cartman — the “big-boned” fat-ass kid whose capacity for pure evil was first truly captured in the epic “Scott Tenorman Must Die.”
You can read books on Ozempic, scan op-eds, absorb TikToks, and even listen to the Dishcast! — but nothing out there captures every single possible social and medical and psychological wrinkle of this new drug than this hour of crude cartoons. Yes, there are fart jokes. There are always fart jokes. But fart jokes amid a sophisticated and deeply informed parody of insurance companies? Or, in other episodes, toilet humor guiding us through the cowardice of Disney, the dopey vanity of Kanye, the wokification of Hollywood, the exploitation of black college athletes, the evil of cable companies, the hollowness of hate-crime laws, the creepiness of Christian rock, or the money-making behind legal weed? Only South Park pulls this off. Only South Park gets away with all of it.
It’s a 1990s high-low formula at root, sophisticated cultural and political knowingness married to crude cartoons, silly accents, m’kay, and a talking Christmas turd, Mr Hankey. Generationally, it really marked a moment when merging these two worlds seemed the most creative option — not an abandonment of seriousness, but the attachment of a humane levity to it. South Park can be brutal, but it is never cruel. Unless you’re Barbra Streisand or Bono. And virtually every character (even Eric) is redeemable. Except Meghan Markle.
I don’t get cable t.v., not because I can’t afford it pecuniarily but because I can’t afford it timewise or mentally: there are too many books to read. But when I read a paean like the one above, it does make me sad that I don’t watch the show. The episodes I’ve seen I have liked, but isnt that true of a lot of television shows. I can afford to get hooked on new shows when there are places to see and books to read. (This, of course, is just my subjective preferences and I don’t fault anyone who stays glued to the t.v. Wait a minute: yes I do. I don’t fault people who are selective in what t.v. they watch.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is down by the Vistula River, having walkies with Malgorzata and Andrzej:
Hili: May we return home?A: Why?Hili: There is something alarming in the air.
Hili:: Czy możemy wrócić do domu?Ja: Dlaczego?Hili: Jest coś niepokojącego w powietrzu.
*******************
From Science Humor:
From America’s Cultural Decline Into Idiocy:
From Strange, Stupid, or Silly Signs:
From Masih (translation from the Turkish):
Masih Alinejad, who escaped from Iran to Europe and ran freely on the streets of London, made the following comment under the photo he shared on social media: “A God who is ashamed of my hair cannot be my God”
İran’dan Avrupa’ya kaçıp Londra sokaklarda özgürce koşan Masih Alinejad, sosyal medyada paylaştığı fotoğrafın altına şu yorumu yaptı:
“Benim saçımdan utanan Tanrı, benim Tanrım olamaz” pic.twitter.com/wd409qvmpG
— Uzaktan Gelen (@Uzaktan_Gelen_) May 30, 2024
From Luana. The free speech that was affirmed was that of the National Rifle Association, and though I dislike them intensely, I also think that their free speech rights must be preserved regardless of how odious they are. From CBS News:
The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the National Rifle Association in a dispute over whether its free speech rights were violated when the top financial regulator for New York state pushed banks and insurance companies to sever ties with the gun rights group.
The court said in a unanimous opinion written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor that the NRA “plausibly alleged” that the New York regulator violated the First Amendment by coercing regulated entities to end their business relationships with the NRA in order to “punish or suppress” the group’s pro-gun rights advocacy.
“The critical takeaway is that the First Amendment prohibits government officials from wielding their power selectively to punish or suppress speech, directly or (as alleged here) through private intermediaries,” Sotomayor wrote.
This morning, the Supreme Court unanimously reaffirmed a foundational First Amendment principle: “A government official cannot coerce a private party to punish or suppress disfavored speech on her behalf.”
The Court held the @NRA plausibly alleged New York state officials… pic.twitter.com/z0vJFbHdox
— FIRE (@TheFIREorg) May 30, 2024
Emmanuel the Emu is being bad again, but so is Princess the Deer. But there’s also a baby bat having a nosh.
stop what you’re doing and look at this baby bat eating a strawberry pic.twitter.com/J6H0g18KGO
— Mirthful Moments (@moment_mirthful) May 30, 2024
From Larry the Cat via Simon:
First they came for Donald Trump and I… was relieved, as I’d been waiting ages for them to come for Donald Trump.
— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) May 31, 2024
These tigers must be married:
“That’s my side of the bed”
pic.twitter.com/WVWCEDxO0F— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) May 6, 2024
From the Auschwitz Memorial, a girl gassed on arrival at the camp. She was 12.
1 June 1931 | Dutch Jewish girl Leontine Juliette Susan was born in Amsterdam.
In November 1943 she was deported to #Auschwitz and murdered in a gas chamber. pic.twitter.com/HxxZBUXBUL
— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) June 1, 2024
Two tweets from Dr. Cobb. First, live and learn:
A tiny fern from New Caledonia was found to have the largest genome of any living organism.
If unraveled, the DNA contained in a single cell would stand taller than the Statue of Liberty.
Read more @YaleE360: https://t.co/xPh0HoVdGG pic.twitter.com/LRMlj2teUH
— Yale Environment 360 (@YaleE360) May 31, 2024
And a big Martian cloud:
Please keep us up on how commencement goes today. It seems odd that given all the mayhem on campus, that only four students have been somehow selected for investigation. I use the word “selected” purposefully. I do not know why it takes weeks for an investigation. I do realize that with the incessant dithering of the president on taking action to enforce university policy, it will be difficult to have a line drawn which divides miscreants to be punished from those not punished.
I guess my preference for these matters is that punishment be witholding the ceremonial and celebratory stuff like walking in the graduation ceremony, but not denying diplomas unless a full investigation shows egregious violations AND these are applied evenly to all students.
Wow. No awareness at all. Paraphrasing a poem that immortalized political enmity and indifference.
Alright, let’s rephrase that:
First they came for Donald Trump, and I…was relieved, because he had quite obviously committed a crime! But rightwingers were upset, because they feel Trump should be above the law.
Let’s see what the appeals courts say.
In other news, the pro-Hamas folks have a new encampment at Columbia.
After Andrew Sullivan’s high praise, I’m eager to start watching South Park.
I only recently resumed TV watching after a lull of many years. For the most part, I haven’t felt like I’ve been missing much, since I stop watching most series after a couple of episodes, out of boredom.
But I have found a few gems. In terms of comedies, Flea Bag is one. Bad Sisters is another. But my favorite comedy series, by far, is Reno 911! God only knows what that says about me.
I haven’t had cable in a decade but used to enjoy Reno 911 long ago. I salute your appreciation of its absurdities. As for South Park, I liked it for the first few seasons but lost interest around the turn of the century.
There’s also the Starliner launch today! Scheduled now for 12:25 EDT.
Thanks. I had missed that. Going online now. I really worry about this one.
Pet Shop Boys? Well, here they are! 😀
West End Girls is their signature tune for me. I’ve never grown tired of it.
I love the old classics from The Pet Shop Boys. “It’s a sin”, “Go West”, “Where The Streets Have No Name”, “What Have I Done To Deserve This” (a collaboration with Dusty Springfield) to name a few. But the new songs still have a lot of drive.
New York is the place for languages and accents. I love NY!
A not entirely unrelated question occurred to me: according to Catholic teaching, does the devil have supernatural powers?
LOVE Emmanuel (Todd Lopez)!!!
About the war in Gaza: The interview (podcast) Dan Senor did with Ron Dermor (Israeli War Cabinet member)– which Jerry posted here and others linked to–is what finally drove home for me the reality of the crisis October 7 wreaked on Israel. It was unforgettable. Here is a case where “existential threat” truly applies. That interview whipped my head around.
Candace Owens is the WORST. And as a professional retardologist I am qualified to pronounce her.
D.A.
NYC
From WSJ: students get big thanks from al Qaeda & Iran:
Here’s what al Qaeda’s central leadership had to say in a May 23 statement: “As we support the assassination and beheading of Zionist unbelievers, so also we value and appreciate the movement of Western protesters and occupiers from among the students of Western universities, who by their occupying and protests have expressed their rejection of the ongoing genocide in proud Gaza.”…
“ Not to be one-upped by a Sunni, Iran’s Shiite Supreme Leader published a letter dated May 25 on Wednesday: “Dear university students in the United States of America, this message is an expression of our empathy and solidarity with you. As the page of history is turning, you are standing on the right side of it.” You know you’re a useful idiot when . . .
“You have now formed a branch of the Resistance Front,” Mr. Khamenei writes, and is he wrong? U.S. students who have “All Eyes on Rafah” but couldn’t place it on a map are as integral to the Hamas survival strategy as all of Hezbollah’s missiles.
After blaming “the global Zionist elite” for bribing the media into calling Oct. 7 “terrorism,” Mr. Khamenei adds, “The support and solidarity of your professors is a significant and consequential development. This can offer some measure of comfort in the face of your government’s police brutality.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/al-qaeda-ayatollah-ali-khamenei-student-protesters-iran-israel-hamas-c7be2e07