Katie Herzog is still doing the TGIF columns at the Free Press, which, when Nellie Bowles wrote them, was one of the best reasons to subscribe (Bowles is the Bill Maher of print journalism). Since Bowles has taken maternity leave, the column has been written by others, including nepo baby Suzy Weiss and, this week, Katie Herzog again. The replacements have been good, but Nellie is The Queen, and nobody can really replace her. We’re told she’ll be back in two weeks.
Anyway, since I can’t do a proper Hili column when I’m traveling, here at least are three article stolen from Herzog’s latest column, called “TGIF: Foreign Interference.” Click below to read the whole thing:
→ Iranian writer sentenced to prison over dot: Hossein Shanbehzadeh, an Iranian writer and activist, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison by the Tehran Revolutionary Court after he tweeted a period at the Supreme Leader. Officially, NPR reports, “Shanbehzadeh was sentenced to five years for alleged pro-Israel propaganda activity, four years for insulting Islamic sanctities, two years for spreading lies online and an additional year for anti-regime propaganda.” Suspicious. . . this was my exact penalty in college for attending Shabbat services.
Shanbehzadeh’s one-character tweet, which was in response to a photo posted by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of himself with the national volleyball team, received more likes than the Ayatollah’s post. He basically got 12 years for ratioing. Which, if that’s a crime, I guess I’ll be going in for twenty to life any day now.
→ Now, maybe you’re telling yourself: This could never happen in the U.S. Thank Allah and the Founding Fathers for the First Amendment! And you’re probably right: Tweeting a period at President Harris and/or Trump is unlikely to get you thrown in jail, and American citizens enjoy more speech protections than probably any other people on Earth. But don’t let your Bill of Rights throw pillow woo you into complacency. I mean, we’re not some tyrannical shit hole like the UK, where people are being charged for mean tweets, but government censorship does exist here. The last few years has seen huge surges in book banning and protest crackdowns, and just last week, Mark Zuckerberg admitted that Meta caved to Biden administration pressure to censor content posted by users on Facebook.
This week, Reason reported on the case of a “citizen journalist” who goes by the name Lagordiloca, or “the fat, crazy lady” (catchy), who was arrested by police in Laredo, Texas, after she broke stories obtained by a confidential source from within that same department. And vice presidential hopeful Tim Walz said in a recently resurfaced interview that misinformation and hate speech aren’t protected by the First Amendment. Now, he’s wrong about that, which you’d think a former high school social studies teacher would know (you actually are allowed to be a prick and a liar in America, thank God), but it’s a troubling statement from someone who could soon occupy the little closet down the hall from the Oval Office where they stow the VP.
→ Arrest-Me-Not: The darling of Sweden, Greta Thunberg, was arrested at Copenhagen University while protesting the school’s connection to Israel, namely that they have an exchange program where Israeli students come to study there. Thunberg sent a dispatch via Instagram from the front lines of her battle against. . . climate? Israel? At this point I can’t tell. She wrote: “Students Against the Occupation and I are at the University of Copenhagen’s administration building. Police have been called, violently entered the building with a ram wearing assault rifles. They are evicting everyone as we speak.” I love the new use of eviction where it’s just when someone tells you to leave the place that you aren’t allowed to be in. I swear I’ve been evicted from many pools in my neighborhood by people who don’t know me, and dozens of Denny’s parking lots after closing. . . it’s honestly a travesty. Meanwhile, a bunch of people were arrested outside of Citibank headquarters in New York while protesting fossil fuels, a throwback to a sweet time when environmental activists organized around the environment.
Whatever happened to Greta? Although I’ve always found her somewhat irritating, I also was on her side in the climate-change controversy. But I guess she’s found herself a new cause, BDS:
Agree Bowles > Herzog at the Free Press, even though I’m a superfan of Katie’s podcast.
Now that Greta has expanded her protest universe from the climate crisis to pro-pal “genocide”, it seems only a matter of time before she takes up gender ideology as well and comes out as Gunnar. Calling it now. [forgot to say: the last part is in the spirit of TGIF – I sincerely hope Greta doesn’t succumb to that awful cult]
+1
Gotta disagree here: Greta is everything wrong with the environmentalist movement. Ill informed narcissistic truant moppet that she is. She’s a watermelon as they say: green on the outside, red inside.
I WAS an environmentalist until about 20 years ago when it became less about poisoning the planet and more about fightin’ capitalism. And.. of course.. Palestine.
I wrote about this obliquely: https://democracychronicles.org/palestine-and-the-company-you-keep/
It is predictable that bunches of causes (like people) travel together as political homogamy.
And movements… move. They change direction over the decades. They can decay and become spirals of their own purity.
Look at Greenpeace: from saving whales to opposing GMOs. GMO opposition is peak scientific illiteracy on a par with anti-vax.
D.A.
NYC
I don’t agree. At least not entirely. I like Katie Herzog. Is she as talented as Nellie Bowles? Perhaps not. I she very talented? I think she is.
My comment referred only to Bowles being the best writer of TGIFs. I certainly admire Herzog and her talent and have listened to her podcasts.