Welcome to a cool Thursday, July 3, 2025. (predicted high of in Chicago today is 83 degrees F or 28 degrees C), It’s also National Fried Clam Day, best eaten at Woodman’s in Essex, MA. The ones below aren’t from Woodman’s I think, but they do show you this delectable dish (be sure to get them with bellies on!
It’s also National Eat Your Beans Day, National Chocolate Wafer Day (do Kit Kats count?), and Disobedience Day.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the July 3 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
Let’s stay away from politics a bit today and deal with trivial or more sensationalistic news. We’ll start, though, with the Big Beautiful (Budget) Bill, and then move on.
*The BBB looks as if it will pass in the House, though there’s still debate as of this morning (article archived here).
The House took its first step early Thursday toward a final vote on President Trump’s marquee domestic policy bill, after Republicans put down a revolt by conservative holdouts that had threatened to sink it.
After a day and night of paralysis on the House floor, and haggling and uncertainty in the Capitol, Speaker Mike Johnson scored a preliminary victory in his bid to overcome resistance within his party when the House voted to allow the bill to come up for debate. The 219-to-213 vote suggested he had won the backing of recalcitrant Republicans whose resistance had stalled the measure, though the House still had to take a final vote to approve it.
Facing tight margins in the House, he could afford only a handful of defections on the measure, which would slash taxes by a total of $4.5 trillion, increase funding for the military and border security, cut about $1 trillion from Medicaid and reduce food assistance for the poor. In the end, only Representative Brian Fitzpatrick, a moderate from Pennsylvania, joined Democrats in opposing the move to advance the bill after four other Republicans had initially voted against it and several others had withheld their votes.
Dysfunction reigned on the House floor into the wee hours of Thursday morning ahead of the vote, as a handful of Republicans opposed bringing up the measure and more withheld their votes altogether, sending Mr. Johnson grasping for a way to muscle through the sweeping legislation in the face of unified Democratic opposition.
Again, it looks as if it will pass the House, based on the vote on allowing debate. But there still may be surprises in store, so stay tuned. If it passes the House, the Senate and House versions of the budget must be reconciled before the bill can go to Trump’s desk.
*Sean “Diddy” Combs was convicted of three of the four charges levied against him in his “freak-off” trial, but acquitted of the most serious charges (sex trafficking and racketeering), which could have put him away for life (article archived here).
Sean Combs was acquitted on Wednesday of sex trafficking and racketeering charges, but convicted of transportation to engage in prostitution after an eight-week federal trial.
A jury in Manhattan found Mr. Combs, 55, not guilty of the most serious charges against him. Prosecutors had accused the famed producer of coercing two former girlfriends, Casandra Ventura and a woman who testified pseudonymously as “Jane,” into unwanted sex with male prostitutes, aided by a team of pliant employees.
Even with a partial conviction, the result is something of a victory for Mr. Combs, who was elated in court. He had faced a possible life sentence had he been convicted of other counts in the case. He could be sentenced up to a maximum of 20 years in prison on the two transportation for prostitution charges — 10 years for each count — but the final sentence will be up to a judge.
Here’s what else to know:
Racketeering: Jurors said on Tuesday that there were “unpersuadable opinions on both sides” in regard to the racketeering count. Racketeering law was once intended to combat the Mafia but has become central in cases against R. Kelly, Young Thug, Wall Street executives, gang members and President Trump. Read more >
Possible release: A defense lawyer immediately asked the judge to release Mr. Combs from jail to await sentencing now that he no longer faces sex-trafficking and racketeering charges. The judge said he would hear arguments on the question before ruling.
The jury: The racially diverse panel of eight men and four women, ranging in age from 30 to 74, sent several notes to the judge during deliberations, both asking for evidence and expressing concern about one juror. Read more >
Felony charges: Had he been convicted of sex trafficking, Mr. Combs would have faced a sentence of 15 years to life in prison. The charge of racketeering conspiracy also carries a potential life sentence. Read more >
Prosecution’s case: Mr. Combs was portrayed as the head of a criminal enterprise who “used power, violence and fear to get what he wanted” in the government’s closing argument. A prosecutor said Mr. Combs used violence, financial control and threats to manipulate his girlfriends into physically taxing sex sessions with hired men, while he masturbated and filmed. Read more >
Defense’s case: In its closing argument, Mr. Combs’s defense team told jurors that the government’s evidence contradicted its case. It acknowledged that Mr. Combs had engaged in domestic violence and drug use, but argued that the accusation that Mr. Combs was a sex trafficker or criminal ringleader was “badly exaggerated.” Read more >
Four takeaways from the case are here. Combs fell to his knees and thanked his god that he wasn’t convicted of the most serious charges, but the judge denied him bail. He’s been in jail since last October, and sentencing will be on October 3. Again, he still could face up to 20 years in prison, though he’ll get less than that, and he’ll already have served a year. .
*Over at The Free Press, Tyler Cowan, a travel addict who’s on the move 160 days a year and has been to 100 countries, gives us five tips on “how to vacation right.” Here are three of them:
a. Form trigage on the museums:
My suggestion is simple: Don’t fight the crowds. Go elsewhere, even in the same museum. If you go to the rooms [in the Musée d’Orsay] with paintings by Odilon Redon or Édouard Vuillard or the pointillists, your views are clear and unstressed. Maybe you prefer van Gogh, but c’est la vie. Get over it, pretend they all went up in flames, and learn something new. Looking at the less well-known Chavannes might be better yet.
b. Restaurants are mostly discovered.
In most of Western Europe, your favorite, little-known French or Italian restaurant does not exist any more. I am not saying the restaurant is gone; rather, its obscurity disappeared some while ago. Everyone knows about it, and it attracts tourist interest, often through Instagram. You are not cool for going there or knowing about it. Rather, you are just another normie.
Being a normie is fine, as France and Italy still are full of delicious good food. But if you want to stay on the cutting edge, you need to go somewhere more exotic. Right now, Polish cities have excellent and innovative cuisine. Their best restaurants aren’t obscure in Poland, of course, but are largely undiscovered by online North American tourists. Another culinary favorite of mine is North Macedonia, a beautiful small country with first-rate breads, cheeses, and meats.
c. Go see immigrants.
One of the biggest stories of our time is the transformation of Western Europe into nations with high percentages of foreign-born citizens, often from outside the West, often non-white, and often Muslims. In Germany, for instance, currently 18 to 20 percent of the population is foreign-born.
. . . In the last few years I have been to Molenbeek (Brussels), Frankfurt near the train station, banlieues in and near Paris, and the Rinkeby immigrant quarter in Stockholm. All are quite far removed from how we imagined Europe, say, 40 years ago. I would not visit these neighborhoods late at night, but for normal daytime activity they are safe. Supposedly Muslim terror plots are hatched in Molenbeek, but what you will witness there is a vibrant street life, lots of good restaurants, many women in veils, and also lone blonde women pushing around their babies in strollers, perhaps because they cannot afford the more expensive neighborhoods in Brussels. Life goes on.
You can pop in and out of these neighborhoods easily, and typically they are on the outskirts of cities you might want to see anyway.
You will learn a lot in even half a day or a few hours surrounding lunch. Why not?
I’m going to do this when I go to Berlin this fall, as I hear there are immigrant neighborhoods and I want to see them. I will be with German friends.
*Speaking of travel, Tamar Haspel of the WaPo asks the burning question, of why Italians, who eat tons of carbs and cheese, not as obese as Americans.
[Americans returning from Italy], though, often come home scratching their head about why Italians are so much thinner than Americans. And, when you go to Italy, or even read about going to Italy, it does make you wonder. They eat cookies for breakfast. Lunch and dinner are typically multicourse meals, with a pasta or risotto as a first course and a meat dish as a second. There are sometimes antipasti as well. Even schoolkids often get multicourse meals.
And the foods! Charcuterie! Cheese! Ravioli! Pizza! Focaccia! Gelato! On its face, it doesn’t seem like a recipe for avoiding weight gain. Yet, according to the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization, the obesity rate among Italian adults was 17 percent in 2022. In the United States, it was 42 percent.
Why? Why, why, why?
Here is a list of possible reasons:
- Italians eat more fish than Americans do, 64 pounds per person per year to Americans’ 49 pounds.
- They drink quite a bit less alcohol overall, according to data from the World Health Organization. To account for differences in the alcoholic content of beer, wine and spirits, the numbers are expressed as pure alcohol: 1.9 gallons worth per year for Italians vs. 2.6 gallons for Americans. But they drink more wine: enough to contain 1.1 gallons of pure alcohol for Italians, 0.4 gallons for us.
- According to the International Pasta Organization (and really, it should know), Italians eat more pasta (51.2 pounds per person per year) than anyone on Earth. At 19.4 pounds, Americans don’t hold a candle to them.
- Even though vegetables are a vaunted part of the Mediterranean diet, Italians don’t eat more vegetables than Americans do.
- Italians do, however, eat much less meat. Americans eat 67 percent more.
- Italians also eat slightly less added sugar, 71 pounds per person in 2021, compared to 74.3 pounds in the U.S.
- Relatedly, Italians drink less soda. It’s hard to find comparable data, but U.S. consumers buy an average of about 37 gallons of soda a year, about three times what Italians drink.
- They certainly don’t eat low-carb; Italians get a slightly higher percent of calories from carbohydrates than Americans do (48.5 percent vs. 46.4 percent).
To avoid American-style weight gain, though, Italians don’t have to eat differently; they just have to eat less. That’s the simple thermodynamic truth. And although eating different foods can certainly contribute to eating less, many other factors come into play.
Two of them, in particular, are on vivid display in Italy. Two really important ones, which could easily account for the weight-gain gap: portion size and snacking.
Many years ago, U.S. de facto nutrition-expert-in-chief Marion Nestle told me that portion size in the U.S. could single-handedly account for all the excess calories Americans consume; when portion sizes double, we eat, on average, about a third more. Italian portions of just about everything are smaller, although it’s impossible to say just how much. (When I asked Nestle whether there was any rigorous assessment, she laughed in my face, to the extent you can do that by email.)
Snacking, though, may be an even bigger issue, and it is just as resistant to reliable data. But all the Italians I spoke with, including faculty members at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in northern Italy, agreed. Eating between meals (or after dinner) isn’t nearly as common in Italy.
But it’s not just about eating between meals. It’s about living in a food environment that doesn’t facilitate eating between meals.
There you go. The same weight difference seems to hold for France, and perhaps for the same reasons, though I’m biased: I go to places that have big portion sizes. BUT I eat only one meal per day.
*How about this one? Officials have given up their search for Louie the otter, who escaped from a Wisconsin zoo two months ago in a desperate attempt to return to the wild.
A Wisconsin zoo’s otter has chosen to be wild, according to his former home.
Louie, one of two river otters who escaped the NEW Zoo & Adventure Park in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on March 20, remains missing even after his companion otter Ophelia returned to the zoo. In a May 30 update to a Facebook post about Louie’s disappearance, the zoo announced its belief that Louie has chosen to live his life in the wilderness.
“Due to the length of time that Louie has been missing, we believe he has made the decision to be a wild otter,” the update read. “We accept this, although we would, of course, welcome him home if he decides to return.”
Since the otter’s escape, the zoo has received reports of Louie sightings, but the animal has never stayed in a spot long enough to be captured and has never been sighted in the same area multiple times. Repeated sightings in one place are necessary for zookeepers to know where to set humane traps for the otter, the post shared.
The zoo noted on social media that, based on these sightings, it knows Louie appears healthy and is surviving well on his own. Thus, the zoo believes the otter can take care of himself in the wild, the NEW Zoo’s post explained, so keepers are ending their active search for Louie.
“Louie was born in the wild and grew up long enough in the wild to learn and practice all the skills a river otter requires to survive. We expect that he’s doing just fine out there,” the post said.
The zoo is working to find another male otter to be a companion to Ophelia, who returned to the zoo “in perfect health” on April 2.
Here’s a video of Louie busting out of animal jail. Let’s hope he’s okay.
*Finally, Penn apologized to all the women who swam against the trans-identified male competitor Lia Thomas, and has promised to take steps to restore the medals women won as well as to make other changes to conform to the dictates of Title IX. This was of course under pressure from the Trump Administration, but I have no beef with that, since Penn wouldn’t otherwise do the right thing. Also see the first tweet below, and here are a few details from an ABC News report.
The University of Pennsylvania has resolved violations a Department of Education civil rights investigation found involving transgender athletes competing in women’s sports, the school and Trump administration announced Tuesday.
The agreement requires the university to follow Title IX as interpreted by the Department of Education and adopt Trump’s executive order defining sex as biological, the department said. The school will no longer allow transgender women in female sports and will provide sex-based locker rooms, the university said.
Under the agreement, the university will also restore individual Division I swimming records, titles or similar recognitions to female athletes and send a personalized letter of apology to each impacted female swimmer, according to the Education Department.
But read the tweet below; it gives more details.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili’s supervising the garden again.
Andrzej: What are you looking at?
Hili: The hedge. It needs trimming again.
In Polish:
Ja: Na co patrzysz?
Hili: Na żywopłot, znowu trzeba go przyciąć.
*******************
On his public Facebook page, Andrzej remembers Malgorzata. The translation:
It’s been two weeks, the mallows bloomed. She liked the dark the most.
Here’s Rawan Osman, born in Syria and converted to Judaism. She explains that “anti-Zionism” compared to “antisemitism” is a distinction without a difference. And we all know that “Zionist” is simply a euphemism for “Jew.”
From Simon’s Cat Society:
And one I found somewhere in the corners of Facebook:
I got this from Luana and saw the details retweeted by J. K. Rowling. This is good news for those who espouse fairness for women’s athletes, so I’ll put up a screenshot of the whole long tweet:
From Simon, who says, “Dickens, Darwin, Austin, Larry seems a decent sequence.” But is that really Larry the Cat? I don’t think so because he doesn’t look like that (Larry has more white on his face). See below.
Give the public what they want!www.bbc.co.uk/news/article…
— Larry the Cat (@number10cat.bsky.social) 2025-07-02T10:18:34.023Z
The real Larry:
From Malcolm. If only!
Tech support has arrived. pic.twitter.com/oUBm390ypx
— cats with jobs 🛠 (@CatWorkers) June 13, 2025
From my feed. I think these protesters were ones who tried to get to Gaza through Egypt, but the Egyptians stopped them. They are thus taking out their frustration on an entire planeload of people.
Islamists flying to Minnesota completely took over the flight and began harassing flight attendants who repeatedly asked them to sit.
The entire “free Palestine” movement should be on the no fly-list. pic.twitter.com/0L41yyyE6B
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) July 1, 2025
One I reposted from the Auschwitz Memorial:
This Dutch girl was murdered in Auschwitz. She died at about fifteen years old.
— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-07-03T10:49:02.821Z
Two posts from Professor Emeritus Cobb. First, Amelia Earhart:
#OnThisDay, 2 July 1937, Amelia Earhart makes her last radio transmission as she and navigator Fred Noonan start a leg of their round the world flight. Contact was lost when they were over the Pacific and they were never found.#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #HistoryOfFlight 🗃️1/2
— Carve Her Name (@carvehername.bsky.social) 2025-07-02T08:30:07.000Z
About Swaggart’s death, Matthew said this, “De mortuis nil nisi bonum but in this case we’ll make an exception”. That reminds me of Hitchens’s reaction to the death of Jerry Falwell.
He’s all yours, Satan
— Stone Cold Jane Austen (@abbyhiggs.bsky.social) 2025-07-01T15:48:02.065Z
I’m in Paris this week and I’m staying in a largely Muslim and immigrant neighborhood. Everything he said is true. There are good restaurants here and also lots of veiled women. I also saw many veiled women in London last week.
Regarding European vs American bodyweight: i wonder whether there is a commuter mode effect. Just anecdotally, at home I was a suburban car-commuter, but when I carried out four 6-month or longer work assignments to cities (washington dc and richmond va) where I was totally reliant on walking or commuter light rail, I would drop a couple of pounds, even though I was not doing my four days a week five mile runs I did at home. Walking to and from my place of work, light rail station, and restaurants for dinner seemed to have a simple cumulative effect over each assignment. And I generally ate very well in those cities!
I think there’s something to that.
Bet you’re right
I had to walk to work in Wisconsin in the winter for a while – even for a big burrito dinner every night – I started noticing!
I think the cold air acted as a heat sink for my core – akin to the swimming pool as heat sink during Michael Phelps’ training (famous story 🍔🍔🍔 🍟🍟🍟).
Commuter mode and portion sizes. At one time I was sent from my home in Canada to Phoenix AZ for some training. In that one month I gained a few pounds. No walking, no bus riding, restaurant eating, driving everywhere. And I am not the type who has trouble keeping weight down.
I was about to say the same. Americans even drive to their corner store to buy a beer!!! Neighborhood sidewalks are empty. Even yards are mostly empty of people. Most Americans avoid walking as much as possible. Any European country that I have visited is dramatically different (and the people are dramatically healthier).
Beg to differ, but the best fried clams are at Howard Johnson’s!
When we had a HoJo’s near my house as a kid, I used to use my paper boy money to buy their fried clams. I think they came in a cardboard cup. They were amazingly good! That was about 1970. I also loved their coffee ice cream, which I use to buy by the pint.
Aren’t they extinct?
An opinion is never wrong, but having grown up school-cutting distance away from Woodman’s, as well as frequenting HoJo’s, I respectfully disagree.
Maybe I am biased (ok, certainly, as I grew up in school with the family, to the extent I grew up at all)
But, in the end, since HoJo’s has crossed the rainbow bridge, debate on the subject is pointless.
🙁. When did the demise happen? As a kid I too loved HoJo’s fried claims. Their chocolate milkshake was also a favourite.
The late 1990’s to early 2000’s were the end for most of the remaining restaurants. I think there were a few holdouts till the late 2010’s.
The motel chain was a separate company since the 1970’s, give or take, and there are still some of them. I don’t know who owns them, but back in the 1980’s it was Marriott (I had a girlfriend that was a Marriott corporate chef and spent some time assigned to a HoJo’s motel kitchen, between running college/university meal services for several prominent schools near Boston)
Last time I was in a HoJo’s restaurant was the Portsmouth circle location, going to visit friends up in Maine (Caribou region, before they moved back to Bangor). I still had Harley number two so it was the late 1990’s-ish.
You’ll probably want to visit Neuköln in Berlin. That part of town resembles Bagdad in some places (though: I’ve never been to Bagdad;-). I visited my sister there last year, and in a few places had difficulty communicating with the shopkeepers, because I do not speak Arabic. Like NYC, Berlin made a huge push for cycling infrastructure in the past couple years, so you’ll also wonder if you’re in Copenhagen sometimes. In the city, there are more bicycles on the (side)streets than automobiles, by far. People have come to realize that cycling is the quickest way to transport yourself around the place.
I wouldn’t be upset if the BBB died in the House, and they had to start over again. It’s unconscionable to me, given the size of the budget and the amount of waste and corruption, that there should be any excuse for passing a bill that increases the debt. There are a lot of good things in the bill, but the debt increase is unacceptable, given a party that is supposed to be fiscally conservative.
And, pragmatically, because at some point there will be a Minsky Moment in the US treasury bond market. “No tree grows to the sky”.
You voted for a wannabe dictator, Trump told everyone this, and this is what happens when dictators rule. All fealty is to the dear leader. There is no individual will on the GOP side, that ended with McCain. I don’t know why you’re surprised/upset. “A party that is supposed to be fiscally conservative.” Man, that ship has sailed years ago…I find your comment, knowing that you’re a Republican and Trump voter, strange and naive. At the same time, maybe you’ve figured out the GOP is rotten to the core and will stop supporting them. Silver lining?
I am learning the technical reasons why Sean D. Combs was acquitted on the more serious charges, which is that the Jury eventually decided that the women had agency to refuse. But there are numerous civil charges still pending.
A Google search turns up an AI summary, and so now a Google search is different.
The issue that seems to arise with that is that like me just now, most people won’t bother to click on any links farther down. So I wonder if some web sites will see a dip in clicks as a result.
Some websites might see an uptick in clicks, because of those links at the bottom of an AI reply. Those sites might not have been found otherwise. Though they would have appeared in a traditional google search, the AI response gives some idea of what information is in the link.
Re the U Penn settlement: Lia Thomas competed consistent with the then applicable rules. That is a separate from whether the rules then or now (or soon to be) are better. Stripping Thomas of records and medals is small-minded punishment of an individual.
It may have been technically legal but it was unfair.
If Lia Thomas had had any decency he would have declined to swim against women (however he “identified”), accepting that it was unfair. I don’t have any sympathy.
Kind of proving the point.
Enough.
Some things are just so daft and wrong-headed that correction and restitution has to be made. It’s not as if a wrestling league decided to change the weight-class brackets which could, if applied retrospectively, result in DQs of winners. Lea Thomas was always a man, never a woman. He had no business swimming against women.
Very likely Penn is doing this only under intimidation from the Trump Administration. Welcome to power.
By the way, athletic associations are going to have to be cognizant that no female birth certificate can be accepted as proof of female sex if it comes from a state or province that allows changes in the sex marker after infancy. Someone is going to have to pay for SRY testing for all athletes who register as women.
The rules now aren’t just “better,” they actually recognize that women’s sports are for women. Lia Thomas isn’t a woman, so his records are irrelevant and he has no right to his medals.
No need to read “punishment” into that. A mistake is being corrected.
I bet if you eat good food – as in, fresh/etc. – you get more satisfaction –
Meaning, that feeling like you are fired up to do anything the day throws at you.
Joe Rogan had a clip out there recently, theme of “I’m done with bread” – meaning, the chemically mummified things called “bread” in grocery stores. Italy/Europe came up.
One might look for that and think about it – in fact, I’m doing something about it – fresh organic dough, for one thing.
Might be something to it.
Thankfully, good bread, real bread, is usually pretty easy to find in most of the USA now. We have a superb bakery in our tiny little town (and it’s thriving, always packed, thankfully).
We do, however, buy a little pre-packaged sliced bread: Dark rye bread from a relatively local company.
We eat little bread at all anymore. Cutting out the carbs. That, along with portion control, seems to be the best tactic for us for keeping our weight down. (And of course we LOVE carbs!: Potatoes, pasts, rice, bread! Bye-bye! 🙁 )
It’s true, there are some out there – I just looked the other day for a plain old ex-grocery-store bakery, no luck – though I know one that has frozen pasta sheets. These places have to sell crazy cakes and all sorts of desserty stuff like that.
But even so – guaranteed not going to find bread made without salt or sugar, or dough conditioners – IOW just flour+water+yeast.
Sourdough perhaps OK – flour+water, possibly yeast… I haven’t dived into sourdough yet…
FWIW – not that you want it, but if anyone is curious, Whole Foods has fresh pasta sheets – brand name Nonna’s – near me. An unexpected find.
Our plan in cities like Paris, London, or Florence: We go out in the morning and “do something” like see a museum or some other sight/site.
Then, wherever we are, we just troll the local neighborhood and pick a local cafe/restaurant just based on whim, menu posted outside, price, vibes, whatever, and have a nice lunch. Lunch is cheaper, more casual, easy to get into an uncrowded place (we don’t go to the crowded ones!). Hasn’t failed us yet! We don’t eat Michelin Stars (those taste terrible anyways! 😉 ) but we always have a nice meal, at a good price, and a nice local experience.
We typically eat a “picnic” meal in our hotel room or in a local park for dinner/supper. Avoids high costs and crowds and we like picnicking anyway. Cheese, pate, sausage, olives, fruit, and bread from the bakery around the corner. What else does one need?
We traveled in the summer in the past (school-aged kids) and the afternoon heat (and even bigger crowds) was best avoided.
Full agreement on avoiding crowds. I am very grateful I already saw the Louvre, Orsay, Van Gogh (Amsterdam), Uffizi, Prado, etc. years ago in (relatively) uncrowded times. I always tell people: Fugettabout seeing the Mona Lisa, for instance. Even if you can elbow your way to the front of the mob, I tell them you’ll see it better in a color plate in a book at your local library anyways! In the Louvre, I tell them my favorite of the “Big Three” is the Winged Nike of Samothrace. It used to usually be deserted; but friends who visited Paris in early May this year had a crowd even there. 🙁
I loved seeing Poland and the Czech Republic in 1992, just after the “walls” came down. I’m sure that they will be a very different experience now! We will be going. My wife’s heritage is Czech (and German and Native American) and we will certainly be visiting the Czech Republic. I have the best memories of eating great food in cafes and drinking 1/2-liter, excellent Pilsner-style beers for US 50-cents per beer in Czech Republic in 1992, yum! Days long-gone!
Great story, Jim. I was a young man when the wall came down so I regret not having the opportunity, money or reach (from Australia and Japan, where I lived) to get as far as Europe by then. East Asian communist countries were also unvisitable for a man of my means at the time. I’d have loved to have seen behind the iron curtain.
Particularly Russia (b/c I was studying Russian) and also Czech and Poland b/c they seemed to do communism better. And the weirdly low prices as much as the beautiful women tempted me to go!
D.A.
NYC
How will Penn “restore” the female swimmer whose spot on the team was usurped by Mr. Thomas?
Indeed!
If you’re into ancient sculptures, there are two especially spectacular ones in the Vatican museum – The God of the Nile, and the Augustus of Prima Porta. They aren’t easy to find though, and I was annoyed that a film crew was monopolizing the Augustus statue when I was there, so we couldn’t get close to it.
PS Ironically, not far from the Augustus statue was a bust of his nemesis Mark Antony.
Thanks!
I’ve just recently visited Glasgow and I went to the Kelvingrove art gallery and museum specifically to see the Salvador Dali painting “Christ of St John of the cross”. What a stunning painting, well worth the trip just to see that. The museum wasn’t too crowded and I was able to sit on a borrowed stool (why don’t other galleries lend them out) for a while just admiring the painting.
One thing I did notice while I was there was the number of people who didn’t appear to want to see the painting itself, they just wanted a selfie to show that they had been there! Why bother, just look it up on line if that’s all you’re going to do.
I agree about “Christ of St John of the Cross”, and am glad to hear it is back up, as last time I visited it had been taken down (cleaning?). Must go back soon.
It went on a tour of other galleries apparently. Nice to see it back up.
“The zoo is working to find another male otter to be a companion to Ophelia…” And what will the zoo do if Louie returns and Ophelia is with another otter?
Transfer the newcomer to a different zoo? Otters being cute and relatively low-maintenance, I presume there would be adequate demand for one. Unless of course Ophelia prefers the new guy.
An all-otter reenactment of Move Over, Darling with the sexes reversed?