Troubles

 So this is all about me and my problems.  Like the way I want to hurt people who start every sentence with "so."  So when did this start?

Apparently Paul Rudd, who is an actor, was chosen by People magazine for the title Sexiest Man Alive (which suggests that his predecessor, Michael B. Jordan, is no longer alive but let that pass).  I was thrilled because I confused him with the writer Paul Rudnick.  Funny is sexy, too.  Rudd is OK.  He's fine.  But he's not that funny.  Do men resent being objectified this way?

Albert Watkins, lawyer for Jacob "Shaman" Chansley, filed a 23-page memo requesting a lesser sentence.  It opens with a quotation from the philosopher "Forest" Gump:  "My mama always said you've gotta put the past behind you before you can move on."   It's astonishing the number of insurrectionists and their apologists who want to follow the teachings of Gump.  I would have gone with "Stupid is as stupid does." 

Brave auxiliary police officer Kyle Rittenhouse took the stand in his trial and decided, welp, it worked for Bret Kavanaugh.  He turned on the tears so well that his friend the judge called a ten-minute time-out so Kyle could compose himself.  Like any real, armed cop, Kyle was In Fear For His Life when Anthony "Not a Victim" Huber attacked him with a skateboard.  It was deeply moving.  Then the judge yelled at the prosecution for referring to a cellphone video he had excluded and the defense demanded a mistrial.  Police in Chicago have been ordered to expect trouble if Kyle gets off.  It's a prudent plan.

In a related story Myles Cosgrove, who shot and killed Breonna Taylor while she slept in her own bed, would like the Louisville Police Department to rehire him.  Other cities should probably cancel police leave.  Just don't deputize any teenagers.

Prince Harry (or as I call him the Duke of Sussex) says he was back and forth with Jack Dorsey warning that Twitter was being used to organize a coup, but has not heard from the CEO since January 6.  This guy could see what was coming but the FBI, the Capitol Police and the DC Police couldn't?

Or the Secret Service?  Insurrectionist Scott Fairlamb, brother of an agent, just got 41 months for storming "the fucking Capitol!"  He tried the crying game but Judge Royce Lamberth is made of sterner stuff than Judge Schroeder.  For a white man who assaulted an officer, three-and-a-half years is downright harsh.

Fear of reading has spread to Kansas.  A school district in Wichita pulled 29 books out of school libraries, including such incendiary titles as The Handmaid's Tale, The Bluest Eye, and August Wilson's play Fences.   One parent complained about the language in The Hate U Give, which concerns a Black teenager shot by a white cop.  I wonder why nobody complains about the language in Huckleberry Finn.

The January 6 Select Committee continues to issue subpoenas nobody will enforce, but at least Trump's legal efforts to hide the records of the conspiracy in the National Archives are being swatted away by judges.  The most recent, Judge Tanya Chutkan, wrote, "This is a dispute between a former and incumbent president."  Trump seems to think presidential power "exists in perpetuity.  But presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not president."   Trump didn't notice because he was back on Twitter under his secret identity Liz Harrington, blaming "Old Crow Mitch McConnell" for helping pass Biden's infrastructure bill.  And Scrotum-face got off a surprisingly good one, noting that Old Crow was "Henry Clay's favorite bourbon.  It's quite an honor."  Also the $4 billion earmarked for Kentucky is desperately needed.  Let the games continue.

"The music industry is demonic and collects souls," says the post on TikTok.  Yes, nothing happens anymore without a lunatic conspiracy theory metastasizing on social media.  This one was touched off by the awful Astroworld stampede where eight concertgoers died (a ninth has now been declared braindead).  Travis Scott, who organized the show, is guilty of staging a satanic ritual for reasons that are unclear.  Could he be Q?  Could I?

Well, here's a surprise.  Texas, of all places, banned "spiritual advisers" from its heavily used execution chamber.  Then it relented, praise the gourd, but they have to remain silent and keep hands off.  That's how the case of John Henry Ramirez comes before the US Supreme Court:  he wants his pastor to pray aloud and lay hands on him before he's killed.  Thin end of the wedge -- why not a Baptist choir in robes singing and dancing?  What body part or parts can be touched?  For how long?  If Ramirez were Catholic could he be anointed -- "Extreme Unction" used to be its vivid name, replaced at Vatican II by the prosaic "Sacrament of the Sick"?  What do Wiccans do at this point?  Buddhists?  Whatever they rule is going to piss somebody off.  Good.  I like a grand piss off, especially when the religion industry is involved.