Trivia Thursday

We had a good run. 

Politics seems pointless, so I'll be focusing on the ephemeral today.  Question:  Who the hell is Armie Hammer?  

A quick search (what other kind is there?) reveals that there was an industrialist/diplomat called Armand Hammer whose art collection lives in its own Los Angeles museum.  Also a New York hip-hop duo known as Armand Hammer whose real names are Billy Woods and Elucid.  Not forgetting the baking soda.  I'm guessing Armie is related to one of those three entities, but I swear by Cthulhu I've never seen him on the screen.  Nevertheless the Guardian thought I should know his career has been stalled because of a few messages he apparently sent to romantic partners concerning his interest in cannibalism.  In current parlance, he has been cancelled.  This is problematic for Disney, which now has an unreleasable film of Death on the Nile starring Hammer and directed by Kenneth Branagh.  (Branagh has evidently decided to spend the rest of his days playing Hercule Poirot in totally unnecessary Agatha Christie recycles, at least until emails surface in which he confesses to planning the murder of Lord Mountbatten.)  Poor Disney.

I won't say "poor Armie."  It's people like this who fuel the Q-coo belief that Hollywood is full of baby-eating movie stars, which I'm almost certain is untrue.  Hammer has also been accused of rape, but who hasn't?  There is no credible evidence against Hammer on the cannibalism question, by the way, maybe just late-night silly talk with a now-disgruntled girlfriend.  And Death on the Nile probably has at least six other stars; these Christie things always do.  Cancelled?  I'd see it just to establish in my mind who this guy is.  Another quick search:  Never heard of any of them.

Remember when you had to be a Communist, or an ex-Communist, or a Stevenson supporter, to get cancelled in Hollywood?  And you could purge yourself of sin by going to Washington and naming other Stevenson supporters?  It was a simpler time.

By the way, it says here that Hammer was also cancelled from The Offer, described as "a ten-part series about the making of The Godfather."  I thought Mario Puzo wrote a novel and Francis Coppola made it into a movie, the end.  More complicated, apparently.

National Guard personnel have been helping out at testing and vaccination sites since last year, but the governor of New Mexico wants them to step up as substitute teachers.  State officials say they can qualify with two hours of training and a background check.  Remembering how we treated subs in my day, it might be advisable to let them carry light weapons, too.

These are exciting times at the frontiers of medicine, unless you are a genetically modified pig.  Last week a man got a pig heart, and now a set of pig kidneys have been transplanted into a man described as "brain-dead."  The recipient was Jim Parsons of Alabama, 57, described as an organ donor; it doesn't say if anyone got his original kidneys but I assume.  There is always a waiting list for organs, now exacerbated by a report from the Red Cross that blood is in short supply.  

The only thing we never run out of is racists.  One of their "respectable" leaders, Mitch McConnell, chose to celebrate the defeat of the John Lewis Voting Act by pointing out that "if you look at the statistics, African Americans are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans."  At least The Leader didn't say "real Americans."

Sub-zero temperatures are predicted for Texas next week.  So Ted -- Cancun or Cabo this year?  Oh, and a major pipeline company is threatening to cut natural gas to the state's largest generator.  Now would be a good time to move on secession, Greg.  Don't call FEMA, we'll call you.

Is it a good day for Trump loser news?  It's always a good day for Trump loser news!  Yesterday the "woke leftist" Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that the January 6 committee can see the stuff in the National Archives that he's desperate to conceal, rejecting his theory of "executive privilege forever."  Then Fulton County, Georgia, DA Fani Lewis requested the empaneling of a special grand jury to hear evidence about the "find me 11,780 votes" call to Brad Raffensperger in 2020.  Then New York attorney general Letitia James announced she has "significant evidence" of fraud in the civil investigation of the Trump Org, despite Eric having taken the Fifth "about 500 times" during his October 2020 deposition.  Then Ivanka was "asked" to answer questions for the Thompson committee; unlike Uncle Rudolph Giuliani, she has not yet been subpoenaed.   Then Stephanie Grisham told the committee about "secret meetings" Trump held in the days before the insurrection ("Liz Harrington" will soon be telling us how stupid, untrustworthy and "not even a five" she is).  Then...that's enough for today, I'm full.

It's a big year for literary events, the five hundredth birthday of Moliere (January 15) and the hundredth of Kurt Vonnegut (November 11), in addition to the two wonders of 1922, The Waste Land and Ulysses.  More than one hundred people in the arts will read Joyce's masterpiece between February 2 and June 16 including Margaret Atwood and Eddie Izzard.  (That's Izzard above; Atwood doesn't wear that much makeup.)  Maybe the EU or whoever will finally complete the paperwork and return the remains of Joyce and Nora Barnacle to Dublin this year.