I’m thinking of going to a Hands Off demonstration this coming weekend — there are several in the metro area. But I need some ideas for a sign. Bottom line: I want it to be mean, because fuck those guys. So far I’ve got:
HEY ELON
YOUR SON
is NOT a
HUMAN SHIELD
Too obscure?
Or
ELON MUSK:
GENEROUS WITH HIS SEMEN
STINGY WITH YOUR MONEY
Too wordy.
Or
VANCE & TRUMP:
FATMAN & ROBIN
This only works if you know the Burt Ward Robin.
Something along those lines. If you have any brainstorms, drop ’em in the comments.
An amusing story in the WashPost today (gift link) about the disappearance of the Oval Office ivy.:
The ivy sat atop the fireplace mantel for most of the past 50 years, providing a backdrop for meetings with countless leaders and foreign dignitaries at the White House. It has filtered the air breathed by Nelson Mandela, Pope John Paul II, Margaret Thatcher and Whitney Houston.
Cuttings were given to exiting staff members, to propagate their own plants. “Countless” people have Oval Office ivy descendants in their own offices and homes now. A sharp-eyed trustee of his own ivy plant noticed something different on the mantel now:
In its place, conspicuously, are seven gleaming decorative objects, seemingly made of gold. A Maryland writer named Jamie Kirkpatrick noticed them earlier this month, around the time of the contentious Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, when the mantel was visible in nearly every photograph of Trump and Vice President JD Vance arguing with Zelensky.
What were those? Kirkpatrick wondered. Golf trophies?
No. And they’re not trash, but they are golden objects for a president who loves golden objects:
They’re artifacts from the White House’s own collection. The central gilded bronze basket, called a compotier, was made in France around 1815 and gifted to the Nixon administration in 1973. To its left and right are a pair of urns from the Monroe Plateau, a set of gilded tableware acquired by President James Monroe in 1817, shortly after the British burned the White House. The outer two sets are from a collection acquired during the Eisenhower administration that are usually displayed in the Vermeil Room, which is named after its contents. (Vermeil is gilded silver.)
Click through for some shots of the ivy before and after the gold-plated president sent it back to the greenhouse. God, what a jerk.
Another gift link, to a story in the NYT, about a woman who rode her “medical freedom” to an early grave:
In 2007, more than 1,440,000 Americans were diagnosed with cancer. Dawn Kali was one of them. Then in her mid-30s and raising three kids, Ms. Kali’s natural warmth and openness made her a popular waitress at the raw-food restaurant where she worked in San Francisco. When her doctor told her she had Stage 1 breast cancer, the fact that survival rates for her cancer type were in excess of 90 percent (and rising) did little to soften the emotional blow. Ms. Kali knew what cancer entailed: a barrage of medical treatments that seemed to sap people of their quality of life. And then they’d die anyway. “That’s not going to be me,” she swore.
Nope! Instead, Kali fell in with a quack:
She discovered “The pH Miracle,” a 2002 book written by a charming self-proclaimed naturopath named Robert Oldham Young. Mr. Young asserted that deacidifying the body through diet, exercise and his pH Miracle-branded pills and creams could cure virtually any sickness. Cancer, Mr. Young taught, was merely a symptom of an acidic internal environment. His credibility was bolstered by his appearances on national talk shows that featured him as a diet guru.
Ms. Kali adopted Young’s “alkalarian” program: an all-liquid, low-acid diet of vegetable smoothies supplemented by Mr. Young’s proprietary pHour Salts, purified water drops and green powders. Soon she was drinking a gallon of juice each day. Now, she controlled her treatment. The prescribed combination of a strict diet, meditation and exercise left her feeling empowered.
It also left her cancer free to spread. You can guess how her story ends. I will say that Kali did finally wise up, but too late. The story is about much more than Dawn Kali, and I’ll bet you can guess whose name pops up.
OK, then. A nice weekend. Kate closed on her house! She moves soon.
We celebrated with champagne, and took some of it at the kitschy basement bar, likely to be a rehearsal space:
I did my friend Jimmy’s fun-fiction class again. The class is in Hamtramck. Followed this deep thinker through a few stop signs:
Sigh. As my friend Deb texted me last week, just once I want to wake up, look at my phone and not say, “Jesus Fucking Christ.” Let’s all have a good week, eh?