“Return To Work: List of First TV Series To Restart Production After SAG-AFTRA Strike”.
“Why Is the Entertainment Industry So Desperate To Own Dead Celebrities?”
“Reuters documented at least 600 previously unreported workplace injuries at Musk’s rocket company: crushed limbs, amputations, electrocutions, head and eye wounds and one death. SpaceX employees say they’re paying the price for the billionaire’s push to colonize space at breakneck speed.”
“As more abortion bans have gone into effect across the country, it has become far more difficult to perform a standard element of gynecological care: screening patients for domestic abuse.”
“Well, so much for getting to the bottom of the story of Crystal Clanton, the judicial law clerk accused of sending racist texts. And so much for all the talk about having Supreme Court justices abide by the code of conduct that covers other federal judges. In this case, at least, the mechanism to enforce that code turned out to be toothless. The judicial discipline system is better at self-protection than self-policing.”
“Still, one can take a hard, law-and-order line on sentencing and still be opposed to locking up innocent people. Indeed, you could make a strong argument that you can’t be authentically “law-and-order” without vigorously opposing the incarceration of innocent people. And yet many self-described law-and-order politicians seem to be okay with it — or at least have little interest in knowing when it has happened.”
“The book, I suppose, offers a moral about extravagant Christmas displays, and as November arrives and the first of my neighbors cover their houses in thousand-dollar LED extravaganzas, it’s a not-unwelcome message. But it’s a bit of a disappointment to see the Grinch reduced to the role of child throwing a tantrum. Losing a contest and storming off in a huff is certainly relatable to kids—indeed, more than one cheery holiday get-together in my house has been darkened by a child doing that exact thing—but it’s not diabolical. It’s not stealing the freaking Christmas tree. It’s hard to imagine a child listening to this sequel with the same fear and trembling with which they respond to the original. More likely, kids will nod sagely and identify the Grinch as that most familiar of childhood archetypes: the sore loser. It’s a dispiriting fate for perhaps the greatest elemental force of malevolence in children’s literature.”
“Trump could try to blame his lawyers for Jan. 6. But it just got a lot more difficult“.
We may get to see Coyote vs. Acme after all.
“I wish I could wrap this up with a neat little formula — with One Simple Trick that lets us know how to find what’s worth keeping from creepy comedians, or from theologians who were serial-rapists or enslavers. And, more importantly, with the secret key that would assure us that we were able to learn only the Good Things from Bad People, wholly distinct and compartmentalized from all the awful things they chose to do because knowing those Good Things didn’t stop them from doing them. But I don’t know what that formula is. I suspect there isn’t one.”
RIP, Peter Seidler, owner of the San Diego Padres.
“The percentage of kindergartners who are fully vaccinated declined from 95 percent in the 2020-2021 school year to 93 percent in 2021-2022—below pre-pandemic levels. Since schools still require routine vaccinations, more families than ever before are asking permission for their school-aged children to skip the shots, as well. Requests for exemptions increased in 41 states, and in 10 states, more than 5 percent of parents made such requests. That exemption rate is significant, because when more than 5 percent of a given population is unwilling to be vaccinated, “herd immunity” is compromised and outbreaks are possible.”
It would be a good idea for David Zaslaz to just stop talking for awhile.
“At no point does Representative Santos appear to have owned a Maserati, despite telling campaign staff otherwise.”
“Attorneys for Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, the mother-daughter election workers who are suing Giuliani, claim he severely harmed them by falsely accusing them of ballot tampering and are seeking $15.5 million to $43 million in compensation, plus punitive damages and potentially interest.” I hope they get all that and more.
But he’s so “nice”. So very “nice”.
“Chinese President Xi Jinping signaled that China will send new pandas to the United States”.
RIP, Roger Kastel, artist who created the iconic movie posters for Jaws and The Empire Strikes Back.
“It may not get a lot of attention. In a way it doesn’t matter since I don’t think anyone cares that George Santos going to do serious time in prison. But in addition to the mistake he made not resigning soon after the original New York Times report last December, he made another big mistake staying in office until this week’s House Ethics report was released.”
RIP, Bert Levinson, educator, coach, Staten Island Sports Hall of Famer. I knew Mr. Levinson (he will always be Mr. Levinson) through the Hall of Fame Warriors Baseball Camp, which was the defining feature of my summers as a kid. Truly a legend.