news items

1. Just in case anyone's still tempted to use the term "a few bad apples" to describe those cops, here's an article on how a bad apple really does rot the entire barrel. (I'm also reminded of the line, "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar; actually vinegar makes an excellent fly trap.)

1a. And hey, all you cops protesting your erring fellows' punishment: You're just proving the point, racism is endemic.

2. My favorite line from the late great Sir Ian Holm's entire career. The Madness of King George: Lord Thurlow (John Wood) comes across the recovering king (Nigel Hawthorne) with his doctor, Willis (Ian Holm), reading Shakespeare. He's a doctor, not a literary man.
THURLOW (startled): King Lear? Was that wise?
WILLIS (defensively): I'd no idea what it was about, sir.

3. Headline reads: "SEC, NCAA Threaten to Pull Events From Mississippi if Confederate Emblem Isn’t Removed From State Flag." I know what the NCAA is, but am I the only American reader to wonder what the Securities and Exchange Commission has to do with this? Turns out to be the Southeastern Conference, which from its name I presume to be a college sports league.

4. The hate on for the public health officials who are, as far as I'm concerned, the only thing keeping us at all safe. If it weren't for their severe restrictions, I wouldn't dare take the necessary errands I do perform.

5. The latest campaign to tear down the statues of slavers and their advocates, which began joyously enough at a riverside in Bristol, has jumped the shark. True, General Grant was a seriously flawed president, but really? And Nancy Pelosi ordered the removal of the portraits of four former Speakers associated with the Confederacy. This wasn't a Confederate memorial; it's intended as a display of every Speaker, good, bad, or otherwise. (Is Denny Hastert there?) Unlike with the statues, editing this is to erase history. The removal even included Charles Crisp. Unlike the others, he wasn't a high CSA official; as a very young man (he was 16 when the war broke out), he joined its army. Ordinary soldiers were not considered traitors if they'd swear allegiance to the Union afterwards, without which forgiveness Crisp couldn't have then served in Congress, years later, at all. Should we be more censorious than the Radical Republicans were at the time?