sinecure

Not contended with merely rubbishing the high office to which he was elected nor making a mockery of the agencies under his purview by installing chiefs antithetical to the cause they’re to champion while being content to allow vital appointment to go unfilled and even thanked Russia for culling its staff at the US mission to Moscow, Dear Leader has thanked fellow serial presidential candidate and “Contract with America” architect Newton “Newt” Leroy Gingrich for his early and consistent loyalty and support with a Holy See ambassadorship for his current and third wife, documentary film-maker, author, political aide and noted adulteress Callista Louis née Bisek—subject to congressional approval.
The grace-and-favour posting to the Vatican has only formally existed since 1984 (as was the case with a lot of non-Catholic majority countries) established and credentialed under Reagan and Pope John Paul II with personal emissaries representing papal and American interests previously. Though I suspect there’s little responsibility or symbolism attached to the job—especially after such an announcement—it still would have been a privilege to be a plenipotentiary along with the some one hundred and eighty countries that maintain diplomatic relations and it has not been without controversy—recently back in 2009 with Pope-Emeritus Benedikt XVI over tensions with Obama’s push for equality in marriage.

living in a powder-keg and giving off sparks

Though not quite as infrequent as a total solar eclipse, it is a rare occurence to find out new facts about the same musician back to back.  We learned earlier in the week—but still not in time to book passage on the sold-out cruise—Miss Bonnie Tyler will be performing her signature 1983 power ballad on deck to guests (and surely with guests) as the ship passes in the path of totality and the sun is blotted out.
Total Eclipse of the Heart lasts slightly longer that the two minutes and forty seconds of civil twilight that cruiser-goers will experience, but there’s no word if there’s a special abbreviated performance might be given. Incredibly this is not the only news regarding the song from this past week—as Miss Cellania points out, the piece was originally written for Meat Loaf and was to appear on his next release but as his own 1977 landmark  Bat out of Hell album was such a run-away success and a tough act to follow, he dismissed his lyricist to rethink his next project. A few years later, the songwriter realised that the number would be the perfect way to showcase Tyler’s operatic talents. While I appreciate that perhaps in the grand scheme of things, pop songs may not be of the greatest pith and moment, but it’s a bit rough to imagine how karaoke nights, the development of the music video and the eighties genre might be radically different had things turned out otherwise.  What do you think?  Turn around Bright Eyes.

import/export

On display at the corporate headquarters based in Memphis, Tennessee is by good fortune and foresight the overnight shipping and cargo airline firm Federal Express’ first delivery van, a second generation Ford Econoline van from 1973. Founded in the same year by Fred Smith, confident that time’s value was on an upward trajectory, the company now has the rather redundant title of FedEx Express and more competition from courier services have come on to the scene but the corporation still remains the leader in overnight deliveries—plus had the wherewithal to conserve its humble beginnings. Be sure to visit Just a Car guy at the link above for more automotive wonders.

disbanded

When sixteen out of seventeen members of Dear Leader’s Committee of the Arts and Humanities, whose duties include overseeing the doomed National Endowment for the Arts, resigned en masse (the one public official—the honorary chairman found her hands tied), the signed a collective thoughtful and urgent letter expressing their disgust towards the White House’s response to last week’s Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. If one takes the first letter of each paragraph after the salutation and puts them together, the acrostic reveals a hidden message. Additionally note the opening line, “Reproach and censure in the strongest possible terms.”

black jack

Though always eager to be the centre of attention be it through palace intrigues or disgraceful provocation and the news that Trump dismissed his chief propagandist to return to the managing the media properties that helped create the landscape that made it possible for this regime to seize power became the dominant headline, Trump’s doltish antics ought not to cause us to be distracted from his awful reaction to the violence in Barcelona with an appeal to a patent and self-plagiarised falsehood.
Ironically, the public figure who just the day prior berated the press for speaking before they knew all the facts (unlike himself) related a crass story that he was already told was untrue. Instead of condolences and statements of solidarity, Trump offered that Europe should study Pershing, most likely—although restricted to one hundred and forty characters, one has to fill in the blanks sometimes, to the military commander’s nation-building exercise in the Philippines and his tough stance on terrorism with an apocryphal account of executing Islamic terrorist in a defiling manner and how the example set ended insurgency in the region. Who is feeding this troll?  Do not make this tragic moment and movement about you.  While this libellous, revisionist and frankly criminal fable is unlikely to do anything other than cause more inflammatory feelings, the injunction to study General “Black Jack” Pershing might be illuminating in terms of understanding what America’s foreign “policy” might become going forward with a return to imperial aspirations and what sort of messenging (through a restored Bannon) that might entail.