In my new “hometown” -
Lafayette library board president, LCG sued for stifling free speech over censorship [Acadiana Advocate]
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It’s good to know that one of our neighboring countries has a Constitution not primarily cited as a support for guns that ravage its country. What a core quality that we need andt they have:
“Giving your neighbour the middle finger may not be polite but is protected as part of a person’s right to freedom of expression under the Canadian constitution, a judge has ruled.
In a 26-page decision, Judge Dennis Galiatsatos of the French-speaking province of Quebec dismissed a case against a man accused of harassing his neighbour in a Montreal suburb.
“To be abundantly clear, it is not a crime to give someone the finger,” he said in a ruling dated 24 February.
“Flipping the proverbial bird is a God-given, charter-enshrined right that belongs to every red-blooded Canadian,” he added, referring to Canada’s charter of rights and freedoms.” [The Guardian]
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"I am reduced to a thing that wants Virginia."
-Vita Sackville-West
letter to Virginia Woolf
Milan [posted in Trieste], Thursday, 21 Jan 1926
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Recently in the news I have heard the term “bringing him to justice” way too many times. Is there any reasonable likelihood that Vladimir Putin will ever be arrested by anyone or any country outside of Russia in order to be “brought to justice”? How is it possible to bring a mass murderer to justice? What could be justice, anyway, for a sociopathic bully who kills 20,000 people? I suggest that everyone who talks about bringing someone to justice would be better off taking a deep breath and recognizing that there is no damn justice in any sense that means anything.
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Uh-h-h, well, let’s say this is *interesting*.
“Kroger, the supermarket giant in the midst of a proposed $25 billion merger with Albertsons, has hired Squire Patton Boggs and former Speaker John Boehner to help navigate the choppy waters of official Washington.
Boehner will provide Kroger with “strategic counsel,” but will not register to lobby. Two of Boehner’s former aides also at SPB – Tommy Andrews and David Schnittger – will lobby for Kroger, however. Kroger is based in Cincinnati and Andrews, Schnittger and Boehner are all Cincinnati natives.
Caren Street, the former chief of staff to former Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) – now the mayor of Los Angeles – will also lobby for Kroger.
Andrews, Schnittger and Street have deep relationships with members on both sides of the aisle.
Kroeger also has Smith-Free Group and Arnold & Porter as lobbyists.”
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We (Louisianans) are going to miss him when he is gone. Two-term Democratic Governor of my state made this determination about a tax exemption for a rich company in impoverished New Orleans. (By January 10th, 2024, the state will most likely have returned to awful Republican command. Its legislature has long been Republican, and our rankings amongst the states in many, many areas reflect that.)
“Gov. John Bel Edwards has rejected a state board’s decision to grant Folgers Coffee Co. millions in property tax exemptions, restoring the initial decisions local taxing authorities in New Orleans made.The governor’s rejection negates a decision by the Louisiana Board of Commerce and Industry earlier this month and could prompt a judge to lift a court injunction that is currently blocking a multi-million dollar property tax bill Folgers has so far avoided paying.” info@lailluminator.com
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This appears to be an act of … democracy:
“After several nights of major protests, Georgia’s ruling Georgian Dream party announced on Thursday that it has decided to withdraw its bill that would have required organizations receiving more than 20 percent of their funding from overseas to register with the government as “foreign agents.” [Foreign Exchanges]
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This headline accurately describes what Dick Fosbury, in 1968, did to the high jump … and to high jump records (in the olden days when I watched the Olympics). I remember this stunning event -
Dick Fosbury, whose ‘Fosbury Flop’ revolutionized high jump, dies at 76
“All his competitors — in fact, just about every high jumper in the world at that time — used various styles of leaping at the bar belly-down and then flicking up the trailing leg.
Mr. Fosbury literally turned his back on the sport. He attacked with a serpentine wriggle, flinging his shoulders and hips over the bar with his gaze skyward. His legs would then snap in unison to clear the bar.
By the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, every competitor had adopted the Fosbury Flop.” [WaPo]
The only equally revolutionary sports innovation I can think of was the invention of the forward pass in football, after ages of football being a run-or-drop-kick sport.