Wednesday Potpourri

First, vive la France!! Given the opportunity to show itself off to an international audience at the Olympic games, the great minds of France decided to open the ceremonies with a tableau vivant, representing a mockery of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper. In drag… if you will. Or even, if you won't.

No one missed the point. A parody of one of the most famous paintings in Western civilization, recounting one of the most important moments in the New Testament, fooled no one.

When the organizers-- shocked to the roots of their being-- stepped forth to explain that the tableau really depicted a Roman Bacchanalia, no one was fooled.

So, the organizers apologized for offending billions of people. Except that they did not apologize. They declared that they were sorry, not for what they had done, but if anyone had taken offense.

Such an apology is not an apology. 

When the organizers hid behind sanctimonious statements about their good intentions-- as though the road to Hell was paved with something else-- no one was fooled. 

The idiot organizer of the tableau declared that he was trying to celebrate French gastronomy. French gastronomy has seen better days. 

And, then they declared that the presentation was designed to celebrate diversity. You have to be kidding!

And the French nation managed to diminish itself. An unforced error, I would say. Compounded by a non-apology. A national embarrassment, for certain.

Second, everyone has said it, but it is still worth repeating. If the opening tableau had made a mockery of Islam, the fires would still be burning.

Third, for some reason the Kamala cheerleading squad has ignored the fact that she is impossible to work for.

The Daily Mail has the story:

For, behind the recent public self-branding of Harris as a kindly, jovial 'Momala', she has earned a nasty reputation as an alleged 'soul-destroying' workplace 'bully'.

Only four of the initial 71 staffers hired by Harris during her first year in office still remain in a job. The rest either quit or were fired, according to analysis by non-partisan watchdog Open The Books.

Fourth, and then there is the poignant case of New Yorker writer, Emily Witt.

The story appeared in The Daily Mail recently. It dates to 2020.

At the time of the George Floyd riots, Witt persuaded her live-in boyfriend, here named Andrew, to attend a demonstration in the Bronx. 

Witt had a press pass. Andrew did not. Witt showed her press pass. Andrew did not. He was arrested and spent the night in lockup at Queens Central Booking. It ended their relationship.

As Witt put it:

I relive this moment. I think I will forever. You can ruin your own life in an instant by not paying attention.

Dare we say, she did not ruin her life. She sabotaged their relationship. Andrew never forgave her for making him attend the protest. It had nothing to do with paying attention, but the point is that she wanted her boyfriend to perform a political act, and he tried to do as she said. 

She continued to recount his experience:

I understood then that he was angry with me. He had a broken finger, a scratched eye, and a bloody nose, and had been forced to sit in police custody with pepper spray burning his face for sixteen hours. It was my fault: I had made him go, and I was unscathed. 

We do not need to belabor the details of the breakup. Obviously, he held her to be accountable. It was probably not a good idea to drag her boyfriend to a mostly peaceful protest.

Fourth, Kamala has taken charge of administration Middle East policy. How has that been going.

Of late, a dozen or so Druse children were murdered in Northern Israel by a Hezbollah missile last week. 

Obviously, Israel was going to retaliate. It did so yesterday by eliminating the second in command of Hezbollah, in Beirut. His name was: Fuad Shukr Abu Mohsen.

As it happened, there was a $5,000,000 bounty on his head, the result of his role in the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing. Now we will see whether Israel will receive the reward.

Apparently, the Kamala foreign policy team had been trying to persuade the Israelis not to attack.

Fifth, in the meantime, Israel also eliminated the political leader of Hamas, in his home in Tehran. His name, Ismail Haniyeh. 

When Donald Trump left the White House, the Abraham Accords had brought a measure of peace to the region. Now, Israel is involved in a war on five fronts, and Kamala wants to be president. 

Of course, the media is all up in arms telling the Israelis not to escalate the conflict. To which Brandon O’Neill at Spiked! replies that the media only calls it escalation when Israel acts.

The Kamala policy makes clear that Israel is on its own. The results are none too pretty.

Sixth, meanwhile back in France, at the Olympic games, the organizers have decided to allow a male to compete in the women’s boxing competition. Transmania has come to the Olympics and it is now accetable to punch out women.

To which Riley Gaines commented:

As if the Satanic display at the opening ceremony wasn't enough, the Olympics glorifies men punching women in the face with the intent of knocking them unconscious.

But, we are opposed to violence against women-- aren’t we?

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