…it’s me, isn’t it? …must be…just because I don’t know what time of day it is & have a slightly tenuous grasp of what day it is & all doesn’t quite seem enough to explain the whiplash of trying to get back up to speed with what the everloving fuck the headlines say is up, though

College protests. A Trump trial. Raging wars. Is everything “on fire”? [WaPo]

…I mean…in between trying to keep track of when they managed to find the 4th zebra…which, frankly, is the sort of news digest that would be wildly more digestible were it the baseline rather than at best the mean of the pickings at the media buffet…I swear I’d seen a drip-feed of stuff about talks & the military equivalent of a cease & desist…even if only temporary…but

The Israeli military said late on Monday it was conducting targeted strikes against Hamas in Rafah. There were reports of Israeli tanks being seen on the eastern outskirts of Rafah and the Axios news site‚ cited unnamed sources saying Israeli forces planned to take over the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing, the sole gateway between Egypt and Gaza for humanitarian supplies and people.

There was no independent confirmation of those reports, but the Associated Press quoted an Palestinian security official and an Egyptian official as say Israeli tanks had advanced as close as 200 meters from the crossing. The Rafah gate is a vital aid lifeline and particularly sensitive for Egypt, which is anxious to avoid a mass migration of Palestinians into its Sinai desert.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/06/gaza-ceasefire-hangs-in-balance-as-israel-carries-out-night-airstrikes-on-rafah

…& by the time I pasted that it was basically out of date since the BBC has it that they’ve seized the crossing…along with a chap with a very dry & distinctly american tone saying in so many words that an israeli government that continues to include a handful of specific individuals is somewhere between unsustainable & an immovable obstacle to any form of any semblance of anything by way of a peaceful solution

Israel is coming under huge diplomatic pressure to accept a three-stage ceasefire surprisingly agreed by Hamas, despite the apparent determination of its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to continue with a planned offensive in Rafah.

Netanyahu’s office said that the proposal Hamas accepted was “far from Israel’s essential demands” but that it would nonetheless send negotiators to continue talks on a deal.

At the same time, the Israeli military said it was conducting “targeted strikes” against Hamas in eastern Rafah.

…but…nah…gotta be the part where body & soul aren’t aligned on the question of which timezone my personal space might be occupying that has me twisted…can’t be the folks who get paid to stop us from getting it twisted

Police let violent mobs attack UCLA students. This is what lawlessness looks like [Guardian]

…I mean…yeah…but also…maybe the “looks like” is doing a lot of work, there…&…what with the somewhat glaring panoply of case studies in acting like the rule of law ain’t no thang currently on offer…that part might be…I dunno…pivotal or some shit…maybe once my head stops spinning I’ll get it straight…undeniably confusing, though…got me thinking about those straight-line curves that you can fill sheets of graph paper with if you’re a kid of a certain age & have access to a functionally endless supply of the stuff…& a ruler, usually…which if you’re just a little bit older than that kid might even qualify as ironic…on account of it’s not untrue…but…damn if it don’t seem like a rope where most of the strands are…woven into a noose that seems to be choking the lives out of thousands of people who, by & large, give every appearance of being more sinned against than sinning

The already strong calls for Israel not to go ahead with a full-scale offensive on Rafah, in southern Gaza, are also likely to be redoubled with the US Department of State saying no credible plans for such military action had been shown to US officials as Israel ordered 100,000 people to evacuate the east of the city.

Matthew Miller, the US state department spokesperson, said Washington would discuss the Hamas response with its allies in the coming hours, and a deal was “absolutely achievable”.

…except…instead of achieving it bibi & his whack-job pals…well…if war is the continuation of politics by other means then I guess they (& indeed russia & china, after their own fashion) are really leaning into the part where you pretend that an answer to the question you’d rather you’d been asked counts as a legitimate response to one that demands one you’re not prepared to consider politically expedient…in an explicitly lethal fashion that…well…would seem to have been premeditated enough to have been fairly explicitly defined

Forcibly displacing Rafah civilians would be war crime, France warns Israel [Guardian]

…do we really have to go through the motions to prove empirically that rendering the gaza strip uninhabitable is functionally equivalent to something undeniably tantamount to the way we define the term genocide?

…only I’d just as soon skip the whole miserable exercise, given the opportunity…which is sort of what it feels like israel had & chose instead to interpret as the middle step of a hop, skip & jump with a run up…so…while I’m trying to get a handle on the point scoring about the shape & position of the mark it left in a sandbox or two I’d be forced to admit that the parts I get at least an option on ignoring are pretty much the definition of unendurable…at some point whether it’s a bomb or an illness or a bullet or exposure or starvation or being otherwise obliterated amongst the rubble of what used to be a place people lived…stops being a thing you’re enduring…at which point it really does all come to much the same thing…depending…I suppose…on whether there is indeed a god…or even god(s)…& whether he, she, they or their holy ghost is any better at the “sort it out” part than we seem to collectively be

The diplomatic turnaround was dramatic given that on Sunday it appeared as if the indirect talks conducted in Egypt had collapsed largely due to a Hamas demand that the ceasefire would become permanent and not confined to three stages – each lasting 42 days that would end when all the Israeli hostages were released.

Hamas was also seeking a guarantee, ideally from the US, Russia, China and Turkey, that Israel would end the attack on Gaza permanently, even if the Islamist group was not prepared to state as much.
[…]
Qatar strove on Monday to keep the talks alive, with the help of the CIA director, William Burns, who had flown from Cairo to Doha to speak to the Hamas delegation. Just as it appeared as if the talks had been suspended permanently, the political leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, suddenly informed Qatar’s mediators it was prepared to accept a ceasefire, knocking the ball back into Netanyahu’s court.

The Hamas negotiators also said they would be travelling from Doha to Cairo on Tuesday to finalise the agreement.

An Israeli official quoted by the Reuters news agency dismissed the move, describing the proposal that Hamas had accepted as a “softened” version of an Egyptian proposal, which included “far-reaching” conclusions that Israel could not accept.

“This would appear to be a ruse intended to make Israel look like the side refusing a deal”, said the Israeli official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

But other officials who spoke later said while it was “not the framework Israel proposed” it was being examined as it formulated a formal response.

Israel’s options may, however, be narrowing as the west led by the US insisted that an attack on Rafah was not achievable without unacceptable loss of life and long-term damage to Israel’s relations with western and Gulf states.

…sure as shit reads like the far-reaching conclusion it seems easy to grasp they couldn’t see their way around to accepting was that if they stopped wholesale expunging a population from a territory they didn’t get to start in on that again once they’d caught their prevaricated second wind

The Jordanian foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, said the international community would be left with an “indelible stain” if it allowed Israel’s threatened attack on Rafah to go ahead. “Another massacre of the Palestinians is in the making”, he said. “Israel is warning Palestinians to leave Rafah as it threatens an attack. All must act now to prevent it. Failure to prevent the massacre will be an indelible stain on the international community. Too many massacres have been allowed. Enough.”

Egypt, which like Jordan has a peace deal with Israel, called on Israel to “exercise the utmost restraint and avoid further escalation at this extremely sensitive time in the process of ceasefire negotiations, and to spare the blood of Palestinian civilians who have been exposed to an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe since the start of the war on the Gaza Strip.”

…but egypt, apparently…can fucking do one & if it’s going to say that sort of shit then they’ll be having that border crossing, too…what’cha gonna do about it?

Saudi Arabia also warned of the dangers of an attack on Rafah “in the light of the lack of safe zones after the massive destruction caused by the Israeli war machine”.

European diplomats had seemed unwilling to accept claims that the evacuation order was simply a limited operation to move some displaced Palestinians and so force Hamas to accept the terms Israel was offering on a ceasefire and hostage deal. The EU foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, said on Monday: “Israel’s evacuation orders to civilians in Rafah portend the worst: more war and famine.”

US diplomats including the US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, have reiterated that Washington could not support an Israeli attack on Rafah without seeing credible plans to protect the civilian population.

It remains to be seen whether the US would be willing to ban arms exports to Israel as an ultimate deterrent. Netanyahu has said he is willing to see Israel isolated internationally in its attempt to secure a final victory against Hamas.

Israel under huge pressure to accept three-stage ceasefire agreed by Hamas [Guardian]

…so I don’t mean to sound glib about it…but…my heart goes out to the people who don’t get the option to exercise the luxury of not giving the starkly unlivable bits of that headspace…but…the needle I’m looking to thread is one where the curve of the horizon implies a possibility of my trajectory not being a tailspin spiraling into an inevitable face-plant so I can pretend to be a card-carrying grown up between now & bed-time…preferably without succumbing to tears on a scale to make dehydration into a first-world problem…so…to push it safely into the abstractions

Over the weekend, New York Police Chief of Patrol John Chell took to social media to offer thoughts on the college campus protests that his department had a role in disrupting a few days before.

“Who is funding this? What is happening? There is an unknown entity who is radicalizing our vulnerable students,” he  wrote over a photo of university encampments. “Taking advantage of their young minds. As parents and Americans we must demand some answers! I can’t speak for the rest of America, but in NYC we won’t rest until we find out!”

Why is the simplest explanation of campus protests so hard to accept? [WaPo]

…funny thing, though…while I sit & spin on the windmills of my mind…one of the things that keeps hoving into view

Campuses are wrestling with the politics of war. So are we. [WaPo]

…is doing a great job of looking like something familiar…& not the part where “follow the money” is easier said than done…the other thing?

The Columbia Protests Made the Same Mistake the Civil Rights Movement Did [NYT]

…I don’t know the exact numbers…but it seems like on a statistical basis the part where shit that seems like it ought to be a no-brainer is serially avoided by “virtue” of the minority that inevitably motor-mouth their way right over those parts like a steamroller wrapped in sandpaper…is tending pretty close to a perfect 1 on the correlative index

I’ve read student protesters’ manifestos. This is ugly stuff. Clueless, too. [WaPo]

…students…manifestos…clueless…not exactly a stretch that there’s always a few that take it too far before they figure out that it’s hard to both escalate in kind & hold firm on your moral high ground…but…not all trees murder all the undergrowth in their vicinity…some do…& they’re all still trees, last I heard…come to that…some fall over easier than others

Trump’s “plan” for Ukraine is even more preposterous than Nixon’s for Vietnam [WaPo]

…whereas vlad’s being sitting…none-too-pretty but probably shirtless…at the top of his dog-pile for one shy of the quarter century as of [checks notes] today…when they have another of those coronation-by-another-name things to polish his ego & tell the world it’s a halo, really…well…except for the people whose invite to the press conference got lost in the post…or turn up uninvited & try to keep their attendance on the down-low

Improper “shadow” ads thriving on Facebook during India’s election [Guardian]

…& they aren’t shy of international company, either

Israeli Cabinet Votes to Shut Down Al Jazeera’s Operations in the Country [NYT]

An Italian union has called for political parties to be “eliminated from Rai” as journalists with the public broadcaster went on strike in protest against the “suffocating control” allegedly being wielded by Giorgia Meloni‘s rightwing government over their work.

The ruling coalition has been accused of influencing programming, including censoring themes that are not in tune with its rightwing stance.

The strike on Monday came amid a growing debate in Italy about political influence in the media after Rai was accused of censoring an antifascism monologue that was due to be read on one of its TV talkshows by the high-profile author Antonio Scurati.

“This strike is in response to industrial themes … but also there is an aspect linked to the independence and autonomy of journalists,” Daniele Macheda, the president of Usigrai, the main union representing Rai journalists, told reporters in Rome. “Things have happened in Italy, also recently, that do not give us much hope in [the way] things are going.”

Since 2005, the majority of Rai’s board has been chosen by politicians and its main shareholder, the economy ministry, as part of a law that was reinforced by Matteo Renzi’s centre-left government in 2015.

“We have always said that the presence of political parties in Rai needs to be eliminated,” said Macheda. “We went from 2005 to 2015, when Renzi’s law placed control of Rai in the direct hands of the government.”

While political influence and game-playing has always been an issue at Rai, concerns have intensified since the coalition government led by Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, which has neofascist origins, took power in October 2022. Usigrai last month accused the ruling majority of seeking to transform the network into its “megaphone”.

Rai on Monday accused Usigrai of “striking for ideological and political motivations, nothing that concerns labour rights.”

…don’t let the interrogation of ideological & political motivations being part of the job description get you turned around…or you’ll be stuck with me getting it backwards

Scurati is well known in Italy for his books about the dictator Benito Mussolini and the fascist period. His speech referenced Giacomo Matteotti, a political opponent of Mussolini who was murdered by fascist hitmen in 1924, and other massacres committed by the regime. It also contained a paragraph criticising Italy’s “post-fascist” leaders for not “repudiating their neo-fascist past”.

…any which way you stack it up

Journalists from AGI, Italy’s second-largest press agency, have held several strikes in recent months in protest against the company’s potential sale to Antonio Angelucci, a parliamentarian with the far-right League, a member of Meloni’s government.

“Italy has entered the problem zone and now we are in the company of [Viktor] Orban’s Hungary,” said Vittorio Di Trapani, the president of FNSI, the national federation of the Italian press and journalists’ union, alluding to the tight grip the Hungarian prime minister’s government has on domestic media.

“For this reason I thank Usigrai for today’s strike, it is an act of courage.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/06/italy-rai-journalists-strike-giorgia-meloni-government

…one man’s red line is another’s red flag is another’s red badge…same old, same old…tale as old as time…or just as tall?

In the three decades since I became a lawyer, human rights – once understood as an uncomplicated good, a tool for securing dignity for the vulnerable against abuses by the powerful – have increasingly come under assault. Perhaps never more so than in the current moment: we are constantly talking about human rights, but often in a highly sceptical way. When Liz Truss loudly proclaims “We’ve got to leave the ECHR, abolish the supreme court and abolish the Human Rights Act,” she’s not the fringe voice she might have been in the 1990s. She represents a dangerous current of opinion, as prevalent on parts of the radical left as on the populist right of politics. It seems to be gaining momentum.

As an idealistic youngster, I would have been shocked to know that in 2024 it would be necessary to return to the back-to-basics case, to justify the need for fundamental rights and freedoms. But in a world where facts are made fluid, what were once thought of as core values have become hard to distill and defend. In an atmosphere of intense polarisation, human rights are trashed along all parts of the political spectrum – either as a framework to protect markets, or as a form of undercover socialism. What stands out for me is that the most trenchant critics share a profound nationalism. Nationalists believe that universal human rights – the clue’s in the name – undermine the ability of states to agitate for their narrower interests.

…the tangents will probably line up to curve back to this when I talk my way back around to it

…can’t honestly say I don’t see the appeal of agreeing to agree on the broad strokes…seems like it might be an improvement over constantly tripping up on the fine details like which kind of knot we use to tie our shoelaces together before we get to steppin’…but that’d be a minority opinion

Young Americans’ outrage over the Israel-Hamas war has dominated the political conversation for weeks. Democratic and Republican lawmakers have made pilgrimages to Columbia University and other campuses to offer support to demonstrations in solidarity with Gaza or to denounce them, and President Biden addressed the upheavals in remarks on Thursday.

But these headlines are not reflective of young voters’ top concerns this election year, according to recent polls. Surveys taken in recent months show young voters are more likely to sympathize with Palestinians in the conflict, but few of them rank the Israel-Hamas war among their top issues in the 2024 election. Like other voters, young people often put economic concerns at the top the list.

…the youth…they’re just like us…only…younger…& in select cases arguably less cynical?

“When you have two presidents that have the same stance on one issue, that automatically puts that issue – I hate to say lower down the list, because it’s obviously an important issue, but it doesn’t make it an issue where I’m going to choose Donald Trump over Joe Biden,” said Devon Schwartz, a student at the University of Texas at Austin.

Young voters are far more likely than other Americans to support Palestinians. But few cite the conflict as a top source of discontent with the president. [NYT]

…something, something…prevailing winds

…matters of life &/or death

Donald Trump once called Bill Barr, his former attorney general, “Weak, Slow Moving, Lethargic, Gutless, and Lazy.” When Mr. Barr recently endorsed Mr. Trump, rather than express gratitude or graciousness, the former president said, “Based on the fact that I greatly appreciate his wholehearted Endorsement, I am removing the word “Lethargic” from my statement. Thank you Bill. MAGA2024!”

This is the sort of thing Mr. Trump is known for, even with people who came around and bent the knee. It is a critical part of his politics – and it’s an area that pollsters aren’t fully measuring and Democratic strategists rarely take into consideration.

Politics is a dominance competition, and Mr. Trump is an avid and ruthless practitioner of it. He offers a striking contrast with most Democrats, who are more likely to fret over focus-group data and issue ever more solemn pledges to control prescription drug prices.

What these Democrats seem to have forgotten is that they have their own liberal tradition of dominance politics – and if they embrace it, they would improve their chances of defeating Trumpism. But unlike Mr. Trump, whose lies and conduct after the 2020 election were damaging to democracy, leaders like Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. exerted dominance in liberal ways and to prodemocratic ends. They obeyed the law, told the truth, and honored liberal values.

…didn’t we do this part already?

The Deep, Tangled Roots of American Illiberalism [NYT]

…fucking figments fucking it up for fucking everybody…fucking inevitably or some fucking nonsense

Psychologists have noted the effectiveness of dominance in elections and governing. My recent research also finds that what I call Mr. Trump’s “high-dominance strategy” is far and away his most formidable asset.

High-dominance leaders shape reality. They embrace conflict, chafe at playing defense and exhibit self-assurance even in pursuit of unpopular goals. By contrast, low-dominance leaders accept reality as it is and shun conflict. They tell people what they think they want to hear and prefer mollification to confrontation.

…I mean…anecdata & all…but I went to a zoo the other day…& if I could replicate the effect of going from lying there with my eyes open & a look that says “don’t make have to get up & come over there” to rolling over and resting my chin on my fist as I pointedly stare at misbehavior has…when you’re an actual gorilla

…I think I could develop an addiction

…but I don’t think that’s quite the tree this one’s barking up

Today’s Republicans are all about dominance. They embrace us-versus-them framing, double down on controversial statements and take risks. Today’s Democrats often recoil from “othering” opponents and back down after ruffling feathers. They have grown obsessively risk-averse, poll-driven, allergic to engaging on hot-button issues (except perhaps abortion) – and more than a little boring.

Polling even dictates whether Democrats proclaim their own good news. Republicans never quit crowing about the economy on their watch. Democrats tend to fear doing so unless surveys show that everyone is already feeling the benefits. So in defiance of much of the evidence, voters think Mr. Trump’s economy was better than Barack Obama’s and Mr. Biden’s.

Politicians’ language reflects their dominance orientations. Mr. Trump uses entertaining and provocative parlance and calls opponents – and even allies – weak, gutless and pathetic. Still, neuroscientists monitoring listeners’ brain activity while they watched televised debates found that audiences – not just Mr. Trump’s followers – delighted in the belittling nicknames he uses for his opponents. His boldness and provocations held audience attention at a much higher level than his opponents’ play-it-safe recitations of their policy stances and résumés.

Mr. Trump is also often crude and regularly injects falsehoods into his comments. But these are not in and of themselves signs of dominance; it’s just that the Democrats’ inability to effectively respond makes them appear weak by comparison.

…it’s…well, I’m trying not to find it demoralizing despite all the moralizing going on left, right & center

A reputation for weakness may be a singularly damaging liability. In a 2016 exit poll, more than twice as many voters said they wanted a “strong leader” than one who “shares my values” or “cares about people like me.” In another poll, Mr. Trump was regarded as the “stronger leader.”

The American National Elections Studies has polled voters on presidential candidates’ traits since the 1980s, and the candidate who rated higher on “strong leadership” has never lost. The one who more people agree “really cares about people like you” loses about half the time.

…uh huh…”strong leader”≠”cares about people”…math checks out

High-dominance messaging necessitates unfailingly asserting your side’s moral superiority.

…no shit, sherlock

On the eve of his first re-election, Roosevelt thundered: “I should like to have it said of my first administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second administration that in it these forces met their master.” Kennedy hammered home that the Republicans’ limp social welfare policies and tepid approach to civil rights failed to show the world what America was made of, and he never hesitated to aggressively trumpet triumphs.

Johnson mixed bigot-busting rhetoric with ferocious arm-twisting to muscle voting rights, colorblind immigration policy and Medicare into law. He did enjoy Democratic congressional majorities, but he also faced the necessity of bringing around the segregationist wing of his party, and his high-dominance style was key to his legislative victories.

Few were less solicitous of prevailing opinion than King. With reference to the 1964 Republican presidential nominee, Barry Goldwater, King said that he could “go halfway with Brother Goldwater” on the idea that legislation couldn’t solve racism. With tongue planted firmly in cheek, he then smoothly eviscerated Goldwater’s stance: “It may be true that the law can’t make a man love me, but it can restrain him from lynching me.” King’s reference to “Brother Goldwater”, who opposed all manner of civil rights legislation, bore no hint of sarcasm. But he also knew that he was owning his opponent by wielding what he always called “the weapon of love” and using language that expressed self-assurance and faith in the nation to establish moral superiority.

…a king among men & all that…even if one of the junior persuasion

Mr. Biden’s Republican-owning 2024 State of the Union address and the briny language he uses to describe Mr. Trump in private delighted the Democrats – and won rare kudos from Republican strategists. But these are just flashes of dominance – and flashes aren’t nearly enough.

A dominance advantage is no guarantee of victory, as Mr. Trump’s 2020 loss to Mr. Biden showed. What’s more, Mr. Trump may sometimes pay a price for his extreme dominance style, whether it’s by turning off some voters or incurring the wrath of impatient judges in his seemingly endless court cases.

Trump Knows Dominance Wins. Someone Tell Democrats. [NYT]

…owning rules…or something…depending on whether the rules you own include one that thinks that phrasal clause needs to invoke some variant on the oxford comma…or…as they sometimes like to chant on the terraces whether “you’re not singing any more“…which is probably no bad thing when the choir being preached to is notoriously tin-eared?

It appears increasingly possible that Donald Trump could face actual jail time before we ever get a verdict in any of his four criminal trials.

Jail would be a fraught outcome that few seem to truly desire – and might never happen for a host of reasons – but it’s time to ask whether the American people are prepared for a former president behind bars.

How would Americans react to Trump in jail? [WaPo]

…but…when the saints come marching in…I won’t have the right paperwork to be of that number…so it’s most likely by the by how I’d react…despite the british-by-birth bit I’m not one for tea…& popcorn’s not my cup of tea, either…but…metaphorically speaking all bets are off

Explaining Trump’s 10 gag order violations in New York [WaPo]

The Boring Documents That May Be Devastating to Trump [NYT]

This obscure N.Y. election law is at the heart of Trump’s hush money trial [WaPo]

…but…damn…I take my eye off the watched pot for a hot minute & all kinds of frothing nonsense boils over, apparently

Trump threatens to prosecute Bidens if he’s re-elected unless he gets immunity [Guardian]

…still haven’t found the time for the however-many-pages time gave it…but…if someone could maybe draw me a picture of how exactly the fuck that part isn’t of the order of

…believe it or not…right to jail?

…anyway…before I get to telling on myself

What your favorite music says about you – and your politics [WaPo]

…I guess this means I’m back from the back of beyond & already on my back foot…so probably not putting my best foot forward finding out how the hell you lot are…sorry about that…anyway…to get back to that thing I thought I’d wind up circling back to tangentially…eventually?

Our shrinking, burning planet is the ultimate reason why nationalism does not work in the interests of humankind. Today’s global empires, sailing under logos rather than flags, need to be more directly accountable under human rights treaties. Our existing mechanisms, whether local and national governments, domestic and international courts, or some of the more notoriously tortuous UN institutions, may be imperfect and in need of reform. Yet, like all structures of civilisation, they are easier to casually denigrate than to invest in and adapt to be more effective.

While I have been writing this, I have been voting in the House of Lords on amendments to the so-called safety of Rwanda bill. It is the most regressive anti-human rights measure of recent times, and intended to be that way. It will not stop the boats of desperate people fleeing persecution, but is designed to stop the courts. British judges will be prevented from ensuring refugees’ fair treatment before they are rendered human freight and transported to a place about whose “safety” our supreme court was not satisfied. Rishi Sunak will be able to use this situation as excuse for an election pledge to repudiate the European convention on human rights.

If he gets his way, rights will be removed not just from those arriving by boat, but from every man, woman and child in the UK. By contrast, the golden thread of human rights is equal treatment: protecting others as we would wish to be protected ourselves, if that unhappy day ever came. It’s a thread we must never let go of.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/may/06/the-big-idea-why-we-need-human-rights-now-more-than-ever

…the particular upper case Lady from the upper chamber (aka “the other place”) that penned that one would be this one

Shami Chakrabarti is a lawyer and Labour member of the House of Lords. She is the author of Human Rights: The Case for the Defence

…two might not be enough, though…what with how…if I’m honest…the whole mess does bear more than a passing resemblance to a profitable rap beef?

Kendrick Lamar vs. Drake Beef Goes Nuclear: What to Know [NYT]

…micro/macro & all

In the Battle of Drake vs. Kendrick Lamar, A.I. Is Playing Spoiler [NYT]

…& time may be a flat circle but if you click through to NBC the different strands of beef get highlighted depending on who you hover over

…still…if I remember my gold-rush lore right…you make more money selling shovels than shoveling shit?

…so…I’ll try not to read too much into this shit

A Chinese Restaurant Is Winning the Kendrick Lamar-Drake Beef [NYT]

…it was a shitty metaphor anyway…& I’m no rap god

…anyway…if I pull out of the fire in the booth rabbit hole my youtube algorithm just pitched itself down headlong I’ll maybe make it back here with something to show for it…but…on the other hand the day might sail away on me like the half hour it’s been since this wasn’t due up, already

…how are tricks with you lot?