Elon Musk is an idiot
I have disliked this guy for a very long time, and am really hoping that his Twitter take-over, which is imitating the movie trope of the space-station-with-decaying-orbit, sees that all the way through to the end (Twitter, where I have never had an account, "punches in" and is obliterated). It is useful and educational for the public to see how stupid a genius is with 200 million dollars. He bought the thing and immediately fired half the work staff, without making any announcement or appearance trying to establish a community or Narrative- then realized he needed some of the people he lost, and tried to get them back. He presented himself as a free speech "absolutist", then blamed Twitter's loss of revenue on dissidents. He banned people impersonating anyone, then established a paid account where people were easily able to impersonate anyone they wanted, and received the vaunted blue check market, for the mere payment of $8. He obviously has absolutely no clue what he is doing, and he deserves to cause the implosion of the whole thing, which was already an egregious Troll Palace.
Ectopic pregnancies
I never knew what one was, until a law school friend almost died. The fetus attaches to an organ outside the womb, eventually causing a rupture and an immense loss of blood. There is no way to transfer such a fetus to the womb, or to save it, and there has never been a single human being born from an ectopic pregnancy. Withholding abortion from women with ectopic pregnancies will kill them. The fact that the batshit right does not know this, or refuses to believe it, or does not care, makes absolutely clear that "pro-life" forces are not about the compassionate protection of mothers or babies, but are actually, undeniably, proveably, crazy and cruel.
De Santis' Martha's Vineyard prank
In the midst of so much madness, the world has almost already forgotten the immigrants the Florida governor flew from Texas to Martha's Vineyard as a pure electioneering prank, treating people who already had huge problems as tools, the butt of a joke he was launching against a perceived elitist (and significantly African American) community. In a better world, such an act of bigotry and cruelty would end a political career, not make one.
I do have hopes for De Santis, that he and Donald Trump will fight to the last drop of blood in 2024, allowing a Democrat to perform a victory walk over their still thrashing bodies.
Living in the world they made
Now that the Batshit are rushing in Texas and other places to make sure that semi-automatic weapons or concealed handguns can be freely carried into state houses and churches, I have stopped feeling shock at each individual incident, and am instead focusing on the thought that these proponents will have to live the rest of their lives in the world they have created.
Characters with real peoples' names
A lot has been said about Blonde, the Marilyn Monroe purported bio. I will confine myself to one lesser-stated point: two supporting characters have the names of real Hollywood people, the sons of Edward G. Robinson and Charles Chaplin respectively. They engage in a threesome with Marilyn and later blackmail her. None of this actually happened. Our law says you can't libel the dead, which is probably the right outcome. But it is still grossly unethical to drag the names of real people in to portray them falsely as evil or dishonorable, when many viewers will believe the account. In a film taking liberties (as almost every Hollywood film movie based on real events does; the 1965 Battle of the Bulge has little to do with the real battle) it would have been an easy matter to call these characters Warren Robideaux and Spencer Meyerowitz. Why call them by the names of real people? Its almost inexplicable, except to add a little extra frisson of authenticity to a false story.