Nicki Nicole & Lunay - No Toque Mi Naik

Coronavirus Art - Pontefract, England

Miami Couple Using Their Wacky School to Spread Dangerous Anti-Vax Propaganda

A Miami school is discouraging teachers from getting the Covid vaccine, saying any vaccinated employees will be barred from interacting with students.  The privately-run Centner Academy is citing debunked claims of non-vaccinated people being "negatively impacted" by contact with vaccinated people.  There is no evidence for such a wacked-out theory.

Centner Academy is run by Leila Centner, who left her day job after a trip to India to establish the academy as the first "Happiness School" in the United States.  Centner wanted to create a school that would suit kids and their well being.

During her trip to India, Center discovered the science of happiness, and found guidance for the opening of the academy from Tal Ben Shahar, who co-founded an organization called The Happiness Studies Academy.  Centner Academy focuses on the five aspects of well-being. Students meditate and have "mindness" coaches.  Annual tuition begins at $15,160 for preschool students and goes up to nearly $30,000 for middle school students.

Centner informed parents that, when possible, the academy's policy is to not employ anyone who has received a Covid-19 vaccine.   In a letter last week to staff, Centner also ordered teachers to notify the school if they had already received the jab.  "We cannot allow recently vaccinated people to be near our students until more information is known," Centner wrote.  Teachers who wait to get vaccinated after the school year ends will be allowed to return only when clinical trials on the vaccine are completed, assuming a position at the school is still available.

Centner is spreading false stories about vaccinated individuals affecting unvaccinated people, claiming that three women in the school's community had their menstrual cycles "impacted after having spent time with a vaccinated person".  There is absolutely no scientific evidence for any of these claims. None of the approved coronavirus vaccines have been linked to infertility, miscarriages or any other negative changes to women's reproductive health.

Leila and her husband David Centner have described themselves as "health freedom advocates", and have actively encouraged parents at the Centner Academy to file for exemptions from vaccine requirements.  Leila Centner has also frequently shared anti-vaccine content on Facebook.

A representative for Leila Centner said that the school was not "100 percent sure that Covid injections are safe and there are too many unknown variables for us to feel comfortable at this current time".

The United Teachers of Dade, a local not-for-profit teachers group, said in a statement: "We are horrified by the unsafe conditions and labor violations that [teachers] at schools such as this one have to endure due to lack of union representation and contract rights."

 

The Reality We Live In

British Press Called Out on Tolerance of Prince Philip's Racism and Ignorance

Following Prince Philip's funeral, the UK's Sunday Times' remembered the royal as "an often crotchety figure, offending people with gaffes about slitty eyes, even if secretly we rather enjoyed them." 

Actress Gemma Chan called the paper out, saying, "The fact that this was written by a journalist who should know better, approved by editors and sent to print.  To trivialize casual racism in the most widely read Sunday broadsheet at a point when the Asian diaspora is experiencing a surge of attacks is deeply irresponsible."

The controversial article was published amid a recent wave of attacks against Asian Americans, including three March shootings at Atlanta-area spas that killed eight people, most of them women of Asian descent.

Stop AAPI Hate, a group that tracks acts of discrimination and xenophobia against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, found nearly 3,800 incidents of hate, discrimination or attacks on Asian Americans from March 2020 through February 2021.

Despite the overly-generous tributes in British media, Prince Philip will more infamously be remembered as the most casually racist and ignorant member of the British royal family, long espousing vaguely colonialist attitudes.  He was long tolerated as an insensitive jerk, due to the many offensive and derogatory remarks he made to the members of the public and officials from foreign countries.  

One of his most notorious jokes came around 30 years ago, when he is alleged to have told the German media: “In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, to contribute something to solving overpopulation.”

"Ghastly," was Prince Philip's assessment of Beijing, during a 1986 tour of China.  On the same visit, he later told 21-year-old British student Simon Kerby, "If you stay here much longer, you will go home with slitty eyes."

"Deaf? If you're near there, no wonder you are deaf." Philip once said to a group of deaf children standing near a Caribbean steel drum band in 2000.

"You managed not to get eaten then?" he asked a British student who had trekked in Papua New Guinea, during an official visit in 1998.

In 1993, he asked a British tourist during a tour of Budapest, "You can't have been here that long – you haven't got a pot belly."

"How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test?" he asked of a Scottish driving instructor in 1995.

"It looks as though it was put in by an Indian." The Prince's assessment of a fuse box during a tour of a Scottish factory in August 1999.

In 1993, Philip told a group of  survivors of the Lockerbie Pan-Am disaster, "People usually say that after a fire it is water damage that is the worst. We are still drying out Windsor Castle."

"We don't come here for our health. We can think of other ways of enjoying ourselves." he said during a trip to Canada in 1976.

Philip shared his insight into the recession that gripped Britain in 1981:  "A few years ago, everybody was saying we must have more leisure, everyone's working too much. Now that everybody's got more leisure time they are complaining they are unemployed. People don't seem to make up their minds what they want."

"British women can't cook," Philip said in 1961, winning the hearts of the Scottish Women's Institute.

On the issue of stress counseling for servicemen in a TV documentary marking the 50th Anniversary of V-J Day in 1995:  "It was part of the fortunes of war. We didn't have counselors rushing around every time somebody let off a gun, asking 'Are you all right - are you sure you don't have a ghastly problem?' You just got on with it!"

"It's a vast waste of space." Philip entertained guests in 2000 at the reception of a new £18m British Embassy in Berlin, which the Queen had just opened.

"There's a lot of your family in tonight." After glancing at business chief Atul Patel's name badge during a 2009 Buckingham Palace reception for 400 influential British Indians to meet the Royal couple (Patel is a common name in India).

"If it has four legs and it is not a chair, if it has got two wings and it flies but is not an aeroplane and if it swims and it is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it," Philip said to a World Wildlife Fund meeting in 1986.

To a woman in Kenya in 1984, after accepting a gift: "You ARE a woman, aren't you?"

"Do you know they have eating dogs for the anorexic now?"  Philip lamely joked to a wheelchair-bound Susan Edwards, and her guide dog Natalie in 2002.

In an interview shortly after the Dunblane shootings in 1996, Philip callously commented: "If a cricketer, for instance, suddenly decided to go into a school and batter a lot of people to death with a cricket bat, which he could do very easily, I mean, are you going to ban cricket bats?" 

At the opening of London's City Hall in 2002: "The problem with London is the tourists. They cause the congestion. If we could just stop the tourism, we could stop the congestion." .

"You must be out of your minds." Philip said to Solomon Islanders in 1982, on being told that their population growth was 5 per cent a year.

"Your country is one of the most notorious centers of trading in endangered species," He told the crowd upon accepting a conservation award in Thailand in 1991.

In the Cayman Islands in 1994: "Aren't most of you descended from pirates?"

To three young employees of a Scottish fish farm at Holyrood Palace in 1999, he blurted: "Oh! You are the people ruining the rivers and the environment."

"If you travel as much as we do you appreciate the improvements in aircraft design of less noise and more comfort – provided you don't travel in something called economy class, which sounds ghastly," he said in remarks to the Aircraft Research Association in 2002.

"The French don't know how to cook breakfast," he complained to French chief Regis Crépy in 2002, after a breakfast of bacon, eggs, smoked salmon, kedgeree, croissants and pain au chocolat.

"And what exotic part of the world do you come from?" he asked in 1999 of Tory politician Lord Taylor of Warwick, whose parents are Jamaican. He replied: "Birmingham."

Prince Philip shocked Aboriginal leader William Brin at the Aboriginal Cultural Park in Queensland in 2002, when he asked, "Do you still throw spears at each other?"

"Were you here in the bad old days? ... That's why you can't read and write then!" To parents during a visit to Fir Vale Comprehensive School in Sheffield, which had long suffered under poor academic conditions.

"So who's on drugs here?... HE looks as if he's on drugs," Philip callously said to a 14-year-old member of a Bangladeshi youth club in 2002.

Philip also once harassed 13-year-old aspiring astronaut Andrew Adams: "You could do with losing a little bit of weight,"

In 2000, he publicly said, "People think there's a rigid class system here, but dukes have even been known to marry chorus girls. Some have even married Americans."

"Do people trip over you?" Philip said in 2002 upon meeting a wheelchair-bound nursing-home resident in 2002.

"I don't think a prostitute is more moral than a wife, but they are doing the same thing." Dismissing claims that those who sell slaughtered meat have greater moral authority than those who participate in blood sports, in 1988.

"Cats kill far more birds than men. Why don't you have a slogan: 'Kill a cat and save a bird?'" On being told of a project to protect turtle doves in Anguilla in 1965.

"Why don't you go and live in a hostel to save cash?" He once asked of a penniless student.

"If it doesn't fart or eat hay, she isn't interested," Philip once said of his daughter, Princess Anne.

"It looks like a tart's bedroom," he said upon seeing plans for the Duke and then Duchess of York's house at Sunninghill Park.

Philip once said upon being introduced to a female solicitor: "I thought it was against the law these days for a woman to solicit."

On being shown "primitive" Ethiopian art in 1965, he commented: "It looks like the kind of thing my daughter would bring back from her school art lessons"

COVID Crisis Leads to Desparation in India as Modi Selfishly Refuses to Ban Political Rallies and Religious Gatherings

India has been overwhelmed by new cases coupled with a critical shortage of oxygen, hospital beds, and now ventilators. Many desperate families have been forced to turn to black-market price gougers who have been able to buy hospital space from corrupt administrators.  It's almost impossible to find a hospital bed in India now. Oxygen cylinders and medicines are in short supply. On Saturday, Saroj Hospital and Batra Hospital told families to take their patients away as they were running out of oxygen. Getting tested has become very difficult in many cities as labs are overrun.

The spike in cases comes as political rallies (with thousands of people close together) are still being held and a month-long religious ceremony continues to bring millions of people to the Ganges River.  India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been criticized for not calling a national lockdown to try to mitigate the spread and for hosting rallies ahead of elections in May. Government officials have said the previous lockdown at the beginning of the pandemic was economically devastating to many manual laborers who then traveled by foot from home cities to their villages, carrying the virus with them.

Eight private jets carrying India’s super wealthy—and potentially the coronavirus—landed in London ahead of the U.K.’s 4 a.m. ban on travel from India last Friday. All non-British or non-Irish citizens will be banned entirely from entering the country if they have been in India in the previous 10 days. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson went so far as to cancel his own state visit to India scheduled for next week. 

The private jet passengers were fleeing unimaginable horror back in India. At least 14 COVID-19 patients perished in a devastating fire that ripped through an ICU ward in one of India’s overcrowded hospitals about 70 miles outside Mumbai. The fire that broke out around 3 a.m. Friday morning was contained and extinguished, but not before 14 patients—many who were intubated and hard to evacuate—had died. “Around 90 patients were admitted to the hospital at the time of the incident,” Dilip Shah, the head of the Vijay Vallabh Hospital where it happened, said in a statement.

One eyewitness, Avinash Patil, told reporters outside the hospital that no doctors were present at the time. “I got a call at around 3 a.m. from a friend whose mother-in-law was admitted to the hospital,” he said. “As I reached the hospital, I saw fire engines outside. The ICU on the second floor was engulfed in smoke. Only two nurses were there, and I couldn’t see a doctor. It took firefighters about half an hour to put out the flames. We could see eight-10 bodies there.”

Earlier in the week, an oxygen leak in Maharashtra state, near where the fire broke out, resulted in the death of 24 COVID-19 patients who were on ventilators.  To make terrible matters even worse, India reported its highest one-day number of cases, recording 332,730 new infections in a 24-hour period. In the same period, 2,263 people died with COVID-19.  Today--for the fourth day in a row-- India has set an unwelcome world record for new coronavirus infections, with 349,691 more cases in the previous 24 hours and another 2,767 lives lost.

In a shocking expose published in Time magazine, Indian journalist Rana Ayyub paints a horrific picture from the ground, writing about states essentially hijacking oxygen trucks and stealing supplies for their own hospitals, and disturbing allegations of underreporting deaths. Ayyub lays the blame for the debacle squarely on Modi’s shoulders, accusing him of ignoring the fact that his Trump-style rallies are super-spreader events, and for letting the ball drop on vaccines.“Why was India caught unprepared as the second wave ravaged a cross-section of Indian society?” Ayyub writes. “The responsibility lies with a strongman regime that has ignored all caution."

 

Vaccination Nation

 

Eazy Sleazy - Mick Jagger and David Grohl

Coronavirus Art - Pompeii, Italy

 

If There's a Hall of Fame for Neighborly Notes, This Deserves It

In a typed letter, which was shared on Reddit’s “Trashy” forum, an anonymous scribe asked a neighbor to do everyone in the building “a favour and dump” her boyfriend.

“We don’t need to be woken up one more time at 2am because he can’t be an adult and hold his shit together,” it said.  “Not one more time woken up by slamming doors, stomping feet and the worst part – hearing his whiny ass voice yell ‘what the fuck.”

 

Posting a photo of the note online, the recipient commented: “When your neighbors are exhausted of your fighting, it’s time to reflect on some things …”  The note sparked a serious debate among fellow Redditers, racking up more than 1,300 comments in 24 hours.  Many aired their concerns for the woman and her partner, with a number sharing their own experiences of toxic relationships.

“Yeah I’m all for telling someone they should dump their dickhead partner but don’t encourage domestic violence, with or without context assaulting a partner is never a good thing to applaud.”

But another defended the note’s creator, writing: “If it starts disturbing the neighborhood then it becomes everyone’s personal matter.”

Others wrote of hearing “fighting and screaming” and instances of abuse among their own neighbors.  Another commented in response to the letter: “Why wait this long, call the police for public disturbance, 2am? Repeatedly? Fuck that, I have a life too. Get it resolved asap.”

 

Chauvin Guilty on All Charges

 

Washington Post Editorial Board Continues Its 20-Year Slide Into Irrelevancy

Fred Hiatt, the editorial page editor at The Washington Post, has had a notably undistinguished career since the day he arrived back in 2000.  From being an Iraq War cheerleader to a deficit peacock and a climate change denier enabler, his influence on the paper's editorial board has been disastrous.  It should come as no surprise to readers that his op-ed page has showed yet again how tone-deaf they are with this clunker: "Congress should stop attacking DeJoy and consider his plan to fix the Postal Service."

You don't have to read past the headline to know how off-the-mark Hiatt's board is this time around.  Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's plan is not to "fix" the Postal Service, but to make the Postal Service provide more expensive and worse service to its customers.  He wants postage to cost more and delivery to be significantly slower, plain and simple.  And his motives in doing so are as transparent as can be.  DeJoy's efforts are costing the USPS money and driving away customers. Many who do business via the USPS will switch to private carriers, some of which DeJoy has a personal financial stake in.

Corruption and corporate bias aside, Hiatt's editorial board is ignoring the very real harm DeJoy's cutbacks could bring to millions of people who rely on the post office, particularly communities of color, low-income communities, and postal service workers. The editorial board dismisses those concerns, saying: "the Postal Service hasn't regularly been meeting its targets since long before Mr. DeJoy’s time anyway." So it seems Hiatt's argument is "It's bad already, so what the hell, let's make it worse."  If you want credible commentary and serious journalism, subscribe to the New York Times!

This is Today's GOP

 

Finally, Someone Who Gives a Flying Fuck

A thrill-seeking couple named William and Leslie, who decided to try and have sex while sky diving, have shared how the dangerous act left them needing to visit the emergency room.

Leslie said: “As far as sex goes, I’m very, very sexually active. William can just look at me and honey, I’m just bam. It’s gotta be on. When it comes to sex, I come up with all the ideas. I come up with a lot of different ways to try to have sex.”

“She knows better than to throw a challenge at me,” William added.  A challenge it was, as the pair soon realized just how difficult it would be to make love while plummeting back down to earth. 

Leslie continued: “Since we were both wearing really baggy shorts, I just figured we could just connect without a hassle.”

However, the couple soon ran into trouble when they rushed to open their parachutes. While Leslie was able to deploy hers, William could not.  In an attempt to do so, William suffered a broken nose, and after landing was forced to use two tampons to try and stop the bleeding.

“The very first pain is in my groin and on my left leg. So not only might I be done skydiving, I might be done pleasing my woman,” he revealed.

After a rush to the emergency room to receive medical attention, the couple went on to fully recover from the ordeal.

 

 

India Supreme Court Justice Under Fire for Comments on Rape

Calls have been growing in India for the chief justice of the Supreme Court to resign "without a moment's delay" after his remarks in two cases of alleged rape. 

In one case, Justice Bobde, asked a 23-year-old man accused of raping a girl whether he would marry her.  "If you want to marry (her) we can help you. If not, you lose your job and go to jail," he said.

His comments shocked many, especially considering the horrific accusations the girl (who was 16 at the time) had made against the man, a distant relative.  The male relative is accused of stalking, tying up, gagging, repeatedly raping a minor school-going girl, and threatening to douse her in petrol and set her alight, to hurl acid at her, and to have her brother killed.  The rape came to light when the victim attempted suicide.

The girl's family said they had agreed not to go to the police because they were promised by the accused's mother that once the girl became an adult, they would marry the two.  In a country where victims are often blamed for rape, and sexual assault carries lifelong stigma, her family agreed to the arrangement.  But after the accused backtracked from his promise and married someone else, the survivor went to the police.

The accused, who is a government employee in the western state of Maharashtra, had been granted anticipatory bail by a lower court after he pleaded that he would lose his job if arrested. But the Bombay High Court called the order "atrocious" and cancelled his bail.  The man then approached the Supreme Court - which granted him protection from arrest for four weeks and where the infamous exchange took place between his lawyer and Justice Bobde.

An open letter from more than 5,000 feminists, rights activists and concerned citizens said to Chief Justice Bobde, "Your proposal of marriage as an amicable solution to settle the case of rape of a minor girl is worse than atrocious and insensitive for it deeply erodes the right of victims to seek justice.  By suggesting that this [alleged] rapist marry the victim-survivor, you, the Chief Justice of India, sought to condemn her to a lifetime of rape at the hands of the tormentor who drove her to attempt suicide."

In a second case, the supreme court was hearing a petition filed by a man accused of rape by a woman he had been in a live-in relationship with for two years. The woman claimed that she married a man in 2014, and afterward she consented to have sex with him. The man denied marrying her and claimed that the sexual relations between them had been consensual. She accused him of rape after he married another woman.  While hearing the case, Justice Bobde agreed that "it was wrong to make false promises of marriage" but then went on to ask, "if a couple is living together as man and wife, the husband may be a brutal man, but can you call the act of sexual intercourse between a lawfully wedded man and wife as rape"? 

Campaigners say Justice Bobde's comments are "extremely problematic" in a country where women have been constantly fighting a regressive mindset that accepts and normalizes sexual violence against them, especially within the home.   "This comment not only legitimises any kind of sexual, physical and mental violence by the husband, but it normalises the torture that Indian women have been facing within marriages for years without any legal recourse."

 

 

 

Rod Wave - Tombstone

Your Worst Nightmare Confirmed

A ten-foot snake was removed from a toilet in Malaysia by firefighters after it proved to be a proverbial pain in the ass.

The slinky creature was making himself at home in a toilet bowl in Gelang Patah before the fire department was called to come to take it away. Seven firefighters were sent to the home on the outskirts of Iskandar Puteri. The huge slider was only discovered after he had bitten the resident of the house on the buttocks.

Khairi Zainudin, the chief of the brigade said, “The python was successfully caught using a snake pole and has since been released from the housing area.  Snakes usually come out during this hot season to spot for cool and wet spots.”

Coronavirus Art - Paris, France

 

Tucker Carlson Leaves No Doubt He's a White Nationalist

White Supremecist, you say? Who? Me?

The Anti-Defamation League’s CEO Jonathan Greenblatt condemned Tucker Carlson for defending “replacement theory” on his show Thursday and said that it’s time for Fox News to take the closet white nationalist off the network.

The white replacement theory is a conspiracy theory on the far right and among white nationalists that elites are plotting to replace whites with immigrants. When white nationalists descended on Charlottesville in 2017, some of the most chilling images were of demonstrators carrying torches and chanting, “Jews will not replace us.”

In the segment, Carlson was speaking with Mark Steyn. “I know that the left and all the little gatekeepers on Twitter become literally hysterical if you use the term ‘replacement,’ if you suggest that the Democratic Party is trying to ‘replace’ the current electorate, the voters now casting ballots, with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World,” Carlson, said, “But they become hysterical because that’s what’s happening, actually. Let’s just say it: That’s true.”

Greenblatt said, “While couching his argument in terms of what he described as the Democratic Party attempting to replace traditional voters with immigrants from third-world countries, Carlson’s rhetoric was not just a dog whistle to racists – it was a bullhorn.”

He added, “Make no mistake: this is dangerous stuff. The ‘great replacement theory’ is a classic white supremacist trope that undergirds the modern white supremacist movement in America. It is a concept that is discussed almost daily in online racist fever swamps. It is a notion that fueled the hateful chants of “Jews will not replace us!” in Charlottesville in 2017. And it has lit the fuse in explosive hate crimes, most notably the hate-motivated mass shooting attacks in Pittsburgh, Poway and El Paso, as well as in Christchurch, New Zealand.”

Media Matters for America, a progressive watchdog organization, said every Fox News advertiser “bears responsibility for the beaming of this vile rhetoric to millions of people, whether they run their commercials on Carlson’s show or not.” Washington Post columnist Max Boot called out Fox Corp. leadership, noting that Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch are immigrants, as well as Viet Dinh, a top executive.

 

Owner of Chinese Takeout Goes Viral for Savage Responses to Customer Reviews

The owner of a Chinese restaurant in West Yorkshire, England has become an internet icon for her fiery responses to disgruntled customers.  Alice Cheung, the boss of Oriental Express restaurant, has garnered 149 online reviews and she’s made a point of personally replying to every negative one.

While most customers award the eatery five or six stars, Cheung refuses to pander to the complaints of some of the “sillier” reviews, she told reporters. 

So when one woman complained that the food was “terrible”, the feisty owner was having none of it.  “You ordered a Vegetarian Munch Box and then called the shop to complain there was no MEAT in it,” Cheung wrote back.  “We sent what you ordered and there was nothing wrong with it. The bad review is to cover your error,” she continued, before ending the response: “Please do not call again.”

Another reviewer moaned that her meal was “not good, soggy and old” and that she “threw most of it away,” before condemning it for being much more expensive than her regular takeaway.  Cheung replied: “I suggest you stay with the other takeaway and take your false review with you.”

Responding to a one-star reviewer, whose full comment has been deleted, Cheung wrote: “What sort of idiot orders ‘Salt & Pepper Chicken’ and then complains it has salt in it, our delivery record shows it was NOT late and it was NOT cold. “A fake review and derogatory too. Take your foul mouth and business somewhere else.”

Another critic – who offered the restaurant a similarly measly two stars out of six – said her meal had been “totally ruined” by “small pieces of battered dry chicken mixed in with battered prawns.”  The furious response read: “Will you please open your eyes and read the descriptions, you ordered the ‘Special sweet and sour’ which contains king prawns. You got what you ordered so how is this our fault?  “The food was fresh and perfectly cooked. We are good but mind-reading the stupid is not one of our skills.”

A reviewer named Michael complained the deluxe box was too expensive, and nowhere near enough food for the price.  Cheung replied, "I'm sorry the food was not good for you.  You should cook your own-- thank you for [your] review."

Another two-star reviewer failed to write a justification for his low score. So Cheung replied sarcastically: “Thank you Kyle, what? Too much food, too hot, too tasty, delivered too quickly?”

Speaking to reporters, Cheung defended her tough tactics: “If you’re writing a review just be honest about the situation-- If we messed up, we’ll reply seriously. If not, expect some banter.”

 

Hollywood Producer Scott Rudin Outed as an Abusive Jerk

The Hollywood Reporter has come out with a damning expose of uber-producer Scott Rudin, who has been long known by insiders to be a world class asshole.  

The piece opens with an incident from Halloween in 2012, when Rudin went over the deep end after one of his assistants failed to get him a seat on a sold-out flight. In a fit of fury, it is reported that he smashed an Apple computer monitor on the assistant's hand. The screen shattered, leaving the young man bleeding and in need of immediate medical attention. The wounded assistant headed to the emergency room while Rudin called his lawyer.  Everyone else huddled in the conference room, shaken.

"We were all shocked because we didn't know that that sort of thing could happen in that office," says Andrew Coles, a then-assistant and now-manager and producer. "It was a very intense environment, but that just felt different. It was a new level of unhinged — a level of lack of control that I had never seen before in a workplace."

For decades, Rudin's abusive behavior has been chronicled— even celebrated— by a complicit press.  In a 2010 profile, the Hollywood Reporter dubbed him "The Most Feared Man in Town" and called him "dazzlingly charming" one paragraph after describing acts of cruelty and intimidation. In a 2005 Wall Street Journal profile with the headline "Boss-zilla!," Rudin himself pegged the number of assistants he burned through in the previous five years at 119.

But in October 2017, Harvey Weinstein was toppled from power following reports of his sexual predation, ushering in the entertainment industry's #MeToo era. But there has been no reckoning for 62-year-old Rudin, one of the industry's most high profile producers.  Even as others have been canceled or have dialed back their aggression, Rudin's behavior has continued unabated, leaving a trail of splintered objects and traumatized employees in his path.

Caroline Rugo had expected a grueling environment when she joined Scott Rudin Productions as an executive coordinator in the fall of 2018. She accepted that her days began at 5 a.m., fielding emails before reporting to the New York office at 6. Given that she suffers from Type 1 diabetes, Rugo needed to carve out 30 minutes a day for exercise and provided a doctor's note signed off on by Rudin that allowed her to work out from 5:30 a.m. to 6 a.m. Even though she was eager to work for the uber-producer, she didn't anticipate the relentless onslaught of acts of intimidation.

"He threw a laptop at the window in the conference room and then went into the kitchen and we could hear him beating on the napkin dispenser," says Rugo. "Then another time he threw a glass bowl at [a colleague]. The glass bowl hit the wall and smashed everywhere. The HR person left in an ambulance due to a panic attack. That was the environment."

In March of 2019, red-hot writer Jeremy O. Harris called Rudin out on Twitter as "loudly racist." The playwright/screenwriter continued, "He called me on the phone and cussed me out once and said 'you're a baby playwright who has written one good play no one gives a FUCK what you have to say' To which I responded, 'Why did you just pay me to say something in TWO plays?' "

Rudin's tantrums have been well documented going back four decades and are said to have at least partly inspired the 1994 assistant revenge fantasy film Swimming With Sharks. In 2014, Rudin demanded that "Manchester by the Sea" producer Kevin Walsh get out of his car and abandoned him on a highway.

One recent Rudin assistant says the mercurial producer threw a baked potato at his head in 2018 for not knowing why someone from indie distributor A24 was in the lobby.  "I went into the kitchen, and I was like, 'Hey, Scott, A24 is on the way up. I'm not sure what it's concerning,' " he says. "And he flipped out [saying] 'Nobody told me A24 was on my schedule.' He threw it at me, and I dodged a big potato. He was like, 'Well, find out, and get me a new potato.' "  Adding insult to injury, the assistant (who had dropped out of college to work full time) was later fired by Rudin.

Ryan Nelson, who was Rudin's executive assistant in 2019, says he experienced and witnessed extensive mistreatment.  After he witnessed Rudin throwing a stapler at a theater assistant and calling him a "retard," Nelson left the industry altogether.  "Every day was exhausting and horrific," he says. "Not even the way he abused me, but watching the way he abused the people around me who started to become my very close friends. You're spending 14 hours a day with the same people, enduring the same abuse. It became this collective bond with these people."

On Indeed.com, where Rudin posts ads for a constant stream of vacancies, one anonymous reviewer warned prospective applicants to "Please Run Far, Far Away" and claimed to have witnessed the producer "pulling a chair out from under an assistant's seat so he could fall down," carried out in a meeting with industry executives.

Caroline Rugo was eventually fired after six months when Rudin became ensnared in a feud between Nathan Lane and director George C. Wolfe, which he blamed on Rugo.  Rudin demanded that she skip her 5:30 a.m. gym visit or work faster. She refused.  "I got fired for having Type 1 diabetes," says Rugo. "I one hundred percent could have sued him. But I didn't because of the fear of being blacklisted."

Another assistant, who asked not to be named because he fears career retaliation, detailed a kitchen encounter with Rudin in 2018 that devolved quickly. "He asked me to clean the kitchen. I told him I had to do a bunch of other stuff that was urgent . . . And then he flipped out, and he took his teacup, threw it, and it shattered and left a hole in the wall."  

Another staffer says Rudin purposefully disrupted people's careers with lies. In 2012 Rudin became enraged when one of his female employees left to work at The Weinstein Co.  Rudin emailed Harvey Weinstein and insisted that she had stolen from him. Weinstein refused to fired her.  "That was a big, big moment," says another staffer of the mistreatment of his colleague. "It literally changed everyone who was there at the time. All of the employees realized that this is what we had to look forward to, after slaving away, being attacked so much, being maligned in really bizarre ways."

Rudin's wrath wasn't only aimed at employees. He privately clashed with director Sam Mendes and took out an ad in The New York Times to berate a Times theater writer. His emails — which became fodder for the general public following the Sony hack when he called Angelina Jolie a "minimally talented spoiled brat" and made racially insensitive jokes about President Barack Obama, saying he probably liked Kevin Hart. In one exchange with Whoopi Goldberg, Rudin lambasted her because she wanted to play a part in the Broadway production of "To Kill a Mockingbird" instead of another Rudin-produced project. He called her an idiot, said she'd never work again in anything important and wished her luck on The View.

Rudin continues to work with the best in the film business. Bullying claims against Rudin never see the light of day and are settled quietly. Fear of reprisals has kept many from speaking out. Employees are required to sign non-disparagement agreements. Rudin also has been known to change credits, both as incentive and punishment. The victim of the computer monitor incident was compensated with three associate producing credits in addition to a monetary settlement.  In other instances, Rudin retaliates against employees who quit by going on IMDb.com to take away any credits they may have amassed while working for him," according to one producer who hired a traumatized assistant following a Rudin stint and saw the practice play out.

Andrew Coles hopes that fear of Rudin's power will not stymie progress in the industry just at a time when Hollywood appears ready to confront abuses of power.  "Part of the change we want to see in the industry means starting to talk about these things openly, to name names, to talk about the things that actually happened. And you don't get a free pass for abusing people," he says. "I'm not afraid of Scott Rudin."

Career of Future Porn Star Ruined by Iraqi Parents

Doctors say a child in Iraq is the first to be born with three penises.

Experts say the boy has a rare condition called triphallia, the first case ever reported in the world. The unidentified baby, who lives in Duhok city, was three months old when it was discovered.

The child's parents discovered a swelling in his scrotum and “two skin projections”.  Further investigation was soon carried out-- only to discover more.  Stunned doctors later realized that those skin projections were actually penises (2 centimeters and 1 centimeter in length) with only one of the extra two having a head.  They then diagnosed the tot with the world's first-ever case of triphallia.

The boy's extra penises were both non-functional, so surgery was "less complicated".  Medical journal International Journal of Surgery Case Reports has detailed the case in the Kurdistan Region.  Dr. Shakir Saleem Jabali, the author of the report, says each case had a 'unique presentation'.  Writing in the journal, he said: "To the best of our knowledge, this is the first reported case with three penises or triphallia.

Doctors first diagnosed supernumerary penises (double dicks) over 400 years ago after a baby was born with two.  The condition is said to affect one in every five to six million births, it is reported.  Around 100 cases of babies born with two penises have been reported, with both working in some cases.

 

Miley Cyrus - Angels Like You

Horrific Reports of Islamic Attack on Mozambique Beach Town

The Amarula Hotel in the Northern Mozambique town of Palma is a small hotel frequented by foreign tourists.  On March 24, it became a scene of horror when it came under attack by Islamic militants (known locally as al-Shabab) resulting in the deaths of dozens.

Seven people (including a British contract worker) were initially killed trying to escape the militants as they laid a siege on the Amarula Hotel.  More than 180 people including foreign workers became trapped inside the Amarula Hotel.  Witnesses described a graphic scene of the nearby beach which was strewn with headless bodies.

A string of vessels converged on Palma (and the port of Pemba to the south) as people tried to escape by any means – cargo vessels, passenger ships, tugs and recreational boats.  Many who escaped the siege at the hotel hid in areas near the beach overnight and evacuated as boats began to show up the next morning. Civilians living and working in the area appeared to be coordinating the rescue effort.  The exact number of casualties in Palma (a town of about 75,000 people in Cabo Delgado province) was unclear, with many unaccounted for.

The town and beaches were strewn with bodies “with heads and without”, according to Colonel Lionel Dyke, whose private security firm, Dyck Advisory Group, is contracted by the Mozambique police in the area.  Communications with the town were cut off by the government, making it difficult to confirm early reports of the attack and the extent of the casualties, as well as complicating rescue efforts.

After a tense ten days, Mozambique's military reported that it had regained full control of the town, saying that A "significant" number of militants were killed in the counter-offensive.  Dozens of civilians were killed and at least 11,000 displaced after the invasion.  State radio reported that residents who had fled were starting to return - some to homes that were looted.

Army spokesman Brigadier Chongo Vidigal said a nearby gas plant was secure, and that Palma was secure.  "The airfield area was the only one we needed to clear and we did that. It's completely safe," Vidigal was quoted as saying.

Although some residents had begun to return, the streets remained mostly deserted.  The town's hospital, commercial banks and the state prosecutor's office were all destroyed.  The governor of the province promised to help people rebuild their lives.  "We are now moving on to the next stage, one as critical as retaking the town, whereby we will be welcoming the communities who fled to the bush," Brig Vidigal said.

Many people are now questioning why it took nearly ten days for the military to regain full control of Palma, suggesting that the militants have become strong, and government forces are struggling to contain the insurgency.

Coronavirus Art - Sao Paulo, Brazil

 

Keith Olbermann on the Vaccine

Meanwhile, Back in Egypt

 

Just Sayin'

 

Brazil's Botched COVID Response Second only to Trump's

Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro is facing the biggest crisis of his presidency after the heads of the Army, Navy and Air Force all quit and the country recorded its highest daily Covid-19 death toll.  The unprecedented resignation of the defense chiefs is being seen as a protest at attempts by Mr Bolsonaro to exert undue control over the military.

Bolsonaro's popularity has plummeted over his response to Covid-19.  Nearly 314,000 people have died, with a new daily record of 3,780 set earlier this week.  Worldwide, Brazil has the second highest number of total confirmed COVID-19 cases with more than 12.6 million. Only the United States has had more.

Earlier this month the Brazilian public health institute Fiocruz warned the health system was close to collapse, with more than 80% of intensive care unit beds occupied in most of the country's states.  An epidemiologist in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Dr Pedro Hallal, told the BBC he feared Brazil could become a threat to global public health. 

Bolsonaro has consistently opposed lockdown measures, arguing that the damage to the economy would be worse than the effects of the coronavirus itself.  He has also told Brazilians to "stop whining" about the situation.

Last week, Bolsonaro, who has previously raised doubts about vaccines and defended unproven drugs as treatment, said that he would make 2021 the year of vaccinations. "Very soon we'll resume our normal lives," he said.  So far Brazil has vaccinated only 8% of its population.

The president's popularity has plummeted over his handling of the pandemic, with 43% of Brazilians saying Bolsonaro is to blame for the Covid crisis.  His government is in turmoil-- just two weeks ago,  a new health minister took office - the fourth since the pandemic began.   The new health minister, Marcelo Queiroga, is a cardiologist-- his predecessor was an army officer with no medical training.

A week ago, the defense and foreign ministers resigned, prompting a cabinet reshuffle. The foreign minister was accused of mishandling relations with China, resulting in a shortage of COVID-19 vaccines.  The defense minister clashed with Bolsonaro over the issue of the armed forces' loyalty, which he said should be directed to upholding the constitution rather than supporting the president personally.

Bolsonaro is a divisive figure who has sparked controversy with racist, homophobic and misogynistic comments throughout his time in the public eye.  In 2019, Bolsonaro organized a commemoration of the 1964 coup which put Brazil under military rule for over 20 years.  At least 434 people were killed or disappeared, according to the findings of a 2014 national truth commission.  Bolsonaro defended the ceremonies, saying the aim was to remember the era rather than commemorate military rule itself.

 

Lil Nas X - Montero (Call Me By Your Name)

Dead People Can't Hear, Bro

A Florida man is charged with murdering his 77-year-old grandfather and cutting the elderly man’s ears off with a knife.  According to CBS affiliate WPEC, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office was called to a home in DeLand in Central Florida for reports of a man who said he was attacked by his grandfather.

30-year-old Kolby Parker was sitting in the back of his pickup truck when he told deputies he and his grandfather, Ronald Wells, Sr., were smoking marijuana, after which there was a confrontation. Parker claims he was only acting in self-defense when the older man attacked him with a knife. He told deputies he managed to get the knife away and used it on Wells, who was found dead on the front porch with multiple stab wounds.

While he was being questioned by police, Parker pulled two human ears from his pant pockets, which were later discovered to be those of his grandfather.  Deputies said Parker then became violent toward them, but he was eventually subdued and taken into custody.

Parker later confessed to hitting his grandfather multiple times in the head with a baseball bat and then stabbed him with a butcher knife numerous times. He also admitted to cutting his grandfather’s ears off and stated that he wanted his grandfather to be with his dead grandmother.  "We were smoking a bowl of pot on the table,” Parker said. “We were just sitting here talking, and all of a sudden he grabbed a hold of the knife, tried to swing at me and I had to defend myself. And now he’s sitting here dead.”

During questioning, Parker asked one of the deputies for his gun before lunging at him, the Daily Commercial reported. “Can I see your gun, bro?” Parker asked.“No,” the deputy replied before a brief struggle ensued as Parker tried to get the weapon. Another deputy then used his Taser on Parker as he tried to break free.

Parker is charged with second-degree murder, battery on a law enforcement officer, and resisting with violence.