This week, i.e. 7 November 2023 – 2 December 2023, certainly has been an eventful one when it comes to obituaries, politics, and the rule of law.

I’ll start with the last item first. 

In the insurrection realm of the Trump inditements, Roy Cohn’s protege isn’t even bothering to claim innocence anymore but arguing that he shouldn’t go to trial until he finishes his second term as president in 2029, when he’ll be even older and more morbidly obese. His crackerjack legal team argues that trying him for treason during his campaign for president amounts to election interference.^[1] Of course, if he wins again and again mouths the oath of office to protect the Constitution, he won’t have to worry about the term ever ending as he’ll follow in the footsteps of his good buddy Kim Jong Un and declare himself President-for-Life, perhaps bestowing succession to his sons North Korean style, which means that one day we’ll have a President who also holds the title of Bar(r)on. 

By the way, when’s the last time you’ve seen a photo of Barron Trump? He’s essentially invisible, drifting ghostlike through the rococo rooms of the Mar-a-Lago family compound pioneering a brand new literary genre, Glitter Gothic.

I’ll continue to reverse order with George Santos, the Inspector Clouseau of con men, who funneled campaign contributions into his own coffers, and dig this, stole contributors’ identities racking up thousands of dollars on their credit cards. 

Here’s a pithy summary from the NYT: 

The [Congressional] report detailed “substantial evidence” of the congressman funneling campaign funds to cover personal expenses, including at luxury retailers, on cosmetic procedures and on travel. 

Examples include: $4,127 at Hermès; “smaller purchases” at OnlyFans, a website that hosts adult content, and makeup store Sephora; $6,000 at Ferragamo; nearly $3,000 on Botox; and $3,332 for an Airbnb, when Santos was “off at [the] Hampton’s [sic] for the weekend.” 

Yesterday, in a rare example of bipartisanship, the House expelled him. Certainly, he must suffer from some form of mania, some Murdaugh-like disorder that prevents him from perceiving future consequences of wholesale criminality. 

At any rate, I’m going to sort of miss him.

Last, but not least, death.

Sandra Day O’Connor died, which was news to me because I was shocked to discover she wasn’t dead already. 

Also, Shane MacGowan, founder and front man of the Celtic punk band The Pogues finally, as they say, bit the dust. Ever heard the phrase, “live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse?” 

Hey, Shane certainly satisfied the first piece of that triad of terrible advice. According to one obituary I read, “He was repeatedly injured in falls and struck by moving vehicles.” My son Ned remembers “chatting with some Irish people who had seen him perform in a wheelchair and vomit on himself onstage.”

When I was teaching, I told my classes whenever they all made a hundred on a reading or vocabulary quiz, we’d have a “Fethibal,” that I’d turn them on to some cool video.

By far, the most popular one was the Pogues’ cover of “Dirty Old Town,” which inverts the tropes of Romanticism where lovers woo one another beneath factory walls.

Here’s a link. Enjoy! And Happy December! Click the link “Watch on YouTube!”

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^[1] Have you heard that Irony has committed suicide? You can read about it HERE.