I’ve watched a lot of prodigies. She’s the best I’ve ever seen. Her technique, tone, musicality, and maturity are simply astonishing. You can see it in the expression on her face, too:
Plane crashes with truck on landing at LaGuardia
Very disturbing – so far it appears that air controller error may be the most likely cause. Both pilots have died because it was a frontal high-speed collision. However, the officers in the truck and all the passengers survived, although there were many injuries:
The fatal plane crash at LaGuardia Airport on Sunday night was entirely avoidable and likely caused by a miscommunication — but either way, the Air Canada jet had the right of way, experts said Monday.
“Once that aircraft was cleared to land … it owned that runway,” said Mary Schiavo, a former inspector general of the Department of Transportation, to The Post.
There appeared to be clear confusion between the control tower and ground control when the plane smashed into the truck, killing two pilots and injuring dozens, she noted.
It could have been worse, according to this:
It was “just pure luck” that the LaGuardia plane crash didn’t involve more fatalities — with the jet miraculously hitting the fire truck at an angle that avoided fuel supplies, an aviation-safety analyst said Monday.
Former FAA safety inspector David Soucie told CNN that the spot on the truck where the Air Canada passenger plane struck it minimized the destruction, which led to two pilots being killed and scores of passengers, crew and two cops wounded.
It was nighttime when the crash occurred. A flight attendant was ejected, strapped to her seat, but survived.
RIP to the pilots.
Another illegal alien is arrested for murder
An 18-year-old woman, out walking with friends in Chicago, was murdered recently and a Venezuelan national in this country illegally has been charged. Not only that, but he had previously been arrested for shoplifting and released back into the community instead of being turned over for deportation – which happened, as you might imagine, during the Biden administration.
Will authorities in Chicago finally turn him over to the feds? Not yet – plus this:
The illegal migrant accused of executing a Chicago college student in cold blood last week failed to show up for a Monday hearing because he is being hospitalized for a rare contagious disease.
Jose Medina-Medina, a 25-year-old Venezuelan national, was not at the hearing because he requires treatment for tuberculosis, the Chicago Tribune reported.
He’s quite the poster child for “illegal aliens are our strength.”
I also wondered why the article said TB is “rare.” It’s certainly not common in the US but I wouldn’t call it rare. And, as one might expect, see this from October 2024:
Unfortunately, after decades of decline, TB is beginning to resurface in the United States. In fact, cases of TB have grown significantly in recent years. The number of TB cases in the U.S. has increased 34 percent between 2020 and 2023. The number of TB cases is now higher than pre-pandemic levels (2019).
– Nationally, 76 percent of TB cases in 2023 occurred in foreign-born patients.
– Counties, states and metropolitan areas with high foreign-born populations have higher TB rates than those with lower foreign-born populations.
– Some countries of origin for both legal and illegal aliens have TB rates as high as 60 times the U.S. rate.
– The government’s health screening for TB in potential immigrants is deficient; some categories of aliens do not undergo health screening at all.
– Latent TB is not grounds for inadmissibility, even though the progression of latent TB accounts for over 80 percent of active TB cases in the U.S.
– Some U.S. border counties have TB rates exceeding rates in high-risk countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon.
– The cost of treating each case of TB is over $20,000, and can reach over $500,000 if the case is extensively drug-resistant.
How is the New York Times covering the story?Seems to be a version of “Republicans pounce”:
Loyola University Chicago was shaken last week when someone shot and killed one of its students, Sheridan Gorman, as she walked with friends near Lake Michigan.
For days, the police said little about what happened, only that “an unknown male offender” had approached the group at about 1:30 a.m. on Thursday, displayed a gun and fired in their direction. Ms. Gorman, 18, who was recalled by friends as generous and fun, was killed.
As Ms. Gorman’s family and friends grieved, her death was thrust into the nation’s contentious immigration debate on Sunday when the Trump administration said that a man arrested in connection with the killing was from Venezuela and in the United States illegally.
The subtitle of the article is: “Sheridan Gorman, 18, was killed last week near Loyola University Chicago. The Trump administration has sought to highlight crimes committed by undocumented people in its deportation campaign.”
And what on earth is this?:
… Chicago Alderwoman Maria Hadden suggested Gorman and her friends may have unintentionally startled the armed suspect.
“The kids were out doing normal things people do in the neighborhood,” Hadden told Fox 32. “They may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, running into a person who had a gun.”
“They might have unintentionally startled this person at the end of the pier,” she added. “We don’t believe there is cause for broader community concern.”
No, nothing to worry about.
Trump the inscrutable: deal or no deal?
Today Trump announced a moratorium on attacking Iran’s energy infrastructure while talks he described as “very good” are supposedly going on. Meanwhile, the Iranian leaders – although “leaders” is a fungible thing in Iran these days – say he’s full of it and that no such talks are occurring, much less “very good” ones.
So, what’s going on? If you expect a definitive answer here, you’re surely not going to get one. But I don’t think you’re going to get one anywhere right now. We’re all speculating, and I think that’s the point.
We do know that Trump likes to keep people guessing as he bobs and weaves and wheels and deals. We know he said what he needs from Iran is unconditional surrender. But we don’t know exactly what that means in a case where we don’t know who’s in charge or if any one person (or even small group of people) is in charge. We don’t even know if he really is negotiating, or with whom such talks might be, or exactly for what. Nor do we know, if the subject is indeed for unconditional surrender, if such talks are with someone or some group with the will to actually surrender or the ability to do so even if the will is there.
Clear as mud. And I believe that is Trump’s intent.
Trump may also want the Iranian hard-liners to wonder who the betrayers are who are doing the supposed talking. The goal might be to keep them alll at odds with each other; to keep them guessing.
We know that, in Venezuela, Trump allowed elements of the Maduro administration to stay in place, at least for a while, as long as they play ball with him. But Venezuela, unlike Iran, was not being run by fanatic end-times Shia Muslims who believe they need to engineer Armageddon in order for them to be able to rule the world.
My own wish in Iran is for regime change to something better – something a great deal better – than what the Iranians have endured for the last 47 years. But I have zero control over the situation, and those who do have control over it are quite unconcerned about my wishes. I do think that at some point, talks have to happen with someone. But – to quote the old Rodgers and Hart song – who knows where or when?
Open thread 3/23/2026
Spring has begun, even where I live:
Someone left the cake out in the rain: MacArthur Park and Jimmy Webb
A recent cleanup of LA’s horrific MacArthur Park — complete with cameras, city hall bigwigs and an Instagram victory lap — is already looking like a social media publicity stunt just one week after completion. …
Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez posted a video on Instagram touting what she described as a major cleanup effort at the troubled park Sunday March 1. The clip shows Hernandez, as well as Mayor Karen Bass and a lineup of what the councilwoman called the city’s “city family,” as officials celebrated the effort to spruce up the long-troubled space. …
But when The Post returned to MacArthur Park a week later to see how long the progress lasted, the reality on the ground told a very different story.
Trash was scattered across the park again. Encampment debris had crept back in. Drug waste littered the ground.
And all the sweet green icing flowing down.
Jimmy Webb wrote the lyrics to that song in 1967. Sounds like the park was in better shape back then. But someone really did leave a cake out in the rain:
When asked by interviewer Terry Gross what was going through his mind when he wrote the song’s lyrics, Webb replied that it was meant to be symbolic and referred to the end of a love affair. In an interview with Newsday in October 2014, Webb explained:
“Everything in the song was visible. There’s nothing in it that’s fabricated. The old men playing checkers by the trees, the cake that was left out in the rain, all of the things that are talked about in the song are things I actually saw. And so it’s a kind of musical collage of this whole love affair that kind of went down in MacArthur Park. … Back then, I was kind of like an emotional machine, like whatever was going on inside me would bubble out of the piano and onto paper.”
The words to the song always struck me as odd and just plain silly. But I guess you had to be there.
Jimmy Webb wrote the lyrics to a lot of other popular songs, among them “Up, Up and Away”, “By the Time I Get to Phoenix”, “Wichita Lineman”, “Worst That Could Happen”, “Galveston”, and “All I Know”. Note the prevalence of place names.
I find this moving:
Following the death of his mother, Sylvia, in 1964, his father made plans to return to Oklahoma. Webb decided to stay in California to continue his music studies and to pursue a career as a songwriter in Los Angeles. He would later recall his father warning him about his musical aspirations, saying that “This songwriting thing is going to break your heart.” Seeing that his son was determined, however, he gave him $40, saying “It’s not much, but it’s all I have.”
It turned out to have been a pretty good investment after all.
Roundup
(1) They’re debating the SAVE Act in the Senate. Your guess is as good as mine (maybe better) on what will ultimately happen.
(2) Don Lemon makes a ridiculous, and typically leftist, comparison and moral equivalence: the Iranian regime killing up to 30,000 protesters and the death of Good and Pretti in the US. Is he knave or fool? Both.
(3) In case you’re interested in the sort of m.o. Tucker Carlson uses to make his “points,” I think this is an excellent example He ultimately befuddles the questioner with completely disingenuous pretense. She should instead have called out his game (process) each time, rather than concentrating on his content (much of which was also false and/or purposely misleading) The clip is only three and a half minutes long, and it also demonstrates some of his favorite tricks that are lampooned by comedians and Tucker impressionists such as Ami Kozak, whose videos I’ve sometimes embedded on this blog. You even get a brief moment of the maniacal laugh. And by the way, please recall that “Zionist” is one of Carlson’s favorite epithets:
(4) Brendan O’Neill asks a question I’ve been wondering about: how is it that Joe Kent got his position in the Trump administration in the first place? My answer is that I think they were taking Carlson’s recommendation during the transition to Trump’s second term, when Carlson was still in favor and hadn’t yet gone completely over to the dark side.
I think O’Neill is wrong in that he calls the Carlson wing MAGA. They are not, although they once were – or pretended to be. For example, even before Carlson was let go by Fox, he had written private messages saying he hated Trump.
(5) On the damage the COVID lockdowns did, and still continue to do, in Britain. The US is not far behind.
The Iran regime seems intent on proving just how evil it is
I say “regime” because it’s not clear any single person is in charge. I have read that Khamenei had decentralized the IRGC and left general instructions in the event the leadership was offed, and they are carrying out those instructions plus some improvisation.
A wounded animal can be very dangerous, and the regime is a very wounded animal. It would like to wreak havoc with oil prices, for example, knowing it will hurt the West and the Gulf States, although it will also hurt some of its previous benefactors. It would like to let its people know “we can still torture and kill you if you oppose us,” and so it has performed a public hanging:
Like a trapped animal, Iran is lashing out, executing teenagers in public for “waging war against God” to terrify its restive people, and bombing its neighbors to convince them to push the United States and Israel to end the war.
These are not the actions of a sane, confident government; it’s yet more proof of its utter desperation.
Torturing, then publicly hanging, Saleh Mohammadi, a 19-year-old wrestling champ, and executing two others is how the regime is now resorting to open savagery to retain power, should any brave Iranian civilians consider taking to the streets.
In addition, Iran has struck at a combined US/British base (Diego Garcia) located over two thousand miles away, demonstrating not only its destructive nature but that it was working on the capability to strike at a great distance, thus further justifying (not that further justification was needed) the US/Israeli attack on the Iranian regime and its weaponry:
Iran fired two intermediate-range ballistic missiles at Diego Garcia, a joint U.S.-U.K. military base in the middle of the Indian Ocean, according to multiple U.S. officials. One of the missiles failed in flight, and a U.S. warship fired an SM-3 interceptor at the other, according to two of the people. It couldn’t be determined if an interception was made, according to one of the officials.
Nothing was damaged, but the intent was there, and the distance was impressive.
I am fairly certain that all of this has the goal not only of engendering fear that the war is going badly and the regime is firmly in control, but also of giving fodder to the MSM in the US and other countries to report that the war is a mess, endless, impossible to win, a mistake, and Trump’s folly. The MSM (and Democrats) have been only too happy to oblige, right from the start.
It makes me think somewhat of the Tet offensive in Vietnam, which was a failure for the North militarily but which the MSM reported as a victory for them. I’ve written about that several times, for example in this post (some of the links there are dead) and this one, so I won’t revisit it in any detail now.
The mullahs and their confederates would actually prefer to wreak havoc in the world. It’s not just that they don’t mind it, it’s that it conforms to their end-times Twelver philosophy:
… [M]any Shi’ites are convinced that only a world conflagration will prompt the return of the Hidden Imam. For this reason, many Shi’ites embrace war, conflict and turmoil as they believe such events will hasten the return of the Mahdi. Shi’ite eschatology believes that when the situation is bleakest and almost all hope is lost, the Twelfth Imam, Mohammed Al-Mahdi will return. He will miraculously defeat God’s enemies and usher in a new era of peace. In fact, this branch of Islam reveres martyrdom and believes the worse conditions become, the more likely the Mahdi is to return.
I was thinking today of George W. Bush’s phrase “the axis of evil.” I recalled that two of the countries he mentioned were Iraq and North Korea. Was the third Iran? I couldn’t recall – but indeed it was.
Robert Mueller dead at 81
Robert Mueller has died.
I have come to believe that he was already in cognitive and physical decline during the time he was head of the investigation into Trump, and that others were really in charge and used him as a figurehead. I’ve written about that before; one example is this post.
So I’ll just say RIP.
Open thread 3/21/2026
Is cigarette smoking making a comeback?
I certainly hope not.
It seems it’s not a big comeback. But maybe a little bit:
“I’ve definitely seen an uptick in singles describing themselves as ‘sometimes’ smokers — not pack-a-day smokers, but occasional, where it’s tied to nightlife, travel, aesthetic and intimacy,” Ashleigh Rodosta, a Gotham-based matchmaker and relationship coach, told The Post. “The post-sex cigarette is also making a comeback.” …
“What’s ironic is that many of these same people are otherwise intensely wellness-oriented — cold plunges, peptides, clean eating, the whole thing,” she continued. “So cigarettes are showing up less as a real lifestyle and more as an occasional indulgence tied to image, mood and social setting.”
I have to say that, back when smoking was far more popular, it often was indeed “tied to image, mood, and social setting.”
I smoked cigarettes during my first two years of college and then never again. My smoking was very situational: to look cool, or because I was bored. Or both. I smoked while sitting around with friends in the cafeteria after meals, in boring lecture classes, while writing term papers, and at parties. I never inhaled because I actually hated that. But I was a whiz at blowing smoke rings.
[NOTE: I’m taking a day-long break from writing about the Iran war.]
MeToo has come for Cesar Chavez, rather late in the game
Chavez used to be the darling of the left, back when I was in law school. Now he’s apparently a pariah after being accused – long after his death – of having sexually abused young girls many years ago:
The public shaming over that leftist labor hero, the late United Farm Workers Union co-founder César Chávez, has continued apace as detestable allegations of child sexual abuse and even rape have been making the rounds following a New York Times exposé published on Wednesday.
The accusations by his former ally, Dolores Huerta, are horrific and have caused celebrations of the planned March 31st “César Chávez Day” in multiple states to be altered or canceled outright.
I admit to being somewhat puzzled as to why this is being revealed now. Whether it’s true or not is unknown and will almost certainly never be known, but if I had to guess I’d say it’s probably true. Even though one might have thought these women would have come out with their stories back when MeToo had its heyday, the delay can be at least partly explained by Chavez’s longtime status as leftist icon. Who wants to point out his feet of clay?
I’ve read several people on the right who said that Chavez’s cancellation comes now because of his history of being against illegal immigration. That’s his real crime against the left of today, and the reason he’s being exposed. I think that’s as good an explanation as any and probably better than most. But it’s not as though his anti-illegals position has been a secret all this time. From 2015:
For every positive image of Chavez, though, there’s another one that paints a different picture, as Miriam Pawel brings to light in her meticulously researched, NEH-funded biography, The Crusades of Cesar Chavez. The union organizer was vehemently opposed to undocumented immigrant workers, looked with disdain upon the material comforts his own union members yearned for, and slipped into despotic isolation at his California mountain compound, La Paz, purging the UFW of many of his closest friends, allies, and mentors.
Well, now they’re purging him.