Hearts and Hip Hop

Super Weekend:  The Super Bowl game was surprisingly close, Meadow and AJ are still among the living, millennials are in nostalgia heaven over the Compton tribute halftime show where the one white star Eminem took a knee even though all the performers had been warned not to by NBC.  Predictably many of the same people upset that President Biden’s Supreme Court pick will be a Black woman, are outraged over the show, with Turning Point’s Charlie Kirk calling it “sexual anarchy” and not in a complimentary way and Sean Spicer, who fashions himself an expert due to his breakout, well really his breakdown performance on Dancing With the Stars wanting to know what the “message” was supposed to be. Elsewhere in North America, it appears that the bridges to Canada have reopened though the disgruntled drivers remain disgruntled about the impact that vaccine mandates are having on their ability to diehard. The Americans among them are heading south, something about staging a protest at the Coachella music festival before or after they take their trucks to Washington DC. The Olympic gurus have decided to let Russian darling Kamila Valieva continue competing while they reach a final decision about what to do about those performance drugs in her system BUT they’ve also decided that if she medals, and absent a catastrophic performance on her part she will, the women’s figure skating award ceremony, like the team figure skating award ceremony will remain on hold until they reach a final solution.  Not fair to any of the other skaters but no one seems all that concerned about that. Who but everyone would have guessed that the same Olympic poohbahs that picked China for this year’s competition would come up with that solution. Weird decision but if it keeps Putin from launching his on again, off again, probably on again invasion into Ukraine maybe it’s worth it.  As to the Ukraine situation, it continues to fester.  Putin of course says that we are over reacting to his huge troop build up along the Russian Ukraine border, that his troops just need to practice camping out in the winter mud and anyway, he’s entitled to Ukraine if he wants it. Lacking many options, the Biden administration appears to have concluded that shedding as much light as they can on Russia’s every move is their best way to go, making it more difficult for Vlad to get away with something sneaky, like claiming he has to attack because the Ukrainians were mean first.  Most westerners have been told by their governments to come home now while they can. To help, Poland has opened its border to fleeing Americans and Israel has added around thirty flights to get their large population of dual citizens home.  Ukraine President Zelensky, the leader who if the Russians get their way won’t be running his country for much longer, keeps trying to push chill pills, telling his country men and women that they have little to worry about while at the same time pushing Western countries to supply more arms and the like.

The Docket:  Rudy Giuliani is playing footsie with the January 6^th Committee.  He is either about to testify, or is teasing that he will, with Rudy it’s hard to tell but his options may be limited since as indicated by his recent desperate performance on the Masked Singer, he’s got bigly legal bills and appears to be running short on cash with no financial help coming from the Former Guy who has at least so far has iced him out. As to the Former Guy, he appears to be raking in lots of cash, selling overpriced tchotchkes, picture books and the like while raking in appearance fees and charging those seeking his sometimes helpful sometimes not endorsements for use of his Mar a Lago facilities. Though he and Melania have both promised to send some of their profits on to a charity or two, so far there’s no indication that they’ve done so or will. No surprise that Melania is a big less skilled at grifting than her husband.  She got called out over the weekend for her failure to abide by Florida laws, something about needing to file appropriate paperwork when you claim a tea party is for a charity.  Of course it’s Florida so she’ll only suffer consequences if Florida Governor Ron DeSantis decides it’s in his best interests for her to suffer.  Here in NY all eyes are on the Sarah Palin vs NY Times case, the unvaccinated COVID diner who sees Russia from her balcony is suing the Times for linking her to the Gabby Giffords shooting even though they subsequently apologized for their unintentional error. The experts say that the NY Times will prevail but that Palin will probably appeal to the Supreme Court.  We should know more soon as the jury is now deliberating.   

Viral Musings:   Judging by the unmasked crowds at the Super Bowl, you’d think that the virus was all gone.  Spoiler alert, its fading but not gone. California’s positivity rate is hovering around 8% though here in NYS it’s below 3%, even lower in NYC.  Countrywide new cases are down overall but the daily death count remains above 2000 and low vaccinated areas continue to suffer not that many of them would admit it.  On Friday, Pfizer said that it’s not ready to seek approval for its 6 month to under five years old shot.  Their dilemma is that though the low dose they’re planning to administer to the little kids is safe, in the older ones in the targeted group it doesn’t appear to prevent disease.  They expect that the disease prevention will kick in only after a third dose, and have decided to hold off with their application until they are ready to share that data. That probably means April. However, there is some good news on the monoclonal antibody front as the FDA has now cleared Eli Lily’s new one for use against Omicron.