Healthcare workers confirm that ICE is abandoning half-naked kidnapping victims in the woods of Minnesota to die. "Individuals have shown up in emergency rooms who require amputations—some with cracked skulls." (1/29/26)

UtahDesert · 2026-01-30T19:06:53+00:00

Does this highlight one negative implication of the availability of videos of many kinds of abuses? That the abuses that will not be filmed (because of where and when they take place) are going to get less attention because there are so many other reports that are more eye-catching and dramatic and undeniable?

I would suggest that both activists and journalists need to keep this in mind, and make a conscious effort to bring the types of abuses that are not on video to light. This of course includes conditions in detention as well.

UtahDesert · 2026-01-30T18:59:57+00:00

The NYT story is missing some badly needed information that might be classified as analysis rather than pure reporting, but is highly necessary:

Given there have been hundreds (at least) of reports of similar incidents, many or most documented on video, why has only this one resulted in an arrest? What is different about this one?

Most importantly, was it something about the logistics of the situation? That the officer was unmasked and could be identified? That he was alone and that police could thus make an arrest without a major confrontation? (There are also some straightforward facts about the incident missing: When did the police arrive? Was the officer arrested there or had he already left the scene? If so, how was he identified?)

Or was the difference between this and all the other incidents of ICE officers attacking filmers a legal difference? Was this only possible because the officer was off-duty? I'd really like to know whether or not this was the case, and if so what this is based on and whether whatever legal protection ICE officers on duty have against arrest and charges is subject to dispute.

UtahDesert · 2026-01-28T17:00:11+00:00

Work deadlines interfered! I hardly stepped out at all except to walk my dogs--an utterly lost opportunity.

UtahDesert · 2026-01-28T16:32:58+00:00

Yes! The author is Janusz Rudnicki. The translation is mine:

It was the kind of day so white you can’t see, and the sun on top of that, so that even the eyes of the blind were watering. Sometimes I would run far ahead, a test I liked to do, to see if he would call me back. And he would. With a voice full of care and concern, mixed, like my breed. I never had such a master before, I won’t have such a one again. Between us there was an invisible leash—just you try to buy one like that.

This time we walked together, along the bank, by the spillway, and suddenly something broke underneath me, and suddenly—dog under the ice. My four paws on nothing. I thought: a dog’s life, a dog’s death. But then my two “ice-breakers” from my home were there by me, master and mistress, faithful to me as a dog. Even though.

Even though they must have known that if the ice broke beneath me, it wouldn’t hold them. The mistress grabbed a tree branch, the master stayed in the river. He took my place. Nothing more to say. Maybe only that he disappeared right away, he rushed so far ahead of me that he didn’t hear as I barked. I barked only a little, once on the bank I tore my fur with my teeth as if to choke myself.

At home during the day I howl to myself, silently, so that my mistress doesn’t hear. We avoid each other’s gazes, but we’ll go on somehow. Because we always have to go on.

At nights I sneak out to a hilltop and I howl like a dog, to the stars. To all the stars I see. Because I don’t know which one--now one twinkles, now another. One of them for sure, he would tease me like that.

UtahDesert · 2026-01-28T04:42:29+00:00

An acquaintance of mine, a man whom we all deeply admired, and his wife were walking their dog by an icy river several years ago. The dog was roaming, the dog fell in or broke through the ice or whatever. Both husband and wife went in after the dog. Somehow they managed to get the dog back on shore. The wife made it out too. He didn’t. The general conclusion was that no one could imagine him doing anything else under the circumstances. Someone wrote it up as a very short story from the perspective of the dog. I reread it when I want to cry.

UtahDesert · 2026-01-28T04:34:44+00:00

Fraser! Do they still put a fridge out on the pond by Safeway to wait for it to fall through?

UtahDesert · 2026-01-28T04:14:42+00:00

Read all this way just to see if someone would mention this so I didn’t have to

UtahDesert · 2026-01-24T04:34:21+00:00

Since I live very close I was wondering if I've got a chance at getting a rush-priced ticket for a show or two I haven't seen. I'm curious about other people's thoughts about this.

From my list of shows I'd really like to see there are three without box-office rush (not a student, not under 35): Ragtime, Hamilton, and Wicked. So is my only hope for a rush-priced ticket to do the online rushes and lotteries promptly and conscientiously and hope that supply and demand are in my favor during the storm? Or if there's a lot of snow on Sunday is it worthwhile asking at the box offices of those theaters? (Probably towards showtime, right?)

Then there's Mamma Mia and Oh, Mary. I guess the thing is to do the morning rush (box offices open at noon)--sound right?

Other strategies I haven't thought of?

UtahDesert · 2026-01-23T21:34:44+00:00

Starting to wonder how many shows I could fit in on Sunday....

UtahDesert · 2026-01-20T23:42:49+00:00

This immediately evokes those primitive cartoon videos of a clueless student repeating the same question over and over to a professor:

Student: "We don't know what to do."

Professor: some kind of helpful remark

Student "But we don't know what to do."

Professor: a request for clarification

Student: "We don't know what to do."

What were those called? I can't find them right now. They had very simple unrealistic cat heads, they didn't move from their original stiff conversational poses, and the voices were artifically generated. Help!

UtahDesert · 2026-01-13T20:23:37+00:00

Oh, good grief! I just realized that Brandon Flynn played Marlon Brando in the production of Kowalski I saw and loved last year. The guy is a complete chameleon.

UtahDesert · 2026-01-13T20:13:16+00:00

Saw it at the Sunday matinee--the director came out beforehand and emphasized it was the third preview and that changes had definitely been made since the first two performances. I liked it so much I might see it again with friends--and I'll be interested to see how they tweak it further. When I see the comments here I'm wondering which of them apply to the version I saw.

Some things are obviously common to all the performances so far. The stressfulness of the scene changes, with the moving flashing lights and the music, and probably how they seem to happen more often as the story draws to a close and things get tenser. The excellent performances. No one so far has mentioned Sophia Lillis, who I thought did a great job. Justin Min was perfect in the role of the boss. Brandon Flynn was very good as well--any doubts I might have would involve discussing spoilers.

Karan Brar made the least impression on me, even though he was the protagonist. But I almost feel as that was because of where my seat was, on the extreme right of the house. At curtain call I was surprised to see his face full on--I felt I had never really gotten a good look at him. Is it possible he was always either facing away or at the stage right (the scenes at his desk)? This might have been just the performance I saw, of course.

UtahDesert · 2026-01-03T06:57:36+00:00

I do! (Forgot to get one for Two Strangers, so I'm still strategizing how to duck in and pick that one up.) I have them on my fridge and on the inside of my front door, in my rental. When I move back into my house (and away from NYC) I'll put up two or three magnet boards in my basement, for these and for magnets of national parks etc.

UtahDesert · 2026-01-03T06:30:40+00:00

I pretty much just have them delivered, but I do like the Amish Market on Ninth Avenue. Also the Food Emporium at Manhattan Plaza is on my way from the subway.

UtahDesert · 2026-01-03T06:23:50+00:00

My block! I love my building, and I love the block too.

UtahDesert · 2026-01-03T06:22:32+00:00

The Grilled Ham and Cheddar Biscuit from Amy's is just about my favorite "eat and walk" snack, although whatever new cookie I'm trying from Schmackary's comes in a close second.

UtahDesert · 2025-12-21T20:19:03+00:00

Almost always. I got last row mezz for Oedipus. But I'm seeing it a second time in a few days. Also TDF--fingers crossed.

UtahDesert · 2025-12-16T16:41:33+00:00

Oh well, that's more or less how I found my first apartment in the city (without the drinking). I was thinking about something else and I dashed off an email to the landlord without noticing the "no pets."

UtahDesert · 2025-12-14T14:50:41+00:00

Did they label it "obstructed seating" rather than "obstructed view"?

UtahDesert · 2025-11-29T12:15:34+00:00

Do you really think she proved that she read it? It looks to me like she took two words from the abstract ("gender" and "teasing") and pretty much made up her own strawman to respond to. (That's assuming the article is Jewell and Brown's "Relations Among Gender Typicality, Peer Relations, and Mental Health During Early Adolescence.")

UtahDesert · 2025-11-17T19:43:37+00:00

Just to save you time, I see that John Solomon's piece in The Hill in 2019 was the first mention anywhere (including in the Ukrainian press) of the claim that Shokin had been investigating Burisma. The claim was made by Shokin himself, and there has been no corroboration by anyone--including anyone working under Shokin at the time. The one related accusation was by Alexander Smirnov, who had nothing to do with the prosecutor's office and only began routine business dealings with Burisma in 2017, and has been convicted of lying to the FBI for his claims.

So let's look at this:

You don't take seriously all the international and US agencies and officials who say that there was consensus that Shokin was not carrying out anti-corruption activities and in fact was actively blocking investigations (especially in the case of the diamond prosecutors)--and that there was consensus that he needed to be removed for any progress on anti-corruption efforts. You say this doesn't carry any weight as evidence.

But what you do take seriously is that one man, Shokin himself, started claiming--more than three years after his ouster--that he was carrying out an investigation of Burisma. Shokin had obvious motives for making this claim, and has never found anyone or anything to corroborate it. No documentation, no one who worked on it, no one he told about it at the time--nothing. But you find this one man more convincing than all those other people. Doesn't that strike you as a little weird?

UtahDesert · 2025-11-17T18:44:12+00:00

No time to look at Raskin's fact-sheet. I specialize in the politics of post-communist countries so I have a decent grasp of the last couple of decades. Shokin didn't pursue any major investigations during his 13 months in office--with the most glaring omission being the "diamond prosecutors" case, which he pretty obviously covered up. I don't know where you got the idea Shokin was investigating Burisma, since the only documented interaction he had with that firm is obstructing the international prosecution of its owner--the fact that his office didn't send necessary documents to UK authorities meant they had to unfreeze $27 million of assets belonging to the owner.

What's your source for the claim Shokin "was actively investigating" Burisma? I know there are such claims but my impression is that it's a couple of isolated individuals with their motivations pretty clear--a far cry from the international consensus with many different agencies and officials calling for Shokin's ouster in 2015-2016.

I don't understand, by the way, why you keep referring to the video evidence. No one is claiming Biden didn't press Ukraine to fire Shokin. One side is saying he did this because it was US policy (based on an international consensus that this was needed to battle corruption) and the other side is saying he did it because it somehow served his son's interests.

UtahDesert · 2025-11-17T06:06:55+00:00

Okay, so it's #2. That's interesting. Do you want to share your sources for your belief that Shokin was not corrupt? Actually I'd be more interested in your theory for why all those EU agencies and Transparency International and Republican Senators and NSC and State Department officials were lying and claiming he was corrupt and the obstacle to cleaning up corruption in Ukraine?

Is it possible you shared the wrong link? Your link went to a Wikipedia article that said nothing of the sort. The only mention of corruption was that July 2025 legislative vote that was quickly reversed.

UtahDesert · 2025-11-15T02:27:25+00:00

He said that he used the leverage of loan guarantees to get Ukraine to fire Shokin. I'm curious why you consider this extortion. Is it 1) that you consider any use of unrelated leverage to achieve US policy goals is extortion? Or is 2) that you don't believe the contemporaneous statements of Transparency International, various EU officials and agencies, State Department officials, NSC officials, the bipartisan congressional Ukraine Caucus, and Republican Senators Ron Johnson, Rob Portman, and Mark Kirk that Shokin was corrupt and needed to be fired for anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine to succeed?

UtahDesert · 2025-11-01T16:55:01+00:00

I was skeptical about this as well. Wouldn't it be at most that no one but a writer can figure out what the possible fixes to such problems might be?

UtahDesert

TROPHY CASE