No one deserves what's coming

It’s no surprise to me that two of the most vocal voices against Donald Trump and his cabinet of ghouls have been Black representatives from the state of Texas. Both stood up, literally, to Trump last week, with Jasmine Crockett walking out of his Congressional address and Green, who is 77 (and who represents my home town of Houston), shouting down Trump while waving his cane before being escorted off the chamber floor. Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi, Teresa Leger Fernandez of New Mexico, Jill Tokuda of Hawaii, and other members of the Democratic Women’s Caucus sat silently in their pink suits. Yass queens give us absolutely nothing.

A common refrain we Southerns hear is that we “deserve” what we get for voting for politicians like Greg Abbott and Donald Trump (even though I voted for neither). Seeing both Crockett and Green set the examples of resistance that all Democrats should be following makes me proud to be a Texan. (It’s also worth noting that Green was one of just 14 Houses members to call for the release of Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil this week.)

Coastal liberals don’t seem to realize that three quarters of Black Americans live in the South — that’s who you’re talking about when you say Southerners “get what we deserve”. Undocumented immigrants who live along the border. Eleven-year-old girls forced to leave the state to seek pregnancy terminations. That’s who you think “deserves” this? The argument is not just nonsensical because it can be turned on it’s head — do coastal liberals “deserve” Donald Trump now that he’s been elected a second time? It’s also nonsensical because no one, not even the people who voted for Trump, deserve what’s coming.

The same week Crockett was going viral for telling Elon Musk to fuck off, an artist in Denmark was preparing to open a controversial exhibit in Copenhagen. Set in a former meatpacking plant, the centerpiece of the show was two overturned shopping carts in which three baby piglets were trapped. The artist’s intention was to allow the piglets to starve to death during the run of the show, as a way to draw attention to the horrors of the pork farming industry, or something. (The exhibit, notes the New York Times, also featured large scale paintings of both the Danish flag and slaughtered pigs.)

(It’s also worth noting here that a previous exhibit by the artist, Marco Evaristti, included ten goldfish in blenders that gallery visitors were allowed to turn on. It’s unclear why Evaristti keeps trying to make the same point about animal abuse by literally abusing animals.)

Anyway, on the morning after the exhibition’s opening, the piglets went missing. It was later revealed that it was a member of Evaristti’s own team who had the pigs rescued. 

Casper Steffensen… admitted that he had been feeding the piglets even when he wasn’t supposed to, after the exhibition opened. “I didn’t realize how much I’d get attached to these piglets,” said Steffensen, a filmmaker who has been working with Evaristti on a documentary for the past five years.

Like Evaristti, Steffensen had been dedicated to the message of the exhibition. But Steffensen had also been in charge of taking care of the three piglets before the exhibition opened. “They were so cute,” he said. He brought his two children to feed and play with the piglets. “My daughter is 10 and she was asking me with tears in her eyes if they were really going to starve to death,” Steffensen said. “I told her they had to starve to death because we had to show everyone in Denmark what is happening. It broke my heart.”

When approached by a representative from Organization Against the Suffering of Animals after the first night, he was adamant that he couldn’t damage Evaristti’s exhibition by handing the piglets over, but then he found he couldn’t sleep. “I was constantly thinking about those three piglets,” he said. He called the representative the next morning and told him to come before Evaristti arrived at the gallery.

“I made a quick and stupid decision that I’m very proud of,” Steffensen said.

This exhibition sounds stupid as hell, tedious, self-righteous and preachy. It’s up for debate whether the pig-napping was in fact a stunt, though both Steffensen and Evaristti swear it wasn’t. 

Still, it sets a stark example for how easy it is to simply listen to your conscience and stand up for tyrants.

This is why we need DEI

Baseball season is about to start and to drum up hype MLB released these fugly-ass “Overlap 5950” hats featuring a mashup of each team’s cap logo overlaid on top of its jersey logo. The hats scream “graphic design is my passion,” but let me direct you specifically towards the hat for the Texas Rangers.

You’re telling me that in a primarily Hispanic sport in a primarily Hispanic state, no one caught this? (In case you don’t know, “tetas” means tiddies in Spanish.) The hats were swiftly pulled off the shelf, making them collectors items. This is the second fubar in as many years by clothing maker Fanatics, who last year graced us with uniforms so see-through you could tell a player’s religion. 

Worthwhile reads

• Excellent advice from Jaya Saxena at Eater — What Should You Do if ICE Comes to Your Restaurant? These don’t just apply to the food service industry either. Tips include:
  • There’s a difference between public and private spaces. ICE can not enter private spaces (such as a back office) without consent or a warrant.
  • Make sure employees know that only the business owner or property owner can give ICE access to private spaces without a warrant.
  • If they have a warrant, it must be signed by a judge. Ask to see the warrant before admitting ICE. (I've seen advice elsewhere to ask agents to hold the warrant up to a closed window, for example.)
• A work by Camille Claudel that was lost for over a century was redicovered and sold — to the tune of €3.7 million, the second-most expensive piece the artist ever sold. Claudel’s life was fascinating and tragic. There’s a very good 1988 movie about her, but unfortunately it stars serial rapist Gerard Depardieu as Rodin. Not sure I could stomach a rewatch.
• Every night, workers scrub a mixture of hair, skin and metal filings from the walls of the London Underground. A journalist from The Londoner joins them for a shift.
• Joan Didion is in the zeitgeist again (as if she ever left) with the publication of two new books about her and one containing her post-therapy letters to her husband John Dunne. I reread her essay, ”The Santa Anas”, while the wildfires were raging in Los Angeles earlier this year, but there’s a different quote that has stood out to me recently as we deal with… gestures broadly at everything.

“It takes an act of will to live in the world,” Didion told students at UC Riverside in a 1975 commencement address. “And that’s not easy. It takes work. You have to keep stripping yourself down, examining everything you see, getting rid of whatever is blinding you. And sometimes when you get rid of what’s blinding you, you get your eyes opened, you don’t like what you see at all. And that’s the risk.”

That’s all for today. I love you, thanks for reading, kiss your piglets goodnight tonight.