"An 1888 ordinance from the British colonial government precipitated the need for coffins. The traditional Ga practice..."

"... had been to bury relatives beneath the floor of the family home, to keep the dead close by. But British officials, concerned about hygiene, mandated the use of wooden coffins for burial in designated cemeteries. Some have suggested that fantasy coffins allowed Ghanaians to celebrate their lives and achievements while complying with the law...."

From "6 Feet Under in Art Coffins That Are Over the Top/Elaborate coffins, produced by Ghanaian artisans, are the centerpieces of funerals that celebrate the life of the deceased and get them to the afterlife in style" (NYT gift link)(lots of photos of fantasy coffins).

"For Ga families, finding a fitting design, whether a book for a teacher or a truck with a squeeze-bulb horn for a mechanic, can be a complex and emotional process.... In 2020, a coffin in the shape of a circumcised penis, which was publicized on social media, was rumored to have been made for a sex worker and was widely seen as disrespectful. In fact, it was made to honor a traditional wanzam, similar to a Jewish mohel — someone who performs male circumcisions...."

"There are no federal regulations requiring disclosure of payments for political support on social media, and only a few states have such rules."

"That allows influencers, in most instances, to endorse candidates for a fee without ever disclosing those payments in their posts. Creators say some campaigns have even asked them to actively conceal the fact that they’re being compensated, making it impossible to know what’s genuine support — and what is pay-for-play. In most cases, the only way a viewer would know an influencer is being paid would be to search a candidate’s campaign finance reports, as The New York Times did to discover the payments. Even then, such compensation is regularly obscured by funneling the payments through middlemen...."

From "Influencers Have a Lot to Say About Politics. Many Are Quietly Paid for It. Their videos have proliferated on social media, but the payments are frequently hidden from viewers" (NYT gift link).

Ugh. I already scroll right by anyone who's just talking at the camera in support of a candidate. But to think it's a paid ad sleazily evading disclosure and not just volunteer nitwit!

A tall woman and her short man fiancé don't appreciate Fox News making them a topic for discussion...

... replete with the most cliché tall/short witticisms.

"We Who Are Captivated by the Utmost Beauty of Everything We Know and Shed Tears as We Were Monstrously Touched by the Mystery of the Beauty" and other works...

... can be seen at "Yayoi Kusama: A Life in Pictures/Whether making dot-covered sculptures or wild performance pieces, the Japanese artist grabbed critical and popular acclaim" (NYT gift link).

Kusama's "death at age 97 was announced on Thursday."

"In 2022 he claimed credit for organizing a notorious dinner for Mr. Trump and Mr. West that also included the white supremacist Nick Fuentes."

"(Mr. Yiannopoulos claimed the meeting was an ambush, meant to 'make Trump’s life miserable.') Two years later, Mr. Yiannopoulos joined [Kanye] West’s exploratory campaign for president. Mr. Yiannopoulos, who was openly gay and often said he was attracted to Mr. Trump, announced in 2017 that he had been married to a man who is a U.S. citizen, but never revealed the full identity of that person. He later claimed that he was 'ex-gay,' and had 'demoted' his husband to the role of 'housemate.'"

From "Milo Yiannopoulos, a Right-Wing Provocateur, Is Arrested by ICE/Mr. Yiannopoulos, a prominent early supporter of President Trump, was detained at the New Orleans airport. The Trump administration publicized his arrest and shared a mug shot" (NYT gift link).

• Is there some kind of idea that if you're not sexually attracted to your spouse you're not married anymore?! Good luck in divorce court.

• Here's the 2022 NYT article about the "notorious dinner": "Trump’s Latest Dinner Guest: Nick Fuentes, White Supremacist/The former president’s table for four at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday also included Kanye West, whose antisemitic statements have made him an entertainment-industry outcast."

• Being a prankster may cause you to imagine that the rules don't apply to you, but no one really thinks they don't. 

"[A] vocal group of male commenters have used the [Lindsay Clancy] case to create a sounding board for their resentment of women...."

"Hugh Anthony, who has 66,000 followers, has taken aim at 'modern-day feminists' who are 'satanic freaks … masking [alleged murder] behind psychosis.' Another man brags about dumping a woman because she empathised too much with Clancy’s postpartum psychosis. 'I can’t ignore or gamble my future children,' it reads, to the tune of 2,800 likes. Yet another, from Collin Rugg, a bloviating X provocateur with 2.8 million followers, claims that men are taking their wives’ support of Clancy to divorce court. He shared a video of an attorney who said he would help male clients strip ex-wives of their visitation rights based on their views about the case.... [Men] are whipped into a froth by manosphere types leveraging a tragedy against all women. [Women] are crassly using that tragedy to show the systemic brokenness of marriage and motherhood, bending the facts around their feelings.... Both sides of this tawdry tit-for-tat are incapable of making this catastrophe about anything other than themselves."

Writes Poppy Sowerby, in "Men and women are falling out over Lindsay Clancy. It’s sick/Content creators have hijacked a tragic murder trial and turned it into an ugly proxy war over gender politics" (London Times).

"On July 5, Pamela Guillen, 40, reportedly suffered a severe subdural haematoma and brain compression after hitting her head multiple times on the X2’s headrest during the [roller coaster] ride."

"She began vomiting and lost consciousness before being rushed to the hospital... Surgeons removed part of her skull to relieve pressure on her brain. She regained consciousness two weeks after the ride and has since had to relearn how to walk and talk.... Six days later Naomi Greer-Wilkinson suffered a traumatic brain injury after riding the X2. Greer-Wilkinson, a 25-year-old from Los Angeles... remains in a coma, connected to a ventilator and feeding tube.... Christopher Hawley, 22, died in June 2022 after hitting his head multiple times against the back of the seat while riding the X2. After finishing the ride, he fell to the ground and became unconscious. When doctors treating Hawley removed part of his skull, they found his brain was so swollen it was bulging out of an opening they made to relieve the pressure...."

From "Two women suffered brain injuries after rollercoaster rides/The X2 rollercoaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain, California, is marketed for the 'ultimate daredevil'" (London Times).

"The United States of America has just entered into an Agreement with the Country of Venezuela on, THE BIGGEST OIL DEAL IN WORLD HISTORY!"

"At my direction, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, working closely with Highly Respected Interim President of Venezuela, Delcy Rodriguez, and, through a partnership with private business, have secured majority U.S. control of more than 65 BILLION BARRELS of proven Oil Reserves in Venezuela, at no cost to the American Taxpayer. This Historic Transaction MORE THAN DOUBLES American Oil Reserves, greatly increases our Oil Supply, and will substantially lower Gas Prices for all Americans, long into the future, while helping to continue to set Venezuela on a course toward Tremendous Success and Great Prosperity."

Writes Trump, at Truth Social.

Here's the NYT story: "Trump Says U.S. Has Deal for Control of Large Share of Venezuela’s Oil/The president said an agreement between the countries covered more than 65 billion barrels of reserves. A U.S. official said it would involve a partnership with a private company."

Sunrise.

"[Yayoi] Kusama was... part of the artistic avant-garde. Her death, at 97, is a cold reminder that the avant-garde no longer exists...."

"It was an attempt to see the world afresh. For many of its leading figures, from the Impressionists in the 1870s to conceptual artists a century later, this also meant proposing new and better solutions to the problem of how to be and how to live together. These proposals, many times rooted in sympathy and love, were presented as alternatives to the political structures and market logic that had so often led to war, exploitation, hopelessness, and suffering. Even when attempts to turn these imagined alternatives into reality failed—and often dismally—the avant-garde stood in a clear relationship to modernity’s traumas. It was like the whistle cap in the spout of a boiling kettle: both a release of suppressed pressures (psychic and cultural) and an alarm. But society got sick of hearing the alarm. And the kettle got tired of whistling...."

Writes Sebastian Smee, in "The Limits of Yayoi Kusama's Infinity/The visionary artist once challenged ways of seeing—until she was seen by everyone" (Atlantic gift link).

"Kusama... talked about her repeating dots as an expression of an inclination toward 'self-obliteration' —an urge to dissolve into forever-expanding patterns.... The artist—an adorable maker of giant spotted pumpkins who lived in a psychiatric institution—became beyond criticism. You could no more criticize her than you could a grandmother giving a teddy bear to an orphan.... Successful branding is exactly what art at its best is not: a form of general seduction rather than specific engagement...."

"Through much of the 19th century, noncitizen voting expanded alongside U.S. territorial gains..."

"(the government offered the vote to Europeans who helped dispossess Indians and colonize the West). But in the mid- to late 1800s, immigrants started to become scapegoats for changes that native-born Americans saw as threatening.... Confederates banned immigrant suffrage during the Civil War because they thought migrating Europeans were anti-slavery, while northern states rolled back voting rights in reaction to waves of immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe at the turn of the 20th century, which they associated with crime. By 1926, no state let noncitizens vote in federal elections. In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed into law the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, making noncitizen voting in federal elections a crime...."

Writes Zak Cheney-Rice, in "The Fear of Noncitizen Voting/For Trump, it is the death of America. For liberals, 'Woke 1' excess. Why is noncitizen voting so terrifying?" (New York Magazine).

My MAGA status expires in 5 minutes.

Note: I have made a political contribution approximately twice in my entire life and not even once in this century. I would never respond positively to a political text message, but obviously some people do. I'm pestered with material like this multiple times a day, but I'm choosing this one to blog because "Your MAGA status expires in 5 MINUTES" takes the cake.

"That sucker is open. The Iranian response is very mild. They don't want us to go back at them. That's the whole ball game. The rest doesn't matter."

Said President Trump to Axios, quoted in "'That sucker is open': U.S. gains the upper hand in the battle for Hormuz."

After the MOU fell apart, the military worked to reopen the strait unilaterally. The effort included several elements: Together with the United Arab Emirates, a U.S. military task force started guiding ships through the southern channel of the strait while giving them air cover and intercepting Iranian drone and cruise missile attacks. A two-week U.S. bombing campaign significantly undercut the IRGC's capacity to attack ships crossing the strait. A mine-sweeping operation involved Navy divers, Navy SEALs, underwater and surface drones, and private contractors to detect and neutralize the mines. A blockade of Iranian ports was restored.... 

The Strait of Trump. 

Sunrise.

Oh, no! Now, we have to call Lake Ontario "Lake America."

I'm reading "Trump signs order renaming Lake Ontario as Lake America, escalating Canada feud/President Donald Trump called Canadian officials 'nasty people' and said the country 'has been ripping us off for a long time on trade, very sadly.'"

“We filed all the necessary papers, documents, everything else,” Trump said. “We notified all the various people that we have to notify. So we’ve done everything that you have to do. And this is official, effective immediately.”

"A man who parked a truck carrying a guillotine in the heart of Washington was arrested by the United States Capitol Police on Tuesday...."

"The police arrested Philan-Tam-Duy Le, 35, of Julian, Calif., for 'being in possession of the guillotine,' the department said in the statement. He was charged with carrying a dangerous weapon. 'It did have a real blade,' the police’s public information office said.... The man had driven to the nation’s capital from California, the police said. The truck was parked not far from the Library of Congress and other prominent Washington buildings.... It was unclear whether Mr. Le had driven the truck across the country with the guillotine on it, a journey that could have been more than 2,500 miles."

From "Man Accused of Bringing Guillotine to D.C. Is Arrested/Philan-Tam-Duy Le, 35, of Julian, Calif., was taken into custody for 'being in possession of the guillotine,' the police said" (NYT).

Is "being in possession of a guillotine" a crime? There's this at Law Commentary:

D.C. law bans several weapons by name, including machine guns, sawed-off shotguns, switchblade knives, and knuckles. It also covers other dangerous weapons when someone possesses them with the intent to use them unlawfully against another person. A guillotine is not specifically listed.... Prosecutors must establish that it qualifies as a dangerous weapon under the law and address the required intent....

D.C.’s highest local court applied that rule last year in Carrington v. United States, throwing out a weapons conviction involving an umbrella because prosecutors had not shown that it was likely to cause death or serious injury in the way it was used....

 The police asked Le if it worked and he said, "Yeah, it’s the real deal, man."