"In 1983 she was mugged when she was out with her friend Larry David. She smiles. 'This is the curse of Larry David...'"

"'... it was terrifying but it was also hilarious. We both co-operated because there were two young guys and one of them had a shotgun, but Larry, I guess through stress, slipped into sounding like [the confident sports journalist] Howard Cosell. Going, "All right, take the money, everybody just stay calm." And I was looking at him, like, who are you?'"

From "I wrote Thelma & Louise — nothing has changed for women since then
Callie Khouri is turning her film into a musical. She talks about discovering a young Brad Pitt, getting mugged with Larry David and why she would love to return to Nashville" (London Times).

Also: "... Khouri says, looking resigned, that she doesn’t think much has changed for women since that day when, fired up, she wrote a fantasy about striking back against everything she had to put up with. 'In the US it’s got worse,' she states.

"As far back as 2018, Lodge had been stealing body parts — including 'heads, faces, brains, skin and hands' — which he’d then bring to his home..."

"... in New Hampshire and sell with his wife, prosecutors said, shipping them to buyers in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. In one horrifying example heard during his trial, Lodge provided skin to a buyer so it could be tanned into leather and bound into a book.... 'In another, Cedric and Denise Lodge sold a man’s face — perhaps to be kept on a shelf, perhaps to be used for something even more disturbing'...."

From "Harvard to pay $53M in suit over selling donated corpses on black market" (NY Post).

The news from Sicily.

1. "American Hiker Dies After Lightning Strike on Mount Etna in Italy/Rescuers found a 29-year-old man in serious condition on the volcano’s eastern slope on Sunday. He was later pronounced dead at a hospital in Catania" (NYT gift link)("On Monday, Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology reported that another volcanic vent had opened in the valley, with fresh lava flowing overnight.... During a volcanic eruption, tiny collisions among the rising particles of ash can create static electricity, which may in turn produce volcanic lightning").

2. "Thieves Steal 4 Renaissance Paintings From Italian Museum in Brazen Heist/The works, by Antonello da Messina, were taken as the Sicilian city of Messina held a religious celebration" (NYT gift link)("The celebration, the Procession of the Vara, is a religious ritual that takes places every Aug. 15. Some 100,000 people attended the celebration and the city’s law enforcement officials were focused on maintaining order there, city officials said....The theft is a blow to the city.... [F]or the past few years the city has focused on the 'Messina, City of Antonello' brand...).

3. The Procession of the Vara:

"Michelin-starred chef faces jail for garnishing desserts with ants."

A headline in The London Times. 

Prosecutors [in South Korea] put the total number of individual ants served at roughly 49,000. The owner argued the dried insects were only used in a “small part” of the restaurant’s 15-course menu, largely as a topping for sorbets, and that restaurants in countries such as Denmark, the UK and Australia also serve ants. They noted diners were also able to choose non-ant toppings, including fermented vinegar and edible flowers, and disputed the prosecution’s estimate, claiming only about 60 per cent of diners opted to try the ants.... 

Ants are not among the ten insect species approved for human consumption in Korea. Grasshoppers, locusts, brown-banded cockroaches and two-spotted crickets, however, are among those deemed safe to eat.

"Mr Pelosi was driving a burgundy Maserati convertible along a residential street when he collided with a black Tesla, legally parked at the side of the road..."

"... according to court documents. Police said at the time that he briefly stopped before driving on again. The suspect 'fled the scene and did not make any attempts to contact the owner of the Tesla,' a sheriff’s deputy wrote on a complaint form. His car then appears to have broken down. The deputy said she found him about half a mile away. 'He disclosed hitting a parked vehicle and intended to go back and leave his information,' she wrote. The Maserati had to be towed away, according to the complaint...."

From "Nancy Pelosi’s husband charged over ‘hit-and-run’ in California/Paul Pelosi, 86, allegedly failed to stop when his Maserati convertible struck a Tesla parked by the side of a road" (London Times).

Souvenirs.

"Officers said they observed Mr. Thiers and Mr. Carreno reach their hands into the water, peel pieces of blue sealant off and pull them out of the water, according to arrest records. Officers also found a piece of the reflecting pool liner in Ms. Dennison-Gibby’s purse, the records showed."

From "Three More People Charged With Damaging Reflecting Pool/The three individuals face misdemeanor charges of causing damage worth less than $1,000. Experts have said that the problems could have been caused by the pool’s makeover" (NYT).

"A Terrible Thing Happened to My Family," writes Pete Buttigieg.

At Substack.

I don't think he's accusing Child Protective Services or the police of handling the complaint improperly. Should they have done anything differently? Read the essay carefully and tell me what you think. I believe the answer is no.

The police officer, the CPS professional, and the forensic interviewers who spoke to my children were just following procedure and doing their jobs - admirable jobs that must be incredibly difficult every day, protecting the most vulnerable children from the most horrible threats....

The "terrible thing" was not done by the authorities but only by the anonymous person who made a complaint against him. 

Even though the accusation was absurdly and obviously false, and was promptly rejected by law enforcement, I still worry... about how anyone, even in today’s world, could fail to respect the absolutely fundamental principle that whatever you think about someone in politics, you leave people’s kids out of it.

No matter how well-recognized a principle is, there are always transgressors. There's always some outlier person who's going to go ahead and do the forbidden thing. There's some value in expressing outrage, but to express outrage is to tell people how to be outrageous. 

The pro-algae crowd...

More footage from the liberal ‘Pro-Algae protest” that took place in Washington DC

Liberals cheer for algae growth at The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool to spite Donald Trump cleaning the area

Imagine this being your life…. I know what we’re all thinking, what are the… pic.twitter.com/i1Fo6Su8oQ

— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) June 21, 2026

... and the rubber rippers...

🚨 NEW: Fox’s Peter Doocy just asked Jeanine Pirro if ABC’s Jonathan Karl is in trouble after President Trump called him out for ‘sticking his hand in the Reflecting Pool trying to rip the rubber off the surface.’

Doocy: “Judge, is he in trouble?”

Pirro: “If you damage,… pic.twitter.com/zfaK2TJHHz

— TV News Now (@TVNewsNow) June 21, 2026

"I was just a curious, concerned citizen. I guess I was there at the wrong place, wrong time."

Said David Carter Hearn, 67, "a cyclist and three-time Olympian as a canoeist who says he stopped at the [Reflecting Pool] on Friday just to have a look, then reached down to touch a strip of peeling blue paint mixed with the algae. The U.S. Park Police arrested Mr. Hearn shortly after, accusing him of destroying government property, a crime that can carry up to a 10-year prison sentence."

I'm reading "Trump, Claiming Vandalism, Says Reflecting Pool Will Likely Need to Be Drained/The pool has taken on clouds of algae after a hasty renovation. A three-time Olympian was charged with destroying government property after he says he touched one of the strands of blue paint peeling off the pool’s bottom" (NYT).

"The administration has not released the names of others accused of vandalizing the pool, a crime that Mr. Trump said on Saturday could lead to 'years in jail.' In a later post, he said without evidence that vandals had 'poured corrosive and destructive chemicals into the Pool.'"

I don't know if the claims of vandalism are true, but the temptation to vandalize was obvious and strong even before Trump started talking about vandals. Now, it's unavoidable, and I think we will never have our pool back where it belongs in the American psyche. It's a mess, a bone of contention, a symbol of everything and anything people don't like about Trump. The pool never worked as it was intended, and now its essential badness is glaring at us, and it will never calm back down into the serene murky swamp it once was. 

"The trolls have a particular following in the United States, where Dambo has scattered them across 22 states, with plans to build them in the remaining 28."

"He was drawn to America’s 'big, wild spaces,' he said, adding, 'We don’t have anywhere you can get lost like that in Denmark.' In Breckenridge, Colo., one of the trolls drew such large crowds that it was relocated to a more out-of-the-way location. A troll that he created for the 2025 Burning Man festival now has a permanent home at Filoli, a historic property about 30 miles from San Francisco. And this week, one of Dambo’s trolls burned down in a park in Austin, Texas, the city’s Fire Department said...."

I'm reading "He’s Trolling Your Trash, and Turning It Into Art/Thomas Dambo built a global following by turning Denmark’s scrap into giant, hidden forest creatures. Now, the art world is finally letting him inside" (NYT)(gift link, for the photographs and because I focused on the part of the text that's about the arson in Austin but there are other angles on Dambo).

Speaking of Burning Man — Dambo built a troll that was at a Burning Man festival — I've been wondering if the burning of the Austin troll was influenced by the tradition of burning a large wooden sculptural figure — not Dambo's troll —  at Burning Man.

I bounced this theory off Grok, which noted that the burning at Burning Man is done according to a plan, presented as art, and drawing a crowd that experiences the fire as a ritual or celebration. The Austin troll burning happened without a ceremony or crowd or air of artiness. As far as we know. Unless it was some very elite and nihilist group of art lovers.

Grok, write a short short story in which the burning of the Austin troll WAS done by a small group of elite nihilists who absolutely believed in what they were doing as art.

Excerpt from the story: "The troll was too sincere. Eighteen feet of reclaimed wood and optimism, grinning like a simpleton at the joggers and children and civic-minded Austinites who posted heart emojis under her photos. Thomas Dambo had built her to remind people of recycling and wonder and other gentle lies. The Consortium found this unbearable. 'Sentiment is violence,' Elena whispered as they poured the accelerant...."

"So, we were just talking about this wild crime spree that happened this weekend in Austin.... they stole cars and stole guns and switched cars and they shot at like 10 different locations...."

"They shot multiple people.... &ou were saying that the reason why they had a hard time catching them is because they had Flock cameras in Austin, but then they shut those cameras off for political reasons...."

Said Joe Rogan, inviting Mark Andreeson to talk about Flock, which applies AI to info from municipal cameras to find cars for the police. Andreeson is a big investor in Flock.

 

Andreeson: "It's used all over the country. It solves crimes every day. We get reports on carjackings with kids in the back seat and their lives get saved because they track them down. So a lot of towns and cities have this and they love it. In cities like Austin with the intense politics, they run into backlash on privacy and surveillance concerns. And so Austin had Flock and then turned it off. And as a consequence, they were not able to find these guys for several days. And then what happened — the late breaking news today is these guys drove into some adjacent town up against Austin and Flock was live in that town. And so Flock tagged them the minute they drove into that town and then they caught the guys. Subsequent to that, the mayor and your chief of police gave a press conference and said, 'We really need to rethink this,' because it's crazy to have the ability to solve crimes and stop crimes and not be able to use it...."

"Our investigators lost critical hours tracking down today’s shooting suspects because Austin’s City Council chose politics over public safety...."

Our investigators lost critical hours tracking down today’s shooting suspects because Austin’s City Council chose politics over public safety and prevented APD from using license plate readers and other crime-fighting technology.

Those cameras could have helped identify suspect… https://t.co/yp4ZKdLc1a

— Michael Bullock (@MBullockATX) May 18, 2026

Here's an AP report from half an hour ago: "3 young people arrested in series of random shootings across Austin that left 4 injured." I wonder how do they know its random? They're calling it a "series." It might have been coordinated.

"This disaster was an ideological choice. If states are the laboratories of democracy, cities had become its meth labs."

"San Francisco spent the covid era limiting the tools and tactics available to law enforcement. In 2019, it became the first major U.S. city to ban police from using facial recognition technology. The 8-1 vote was a knee-jerk response to an innovation that has since become a ubiquitous feature on phones and in airports and office lobbies. Aaron Peskin, the city supervisor who sponsored the bill, said the city had an 'outsize responsibility to regulate the excesses of technology' because San Francisco was viewed as the headquarters of U.S. innovation. The posturing led to an outsize increase in the crime rate and an outsize population exodus from the Bay Area."

I'm reading "Why is Trump backing off San Francisco? These results. Democrat Daniel Lurie is using technology to make the city safe again" (WaPo).

"[T]he organizations producing that data are cooking the books so they can smear the Right with the Left's crimes."

You can't fix a problem if your diagnosis hinges on blaming its victims. If the Democrats actually care to tackle political violence, the Left needs to own up to the fact that it is responsible for inculcating a culture of violence that targets the Right. https://t.co/VaOPejzOQI

— Batya Ungar-Sargon (@bungarsargon) April 29, 2026

"These allegations represent a profound abuse of trust at a time when the American people needed it most — during the height of a global pandemic."

Said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, quoted in "Anthony Fauci adviser indicted by DOJ on charges of concealing COVID records" (NY Post).

"There’s one thing that’s stealing when you are a teenager and you want the adrenaline rush. And part of it is about testing the rules..."

"... and getting away with something. But what I’m seeing on TikTok and social media is people saying that they’re stealing from Whole Foods not just for the thrill of it, but out of a feeling of anger and moral justification. Because the rich don’t play by the rules, so why should I? And Jeff Bezos has too much money — he’s a billionaire — so why should I have to pay for organic avocados? My friends and I have started calling this microlooting, because it has a slight political valence to theft, as opposed to just the thrill of getting away with something. Have you noticed this around you online? Have you noticed more people talking about stealing in this way?"

Says NYT writer Nadja Spiegelman on an episode of the NYT "Opinions" podcast, "'The Rich Don’t Play by the Rules. So Why Should I?'Why petty theft might be the new political protest."

Those other 2 characters are New Yorker writer Jia Tolentino and Hasan Piker, a political commentator I blogged about a year ago when he was being touted as the potential "Joe Rogan of the left."

Tolentino says: "I think it’s great that the valence of property is on the table as something to be toyed with, in terms of direct action. We’ve forgotten that there is a long and storied history of sabotage and engagement with property destruction, even, which is abhorrent to people...."

Piker: "In the Marxist tradition, adventurism is the action that is oftentimes decentralized. Oftentimes, anarchists will say, 'This is the propaganda of the deed.'

"While the police made light of Mr. Augustine’s pasta-and-switch method, calling it a 'pasta-tively terrible plan,' his scheme was just the latest in a trend of Lego thefts."

I'm reading "Man Charged in Lego Theft Scheme of Replacing Pieces With Pasta, Police Say/A California man was charged with grand theft after the police said he reaped about $34,000 in what an official called an 'off the charts' pasta-and-switch scheme involving Lego kits" (NYT).

Read Hayes, a research scientist and criminologist at the University of Florida and the executive director of the Loss Prevention Research Council, said it was possible that Mr. Augustine’s use of uncooked pasta — which he described as “off the charts” — was meant to simulate the shifting sound of the pieces inside the box.

So this guy was able — at least 70 times — to return boxes and get a refund without it being noticed that the box did not contain the original Legos? It was enough that the box sounded as though it contained Legos. This worked 70+ times?! And the police act like it's cute and make puns.

Who knew ant farms were this popular?

"Man caught with 2,000 live ants in his luggage..."

"The shift to drilling holes in fuel tanks comes as an old method of stealing gas has faded: siphoning...."

"Most newer vehicles have narrow, curved filler necks leading to the gas tank, making it difficult to force a tube inside. Some vehicles also have internal flappers or baffles to thwart siphoning. And anti-pollution regulations mean fuel systems are often better sealed. Gas thefts of all kinds tend to follow pump prices...."

From "As fuel prices rise, a new technique of gas theft is spreading/With simple tools, thieves are 'drilling and draining' fuel from vehicles, leaving drivers with costly repair bills" (WaPo).

I don't like that phrase "As fuel prices rise," which seems to assume the rising trend will continue. Right now, I'm seeing this:

"When I once interviewed him, he had an orchestra playing live for us. He had the kind of paintings Spain would go to war with [Italy] over."

Said Antonio Mascolo, a journalist in Parma, quoted in "Thieves steal works by Cézanne, Renoir, Matisse in less than 3 minutes/Four masked men are believed to have forced their way through an entry gate, grabbed the paintings and escaped by climbing a fence, Italy’s Carabinieri said" (WaPo).

The museum is The Magnani Rocca Foundation museum in the town of Traversetolo. It was not well guarded. We're told the paintings might be worth $10 million total. 

The paintings are Renoir’s “Fish,” Cézanne’s “Cup and Plate with Cherries” and Matisse’s “Odalisque on the Terrace.” Will we miss them?

Hey, remember the old "Renoir Sucks at Painting" Instagram account?