"Decades ago, the world of fashion was smaller and feistier, dominated by eccentric, visionary designers trying to express themselves...."

"In 2000, John Galliano showed his infamous 'homeless chic' couture collection. Alexander McQueen’s 'Highland Rape' show of torn dresses shocked the industry in 1995. Rei Kawakubo’s spring 1997 line, known as 'lumps and bumps,' remains one of the most significant collections of the century because it rejected traditional sex appeal, distorting and reimagining a woman’s form. It would be impossible to defend 'homeless chic' or 'Highland Rape.' Or Mr. Lagerfeld's disdain for fat bodies, a part of his personal brand, or Mr. Galliano’s antisemitic tirades.... But as fashion becomes more consolidated and homogenized... it hasn’t seemed to figure out how to provoke and shake up aesthetics and culture, creating crazes that people open their wallets to be part of...."

Writes Amy Odell, in "The Rise of Fashion Slop" (NYT).

"Rape claim against Democrat has party asking: Why did we ignore 'red flags'?"

That's the headline at the London Times, a question that assumes a proposition I don't accept as true. Democrats didn't ignore red flags. They saw them and went forward anyway.

The question should be why did they do that, and we know why. It's not hard to figure out. I don't for one minute believe that Democrats are deeply contemplating why they backed Platner despite what they knew. They wanted to win the Senate seat, and they imagined he was their best hope. Now, they are trying to act as though they were blindsided by this rape accusation, and it suddenly disqualifies Platner in a new way.

By the way, what's Platner's motivation to withdraw? He won the primary. It's his nomination. What's good is there for him in withdrawing? If he hangs on for a few more days, past the July 13th deadline for replacing him as the candidate, won't the heat die down? He will have weathered the storm, and he can present himself as a rebellious survivor.

Yes, he may lose, and that loss may be the one Senate seat that denies Democrats the majority they covet, but so what? I mean: "So what?" from his point of view. Should he shrink back into oyster-ridden obscurity because of a rape he says he did not commit? Because of a tattoo everyone knew about when he won the primary? 

"What is clear is that the majority today forecloses future reliance on Sosa and shuts the courthouse doors to almost any claimed violation of international law under the [Alien Tort Statute]."

"That includes torture. See, e.g., Filartiga v. Pena-Irala, 630 F. 2d 876, 878 (CA2 1980) (ATS suit brought by plaintiff alleging that his son had been kidnapped and tortured to death in retaliation for the plaintiff’s political beliefs). It includes forced labor. See, e.g., Licea v. Curacao Drydock Co., 584 F. Supp. 2d 1355, 1359 (SD Fla. 2008) (ATS suit alleging that the defendant trafficked Cubans to Curacao, held them in captivity, and forced them to work repairing ships and oil platforms). It also includes perhaps the most universally condemned crime in the modern era: genocide. See, e.g., Kadic v. Karadzic, 70 F. 3d 232, 236–237 (CA2 1995) (ATS suit alleging 'brutal acts of rape, forced prostitution, forced impregnation, torture, and summary execution, carried out by Bosnian-Serb military forces as part of a genocidal campaign'). 'Like the pirates of the 18th century,' whose conduct so concerned Blackstone and the First Congress, 'today’s torturers, slave traders, and perpetrators of genocide are "hostis humani generis, an enemy of all mankind."' Nestlé, 593 U. S., at 647 (opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J.). As to each of these offenses, as to each of these enemies of mankind, the majority decides that there is simply no way that a suit could possibly proceed without offending Congress. Noticeably absent from the majority’s analysis is any evidence that Congress would be offended by these suits. Of course, there may be reasons why allowing an individual ATS suit to proceed would be unwise. That possibility, however, should be addressed on a case-by-case basis...."

Writes Justice Ketanji-Brown Jackson, dissenting in Cisco Systems v. Doe, announced this morning.

"Holy f---, how about people just take some responsibility for themselves and not get so f---ed up they wind up having sex with someone they don’t mean to?"

So wrote Graham Platner, the man who's leading in the polls to become the Democratic Party candidate to run against Susan Collins for the Senate seat for Maine.

I'm reading "Janet Mills and Graham Platner battle for female voters in Maine's key Senate race" (NBC News).

Platner’s online Reddit posts, which resurfaced last fall, included a slew of controversial comments, including calling himself a communist; saying white, rural Americans were racist and stupid; and writing that “all” police officers are “bastards” after a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd in 2020.

"This is not about providing deterrence. A blind 88-year-old man can’t leave his house."

Said the lawyer for Bill Cosby, arguing against punitive damages, in "Bill Cosby Loses Sex Assault Lawsuit and Faces a $59 Million Judgment A California jury found that Mr. Cosby had abused Donna Motsinger in 1972 after inviting her to attend one of his comedy shows" (NYT).

The jury awarded $19.25 million in compensatory damages and $40 million in punitive damages.

Motsinger testified that Cosby gave her "a pill that had left her incapacitated." Cosby did not testify.

"After the incident... she abandoned a career as a flight attendant... She moved home... She fears the dark, she said, because it takes her back to the seat of the car in the dark parking lot..."

"... where the rape occurred. She sleeps with the lights on, sometimes in her parents’ bed, she said. Uber’s lawyers said the driver had no criminal history, had received top ratings from passengers, had completed training and had acknowledged that he was aware of Uber’s rule that bans sex between drivers and passengers. They said the company was the industry leader in safety, developing a machine-learning tool to assess the risk of potential rides as well as other safety features and releasing public reports documenting assaults and other safety incidents on the platform. Sachin Kansal, Uber’s chief product officer, pushed back against claims that the company 'dragged its feet' on safety features like dashcams. However, 'I’ll be the first one to say we have not done enough,' he said. 'There’s a lot more that we have to do.'"

From "Uber Found Liable in Rape by Driver, Setting Stage for Thousands of Cases/In a federal bellwether case, the jury ordered the ride-hailing giant to pay $8.5 million to Jaylynn Dean, who said one of its drivers assaulted her in 2023" (NYT).

"And yet the grammar of institutions is that of the subjunctive, the 'as if': as if arresting and incarcerating someone could change them..."

"... as if arresting and incarcerating someone could change what they did to you. Without such fantasies, we are left with stark reality, with the realization that this did happen to you, hurt you, and change you irreparably. That means that to counter such insidious, impossible fantasies, I’ve found my only refuge is to return relentlessly to the reality of what happened to me and to accept the daily heartbreak that there is no form of repair, institutional or otherwise, that exists that will ever change what happened, as much as I might wish otherwise...."

Writes Anna Krauthamer, in "Why I Didn’t Report My Rape/In 2021, six men sexually assaulted me in a Las Vegas hotel room. Something more than abolitionism prevented me from reporting the crime" (The Nation).

"Abolitionism" refers to "the complete dismantling (not reform) of the prison system."

Elon Musk laughs at a prison rape joke.

Shameful.

"One day last year, when she was hungry, a woman came up to her and offered what sounded like a dream proposition..."

"... would she like to work in a studio, performing on camera and earning good money, in safety, without anyone touching her? She went to the studio: a block of flats where an administrator registered her. She soon realised everything she had been told was a lie.... For the clients who watched her she was a fantasy: a young Colombian woman in her bedroom they paid handsomely to act out their desires. In reality she was a prisoner. For three months Victoria was held captive with five other women on the eighth floor of a block of flats, forced into violent sexual exploitation, on camera, for at least ten hours a day. Her earnings were stolen by the men who controlled her.... Every time she asked for the money she’d been promised, they told her she had debts that she had to work off first: food she’d eaten, paper towels they’d given her. If she cried and refused to perform, they fined her.... "

From "Inside the world sex-cam capital" (London Times)(describing conditions in Cúcuta, Colombia).

"'I love Hitler': Leaked messages expose Young Republicans’ racist chat/Thousands of private messages reveal young GOP leaders joking about gas chambers, slavery and rape."

Politico reports.

William Hendrix, the Kansas Young Republicans’ vice chair, used the words “n--ga” and “n--guh,” variations of a racial slur, more than a dozen times in the chat. Bobby Walker, the vice chair of the New York State Young Republicans at the time, referred to rape as “epic.” Peter Giunta, who at the time was chair of the same organization, wrote in a message sent in June that “everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber.”

Giunta was referring to an upcoming vote on whether he should become chair of the Young Republican National Federation, the GOP’s 15,000-member political organization for Republicans between 18 and 40 years old. “Im going to create some of the greatest physiological torture methods known to man. We only want true believers,” he continued....

Read the whole thing. Politico takes the position "The chat offers an unfiltered look at how a new generation of GOP activists talk when they think no one is listening."

ADDED: I asked Grok, "Is the Politico report accurate or should we be suspicious? Many people think Politico is slanted." What follows is Grok's answer:

"And so this judge just now denied him bail — on what ground? This guy's not going to run anywhere. It's absurd."

"[Sean Combs] has one of the nicest houses. I pass it by all the time. It's right near, not far from my little tiny condo in in Miami, Florida. He lives on Star Island. His  property is probably worth 40 or 50 million. I think he has two properties on the most expensive island, one of the most expensive islands in in the world. He's one of the most recognizable people. This decision by this judge was just vindictive. He didn't like the verdict. He thought there should be a conviction. And so, he's going to probably sentence him to a little bit of time in prison. He can't sentence him to a lot of time, but he'll probably sentence him to a little bit of time in prison in excess of the year he's already spent for having had bail denied.... He's going to come up with some pretense...."

Said Alan Dershowitz, on his podcast last night. 

"[Combs] was acquitted of anything involving violence, anything involving racketeering, anything involving, you know, sexual trafficking, all of that. He was acquitted!...  People don't go to jail for transactional sex for voluntary consensual sex based on the hope of getting an advantage. There is no such law.... Adult women should not be treated like children.

"The jury has found Sean Combs guilty of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution but acquitted him on the most serious charges of sex trafficking and racketeering."

"Combs covered his eyes and appeared to exhale in relief as the not-guilty announcement came in. After the verdict was read, he quickly touched hands with his lawyers and turned and smiled at his family...."

WaPo reports.

Defense counsel Marc Agnifilo has asked the court to release Sean Combs back to his home in the millionaire enclave of Star Island in Miami. “This is his first conviction, and it’s a prostitution offense,” Agnifilo said. The attorney noted that the charge he was found guilty of was significantly less serious than the ones that kept him detained in a Brooklyn jail for the past nine months....

ADDED: From the NYT reporting: "Sean Combs is on his knees, his elbows on the chair where he was sitting, his head buried. He appeared to be praying. He started a round of applause, which was echoed by his family, who are jubilant." 

AND: "With a touch of levity, the judge said he assumed that Sean Combs would not want to return to the Brooklyn jail where he has been held. Mr. Combs shook his head vigorously and put his hands together in prayer." It's hard to believe, then, that the judge would send Combs back to the jail. He should go free today. 

"'Believe her,' Agnifilo beseeched the jurors in his closing arguments for Combs’s defense. 'When she says to you that domestic violence is the issue, I’m asking you to believe her.'"

"This has been a pillar of the defense’s strategy: that Combs has taken responsibility for domestic violence but is not guilty of the charges he faces."

From "Diddy and Cassie a ‘modern love story,’ defense says in closing arguments/Sean 'Diddy' Combs’s defense team called the sex-trafficking case against him 'badly, badly exaggerated' as the trial nears its conclusion" (WaPo).

"Mr. Borg Hoiby was 4 years old when his mother, Mette-Marit Tjessem Hoiby, a former waitress, married Crown Prince Haakon, the heir to the Norwegian throne, in 2001."

"Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s other children, Princess Ingrid Alexandra and Prince Sverre Magnus, are second and third in line to succeed their grandfather, King Harald V, 88. Mr. Borg Hoiby holds no title or official duties."

From "Son of Norway’s Crown Princess Is Charged With Rape and Sexual Assault/Marius Borg Hoiby, the stepson of Crown Prince Haakon, was charged with rape and sexual assault after a monthslong police investigation that has caused turmoil for the royal family" (NYT).

So he's not a prince, but his younger brother is a prince and his younger sister a princess. I see that when he was born, his father was in prison. Wikipedia: 

"Winners at the April tasting... included melt​ed snow that had been filtered through Peruvian volcanic rock, and deep-sea water that had been pumped up 80 miles off the coast of South Korea."

"There was water gathered from nets hung in a misty Tasmanian pine forest, and a Texas brand laced with lithium called Crazy Water.... Hotels are adding precisely designed water bars. Home wine cellars have become water cellars, where children are encouraged to select bottles with their parents. Water sommelier programs continue to grow. And of course, water influencers gather more and more followers...."

From "You’ve Heard of Fine Wine. Now Meet Fine Water. Bottled waters from small, pristine sources are attracting a lot of buzz, with tastings, sommeliers and even water cellars" (NYT).

It sounds like comedy, but it's really happening. As for that water pumped up from the "deep sea," it sounds salty, and it had me wondering if it's possible for unsalty water to somehow exist below the salt water. The NYT article doesn't impinge on the fantasy of the specialness of the water, but I believe these waters are processed, are they not? That deep-sea water must be desalinated and then a chosen mix of minerals is added, right? And "water gathered from nets"? Does that sound ethereal to you... or unclean? Why not water gathered from towels hung in a steamy bathroom?

"We will never forget the names of precious American souls like Jocelyn Nungaray, Laken Riley, Rachel Morin, and many others who were savagely killed by illegal alien crime."

"Last June, 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray was brutally assaulted and murdered by two illegal aliens in her home state of Texas. To memorialize her young life and love of nature and animals, I proudly renamed the Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge in Texas to the Jocelyn Nungaray National Wildlife Refuge. May this be Jocelyn’s little piece of Heaven on Earth."

From "National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month, 2025," a proclamation by President Trump (at whitehouse.gov).

"Russell Brand, the comedian and actor, has been charged with one count each of rape, indecent assault and oral rape, as well as two counts of sexual assault...."

The London Times reports.

Scotland Yard said the charges related to alleged historical sex offences against four separate women, between 1999 and 2005, and are alleged to have taken place in Bournemouth and London....

The Times gets into some of Brand's "historical" bad behavior: 

In 2000, Brand took a presenting job on MTV. He was sacked a year later after he arrived at work the day after 9/11 dressed as Osama bin Laden....

Pasting Susan Crawford posters on public property in Madison.

The fine print says "VOTE BY 04.O1/FOR SUSAN CRAWFORD."

Crawford is one of the candidates in the much-watched Wisconsin Supreme Court election.

I photographed the posters this morning, but yesterday evening, I saw the man pasting them up. I couldn't believe that he had the nerve, in daylight hours, to deface public property. How does it help your candidate to conspicuously trash the neighborhood of the people you hope to influence? Are you picturing desperate, anarchic citizens who don't care about anything but abortion?

If I were Susan Crawford, I would be distressed to have my name on something like this. I have no idea if she or her campaign has anything to do with it. The ultra-fine print might answer that question, but it's not legible in my photographs and most definitely not legible to those of driving through the underpass.

A pedestrian could stop and read the ultra-fine print. Of course, pedestrians walking through an underpass, especially if female, can feel physically vulnerable, and pasted-up posters can magnify fear. Vandalism speaks of chaos and a breakdown of vigilance. Maybe that's the idea. The woman worries about the problem of rape, and the posters offer the second-rate solution: abortion.

UPDATE: Here's the ultra-fine print:

"People who flock to fantasy conventions and signings make up an 'inherently vulnerable community'...."

"... They 'wrap themselves around a beloved text so it becomes their self-identity'.... They want to share their souls with the creators of these works. 'And if you have morality around it, you say "no."'... [I]n my conversations with Gaiman’s old friends, collaborators, and peers, nearly all of them told me that they never imagined that Gaiman’s affairs could have been anything but enthusiastically consensual. As one prominent editor in the field puts it, 'The one thing I hear again and again, largely from women, is "He was always nice to me. He was always a gentleman."' The writer Kelly Link, who met Gaiman at a reading in 1997, recalls finding him charmingly goofy. 'He was hapless in a way that was kind of exasperating,' she says, 'but also made him seem very harmless.' Someone who had a sexual relationship with Gaiman in the aughts recalls him flipping through questions fans wrote on cards at a Q&A session. Once, a fan asked if she could be his 'sex slave': 'He read it aloud and said, "Well, no." He’d be very demure.' But there were some who saw another side of the author....."

From "There Is No Safe Word/How the best-selling fantasy author Neil Gaiman hid the darkest parts of himself for decades" (New York Magazine).

That's a long article, and you are probably blocked by the paywall.  Here's Gaiman's answer (on his website). Here's the NYT article about it, "Neil Gaiman Responds to Explosive Report of Sexual Assault/'I have never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity with anyone,' said the best-selling author in response to allegations in New York magazine":

How does this go on for 16 years?

I'm reading "Charges against Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs allege 16 years of abuse and crimes/The music mogul was arrested on charges of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking. He is being held without bail" (WaPo).

The crimes Combs and his associates are accused of committing and covering up include sex trafficking, narcotics distribution, arson and kidnapping. Many of these alleged crimes took place at illegal sex parties that Combs referred to as “freak offs.” During these parties, Combs allegedly threw objects at the victims and dragged them by their hair.