Coming up for air

 Time to get back to sniping and snarking, and it's a world of opportunities.  We forget that other people have concerns, too.  For instance, take a look at the woman on the left:

Does she look freakish to you?  This is Czech tennis star Barbora Krejcikova shaking hands with Zheng Qinwen of China after a match.  Jon Wertheim made a joke about her forehead and was fired by the Tennis Channel as on-air analyst.  "It was neither professional nor charitable nor reflective of the person I strove to be," confessed Wertheim.  "I am accountable.  I own this.  I am sorry."  Very moving, and nice deployment of "nor" there.  I am touched.  I am shocked.  I had no idea there was a Tennis Channel.

And good for Krejcikova, who doesn't hide behind bangs.  Sorry you lost to Zheng.

The religion industry could learn from these women.  Joseph Al-Zehlaoui, who quit as the Metropolitan of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America when they found out he was having an affair -- orthodox clergy are not celibate but they're expected to be faithful -- is suing them for reneging on his severance package of $1.4 million, a car, health insurance for life and other goodies.  Not to worry -- he and the woman he had the sixteen-year affair with own houses in Idaho and California.  

Justin Welby was leader of a smaller organization, but he resigned today as Archbishop of Canterbury over a much worse scandal.  A report last week from Keith Makin found him less than episcopal in his response to the crimes of John Smyth, a barrister who sexually abused at least 130 boys at evangelical Christian holiday camps in the 1970s and 1980s.  Smyth was never prosecuted and died in South Africa in 2018.  Welby knew about this over a decade ago but says he assumed the police were dealing with it.  Other bishops are under pressure to resign.  It's an ugly mess.  

Amsterdam's reputation as a free and easy party city is in tatters as it copes with a "toxic cocktail" of football rivalry, antisemitism and anger about the war in Gaza.  It appears to have kicked off with a match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and local favorites Ajax.  Ten Maccabi supporters were arrested for assaulting cab drivers and setting fire to a tram, while Moroccan residents responded with attacks of their own.  It doesn't help that world leaders (including Joe Biden) condemned the attacks on Maccabi supporters while ignoring the others.  Get all the details before issuing statements, would be my advice.

The hundredth homecoming weekend at Tuskegee University was celebrated in the tradition of American holidays with a mass shooting that left sixteen people injured and one dead.  The suspect is Jaquez Myrick, 25, who was armed with a handgun equipped with a machine gun conversion device.  Isn't technology amazing.  Tuskegee has fired its head of security.

Big doings in the Senate:  Tommy Tuberville, who has spent four years hamstringing the military by blocking senior promotions, marked Veterans Day by calling for the restructuring of that same military which he now calls an "absolute disaster."  On the other hand, his days as the biggest waste of oxygen in the Senate may be at an end if Lara "Collagen Depository" Trump replaces Marco Rubio.  She is being touted by the not-noticeably-smarter Anna Paulina Luna.  Caligula did the Roman Senate a better service when he appointed his horse.

MAGA has been celebrating all week with Nazi events, so yours has to have a certain panache to break through.  How about this bunch outside the American Legion in Livingston County, Michigan, where the Fowlerville Community Theater was performing The Diary of Anne Frank?

And yet some history teacher in California was fired for comparing Trump to Hitler.  Shut up and teach.

Ka-ching!  For a mere $195 US, Melania Trump will sell you sixteen exclusive "digital images" of her fascinating life, but before you grab your Mastercard, wait.  Russian State TV has compiled much less clothed highlights of her "modeling" career and they won't cost you a ruble.  Did you know she was on GQ's cover in 2000?  And as long as Anna Wintour lives, it's as close as Mel will get to Vogue cover she covets, unless her husband nationalizes the magazine.

A rapist/felon in the White House?  How about a secretary of homeland security who is officially banned from Sioux tribal land in South Dakota?  Yes, Kristi Noem will also be responsible for FEMA and the Secret Service.  Don't make her shoot you in the face.  As the British say, she has form.

Calling Louisiana's Ten Commandments law "unconstitutional on its face," a federal judge has struck down the forced display in all classrooms of this bit of Bronze Age bric-a-brac.  If the Sleazy Six reinstate, I recommend it be part of a real history lesson, between the Code of Hammurabi and Magna Carta and including the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen and the UN Charter.  That should keep the poster printers busy.

We close with friend of the blog and queen of memes Lisa Casey: