"Joe Rogan Reveals Oliver Anthony’s Own Nasty Divorce Inspired New Single, 'Scornful Woman' – 'She Wants EVERYTHING.'"

Headline at Whiskey Riff, which I found after I heard Joe Rogan do the revealing and I listened to the song. You can find video of both the Joe Rogan segment and the song at that link.

... Joe shares some rather intimate details about Anthony’s seemingly pending divorce, and how it sparked this song. The “Scornful Woman” is Oliver’s wife, Tiffany, and from the side of the story we’re given, it sounds like she’s trying to take as much money as she can off him.

“He starts making millions of dollars, playing arenas. The wife divorces him. She wants everything. She wants EVERYTHING. She wants more than half. She wants all the money he’s going to be making in the future because she was with him when he was broke. It’s f***** crazy...."

It's not crazy for her to want more than half. If you are married and sharing equally, and you've gone through the poor times together — maybe you scrimped together while one of you went to medical school — then you're owed a share of the earnings that only arrive later. 

When Anthony's song “Rich Men North of Richmond" made him an overnight sensation in 2023, he and Tiffany and their 2 children were presented as the definition of happiness.

The new song says "She'll turn a warm afternoon/Into a cold, cold one."

"Each morning, Shelly Shem Tov would enter her son’s empty bedroom and recite Chapter 20 from the biblical Book of Psalms, an ancient plea for deliverance."

"All the while she was unaware that her son, Omer Shem Tov, happened to be uttering the very same verses of Psalm 20 — 'May the Lord answer you on a day of distress.' He had adopted the same daily ritual about 130 feet underground, alone, in a Hamas tunnel in Gaza...."

From "Finding God, and Nietzsche, in the Hamas Tunnels of Gaza/How Omer Shem Tov, who was 20 years old and not particularly religious when taken hostage, survived 505 days in captivity" (NYT)(free-access link).

"A few days into his captivity, he said, he began to speak to God. He made vows. He began to bless whatever food he was given. And he had requests — some of which he believes were answered.... Some taken hostage said they found the will to go on in a motto they heard from Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an Israeli-American hostage, before he was killed by his captors. It was a version of a quotation... from the atheist German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and often echoed by Viktor Frankl, the Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor: 'He who has a why can bear with any how.'"

"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?

Sunrise — 4:53, 5:24, 5:48.

Talk about whatever you like in the comments. And please support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.

"Because women are doing it and women are the principal actors in this, it’s been stigmatized differently.... just another way to regulate women’s lives."

Said Camila Infanger, a doctoral candidate in political science at the University of São Paulo, quoted in "Extremely Lifelike Dolls Cause a Frenzy in Brazil/To some, the dolls, known as reborn dolls, provide comfort, escape or just plain fun. But politicians across Brazil have tried to pass bills banning the dolls from public spaces" (NYT).

What's the "frenzy" supposedly in need of a legislative solution?

Goodbye — and thank you — to Sly Stone.

 

NYT obituary: "Sly Stone, Maestro of a Multifaceted, Hitmaking Band, Dies at 82/Leading Sly and the Family Stone, he helped redefine the landscape of pop, funk and rock in the late 1960s and ’70s" (free-access link).

Everybody's talking about L.A.

A glance at Real Clear Politics:

I love the way RCP just alternates pro- and anti-Trump headlines. I'll just check in on one of each:

"The Reason The Left Loves Riots/Is Because It Hates Civilization," asserts Michael Shellenberger: "It's 'inflammatory' to enforce migration laws, say Democrats. But it's not. It's essential for protecting the vulnerable. The reason the Left opposes law enforcement is that they take pleasure at the destruction of civilization, at least so long as it only hurts other people."

"We are witnessing the first stages of a Trump police state," warns Robert Reich: "As civilian control gives way to military control, the nation splits into those who are most vulnerable to it and those who support it. The dictatorship entrenches itself by fomenting fear and anger on both sides. These are frightening and depressing times. But remember: although it takes one authoritarian to establish a police state, it takes just 3.5% of a population to topple him and end it."

That link on "3.5%" goes to a definition "the 3.5% rule": "Nonviolent protests are twice as likely to succeed as armed conflicts – and those engaging a threshold of 3.5% of the population have never failed to bring about change." Reich is hoping 3.5% of Americans will take to the streets — peacefully and patriotically — and "topple" the duly elected President.

Both Shellenberger and Reich say they're for peace, and both also say that they believe the other side is out for violence.

"The search for parallels between then and now often includes the juxtaposition of Mr. Trump and Mr. Nixon, the president often relegated in popular memory..."

"... unfairly, I believe — to a symbol of what the ’60s rose up against.... Scandal followed Mr. Nixon throughout his career, as it has Mr. Trump. Both scrambled back to the forefront of politics — Mr. Nixon until he was felled by Watergate. ('He left. I don’t leave. A big difference,' is Mr. Trump’s take.) Both positioned themselves as victims of liberal elites and champions of a silent majority; both maintained an enemies list of people and institutions they wanted to punish.... But... Mr. Nixon entered the fray only at the tail end of the ’60s.... His predecessors, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, were far more responsible for the upheavals of that time.... Mr. Trump, by contrast, defines what is happening today. The troubles of the country and world, whether the Gaza protests, the war in Ukraine or unchecked immigration, may predate his second term, but the way he has incorporated them into his broad assault on American institutions and values stamps this era with his brand. Mr. Nixon never came close to anything of the sort...."

Writes Serge Schmemann, in "It May Feel Like the 1960s. But It’s Worse" (NYT).

John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson are held responsible but Obama and Biden are not. Why not?! The obvious difference between Nixon and Trump is that Trump is currently in power and the opposition to him is happening now. There's no political cost to holding Kennedy and Johnson accountable now. But when Nixon was in power, he was hated and demonized, quite effectively. The big difference between Trump and Nixon is the one Trump is quoted as saying: "He left. I don’t leave. A big difference."

Let me thank Trump, once again, for increasing our freedom of speech.

I'm reading "YouTube Loosens Rules Guiding the Moderation of Videos/The world’s largest video platform has told content moderators to favor 'freedom of expression' over the risk of harm in deciding what to take down" (NYT):

For years, YouTube has removed videos with derogatory slurs, misinformation about Covid vaccines and election falsehoods, saying the content violated the platform’s rules. But since President Trump’s return to the White House, YouTube has encouraged its content moderators to leave up videos with content that may break the platform’s rules rather than remove them, as long as the videos are considered to be in the public interest. Those would include discussions of political, social and cultural issues....

[U]nlike Meta and X, YouTube has not made public statements about relaxing its content moderation. The online video service introduced its new policy in mid-December in training material that was reviewed by The New York Times....

My post title says "once again," because I thanked Trump before, in a dream I had in 2015, recounted here: "Last night, I dreamed that I was talking to someone about Trump.... And then I look over and see that Donald Trump has been eavesdropping.... I thanked him, effusively, for teaching us to have the courage to speak freely." Teaching by example, I believe it was. 

Flying creature competes with the sun.

At 5:23 this morning.

A bit later, the sun competed in this picture Meade took of me:

"The 'selfie yacht' of the 'celebrities' is safely making its way to the shores of Israel."

Wrote the Israeli foreign ministry, quoted in "Israel Intercepts Gaza-Bound Aid Ship With Greta Thunberg Aboard/Israel had vowed to prevent the vessel from reaching Gaza, saying its military would use 'any means necessary' to stop it from breaching a naval blockade" (NYT).

The Madleen was carrying only a symbolic amount of humanitarian assistance — an amount the Israeli foreign ministry dismissed as “tiny” in its statement, and “less than a single truckload of aid.”... 

“We are doing this because, no matter what odds we are against, we have to keep trying,” Ms. Thunberg said last week. “Because the moment we stop trying is when we lose our humanity. And no matter how dangerous this mission is, it’s not even near as dangerous as the silence of the entire world in the face of the live-streamed genocide.”

Those statements from Israeli foreign ministry and from Thunberg are saying the same thing: The boat trip was symbolic speech.

The speech was delivered, no one was hurt, and no one received substantive aid.

Sunrise — 5:09, 5:33, 5:33.

Talk about whatever you like in the comments. And please support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.

"Did I lie? Yup. Did I also write a book that tore people to shreds? Yeah."

Said James Frey, quoted in "Oprah Shamed Him. He’s Back Anyway. Twenty years after 'A Million Little Pieces' became a national scandal, James Frey is ready for a new audience" (NYT)(free-access link).

As Frey sees it, the public has gotten increasingly comfortable with falsehoods, without getting fully comfortable with him. He finds it all a bit absurd. “I just sit in my castle and giggle,” he said.

I'm using my 3rd free link of the month of June on this because I am a long-time admirer of photographs of the interiors of writers' homes. As I wrote 12 years ago: "I love this book, 'Writer's Desk,' with excellent photographs by Jill Krementz (who was married to Kurt Vonnegut) and an introductory essay by John Updike."

I see Frey has an "extra-large mohair Eames chair, which he had custom-made so that he could sit in lotus pose." I identify. I've been buying chairs that accommodate the lotus position since I first bought furniture, which would have been in the 1970s. I wish I still had the chair I bought at Conran's that got me through law school. I'm one of those people who feel more comfortable with my legs folded up. 

Speaking of things written on this blog long ago, I've been around long enough, doing this low-level writerly thing that I do, to have covered the "Million Little Pieces" foofaraw when Oprah was agonizing:

"Patel, Bongino and the other leaders are caught in a trap of their own making. The world they helped create, a world in which conspiracy destroys facts, is now the world they have to inhabit."

Said politics professor Russell Muirhead, quoted in "Once Champions of Fringe Causes, Now in a ‘Trap of Their Own Making’/Top leaders at the Justice Department and the F.B.I. are struggling to fulfill Trump campaign promises often rooted in misinformation and conspiracy theories" (NYT).

From the article:

The tension between practicing politics based on conspiracy theories and having to govern extends far beyond the F.B.I. and Justice Department’s problems with the Epstein case.... Days after the backlash over his Epstein comments, Mr. Bongino offered other promises — new investigations into other episodes that have gripped the president’s base: the discovery of cocaine in the West Wing during the Biden administration, the leak of the draft Supreme Court opinion overturning abortion rights in 2022 and the discovery of pipe bombs near Republican and Democratic Party headquarters before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, an unsolved crime that has already consumed significant law enforcement resources.... 

Emerald Robinson, a former White House correspondent for Newsmax, made her frustration clear on social media. “Dan Bongino & Kash Patel know they destroyed their credibility by claiming that ‘Jeffrey Epstein killed himself’ so now they’re trying to offer up three investigations you don’t care about to misdirect you from the Epstein files you do care about,” she wrote. “Sad!”

"If there was a big, explosive there there.... If it was there, we would have told you."

So said Dan Bongino, the deputy director of the F.B.I., sitting alongside the F.B.I. director Kash Patel, quoted at the end of the previous post. The topic is what does he know about Thomas Crooks, the man who shot Trump's ear.

Here's the Fox News interview where Bongino makes the statement. Listen to his tone, watch his eyes, assess his demeanor. 

I'm noticing this verbal tic, this argument format: If X were true, I would have told you. It's an oft-expressed idea. It's the same idea as "Trust me" or "Would I lie?" But those are laughably ineffectual  expressions these days. 

I'm noticing this new effort at demanding trust. Kash Patel used it on Joe Rogan (talking about the Epstein video): "If there was a video of some guy — or gal — committing felonies — and I'm in charge — don't you think you'd see it?"

I'm paying attention to this after experiencing Tim Dillon's brilliant trashing of Patel. "They're doing 'Who's On First,'" with Joe as Costello and Kash as Abbott:

"Thomas Crooks was acting strangely. Sometimes he danced around his bedroom late into the night. Other times, he talked to himself with his hands waving around."

So begins the NYT article, "The Quiet Unraveling of the Man Who Almost Killed Trump/Thomas Crooks was a nerdy engineering student on the dean’s list. He stockpiled explosive materials for months before his attack on Donald Trump, as his mental health eroded."

Sidenote: The NYT is writing "acting strangely" again. We just talked about this grammar error 2 days ago, here. The NYT had "acting strangely" in a headline 2 days ago — "People Around President Trump Are Acting Very Strangely." Please, editors, learn about copulative verbs (AKA linking verbs). You should be writing "acting strange" (for the same reason you'd write "The sky looks blue" and not "The sky looks bluely").

Now, what can we learn about Thomas Crooks? Let's see...