The sun is shining and the weather is perfect and I have some sort of dreadful throat ailment. It kind of feels like there’s a little monkey claw embedded in my throat, pinching things at random. Scratchy. You know.
Anyway, Throat Ache has canceled my weekend plans, and so I am now free to read the news. Because, per usual, there is lots of news. And now would be a good time for not having a monkey claw in my throat news analysis.
Item One: Terrorists Who Own and Love Cats With Silly Names
Mohamed Alessa is, by all accounts, a bad person. The most recent evidence of this was him being arrested June 6 at Kennedy Airport, where he and his BFF Carlos Almonte were about to board a plane. At the end of that plane lay Egypt, and then Somalia and Al Shabab, where Alessa and Almonte imagined they would get to do fun stuff like behead people and leave American service members “sliced up in 1,000 pieces.”
Alessa’s assholery was, in fact, exhibited in other ways beyond wanting to cut people’s heads off or whatever. Let’s listen to the New York Times:
Family friends watched Mohamed scream at his mother, smash up his father’s car and, in anger, knock the food off a shelf in the deli. When his shaken parents tried to take him to therapists, he screamed, “I’m not crazy.” At times he took medication for anger management, but about three years ago, his mother said, he stopped taking it and stopped seeing therapists.
… and then he got all into this Islamist thing and railed against non-subservient women and blah blah blah and decided to head for Somalia. But there was something holding Alessa back, namely his love for his kitty, Tuna Princess. Alessa reportedly argued with his parents about taking Tuna Princess with him for training, but they vetoed it.
So he’s not a very nice person, but he does have a hilariously named cat that he seems to care a good bit about, which endears him to me in a teeny way.
Analysis:There will be no 72 Tuna Princesses waiting for you in heaven, Alessa, so quit this jihad-ing and, if you ever get out of jail, enjoy the time you have with Tuna Princess in the here and now.
MOVING ON.
Item 2: The World Cup is Here, And So Are The Attractive Men Is The International Excitement
Every time the World Cup rolls around, I get really excited for two reasons:
- Soccer players are unfairly hot.
- I always think that I will enjoy watching soccer until it’s actually on. Because soccer is boring.
I do not really have any theories on point one except to say that they spend all their time running and kicking. They are tall and lanky and … I … I don’t know. They all have dynamic hair. They drink a lot. Swarthy. All good things.
A ex-boyfriend was a soccer player, and he lived up to all hopes on the lanky/swarthy/tall/good hair front. And he was talented, too, but then he would invite me to come watch him play and I would accept because it seemed like a very sexy proposition, but …
Point Two: Soccer is boring.
Pass … pass … pass … pass … bump on chest … hover for a minute, looking at other players … pass … pass … pass … … … … … … … pass.
Then just repeat that sequence for two hours and you’ve got a game. Maybe — maybe — if you’re lucky someone actually scores a goal. I always am excited to watch soccer, and then a minute and a half in, I realize what I’m in for. If this were a high-scoring game like basketball it would probably hold my attention much better. BUT. I will say that on the rare occasion when anyone actually does do something in a soccer game, you will absolutely want your television turned to Telemundo.
I know they do competitions to see who can hold the “¡GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!” longest, but this man is quite impressive. 14 seconds, a quarter second breath, and then right back at it.
Analysis: It is better to sleep with soccer players than watch them in action. Telemundo is very enthusiastic about goals. Or, as they would say, gols.
News Item Three: BP Is Enthusiastically Invited To Go Fuck Itself. All Y’all. You And Your Mommas, Too, You Greasy, Oily Motherfuckers
I cannot add anything to this news story that has not already been said. This story is just too fucking heartbreaking to even discuss, and I get angry every time I think about it.
Why is no one going to jail for this? Why is it OK for a company with a hideously spotty record on safety and operations to keep working in the US? Why can BP blow up 11 people, ruin an ocean for the foreseeable future, kill countless animals, restrict media access and still not have fixed the problem?
Seriously, real talk. Y’all are the fourth largest corporation in the world. Plug the fucking hole, and if you can’t fix or at least stop what you’ve messed up (newsflash: clearly you can’t) then you are not ready to be doing deep sea drilling. Exxon, Royal Dutch and Chevron have all managed to keep safety violations minimal, so it can be done. Just not by you.
And you, Louisiana. You home state of mine that breaks my heart again and again. This is so familiar, is it not? Why do you do things like this, let oil companies dredge and cut canals into and ruin the wetlands, let industry fuck you and not call back in the morning? Stop it.
Analysis: Some things can’t be undone, and some things aren’t OK in the end.