VIMAL PATEL WRITES, “M.I.T. Rejects a White House Offer for Special Funding Treatment,” The New York Times, October 10, 2025. Patel describes, “The proposal, called the ‘Compact for Academic Excellence … Continue reading →| Simanaitis Says
YESTERDAY, WE SHARED EXTREMELY DISTURBING VIEWS of our government’s Department of Homeland Services ICE raid in Chicago, both the DHS propaganda as well as bravely recorded videos of Chicagoans. Today … Continue reading →| Simanaitis Says
PRONOUNCEMENTS FROM THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION continue to emphasize its dedicated march to autocracy. Just so there’s no BS about its meaning (like the phony “antifa/terrorism”), Merriam-Webster defines “autocracy” as “1. … Continue reading →| Simanaitis Says
BANKSY, WIKIPEDIA DESCRIBES, “is a pseudonymous England-based street artist, political activist, and film director whose real name and identity remain unconfirmed and the subject of speculation. Ac…| Simanaitis Says
RECENT HAPPENINGS AT THE U.N. and back in Washington, D.C., questioned more than Trump’s truthfulness (climate change “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world,” inflation “defeated,” grocery prices … Continue reading →| Simanaitis Says
I WAS RESEARCHING THE PASSAGE OF CASH in CAVA bags, and what better source than Brewer’s Rogues, Villains & Eccentrics? Brewer’s Rogues, Villains & Eccentrics: An A–Z of Roguish Britons … Continue reading →| Simanaitis Says
YESTERDAY, WE BEGAN WITH TIDBITS OF SIMON BANK’S ARTICLE “Terra (In)Cognita” gleaned from Opera with Opera News, the latter a part of my Metropolitan Opera membership. Today in Part 2, … Continue reading →| Simanaitis Says
MY LATEST OPERA WITH OPERA NEWS contains “Terra (In)Cognita,” by Simon Banks. He “highlights shifting attitudes towards colonialism as reflected in opera across the centuries.” Surely an interesting topic. Indeed, … Continue reading →| Simanaitis Says
TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES RECENTLY SHOWED THE BIG LIFT, a 1950 Hollywood drama centered around the Soviet blockage of Berlin and the allies subsequently successful support of the city by air … Continue reading →| Simanaitis Says
YESTERDAY WE BEGAN EXPLORING A TRUMP/GATSBY TIME CAPSULE prompted by “A Short History of the Trump Family,” by Sydney Blumenthal, London Review of Books, February 16, 2017, and its linkage … Continue reading →| Simanaitis Says
IN AN ART DECO APPRECIATION about a week ago, “Art Deco, The Met, The Polish Brigade, Trump Tower and Truth,” February 23, 2017, was cited; and therein resided reference to Sidney Blumenthal’s arti…| Simanaitis Says
READERS OF SIMANAITISSAYS MIGHT HAVE CAUGHT ON that I love Art Deco: See, for example, “Deco Dreaming,” “Soaring Art Deco—In The City of Angels,” and even, lamentably enough, “Art Deco, The Met, Th…| Simanaitis Says
GEEZ, HOW IS SAM SPADE LINKED with Parnell Thomas?? Spade was the classic sleuth of The Maltese Falcon, The Kandy Tooth Caper, and numerous other adventures, 1946–1951, recounted these days on Siri…| Simanaitis Says
ART CRITIC DONALD KUSPIT IDENTIFIES THE APPEAL of Mitchell Johnson by noting this artist’s fusion of abstraction and realism. My introduction to Johnson’s oil paintings came from their occasi…| Simanaitis Says
I’VE HARPED ON THE QUEENS FELON MOB all too often at this website (I’d much rather write about my usual topics). Nevertheless, I was gratified that I’m not the only one making this observation. The…| Simanaitis Says
YESTERDAY IN PART 1 WE SAVORED CBS RADIO WORKSHOP and enjoyed entertaining CBS corporate suits through the R&T slalom. Today, lamentably enough, we recount CBS actions that seemingly replace fr…| Simanaitis Says
I’VE KNOWN COLUMBIA BROADCASTING SYSTEM, now a division of Paramount Global, at its best, its lamentable, and—first hand—its middling. Let’s briefly recount the best and middling of these and then …| Simanaitis Says
I BELIEVE ANDY BOROWITZ IS the preeminent political satirist of our time. As I noted in “The Best of Lines,” he has “an amazing way of condensing his satirical news stories into four or five concis…| Simanaitis Says
LET’S APPLAUD THE AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION! Never has its activism been more critical. Zach Montague and Pat Grossmith’s article “Judge Blocks Trump’s Citizenship Order in Class-Action Challe…| Simanaitis Says
THE UTTER IDIOCY OF DOGE has added yet another tooth on its chainsaw. It’s described by Drs. Iago Hale and Michael Kantar in “Why Did Elon Musk Go After Bunkers Full of Seeds?,” The New…| Simanaitis Says
ONE MIGHT THINK THE ARROGANCE OF EGO WOULD HAVE LED ME TO ASSOCIATE Trump and Beethoven. But no, prodigious musicality seals the deal: It’s Mozart and Trump—separated at birth by 190 years! A…| Simanaitis Says
THERE IS IRONY GALORE IN THE NEW U.S. Environmental “Deregulation” Agency having originally been established by Richard Nixon on December 2, 1970, “to protect human health and the environment” (thi…| Simanaitis Says
WHAT A MARVELOUS OPPORTUNITY FOR SATIRE: The dust is far from settled about what The New York Times, March 25, 2025, is calling “an extraordinary leak of internal national security deliberations, d…| Simanaitis Says
NOTES WIKIPEDIA, “AT THE TEHRAN CONFERENCE WINSTON CHURCHILL made his famous remark that in wartime ‘truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” By c…| Simanaitis Says
I DON’T THINK OF MYSELF AS an ornithophile, but swans, Cygnus olor, seem to get pretty good coverage at SimanaitisSays. Tidbits here have related them to cars, opera props, Ogden Nash poetry, and a…| Simanaitis Says
IN COZY ENGLISH WHO-DONE-ITS, watercress sandwiches at teatime seem to coincide with reveal of the rascal. Now according to Korin Miller writing in Food & Wine, September 12, 2024, “The C…| Simanaitis Says
WHAT WITH A VERY BUSY NEWS WEEK, victim-extraodinaire Donald Trump has been displaced by Joe and Kamala. Poor him. To counter this Trumpian ennui, today’s SimanaitisSays recounts several past Trump…| Simanaitis Says
