"The Riyadh Court Jester Parade won’t mean much to the careers of most of these comics. No one’s going to lose a Hollywood deal for [a] movie or a show, and with Saudi money in Hollywood, some might come home to new deals. All they lost is any credibility on lecturing anyone else on right and wrong ever again."

https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/comedy-saudi-arabia-human-rights/
#RiyadhComedyFestival #humanRights #SaudiArabia #courtJesters #venality #sellouts #arts #comedy #humorists

The Sad Spectacle of American Comedians Selling Out in Saudi Arabia

It turns out that edgy free-speech warriors will scuttle their principles for a check from a brutal autocratic regime.

The Nation
@JulianOliver Unclear whether these pictures were bait for entrapment of criminals (#moralhazard and #thoughtcrime issues) or simply profit-seeking (#venality and #privacyabuse) but this is foul behaviour
Prince Andrew may have been a victim of Chairman Mao’s ‘magic weapon’

The United Front Work Department aims to befriend, bribe and seduce ‘useful idiots’. Was Andrew caught up in its net?

The Guardian

It is almost like you'd have to have a brain worm to endorse Donald Trump.

Is that even enough?

Maybe also a healthy dose of #venality or #DelusionsOfGreatness based solely on DNA.

#BrainWorm #Trump #RFK #RFK_Jr #defeated #craven #OneDown

The alleged intelligencia
Has been kidnapped by venality
They believe in social media
(& all its corporate banality)
#HeadlinePoem
#HeadlineSonnet?
#Venality
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/14/nyregion/new-york-subway-national-guard.html
Why the National Guard Can’t Ease All Fears About Riding the Subway

More bag checks will not calm the nerves of New Yorkers worried about being shoved onto the tracks by someone with mental illness.

The New York Times
Sleepwalking America into fascism – Daily Montanan

Columnist James C. Nelson writes that Americans of all political parties must sever ties with those who espouse or participate in violence to achieve a political end.

Daily Montanan

And of course, we’re being soaked down with more #lies because today’s gigantic vehicles are anything but clean.

Take a dip in the tailing ponds of any #mining concern should you have the least doubts about this fact.

But the marketing is all feel-good, the vehicles presented like freed rhinos against mountain backdrops, so we can all sleep comfortably, confident we’re doing the right thing.

God help us & out offspring when all this shit caves in. Then we’ll see even crueller #venality.