Scaramanga Scaramouche Scaramucci: Two-Faced Turnabout.

Anthony Scaramucci CREDIT: AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster.

Oh what a different song he sings! Scaramucci was no fan of the Tiny Tyrant, but of course, he’s contorted himself into a complete 380. While he has been busy scrubbing his past tweets, he can’t control all the times he ranted about what a rotten egg Trump is, and how he should stick with real estate. Whatever Scaramucci’s talents might be, he’s not so great at the spokesperson business, having attempted a tight mouth denial about Russia, citing an anonymous source, only to spill that his source was Trump in the overwhelming heat of a second question.

This is Scaramucci, ranting about Trump in 2015:

In 2015, Scaramucci appeared on the Fox Business Network to talk about politics. They played a clip of Donald Trump attacking “hedge fund guys.”

Scaramucci responded with an extended rant against Trump, calling his new boss “another hack politician” and “anti-American.” He said Trump’s rhetoric is “very, very divisive.”

He wasn’t done.

“It’s very very divisive. I’ll tell you who he’s going to be president of,” he said, looking into the camera, “you can tell Donald I said this, the Queens County Bullies Association. You gotta cut it out now and stop all this crazy rhetoric spinning everybody’s heads around.”

Another host interjected that it was rich that Scaramucci finally drew the line with Trump’s rhetoric on “hedge fund guys,” after everything Trump had said about women.

Scaramucci agreed with her.

“I don’t like the way he talks about women, I don’t like the way he talks about our friend Megyn Kelly, and you know what, the politicians don’t want to go at Trump because he’s got a big mouth and because [they’re] afraid he’s going to light them up on Fox News and all these other places,” he said. “But I’m not a politician. Bring it. You’re an inherited money dude from Queens County. Bring it, Donald.”

Think Progress has the full story.

Sunday Facepalm: The Destruction of All Media.

At yesterday’s Phyllis Schlafly Collegians D.C. Summit, an event for college students hosted by the late Schlafly’s group Eagle Forum, Breitbart’s Washington political editor Matt Boyle boasted that his publication’s goal is to completely destroy and eliminate the “mainstream media,” leaving Brietbart and other fringe organizations as the only available media outlets.

“The goal eventually is the full destruction and elimination of the entire mainstream media,” Boyle said. “We envision a day where CNN is no longer in business; we envision a day where The New York Times closes its doors. I think that day is possible, I think that we can get there.”

No subtlety there. Unfortunately, I think that day is all too possible too. Perhaps not probable, but still, I think we are far more weighted towards the fascism side these days. Certainly the Tiny Tyrant and the rethuglicans wouldn’t have much of a problem with this scenario.

“But when that happens,” he added, “the public still needs an information stream. And again, as much as we love Trump’s Twitter account, as much as we love the White House press releases and briefings and all that, there needs to be an independent and strong media in the United States, and that’s where we come in.”

Independent. Is that what toadying and the fostering of hate is called now? I think we can stick with propaganda, as that one is accurate.

Via Right Wing Watch.

A 3,700 Year Old Smiley Face.

Painted flask from 1700 BCE found in a burial under a house in area A East, Karkemish (photo courtesy Nicolò Marchetti).

Archaeologists in southern Turkey have dug up an ancient precedent to the Kool-Aid Man. Recent excavations at the ancient Hittite city of Karkemish have revealed a bulbous pitcher decorated with a faint smiley face, as Andalou Agency first reported. At 3,700 years old, the grin predates by a long shot what scientists in Slovakia had previously dubbed the world’s oldest smiley face, a 17th-century drawing on a legal document.

As head researcher Nicolò Marchetti put it, “We have probably found the oldest smiley emoji. We do not know with which purpose the craftsmen drew this symbol on the pitcher, but we call it a smile.”

Marchetti, an associate professor at the University of Bologna, has been leading the seven-year long excavations at Karkemish, which today lies along the border between Turkey and Syria. The short-necked pitcher is one of the most interesting artifacts found so far at the site, which has also yielded a number of urns, pots, and vases. Found in a burial chamber beneath a house, the unusual vessel was once used for drinking sweet sherbet. It will eventually go on view at the nearby Gaziantep Museum of Archaeology — so yes, you’ll be able to get a selfie of yourself smiling with the one-of-a-kind, jolly jug.

Via Hyperallergic.

Hex, Vex, Spell, Jynx, Satanic Curse, Blood Curse and Demons!

Execration Figurines.

Lance Wallnau is still at it, declaring a veritable storm of witchcraft is swirling about his darling, Trump. He seems to think that all those faithful chanting their incantations, er, prayers are missing the mark though – they forgot about Trump’s family! Oops.

“People are praying for the president, but they’re not necessarily praying for his family,” Wallnau said. “So right now, all those witchcraft curses that did not land on Donald Trump are trying to take out his kids, trying to take out his offspring, trying to attack anything near him.”

Wouldn’t kids and offspring be the same thing?

As evidence of this theory, Wallnau cited an incident in which a friend was once “casting a demon out of somebody” and the demon transferred itself into the family dog, which then jumped out of the car while it was driving down the highway and was killed.

You really need to think your little anecdotes through, Lance. Was this exorcism taking place while people were driving somewhere? Don’t do that shit, it’s endangering others. Let’s pretend your friend got busy with an exorcism, at which he also had his dog with him. The demon gets driven out of whoever, then decides to dive into the dog. Why? Why in the fuckety fuck would a demon bloody bother with that, then wait until they were in a car, so it could commit dogicide? Seems to me this is a bunch of bullshit cooked up to explain to the family why their irresponsibility got their dog killed. Tsk. It’s not nice to lie, Lance.

As such, Wallnau declared that “we take authority over every hex, vex, spell, jinx, satanic curse, blood curse, every demon assigned to destroy the health of the president, to destroy the health of his family, to harass him, to vex him, to cause him to lose sleep.”

“In Jesus name, we veto every curse that has been brought against Donald Trump and his family and his administration,” Wallnau proclaimed, as he repeatedly spoke in tongues.

Oooh, Voces mysticae! I wonder if you know the roots of that, Lance. I think you’re talking to demons, dude.

Wallnau later declared that the prayer that Rodney Howard-Browne led over Trump when several Religious Right pastors visited the White House recently was designed to prevent Trump from having a stroke.

“The devil is trying to get him and his family,” he said. “And I heard Rodney Howard-Browne say when he laid hands on the president, he was worried there was a stroke coming; well, we veto that stroke in Jesus’ name! That is nothing but stress and we’re breaking it off of him right now.”

Um, what if a stroke is Jehovah’s will, Lance? Isn’t there some kind of non-interference with “god’s will” rule?

Via Right Wing Watch.

Tongue Tide!

Purgatory Pie Press, “Volumptuous: Hanging Tower of Babble” (2017) (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic).

Hyperallergic has a write-up on what sounds like a very grand show indeed, Tongue Tides, in Long Island City. I would so love to see this in person.

Are you ready for volumptuous? This hilarious sign by Purgatory Pie Press dangling from Flux Factory’s ceiling, part of “Volumptuous: Hanging Tower of Babble,” a large installation of hanging signage, is a fitting mascot for this playful summer show. Tongue Tide invites us all to play a little more with language, and to ponder other languages besides English. It’s a must-see for writers and wordsmiths and is well worth the trip to Long Island City.

Queens is the most linguistically diverse area on the planet. No other place boasts so many languages in such close proximity, something Rashedul Hasan and Dan Silverman illustrate in “We Are the Queens of New York” (2017), a map piece where dots of different colors represent these many varied languages. It’s really powerful to dwell on just how unique the borough — and New York City as a whole — is from this perspective.

[…]

It’s also good to ponder this map because, with all due to respect to Oscar Wilde and Dorothy Parker, English does not own a monopoly on wit. Many turns of phrase and poetic expressions in other languages pack a punch, even in translation. Some of the best work in this show plays with other languages to give us glimpses of their clever bons mots.

An intriguing artist book by Magali Duzant, A Light Blue Desire (2017), complies blue bromides from across the globe, and blue postcards featuring some of the selections are available for visitors to take home. Blue, in word and concept, can be stretched in so many semiotic directions. The blues are great, but they cast a sad shadow on the color as a metaphor in today’s English, which is further exacerbated by the minority status of the so-called blue states in the US’s broken political system. But blue is not so sad in other languages. One vivid example is the Polish expression for what we might call daydreaming: to think about blue almonds. It captures the futility of idle fantasy so well.

You can see the map, and much more, and there’s more to read at Hyperallergic.