Faking It, Weekend Whats
I only read the internet for the articles. But apparently, there is a pent-up demand for images. Especially certain type of images. As you may know, Google Images was essentially created by Jennifer Lopez’s Versace dress. Of course, the quest for alluring images predates the internet (by a lot), and these images have been used to market everything from cigarettes to burgers to cars since the earliest days of advertising, starting with the Pearl Tobacco brand featuring a naked maiden on the package cover in 1871. (Back then, people needed a post coital smoke after just looking at the package.) Now, similar images are being used to market militaristic patriotism, war, and other political movements. “The beautiful Army blonde Jessica Foster has posed with an F-22 Raptor fighter jet, donned camouflage in the desert and walked a tarmac with President Donald Trump on the first day of the strikes on Iran. The slew of photos and videos depicting the patriotic life of the MAGA dream girl have led her Instagram account to explode, gaining more than a million followers since she began posting four months ago.” Only this latest form of sexualized marketing has a new twist (and pull). Jessica Foster is not even as real as Jessica Rabbit. She’s AI. And she’s part of an increasingly common trend. “Foster’s viral takeoff highlights an increasingly prevalent strategy for winning online attention. A slew of right-wing accounts, peddling patriotism mixed with soft-core pornography, use fake women and convincing imagery to grab viewers across a distracted internet, monetize their interest and score political points.” WaPo (Gift Article): Thousands have swooned over this MAGA dream girl. She’s made with AI. (Alt link). “A viral fake of an Army service member spotlights a new trend in online attention harvesting: part patriotism, part p-rn and 100 percent computer-made.” In fairness, the naked maiden featured on Pearl Tabacco packaging also wasn’t a real person. But back then, people knew that.
+ Google Search is now using AI to replace headlines with rewritten titles. (It might drive more clicks if they replace headlines with Jessica Foster…)
Friends, Romans, Cowards
With more troops headed for the Gulf, the latest chapter in the art of how to win friends and influence people has been published on social media by Donald Trump. “Without the U.S.A., NATO IS A PAPER TIGER! They didn’t want to join the fight to stop a Nuclear Powered Iran. Now that fight is Militarily WON, with very little danger for them, they complain about the high oil prices they are forced to pay, but don’t want to help open the Strait of Hormuz, a simple military maneuver that is the single reason for the high oil prices. So easy for them to do, with so little risk. COWARDS, and we will REMEMBER!” (Yikes, what did our allies do, use bonespurs to get out of fighting?) Remember when all the hysterical libs with Trump derangement syndrome warned that one day he’d get us into a global war and run it from his social media account? Well, I guess they learned their lesson…
+ David Ignatius wrote this before the latest NATO bashing. “Unwinding this conflict will be much harder than starting it was. Declaring ‘victory’ and walking away would leave the region in dangerous disarray. To truly end the crisis, Trump will have to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and put limits on Iran’s ragged new leadership. He can achieve these goals through coercion, or diplomacy, or a combination of the two. But he must choose a strategy and implement it. Trump will compound the damage if he takes out his frustration over Iran by bashing Europe for its refusal to provide military aid. Attacking Iran was defensible; wrecking NATO isn’t.” The Iran War Is Metastasizing. Trump Needs an Endgame.
+ “I’ve been ambivalent about this war against Iran — to say the least. While nothing would improve the Middle East more than a decent government taking power in Tehran, I seriously doubt that simply pulverizing Iran from the air can generate that change.” Tom Friedman in the NYT (Gift Article): Once and for All Means Never.
+ On the war’s other front: Fears of an all-out Israeli invasion mount in Lebanon.
+ “A civilian in Tehran chronicles a country trapped between bombardment and repression—too terrorized to move, let alone start an uprising.” The New Yorker: What the War Has Done to Iranians.
The Slides of March
A friend of mine ran an experiment this week by creating 200 different March Madness brackets. By the end of the first day of games, only one of them made it through unscathed. In other words, he beat the odds. Only 0.1% of NCAA tournament brackets are still perfect after High Point stuns Wisconsin, VCU’s win over North Carolina.
Weekend Whats
What to Watch: HBO describes DTF St Louis, starring Jason Bateman, David Harbour, and Linda Cardellini, as a darkly comedic series, in which a love triangle between three adults experiencing middle-age malaise leads to one of them ending up dead. But this Steven Conrad creation is even weirder (and better) than that. Grab a Watermelon Breeze smoothie and enjoy the first few episodes. If you dig the show and need more from Steven Conrad in between episode releases, check out his prior (and even weirder) series Patriot on Prime.
+ What to Read: “Some stories take on a life of their own because they show how things really are. Others spread because they tell us what we already believe. And sometimes a story that’s too good to be true is just that. But a good story is a hard thing to kill.” McKay Coppins in The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Incredible Story of the Cartel Olympics. “A Mexican athlete said he was kidnapped and forced to compete for his life in a tournament of gangs. But was he actually playing a different game?”
+ What to Comedy: Robby Hoffman’s Netflix special Wake Up (directed by John Mulaney) is well worth a watch. And if you missed last week’s pick, don’t. Chris Fleming Live at the Palace on HBO is one of the best and most unique stand-up shows I’ve seen in a long time.
Extra, Extra
The Next Excursion? “The Russian-flagged Anatoly Kolodkin is some 3,000 nautical miles from Cuba in the Atlantic Ocean and is expected to reach the island in 10 days … If so, that would mark the first time any oil shipment from any country reaches Cuba in the past three months given a U.S. energy blockade.” Cuba readies for first Russian oil shipment of the year as energy crisis deepens.
+ Take My Wife, Please: “Paolo Zampolli, a former modeling agent turned presidential special envoy, had learned that his Brazilian ex-girlfriend was in a Miami jail, arrested on charges of fraud at her workplace. They had been in a custody battle over their teenage son. Now he saw an opportunity.” Trump Friend Asked ICE to Detain the Mother of His Child.
+ Getting Into Harvard, Again: ” The Justice Department filed a new lawsuit Friday against Harvard University, saying its leadership failed to address antisemitism on campus, creating grounds for the government to freeze existing grants and seek repayment for grants already paid.” (Reminder: “Jew hatred is real, but today’s anti-antisemitism isn’t a legitimate effort to fight it. It’s a cover for a wide range of agendas that have nothing to do with the welfare of Jewish people.” Trump Is Selling Jews a Dangerous Lie.)
+ Today in Dictator: Kim Jong Un sits on a tank with his daughter at a military exercise. And Trump’s Handpicked Arts Commission Approves Gold Coin With His Face on It.
+ Bachelorette Tu? “Disney/ABC executives first saw the video of Taylor Frankie Paul’s February 2023 domestic violence incident the same time as you.” Why ABC Had to Scrap The Bachelorette. (They wouldn’t want to risk the diminishment of the otherwise stellar reputation of reality show stars…)
+ Teleport Hole: “Gregg Phillips, the head of FEMA’s Office of Response and Recovery, has a history of violent political rhetoric and claims of teleporting to a Waffle House that are now out in the open.” (Think about it. This isn’t nearly weird or terrible enough to top the news these days…)
+ It Was a Leg (and Arms) Day: “France says it’s taking ‘appropriate measures’ after a naval officer’s use of the Strava exercise app inadvertently enabled journalists to geolocate the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle that is in the Mediterranean to help protect French and allied assets and interests during the Iran war.”
Feel Good Friday
“The people of Minneapolis-St. Paul are being honored with a John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award for their response to the federal immigration enforcement operation this winter, the JFK Library Foundation announced Wednesday.” (Come on, Nobel Peace Prize committee, you know what to do!)
+ In Uganda, “Harerimana Ismail hasn’t had a paycheck since the beginning of last year. He’s kept working nonetheless.” He’s one reason why aid cuts weren’t as dire for the HIV population as predicted.
+ A baseball title unleashes the happiness Venezuelans kept bottled up for years. (Opening Day is about to do that for me…)
+ Strangers help 78-year-old DoorDash driver after viral doorbell video.
+ No passport, no problem. Meet the border-hopping cat who comes and goes as he pleases.
+ Possum found nestled in with plush toys at airport gift shop in Tasmania.
