I got shoes, you got shoes. All Trump's minions got shoes.

It's certainly no secret that Trump is a bully, a mean-spirited louse who extracts a goodly portion of the little joy he ekes out of life by humiliating others. Sometimes the humiliation is passive, as in the nauseating Cabinet meetings where his minions shamelessly fall all over themselves to praise Dear Leader - performances that wouldn't be out of place at a table headed by Vladimir Putin, Kim Jon Un, or Idi Amin. 

(Decades ago, I saw a documentary on Amin that featured a meeting of his underlings. There was also a scene in which Amin "won" a swimming race in which he walked across the waist-high part of a swimming pool using his arms to mimic taking strokes. When he got to the pool's edge, he looked up at the camera grinning and declared "I won." Sounds a lot like all those golf tournaments - and peace prizes - that Trump brags about.)

One of Trump's latest forays into the wonderful world of underling humiliation was gifting shoes to his Cabinet members and expecting them to wear them. Even if, because Trump ordered whatever sizes he thought would be best, the shoes don't fit.

The shoes that were the biggest misfits seemed to be those of the feet of Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Whatever size Lil Marco - a pet name bestowed by Trump during the 2016 Republican primary season - wears in real life, it's apparently not the "big shoes to fill" Trump gave him.

“Trump has been buying $145 Florsheim dress shoes for allies, using the gifts as a lighthearted way to encourage loyalty and unity within his circle,” posted media X account Clash Report, citing The Times as a source. (Source: MSN)

These are the same shiny black dress shoes that Trump himself wears. 

It's certainly no surprise that Trump favors shoes made in China (or somewhere non-US-y). But it's a bit shocking that his shoe of choice is from Florsheim, a rather pedestrian brand. (On a side note, my father wore Florsheim's - black or brown wingtips. He sometimes converted old ones to golf shoes by having spikes put on them.)

After all, Trump is fabulously wealthy, with his wealth having increased over the past year - the first year of his second presidency - by a cool $1.4B. Surely, he could afford whatever shoes he wants. So why not look into Allen Edmonds? Sure, they're more than double the price of Florsheim's, but they're actually made in the US of A. Or he could have a bespoke cobbler hand make him his shoes. 

Of course, what he probably really wants is to be carried around on a sedan chair while wearing dem golden slippers.

Given that Trump's notoriously cheap when it comes to reaching into his own pocket, perhaps he just didn't want to spend a lot of gifts for his cabinet. At the same time, he didn't want them to think he was gifting them second best by giving them shoes that he himself doesn't wear. (On second thought, there's no reason to believe the cost of the shoes was personally borne by Trump.)

“All the boys have them,” said one unnamed White House official, while another told the WSJ, “It’s hysterical because everybody’s afraid not to wear them.”

“Recipients have taken to wearing their Florsheims around Trump, some apparently begrudgingly,” the WSJ reported. “One cabinet secretary has grumbled that he had to shelve his Louis Vuittons, according to people who heard the complaint.”

As you can see in the photo of Marco sporting his new Florsheim's, they appear to be too big by about half an inch. Not quite clown shoes, but not exactly comfy. And what a win for Trump that Rubio has been "ruthlessly mocked" for clomping around in them. Social media. Late night comedians. Marco Rubio, ha, ha, ha. 

Who among us hasn't worn (at least once, in the gift-givers presence) something we're not wild about - the color, the cut - because it was given to us by someone we cared aout. But that ain't what's happening here.

Nope. Ain't no one wearing those shoes out of fondness for their boss. And to think that no one has the guts to say, "Thanks for the nifty gift, boss, but I'd like to exchange them for something that fits." Because that would be suggesting that Trump had made a mistake, gotten something wrong. Talk about that ain't happening. Not with King Infallible on the throne.

Others who have been beneficiaries of Trump's shoe largesse include Cabinet members Pete Hegseth, Howard Lutnick, and Sean Duffy. (No word on whether Scott Bessent was on the gift list, but I can't see that insufferable imperious snob voluntarily wearing Florsheim's.) Which means it would be delicious if Trump decided to do it. Steven Cheung, Lindsey Graham, and Sean Hannity have also been giftees. 

In terms of everything else Trump is doing to destroy the country and the world, forcing someone to wear unwanted, ill-fitting shoes is pretty small potatoes. But it does provide us with yet another example of Trump's rancid personality. 

Meanwhile, I can draw some comfort from learning that Florsheim's parent company, Weyco, is suing Trump over tariffs. 

"Thou shalt not have strange gods before me..."

In the Catholic version of the ten commandments the first commandment is "I am the lord thy God, thou shalt not have strange gods before me."

Other than when, say, a state like Texas tries to force them onto the walls of public schools, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about the ten commandments. But a few weeks ago, when I read about "Don Colossus," that "strange gods" one sure popped into mind.

"Don Colossus" is a 15 foot tall bronze statue of Trump that's "finished with a thick layer of gold leaf." Gold leaf? But of course! When astride its pedestal, the statue will be "about the height of a two-story building." Unfortunately, since it will be erected at Trump's Doral golf course in Florida, I will never be able to scorn it in person. Nor, since it's going to be on private property, will I be able to join the gleeful mob toppling it once the the too-long reign of Mad President Donald finally and blessedly comes to a halt. (Sigh.)

In case you're worrying, the taxpayers aren't (yet or directly) footing the bill for Don Colossus. No, the tab - $300K - is being picked up by a bunch of crypto bros who want to honor Trump for his suport of cryptocurrency. (Whatever you have to say about Trump, he sure has an eye for the flim-flam, the grift, doesn't he?) Anyway, the statue is also being used "to promote a memecoin called $PATRIOT."

Virtually nearly everyone in the crypto world has tried to profit from the Trump presidency, striking business deals with his family or seeking regulatory relief from his administration. But few have attempted it as boldly as the backers of $PATRIOT.

A memecoin is a type of cryptocurrency with hardly any function beyond speculation. It’s usually based on a viral joke or celebrity mascot, and worth only as much as online fans are willing to pay. The crucial ingredient is internet hype, enough to convince potential buyers that the price will keep going up. (Source: NY Times)

The crypto bros have been banging away at the grift for over a year, having started selling their memecoin after the ignominious 2024 election. During the inaguration festivities, they gave Trump's pal Steve Bannon a bronze miniature version.

Sales of the $PATRIOT took off. 

But delays and infighting have marred the venture, offering a window into the volatile world of memecoins, which are plagued by scams that often end up costing investors money. The $PATRIOT coin’s price cratered last year, losing nearly all its value. As the coin’s backers rushed to finish the statue and boost coin sales, they clashed with their Ohio-based sculptor, Alan Cottrill.

There's a couple of problems floating around here. One is that the cryptos owe $75K for the IP rights to the statue. Despite not paying for those rights, it will come as a surprise to exactly no one, they've been using the copyrighted image in their marketing efforts. But the bigger problem - which will, once again, come as a surprise to exactly no one - is that Trump went ahead an launched his own competing memecoin, $TRUMP, which took off and cut into $PATRIOT sales. 

By the way, I have no idea what his politics are, but Alan Cottrill is not some right wing nutter artist  doing Trump-glorifying "art" like that produced by Jon McNaughton. "Art," e.g., like "MAGA Symphony," or as I like to think of it, "Sympathy for the Devil."

No, Cottrill is the real deal, and has created larger-than-life statues of the likes of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Jesse Owens, and George Marshall. Of course, the largest monuments he's made have only been 10-feet tall. Trump's, of course, had to be even larger than larger than life. And, of course, had to portray an idealized version of the man:

“I had him very lifelike,” Mr. Cottrill said in an interview last month. “The crypto guys said I had to get rid of some of the turkey neck. I had to thin him down.”

Because the statue is a) larger than life; b) flatters Tump; and is c) is gold covered, Trump likes what he's seen so far, and will likely be at the Doral unveiling whenever it happens. The crypto bros just need to pay what they owe Cottrill (which is the $75K for the intellectual property rights and another $15K worth of incidentals). Which they'll no doubt pony up if they want to see $PATRIOT get a boost.

If it's not toppled by a frothing crowd, I hope that Don Colossus is struck by lightning, blown over in a hurricane, swept away in a flood, sucked into one of those famous Florida sinkholes. It's colossally ridiculous, and a colossal embarrassment to our country.

Seriously, even among the most ardent of Trump cultists, there can't be many remaining who don't find this sort of glorification of Trump somewhat disturbing, creepy, unsettling. And let's not get into the banners of Trump now flowing near the flag at the Deparment of Justice, the renaming of the Kennedy Center, the proposal to add Trump to Mt. Rushmore, etc.  

Donald J. Trump. Gotta be one of the all time strangest of strange gods.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Image source: Don Colossus - Charisma

Image source: MAGA Symphony - Jon McNaughton

I can think of worse crimes

Kinston, NC, doesn't get a lot of snow. But in February, they got 15", breaking a record that has stood since 1927. 

One thing about living in a place that's not a stranger to snowfall, people pretty much know how to get through it. There are snowplows. Mounds of sand and rocksalt. Although I am always surprised when there's a first-storm-of-the-season rush on hardware stores for shovels, most folks do have a shovel around. And if they're smart, a 40 pound balt of ice melt. Or at least an 8 pound shaker. 

Yes, people get into a pre-storm panic and quickly strip the grocery store shelves of bread, the coolers of milk. But those of us in Snow Country have useful skills, like knowing how to drive in the white stuff. And mostly, we know enough that, when "they" suggest that we stay home, we stay the f home. Curfews are only for insane blizzard conditions. Not your average 15" dump o' snow.

Snowy weather skills are honed over generations, and even when we haven't been having bad winters for a stretch, when they do happen race memory kicks in and we know how to cope. (We've had pretty lousy winter in these parts. Most snow in the last five years, and the coldest winter since 1977. Heating bills are sky high, but at least bitter cold helps tamp down rat reproduction. So there's that.)

But Kinston, NC - while it gets bad hurricane season rotten weather - doesn't get a lot of bad snowy weather. So the mayor of this small city (population roughly 20,000) set a curfew. Unless you were working, you were supposed to stay in. Which means that you couldn't be out and about.

Apparently, the problem for Jonathan Hackett was that he didn't have a place to stay, so he couldn't help but be out and about.

But he found his way to the Little Caesars where he used to work. They hadn't changed the key code from his time there so, push a few buttons and - voila - Hackett was in. (He claimed that the manager gave him permission to spend the night. Not clear whether that was in fact the case.)

With time on his hands, and the storm raging, Hackett did what any old pizza shop worker might do: He started making pizzas. (Give a man the ability to make a pizza, and he'll have work for life...) What do you do with a pizza? Why you can always give it away for free. Or so the message started spreading via Facebook. 

So, figuring that Little Caesars was making a goodwill gesture to the snowbound community, a few folks decided curfew-smurfew and showed up for their free pizza. 

But the enterprising Hackett decided he could make a buck. He started selling pizzas for $5 a pie, which even though Little Caesars in Kinston, NC is pretty inexpensive, was at least a slight bargain. (Some buyers said they were charged $10, which is closer to the standard price for a pizza.)

All in all, Hackett claims to have sold 10 pizzas, so he pocketed maybe $50 bucks.

He took off at some point, but when he arrived back at the shop, he encountered the manager and her family there. They had been at work, prepping the business for the next day, and decided to camp out there on a snowy night.

Everyone was asleep, when someone heard a noise. It was Hackett in the room. The [manager's] husband was awakened by a figure in the room: Hackett. That’s when the fight ensused. The husband told police that he was “about to do my thing” when Hackett swung at him and ran, so he chased Hackett down, confessing to police that he was “whooping his ass.” His son came outside, saw his dad holding Hackett, and “did what he had to do.”

The manager called the police, and told them that they’d detained a trespasser. When two officers showed up around 9:30, Hackett was being held down outside, bleeding from his face. For his part, Hackett told the police that he didn’t know why he’d been chased and beaten up. Again, even though he was a former employee, he said that the manager had given him permission to come into the Little Caesars to sleep. He did admit to selling pizzas, though. (Source: Jeremy Markovich, NC Rabbithole)

Hackett is facing a few felony charges - including B&E, larceny - and a couple of misdemeanor counts, including violating the Kinston curfew. In addition to getting his "ass whooped," Hackett could end up serving a prison sentence for his troubles. 

If this is all they have on him, I hope that Jonathan Hackett doesn't end up in the hoosegow for a couple of years. I can think of a lot worse crimes than breaking and entering a pizza shop and selling a few crappy pizzas to folks just looking for some comfort food on a snowy night. 

--------------------------------------------------------------

Image Source: Little Caesars Peoria Facebook

Guilty until proven innocent

Hard to believe it's been over a month now since Nancy Guthrie went missing. Hard to believe they haven't found something: Nancy (dead or alive), the kidnappers. 

I cannot begin to imagine what this poor woman is going through/went through. Nancy Guthrie is/was eight years older than I am, and she sure looks like she could be someone I know. Part of the alumni commitee I'm a member of. A fellow volunteer. A neighbor. Someone cruising the same shelves at the library looking for a bunch of good reads. A nice, pleasant "older lady" who looks like she doesn't have a mean bone in her body.

I cannot begin to imagine what her poor family is going through. There's the act of the kidnapping. But even worse is the not knowing. It's god-awful to sit through a death watch. It's god-awful to lose someone you love. But not knowing what your loved one is enduring/has endured? Not knowing if they're alive or dead? Not knowing if you'll ever know? Unimaginable.

It's also unimaginable to be an innocent bystander, someone who had less than zero to do with this heinous crime, yet find yourself a prime suspect, plastered all over social media and having civilian vigilante crime-stoppers stalking you (and your family) online and up close and personal.

As has happened to Dominic Evans, a Tucson grade-school teacher who had the ill luck to have been the drummer for Early Black, a band for which Nancy Guthrie's son in law Tommaso Cioni is the bassist. Early on, Cioni was named (by someone, somewhere) as the prime suspect in Guthrie's disappearance. ("The authorities" - and they've been none too authoritative here - have since announce that all the family members, including Cioni, have been cleared.)

Evans, who is 48, also became a prime target because of his criminal past. I.e., Internet sleuthers, in their zest to solve a crime, unearthed the fact that 27 years ago, when Evans was 21, he was arrested "for drunkenly swiping a calculator and watch while out at a bar." Crime of the century, that. 

Anyway, as things do, speculation about Evans' culpability went viral.

The accusations were levied online, but they have become a real-life nightmare for Mr. Evans and his wife. They hid in their bedroom with the lights off that night, too frightened to pick up their son from his grandmother’s house, for fear of being followed. Days later, another swarm of journalists, livestreamers and gawkers photographed the family’s home and knocked on their neighbors’ doors. (Source: NY Times)

When the speculation hit the fan, the Evans' asked their parents to keep their two youngest overnight. They told their teenage son not to come home. Evans had spoken with investigators (legit ones) and, while he hasn't yet been cleared, they haven't reached out to him in the weeks following the first interview. Looks to me like no one suspects Evans of anything. 

Yet when the doorbell camera pictures of the ski-masked man on Nancy Guthrie's doorstep were released, online "crime solvers" decided that yep, the guy was Evans. 

The lives of Evans, his wife, his children have been turned upside down. No, it's not the same degree as what the Guthrie family's experiencing, but it ain't nothing, either. 

“I feel like someone’s taken my name,” Mr. Evans said. But for what reasons? “I don’t know — monetary, clickbait, to be relevant, entertainment — but there are innocent people that get hurt.”

Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos (who, regretably, has come across as something of a Barney Fife throughout the investigation) recently said that, while no one other than Guthrie's family (inclding Tommaso Cioni) has been ruled out as a suspect, he feels bad for Dominic Evans. 

“He’s going through hell, and it is horrible,” Sheriff Nanos said. “And I don’t know what to tell him except he probably should be speaking with some attorneys and sue some of these people for libel...I wish I could jump out and defend every single one of them that’s been falsely accused,” he added.

Good luck to Evans if he does decide to sue. I'm sure the defense will be some combination of First Amendment, we were just thinking out loud, we meant no harm, we were just trying to help. Not to mention that most of the social media Sherlocks probably don't have two nickels to rub together. 

The "accusatory onslaught against" Evans has been dying down, and life is getting back to the new normal.

But the lasting effects are clear. The other day, Mr. Evans worried that a man was following him at a department store. Ms. Evans can’t help pulling out her phone and searching her husband’s name — she wants to know in advance if people might mob their neighborhood.

“None of this is real, but there’s so much of it,” Ms. Evans said of the speculation. “How can anyone decipher or catch all of it?”

Problem is, you can't.

I feel plenty bad for Nancy Guthrie, and for her family. They're going through hell. But I'm also feeling plenty bad for Dominic Evans and his family, collateral damage in the hunt for Nancy Guthrie and her abductor(s). And in the eyes and limited little minds of the nothing-better-to-do-brigade of amateur crime solvers, guilty until proven innocent.

Look, I understand just how entertaining it is to poke around the web googling "stuff." Way back in 2013, when the Boston Marathon Bombing occurred, I spent hours haunting the web. And when they released the names of the bombing brothers, I found info on Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev - where he was a student, what he was studying - before it hit any of the news sites. 

But finding "stuff" out is one thing, keyboard and phone vid rampaging around accusing innocent people of crimes they didn't commit is quite another. Get a life, folks. And if you can't get a life, why not STFU rather than keep hurting the lives of others.

-----------------------------------------------

Image Source: Screen Daily

"Catch me if you can"? Will do!

When I was a kid, I avidly read the book The Great Impostor, which chronicled the exploits of one Ferdinand Waldo Demara, a Massachusetts-born conman who, among other things, forged (fake) careers as a Trappist monk, Benedictine monk, engineer, teacher,  psychologist, prison warden, lawyer, and surgeon. He also founded a college that, miraculously, is still in existence. That many of his exploits involved Catholic institutions made the story all the more interesting to me. (The book formed the loose basis for a movie of the same name, with Demara played by Tony Curtis. I'm sure I saw it at some point, and may look it up one of these days.)

Fast forward to Catch Me If You Can,

a very enjoyable 2002 movie starring Leo DiCaprio as Frank Abagnale, conman extraordinaire. Like DeMara, Abagnale (supposedly) impersonated a doctor, lawyer, and airline pilot along his merry way. As an airline pilot - which is a little scarier a thought than being a lawyer, and a lot scarier a thought than being a doctor, but is REALLY SCARY, I don't think Abagnale ever actually flew a plane. He just deadheaded (cadged free flights), forged checks, and recruited (and physically examined) potential stewardesses - guess that's where being a fake doctor helped.

(Having found it difficult enough to fake my way through professions I was actually skilled at and/or educated for - like waitress and product marketer - the idea of making a career up out of whole cloth is fascinating to me.)

Frank Abagnale isn't the only one who pretended to be a pilot to fly for free. 

Federal prosecutors accused a Canadian man on [January 20, 2026] of doing just that, charging him with wire fraud for a scheme in which they say he pretended to be a pilot and a flight attendant to get hundreds of trips for free.

The man, Dallas Pokornik, used a false identification badge to defraud three airlines of travel benefits, according to an indictment filed in federal court in Hawaii. Mr. Pokornik, 33, had previously worked for a Toronto-based airline as a flight attendant between 2017 and 2019, court documents said, but not as a pilot. (Source: NY Times)

Impersonating a flight attendant for a free flight - which many airlines provide to colleagues at other airlines - is bad enough. Fraud, sure. Theft, absolutely. But pretty much no harm, no foul. And bad enough he scammed his way into free seats in the cabin. On some of his free flights - and there were many of them over the course of four years, on several different airlines - Pokornik, pretending to be a flyboy, asked for and was given a jump seat in the cockpit. Where, presumably, he could have been called on to assist if something happened to the pilot or copilot. Given that his in-flight experience was as a flight attendant, what was he going to do? Offer the other pilot a Biscoff cookie or a barf bag? 

The airlines Pokornik defrauded weren't named in the article, but "one [was] based in Honolulu, one in Chicago and one in Fort Worth." I'm a pretty good guesser, and I'm guessing Hawaiian Airlines, United, and American. I've never flown Hawaiian, but, yeah, I've been on United and American plenty of times. Wonder if Pokornik was ever in the seat next, or maybe even in the cockpit?

Pokornik is in line for a hefty fine and prison sentence. Wonder if it'll end up being worth the free flights he conned his way into?

Pokornik flew down the "catch me if you can" gauntlet, and apparently the airlines took him up on it. 

Anyway, he's grounded now.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Image Source: Netflix

Remarkably, Bill Belichick makes Bob Kraft look good

Locals have now had a week to recover from the Patriots' Super Bowl loss.

My recovery is blessedly complete. In fact, I was fully over the loss as soon as I finished watching Bad Bunny's excellent halftime show. By that point, the handwriting was on the scoreboard and I figured the Pats were toast. So I turned off the SB and turned on All Creature Great and Small on PBS. 

I was pretty mixed on whether I wanted the Pats to win to begin with. I'm a frontrunner, fair weather fan, but I did watch a few games this year once the team got good. I liked the coach and what little I knew of the team. So go Pats!

But I can't stand the Trumpist team owner Bob Kraft, especially given that, shortly before the Super Bowl, he made a pointed and highly publicized appearance at the premier of Melania, the apparently pointless puff-umentary about FLOTUS. 

So, I was there watching the Big Game rooting for the team to win, but for Krafty to lose. Guess I couldn't lose.

I was also cheered by Kraft's not getting elected to the Football Hall of Fame. In truth, given some of the crappy team owners who are "enshrined" in Canton, Ohio, Kraft probably should be there. But Kraft has been shamelessly lobbying for election, almost but not quite exceeding the aggression and zest with which his BFF has begged for a Nobel Peace Prize. 

A week before Kraft was dissed, former Pats' coach Bill Belichick also failed to make the Hall of Fame cut. The rejection of Belichick's candidacy is perhaps even more ridiculous than Kraft's coming up short on the ballot. Love him or hate him, Belichick wears an awful lot of Super Bowl rings, and that all can't be 100% attributed to wonder-GOAT Tom Brady. But Belichick is a gruff, snide jerk, so he didn't get voted in his first time on the ballot. In large part because he's a jerk. (As an aside, if being an a-hole were a dealbreaker for election to the Football Hall of Fame, there probably wouldn't be ten people in there.)

An interesting aspect of these dual HofF snubs is that Belichick and Kraft have been at odds for the past few years. One of their main beefs was Kraft having engineered a documentary, The Dynasty, which pretty much ignored Belichick's role in all those Super Bowls wins. 

In the aftermath of the documentary, there's been some back and forth sniping between Bill and Bob. But when Belichick failed to make the Hall of Fame, Kraft was supremely gracious. The Pats' owner:

...issued a glowing statement on his former coach, acknowledging their differences, then saying, “He is the greatest coach of all time and he unequivocally deserves to be a first-ballot Hall of Famer.” (Source: Boston Globe)

How to Belichick return the favor?

Well, on the eve of the Patriots' ignominious Super Bowl appearance, Belichick appeared with his girlfriend at a UNC basketball game while she was wearing an Orchids of Asia tee-shirt. Orchids of Asia was the Florida massage parlor where, back in 2019, one Robert Kraft was arrested for engaging in prostitution. The charges were dropped in 2020, but the reputational damage had been done. And the million jokes and memes regarding Kraft's not-so-happy ending have still not exhausted themselves. 

Anyway, as The Boston Globe's Dan Shaughnessy wrote:

This was nothing less than a declaration of war on the Krafts. It almost guarantees that the Belichick-Kraft feud will never end, and creates a world in which it’s impossible to imagine Belichick ever being inducted into the Patriots Hall of Fame. [Note: not to be confused with the the overall Football HofF.] 

Did Belichick really need to remind the world that, whatever success he achieved in the NFL, he's now a mediocre college coach at the University of North Carolina. And did he really need to remind the world that for the past few years he's been embarrassing himself by having his 24-year old girlfriend Jordon Hudson hanging on his arm - and humiliating himself by having Hudson (50 years Belichick's junior) call the PR shots for him. This isn't the first time she's made him look like a fool. And it likely won't be the last. 

But what was Bill Belichick thinking? That this stunt was funny? That it made him look cool?

Agreed that it is kind of funny, but it made him look like petty and nasty. Which may well be Belichick's true self. But it sure doesn't make him look like a mature, accomplished, pretty darned great football coach who should absolutely be in the Football Hall of Fame. Belichick may think his GF is polishing his brand, but all she's doing is tarnishing it.

What's remarkable to me is that Bill Belichick is actually managing to make Bob Kraft look good.

Shaughnessy speculates that the Football Hall of Fame voters will come to their senses, and that both Bill Belichick and Bob Kraft could well end up getting elected next year now that the voters have vented their initial spleen and shaking their animus out of their systems. This would put them together on the dais at Canton in 2027 when next year's winners are inducted. 

Won't that be a wonder to behold. Not a big football fan, but I could well tune in for that show.

---------------------------------------------

Image Source:  Savage Sports on X

Skeletons in the closet?

Certainly, everyone's entitled to a hobby. 

Personally, I've never had one - if you don't count reading, watching the Red Sox, or fretting over the news - but if someone wants to go all-in on stamp collecting, painting still lifes, gardening, or cupcake decorating, well, have at it. And if you can monetize your hobby, well, have at that, too.

But what do we make of one 34-year old hobbyist/entrepreneur Jonathan Gerlach?

A Pennsylvania man has been charged with stealing and desecrating dozens of skulls, bones and other remains from a historic cemetery, the authorities said. The local prosecutor described the case as “a horror movie come to life.” (Source: NY Times)

The charges against Gerlach - and there are hundreds of them - include abuse of a corpse; theft; burglary; criminal trespass; intentional desecration of public monuments, venerated objects, and historical lots and burial places. As of early January, he was being held on $1M bail.

Gerlach had collected over "100 sets of human and skeletal reamins from his home and storage unit." Under surveillance, skulls and bones were seen "in plain view" in his car. Yikes! Whatever happened to bobble head doggos and "my kid's an honor student" decals? And:

When Mr. Gerlach was taken into custody on Jan. 6, the authorities found the mummified remains of two children, three skulls and other bones, in a burlap bag, the affidavit said.

Oh.

The cemetery where Gerlach was doing his desecrating is Mount Moriah, one of those beautiful, bucolic, garden-style resting places established in the mid-1800's. Over 160 acres, it has over 150,000 gravesites. And a lot of mausoleums.

Gerlach was apparently not interested in the mess, fuss, effort, and more obvious possibility of detection associated with digging up a grave. He raided mausoleums and the crypts inside.

One of the crypts inside, which had held the remains of a girl who was born in 1854 and died in 1869, had been opened and was now empty, the affidavit said.

Another mausoleum held a Monster energy drink can that had been left behind, it said. This provided an opportunity to take fingerprints and a swab for DNA testing.

Mr. Gerlach is also accused of stealing jewelry, some of which was believed to have been taken with the human remains.

Some of the remains were pushing 200 years old. Others were of more recent vintage. One body still had a pacemaker attached. 

So far, no motive has been unearthed. (Sorry. Couldn't help it!) But monetization may have been a factor:

In addition to investigating Gerlach, authorities are also investigating a Facebook group he was connected to, called "Human Bones and Skull Selling Group." He was tagged and pictured holding a skull on the group page, ABC 6 reported. (Source: People)

Bones and skull selling group? 

Just how many macabre ghouls are there trading in human skulls and bones? To each his/her own, I guess. But I'd rather have folks trading/selling stamps. Or their bad-art still lifes. Or cupcake decorating trips.

This is just so very, very weird.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Image Source: Hidden City Philadelphia

A lobster tale

I like lobster as much as the next New Englander, but it's not something I eat all that often.

Mostly when I have lobster it's in the summer, and in the form of a lobster roll. 

I like the idea of a boiled lobster, but it's a big, messy pain in the butt. Once you retrieve the easy meat, which you get at by twisting the tail off and prodding the meat through, things get harder. You need to crack the claws, which don't always open up perfectly. As for the legs, whether you're poking the stringy meat out with a lobster pick, or sucking it out, as god intended, it's mostly not worth the effort.

Dipping lobster meat in drawn butter is sort of fun, but a mess. Your fingers get all greasy and you end up with butter running down your chin. 

If you're preparing boiled lobster at home, you have to kill the critters. I don't know how sentient lobsters are - I'm guessing not very - but one minute you have these guys crawling around in your tub, and the next minute you're sending them to their death. Not for the faint of heart.

Plus in my no doubt minority opinion, lobster doesn't actually taste like much of anything. Other than the butter you're dipping it in, or the butter the lobster on the lobster roll comes doused in. 

Anyway, if I'm looking for a seafood thing-y that says summer, more often than not, I'm going with fried clams or fried oysters. And the thought of eating lobster, fried clams, or fried oysters anytime other than summer is anathema to me.

Which is not to deny that plenty of folks love lobster. Year round, lobsters are on the pricey menu. And who among us hasn't been to a height of luxury wedding with surf 'n' turf on the menu? (Sorry, if the surf isn't lobster, it ain't surf 'n' turf.)

The lobster industry is primarily New England based, mostly in Maine, which produces the great majority of American lobsters. (The American lobster is what most homies think of as lobster. As opposed to langostinos, which aren't technically lobsters, or European lobsters, which are lobsters, but pre-cooked are blue vs. American lobsters, which are dark brown. Both cook up bright red, by the way.)

While I might think of lobster as summer fare, lobsters were in the news earlier this winter when a truckload of lobster meat valued at $400K pulled a disappearing act between leaving the warehouse in Taunton, Mass. and (not) arriving at some midwest Costcos. 

Seafood theft is apparently a pretty big "business," and the criming is pretty well organized. 

According to Dylan Rexing, CEO of the broker/logistics company that was ripped off, this was the second recent theft from Lineage Logistics, the Taunton cold storage facility where the lobsters were swiped from. Earlier, it had been crab. A few weeks prior, a different facility in Maine had 14 cages worth of oysters, worth $20K, stolen. 

“This theft wasn’t random,” Rexing’s email said. “It followed a pattern we’re seeing more and more, where criminals impersonate legitimate carriers using spoofed emails and burner phones to hijack high-value freight while it’s in transit.”

Rexing said his company hired a driver “that was fraudulently impersonating another carrier” in a case of “highly sophisticated” identity theft. (Source: Boston Globe)

Speculation is that the lobsters ended up in seafood markets in Boston and/or NYC, where it was sold at a discount.  

The FBI is actively investigating the incident which looks to be part of a growing pattern of organized cargo thefts targeting high-value freight in the United States, Rexing said.

Good to know that the FBI is on the case. Maybe they've been freed up from escorting Kash Patel's girlfriend around. Homeland Security Investigations is also in on the act. Better looking out for stolen lobsters than thugging around maltreating the people of Minnesota, but if Homeland Security Investigations is going to be doing any investigating, I'd just as soon they start with ICE. A girl can hope, can't she?

The Department of Transportation is also looking at cargo thefts, which end up in losses to brokerages like Rexing's, tax revenue losses to the feds and state governments, and additional costs to the "average American family," who are getting hit with over $500 worth of extra spending each year. 

I imagine that perishable cargos are especially difficult to recover. By the time the FBI, DHS, and DOT have started sleuthing, that lobster meat has already been scarfed down in a lobster roll. An out-of-season lobster roll, I might add. So don't blame me!

----------------------------------------------------------------

Image Source: Vital Choice

What does it profit a man?

It really doesn't matter whether it's Mark Zuckerberg or not.

It could just as well be Elon Musk. Or Peter Thiel. Or Jeff Bezos. Or some other ultra-mega-billionaire who's ultra-mega far and away from the reality of 99.99999999% of any of the other 8+ billion souls currently on earth. 

Not that there's not a wide range of among us, those 8+ billion souls. There's no way I would ever compare the life of a child starving in Gaza with my super-comfy, full-fridge-and-freezer life. But I do believe that my life - even if it's relatively close to how those ultra-mega-billionaires grew up - is as unimaginable to those ultra-mega-billionaires as is the life of a starving child in Gaza. 

What separates us from them is not just that they have more money. It's that they have no constraints. Anything they see, anything they want, anything they can think of: voi-fuckin'-la: it's theirs. And their appetite for anything they see, want, or think of is seemingly insatiable. C.f., Jeff Bezos off-the-chart of 2025 wedding. 

Another thing that characterizes the ultra-mega-billionaire class is that they don't seem to give a damn about who they trample on and f' over if the common folks get in the way of their acquiring anything they see, want, or think of. C.f., Mark Zuckerberg pretty much destroying the fabric of his Palo Alto neighborhood by buying up all sorts of homes to create his personal compound, and creating an unpermitted private school  - named after a pet chicken - for his kids and their friends. (The school has now been closed down.)

So given Zuckerberg's arrant disregard for his Palo Alto neighbors, it wouldn't be much of a surprise if it were, indeed, Zuck who has acquired Burnt Jacket Mountain in northern Maine - and put the kibosh on entrance to property where hikers have been hiking, hunters have long been hunting, snowmobilers have been snowmobiling, and kayakers have been landing their kayaks on the shoreline of Moosehead Lake. 

Yes, of course, private property is private. But since forever, in this part of Maine - remote and beautiful - the owners were fine with letting the locals trek around and about their private property.

But that was then, and this is now. 

And now there's a lot of concern way up there in the middle of nowhere. 

In that unsettled atmosphere, a two-sentence email sent last October to Destination Moosehead Lake, the tourism center in Greenville, landed like a slap.

“I am writing on behalf of the new Owner of the property at Burnt Jacket Mountain, requesting that you remove the reference to hiking at Burnt Jacket Mountain,” it said. “As this is now private property, we’d like to deter anyone from hiking on the mountain!”

The email, with its possibly ill-chosen exclamation point, came from Karen Thomas Associates, a New York firm that manages high-end residential construction. (“We are meticulous problem solvers,” its website explains, “resolving any number of challenges that may arise in the course of a demanding, luxury construction project.”)

The tourism center promptly complied, striking mentions of the mountain’s trails from its handouts. Then word began to spread. In other places, it might have been a no-brainer: Of course a private landowner would keep the public off his or her land. But in northern Maine, where hunters, hikers, snowmobilers and other outdoor enthusiasts have long enjoyed near-unrestricted access to vast forests, the request came across as unneighborly. (Source: Boston Globe)

The two journalists at The Moosehead Lakeshore Journal - a mother-daughter combo - tried to sleuth out the new owners, but even the fellow who sold the property doesn't know. (He also has said that he "didn't really care.") But someone who formerly worked for the town of Greenville posted on Facebook - how fitting - that Zuckerberg was the new owner. 

“Mark and Priscilla do not own any property in Maine, including the Burnt Jacket property,” a spokesman for the family said.

But would it surprise anyone if some holding company, some shell, some legal entity, tied to Mark and Priscilla did onw Burtnt Jacket?

For some residents, the closure of the hiking trails on Burnt Jacket Mountain resonated as a symbol of the broader threat.

“These weren’t the only trails — they weren’t in the top 10 trails,” said Lew-Ellyn Hughes, a manager at the Greenville tourism center whose family roots in the region go back 200 years. “That’s not why people are sad. It’s people from away coming in and shutting things down. It’s the contrast between haves and have-nots — especially when the have-nots can’t find a place to live.”

Sounds pretty Zuckerbergian to me.

Sure, the Zuckerbergs are philanthropic, and have given billions away, primarily to educational institutions. But giving at that level is pretty abstract. Acquiring something because you saw it, or want it, or thought of it, regardless of how it impacts the human beings standing - or hiking, or hunting, or kayaking - in your way, that's a real, in-your-face haves vs. haves not.

I'm pretty sure you can still maintain pretty good security - which the ultra-mega-billionaires are naturally and rightfully concerned with - without keeping the regulars off 100% of your property 100% of the time. 

At the end of the day, to quote a decidedly non-ultra-mega-billionaire, what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, but lose his soul? 

Me? I'm of the opinion that if you're screwing with the locals, screwing with the have nots, you've pretty much lost your soul.

Sigh...

Using social media for anti-social purposes? Hmmmmm.....

As far as ICE raids go, Boston hasn't had it as bad as a lot of other places.

We have had our moments, of course.

There was Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University grad student from Turkey who was abducted by ICE thugs because she'd co-authored an editorial that appeared in the college newspaper. The op-ed decried what's going on in Gaza and urged Tufts to divest in Israeli companies and acknowledge that (in the authors' opinion) what's going on in Gaza is genocide. She was ill-treated and bounced around the country before finally being released. Last month, she was told that she can resume her research. 

In December, there was a swearing in ceremony at Faneuil Hall - the home of free speech, the Cradle of Liberty. This is the final step in which folks become naturalized citizens, and it's a big deal. New citizens often bring family and friends, and it's all quite celebratory. Until December, when those from countries on the latest government shitlist were pulled out of line and told they weren't going to be able to take the citizenship oath. These were folks who had gone through all the steps in the process, including passing the knowledge test that 99% of native-born citizens probably couldn't pass,  and going through a rigorous background check. Not clear when and if they're going to be officially sworn in and handed their citizenship papers, or whether the government has other plans for them. Not that it matters to the government. They got what they wanted out of it, which was the cruelty to people from elsewheres that aren't white and/or Christian.

In the Boston area, people have been dragged from their cars, dragged from their homes, dragged from Home Depot parking lots, and transported to wherever, but nothing at the scale we've seen elsewhere. 

But in November, there was an ICE raid on an Allston car wash that grabbed nine workers. Allston is a Boston neighborhood, heavily populated by students. One of those students, the president of the Boston University College Republicans, jumped right on social media to grab credit for the raid, claiming that he'd been after ICE for months to "detain these criminals." Shortly after the raid, Zachary Segal posted this on X. 

“This week they finally responded to my request,” Segal wrote. “As someone who lives in the neighborhood, I’ve seen how American jobs are being given away to those with no right to be here.” 

“Pump up the numbers!” he added. (Source: Boston Globe)

It goes without saying that many of those picked up "hold legal status and valid work permits, according to their attorney, who said they have no criminal record to warrant deportation." And it further goes without saying that there aren't exactly a ton of Americans lining up for these so-called American jobs. 

This is a pretty liberal town. BU is a pretty liberal school. 

So no surprise that Segal's tweet got a lot of blowback. (And some support from right wingers, just not enough to outweigh those who thought Segal was out of line.)

ICE says that, in conducting their raid, they weren't responding to Segal's complaints, they were doing it on their own. Because they could. And because it's a lot easier to round up folks who's only crime is being here than it is to take down the savage killers, drug dealers, and gang members that they maintain make up most of the "no papers" immigrant community.

There are no doubt some who will find that Zachary Segal is righteous rather than self-righteous, a young man of sterling character rathen than a weaselly little prick, someone they want to be around rather than avoid. After all, Stephen Miller managed to find a wife who's as odious as he is.

But I'm thinking that a lot of possible dates are going to google Zachary Segal and put him on their "must avoid" list. And that, while he sounds like a book-smart kid from a well-to-do family who will have at least a few job opportunities - there are plenty of fellow-travelers out there; maybe Elon Musk or Jared Kushner will hire him - there are going to be plenty of companies who'll take a pass. Companies where he might want to work. They'll decide that he's nasty, unlikable, a creep. Not worth interviewing because who wants to invite nasty creepiness into the workplace.

He's only a kid, but serves him right if this happens. 

As I said, he'll no doubt find a partner, no doubt find a job. Things have a way of working out.

But for a long while I'll bet he's going to be wondering whether the date who ghosted him did so because of his diming "criminals" who work hard wiping water off of windshields. He'll be wondering whether his resume didn't get a look at a workplace he felt he was ideal for because of his boasting tweets.

I could be wrong. If the bad guys stay in control for a longer time than I hope and pray, Zachary Segal may be on a glide path to personal and career success, and the opposition will be exiled to some gulag. 

But it's interesting to note that Rumeysa Ozturk's:

...research area of interest centers on children's and adolescents' positive development in a media-embedded, digitally connected global world. Her dissertation will investigate how adolescents and young adults use social media in prosocial ways. (Source: Tufts. Italics are mine.)

Maybe she'll be interviewing Zachary Segal as part of her research.  

------------------------------------------------------

Image Source: Daily Free Press (BU)

The good news is that the LPGA is attracting more fans...

The good news for fans of women's sports is that players and teams are growing in popularity. And it's not just women and little girls who are following female athletes. An AP poll last spring showed that about half of the fans of women sports are men. (It also showed that about 30 percent of US adults follow women's sports to some extent. While this is about half the number who pay attention to men's sports, it still demonstratess remarkable growth in interest.)

I grew up an avid follower of baseball, and a regular follower of hockey, football, and basketball. Boston teams. All male. 

There were some women athletes: Tenley Albright and Peggy Fleming skated. Althea Gibson and Billie Jean King played tennis. Pat Bradley was a Massachusetts "girl" about my age who became an LPGA star.

There were no women's professional teams that I was aware of. 

Title IX didn't exist, and there were far fewer opportunities for girls to participate in sports. (I was on the Latin team, however.)

All this may explain why I only sporadically pay any attention to women's team sports. And pay about the same degree of attention to women's individual sports. I don't avidly follow most men's individual sports, either.

Anyway, the LPGA has become a pretty big deal over the last decade or so, and now a number of their star players - or their names, anyway - have been caught up in catfishing incidents in which imposters impersonating them on social media con fans out of big bucks. 

Fans have followed legit, verified accounts of female golfers, and some that looked legit enough, and have been approached by the "seemingly" legit accounts with preposterous messages.

Take Rodney, a 62 year old, self-acclaimed major LPGA fan from Indiana. Rodney isn't real. The Athletic (NY Times sports wing) invented him and gave him an Insta account to test whether there indeed is an "ever-increasing social media scam pervading the LPGA."

Within 20 minutes of setting up "his" account, poor, dear, LPGA-enamored Rodney - who hadn't yet posted a thing - 

...received a message from what at first glance appeared to be the world’s No. 2-ranked female golfer, Nelly Korda.

“Hi, handsomeface, i know this is like a dream to you. Thank you for being a fan,” read a direct message from @nellykordaofficialfanspage2. (Source: NY Times)

Needless to say, the real Nelly Korda wasn't out there calling Rodney "handsomeface." Nor did she send him that video he received in which she called Rodney by name. (This was via an altered AI video.) Fortunately there's no real Rodney to get suckered into believing that an attractive, rich, fit, blonde golf star thought he was handsome.

Other marks were not so fortunate. What happened to them was all too real. 

A Pennsylvania guy - like the fictional Rodney, in his 60s - headed to a tournament, thinking he was going to meet golfer Rose Zhang. He was expecting a VIP package from Zhang, and a hotel room for him that had been booked by her. 

He said they had been communicating on social media for over a year, during which he had sent her around $70,000. Zhang’s agent confronted the man, breaking the news that he was not communicating with Zhang.

One fellow, again a 60-something, was duped out of $50K by someone pretending to be In Gee Chun, a golfer from Sout Korea. One Asian guy showed up at a tourney in the US "believing he was married to one of the players." (Can you get married over social media???) A 72-year-old man from South Carolina didn't think he was married, but did get tricked into believing that he and Nelly Korda were engaged. And tricked out of this retirement fund. As he was on the verge of selling his house, his children finally were able to convince him he'd been scammed. 

The gist of the con goes like this: Social media user is a fan of a specific golfer; scam account impersonating that athlete reaches out and quickly moves the conversation to another platform like Telegram or WhatsApp to evade social media moderation tools; scammer offers a desirable object or experience — a private dinner, VIP access to a tournament, an investment opportunity — for a fee; untraceable payments are made via cryptocurrency or gift cards. Then, once the spigot of cash is turned off, the scammer disappears.

Women's golf is by no means the only group of celebs swept up in this con, but it's apparently one of the fastest growing targeted group. Golfers and even golf influencers (whoever/whatever they are) have taken to posting warnings on their social media sites. Caveat instagrammer! And caveat golfers, while we're at it. Some of those who've been scammed put the blame on the golfers and even show up at tournaments to confront them. One golfer had to take out a restraining order against one scammed fan. Others have had to rev up their security and avoid some functions that in the past they would have happily participated in. Scary, all that. 

The FBI is apparently on the LPGA case, but they're understandably busy flying FBI Director Kash Patel around the country on a private jet to attend his girlfriend's country music concerts, and trying to drum up dirt on Jim Comey. Plus most of the LPGA scammers are international.

It's terrible that scammers are preying on lonely, often elderly people, who are so desperate for connection that they get irrationally sucked in. Talk about looking for love in all the wrong places.

The good news that LPGA golfers, and other women athletes, are attracting more fans. Too bad they're also attracting a bunch of scammers. 

-------------------------------------------------------------

Image Source: BBC Earth

Aye aye, admiral. (Ay-ay-ay-ay!)

Admiral Robert Burke was all set for a nice little old retirement for himself. Alas, Burke - once the second-in-command of the US Navy - got greedy. In September, he was sentenced to six years in prison (prosecutors had asked for a ten year sentence) - and had fines levied on him - for his spring conviction on corruption charges. His corruption? He awarded a hefty Naval contract in exchange for a plush job once he retired.

The company Burke cosied up to, Next Jump, is a leadership training company that "for 20+ years...has been on a mission to democratize elite performance coaching – helping leaders and teams make better decisions, day in and day out." Next Jump's leaders - Burke's co-defendants - Meghan Messenger and Charlie Kim were tried separately in a trial that ended up ending in a hung jury mistrial. (Not clear whether they'll retried.)

Kim and Messenger agreed to pay Burke a $500,000 salary with stock options projected to be worth millions of dollars, according to prosecutors. In exchange, they said, Burke ordered his staff to give a contract to Next Jump and promoted the company’s product to other senior Navy commanders. (Source: APNews)

A few years earlier, Next Jump had been awarded a multimillion-dollar contract for a workforce training program. The pilot failed and the Navy called it quits with Next Jump. Fast forward a bit, and Burke had a tete-a-tete with Kim and Messenger to talk about another contract. Next Jump's proposal was that they'd deliver a program pretty much the same as the failed one. Nonetheless, Burke forced his underlings to give them the contract. Hmmmm.

“The truth is, Burke knew this training was a waste of time and money, and not suitable for his command, let alone the entire Navy,” prosecutors wrote.

Burke's next jump was retiring and accepting a job offer with Next Jump.

Burke’s attorneys said a military commander with his experience could have landed a better-paying job in the private sector.

“He was not motivated by greed, but by a belief in the mission and product of the company,” they wrote

I have no doubt in my mind that Burke, who's in his early sixties, could have found any number of high-paying positions, or raked in the dough as a consultant and/or lobbiest. Companies LOVE hiring ex-military. (Ask me about working with a retired admiral at one of the goofier tech companies I served my time with.) Not that Burke couldn't have had a decently comfy retirement on his Navy pension - which as far as I can figure, would have been about $200K, plus all sorts of bennies like PX shopping and healthcare; all of which he stands to lose - but, hey, why not grab for the brass ring in the private sector.

But "belief in the mission"? Especiallly after his first experience with Next Jump was mission non-accomplished? I call BS.

Especially given that his attorneyes, when asking the judge not to send Burke to the brig, argued that:

“This is not a case of a career criminal...It is the case of a single, tragic, and aberrant chapter at the very end of a life defined by honor, courage, and commitment.”

So which was it? Belief in the mission or an aberrant chapter? 

Needless to say, Burke is appealing his sentence. 

Interestingly, Burke's legal team included Tim Parlatore, former personal attorney to Donald J. Trump. He's an advisor to and attorney for one Pete Hegseth of the US Department of Defense War. And a former partner in a law firm that defended John Gotti. 

I realize that everyone deserves a defense, but did Parlatore ever defend anyone decent????

Anyway, Parlatore's a slick one, and he may well get Burke off on appeal.

But what a black eye for Burke and the Navy. You'd think that such a high-ranking admiral wouldn't be as dumb as Cap'n Crunch. Ay-ay-ay-ay.

---------------------------------------------------

Image Source: Florida Eye

Did there used to be this many narcissists?

You're not imaging it. 

There have always been narcissists. Caravaggio's masterpiece Narcissus was painted 1597-1599, and he obviously didn't pull the concept out of thin air.

But many psychologists are saying that there really are more narcissists these days than there used to be. 

Sure, some of the increase may just be an increase in awareness of the problem. As with autism. I have a hunch that the stats on how many autistic people exist are inflated by the definition of autism having been expanded. Autism is now considered a broad spectrum of behaviors, not just Rainman-like behavior. My career was in tech, and a lot of the colleagues we considered your typical techie oddballs would now be characterized as "on the spectrum." 

It's likely the same with narcissism. The term, in all its glorious (mis)understanding, trips off pretty much everyone's tongue. And when the inglorious spectacle of a manifestly disordered president - a fellow who, when it comes to narcissism, pretty much checks every box - invades our lives, a lot of us are thinking/fretting about narcissism 24/7. 

But it's also likely that technology - all that Insta, all that TikTok - and the equating of success and happiness with having a distinct personal brand have resulted in greater levels of self-absorption. Influencer as a profession, anyone?

One of the more spectacular manifestations of narcissism that I've seen recently came across my timeline. 

Jennifer P is a NJ stay-at-home dog mom (nice work, if you can get it, I suppose) who has been cataloging her "fitness journey" for years. I don't know how many folks she actually influences - when I looked at her TikTok, the number was fewer than 2,000 - but earlier in the fall she was getting an awful lot of views, and it wasn't for all those butt angles of her  tightening her glutes in her lululemons. 

I won't be using the full name for Jennifer P, but it's out there. (Click the linked article and see for yourself.) But I'm not using it because I feel kind of bad for her. An influencer with little influence who brought a virtual ton of bricks down on her virtual head, and who keeps posting (at least as of this mid-October writing) videos continuing to excuse herself from any stupid-doing while assuring her meager pack of followers, and herself, that what she did was fine and dandy, that she can't believe she's become such a thing (and such a target), and that she's really ok. 

So, kinda sorta sad. 

But a pretty good example of narcissism run amok. 

What Jenny from NJ did was put out one of her exercise vids and decide to make it about "gym etiquette." But she wasn't pointing out that folks should put the weights back, and wipe their sweat off the equipent they'd just used. No, she took on a fellow gymgoer, bitching her out for "photobombing" her video, and accusing her of doing it deliberately. When IRL, all the accusee was doing was being a gymgoer. Here's how it went down:

The video was set up to focus on [Jennifer P] completing her routine on a bench, but more of the gym beyond her was visible, including a row of weights and mirrors. During her set, a woman stepped into frame to return her weights and to stretch in front of the mirror, seemingly to check her form.

[Jennifer P]  appeared irritated as she glanced at the woman and then looked at her camera, as if to confirm that the woman was included in her shot. She appeared irritated as she switched to leg lifts before finally dropping to the floor and approaching her phone.

Off-screen, [Jennifer P] asked the woman why she was standing there. When the woman expressed confusion, [Jennifer P]  stated: "Because you're annoying me. You're annoying me. You're doing this on purpose."

The woman replied something inaudible to [Jennifer P]  before grabbing another set of weights and walking out of the frame.

But that wasn't enough for [Jennifer P] , who said:
"Don't work out next to me. Don't work out next to me. Please, don't work out next to me."

Ironically, [Jennifer P]  wrote in a text overlay on the video: "Gym Etiquette Lesson 47: Don't photobomb the content creator."

She also wrote in the video's caption: "She did that sh*t on purpose." (Source: ComicSands)

I'm not going to say that all hell broke lose, but partial hell sure did. And all of a sudden, viral being viral, a whole lot of TikTokers were weighing in on Jennifer P's "delusional level of entitlement" and lack of understanding of what gym etiquette actually means. To the world at large, Jennifer P is no Emily Post of the Gym. One critic even wondered whether the whole thing was a skit. 

Then some big kahuna fitness influencer, one Joey Swoll - Joey Swoll of the 8.1 million TikTok followers - came for Jennifer P, suggesting that if she needed so much private space, she needed to build herself a home gym.

Jennifer P, like a true narcissist, found it impossible to accept any responsibility or blame for the incident, and kept posting back. Some of her commenters warned Jennifer P that she was going to lose her gym membership over this, but Jennifer P insisted that she'd been a member for 17 years, and no way were they going to kick her out.

A short while after she posted her NFW would they expel me video, Jennifer P was kicked out of her gym.

Oh. 

Maybe Jennifer P was having a bad day. Maybe she was having a menopausal meltdown. Maybe one of the bulldogs she moms was sick. But she sure sounds and acts like a narcissist to me. (And, yes, I did look through some of her TikToks.)

Anyway, technically there may not be all that many narcissists out there than there used to be, but it sure seems as if there are. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Image Source: Turning Leaf Therapy (Ur Source for Image: Caravaggio)