The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s ten-year wedding anniversary is coming up in April. I’m not looking forward to the coverage, which I imagine will be cloying, embiggening and asinine. I’m already preparing to hear, ad nauseum, about Will and Kate’s “love match” and their “fairytale romance,” and how keen they are to really get going now that they’ve been married ten years. But will the Queen do something special for them for their tenth anniversary? Perhaps. In 2019, for their eighth anniversary, the Queen gave Kate the Dame Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order. Kate got it a lot later than other married-in women, and she got it right after the Rose Hanbury kerfuffle. At the time, I read the Queen’s honoring Kate for being a good royal wife and not causing a big headache for the Firm because of William’s wandering sceptre. So, will Kate get another honor for the tenth anniversary?

It’s almost 10 years since they walked down the aisle at Westminster Abbey, and the Queen is reportedly planning a new honour for Kate Middleton to mark a decade of marriage to the future King. On the couple’s eighth anniversary in 2019, the Queen bestowed her highest seal of approval, making the Duchess of Cambridge, 39, a Dame Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order. Awards under the Royal Victorian Order are made personally by the Queen for services to the sovereign, and the Queen is said to be considering another prestigious honour for April, in recognition of Kate’s work as a member of the monarchy.

Royal expert Duncan Larcombe told OK! magazine: ‘It’s highly likely she’ll be planning a special secret something to honour Kate’s 10 years in the royal family – something she can do to mark it. Kate and the Queen have a fantastic relationship. Kate strikes that balance between bowing to her as head of the royal family in public but being able to check in with her as the great-grandmother to her children.’

He added that, despite the ongoing pandemic, the Queen and Kate have remained close with the Duchess having a direct line to speak to Her Majesty. Kate checks in on her and gives her updates on her and Prince William’s children – George, seven, Charlotte, five, and Louis, two. Duncan also said that it is believed Kate taught the Queen how to use video calls, so that she could see her great-grandchildren while they were unable to visit each other.

[From The Daily Mail]

Yeah, I don’t think Kate helps the Queen with anything, especially not Zoom calls. I doubt Kate even calls the Queen and offers updates about the Cambridge children. And I doubt the Queen would even want Kate to do that?? Kate and the Queen have never seemed particularly close, but I suspect that’s mostly because William keeps Kate away from his family at that kind of level. He’d rather be a Middleton and spend time with Kate’s family. Anyway, sure, I could see the Queen giving Kate another “I’m so glad you’re okay with your husband banging other broads” honor. Or maybe the Queen will make Kate wait another eight years. Who knows.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.

For his inauguration, Joe Biden wore a nice suit, a nice coat and leather gloves. I didn’t pay any attention to his watch, because I rarely notice men’s watches anyway. Before this weekend, if you asked me if I thought Joe Biden owned at least one really nice, expensive watch, I would have said “yes, probably.” He’s old and he’s worked hard a long time and he’s from the generation of men who appreciated fine craftsmanship in all things, especially stuff like cars and watches and clothes. Of course he owns some nice stuff. But the issue of “Joe Biden’s watch” became a headline this weekend because of this story:

President Biden may cast his arrival in the White House as a return to business as usual at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but there’s at least one way he’s breaking from prevailing presidential tradition: he wears a Rolex.

At his inauguration, Mr. Biden laid his hand on the family Bible wearing a stainless steel Rolex Datejust watch with a blue dial, a model that retails for more than $7,000 and is a far cry from the Everyman timepieces that every president not named Trump has worn conspicuously in recent decades.

To many, a president wearing a luxury watch might not seem unusual. Shouldn’t the leader of the free world wear a power watch befitting his position? (Never mind that it costs the equivalent of dozen or so stimulus checks.) That concept was widely accepted once, back when Dwight D. Eisenhower and Lyndon B. Johnson posed guiltlessly for Oval Office portraits wearing gold Rolexes. Not for nothing is Rolex’s storied gold Day-Date model known as the “President.”

[From The NY Times]

The piece goes on to point out that Bill Clinton and George W. Bush both favored cheap watches and Obama favored Shinola or Jorg Gray watches, usually pieces which cost less than $500. Yeah… I think men and women should be authentic to who they are and what they like. If a public servant is a sneakerhead, so be it and good for him. If the president enjoys a fine timepiece, God bless. I find it disgusting that we expect someone like Biden to not have anything nice, or that we expect the wealthy people who run for office to play-act this patronizing idea of performative poverty. “Yes, I’m worth $600 million but I’m like you, I’m just wearing this humble flannel shirt and boots from Walmart.” And God help us all when they start listing what Kamala Harris’s clothes cost. I can already see the headlines about her Jimmy Choos.

Also: there’s some evidence that President Biden was wearing a Rolex which once belonged to his late son Beau Biden. Which would make sense, if President Biden made some quiet tributes to his beloved son.

It appears that the Rolex that Joe Biden wore to the inauguration used to belong to Beau. If this is true, the Biden family deserves a major apology from the New York Times. pic.twitter.com/HoNhJpxu6p

— United for the People (@people4kam) January 25, 2021

Oh my God, Biden has a Peloton and wears a Rolex. pic.twitter.com/3t4ARII3sV

— Saverio Guerra (@saverio825) January 22, 2021

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.

Intro: Minutes 0 to 5:00
We will be off next week and will be back February 7. My goal this year is to do more stretching so I’m taking zoom classes for that. Chandra hasn’t stretched much either as she’s not going to the gym but loves walking outside. She’s feeling out of shape after the past year in lockdown and I went up a size. It’s hard to tell how much weight we’ve gained as we’ve been wearing sweatpants and leggings. You can listen below!

The inauguration: Minutes 5:00 to 21:00
The inauguration was a relief but I don’t know how to feel. We’re still processing the trauma from the last four years. We both love the new press secretary, Jen Psaki. Chandra mentions Sean Spicer, the first Trump press secretary who yelled at everyone. Lady Gaga and Jennifer Lopez performed. I thought Lady Gaga’s Schiaparelli outfit was too over the top for the occasion. People were making Hunger Games comparisons. Chandra liked it and said it was very Gaga. We appreciate that Gaga is a good Democrat and that she campaigned for Biden. Jennifer Lopez was in a sparkly white Chanel pantsuit. Chandra wishes Gaga and J.Lo would have worn American designers. I play a segment from Zoom where Courtney, Michelle, Ameerah and Alnaaze talk about Gaga and J.Lo. We remember when J.Lo was making herself cry at the Oscars.

We like how it’s finally ok to talk about fashion again! During the Trump administration we covered Melania’s fashion when it was relevant but Chandra felt bad writing about superficial things in that era. Michelle Obama wore Sergio Hudson, he’s a Black designer from South Carolina, and she had absolutely amazing bouncy gorgeous hair. Jill Biden was in a blue tweed coat from Alexandra O’Neil for Markarian. I loved how sparkly it was and that it had a contrasting collar. People were also talking about VP Harris’ stepdaughter, Ella Emhoff, who wore a really cool looking tweed Miu Miu jacket with sequins on the shoulders. It was very retro looking and striking. Hillary Clinton wore a purple ruffled top. I play a segment from Zoom where Sara, Zakia, Ameerah and Alnaaze talk about this.

The star of the inauguration was 22 year-old poet Amanda Gorman. She just blew everyone away with the poem she wrote and recited, called “The Hill we Climb.” She wrote it right after the Capitol siege and yet it was so optimistic. Her poem used simple language and was so elegantly constructed.

Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas: Minutes 21:00 to 25:30
Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas announced their breakup on a Monday. At first we heard that it was her idea, but by the day after there were so many stories that it was mutual. Ben’s side blanketed the press with news about how he’s doing, how the breakup happened and what’s next for them. It was so ridiculous, but it was typical for him. We think they were growing apart and that Ben was probably treating Ana poorly while waiting for her to break up with him. She also may have had more of a look at his addiction. We wonder who she’ll date next. Ben complained so much in that Awards Chatter podcast about the way the tabloids treated him in the Bennifer era, which was 16 years ago! We talked about that because Ben treated Jennifer Lopez like dirt! I play a segment from Zoom where Courtney, Sara, Karen and Alnaaze talk about this. Chandra and I think Ana’s pageboy is cute.

Comments of the week: Minutes 25:30 to 30:00
My comments of the week are from Wiglet Watcher and janey on the post about bout Ben Affleck saying that he hates being famous. Chandra’s comment of the week is from Ariel on the post about Tiffany Trump getting engaged to a Nigerian millionaire.

I tell Chandra I want to be happy but am worried something bad is going to happen. She tells me not to worry because bad stuff is still happening. There’s a story that the Trump administration left absolutely no vaccine distribution plan.

Thanks for listening bitches! Call us or leave a voicemail at 434-218-3219.

photos credit: Avalon.red, WENN and via Instagram. Music credit: A.A. Alto, Meydan and via Premium Beat and Sound of Picture

Prince Harry gave a new interview to Fast Company about one of the larger issues he and his wife will be working on for years: healthier social media and a fairer internet. It’s a big issue and it’s not something that someone can just dip in and out of, honestly. Terrorists are radicalized on the internet, and coups are planned on social media. Kids and adults are bullied, harassed, threatened and doxxed on the internet. There are so many places on the internet which operate as the Wild West, with little to no governance or ethical standards. Just a few weeks ago, with the Capitol siege, we saw an event which was the culmination of years of digital fascist propaganda, racist hate speech on the internet, and online radicalization. You can read Harry’s full interview here. Some highlights:

His Fast Company essay six months ago warned of what happened at the Capitol: “When I wrote that piece, I was sharing my view that dominant online platforms have contributed to and stoked the conditions for a crisis of hate, a crisis of health, and a crisis of truth. And I stand by that, along with millions of others who see and feel what this era has done at every level—we are losing loved ones to conspiracy theories, losing a sense of self because of the barrage of mistruths, and at the largest scale, losing our democracies. The magnitude of this cannot be overstated, as noted even by the defectors who helped build these platforms. It takes courage to stand up, cite where things have gone wrong, and offer proposals and solutions.

It’s personal to him: “I was really surprised to witness how my story had been told one way, my wife’s story had been told one way, and then our union sparked something that made the telling of that story very different. That false narrative became the mothership for all of the harassment you’re referring to. It wouldn’t have even begun had our story just been told truthfully. But the important thing about what we experienced is that it led to us hearing from so many others around the world. We’ve thought a lot about those in much more vulnerable positions than us, and how much of a need there is for real empathy and support. To their own degree, everyone has been deeply affected by the current consequences of the digital space. It could be as individual as seeing a loved one go down the path of radicalisation or as collective as seeing the science behind the climate crisis denied. We are all vulnerable to it, which is why I don’t see it as a tech issue, or a political issue—it’s a humanitarian issue.

Creating a better digital world: “The avalanche of misinformation we are all inundated with is bending reality and has created this distorted filter that affects our ability to think clearly or even understand the world around us. What happens online does not stay online—it spreads everywhere, like wildfire: into our homes and workplaces, into the streets, into our minds. The question really becomes about what to do when news and information sharing is no longer a decent, truthful exchange, but rather an exchange of weaponry. The answer I’ve heard from experts in this space is that the common denominator starts with accountability. There has to be accountability to collective wellbeing, not just financial incentive. It’s hard for me to understand how the platforms themselves can eagerly take profit but shun responsibility.

A shared accountability too: “There also has to be common, shared accountability. We can call for digital reform and debate how that happens and what it looks like, but it’s also on each of us to take a more critical eye to our own relationship with technology and media. To start, it doesn’t have to be that complicated. Consider setting limits on the time you spend on social media, stop yourself from endlessly scrolling, fact-check the source and research the information you see, and commit to taking a more compassionate approach and tone when you post or comment. These might seem like little things, but they add up.

On the Capitol siege: “We have seen time and again what happens when the real-world cost of misinformation is disregarded. There is no way to downplay this. There was a literal attack on democracy in the United States, organised on social media, which is an issue of violent extremism. It is widely acknowledged that social media played a role in the genocide in Myanmar and was used as a vehicle to incite violence against the Rohingya people, which is a human rights issue. And in Brazil, social media provided a conduit for misinformation which ultimately brought destruction to the Amazon, which is an environmental and global health issue. In a way, taking a predominately hands-off approach to problems for so long is itself an exercise in power.

[From Fast Company]

What surprises me is that so much of what has happened in the past month has been something of a grand experiment in both directions. The terrorists who committed insurrection on the Capitol were conducting a violent experiment on the state of American democracy, and the resilience of the republic. On the other side, the social media companies that decided to deplatform Donald Trump and his Nazi minions en masse were also conducting an experiment: to see if they could effectively deplatform those people and what would happen next. The results of both experiments have been grotesque and fascinating. For one, I think social media companies *did* learn that they had more power than they initially believed, and they had more liability too. As for the Capitol terrorists who were largely radicalized by Trump and the internet… we still don’t know the half of it.

Anyway, I like that Harry is trying and that he and Meghan are using their platforms to draw attention to work being done by other groups too.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Avalon Red.

Cardi B and Offset are currently in LA, not Atlanta. I wonder about their travels – I feel like they’ve spent so much time in New York, LA and Atlanta over the past year, and they’ve failed to social distance everywhere they’ve landed. They went shopping at Bottega Veneta in Beverly Hills over the weekend, perhaps to pick up some fine leather goods. There was some mask drama – Cardi wore her mask as she entered the shop and for a time in the shop, but she pulled it down at one point, perhaps because she wanted the paparazzi to know it was her. Cardi, don’t do that!

But the real story here is Cardi’s insane optical illusion dress. The dress is by Pierre-Louis Auvray. If you look at the construction, it makes no sense – the sweater “shrug” is built into the dress and your eye is supposed to be fooled into wondering if the dress is transparent. It’s not? But it is eye catching. She paired the dress with YSL heels. People were so surprised to see her that regular people were stopping to take photos of her.

Cardi also tweeted about missing the inauguration because she had a dentist’s appointment, which is funny. People are like “haha you should have performed WAP at the inaugural” but honestly, Cardi interviewed President Biden during the campaign and she did a lot of GOTV work, I’m a little bit surprised that the Biden people didn’t reach out to her to at least speak at that virtual inaugural ball. She also tweeted some stuff about how glad she is that Trump is gone, etc.

Ugh I was supposed to perform wap at the inauguration today but I had a dentist appointment ??….maybe next time .

— iamcardib (@iamcardib) January 21, 2021

How they trying to impeach Biden already ? He hasn’t even taken a shit at the White House yet .This just shows me how delusional and dumb people can be.????

— iamcardib (@iamcardib) January 22, 2021

I pray we don’t go back to that .I can only imagine how other people felt around America and the world .It was just the worst.

— iamcardib (@iamcardib) January 24, 2021

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.

Last week we talked about the very happy news that Netflix has confirmed season two of my newest obsession, Bridgerton. We also found out that Season twp will chronicle the love life of the eldest Bridgerton brother, Anthony. Which made me less enthusiastic since Anthony was my least favorite character. Despite being reassured by readers of the books that Anthony is quite charming and not a bore, my biggest question about Season two is if we would be seeing more of Rege-Jean, I mean the Duke of Hastings/

Duke lovers far and wide I have good tidings for thee. Showrunner Chris Van Dusen was interviewed on Today with Hoda & Jenna and he confirmed that the Duke and Daphne will be making appearances in Season two. Chris said his hope is that the Duke and consequently Daphne will always be a part of Bridgerton going forward. And I couldn’t be happier. Below are a few excerpts from Chris’s interview on Today via Deadline:

“I hope so,” Van Dusen said when asked whether Page and Dynevor’s characters will be back next season. “They are now of course the Duke and Duchess of Hastings but in my mind they will always be Bridgertons and I think they will always be part of the show.”

“I genuinely have no idea what they’re going to do with the second season, but I imagine if they’re following the books, then it would be Anthony’s journey,” she said. “I’m sure Daphne will end up getting involved. But yeah, I do wonder what it looks like. I’m excited to find out.”

Van Dusen confirmed that production on Season 2 starts in late spring in London for what is believed to be a six-month shoot.

“We have a bunch of new characters we are going to be introducing,” he said. “Anthony is going to have a love interest next season, and I think it’s going to be as sweeping and moving and as beautiful as viewers of the first season have come to expect from the show.”

[From Deadline]

Like I said before, I would watch Season 2 if I can get more of Rege-Jean and if they cast a dark skinned Black woman or South Asian woman for Kate. Rege-Jean and Adjoa Andoh (Lady Danbury) are what made Season one for me. I also loved Nicola Coughlin’s Penelope. Daphne has grown on me over time. I honestly wouldn’t have watched the show if Shondaland and Rege (specifically) weren’t attached to the project. As far as Anthony’s love interest, Kate, is concerned, I have joined a reader in her campaign to get Simona Brown cast as Kate. Simona is stunning and I am here for it. I also believe that Kate will need to have just as much charisma as Rege’s Duke to carry the season. Jonathan Bailey as Anthony will need to turn up the heat in his character’s personality. Chris Van Dusen has done an amazing job in fleshing out the main characters and making them extremely likeable and sexy. He has done a great job capturing romance and creating intimacy with touch and conversation.

Chris also confirmed that they will begin filming Season two of Bridgerton in late Spring in London, so hopefully we will get Season two by Christmas 2021. So, as I patiently wait for Chris and Netflix to announce the cast, I am ordering the second book as I hear it is one of the best books out of the Julia Quinn Bridgerton series. Maybe book two will convert me into liking Anthony. Also, I have been forgoing watching Bridgerton for the 100th times and I have instead fallen down the hilariously dark dark world of Bridgerton TikTok. There are so many brilliant folks making fanfiction content on that app. I have also gotten my Rege-Jean fix like a fiend by devouring every interview I can find on Youtube. It is annoying that not only is Rege hot, he is also intelligent, witty and seemingly empathetic. Anyway, enough of my Rege obsession.

You can watch the full interview here

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by chrisvandusen (@chrisvandusen)

photos credit: Netflix

When Dr. Anthony Fauci did his first briefing during the Biden administration last week, he stepped up to the White House press briefing room podium and looked like a new man. His skin was glowing and he looked 20 years younger. He seemed happy and relieved that he could just do his job and talk about pure science, pure public health, pure immunology and virology. I think many of us feel that way now that Joe Biden is president too – lighter, not terrified, not having to play these stupid f–king games with morons. Dr. Fauci spoke to the NY Times about his time working with the Trump White House, which was basically the past year of his life, a year which saw him harassed by Donald Trump, threatened by MAGA morons and dealing with a mountain of misinformation coming straight from the White House. The full interview is worth a read. Some highlights:

When things started going wrong with Trump: “It coincided very much with the rapid escalation of cases in the northeastern part of the country, particularly the New York metropolitan area. I would try to express the gravity of the situation, and the response of the president was always leaning toward, “Well, it’s not that bad, right?” And I would say, “Yes, it is that bad.” It was almost a reflex response, trying to coax you to minimize it. Not saying, “I want you to minimize it,” but, “Oh, really, was it that bad?”

When Trump talked about how the virus would disappear like magic: “That’s when it became clear to me: I’m not going to proactively go out and volunteer my contradiction of what the president said. But he would say something that clearly was not correct, and then a reporter would say, “Well, let’s hear from Dr. Fauci.” I would have to get up and say, “No, I’m sorry, I do not think that is the case.” It isn’t like I took any pleasure in contradicting the president of the United States. I have a great deal of respect for the office. But I made a decision that I just had to. Otherwise I would be compromising my own integrity, and be giving a false message to the world. If I didn’t speak up, it would be almost tacit approval that what he was saying was OK.

Things got “nefarious” but no one explicitly told him to stop disagreeing with Trump: “After a TV interview or a story in a major newspaper, someone senior, like Mark Meadows, would call me up expressing concern that I was going out of my way to contradict the president. There were a couple of times where I would make a statement that was a pessimistic viewpoint about what direction we were going, and the president would call me up and say, “Hey, why aren’t you more positive? You’ve got to take a positive attitude. Why are you so negativistic? Be more positive.”

When the death threats started: “Many, many months ago. In the spring. Hold on — just bear with me. [He consults someone who answers “March 28.”] So there — you got it from the head of my Secret Service detail. That’s when I got protection, so maybe two weeks prior to that. It was the harassment of my wife, and particularly my children, that upset me more than anything else. They knew where my kids work, where they live. The threats would come directly to my children’s phones, directly to my children’s homes. How the hell did whoever these assholes were get that information? And there was chatter on the internet, people talking to each other, threatening, saying, “Hey, we got to get rid of this guy. What are we going to do about him? He’s hurting the president’s chances.” You know, that kind of right-wing craziness.

Someone mailed him powder: “One day I got a letter in the mail, I opened it up and a puff of powder came all over my face and my chest. That was very, very disturbing to me and my wife because it was in my office. So I just looked at it all over me and said, “What do I do?” The security detail was there, and they’re very experienced in that. They said, “Don’t move, stay in the room.” And they got the hazmat people. So they came, they sprayed me down and all that. [The powder] was a benign nothing. But it was frightening. My wife and my children were more disturbed than I was. I looked at it somewhat fatalistically. It had to be one of three things: A hoax. Or anthrax, which meant I’d have to go on Cipro for a month. Or if it was ricin, I was dead, so bye-bye.

Why he didn’t resign: “When people just see you standing up there, they sometimes think you’re being complicit in the distortions emanating from the stage. But I felt that if I stepped down, that would leave a void. Someone’s got to not be afraid to speak out the truth. They would try to play down real problems and have a little happy talk about how things are OK. And I would always say, “Wait a minute, hold it folks, this is serious business.” So there was a joke — a friendly joke, you know — that I was the skunk at the picnic.

Whether he believes Donald Trump cost the country tens or hundreds of thousands of lives: “I can’t comment on that. People always ask that and … making the direct connection that way, it becomes very damning. I just want to stay away from that. Sorry.”

[From The NY Times]

There’s more in there about how things worked internally at the White House when Fauci disagreed with Trump publicly or in private meetings, and Fauci also laments the fact that very early on – and throughout the pandemic – Trump began listening to complete randos about the virus. Trump simply was unable to think critically about information, and he gave equal weight to what Fauci said and what his golf buddy said, and the golf buddy usually won out. Anyway, I do think Trump murdered hundreds of thousands of people with his willful ignorance and lies.

No, Twitter remains undefeated. ?? pic.twitter.com/411xZcFDRz

— maybe: diane (@dianelyssa) January 22, 2021

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

A post shared by Shonda Rhimes (@shondarhimes)

Shonda Rhimes has a new essay on her website, Shondaland, about the importance of gratitude and how it helped her make sense of this last year. Since I am a cynical bitch who gets angry encountering people without masks at the store (which seems to be every time I go out), I needed to read this. Shonda isn’t all sunshine, affirmations and rainbows either, which I appreciate. She writes that it took her a long time to come up with things to be grateful for, but once she thought of one nice thing it started flowing. She understands the skepticism about it and this practice of gratitude has really helped her feel better and more positive overall. Here are some excerpts, but if you’re interested I recommend reading this at the source. Shonda is such a good writer that it’s well worth it. Plus it convinced me that I should find more things to be grateful for.

Gratitude can sometimes be hard to find. Many times in the past year, I’ve had a very hard time locating gratitude. It’s not simple to get yourself to reach the space inside to be grateful. But that space? That gratitude space?

If you open yourself to it, that space can feel like a hit of clean sweet oxygen from a mountain top. It can renew you. If you can find gratitude in your angriest moments, your saddest moments, your most hurt moments, you can rise out of the pain and into something better. The muck of life can be washed clean. If you can say yes to gratitude, you can step out of your darkest places and find a little light.

You are maybe rolling your eyes. Raising a not-so-nice finger. I hear you. But I don’t say this trying to give you some kind of mushy, self-help, heal-y, woo-woo guru talk. I say this as a practical matter…

I say this because now I know gratitude and gratitude knows me and it has fundamentally rearranged the way my brain works.

My point is, I understand that these days, reaching that gratitude space for you might feel harder than it’s ever felt before.

At my lowest moments, I have found a way to locate gratitude. The first time I did it, I was sure I was doing something futile and crazy. Woo-woo and stupid. A waste of my time.

It’s turned out to be one of the best things I’ve ever done…

Thinking of good things, finding things that I am grateful for is essential. Yes, I know it takes time. But you know what takes about the same amount of time? Complaining. So does whining and negativity. So does self-shaming. So does listing all the things that are wrong and not going your way, griping about all the reasons you can’t accomplish something, detailing all the excuses you have for not striving to be someone better than you were yesterday.

No one wants to be the person who drags herself and all the people around her down. The goal is to always be a person who is rising and lifting other people up along with us.

[From Shondaland]

I love what she wrote about how it takes just as much time to be negative as it does to be positive. I don’t ever want to discount people mourning or being understandably frustrated and depressed at where we are now. Being sad and upset is perfectly reasonable, and Shonda acknowledges that while focusing on how gratitude has helped her.

About a month ago, around the holidays, I got myself a new notebook from Dollar Tree and did something similar to this. I wrote “Good Things about 2020? on one page and “What I’m looking forward to in 2021? on the next page. I put stickers on it to motivate myself more. It’s been sitting on my desk, but I haven’t looked at it since, so this is a good reminder. At the very top of my list is “learned to bake,” because I don’t remember baking anything before last year and now I love making bread. After that were things like “got to spend more time with my son” and “made new friends.” Plus I took so many cool classes over Zoom that I wouldn’t have been exposed to otherwise. This year, hopefully by the fall, I look forward to meeting some of my new friends. I’m also so looking forward to getting vaccinated! Whenever I start to think about how mad I am that terrible people can ruin things, I will try to think of this list. I even came up with some new things today!

I saw this tweet below because this is a nurse who was tweeting about the importance of wearing masks. She had this pinned to her profile and I thought it was perfect.

there is a battle between two wolves inside us all. One is Evil;is anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, inferiority, lies and ego. The other is Good; joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness and truth.”“Grandfather, which wolf wins?” The Grandfather replied: “The one you feed.”

— RN MotherF’er CEN,CCRN (@Meidas_Kelly) December 30, 2020

A post shared by Shonda Rhimes (@shondarhimes)

A post shared by Shonda Rhimes (@shondarhimes)

Photos via Instagram and the picture on the frontpage is a screen shot from this video

Back in November, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge announced that their beloved dog Lupo had passed away. Lupo was given to William and Kate in 2012, when he was just a puppy, by Kate’s brother James Middleton. James is a huge dog lover, and he seems to have a side business breeding cocker spaniels. Lupo was the son of James’ dog Ella, and James kept Lupo’s sister Luna. Well, last year, James bred Luna and she had a litter of puppies, and now it looks like William and Kate – and the kids – had already picked out a puppy from Luna’s litter. They already welcomed the new puppy into their home before Lupo passed away.

They were devastated by the death of their dog Lupo two months ago, but the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and their three children are now ‘besotted’ by a new cocker spaniel. The eight-month-old black puppy was a gift from the Duchess’s brother James Middleton and arrived at Anmer Hall, the family’s home in Norfolk, before Lupo died.

‘The new puppy is adorable and the whole family are besotted,’ a friend told The Mail on Sunday. ‘They were devastated when Lupo passed away, as any dog owner will understand, but got the new puppy before he died. It was hoped that a younger dog would give Lupo some company and give him a little more life and energy.’

The family will no doubt be hoping the new arrival has the same sweet nature as Lupo, who was its uncle. Mr Middleton, 33, originally bred a litter of puppies from his dog Ella in 2011. He kept one called Luna but gave brother Lupo to Kate in early 2012 when Prince William, then an RAF search-and-rescue pilot, was deployed to the Falklands.

Last summer, Mr Middleton, who was staying with his parents at their Berkshire home, bred another litter of six puppies with Luna as their mother. It is understood Kate and William had the pick of the litter, helped by Prince George, seven, and Charlotte, five. Two-year-old Louis was probably too young to help.

Royal aides have not yet confirmed the name the family have given to their new pet. When the litter was born, James and his fiancee Alizee Thevenet, 31, posted pictures on Instagram of themselves with the six puppies, his other spaniels Ella, Inca, Luna and Zulu plus golden retriever Mabel.

[From The Daily Mail]

“It was hoped that a younger dog would give Lupo some company and give him a little more life and energy.” I’ve only had overlapping dogs once in my life and that was not my experience at all. If anything, the older dog spends his last days angry at his family for bringing the young whippersnapper into the fold. Now, it sort of works with cats? You can overlap an old cat with a kitten and most likely, the older cat will enjoy the younger kitty. But I’m just not sure it works with dogs. Poor Lupo! Gah. Anyway, congrats to the Cambridge fam. While this article doesn’t mention it, Emily Andrews (who wrote this piece) said on Twitter that the new puppy is a girl. Also: I do love the commitment to getting black dogs. Black dogs and black cats are the least likely to be adopted in shelters.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by James Middleton (@jmidy)

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Avalon Red, social media.

Embed from Getty Images

We spent last spring and summer watching local authorities, National Guard and federal authorities clash with Black Lives Matter protesters across the country. The overwhelming majority of the BLM protesters were non-violent, but that didn’t stop cops from violently clashing with protesters repeatedly. There were also mass-arrests around the country, and we consistently saw police forces grossly overreact to protests. So it was startling, just months later, to see Capitol Police and DC Police completely abdicate their responsibility during the Capitol siege on January 6th. There were only a handful arrests on the day, and literally thousands of seditious a–holes got to throw a murderous coup and then they flew home the next day. There were no mass arrests on the day, something I still don’t understand. Of course the insurrection was an inside job, but even the “good cops,” the ones who weren’t part of the insurrection, they didn’t even bother arresting any of the people who violently sieged the Capitol.

In the weeks following the siege, the FBI has been crowd-sourcing information and identifying terrorists. As of this writing, less than 150 of the Capitol insurrectionists have been arrested. And now the FBI wonders if they should continue charging these terrorist f–kers. I cannot f–king believe it.

Federal law enforcement officials are privately debating whether they should decline to charge some of the individuals who stormed the U.S. Capitol this month — a politically loaded proposition but one alert to the practical concern that hundreds of such cases could swamp the local courthouse. The internal discussions are in their early stages, and no decisions have been reached about whether to forgo charging some of those who illegally entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, according to multiple people familiar with the discussions.

Justice Department officials have promised a relentless effort to identify and arrest those who stormed the Capitol that day, but internally there is robust back-and-forth about whether charging them all is the best course of action. That debate comes at a time when officials are keenly sensitive that the credibility of the Justice Department and the FBI are at stake in such decisions, given the apparent security and intelligence failures that preceded the riot, these people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss legal deliberations.

Federal officials estimate that roughly 800 people surged into the building, though they caution that such numbers are imprecise, and the real figure could be 100 people or more in either direction. Among those roughly 800 people, FBI agents and prosecutors have so far seen a broad mix of behavior — from people dressed for military battle, moving in formation, to wanton vandalism, to simply going with the crowd into the building.

Due to the wide variety of behavior, some federal officials have argued internally that those people who are known only to have committed unlawful entry — and were not engaged in violent, threatening or destructive behavior — should not be charged, according to people familiar with the discussions. Other agents and prosecutors have pushed back against that suggestion, arguing that it is important to send a forceful message that the kind of political violence and mayhem on display Jan. 6 needs to be punished to the full extent of the law, so as to discourage similar conduct in the future.

[From WaPo]

The fact that there is even a law enforcement debate about this is proof that white supremacists have infiltrated the highest rungs of federal agencies. Imagine if one thousand armed BLM protesters had laid siege to the Capitol, murdered a cop, erected gallows, smeared feces on the walls, hunted for elected officials and stolen property. The FBI would have arrested every single person ON THE DAY, and they would all be prosecuted using the maximum charges and there wouldn’t be any hand-wringing whatsoever about it. Nor should there be, honestly. A line was crossed and the fact that there are apparently a great number of FBI and DOJ officials who are wishy-washy about CHARGING TERRORISTS is terrifying to me.

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Photos courtesy of Getty.