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“When you hear hoofbeats, think horses not zebras” right? Not today, pal:
Three zebras were successfully recaptured by state police and rodeo professionals after wandering on to a major interstate in Washington state, though one remains on the lam.
…Local resident Whitney Blomquist told KOMO that a “rodeo clown” who happened to be in the area helped recapture the zebras.
Rampaging zebras and an [extreme scare quotes] “rodeo clown” who just “happened to be in the area?” Sounds like North Bend, Washington is a good place to get:
When you hear “raw milk,” think H5N1 bird flu according to Helen Branswell at Stat News, who reports that “the FDA said Thursday that about 1 in 5 [commercial milk] samples tested for H5N1 from across the country have been positive.” Pasteurization kills the virus, good vibes from the milk guy at the farmers market do not, so I guess if you like those odds go ahead and roll the dice, Big Dog.
When you hear a huge crowd chanting ”EAT THOSE BALLS” and “LISAN AL GAIB” think “the guy who ate an entire jar of cheese balls in Union Square this weekend and almost threw up.” I can’t believe it’s still almost Meltdown May again already!1
When you hear Jerry Seinfeld whine about “woke culture ruining comedy,” think “what is the deal with girlfriends always having homework!?”
And when you hear “Scott Galloway said that college campuses were increasingly becoming reminiscent of Nazi Germany — and attributed the reason partly to young people not having enough sex,” think: “erectile dysfunction.” But don’t worry if you forget, because he will definitely remind you.
If you didn’t know by now, I’m sorry to inform you it’s Monday—President James A. Garfield’s least favorite day. Here are some affirmations to get us all through another week:
“My heart is beating
the dead inside allegations.”
Reagan administration Assistant Secretary of State and South American death squad enthusiast Elliott Abrams got himself a solid Chotining:
I’m very happy to see the additional efforts being made now to get humanitarian aid into Gaza, and it looks as if they’re starting to pay off.
Additional efforts by whom?
By Israel. [This month, the United Nations stated that the number of aid trucks crossing into Gaza had ticked up slightly to around a hundred and ninety per day in April, from about a hundred and sixty in March—but still far below the more than five hundred that experts believe is necessary.]
Oh, O.K. Why were those efforts not happening before, in your mind?
I’m not sure of the answer to that.
Yeah, it’s a bit of a mystery. I haven’t been able to crack that one.
The end of this one’s a banger, don’t miss it. And in New Zealand, Newsroom’s Steve Braunias did an interview with the right wing ACT Party’s new spokesman for the arts Todd Stephenson that reads like what would happen if Isaac Chotiner took a railroad spike through his frontal lobe and just started telling people what he thinks of them:
You wrote in that press statement about [Prime Minister’s Award for Poetry recipient] Tusiata [Avia], “With the new government looking to make spending cuts at low value departments, Creative New Zealand is tempting fate.” Can you expand on that?
From Act’s perspective, we’re really saying, you know, are the individuals in these organisations representing what the majority of New Zealanders would want to see supported? I don’t think that they can do that.
You know, people have very individual tastes. And so it’s better that individuals make those decisions rather than, I suppose, you know, a bureaucratic agency imposing their choices on New Zealanders.
But you don’t have individual tastes yourself, do you? You’re kind of an arts ignoramus, really, by your own reckoning.
No, I certainly have individual things that I like to go to. We talked about that earlier.
You’ve been to see Hamilton.
Well, I was just giving you an example of the things I like to do.
What are your tastes, other than musicals?
That’s the main one in the creative sector.
Musicals.
And I watch movies. I watch TV.
“I watch TV,” says the Act spokesman for the arts.
How Are We Surviving Job Today? Former NBC disinformation reporter Ben Collins escaped being slowly driven insane by his old job with the surprising but difficult to replicate strategy of convincing the cofounder of Twilio to buy The Onion for him. On Bluesky, Collins posted that “The Onion takeover started when I posted "so uh how do we buy The Onion?" on Bluesky.” Remember: you never get anything you don’t ask for. Technically The Onion is now owned by Global Tetrahedron, a corporation “committed to control in all its forms” and whose values include “Porcupine Breeding: Our innovation extends beyond ideas that have a clear path to monetization,” which already puts it way ahead of G/O Media in terms of strategy. Honestly this couldn’t be better news, congratulations to Ben and his new co-conspirators Leila Brillson and Danielle Strle who are all probably reading this right now.
One Stolen Text
![A “One Good Text” image stolen directly out of the Semafor Media newsletter, of a thread between Max Tani and Ben Collins. MAX: “Do you feel pressure to be funnier now?” BEN: “oh jesus, no, I'm leaving that to the professionals. the shortest tenured employee at the onion has been here for 4-1/2 years. our editor in chief has been here for 20+. I'm getting the hell out of their way. the funniest thing I can do is try to get places like Semafor.com to print a screenshot of one of our most-read articles this week.” BEN: “[screenshot attached]” MAX: “Yeah I don’t think we’re gonna publish that”](https://media.beehiiv.com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=scale-down,format=auto,onerror=redirect,quality=80/uploads/asset/file/77850c7a-7962-4fbe-9f5a-a21c994c7ccf/image.png?t=1714422344)
Via Semafor’s Media Newsletter, no copyright intended. What was the screenshot, Ben? I’ll publish it. I’ll publish anything. RIP to my big NYT profile reader boom but I gotta be me.
Jude Doyle just keeps knocking them out of the park. The Millennial Captcha: I could not have passed this any more easily. Lincoln Michel reiterates that “Yes, people do buy books.” Will Stancil launches innovative “Cancel Stancil” fundraising campaign. Hate Read ends with Delia roasting Hate Read itself. “And these past couple weeks, I have duly considered your hate reads and I find them pathetic. You don’t hate these things. You merely hate that you got too old to enjoy them anymore.”
And Finally: via The Browser, “The Unstallable Plane That Stalled.”
Today’s Song: Imperial Teen, “Ivanka”
Music Intern Sam is back! Let the cool songs resume. I realized recently that I used to post my social media @s all the time down here and at some point I just stopped, so for old times sake: I mostly post on Bluesky these days, @rusty.todayintabs.com. I was On One this morning, for sure.
1 Specifically is it still almost Meltdown May 2020 again, which never ended.