First win for the Lady Curlers, a sweep in Slopestyle. No word yet on Monday's repeats.
Some updates on tonight's guests-
Since his appearance on the 3rd, Bill de Blasio has come under some criticism for his decision to open schools today. I admit I had some resevations myself because I personally had appointments I postponed based on the dire forecasts (which were pretty much on the money), When I talked about the issue with TheMomCat she raised these points which I must say made a heck of a lot of sense to me.
First of all a lot of parents work and can't get child care except through the schools. Secondly many students are on food assistance programs and the only hot meals they are guaranteed each day are the breakfast and lunch they get at school. Any parent could keep their child home if they were worried about their safety (only 44% attendance today), de Blasio did release students after lunch (which was before things got really bad). I haven't heard about any problems with Public Transit which is what the City uses for pupil transportation instead of the fleet of big yellow buses that us 'privileged' folk use because we don't have any Public Transit worth a damn because we're too cheap to pay the taxes for it.
Now about Pussy Riot. You may have read the headlines about how Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina have been booted from Pussy Riot because they appeared at the Amnesty International concert.
Not so.
There was an open (and unsigned) letter published on the group's website-
... which professed to be from Pussy Riot’s current membership. “It is no secret that Masha and Nadia are no longer members of the group, and will no longer take part in radical actionism,” they wrote. “Yes, we have lost two friends, two ideological teammates, but the world has acquired two brave human rights defenders ... Unfortunately we cannot congratulate them in person because they refuse to have any contact with us.
According to this letter, Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina’s appearance at an Amnesty International event in New York would never have been endorsed by the anti-Putin punks. “Our performances are always illegal,” they wrote. “We never sell tickets to our ‘shows’.” They also took offence to the advertising of the Amnesty gig, which included the image of a man wearing one of Pussy Riot’s distinctive balaclavas. “We are an all-female separatist collective – no man can represent us either on a poster or in reality.”
Really? News to them.
“I don’t know who they are, these people who claim to be from Pussy Riot and write on social networks,” Tolokonnikova said at yesterday’s Berlin press conference. “We never left Pussy Riot.” In a separate interview with the New York Times, Alyokhina asserted that she and Tolokonnikova are “still in contact with ... the people we performed with” at Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral.
...
Not so, Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina told the Times. “Pussy Riot can be anyone”, including men, “and no one can excluded from Pussy Riot”, Tolokonnikova said. “[This letter] doesn’t follow the ideology of Pussy Riot ... Pussy Riot can only grow.” The two women also seemed bewildered by the pseudonymous Pussy Rioters who had signed the online document - Garadja, Fara, Shaiba, Cat, Seraphima and Schumacher. Apparently this list of names includes Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina’s former aliases.
Speculation is that their website was hacked by the Putin Dictatorship and this letter is pure disinformation.
Nice guy Mr. Perky Nips, ain't he?
I'll be back Monday to set up the week and handle the mystery repeats, the rest of the guests look like this-
The Daily Show
* Tuesday 2/18: Kevin Spacey
* Wednesday 2/19: David O. Russell
* Thursday 2/20: Ronan Farrow
The Colbert Report
* Tuesday 2/18: Brian Greene
* Wednesday 2/19: Alexander Payne
* Thursday 2/20: Stanley McChrystal
As always I'm happy to get any help I can get. PM me and I'll assist you in setting your diary up or better yet join the Sausage Grinder of Snark group.
Speaking of groups, WYFP has fallen on hard times for finding authors so a group with 10 members (so far) has been set up to provide some new leadership. I'll be hosting our debut diary Saturday and I invite you all to drop by and share some communal support.
Yes, I'm just a sentimental fool.