​the Hey, Sure, Russell Crow In A Skirt And All edition

NF, ONE L
Issue #11.5

1. Did you know there were female gladiators too? Turns out there were plenty, among the biggest fans of WNGA being the emperors Nero, Titus, and Domitian.

2. Apparently these women sometimes fought slaves, but more often one another, animals, or dwarves. A big hit for the wealthy matrons of Rome was to show up to the Colosseum dressed in Threax (Gladiator) gear and swill wine/eat figs with which to maximize the revelry + buzz. "Achillea" was a highly popular figure, and obviously a feminization of Achilles, which is sort of like if we named our favorite female killer "George Washingtonia." Well, it's just another fold in the bloody voyeurism and death fetish of antiquity as channeled through the miracle of festival seating.

3. BTW, female Gladiators were called Gladiatrix, the plural of which is Gladiatrices.
Which is lexically awesome.

4. Have we talked yet about how truly and deeply (y)our president hates women? I mean, he hates all men that are not him as well, but you can spot in his hyena's eyes the special place of loathing he reserves for those he believes exist merely to service, or at least applaud him.

5. The Grifter, unapologetic about his comically regressive misogyny, was BORN to walk around in a toga and sandals. Let alone be primped and pampered and doted upon by weaselly sycophants (in Latin known as a "Vance", or "Cogito Ergo Lindsey Graham"), while rising to turn his thumb down (always down) toward the blooded sand, as the 1% cheers the death of another mortally wounded Gladiatrix. Which, yes, is a vital metaphor for anyone interested in resisting state control of their body (dressing room/Bergdorf's), let alone reproductive rights (Grab 'em by the ovaries).

6.  I would bet all of my worldly possession (but not the Luxman turntable) that Donald Trump paid cash for a half-dozen abortions during the 80's alone. Or at least had Michael Cohen do it. But much like how The Grifter courts Evangelicals with the greasy veneer of Christianity upon him while he does not in fact attend church, or when asked what his favorite book of the Bible was, with blank eyes but a straight face answered, "All of them", and who may be The Least Christian Man (Stormy Daniels) of the last two millennia, let alone claimed to walk on metaphorical water (fly over it in Epstein's plane) who has ever lived.

7. Yes, friends, it's a Libertarian world these days, where the primacy of The Individual in Randian terms is the center cog of a return to greatness, except, you know, for half the population too dumb not to not be female. In which case, USPS should still be razed and bid out to Enron, but want to head to your local (available in 5 states only) Planned Parenthood appointment without walking through a phalanx of chapter-and-verse quoting lunatics? Sorry, we didn't mean YOU control your body when blathering on about how we started a tech company without our parent's help and therefore are only responsible to ourselves, we meant WE control it, and by that I mean Peter Thiel, who is sort of the Quiet Elon.

​8. Hey, have you ever stared into the pure liquid hate in every blink of Melania's immigrant eyes, and wondered why she hasn't slid an oyster knife into The Grifter's ear while he slept yet?
In any case, if I had to bet my Luxman turntable on a Gladiatrix Spectacle, you can bet it would all ride on the First Lady, who has seen things even Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay never dreamed existed, and that was just the last time they had sex (how old is Baron again?) seventeen years ago. Melania makes Aileen Wuornos look like your Toll House cookie grandmother in comparison. I'm scared of her just typing this.

9. It's an obvious metaphor (this is the internet, what do you expect, Proust?) but we really are living in Spectacle Times, and it's becoming more obvious on a daily basis that it does not pay to sit in the cheap seats, or even at the edge of the canopy.

10. The sun, it must be said, does not forgive.

Next Week:  What we talk about when we talk about when Pam Bondi talks.