Fridays with Nicole Sandler

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Update: Here are the photos of James Joyce’s Martello Tower I mentioned.

Looking towards the sea from the strand.

A tie Joyce gave Samuel Beckett, which is exhibited in the Martello Tower.

Me, pretending to be Buck Mulligan, spying the ship named the Samuel Beckett.

 

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  2. wa_rickf says:

    Trump wins FIFA Peace Prize
    https://apnews.com/article/trump-world-cup-fifa-peace-prize-e14f95b8adaa197c869cad407b6ef604
    ======
    This is a made-up “prize” to placate Trump. The FIFA games are in June 2026 and Trump is threatening to move venues around to punish blue cities like Seattle.

    This is simply a gross and pathetic move by FIFA . I guess it could be called self-preservation to not have to deal with a lunatic and emotionally unstable man-child.

  3. jmac10878 says:

    I have seen no mention of the cash award that should accompany the peace prize… I certainty hope it was more than the paltry 1.2 million that accompanies the Nobel, or Trump will be displeased.

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  4. BRUCE F COLE says:

    WRT Trump and his minions’ thoroughly ubiquitous penchant for projection: I wish there was a better word for that socio/psychopathology. Gaslighting is a particularly nefarious offshoot of it, but not all projection is gaslighting, and that term carries a one-on-one connotation from the story that coined it that undersells the global scope and pervasively evil intent of the current GOP perfidy.

    The dysfunctional grade-school-deflection, “I know you are but what am I?” encapsulates it, but that phrase is too long and freighted with schoolyard imagery — so when used to describe adult projection it sounds, well, childish. What this crew are doing (as with Mark Kelly’s “traitor” taunts, which attempt to deflect from and mask Trumpist capital offenses against the Constitution and US Code) is so inherently and massively evil that “projection” seems an antiseptic way to describe it.

    Is it time for a neologism for this shit? Something derived from Nazi or Stalinist nomenclature?

    • Fuggle Hops says:

      Maybe “kakistoflexion.” It’s when kakistocrats see their own vileness reflected in the mirror of other’s beings

      • BRUCE F COLE says:

        Good one! It might stick (which is to say, I’m glad that you picked up on the gist of my penultimate sentence above)!

        I like that it infers “deflection” as much as, or more than, reflection (at least in my brain).

        • Fuggle Hops says:

          You say potato and I say potato for “x” vs “ct”. Kakisto because of kakistocracy, which is certainly our thing these days. It’s inflective, it’s deflective, it infects the defects and deflects the objective. (Apologies to Tom Waits and his “Step Right up.” )

      • RipNoLonger says:

        Excellent. I also do like kakistoflection.
        (Made me look it up): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vranyo

        Vranyo (Russian: враньё) is a Russian word and concept, which can be described as a lie being told despite it not being expected to be believed, but the person being told the lie goes along with it anyway.

      • BRUCE F COLE says:

        Well that checks the Stalinist box and its also in that criminally dysfunctional genre, but I think it’s a broader category, the Trumpist ploy being a subset of vranyo that targets opponents by accusing them of their own crimes…perekladyvaniye viny i vanyo i vranyo, perhaps.

        Too Slavically poetic for American usage, though.~

        • Ginevra di Benci says:

          DARVO is the only such term that sticks with me. The others either have too many syllables or elude my memory.

  5. Brad Cole says:

    Ms Wheeler says this guy is autistic, and eligible for a pardon, based on the Tarrio precedent, so it’s a sanctions free confession. And whoever turned him in is apparently eligible for $.5M reward.
    Nice.

  6. petey_06DEC2025_1246h says:

    good afternoon. long time reader, first time poster. (patreon too.)
    i have a family of cousins on Martello Court in Portmarnock.

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  7. P J Evans says:

    Hi, all!
    I am being quiet because all my access this month is via cell phone. Some lowlife (most likely plural) stole a bunch of phone cable the beginning of the week, and the phone company says maybe fixed by end of month.

  8. Shredgar says:

    Seems like a type of DARVO: “Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender,”

    Here’s an interesting book on the subject: Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance” is a 2008 edited volume by historians of science Robert N. Proctor and Londa Schiebinger that explores how ignorance is actively produced, maintained, and sometimes strategically dismantled in modern societies. It treats ignorance not just as a lack of knowledge, but as something with its own history, politics, and mechanisms of construction.

  9. wa_rickf says:

    Question of the day: Why does every Rwing solution to poverty, hunger, health, and employment, involve giving the rich more money?

  10. slicedholmes says:

    Long time lurker. First time poster.
    Greetings from Michigan and apologies to
    George M. Cohan (his song “Harrigan”, ca. 1907).
    I remember this melody (from the chorus) as the
    children’s song “Lollipop.”
    Hope you enjoy…

    “Halligan”
    (Verse 1)
    Who is the gal who’ll pretend and will kneel and bend?
    Halligan, that’s me!
    Whom can you send when your friends say you’ve reached the end?
    Halligan, that’s me!
    For I’m very proud of my legacy:
    Passed Florida’s bar as a beauty queen.
    Who is the bird whose absurd case is such a turd?
    Halligan, that’s me!

    (Chorus 1)
    H, A, double L, I
    G-A-N spells Halligan.
    Underwriters gladly recommend me.
    Nary an actuary speaks ag’in’ me.
    H, A, double L, I
    G-A-N you see
    Is the dame with no game, with no shame, Trump’s connected with.
    Halligan, that’s me!

    (Verse 2)
    Which mademoiselle never did get to prosecute?
    Halligan, that’s me!
    Which femme fatale drops the ball, renders cases moot?
    Halligan, that’s me!
    Judges and juries ain’t fond of me.
    Trump hires me still, in return, you see.
    Which pretty face is presenting this sh*tty case?
    Halligan, that’s me!

    (Chorus 2)
    H, A, double L, I
    G-A-N spells Halligan.
    Underwriters gladly recommend me.
    Nary an actuary speaks ag’in’ me.
    H, A, double L, I
    G-A-N you see
    Is the chick Trump will pick, whose indictments never stick.
    Halligan, that’s me!

  11. xyxyxyxy says:

    From left field (nakedcapitalism), Blockbuster San Francisco Lawsuit Targets Food Industry Giants Over Ultraprocessed Foods, with Extensive Documentation of Health Damage and Success in Producing Addiction
    The San Francisco’s attorney’s office, on behalf of the citizens of California, has filed a devastating suit, California v. Kraft Heinz, which targets 10 food company giants, such as Mars, Pepsi, and General Mills and contemplates adding others. I thought I was reasonably knowledgeable about health costs of ultraprocessed foods. But the history and litany of harms in this complaint go far beyond what I’ve encountered into the mainstream press and a handful of studies I’ve reviewed.
    https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/12/blockbuster-san-francisco-lawsuit-targets-food-industry-giants-over-ultraprocessed-foods-with-extensive-documentation-of-health-damage-and-success-in-producing-addiction.html

    • P J Evans says:

      If they’ve gotten that far, they’ve been here for maybe as much as 25 or 30 years, and have a record of passing all the tests (and paying the money) that The Felon Guy can’t match. (Nephew is naturalized. Fortunately some years back.)

  13. Joe Orton says:

    Trump falling asleep in public… did he have to stop taking his uppers because of recent health decline, like a stroke?

  14. wa_rickf says:

    U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in his order to return the national guard stationed in L.A., back to Governor Newsom’s control:

    “The Founders designed our government to be a system of checks and balances. Defendants, however, make clear that the only check they want is a blank one.”

    ======
    Oh snap! : p

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