First look at the upcoming series “King and Conqueror” which will be about the invasion of William of Normandy and the subsequent conquest of England. Coming in 2025 on BBC, with Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Clémence Poésy as William I and Matilda of Flanders.
…this looks as if it indeed may be to my great interest, depending on how good it is, but as someone who literally once wrote a paper entitled “Why This Man Did Not Have a Mustache” in re: William of Normandy not having a mustache, I am Dismayed at their incorrect facial hair choices. This visual rendition looks to be based on the statue of William in his birthplace of Caen, Normandy, which DOES have a mustache:
That was sculpted in the 19th century and gave him a Fine Fierce Barbarian Mustache, but our actual contemporary depictions of William from the Bayeux Tapestry show him notably clean-shaven and at times with fair hair (which matches our scanty chronicle-based description of him as “fierce, fair, and extremely strong”)
Given that the Bayeux Tapestry is both a visual AND contemporaneous source (it was likely made in the latter years of William’s rule by his half-brother Odo), it seems to ME (as clearly they should have asked me, Historian Upon The Tumblrs) that its depiction should take precedent over a Victorian-era statue and thus he should not in fact have a mustache. Especially as the Normans are additionally and explicitly described as not having facial hair, leaving the Saxons confused as to why William had brought so many priests (i.e. clean-shaven men) with him. Not that I have strong feelings about this or anything, but also, you can’t make a TV series about William the Conqueror and not expect me to have strong feelings about it. With that, I shall bring this extremely niche and self-indulgent rant about historically inaccurate facial hair choices to an end, and note that I AM excite about this, again, if it is good. If not, they may find me under their beds in the middle of the night. Ahem.
EDITED TO ADD: Why is Harold the short-haired and clean-shaven one here? He was pretty much full Dane and an Anglo-Saxon king. He should have long hair and a beard. C’mon.
Jamelle Bouie gets it. The New York Times columnist wrote something a few days ago that stood out to me because it was so directly stated and so horrifyingly correct.
It began: “Even if anyone had elected Elon Musk to anything, the past week would still be one of the most serious examples of executive branch malfeasance in American history.”
Bouie went on: “Musk has seized hold of critical levers of power and authority within the federal government, apparently enabling him to destroy federal agencies at will, barring congressional action or judicial pushback.” The piece was titled, “There is No Going Back.” Here’s a gift link. Read it in full and weep for what we’re losing, day by day.
But Bouie’s sense of alarm, well founded as it is, is strangely rare in Big Journalism these days.
Witness, for example, a piece last week by Jason Willick, a regular opinion columnist at the Washington Post, who wrote something titled “Save the panic over Trump’s ‘power grabs.’ It might be needed later.”
Calm down, Willick counseled, mocking the idea that a coup is underway, and concludes that, instead of having what he calls a “meltdown,” everyone should just wait and see. Why? Because, he argues, casting Trump and Musk’s early moves as a constitutional crisis “will diminish the force of such warnings if they are needed.” Willick was appropriately blasted in the reader-comments section: “This sycophantic, willfully delusional apologia for the dismantling of the American republic and the shredding of the constitution … is contemptible sophistry of the very worst kind,” said one. Read Willick’s column, if you have the stomach, and judge for yourself; here’s a gift link.
Overall, the tone in the major media is much more like Willick than Bouie.
For example, the popular Times newsletter, The Morning, offered this tepid headline one day last week: “A Constitutional Crisis?” Then it considered the question from various angles, including only one quote from a lawmaker — Republican senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina who notes that what Trump and Musk are doing “runs afoul of the Constitution in the strictest sense,” but “nobody should bellyache about that.”
As Jamelle Bouie put it in the column I mentioned above, no question mark is appropriate here. In fact, calling what’s happening a constitutional crisis “does not even begin to capture the radicalism of what is unfolding in the federal bureaucracy.”
[…] Righteous indignation like that is hard to come by. That’s why I wrote a Guardian column last week about two new-generation Democrats who have become strong voices: Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett of Texas and Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut. I quoted political consultant Sawyer Hackett: “There’s been no better messenger in the first two weeks of Trump 2.0 than Chris Murphy. At a time when too many Democrats are afraid of their shadow, Murphy is showing how to fight back with a compelling populist message that should be a blueprint for the Democrats moving forward.” My Guardian editor asked me to include a paragraph at the end about what’s giving me hope right now. You can read that, and the rest of the column, here.
Margaret Sullivan is spot-on: Our press needs righteous truth-telling during these constitutional crisis times.
What do you mean we had to listen to “crooked Hillary” and “her emails” for YEARS and now they are somehow okay with some businessman and his 20 yr old interns accessing our money, shutting down departments, and threatening our federal employees?!?
Republicans, you’re being played. They’re stealing our money and destroying our government under the guise of “waste.” This is a heist and you voted for it.
Actually, they are working hard, without being paid, to get rid of the people that are stealing our money and have been for decades.
You cannot be that dense or naive.
If this was a genuine audit, it would be a team of neutral 3rd party accountants, who were hired and vetted by Congress, and would investigate each agency carefully over several months, if not years. Not a man who has contracts and a significant amount of money invested in our government, and his young gestapos harassing and destroying entire departments IN DAYS. Not only do they not have the authority to do that, but it is a classic example of a coup. Musk is also being investigated by other governments for doing similar illegal behavior, and did the same type of destructive shit to Twitter. He, and Trump, are stealing our money, trying desperately to whatever they can to stay out of jail, and cause chaos and destruction along the way.
Hi accountant here: The US govt has the strictest audit requirements on EARTH and DFAS and DCAA are both accountable to the GAO who is only accountable to Congress
If this were really an audit I think they might be involved and when this is all said and done, they will delivering the report that shows the total damage
why is back sleeping so difficult and uncomfortable when it’s supposedly the only way to sleep that doesn’t slowly implode all of your bones. the human body seeks its own ruin with the fervor of a cordyceps ant
Guys. Guys why am I seeing so many skaters without helmets? Did some sort of communication breakdown occur where people think it’s optional now? Aesthetics are not worth your life. What is happening.
When I was in my late twenties, I rode a bicycle around town instead of driving, and always wore a helmet.
Once, at the post office, a couple of tweens or teens pointed out that the local bike helmet laws only applied to people under 18.
I replied, truthfully, that I worked in the hospital up the road, in the X-Ray department, across the hall from the Emergency Room, and got regular reminders about why helmets are a Good Idea.
About ten years later, I had to break abruptly when a dog ran in front of me, and went over my handle bars to wind up flat on my back. I had a cracked rib and a fractured elbow, but that was it.
The back of my bike helmet, though, had a barely-visible crack – and a VERY obvious soft spot when you poked it.
Without the helmet, dear friends, that soft spot would have been on my SKULL.
ALT
amhrancas 