Gaudeamus Igitur

That venerable commencement song’s opening line “Let us rejoice while we are young” should be updated to read “Let us rejoice while we are still here.”

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22 thoughts on “Gaudeamus Igitur”

  1. The University of Glasgow Chapel Choir since Gaudeamus Igitur in the West Quadrangle on a windy day!

  2. speaking of graduations into this brave new world

    Florida New College students plan alternative graduation against Trump pandemic adviser (msn.com)

    TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — New College of Florida students, with help from alumni, this week are hosting a private graduation ceremony separate from the school’s official commencement in the face of a campus takeover at the hands of Gov. Ron DeSantis.
    The students, who have fundraised $100,000 for the event, want to hold a ceremony “on our terms” after school officials tapped Scott Atlas, a top adviser to former President Donald Trump during the Covid-19 pandemic, to speak at their commencement. On Tuesday, they announced that Maya Wiley, an attorney and former MSNBC commentator who is president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, will be the keynote speaker during the alternative graduation.
    “We’re now guaranteed a graduation surrounded by the New College community members that truly want to celebrate who we are, rather than those attempting to change our culture,” Madison Markham, a graduating senior and one of the students planning the event, said in a statement.
    The official New College commencement featuring Atlas, who also advised DeSantis, is set to unfold on Friday and cap off a whirlwind semester at the Sarasota university that is currently being reshaped by a slate of trustees appointed by the Republican governor.
    But on Thursday night, students will host their own ceremony featuring “fun bonding activities,” bands and speakers including Wiley. The group that orchestrated the ceremony, aided by alumni groups Save New College and the Novo Collegian Alliance, said it came together because the “new administration that has spent the past four months attacking our students and community cannot, in good faith, celebrate our graduating students and their accomplishments.”
    New College students and many alumni have opposed the DeSantis appointed board at every turn but have been unable to slow down the significant changes taking shape on campus.
    One of board’s initial moves was ousting the school’s president and replacing her with former Republican House Speaker Richard Corcoran, who is earning a $699,000 annual salary. Since then, the DeSantis trustees have dismantled diversity, equity and inclusion programs at New College, denied tenure to five faculty members, a move that spurred one trustee — the faculty representative — to quit the board on the spot and later resign as a professor, and fired the school librarian, who said the termination seemed like a “deliberate and targeted attack on our students.”
    [continues]

  5. Attribution: GOP Gun safety solution by Kevin Siers, The Charlotte Observer, NC

  7. From today’s Gym Jordan fiasco:

    Rep. Stacey Plaskett: “This hearing is evidence, as if we needed any more, that MAGA Republicans are a threat to the rule of law in America … my colleagues on the far right are on a mission to attack, discredit, and ultimately dismantle the FBI. This is defund the police on steroids.”

  8. Odds wise I figure it’s kind of like flying – and I’m just talking about school shootings here – there’s a chance you’ll be on one of the planes that will go down or schools that are shot up, but the odds are very small.  The (OK, one of the) differences of course is that with flight, crashing is a known risk that anyone who flies is aware of and takes into account when they choose to fly, and that risk has gone down progressively in aviation as time has passed due to government doing what it can to reduce the risk – until very recently being shot in school was never a risk anyone took into account when deciding whether to go to school or not, and that risk is increasing, with government doing all it can to increase that risk.

  9. New CBO numbers out today, the Trump tax cuts McCarthy refuses to negotiate add $3.5 trillion to national debt over next 10 years. And only 15% of earners under $75k get any benefit. 80% of Trump tax cuts go to earners over $300k.

    In other words when Trump gets cheers at his rallies for cutting taxes probably almost none of them benefited.

  10. Supreme Court rules for Google, Twitter in closely watched cases (msn.com)

    The Supreme Court ruled for Google and Twitter in a pair of closely watched liability cases Thursday, saying families of terrorism victims had not shown the companies “aided and abetted” attacks on their loved ones.
    “Plaintiffs’ allegations are insufficient to establish that these defendants aided and abetted ISIS in carrying out the relevant attack,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a unanimous decision in the Twitter case. The court adopted similar reasoning in the claim against Google.
    The court’s narrowly focused rulings sidestepped requests to limit a law that protects social media platforms from lawsuits over content posted by their users, even if the platform’s algorithms promote videos that laud terrorist groups.
    […]
    The relatives in both cases based their lawsuits on the Anti-Terrorism Act, which imposes civil liability for assisting a terrorist attack. At issue was whether the company provided substantial assistance to the terrorist group.
    But Thomas, writing in the Twitter case, said the link was too attenuated.
    “As alleged by plaintiffs, defendants designed virtual platforms and knowingly failed to do ‘enough’ to remove ISIS-affiliated users and ISIS related content — out of hundreds of millions of users worldwide and an immense ocean of content — from their platforms,” he wrote. “Yet, plaintiffs have failed to allege that defendants intentionally provided any substantial aid to the Reina attack or otherwise consciously participated in the Reina attack — much less that defendants so pervasively and systemically assisted ISIS as to render them liable for every ISIS attack.”
    The Google case specifically raised the issue of Section 230, a decades-old legal provision that courts have found shields social media giants from liability over the posts, photos and videos that people share on their services.
    But the short, unsigned decision said the justices “decline to address the application of Section 230 to a complaint that appears to state little, if any, plausible claim for relief.”
    The cases are Twitter v. Taamneh and Gonzalez v. Google.
    This is a developing story. It will be updated.

  11. also more at the Gym games

    Jim Jordan hearing descends into chaos after GOP withholds ‘whistleblower’ testimony (msn.com):

    Following witness statements in a Judiciary Committee hearing, Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI) and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) demanded to know why some testimony had not been shared with Democrats.
    “It’s my understanding that the minority in this committee under the rules is entitled to the same testimony, information, documents that the majority is entitled to,” Wasserman Schultz noted. “So I mean, I’m not aware that you’re able to withhold information from the minority.”
    “When it comes to [FBI] whistleblowers, you’re not,” Jordan shot back.
    “That’s not right,” one Democrat complained. “We gave you all the information we had.”
    “Mr. Chairman, I can’t hear five people at once!” a Republican interrupted. “Can we have regular order?”
    “I recognize…,” Jordan said before Wasserman Shultz spoke up again.
    “I’m inquiring,” she observed.
    “And I’ve told you that when it comes to whistleblowers, you are not entitled to it,” Jordan shot back.
    “Mr. Chairman, these individuals have been determined not to be whistleblowers,” Wasserman Shultz said. “These are not whistleblowers. They’ve been determined by the agency not to be whistleblowers. Are you deciding that they’re whistleblowers?”
    “Yes, the law decides,” Jordan stated before moving on.

    Watch the video at this link.

  12. marjorie, could it be you are understandably mixing being a white supremacist up with another word that starts with “n”?  (nazi perchance?)

    Marjorie Taylor Greene claims white supremacist label is same as N-word | US Congress | The Guardian

    … Greene said: “Jamaal Bowman [was] shouting at the top of his lungs, cursing, calling me a horrible … calling me a white supremacist which I take great offense to that.

    “It’s like calling a person of color the N-word which should never happen. Calling me a white supremacist is equal to that. That is wrong.”

  13. Looking like the pressure is going to cause something to happen to Senator Feinstein.  NY Times has an article today about her, as does the San Francisco Chronicle (paywall).  What I thought looked like stroke complications are supposed to be from the shingles attack. 
    The only issue to her retirement would be leaving the Judiciary Committee down one as the gqp refuse to allow a substitution.  A replacement for her would be junior in the Senate, but that is going to happen anyhow.
     
    My concerns are her reputation first and the possibility she suffers a deadly fall in the Capitol. At this point she is made to be not in control of much of anything, including her memory. Sen Chuck needs to pull up his big girl panties and have a talk with the group who are controlling the woman.

  14. If you survived high school without getting shot why push your luck.

    Thanks to the conservative-dominated SCOTUS, graduates can look forward to an increased probability of getting shot across a variety of settings, from going to the store to walking down the street.  Thanks, GOP, and keep your heads down, grads! 🎉

  15. Looked like some nice musics last night…..I listened to one and later was going back for more and it all got cancel cultured.    

  18. Trump post: “RON DESANCTIMONIOUS GETS CAUGHT IN THE MOUSE TRAP The Culture Of Losing Continues DeSanctus’ weakness leads to job losses and loss of $1B.”

  19. Preakness on Saturday

    Post position Horse Odds
    1 National Treasure 4-1
    2 Chase the Chaos 50-1
    3 Mage 8-5
    4 Coffeewithchris 20-1
    5 Red Route One 10-1
    6 Perform 15-1
    7 Blazing Sevens 6-1
    8 First Mission 5-2

  21. Jamaal Bowman beat SporkFoot Marge fair and square—shouted her loud-ass down, so wha’s she do?  Pulls out the old “big black man threatening poor little white girl” gambit.    
    What a little piggie.   She’s so fluent in “Oink”.

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