First it was Taylor and Travis. Next Fawn and Ollie. Who’s next? How about these two? They just announced their engagement.
That’s Liam Hemsworth and Gabriella Brooks. Hard to say who’s prettier. When asked what he got Gabriella as an engagement gift, Liam said, “I haven’t decided yet, but someone should get the girl a cellphone. She’s using giant shells off the beach, for Pete’s sake.”
Paolo won his second Jeopardy! bout last night, doing even better than on his first win. He’s won over $50,000 in total now. A math teacher jumped out to a scary early lead, but wilted at the $10,000 mark. When he was over $30K and already way ahead, Paolo whiffed on final jep (they both did), but he only wagered a few hundred bucks.
The category was “Today Spelling Counts.” The clue was “The winning word at the first Scripps National Spelling Bee was this, a plant & genus with sword-shaped leaves now on the trophy.” The correct response was gladiolus. The wrong answer they both tried was a good guess: Laurel.
Looking forward to seeing how he does tonight.
[Breaking news: He just won again! His total is close to $80,000 now. Should be able to pay his electric bill soon.]
Have you had a life-long dream? Me neither — why bother? But Kent Broussard did. He’s 66 now and he worked hard to make it come true. That’s him in the middle. Looks like an accountant, amirite?
Kent first heard the LSU marching band play at Tiger Stadium when he was 13-years old. It made an impression, and then some. I can see it — I was 57 when I first saw the Michigan band march across the field in full blare. Gave me goose bumps. Kent took his bride there as a newlywed, and when they had daughters, he took them too “as if passing down an heirloom of sound,” Ira Gorawara wrote in the NYT.
We let go of so many things in life; so many passions and people diminish for us and drift off. Kent never let go. When he retired as an accountant he uprooted and moved to Baton Rouge. He worked hard to get in shape: the marching band is physically demanding. He had started running when he was 50 and more recently added on weight training. He relearned how to read music and took tuba lessons for a year. He marched around his neighborhood with it, practicing. And then, he pulled the trigger and enrolled in LSU as a nonmatriculated student and auditioned for the band.
Here’s how the Times described what happened next:
“On a Thursday night in late August, after five days of preseason drills, every Tiger Band hopeful huddled over their phones, waiting for the roster to drop at 7 p.m. In the tuba room, a countdown began. Heart thudding, Kent scrolled alphabetically through the names. The first two sousaphone spots went to newcomers, signaling hope he might be next.
“’Oh, my God, I made it,’ he blurted, jumping up and down amid the raucous cheers.”
At one point, when the band played in the big stadium at the first home game, Kent appeared on the giant scoreboard screen. Kent’s daughter Lauren vowed to stay composed but it was hopeless. She had seen how hard he worked for so many years. She held on to her mom and weeped.
Here are the opening lines of a poem that did not make it past the Owl Chatter guard puppies:
Ciao sachet chum, porkpie panache,
you ditsy-dots chatelaine.
Takes that much work to be a fairy
with a hoyi-hoyi-hoyi.
Rosa Roisinblit (nee Tarlovsky) died in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Saturday at the age of 106. What an incredible woman.
In what the scholar Ronald Dworkin called a “system of licensed sadism,” Argentina’s military dictatorship “disappeared,” tortured and killed roughly 30,000 Argentinians during its “Dirty War” from 1976-1983. Among them was Rosa’s daughter who was 8-months pregnant and son-in-law. Her daughter’s 15-month old girl, Mariana, was also taken but released.
Rosa was warned to just shut up and get on with her life but was having none of that. She filed a habeas corpus petition for her daughter and scoured orphanages and hospitals. The petition was rejected but she learned that her daughter gave birth to a son who was given to a childless military couple. The same had happened to hundreds of babies born to women who were kidnapped and later killed.
For 33 years Rosa served as an officer of “Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo,” a group dedicated to finding their stolen grandchildren. They rallied international support, followed up on tips, and employed genetic testing methods to establish identity. About 140 were returned to their families, and roughly 300 remain stolen.
The group was a big deal. This photo is of a march of 400,000 in 2024 in support of the Grandmothers.
In their statement announcing Rosa’s death, the Grandmothers organization said: “The greatest recognition she received is that of the grandchildren she found, who at every meeting embraced her as if she were their own grandmother.”
Rosa never saw her daughter or son-in-law again, but Mariana received a tip in 2000 that led to the recovery of her brother, Rosa’s grandson Guillermo. Guillermo renounced the couple that raised him, who he said were abusive, and took the name Roisinblit.
At the age of 96, Rosa faced in court the men accused of kidnapping her daughter and son-in-law. One of them was one of the last surviving members of the dictatorship’s inner circle.
Rosa’s obit in the NYT was written by Adam Nossiter. He ended it with the following:
The judge asked Ms. Roisinblit if she was prepared to tell the truth.
“I never stop telling the truth,” Ms. Roisinblit replied. “It’s a trait of mine.”
The judge asked her how many children she had. Ms. Roisinblit hesitated.
“I had a daughter. But I don’t anymore,” she answered.
The men all were all found guilty and sentenced to prison for long terms.
“I need the Argentine state to tell me who took them,” Ms. Roisinblit said in court, at the end of her testimony. “Why it took them. Who gave them a trial. Who convicted them. Where are they?” she asked. “I want to find the remains of my children, because then I’d have a place to lay a flower.”
Here’s Rosa with a photo of her daughter. Below that is Rosa with her grandson Guillermo.
Rest in peace, Rosa.
Yikes. Let’s get back to nonsense. This is from The Onion.
Trump Renames White House Fridge Department Of Ham
WASHINGTON—Fulfilling his pledge to realign the mission of the White House kitchen with the vision of the Founding Fathers, President Donald Trump signed an executive order this week officially renaming the White House refrigerator the U.S. Department of Ham. “When Thomas Jefferson had the first ice house installed in 1801, the name Department of Ham was chosen to show the world our ability to eat cold cuts at a moment’s notice,” said Trump at the Oval Office signing ceremony, adding that when Harry Truman changed the appliance’s name to “fridge” in 1947, it “weakened the nation’s image” and disrespected the men and women throughout the country’s history who have enjoyed fresh deli meat at any time of day. “The Department of Ham is a beautiful name that conveys tremendous strength when it comes to cured pork, and it in no way downplays the strategic importance of turkey, salami, or even pre-packaged smoked salmon. “The restoration of this name will return this storied 28-cubic-foot department to its former glory.”
See you tomorrow! Thanks for popping by.
The Wellington Files 