12 December—I learned three new words from the “One Big Happy” comic strip by Rick Detorie in yesterday’s Republican-American. Snow mixed with dirt is SNIRT; snow mixed with poop is SNOOP; and canine snoop is found in “cute li’l doggie SNURDS.”

Excrement naturally segues to the Republicans currently in power and embarrassing Texas and humanity by their intransigent refusal to act reasonably on abortion. And illegal immigrants. And Republicans outside of Texas are equally embarrassing. For obvious reasons.

Come to think of it, though, it’s not only Republicans who are embarrassing. If we go below the belt, Democrats can often be assholes. But Republicans more often are pricks.

The powers that be at Harvard have just this morning reaffirmed their support of Claudine Gay, the exalted, beatific, sanctified (or is that sanctimonious?) university’s current president; so she’s safe—for the moment, anyway—in her seven-figure job. Evidently Sally Kornbluth of MIT is also safe in her seven-figure seat. But you’ve got to feel sorry for poor Mary Elizabeth Magil,l who resigned from the top—seven figure, of course—job at the University of Pennsylvania, because she’ll stay on as a tenured law professor at a mere six figures.

It’s impolite and politically incorrect to note that the three Ivy League university presidents who embarrassed their institutions at a congressional hearing on campus antisemitism last week are women. And that MIT isn’t an Ivy League university.

All the college and university presidents, chancellors, and other bigwigs of either, both, neither, or three genders who didn’t get to put their feet in their mouths at the U.S. Capitol should count their blessings. In addition to stratospheric salaries, of course. (UConn’s president, Radenka Maric, is paid only $630,000, by the way. But UConn is a public university.)

It looks like Rudolph Giuliani will finally be getting his just desserts—and not tiramisu, panettone, or cannoli—for defaming two Georgia election workers. You’ll recall that a federal district judge awarded a default judgement to the election workers in August; this week a trial will determine how much Giuliani has to pay them, something between $15.5 million and $43 million. Will Giuliani try to pull an Alex Jones?

And readers in Goshen, Litchfield, Morris, and Warren—i.e., Region 20—are reminded that they have the opportunity to decide whether the region’s high school is named after a public golf course in Waterbury or a defunct motel in Morris just by voting in person at the Litchfield Intermediate School Thursday at 7 pm. Nominations from the floor won’t be in order, so don’t bother going . . .