Most days I spend an hour or so in the morning reading news stories. Some days when I do so, I get the feeling I have moved into a land of satire, this morning was one of those days.
It started with an article about two 12-year-old girls in Waukesha, WI, who stabbed a 12-year friend 19 times. Waukesha is about twenty miles west of Milwaukee, it is a small town of slightly more than 70,000 people.
They evidently were fans of a web site focused on horror stories, creepypasta.wikia.com, in particular a character named Slender Man. Their goal was to kill someone to prove their dedication to Slender Man, and then run away to Slender Man’s mansion in the Nicolet National Forest, located in Northern Wisconsin.
The girls, who may be charged as adults of first-degree attempted homicide, had a sleep over using a game of hide-and-seek to initiate the stabbings, which luckily resulted in the victim surviving though in serious condition.
Once again I am very thankful that for all of the challenges we had with our two daughters, having them worship mythical individuals leading to stabbings of their friends wasn’t, to the best of my memory, one that we had to face.
The other two news stories that I mention below contained quotes that cause me to reread them to make sure that they said what they said. Each were in the Financial Times.
The first was an article about Brazil and the World Cup. Brazil’s deputy minister of sport, Luis Fernandes, which at a minimum tells you that Brazil has a ministry of sport, complained that the world is biased when looking at how developing countries managed major sporting events, in particular noting their attitudes toward Brazil’s handling of the World Cup this year and the upcoming Olympics.
As Fernandez was quoted “Brazil, for instance, has a culture of improvisation and getting things done at the last minute. Preparations may look chaotic but all will turn out fine in the end.”
I so want to see a US press conference where an American politician used those lines to push back against, well, anything.
Finally, also in the Financial Times, was an article about the awarding of the World Cup to Qatar in 2022, which decision, to put it kindly, has been marred by allegations of bribery, suitcases of money being carried around to FIFA voting members, and on and on.
Passing right over the fact that Qatar is where we have released five Taliban leaders, what struck me was a passage from the article talking about the Qatar bid team being run by Hassan al-Thawadi. Quoting from the article, Mr. al-Thawadi is now secretary-general for the 2022 World Cup’s supreme committee for delivery and legacy.
Someday I really, really want to be a member of a supreme committee on anything. Though for the life of me I am not sure what a committee for delivery and legacy is, let alone how one has something to do with the other.
Perhaps tomorrow will be more firmly grounded.