"[W]hen 'Nothing Compares 2 U' made her a star, O’Connor said the song’s writer, Prince, terrorized her...."

"She writes that Prince summoned her to his macabre Hollywood mansion, chastised her for swearing in interviews, harangued his butler to serve her soup though she repeatedly refused it, and sweetly suggested a pillow fight, only to thump her with something hard he’d slipped into his pillowcase. When she escaped on foot in the middle of the night, she writes, he stalked her with his car, leapt out and chased her around the highway. Prince is the type of artist who is hailed as crazy-in-a-good-way, as in, 'You’ve got to be crazy to be a musician,' O’Connor said, 'but there’s a difference between being crazy and being a violent abuser of women.' Still, the fact that her best-known song was written by this person does not faze her at all. 'As far as I’m concerned,' she said, 'it’s my song.'... O’Connor converted to Islam several years ago and started going by the name Shuhada Sadaqat.... 'I haven’t been terribly successful at being a girlfriend or wife,' she said. 'I’m a bit of a handful, let’s face it.' But a few months ago, when she moved into her blissfully remote cottage, she found that several other single women lived alone nearby. Soon a couple of them had come by offering bread and scones, and she found herself with a crew of girlfriends for the first time since she was a teenager.... 'Down the mountain, as I call it, nobody can forget about Sinead O’Connor,' she said. But up in the village, nobody cares, 'which is beautiful for me,' she said. 'It’s lovely having friends.'

From "Sinead O’Connor Remembers Things Differently/The mainstream narrative is that a pop star ripped up a photo of the pope on 'Saturday Night Live' and derailed her life. What if the opposite were true?" by Amanda Hess (NYT).

Prince harangued his butler to serve her soup! He weaponized his pillow in their pillow fight! He stalked her in his car and chased her around the highway! And he — he and not she — got to be considered crazy in the good way. She was crazy in the bad way, it seemed, but she's owning her brand of "crazy." 

She said she considered herself a "punk" and when "Nothing Compares 2 U" became a big hit, things felt out of whack, and tearing up the photo of the Pope restored her idea of order to her life.

She wears a hijab now (over a head that's still shaved). And if you read the comments section over there, you'll see, she comes in and answers people:  

@Just I'm an older lady now... not supposed to be beautiful : ) 

@Tom Q The Q'ran exists to confirm all previous scripture. So one can keep one's Star of David rings and Christian tattoos

FYI I am wonderful : )

@Barbara am not tortured any more : ) 

IT IS NO MEASURE OF HEALTH TO BE WELL ADJUSTED TO A PROFOUNDLY SICK SOCIETY

“As the Insurrection Narrative Crumbles, Democrats Cling to it More Desperately Than Ever.”

 A new piece from Glenn Greenwald.

ADDED: I wrote this post on my iPad and let it sit for nearly 12 hours before noticing I'd written "Greenwood" for "Greenwald." I'm really sorry! I was done blogging for the day but wanted to get this last thing up, and I have a harder time seeing on the iPad, and then there's the autocorrection. In any event, "wald" means "woods," so it almost seems like a translation, like calling me "Oldhouse." Again, I'm sorry! I thought it was a good article, and I appreciate what Glenn has been doing lately, which is insisting on honesty from the press. Excerpt:

The key point to emphasize here is that threats and dangers are not binary: [it's not that] they either exist or they are fully illusory. They reside on a spectrum. To insist that they be discussed rationally, soberly and truthfully is not to deny the existence of the threat itself. One can demand a rational and fact-based understanding of the magnitude of the threat revealed by the January 6 riot without denying that there is any danger at all.

Note the word "riot." It was a riot — not a coup or an insurrection.

Perhaps the most significant blow to the maximalist insurrection/coup narrative took place inside the Senate on Thursday. Ever since January 6, those who were not referring to the riot as a “coup attempt” — as though the hundreds of protesters intended to overthrow the most powerful and militarized government in history — were required to refer to it instead as an “armed insurrection.” This formulation was crucial not only for maximizing fear levels about the Democrats’ adversaries but also, as I’ve documented previously, because declaring an “armed insurrection” empowers the state with virtually unlimited powers to act against the citizenry. Over and over, leading Democrats and their media allies repeated this phrase like some hypnotic mantra...

"... Grimes, the Canadian singer, and Elon Musk, the co-founder of Tesla, announced that they were calling their baby boy X Æ A-12..."

"... saying the name is inspired by the fantasy Elvish language, artificial intelligence and a CIA spy plane. Grimes, 32, whose real name is Clair Boucher, explained their inspiration last night, telling followers on social media that: 'X [represents] the unknown variable. Æ is the Elven spelling of Ai (love &/or artificial intelligence). A-12 = precursor to SR-17 (our favorite aircraft). No weapons, no defenses, just speed. Great in battle, but non-violent,' and added that the A additionally stood for Archangel, 'her favorite song.'... Grimes told followers before the birth that she would allow her child to choose its own gender. She described 'being knocked up' as a 'very feral and war-like state of being'...  She and Mr Musk have been a couple for more than two years after bonding online over an esoteric joke about artificial intelligence."

The London Times tells us.

There's artificial intelligence... and there's goofball intelligence.

Anyway, nothing wrong with gender privacy. And if Clair Boucher can rename herself Grimes, then this gender-private offspring can stop being X Æ A-12 any time said entity chooses.

What is the song "Archangel"? Is it this? ("So contorted and twisted/Condemned and submissive....")

"Scientists at the National Institutes of Health’s Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Montana last month inoculated six rhesus macaque monkeys with single doses of the Oxford vaccine."

"The animals were then exposed to heavy quantities of the virus that is causing the pandemic — exposure that had consistently sickened other monkeys in the lab. But more than 28 days later all six were healthy, said Vincent Munster, the researcher who conducted the test. 'The rhesus macaque is pretty much the closest thing we have to humans,' Dr. Munster said, noting that scientists were still analyzing the result. He said he expected to share it with other scientists next week and then submit it to a peer-reviewed journal."

From "In Race for a Coronavirus Vaccine, an Oxford Group Leaps Ahead/As scientists at the Jenner Institute prepare for mass clinical trials, new tests show their vaccine to be effective in monkeys" (NYT).

Good news. Let's feel good about good news.

Also... I like the name Vincent Munster. It's like something from a screenplay about a scientist. But let's hope this story is too boring for a screenplay: They made a vaccine and it works.