Bonus Photo(s) of the Week: Mandates for thee, not for me.

    That seems to be the philosophy of California governor Gavin Newsom, San Francisco mayor London Breed, and Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti. All three have been more than happy to institute lockdowns and mask mandates and all three have been more than happy to routinely violate them. Newsom ignored his own orders in order to vacation in Mexico for Thanksgiving, a full year after ignoring his own orders in order to attend a party at the French Laundry restaurant. Meanwhile the day after Newsom's party, mayor London Breed attended her own party at that same restaurant. Like Newsom, a full year after attending a party at the French Laundry, she was caught clubbing mask-less in defiance of her own mandate. Garcetti does not seem to be as flippant as Newsom or Breed.

    Now our intrepid trio have all been caught, once again, violating their own masking orders while attending the NFC Championship game between the Los Angeles Rams and the San Francisco 49ers. Will they be held accountable? Time will tell.

Photo of the Week: Isolation

Sometimes you just want to shut the world out.

Monarchy and elections Part 2: Portugal

    This will be a short post. I'm going to take this opportunity to promote the People's Monarchist Party for the Portuguese legislative elections that are coming up on January 30th.

    They currently hold no seats in the Legislative Assembly of the Republic but they do hold two seats in the Legislative Assembly of the Azores. It appears that they are the only (or at least the largest) organized monarchist political movement in Portugal. Restore the Kingdom of Portugal!

Photo of the Week: Grand duchesses Olga and Anastasia at Tsarskoye Selo, 1917

 

How much is a life (or three) worth?

On January 18th Spencer Bultman was sentenced to 30 years in prison for a drunk driving crash that killed three people and critically injured a fourth. On August 23, 2020 Bultman was driving eastbound in the westbound lanes of Highway 20 near Alden in Hardin County, Iowa when he struck a vehicle carrying Cristy Gutierres, her boyfriend Mario Zubia, and her 10-year-old son Jesse Gutierres. Her 6-year-old daughter was airlifted to Des Moines and survived.

The truly enraging part of the story is farther down the article:

Bultman had previously pleaded guilty in 2015 to charges that included driving while under the influence and in 2017 to public intoxication.

They always have priors. Instead of being locked up he was free to kill. Don't worry though, Bultman told the court he was "sorry" and that his actions were "selfish and stupid". I have little doubt that he'll be released early and I have no doubt that he'll drink and drive again, because that's the way these people are.

Photo(s) of the Week: Exile.

    If you hadn't noticed I was M.I.A. for a week, the reason being my internet and cable provider suffered "equipment failure" sometime on January 7th and the issue wasn't resolved until January 13/14. Obviously it was annoying (the internet more so than the cable) but I probably read more than in the previous month and wrote more than the previous six months. It was kind of nice to be shut out from the world for a week. I had a similar experience on August 10, 2020 when a derecho swept across Iowa and knocked out power to my town for 10 hours. The weather was extremely mild for summer in Iowa and I got to see the night sky unpolluted by city lights without having to go to the boondocks.

    That brings me to this week's subject: the Romanovs in Tobolsk. While it's definitely an idealized image, I've long had a vision in my head of Tobolsk as a smallish city in the wilds of Siberia with the Milky Way Galaxy glittering overhead and a noted absence of corporate advertising disrupting the skyline. Anyway, I present to you photos of the Romanovs in Tobolsk. Be wary, the photos aren't the greatest quality so I'm mostly guessing as to who's who.

Anastasia, Maria, Olga. This is thought to be the last photograph of Maria.

Anastasia, Alexandra, Maria, Olga

Olga and unknown man(possibly Nicholas?)

Olga and Anastasia

Olga, Alexei, Anastasia

Alexei

Photo(s) of the week: Cousins in Sevastopol

A few more photos of the Romanovs in Crimea, this time featuring Grand Duchess Olga, Grand Duchess Tatiana, and their cousin Princess Irina.

I'm also posting photos of Alexei with a mystery girl I originally thought was either Olga or Tatiana but now I'm thinking may be Irina though I'm not sure.

Photo(s) of the Week: On the rocks

 Photos of the three youngest Romanov children playing on the beach at I think Sevastopol.

Kind of surprised that Alexei was allowed to play on slippery boulders, especially when his sister Anastasia later shows up with a bandage on her leg.

Photo(s) of the Week: At long last, joy.

    I mentioned a week-and-a-half ago that the Iowa State Cyclones women's basketball team had ended a 5 year losing streak to their hated rivals the Iowa Hawkeyes. What I did not mention is that a former Cyclone would be playing against the Hawkeyes today. Madison Wise played 4 years at Iowa State before taking advantage of the COVID bonus year to transfer closer to home in Indiana. That brought her to the IUPUI Jaguars out of the Horizon League. During her time in Ames, Maddie would go 0-4 against the Hawkeyes so it's a bit funny that, in the same year the Cyclones would get the black and gold monkey off their back, Maddie would do the same. Perhaps even more ironic is the manner in which it happened. During her senior year at Iowa State, the Cyclones would blow a 17-point lead in the final ten minutes of the game and lose to the Hawkeyes 82-80.

    This year?

    It was the Hawkeyes blowing a 15-point 4th quarter lead, losing 74-73. I'm truly happy for Maddie (and the IUPUI Jaguars).

    Here are some pics of the immediate postgame celebration:

Source: Michael Jones on Twitter

Source: IUPUI Jaguars

Photo of the Week: Times change but people stay the same

    This week's photo sees Grand Duchesses Maria & Anastasia Nikolaevna leaning in to plant a kiss on each cheek of Countess Anastasia 'Nastenka' Hendrikova's face. Hereditary titles aside, it's a scene that wouldn't be out of place in 2021. Hendrikova was a lady-in-waiting for their mother, Empress Alexandra, and acted as an unofficial governess for the grand duchesses. Like the Romanovs she was murdered by the Bolsheviks in the summer of 1918.