News: roundup
Indignity Vol. 5, No. 55
CURRENT EVENTS DEP'T.
A Few New Developments in the Public Affairs of the United States of America
HERE ARE SOME things that happened today, in the 249th year of American independence:
• Rumeysa Ozturk, the immigrant Fulbright Scholar at Tufts who got grabbed off the street outside her home in Somerville, Massachusetts, by masked federal agents—apparently for having co-authored a pro-Palestinian op-ed—turned out to be in detention in Louisiana despite a judge's order that she be kept in Massachusetts.
• Among the tattooed Venezuelan immigrants forcibly shipped off, contrary to a judge's order, to a notoriously abusive prison in El Salvador, with the United States government accusing them of being dangerous gang members, was a bakery worker who "used to teach swimming classes for children with developmental disabilities," Mother Jones reported, and his tattoos included "an autism awareness ribbon with his brother’s name on it."
• Department of Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem posted a promotional video showing herself —wearing casual activewear, a ball cap, and a big gold watch—standing in front of a cell densely packed with those Venezuelan captives in the Salvadoran prison, issuing a warning to other migrants that this could happen to them.
• Second-generation right-wing activist L. Brent Bozell III, Donald Trump's nominee to be the United States ambassador to South Africa, was a participant in the anti-anti-apartheid Coalition Against ANC Terrorism in 1987, Talking Points Memo wrote, and he unsuccessfully lobbied against the Reagan administration meeting with African National Congress president Oliver Tambo.
• NPR CEO Katherine Maher testified before a hostile Congressional subcommittee chaired by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, in which, Max Tani reported, Maher recanted "her years-old tweets calling Trump a fascist and a deranged racist: 'I regret those tweets, I wouldn't tweet them again today. They represented a time when I was reflecting on something that the president had said rather than who he is.'"
WEATHER REVIEWS
New York City, March 25, 2025
★★★ Handsome little clouds stood on the blue. The light was sharp and brilliant but not warm. Leaves scuttled in the gusty deep shade in a cross street. A filthy scrap of a shredded string of pennants flapped from where it was caught on a traffic signal. On the plaza at the edge of the cathedral garden, house sparrows in their various sizes and plumages, the cocks black-bibbed or barely so, fearlessly tried to cadge fragments from a crumbly pastry. A lone shabby white-throated sparrow appeared among them, seized a morsel, and vanished into the ivy. A jet plane flew down the V of the angel's bronze wings.
EASY LISTENING DEP'T.
HERE IS TODAY'S Indignity Morning Podcast!
Tom Scocca
CLICK ON THIS box to find the Indignity Morning Podcast archive.
TOM SCOCCA
ADVICE DEP'T.
GOT SOMETHING YOU need to justify to yourself, or to the world at large? Other columnists are here to judge you, but The Sophist is here to tell you why you’re right. Direct your questions to The Sophist, at indignity@indignity.net, and get the answers you want.
SANDWICH RECIPES DEP'T.
WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS in aid of the assembly of a sandwich selected from Hospitality: Recipes and Entertainment Hints for All Occasions, by Mary M. Wright, author of Candy Making at Home, Preserving and Pickling, Salads and Sandwiches, and Dainty Desserts, published in 1922, and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.
Pimiento Sandwiches
1 small can pimientoes
1 dozen olives
1 cupful cream cheese
Mayonnaise dressing
Salt and pepper
Bread and butter
Chop the pimientoes and work into the cheese, also the olives chopped fine. Season with salt, pepper and mayonnaise or boiled dressing. Use as a filling between thin slices of buttered bread.
If you decide to prepare and attempt to enjoy a sandwich inspired by this offering, be sure to send a picture to indignity@indignity.net.
