How is everyone’s weekend going? Thanks for spending a part of it with the Six.
Thursday, the news broke of the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
In America, our interest in the British Throne is more luminary than empirical. The decades of in-fighting and scandals fill celebrity magazine pages, not the practical, day-to-day operations of monarchial rule.
I mean, does anyone really know what Queen Elizabeth was in charge of all those decades?
Here’s what we do know – Elizabeth was the longest reigning monarch in British history. She did appoint 15 Prime Ministers in her 70 years as Queen (that is something we know she did) the last one being Liz Truss, named prime minister a few days before the Queen died. When she took the throne in 1952, Britain controlled 70 territories globally. Her successor, King Charles, inherits 14.
And the year of her birth, 1926, was the year a book named “Winnie the Pooh” was published and two years before the invention of sliced bread.
As comedian Tom Dreesen once said about Frank Sinatra after his death, “it was a helluva run.”
God Bless The Queen.
Let’s proceed with The Six.
1. What Will Happen Next After the Death of Queen Elizabeth.
So now that the Queen has passed on, what next for Great Britain and The Throne? Something called “Operation London Bridge” takes effect, with Charles ascending to King. This transition has been in the works for awhile and over the coming days the government will execute the plan that has been tightly choreographed, culminating with her funeral, which is expected to happen in a little over a week and later, Charles’s coronation, which took place Saturday. Harper’s Bazaar has the details.
2. Chicago Mayor Attacks Texas Governor Over Immigrant Busing.
There’s been a war of words over Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s decision to bus migrants who cross the border into Texas from Mexico to major cities – in blue states, an important fact to note. The verbal assaults escalated this week, with Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot stating that “this is not Christianity” and that Abbott merely “professes to be a Christian” after 50 more migrants arrived in the Windy City, bringing the total number to 103. Abbott responded that Lightfoot should address her concerns to “the real cause of the border crisis: Joe Biden.” I personally cannot stand Lightfoot and find her to be a bad mayor for a city I love. I don’t profess any affection for Abbott but my default is to take the side of anyone over Lightfoot. Plenty of blame to go around here and the Washington Examiner has more.
3. Black Lives Matter Executive Accused of Siphoning Millions of Dollars.
More scandal from our favorite financially responsible nonprofit! There’s a new lawsuit accusing an executive at the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation of “siphoning” more than $10 million from donors. The executive in question is Shalomyah Bowers, who denied the “harmful, divisive, and false” allegations. Bowers was hired by none other than Patrisse Cullors, the BLM co-founder whom we might know better as the proud owner of a $1.4 million Topanga Canyon home and a $6 million mansion in Studio City. Cullors departed the organization in May 2021 for reasons that were definitely, entirely unrelated to said home and mansion. Yeah right. The whole thing stinks and CNN reports more.
4. Meet The Disaster Consultants.
What comes after the storm is not calm, it turns out, but loads and loads of paperwork, for leaders of a small town in Florida who were forced to turn to middlemen in search of relief after a devastating hurricane. While most reporters pack up when the rebuild in a city begins, one writer for The Verge expertly dug into the process and all its problems and pens this compelling read.
What an idea for a story – this reporter spent two days with over 100 trash collector trainees for the city of New York. There’s 2,100 garbage trucks in New York and someone has to drive them and pick up the tons and tons and tons of garbage produced each day. Says the article, nobody ever finishes a cup of coffee — those who collect the garbage always know what the "flavour of the month" is. Compacted rubbish spews out "juice". As a union job, the work is "a clear path to a middle-class life" but as Curbed magazine reports, it is also one of the most dangerous occupations in the United States.
6. Massive Great White Shark Circles Man’s Kayak.
A Northern California man was out kayaking on a summer morning. A great white shark appears and begins circling his kayak. "That's a huge great white shark, oh my god," the kayaker can be heard saying from this article in Newsweek and accompanying video. "That's a huge, huge great white shark. Oh my god, that's the size of my kayak." The entire sequence is caught on the man’s Go Pro, the outline of the great white just lurking below the water. The kayaker, IIan Toussieh, told Newsweek, “I realized there was not much I could do about it and just relaxed and enjoyed the ride. This turned out to be one of the most spectacular experiences of my life.” That’s because he survived to tell the tale.
Thanks for reading everybody and enjoy the rest of your weekend.
Have a suggestion for The Sunday Six? Send email to jonjkerr@gmail.com.
The Washington Examiner missed a crucial detail: Lightfoot then bussed all of the people to a suburb without consulting that mayor either. Pot? Kettle?