This, That, and a Whole Lot Less

The worst thing about 2025 coming to an end is the knowledge that 2026 will be worse.  But not as bad as 2027.

As 2025 lurches to a close, I ought to tend to some unfinished business . . ..

First, the inevitable update on two folks named James - a woman named by her father and a man named by his mother.  Letitia James and James Comey were both indicted by the Injustice Department as part of Donald Trump's retribution campaign, but both cases were dismissed in court.  The details of their indictments are moot, so I won't bother with them here.   John Bolton, Trump's former national security adviser, is still under indictment on eighteen counts related to the mishandling of classified documents, and as much as liberals would love to see Bolton go to the slammer (liberals are against the chair), he's clearly being indicted for all the wrong reasons. 

Meanwhile, Jennifer Welch (above), co-host of IHIP, the I've Had It Podcast, seems to have had a change of heart about Roman Catholics.  She recently told fellow podcaster Tara Palmeri that she actually admires Catholics for their devotion to their faith and their constant study of their faith and the Gospels, adding that if she were believer of God, which she is not, she could never be a Catholic not because of a patriarchal priesthood but because of all of the constant study involved.  She also says that Catholics are nice people who, unlike evangelicals in her home state of Oklahoma, don't try to convert anyone so aggressively.  So, I guess that means I ought to go back to listening to her and Angie Sullivan's podcast.

I write this blog post, meanwhile, with the knowledge that Brigitte Bardot just died at the age of 91.  Social media has gotten to the point that you don't even need to check news sites online or television news programs to find out that someone has died.  When Facebook friends who don't know each other from Adam and Eve simultaneously post pictures of a French actress and sex symbol who hasn't been culturally relevant since Renault stopped making the Dauphine, you can put two and two together.  No, those were not pictures of Claudia Schiffer.  The death of the woman her fans famously called B.B. fellows the death of another European movie star and glamour icon known as C.C., Italian actress Claudia Cardinale.  (Note: For those who have started following my blog just recently, no, my girl cat Claudia is not named for either Claudia Cardinale or Claudia Schiffer.)  I hope both of them are remembered for their earlier films, and hopefully not the spaghetti western they did together in the early seventies.  (I saw about five minutes of that movie; that was all I could take.  Both actresses were celebrated as icons, but you'd never have known it from this particular movie.)  

I was never incredibly enamored with Bardot or Cardinale, but their respective passings this year is still a bitter reminder that the era of European cinema and culture that they represented died long before they did.  And going into 2026, it makes me fear for the health and well-being of France's Catherine Deneuve, 82, and Italy's Sophia Loren, 91.  The European Union ought to seriously consider some protective measures for both actresses - put fences around them, maybe, declare them Continental treasures, perhaps get UNESCO to grant them World Heritage status - just so we can at least keep them around a little longer. 

I've Had It With "I've Had It"

I started listening to the podcast "I've Had It" hosted by Oklahomans Jennifer Welch (right) and Angie Sullivan, known for comedically complaining about petty grievances, because the two women were beginning to skewer Trump.  And their observations about Trump are pretty spot-on.  But some of their other political grievances smack of moral superiority  and misandry.

Misandry?  Well, it's not because Welch, an interior designer, constantly airs her husband's faults in public to a fault in and of itself.  It's because the two of them can't seem to find much nice to say about the male sex.  After they rightly lampoon toxic masculinity and dismiss "alpha males" for having too much testosterone, they then ridicule "beta males" for not having enough of it.  What other males are left?

I think it was their constant needling of the Roman Catholic Church, which I just began recommitting myself to.  Sullivan, a lawyer who was raised evangelical but has since dissociated herself from her church, and Welch routinely go after evangelicals for their obvious hypocrisy and sexism, and I'm sure they celebrated James Dobson's death (as did I; I celebrated by cackling).   But they have an animosity toward Catholicism that is unpalatably smug.  When Welch, an atheist, begins a podcast video with the sentence "We're no fans of the Catholics," it's obvious that I've Had It is a party to which Catholics are not invited.  Welch also dismissed Pope Leo XIV despite his anti-war stance, his concern for artificial intelligence, and his contempt for Trump because - big surprise - he's against abortion.  The pope is against abortion, gee, who'd have thought.  I understand that Welch is pro-choice, and that's fine, and you can be personally against abortion while being in favor of a woman's right to decide to have one, but many Catholics are in fact against abortion while still being pro-choice, because they understand that Roman Catholicism is not the state religion and they shouldn't impose their beliefs on others.  In other words, Welch has contempt for anyone who's even personally against abortion, and that includes the pope.

Welch and Sullivan are only a few podcasts away from defending the similarly patriarchal Islamic faith to show how "tolerant" they are. 

Welch and Sullivan are no more than self-righteous progressive purists (with Okie accents), and no one likes a purist.  It was because of that smug self-righteousness that I stopped listening to them.  I've had it with "I've Had It."