two from Styx

The "electeds of color" nonsense from Boston mayor Michelle Wu:

You may have heard the recent story of how the Boston mayor's office had wanted to send out invitations to a Christmas party exclusively for people of color, but the email was accidentally shotgunned to everyone, including white folks. Confusion and retractions non-apologies ensued. I'm tempted to say "but the damage was done," except that this was apparently not the first time that Michelle Wu's office had invited people of color to a POC-only party. 

Styx makes an interesting point about Boston, though: despite being so far inside blue territory, Boston is remarkably un-woke as big cities go. Now, this is Styx's claim: I've never lived in Boston and have visited it only briefly a couple of times when my brother Sean was at the New England Conservatory as a grad student going for his MA. (Sean, now a professional cellist, dropped out right at the end of his studies.) So I can't personally confirm how woke or unwoke Boston is. If Styx is right, though, this means there's a fundamental disconnect between the mayor's office and the normal citizens of Boston.

Satanic (Baphomet) statue beheaded in Iowa:

I know next to nothing about Satanism, especially the American variety. I've heard that most modern Satanism is centered more on hedonism than anything else; it's not about dark magic or cannibalism or any of that nonsense. Some forms of Satanism are apparently totally devoid of theism, which makes me wonder why they would retain the name Satan at all. Satanism might make for an interesting topic to study—its history, doctrines/tenets, geographic spread, influence on the larger culture, liturgical calendar, etc.