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Orignally published April 10, 2020

Hey there, I’m Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I know things look bad for me right now, but I’m gonna be back in a few days, and when I return, I want all the eggs hidden. And I want the eggs to have candy in them. And I want all the kids in town to go look for the eggs so they can eat the candy. This is all about the kids. Adults can’t help them look.

Oh, I almost forgot about the Easter Bunny. Easter is what you’re gonna call the day I come back to life, and the Easter Bunny is what you’re gonna call the man-sized rabbit that hides all the candy-filled eggs the children will hunt down.

Is this too weird? I don’t want this to feel weird. But it’s really important all of this happens every single year from now until forever.

Glenn Youngkin, lame duck: No Virginia governor has come into office with a deeper dealmaking background than Glenn Youngkin, who as former co-chief executive of the Carlyle Group made a fortune acquiring and merging companies around the globe. But as the Republican chief executive of a purple state, Youngkin has struggled to translate that business acumen into political success — or even economic development success, with the demise Wednesday of his much-touted plan to bring the Washington Wizards and Capitals to Alexandria. While Youngkin and his group of financial experts had negotiated with team owner Ted Leonsis to cut what the governor called “the single largest economic development deal in Virginia’s history,” the governor was never able to work the same magic with members of the General Assembly who had to sign off on the $2 billion project. The plan’s failure wipes out a significant legacy-making opportunity for a novice politician who burst onto the scene in 2021 and drew national attention as a fresh Republican face.

As he makes another bid for the White House, Donald Trump is well aware of...

Some Friday messaging advice Two bits about defining Trump caught my attention. You’d think the guy’s image is as set as can be with his friends and foes. What else is there to tell about the twice-impeached, yada-yada? But this is campaign season. The GOP was working “but her emails” all the way up to the election in 2016. Take the hint. Joe Biden is running ads here in N.C. beginning with “Here’s the difference between me and Donald Trump…” In the wake of the Key Bridge collapse this week, Biden immediately pledged, “It’s my intention that federal government will pay for the entire cost of reconstructing that bridge.” Full stop. Brian Beutler reminds his Off Message readers that should Trump get reelected we can expect him to hold recovery funds hostage and to extort Maryland and Baltimore for favors: Four years ago this week, it became clear that Donald Trump would husband emergency pandemic resources like ventilators and personal protective equipment for Republican-run states. Or rather, Trump made it clear.

Former Doctor Who showrunner Chris Chibnall will be adapting the Agatha Christie murder whodunnit The Seven Dials Mystery for Netflix.

The myths of demagogues collapsed too Lost amidst the tangle of steel and roadway that fell into the icy Patapsco River in Baltimore on Tuesday were eight men pursuing their American Dreams. Two were rescued. Crews pulled the bodies of two others from the water on Wednesday. Four others are presumed dead. Will Bunch considers who the victims were and what their lives meant: From the day in the mid-2000s when a then-20-year-old Maynor Yassir Suazo Sandoval crossed the border into America, he never stopped working. The youngest of eight children, Suazo was fleeing numbing poverty and a dead-end career path in Azacualpa, a small rural village in the western mountains of Honduras. The undocumented Suazo wound up in Greater Baltimore, a magnet for Central American refugees with its relatively cheap housing for the bustling Eastern Seaboard, a friendly climate toward migrants, and lots of opportunity. With American dreams of entrepreneurship, he took menial jobs like clearing brush, then launched a package delivery service, and when COVID-19 ended that, started working overnight construction for a Baltimore contractor, Brawner Brothers.

In this column, professional speechwriter Chandler Dean provides partly satirical, partly genuine “How To” advice focused on a hyper-specific subcategory of speeches—from graduation speeches to wedding toasts to eulogies, and all the rhetorical occasions in between.

It’s an odd thing that we make our election losers do. You don’t have to give a speech when you lose at an award ceremony, or when you don’t get the promotion you were up for, or when you just barely miss the cut for the wedding party. The closest opportunity you get to uplift and inspire in those scenarios is when you gossip about it with your partner on the car ride home. And tragically, that’s rarely televised.

Last Christmas I came out of a pub in Manchester city centre with my brother, parents and grandparents early in the evening. I looked up from the base of one of the towers along Great Ancoats Street. 14 stories, 100 or so apartments. I saw four lights on. One supposes this great exodus of the […]

Hi, Jesus. It’s Pop. Just got your message. Sorry I missed you yesterday. It was kind of wild around her. A good Friday it was not. You wouldn’t believe everything going on with this farkakte universe. Expanding and expanding and expanding, we can’t keep up! And all these bad things happening to good people? Don’t get me started. We’re trying to fix that bug, but it’s a real head-scratcher, you don’t want to know.

Anyway, no rest for the divine. So, as I said, I got your message. And, look, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t forsaken you. You think I’d forsake you? I seem like a forsaker to you? What do you want me to do? I was on another line, that’s it.

You know I’ve always been there for you. You’re my number-one boy! Remember that time we did the trick with the wine? Oh, the loaves, the fishes, the things we could do. By the way, how’s Lazarus holding up? A real mensch that guy. You should be so lucky to have a friend like him.

. I loved this song when I first heard it twenty years ago. I still do.

‘Art should go on longer and longer as life becomes shorter and shorter’: a self-portrait of the artist Marina Abramović

- by Psyche Film

Watch at Psyche

As reports of Gaza censorship on Instagram and Facebook raises alarms, Congress targets TikTok while X profits from government surveillance.

The post How the Gaza War Is Reshaping Social Media appeared first on The Intercept.

Corporate interests are funneling far more money to law enforcement than previously known — often with scant oversight.

PACK up your teddy bears, they have a date this Easter Sunday, 31 March, at Coffs Community Gardens. Everyone, young and old, is invited to the Teddy Bears’ Picnic in the grounds of Combine Street Community Gardens, in the park behind 51 Combine Street. Advertise with News of The Area today. It’s worth it for...

The post Teddy Bears’ Easter Sunday Picnic at Coffs Community Gardens appeared first on News Of The Area.

A SECTION of shoreline near the mouth of Coffs Creek will be upgraded, with the project centred on the Englands Park green space between the creek and the Coffs Coast Wildlife Sanctuary. Popular with walkers, joggers, picnickers and visitors, the area will be transformed and protected by works aimed at stemming erosion. Advertise with News...

The post Coffs Creek shoreline to be transformed appeared first on News Of The Area.