Sam Bankman-Fried is having what could best be described as a bad week. His FTX cryptocurrency exchange not only went belly up, but newly appointed CEO John Ray said that "Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here." Seems the blockchain was, well, blocked.
Also not having a feel-good couple of days is Donald Trump. He was assuming that the judges he appointed wouldn't want to take the shine off of his presidential announcement. But no, the Supreme Court ruled he had to turn his tax records over to a congressional committee, and an appeals court looked likely to end the jurisdiction of a special master over his Mar-a Lago documents. And that doesn't even count the NY state case against his company, where his bestest-man turned star witness against him, and is busy trying to dance around his own culpability while not implicating the boss.
And then there's Elon Musk. He seems he not only stepped in a pile of you-know-what,but face planted in it as well. Yes, it's hard to garner any sympathy for a situation completely of his own making, but he may set a new record of how you can take an asset worth $54 billion and in less than 5 days virtually destroy it. In that context Taylor Swift's messed up ticket sales for her new tour seems like a stubbed toe.
But while those folks are having an Alexander-level "Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day," others had some very good news indeed. On a global level, as if helping Spain thrash Costa Rica by seven-nil in the first round of the World Cup was not enough, there's Pablo Martín Páez Gavira. Known as Gavi, he became the youngest player to net one at the event in 64 years. At 18 years and 110 days, he ranks third on the list of youngest scorers after Brazil's Pele (17 years and 239 days) in 1958 and Mexico's Manuel Rosas (18 years and 90 days) in 1930.
From cavorting on the pitch in Qatar, we move to another type of coordinated movement. The epicenter of dance these days is not the New York City Ballet or even Broadway, but TikTok. With over a billion users, the hoofing category racks up over 200 billion views on the service, with many of those attributable to Charli D'Amelio. While she recently gave up the number one position on the platform, she swapped that honor for another. On "Dancing with the Stars," she and partner Mark Ballas won the Mirrorball Trophy for the season. Like Gavi, Charlie is also just 18, though not the youngest contestant (Willow Shields at age 14) nor the youngest winner (Laurie Hernandez at age 16). Perhaps her nearly 150 million followers tipped the scales in her favor, but a win is still a win.
At the hyper local/other end of notoriety is the Brazoria County Fair, located about 45 minutes south of Houston. There the Future Farmers of America handed out awards at their annual gathering. Middle school winners included Sophia Guzzetta, who was recognized for as Grand Champion in Rabbit Showmanship, while Tyler Hammond won as Grand Champion Simmental/Heifer subdivision. And props to fourth-grader Kasen Douglas, who won Reserve Champion Market Broilers in the Poultry Group. Say what you will: neither Gavi not Charlie's achievements came with eggs.
Others having a good week include Hakim Jefferies who looks to be the next leader of the Democratic caucus, while Kevin McCarthy may finally get to be Speaker of the House, though that may go from a good thing to a bad thing very quickly. Beyonce got 8 Grammy nominations, while The Society for Health and Physical Education of South Dakota honored Chad Rohde from the Watertown Middle School as this year's Physical Education Teacher of the Year. And let's clap for Boetje's Mustard, which was honored by the Illinois Makers Class of 2022 as one of the best businesses in the state. That's on top of them getting the Bronze Medal in the Honey Mustard Category at the World-Wide Mustard Competition sponsored by the National Mustard Museum in Middletown WI, "America's Favorite Condiment Museum." From Doha to the Badger State, congrats to all.
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Marc Wollin of Bedford was honored to make this year's turkey. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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