Revivals

I was puzzled and disappointed by the sudden end to the government shutdown, with no real progressive goals accomplished. But I am too busy at work to rage about moderate Democrats and wheeling/dealing in Congress. Does this resolve the SNAP funding crisis? Do the furloughed workers get their backpay yet? There will probably be another government showdown in January too.

In any case, reopening the government now forced Mike Johnson to finally swear in Adelita Grijalva into the House, so that's good at least. And the Epstein scandal has blown up again with the release of new emails. So maybe once they hold the vote, more will come out to bring him down. Would he possibly have enough shame to maybe resign or something? But we'd still have to fight the resulting Vance administration. We'll see.

I admit that it annoys me that several posts on Bluesky lately are just repeated explanations of Epstein's allusion to the dog in "Silver Blaze". I mean, how many times do you need it said? Sherlock Holmes in general has been in the news lately with the dapper "Fedora Man" at the Louvre revealed to be a French teen who is a fan of Holmes and Poirot; he just dresses like that at school all the time. Also James Bond writers recently complained of how to resume the franchise after the death in Daniel Craig's last Bond film, so lots of people on Bluesky referenced how ACD resurrected Holmes. And Bond has been recast and rebooted several times like a regenerated Time Lord. Like, how is this a problem, Horowitz?

In chronology news, I found this post about the first Sherlockian scholar, Helen Elizabeth Wilson. She doesn't give specific dates for the cases, but does arrange them in a brief biography in 1898. Too bad she died young of typhoid fever, but it's good to see that women were in the fandom at the beginning, despite the chauvinists at the Baker Street Irregulars.