LIQ put up a post which featured an aria from the Barber of Seville – La Calunnia – about how slander starts as a gentle breeze but eventually, if properly attended to, becomes a roaring tornado. Min wrote an unbelievably astute comment which reads in full:

Voi che sapete

So I will put up both Voi che sapete (from The Marriage of Figaro) and then follow it with another version of La Calunnia both of which together really do capture so much of what is taking place before us. First Voi che sapete, possibly the greatest song devoted to young love ever written. Despite appearances, Cherubino is a young lad, around 15-16 years old.

And then La Calunnia about slander and its uses.

Is there more to add to the political mess that confronts us? No doubt, but this really does seem to say a very great deal about what is going on.

But if you do want more, there is this piece of “reporting” from The Australian: Unreconcilable teenage memories dealing with a story of events that occurred more than thirty years ago retold by a woman who is acknowledged to have been mentally ill, and then selectively retold again based on a series of highly salacious “recovered” memories which includes this:

We have moved from the gutter press into serious evil.