The Weekend Cartoon and Live Briefing: Friday, June 4, 2021

arizona elections audit — “What to call the activity at Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum this month? It’s not an “audit,” according to many of those watching. It doesn’t meet the formal criteria, they say. A better description would be a review or investigation — or, from some perspectives, “grift” or “clown show.” Some have taken to calling it a “fraudit.” Sierra Vista resident Ben Eaddy is one of many Arizonans who say calling this exercise an audit “lends it an appearance of legitimacy it simply does not deserve.” But many supporters of what the Arizona Senate’s contractors are doing say that this is an audit and should be called one. They believe that the multiple tests the county did before this to verify its election results should not be called “audits.””–From The Arizona Republic, “Is the Maricopa County election audit truly an audit? Here’s what professional auditors have to say,” June 1. Above, Endless Election Audits by Dave Whamond, Canada, PoliticalCartoons.com.

Today at the editor’s glance: William Whitson, the new Flagler Beach city manager (highlighted here yesterday, playing Taps), is on WNZF’s Free For All Fridays this morning at 9 a.m. He will speak about his nascent tenure, the impending return of First Fridays in Flagler Beach and the city’s $800,000 state grant for its sewer plant finally making it through unscathed by a gubernatorial veto, as had been the case the previous two years: Larry Newsom was smiling down on his city, staying the governor’s hand. (You still cannot mess with Larry.) The show begins after my commentary on critical race theory. In court, Circuit Judge Terence Perkins on Friday hears two separate motions, at 10 and 11 a.m. The first is in the case of Philip Martin, who faces a life felony for molesting a girl younger than 12. The defense wants statements he made to deputies suppressed. The second is in the case of Waldemar “Macho” Rivera, sentenced in 2016 to 25 years in prison for raping his stepdaughter. It’s an evidentiary hearing on a motion by Rivera for post-conviction relief. Rivera argues he got ineffective counsel at trial. The judge will hear a motion on four grounds. On Saturday, you can clean up the beach in the morning, have a martini at lunch, head to the Palm Coast Historical Society at the Society’s Museum in Holland Park from 1 to 3 p.m., for a celebration of the Garden Club, which has been around since 1974 (back when Palm Coast was significantly more garden- and forest-like). Then it’s off to Palm Coast’s Central Park for the second annual Pride festival for food, music, comedy and joy. The Florida Legislature went a bit Taliban on LGBTQ rainbows this session (and not just Florida) but here’s a chance to exult anyway. In Paris, Reilly Opelka at roughly 8:45 a.m. on Friday goes up against world #2 Daniil Medvedev, “who Opelka beat last fall in Russia and has had three close matches with in his career,” our Michael Lewis tells us. Sunday is the 77th anniversary of Operation Overlord, more commonly known as D-Day, the allied invasion of Normandy that sealed Hitler’s fate.

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“Already in 1840, Balzac noted with dismay that there were two thousand painters in Paris. Degas 50 years later said: ‘We must discourage the arts.’ But the ever-enlarging display of art cannot of course be held back. We can pay farmers not to grow crops but we cannot pay artists to stop making art. Yet something must be done. To lead people on when there is no chance they will ever fulfill their desire is immoral.”

–Jacques Barzun in “Too Much Art,” a July 1986 essay for Harper’s, reprinted in the current issue.

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