Oh, Brother....How Art Thou?

Plus "SNL" and a young Dylan and our usual commentary and cartoons and calla and a film pick.

Mar 08, 2026

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We’ll open with last night’s “SNL Weekend Update.”

….and the Hegseth cold open:

More weekend updates:

Trump blames deadly strike on school killing all those kids on Iran: "We think it was done by Iran."

Axios this morning: “The U.S. and Israel have discussed sending special forces into Iran to secure its stockpile of highly enriched uranium at a later stage of the war, according to four sources with knowledge of the discussions.”

Heather Cox Richardson (and Marco these words):

Trump suggested that Cuba was next on his list of countries to topple. “We’re looking forward to the great change that will soon be coming to Cuba,” Trump said. “They have no money, they have no oil, they have a bad philosophy and bad regime.” “Cuba is in its last moments of life as it was, but it will have a great new life,” he said.

Sarah Kendzior:

Trump’s father, Fred Trump, became friends with Netanyahu in the 1980s, when Netanyahu was Israel’s ambassador to the UN. The friendship extended to Donald. Trump’s closeness to Netanyahu grew stronger when Ivanka Trump married Jared Kushner, whose family was so close with the Netanyahus that Netanyahu used to sleep in Jared’s bed (when Jared was not in it.)
Jared Kushner works closely with Netanyahu and brokers foreign deals “for the US” despite not being a member of the Trump administration. No one in Congress does anything meaningful to stop him. An unelected son-in-law carrying out the will of an autocrat is typical in a kleptocracy. The unusual part is that Kushner is not working for the country for which his father-in-law is president.
Trump is not in control of the Iran War. Netanyahu is, and Kushner is his lackey.

There’s an important Q & A with Rebecca Solnit now up at the NY Times site.

If you haven’t seen that photo of infamous baseball steroid cheater Alex Rodriguez with Trump in the White House: “What’s happening in Cuba is amazing and we think that we want to fix, finish this one first but that will be just a question of time before you and a lot of unbelievable people are going to be going back to Cuba,” Trump said. Rodriguez is of Dominican descent.

Film Pick

Surprised but happy to see “The Voice of Hind Rijab” now streaming on Amazon and maybe other services—Oscar nominee and one of my three best movies of the year—which failed to get a distributor in the U.S. due to its “controversial” (Israel bombing civilians in Gaza) nature.

Music Picks

They held an “Oh, Brother, Where Are Thou?” tribute in Nashville last week—remember when its soundtrack was #1 top seller?—which brought out Emmylou, Molly Tuttle and Alison Krauss to sing “Didn’t Leave Nobody But the Baby.”