The Week that Was ...
Ending Sunday, March 9, 2025
Welcome to the latest edition of The Week that Was, my rundown of what happened last week, curated, in the loosest sense of the word, for your reading pleasure, or displeasure.
This week:
1. Photo of the Week: Wild Fires out on the Island
2. Fake Currency Gets High off Its Own Supply
3. Leadership in Mexico
4. Police Officer Gets High Off Someone Else’s Supply
5. Tesla Owners Are Disgusing Their (Hideous) Cars
1. Photos of the Week: Wild Fires out on the Island
Wildfires have struck Eastern Long Island, further east than where Holly Woodland grew up before she became a fixture of The Factory and became part of a Lou Reed song.
The Hamptons were threatened with destruction in a remarkable example of turnabout is fair play. Okay, it was West Hampton.
Seriously, this is alarming. It’s still winter.
2. Fake Currency Gets Boost
Don’t get high on your supply doesn’t apply only to gangsters any more.
Bitcoin, the original Crypto, the non-asset to end all non-assets, was sliding at the beginning of the week. Then the President announced a national bitcoin reserve, or something like that.
“Under Trump’s new order, the U.S. government will retain the estimated 200,000 bitcoin it’s already seized in criminal and civil proceedings, according to Trump’s ‘crypto czar’ David Sacks.
“’The U.S. will not sell any bitcoin deposited into the Reserve. It will be kept as a store of value. The Reserve is like a digital Fort Knox for the cryptocurrency often called ‘digital gold,’’ Sacks said on social media.”
The price of bitcoin rose immediately on the news, but by the end of the week, it was down again.
At least Tony Montana was putting something that really exists up his nose.
Sounds like it’s time to start buying Swiss francs.
ADA, XRP, and TRUMP score largest daily gains as strategic reserve announcement boosts crypto market
“Trump's crypto plan has produced a backlash from ‘conservatives and even ardent crypto backers’ who cited concerns over ‘giveaways to an already wealthy community’ and ‘delegitimizing the digital currency industry,’ The New York Times said. Some Republicans criticized the plan to use tax dollars to purchase crypto's ‘risky assets’ rather than simply using the money for ‘paying down the national debt.’ Other critics pointed out that both Trump and his crypto czar, David Sacks, stand to personally benefit from the boost to the crypto industry.”
When fledgling oligarchs are worried about rich people getting richer, that’s not a good sign.
Of course, these are also people worrying about delegitimizing a completely illegitimate currency.
Why is Trump's cryptocurrency reserve plan putting some economists on edge
3. Leadership in Mexico
President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico held a huge rally in the Zócalo today. Although the neoliberal press portrayed it as a celebration of Trump delaying tariffs, in fact the rally was planned before Trump’s latest turn. I gotta say, for a man that overweight who feasts on MacDonald’s, he’s pretty adroit.
President Sheinbaum knows that tariffs are not the only threat: Mexico has to worry about military intervention from north of the border. Because U.S. people cannot stop getting high. It’s not somebody else’s fault: it’s called deaths of despair. And it’s getting worse.
4. Police Officer Gets High Off Someone Else’s Supply
As if the trend of crypto dudes getting high off their own supply was not upsetting enough (see #2, above), now we have police officers getting high off someone else’s supply.
California deputy seized fentanyl during an arrest, then OD’d while on duty, report says
5. Tesla Owners Are Disguising Their Cars
The below photograph was taken by a friend, who saw this sight while bicycling in Manhattan.
© John Harris
And it’s a trend!
