Balloons

Tuesday

Cockburn

George Santos blown

From our US edition

George Santos’s remaining time in Congress appears to be as fleeting as a candle — or, more accurate, a balloon — in the wind. As the congressman faces threats of explosion from within the Capital, a giant balloon of the swamp’s infamous fabulist is flopping around the National Mall.   The fifteen-foot inflatable of the disgraced New York congressman is currently caught in the city’s chilly fall gusts, falling flat on its face like Santos may soon do himself. The spectacle was commissioned by MoveOn Political Action, a progressive advocacy group which hopes to encourage Congress to expel Santos.   https://twitter.com/metzgov/status/1729530134359642540?

george santos

Wednesday

Maggie Fergusson

If buttons, balloons or premature burial terrify you, rest assured you’re not alone

Every summer, during our holiday in Orkney, there is a moment of panic. We’re standing on a dizzying cliff – looking across a sleeve of sea at the Old Man of Hoy, maybe – and I’m consumed with a longing to fling myself over. It’s not suicidal. I just yearn to feel the wild rush of air against my cheeks: I want to fly. I’ve never met anyone who shares this compulsion, but The Book of Phobias and Manias assures me it’s quite common. Indeed, it has a name: acrophobia. Kate Summerscale understands it perfectly: ‘The whirl of vertigo,’ she says, can ‘seem like the giddiness of yearning.’ A new book from Summerscale is always a treat.