March 16, 2023

Thursday, March 16, 2023. Annette’s News Roundup.

To read an article excerpted in this Roundup, click on its blue title. Each “blue” article is hyperlinked so you can read the whole article.

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In case you have to explain ‘stuff’ to someone who watches Fox television….

No,’Wokeness’ Did Not Cause Silicon Valley Bank’s Collapse.

WASHINGTON — A growing chorus of conservative pundits and politicians have said the failure of Silicon Valley Bank was the result of the bank’s “woke” policies, blaming the California lender’s commitments to workplace diversity and environmentally and socially conscious investments.

These claims are without merit. The bank’s collapse was due to financial missteps and a bank run.

Here’s a fact check.

WHAT WAS SAID

“They were one of the most woke banks in their quest for the E.S.G.-type policy in investing.”
— Representative James R. Comer, Republican of Kentucky, in an appearance on Fox News on Sunday.

“This bank, they’re so concerned with D.E.I. and politics and all kinds of stuff. I think that really diverted from them focusing on their core mission.” — Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida on Fox News on Sunday.

This lacks evidence. First, experts have broadly agreed that the bank’s demise had little to do with “wokeness.” As The New York Times and others have explained, the collapse was due to a bank run precipitated by a decline in start-up funding, rising interest rates and the firm’s sale of government bonds at a huge loss to raise capital.

George Serafeim, a professor at Harvard Business School, said that blaming the collapse on such initiatives reflected either “a complete lack of understanding of how banks work or the intentional misattribution of causality for the bank’s failure.”

Maretno Harjoto, a professor of finance at Pepperdine University and expert in E.S.G. investing, agreed that “there is no truth” to the claims.

Silicon Valley Bank’s commitment to improving diversity among its leadership was fairly typical as well. The largest 30 banks in the United States all have a stated commitment to more inclusive career advancement. (New York Times)

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Former Goldman Sachs CEO: Notion that SVB failed because of diversity is 'laughable.’

Lloyd Blankfein, senior chairman and former CEO of Goldman Sachs, said it was “laughable” that Silicon Valley Bank collapsed because it had board members who belong to minority communities.  

During a conversation with Erin Burnett on CNN’s Erin Burnett Outfront Tuesday, Blankfein reacted to a quote from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and a Wall Street Journal op-ed by Andy Kessler. 

DeSantis blamed the bank’s collapse on its concern with “DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] and politics.”

Kessler, meanwhile, wrote, "In its proxy statement, SVB notes that besides 91% of their board being independent and 45% women, they also have “1 Black,” “1 LGBTQ+” and “2 Veterans.” I’m not saying 12 white men would have avoided this mess, but the company may have been distracted by diversity demands.” 

Instead of addressing the quotes head-on, Blankfein said that in retrospect, signs of the bank’s collapse were missed. 

“Banks publish the unrealized losses that are embedded in their portfolios,” he said. “It was there to be seen… It wasn’t seen to be that dangerous given that the bank didn’t have to sell any of those securities. But they certainly did once withdrawals started to be made. And so, in hindsight, it will have appeared to have been in plain sight, and the signals will have been missed. But it became critical only when deposits were withdrawn and the banks needed to sell those out-of the-money securities in order to raise funds.” 

When Burnett asked again if the bank collapsed because it was focused on placing a black person or a gay person on its board, Blankfein responded: 

“I’m not an expert in mass psychology, but I think that’s very unlikely and I think frankly it’s a bit laughable.”  (CNN).

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Feminism in action.

Patricia Schroeder, Feminist Force in Congress, Dies at 82.

Patricia Schroeder, a former leading feminist legislator who helped redefine the role of women in American politics and used her wit to combat sexism in Congress, died on Monday in Celebration, Fla. She was 82.

Her death, in a hospital, was attributed to complications of a stroke, her daughter, Jamie Cornish, said.

Ms. Schroeder, who was a pilot and a Harvard-trained lawyer, had a long and distinguished career in the House of Representatives. She was a driving force behind the passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, which guarantees women and men up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a family member.

She helped pass the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act, which barred employers from dismissing women because they were pregnant and from denying them maternity benefits. And she championed laws that helped reform spousal pensions, opened military jobs to women, and forced federally funded medical researchers to include women in their studies.

Schroeder served on the Armed Services Committee for all 24 years she was in Congress. From that perch, she called for arms control and reduced military spending.

She worked to improve benefits for military personnel and persuaded the committee to recommend that women be allowed to fly combat missions; Defense Secretary Les Aspin ordered it so in 1993, and by 1995 the first female fighter pilot was flying in combat. That only further outraged Ms. Schroeder’s critics on the right, like Lt. Col. Oliver North, who called her one of the nation’s 25 most dangerous politicians.

She was the one who branded Ronald Reagan the “Teflon president,” against whom bad news, like the Iran-contra scandal, did not stick. Of Vice President Dan Quayle, she said, “He thinks that Roe versus Wade are two ways to cross the Potomac.”

Ms. Schroeder was the first woman elected to Congress from Colorado and the first to serve on the Armed Services Committee. She had to fight blatant discrimination from the start, facing questions about how, as the mother of two young children, she could function as both a mother and a lawmaker.

“I have a brain and a uterus and I use both,” she responded.
(New York Times).

Patricia Nell Scott Schroeder (July 30, 1940 – March 13, 2023) was an American politician who represented Colorado's 1st congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1973 to 1997. A member of the Democratic Party, Schroeder was the first female U.S. Representative elected from Colorado. The photo above is from 1973. (Wikipedia).

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One Afghan Woman Has Found A Unique Way To Protest The Taliban

It only cost Zahra a few dollars to buy bottles of black and red spray paint. But if she were caught painting slogans in the streets of Kabul, messages that criticize the Taliban and advocate for women’s rights, the price would be high indeed.

In one video Zahra posted on social media, she scrawls “Education, employment, freedom” on a wall as a friend shouts at her to move quickly: “Hurry, hurry, Zahra, hurry up!”

Zahra was supposed to start her final term of university soon. She was on track to complete her senior thesis and graduate in the summer.

“My dreams were crushed,” Zahra said. “I always pictured myself the day when I am confidently presenting my thesis to the committee; the graduation day where I am walking across the platform in a gorgeous gown and towering heels with beautiful makeup on, receiving my diploma from my professor and celebrating my achievement.”

When the Taliban took over Afghanistan in 2021, the group banned women from attending secondary education. Women were allowed to attend university, but they had to adhere to strict rules such as attending classes separately from male students, wearing full-body covering and only pursuing certain subjects. This past December, the Taliban said women would have to stop attending universities altogether. They claimed the ban would be temporary, and that they were trying to find a solution and create an environment for female students that they say would be compliant with Islamic law.

But Taliban officials have made no “firm commitments” about reopening schools and universities to the country’s women and girls, Tomas Niklasson, the European Union’s special envoy for Afghanistan, reportedly said earlier this month.

“Afghanistan under the Taliban remains the most repressive country in the world regarding women’s rights.”

In December, the Taliban also barred women from working for nongovernmental organizations.

Despite their desire for global recognition, Taliban leaders have defied international calls, including from renowned Islamic institutions, to lift the bans on women’s employment and education, claiming that the world should not interfere in Afghanistan’s internal affairs.

“Afghanistan under the Taliban remains the most repressive country in the world regarding women’s rights,” Roza Otunbayeva, a top United Nations official and former president of Kyrgyzstan, told the U.N. Security Council last week.

Afghanistan is the only country in the world where female students aren’t allowed to seek education after the sixth grade.

She was also part of a group that wrote an open letter to male students that was published just before the start of the spring semester and widely shared on social media. The letter urged male students and faculty members to boycott universities, as they’d promised to do in December.

Zahra has written anti-Taliban slogans on Kabul’s walls, including “Death to Taliban.” She once wrote “Fuck you Taliban” on the wall of a bathroom at Kabul University, according to a video she sent to HuffPost. But her more recent wall-writing missions have featured a slogan now widely adopted among students ― “Everyone or no one,” which calls for male students to stand in solidarity with female students and stop going to classes. She has also painted a Persian expression that translates to “Empty the universities.”

“Universities are meaningless without students, so if all male students stop showing up to class, the Taliban will have to reconsider their position,” Zahra said. (HuffPost).

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Very few architects are Black. This woman is pushing to change that.

There is a devastating story that Pascale Sablan sometimes tells when she talks about the experiences that have shaped who she's become.

It starts in a place of joy. In her case, Sablan remembers feeling elated as a teenage freshman at the Pratt Institute School of Architecture back in 2001 — long before she became an architect and went to work for one of the world's most prominent architecture firms.

During her second week of classes at the prestigious New York City school, a young white professor asked Sablan and another female student to stand up in a classroom of about 60 of her peers, she told NPR during a recent phone interview.

"These two will never become architects because they're Black and because they're women," she recalled him saying.

Sablan has resoundingly proved that professor wrong. Her resume is among the most impressive in the industry.

Not only did she graduate with a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Pratt, she also got a Master of Science in Architectural Design from Columbia University. In January, Sablan, who was finally licensed to practice after 13 years of working and numerous exams, was promoted to associate principal at Adjaye Associates New York studio. The firm, founded by lead architect Sir David Adjaye, is behind some of the world's most stunning buildings, including the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.

Sablan also serves as president of NOMA, the National Organization of Minority Architects. In 2021, at the age of 38, she became the youngest African American inductee of the AIA College of Fellows — an honor bestowed upon only 3% of the group's members "for their exceptional work and contributions to architecture and society."

In talking about the trajectory of her career, Sablan said there's no doubt that the excruciating classroom moment launched her passion for advocacy, pushing for just design policies and practices, and a determination to get more young people interested in pursuing careers in architecture.

"That was the moment of reckoning for me to understand that when I walk into a space, I represent more than being Pascale," she said.

"I represent my gender and my ethnicity, and therefore I have to show up and show out to the maximum degree. I can never let my performance be the reason why opportunities are reduced or eliminated for people like me, and instead must be the reason for their multiplication."

(NPR).

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An inclusive piece with 17 established women broadcasters on sexism and their careers.

Let’s Talk Barbara Walters - 17 leading broadcasters on her legacy and making their way in the world she made.

17 Leading women Broadcasters on their careers and Barbara Walters’s Legacy.

Barbara Walters died on December 30 at the age of 93 during a low ebb in the news cycle. Her home of 50 years, ABC News, pressed PLAY on a two-hour prime-time special, Our Barbara,but it aired during the attentional wasteland of New Year’s Day. Walters, whose ambition had no off switch, would have been irritated about the timing.

In Audition, her memoir, Walters lists every important person who came to her retirement party, then self-consciously wonders, “Do I sound like an awful jerk? Should this have meant so much? I’m not sure, but it did.” When ABC News renamed its building for Walters two years later, she fretted that the plaque was too small. “Tell me where it is,” she demanded of Ramin Setoodeh in his book about The View. “You don’t even know.”

But if tweets and Instagram posts and statements crafted by the publicists of famous newswomen had meant anything to her, Walters would have been cheered. They used words like trailblazer and legend; they thanked her for inspiring and for mentoring.

The undisguised sexism she experienced in her half-century on-air career was discussed vaguely at a safe historical remove. And yet, zombielike, it intruded.

Weeks after Walters died, Don Lemon, 57 and appointed to save CNN’s morning show, apologized for telling America, and his female co-hosts (ages 30 and 40), that “a woman is considered to be in her prime in her 20s, 30s, and maybe her 40s.” By then, what had been a gleefully viral story of Good Morning America’s office romance among equals had curdled into a more familiar, and depressing, tale of junior female employees navigating a culture of sleeping with men a few rungs up the ladder — at Barbara’s own network, no less. Even in Canada (Canada!), a 58-year-old anchor was reported to have been let go in part for allowing her hair to go gray.

And so the editors of this magazine decided to gather a number of women in television news for a more candid conversation. Click here.

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Updates on Republicans.

David Frum on Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ anti-Ukraine position and more. Oh my.

David Frum has been active in Republican politics since the first Reagan campaign of 1980. From 2014 through 2017, Frum served as chairman of the board of trustees of the leading UK center-right think tank, Policy Exchange. In 2001-2002, he served as speechwriter and special assistant to President George W. Bush.

Is Ron DeSantis Flaming Out Already? - The Atlantic

The Florida governor has a plan to win the Fox News primary—and lose everything else.

The Florida governor has a plan to win the Fox News primary—and lose everything else.

Florida governor Ron DeSantis has long sought to avoid taking a position on Russia’s war in Ukraine. On the eve of the Russian invasion, 165 Florida National Guard members were stationed on a training mission in Ukraine. They were evacuated in February 2022 to continue their mission in neighboring countries. When they returned to Florida in August, DeSantis did not greet them. He has not praised, or even acknowledged, their work in any public statement.

DeSantis did find time, however, to admonish Ukrainian officials in October for not showing enough gratitude to new Twitter owner Elon Musk. (Musk returned the favor by endorsing DeSantis for president.) On tour this month to promote his new book, DeSantis has clumsily evaded questions about the Russian invasion. When a reporter for The Times of London pressed the governor, DeSantis scolded him: “Perhaps you should cover some other ground? I think I’ve said enough.”

DeSantis’s statement on Ukraine was everything that Russian President Vladimir Putin and his admirers could have wished for from a presumptive candidate for president.

The governor began by listing America’s “vital interests” in a way that explicitly excluded NATO and the defense of Europe. He accepted the present Russian line that Putin’s occupation of Ukraine is a mere “territorial dispute.” He endorsed “peace” as the objective without regard to the terms of that peace, another pro-Russian talking point. He conceded the Russian argument that American aid to Ukraine amounts to direct involvement in the conflict. He endorsed and propagated the fantasy—routinely advanced by pro-Putin guests on Fox talk shows—that the Biden administration is somehow plotting “regime change” in Moscow. He denounced as futile the economic embargo against Russia—and baselessly insinuated that Ukraine is squandering U.S. financial assistance.

He ended by flirting with the idea of U.S. military operations against Mexico, an idea that originated on the extreme right but has migrated toward the Republican mainstream.

DeSantis is a machine engineered to win the Republican presidential nomination. The hardware is a lightly updated version of donor-pleasing mechanics from the Paul Ryan era. The software is newer. DeSantis operates on the latest culture-war code: against vaccinations, against the diversity industry, against gay-themed books in school libraries.

The packaging is even more up-to-the-minute. Older models—Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush—made some effort to appeal to moderates and independents. None of that from DeSantis. He refuses to even speak to media platforms not owned by Rupert Murdoch. His message to the rest of America is more of the finger-pointing disdain he showed last year for high-school students who wore masks when he visited a college.

More dangerous than the unpopular positions DeSantis holds are the popular positions he does not hold. What is DeSantis’s view on health care? He doesn’t seem to have one. President Joe Biden has delivered cheap insulin to U.S. users. Good idea or not? Silence from DeSantis. There’s no DeSantis jobs policy; he hardly speaks about inflation. Homelessness? The environment? Nothing. Even on crime, DeSantis must avoid specifics, because specifics might remind his audience that Florida’s homicide numbers are worse than New York’s or California’s.

DeSantis just doesn’t seem to care much about what most voters care about. And voters in turn do not care much about what DeSantis cares most about.

A new CNN poll finds that 59 percent of Republicans care most that their candidate agrees with them on the issues; only 41 percent care most about beating Biden. DeSantis has absorbed that wish and is answering it. Last night, in his statement on Ukraine, DeSantis delivered another demonstration of this nomination-or-bust strategy.

DeSantis will be a candidate of the Republican base, for the Republican base. Like Trump, he delights in displaying his lack of regard for everyone else. Trump, however, is driven by his psychopathologies and cannot emotionally cope with disagreement. DeSantis is a rational actor and is following what somebody has convinced him is a sound strategy. It looks like this:

1. Woo the Fox audience and win the Republican nomination.

2. ??

3. Become president.

Written out like that, you can see the missing piece. DeSantis is surely intelligent and disciplined enough to see it too. But the programming installed in him prevents him from acting on what he sees. His approach to winning the nomination will put the general election beyond his grasp. He must hope that some external catastrophe will defeat his Democratic opponent for him—a recession, maybe—because DeSantis is choosing a path that cannot get him to his goal. (The Atlantic).

David Frum on Ron DeSantis- “Tough on drag queens. Weak on National Security.”

Bill Kristol on Ron DeSantis -“A Democratic president is standing up to Putin. And he’s facing a Republican who would rather attack Mickey Mouse.”

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Where will Trump be indicted first - New York or Georgia?

Yesterday Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels spoke with the Grand Jury in New York, she by zoom.

In Georgia, where it is allowed by law, members of the Special Grand Jury spoke with the press. Below 👇 is what was reported.

Behind the scenes of Trump grand jury in Georgia; jurors hear 3rd leaked Trump call.

The bomb-sniffing dog was new. The special grand jurors investigating interference in Georgia’s 2020 elections hadn’t before seen that level of security on the third floor of the Fulton County courthouse where they had been meeting in secret for nearly eight months.

Oh, God, I hope it doesn’t find anything, one juror recalled thinking as the German Shepherd inspected the room. “It was unexpected. We were not warned of that,” she said.

The reason for the heightened surveillance was the day’s star witness: Michael Flynn, former President Donald Trump’s national security adviser. An election denier who suggested martial law should be imposed to seize voting machines in Georgia and other swing states where Trump lost, Flynn had only agreed to appear after being compelled to by two courts in his home state of Florida.

Fulton law enforcement was taking no chances on that unseasonably warm December day, concerned about who might turn up to protect Flynn, a prominent figure among far-right, conspiracy theorist and Christian nationalist groups.Outside, on the courthouse steps, sheriffs’ deputies and marshals carrying automatic weapons kept watch.

No bomb was found. Flynn, who was ultimately the last witness jurors heard testimony from, went on to assert his Fifth Amendment rights and refused to answer many of prosecutors’ questions.

But the experience brought home to some jurors just how important and consequential their work could be.

In an exclusive interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, five of the 23 special grand jurors recounted what it was like to be a pivotal — but anonymous — part of one of the most momentous criminal investigations in U.S. history; one which could lead to indictments of former President Donald Trump and his allies.

“One of the most important things we’ll be a part of in our life was this eight month process that we did,” one juror told the AJC. It was “incredibly important to get it right.”

Over two hours, in a windowless conference room, the jurorsshared never-before-heard details about their experiences serving on the panel, which met in private, often three times a week.

They described a process that was by turns fascinating, tedious and emotionally wrenching. One juror said she would cry in her car at the end of the day after hearing from witnesses whose lives had been upended by disinformation and claims of election fraud.

For months, they were unable to talk to friends, family members and co-workers about what they were doing. They said the overall panel was diverse, with different races, economic backgrounds and political viewpoints represented.

Many emerged with heightened respect for election workers and others who kept the state’s voting integrity intact.

‘I took it very seriously’

The grand jury was dissolved in January after submitting its final report.

The jurors who spoke to the AJC declined to talk about portions of the document which remain under seal, including who they recommended Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis indict. They also remained mum on their internal deliberations. In a previous interview with the AJC, jury foreperson Emily Kohrs said “it’s not a short list” when asked how many people the special grand jury suggested be indicted. (Kohrs was not among the jurors the AJC interviewed for this article.)

Several jurors said they decided to speak out for the first time in response to criticism leveled at the probe after Kohrs spoke to multiple media outlets last month. Some detractors, including Trump’s Georgia-based legal team, said that Kohrs’ remarks showcased an unprofessional, politically tainted criminal investigation.

The jurors, who stressed their aim was not to drag down Kohrs, underscored that they understood the gravity of their assignment and took care to be active participants and attend as many sessions as possible. They said the investigation was somber and thorough.

“I just felt like we, as a group, were portrayed as not serious,” one of the jurors said. “That really bothered me because that’s not how I felt. I took it very seriously. I showed up, did what I was supposed to do, did not do what I was asked not to do, you know?”

Their friendly rapport was also evident throughout the interview, as jurors at times cracked inside jokes and teased one another. They indicated they held the DA’s team of prosecutors and investigators in high regard.

They also divulged details from the investigation that had yet to become public.

One was that they had heard a recording of a phone call Trump placed to late Georgia House Speaker David Ralston in which the president asked the fellow Republican to convene a special session of the Legislature to overturn Democrat JoeBiden’s narrow victory in Georgia.

One juror said Ralston proved to be “an amazing politician.”

The speaker “basically cut the president off. He said, ‘I will do everything in my power that I think is appropriate.’ … He just basically took the wind out of the sails,” the juror said. “‘Well, thank you,’ you know, is all the president could say.”

Ralston and other legislative leaders did not call a special session. A former Ralston aide declined to comment for this story, and a Trump campaign spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

‘I’m never gonna be on time ever again’

The Fulton County residents who would become grand jurors first reported to the courthouse on May 2, 2022. Some had no idea what they were in for.

One remembered looking at her phone the morning of jury selection to see an alert from Channel 2 Action News warning about road closures downtown due to selection of the Trump special grand jury. After some quick online searching, she realized what could be in store.

“I emailed my boss and I was like, I’m gonna be out a little bit longer than I probably thought today,” she said.

They arrived to a courthouse under lockdown.

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[The article ends with the section below].

‘It’s gonna be massive’

Looking back, several participants said they were honored to be a small part of history but were glad that they got to do so anonymously.

One juror expressed appreciation for the behind-the-scenes look the group received of Georgia politics and the ballot-counting process. Another indicated he had grown more jaded after it became clear that some witnesses were telling the grand jury one thing about the election under oath and then casting doubt on the system when they returned to the campaign trail, sometimes hours later.

The group said they had no idea what Willis planned to do in response to their recommendations. But many described an increased regard for the elections system and the people who run it.

“I can honestly give a damn of whoever goes to jail, you know, like personally,” one juror said. “I care more about there being more respect in the system for the work that people do to make sure elections are free and fair.”

Said another juror: “I tell my wife if every person in America knew every single word of information we knew, this country would not be divided as it is right now.”

The grand jurors said they understand why the public release of their full final report needs to wait until Willis makes indictment decisions.

“A lot’s gonna come out sooner or later,” one of the jurors said. “And it’s gonna be massive. It’s gonna be massive.”

If you want to read the whole coverage with the jurors, click here.

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I post this, not because I agree with it, but because it takes musical theatre seriously.

The High Art of Musical Theater by John McWhorter

A part of me has always felt guilty about loving musical theater.

I have wondered whether I lacked some kind of sophistication, drinking in a general idea that operas by Verdi, Donizetti and Bizet are high art while “Show Boat,” “Gypsy” and “A Little Night Music” are, while quite respectable, somehow lighter, less awesome or have less, well, gravitas.

But I don’t think this makes sense, and I am referring not just to the well-known fact that some musicals have blurred the line between opera and musical (whatever that line is). Leonard Bernstein’s roots in classical music are obvious in “Candide” and “West Side Story”; Frank Loesser’s score for “The Most Happy Fella” is so rich and grand that it took up three LPs. But it can be hard to identify what is artistically lesser, even in musicals neither rooted in nor aiming anywhere near classical music style.

Nor am I making a claim that it isn’t right to rank some art forms as more intricate or awesome than others, or that all we should think about is whether people enjoy it. I love hot dogs; I love beef bourguignon. But a hot dog, no matter how well dressed, will never impress me as much as a good beef bourguignon, because the latter takes more work.

Rather, “Kiss Me, Kate” occupies the same artistic level for me as “La Bohème” because it’s just as rich and original. I would not say the same of “Grease,” despite the pleasures it lends. But there is a type of American show that started flowering in the 1920s and still exists today in the form of the musicals of Stephen Sondheim and his heirs that are hard to logically classify as opera’s country cousins. (New York Times).
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Meet America’s new favorite dog.

Beloved and debated, French bulldog becomes top US dog breed.

NEW YORK (AP) — For the first time in three decades, the U.S. has a new favorite dog breed, according to the American Kennel Club.

Adorable in some eyes, deplorable in others, the sturdy, push-faced, perky-eared, world-weary-looking and distinctively droll French bulldog became the nation’s most prevalent purebred dog last year, the club announced Wednesday. Frenchies ousted Labrador retrievers from the top spot after a record 31 years.

Why?

“They’re comical, friendly, loving little dogs,” says French Bull Dog Club of America spokesperson Patty Sosa. City-friendly, with modest grooming and exercise needs, she says, “they offer a lot in a small package.”

Yet the Frenchie’s dizzying rise — it wasn’t even a top-75 breed a quarter-century ago — worries its fans, to say nothing of its critics.

The buzzy little bulldogs have been targeted in thefts, including last month’s fatal shooting of a 76-year-old South Carolina breeder and the 2021 shooting of a California dog walker who was squiring singer Lady Gaga’s pets.

There’s concern that demand, plus the premium that some buyers will pay for “exotic” coat colors and textures, is engendering quick-buck breeders and unhealthy dogs. The breed’s popularity is sharpening debate over whether there’s anything healthy about propagating dogs prone to breathing, spinal, eye, and skin conditions. (Associated Press).

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