With brief, occasional, italicized and sometimes gratuitous commentary…
• Business Insider reports that a $300 million superyacht, the Kaos, owned by billionaire Walmart heiress Nancy Walton Laurie, was vandalized as it was leaving Ibiza on Sunday. Two "activists" sprayed the stern with red and white paint and held up a sign saying, "You consume, others suffer."
According to the story, "The two activists were detained and are expected to be released. No word on what they'll be charged with.
I put "activists" in quotation marks above because they really should be described as vandals and criminals. I'm not sure what good it did anyone - including their cause of climate action - for them to spray a bunch of paint on a boat. I'm all for climate action, too, and even, in some cases, for legitimate civil disobedience - what the great John Lewis used to call "good trouble." But this is just silly and ineffective.
The only good thing about the story is that it has a fairly detailed description of the boat, which sort of puts into perspective how much "Always Low Prices" can buy on the open market:
"Her vessel, which flies under the Jamaican flag, has four decks and can accommodate 31 guests and 45 crew, per the yacht-enthusiast website Yacht Bible.
"It hosts 16 guest cabins and at least 24 staff cabins as well as an elevator, a steam room, a gym, a cinema, and an indoor beach club.
"It costs from $20 million to $30 million every year to keep the Kaos running, according to Yacht Bible."
Here's my question: What does one need with an indoor beach club when you're traveling on a yacht?
And one more question: Wasn't "Kaos" the name of the evil organization in "Get Smart?" Who the hell names their yacht that?
