He made a fake ICE deportation tip line. Then a kindergarten teacher called.

GUILTY… Until proven otherwise.


“He made a fake ICE deportation tip line. Then a kindergarten teacher called.” by Drew Harwell, Washington Post, February 20, 2026.

A Nashville comedian’s deportation hotline, set up as a joke, has gone viral among viewers who say it shows the “banality of evil personified.”

Ben Palmer, a stand-up comic in Nashville, has built a following online with his signature style of elaborate deadpan pranks, stumbling his way onto court TV shows and pyramid-scheme calls to poke fun at the latent absurdities of American life.

Then in January of last year, he had an idea for a new bit: He’d set up a fake tip line that people could use to report anyone they thought was an undocumented immigrant. It was darker than his other stunts, but it felt topical, the kind of challenge he wanted to try. At the very least, he thought, he might get a few calls he could talk about at his next show. Read the whole article here.

 

Pataphysics Lives On!

Inspired by Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi (1896), Trump gets his comeuppance in Germany. Merde!


“‘Monster’s Paradise,’ lampooning US President Donald Trump, has world premiere at Hamburg Opera,” by Ronald Blum, AP News, February 3, 2026.

HAMBURG, Germany (AP) — Tobias Kratzer spoke in disbelief ahead of the world premiere of “Monster’s Paradise” by Olga Neuwirth and Elfriede Jelinek, which features a gluttonous, ravenous, insatiable President-King, lampooning U.S. President Donald Trump.

“The metaphor has become a reality,” the Hamburg State Opera artistic director said in his office Sunday morning. “I’m really hoping in — what is it, eight hours? — the piece is not completely outdated because up until now it has always gone closer and closer to not being a satire but being reality.”

Jelinek, 79 and winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Literature, collaborated with Neuwirth for the first time in two decades, the Austrian duo combining on a German-language libretto. The 57-year-old Neuwirth won the 2022 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, three years after she became the first woman composer with a work presented at the Vienna State Opera. Read the whole article here.

Mirror Mirror on the Wall…

Devil or angel? You decide.


“Italy launches investigation as newly-restored angel painting in Rome church now resembles Giorgia Meloni,” by Barbie Latza Nadeau, CNN, February 3, 2026.

Rome, Italy — A painting in a Rome church has prompted an investigation following complaints that a newly-restored cherub bears a remarkable likeness to the nation’s leader, Giorgia Meloni.

The controversy surrounds restoration works carried out on a painting in the Chapel of the Holy Souls in Purgatory in the Basilica of St. Lawrence in Lucina, central Rome.

Although the work was completed in December, side-by-side images posted to social media in recent days of the restored work and Meloni show a striking resemblance. Read the whole article here.

From the Vault: Vietnamese Christmas Nativity Burning, 1968

“Away in a manger, no crib for a bed, the little Lord Jesus laid down His sweet head…”
and then…
and then…
and then…

Along came Skaggs with his 1968 anti-war art protest, “Vietnamese Christmas Nativity Burning.”

The Second Coming is on ICE

“The role of public art is to raise awareness.” – Reverend Karen Ristine


“Anti-ICE Nativities Take a Stand Against Trump’s Cruelty,” by Emma Cieslik, Hyperallergic, December 9, 2025.

Despite pushback from right-wing leaders, nativity scenes with a humanitarian message are spreading across the country.

This past Friday, December 5, the Archdiocese of Boston asked St. Susanna Parish in Dedham, Massachusetts, to remove its nativity scene. The crèche features the shepherds and the Wise Men, but no Holy Family — no Jesus, Mary, or Joseph. In their place is a sign that reads: “ICE WAS HERE.”

A text below includes the number for the LUCE defense hotline, run by the Immigrant Justice Network of Massachusetts, which monitors and confirms Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity. Read the whole article here.