The- so far as we can tell- true story of Mz. Ziz LaSota

News on News pt. 4

Previous: News on News 3
đŸ„Č Our prayers— that those who are friends w/, & not just foes of, this cabal will jump into the fray, chase down journalists, & inject a little counter-narrative into this fiasco— have been answered 🔔🔔🔔🔔🔔
The random number generator has assigned us— straight from NewsNation— breaking gnus from a “‘Zizian’ suspect’s friend” 💓
Surely we won’t need our bingo card this time— 
— but we’ll keep it in eyeshot just in case. 
Today’s piùce is brought to us by Brian Entin: 
Senior National correspondent đŸ«ą and Emmy winner! 
Emmy gonna cry đŸ„Č Here at last may be the voice, the mind, the Brian to give us all that we deserve: thorough research & context; sensitivity & empathy; inclusivity & balance— he’s already won there, he’s found us a friend!— & dare we hope: a positive narrative framing: a call for change, a call for advocacy, a refusal to frame our cabal as victims or villains; a stubborn spotlight shone on their agency & on their resilience. We’re wriggling in our chair as we read the headline: 
"‘Zizian’ suspect’s friend says——— cultlike group was preparing for violence"???? đŸ˜„
Wha— Brian spoke “exclusively” “to friend of victim, suspect”— “Both agree that group had..... surgical instruments?? and were plotting violence”? 
Surgical instruments! This makes us shiver. Brian’s unfortunately a seasoned professional; he knows to keep that card close to his chest, & to string us along in the meantime w/ a rollicking sketch of some kinda “so-called ‘death-cult’” (we dk anyone who matches that description, do you?), whose members were “connected” by “radical veganism, artificial intelligence and
 TRANSGENDER IDENTITY (TI)” đŸ„¶ Wha- who— what is happening to us?
***
Call us jaded, call us sensitive, but when Brian smashes these three things together, is he implying that TI is an ideology or a lifestyle choice like “radical” veganism (“R”V— whatever that is)? Is he implying it’s a quirky & trendy fascination like AI? Is he implying that TI— like “R”V & AI— may be niche, extreme, cutting-edge, or controversial? Are we fighting paper tigers to be fighting him on this? Our fear, ofc, is that in his opening line, Brian has needlessly, wantonly introduced a SOTTV*: signaling subtly that, to his mind, being trans might be:
✅ Not a fundamental part of identity, but sthng you can pick up & put down at will
✅ Perhaps a militant or extreme behavior
✅ Perhaps a fleeting trend or pet interest
Moreover, thru darkly implying that TI is what “connected” this crew— thru choosing not to calmly state that, frequently, friendships do blossom amidst shared lived experiences— Brian comes dangerously close to inhabiting one of the oldest SOTOQVs* in the book. 
That is to say, he is dangerously close to putting on his Lavender Scare drag, & making v. silly assertions abt the ways that queer ppl “congregate” & form “seeecret, sinister, subversive alliances”— that having queer friends is not about having some friends, but is an activity like being a Freemason, or being one of the Illuminati. This would, ofc, be so ridiculous that we blush at the mere suggestion. He is, after all, an Emmy winner, & we are only an internet troll who may be jumping at shadows.
***
We are, however, taken too close to winning bingo as Brian reveals that these queer friends đŸ˜± “met online”!— & that they “shared anarchist beliefs”. We hope ofc that they did the latter, but we are not sure! Somni & Jamie, by the looks of their tumblrs, def had some juicy anarchist beliefs to share— we think poor Emma did too, bc her X account bears a black flag đŸŽâ€â˜ ïž Whether these beliefs ever reached Ziz is a mystery— we have expressed skepticism in the past, due snootily & superficially to the dearth of anarch-y buzzwords on her blog; but realistically, how could these ideals not have come up in the girls’ chitter-chatter?
We next see their activities described as a “violent rampage”, &— ooh, now we’re gonna find out which pal was so good as to speak to Brian & paint him a fuller picture of Ziz & the gang— right after a charming infographic: 
No, those mean, mean Zizians haven't murdered VT, CA, & PA have they?
Oh, jk: first we’re speaking w/ Lind’s friend— “one of [his] closest friends”. Is this Patrick? Another tenant? Who knows: he goes- as we go- unnamed đŸ€«
We provisionally think this may be Patrick, bc what he has to say is worded almost identically to Patrick’s previous media statements. In Provisional Patrick (PP)’s opinion: 
THCSV had such a ring to it that we excitedly fed PP’s phrase into Chat & asked: what’s the poetic meter? 
Chat broke down the syllables, & reported it shifts between different metrical feet: it combines trochaic, iambic, & dactylic patterns— a daring combo, as per Chat, who thought abt it & decided: “The phrase overall would likely be categorized as free verse rather than following a strict meter.” Like T.S. Eliot, or Carl Sandburg. 
Thank you, Chat! 
We continue to think that PP is PP based on what we learn next: 
The friend said he took multiple computers from box trucks on the property containing what he believes to be instruments for surgery owned by the members, including scalpels.
Patrick— w/ some others— did indeed venture into the girls’ box trucks, which have variously been described as “creepy” & as a “work of art”. We are, w/ this description, firmly in creepytown! What, for the love of god, could those girls have been doing w/
 scalpels? 
Well, we know they weren’t planning on dismembering Mr. Lind & stuffing him inside lye containers— that would be an arduous undertaking. We do know the girls— in pursuit of their “work[s] of art”— were engaged in v. clever electrical work & in other DIY homemaking. Could they have been stripping wires? Making cuts in insulation? They did have multiple computers— were they perhaps doing fine & delicate computer repair? 
We dk, bc Brian leaves it there— ofc implying neither homemaking nor techie pursuits; implying “VIOLENCE” as it blares in his headline. We rlly didn’t know what to make of this, so we read PP’s discovery to our v. wise gf, who turned white. “He’s implying,” she whispered, “that they were doing surgeries on each other!” 😼 No! Brian would never! 
Would he? The q. is still up in the air, bc it shocked our gf so much that we quickly changed the subject.
***
The good news is, next Brian asks an easy question— yet a hard question: a question which has haunted us for 1+ months: “WHAT IS THE ‘ZIZIAN’ GROUP?” An excellent koan: a seemingly nonsensical statement, a challenge to conventional thinking, maybe even an invite to deeper ponderation. 
The answer, whatever it is, appears paradoxical: a combo of “nothing?” + “it is a thing now!” + “a bundle of reactivity, rumors, hearsay, & ‘phobias”. 
Brian disagrees. He answers his own q. matter-of-factly: “The Zizians are named for LaSota
 who goes by the NICKNAME ‘Ziz’”. Brian then plagiarizes the Associated Press (are journalists allowed to plagiarize AP? Maybe so, bc everybody does it đŸ€·đŸ»â€â™€ïž), winning us lots of bingo points & making us certain that we need to add an extra row to the chart: a row that includes, “says in her writings that she is a transgender woman”! Ziz looms up ahead of us, “reportedly [railing] against perceived enemies in writings”; while those meek & mild Rationalists tremble in the corner: merely a “[group] which operate[s] mostly online and seek[s] to understand human cognition through reason and knowledge” 😇
W/ that, Brian
 takes his leave? Wait, who was the “‘Zizians’’ friend”?? Who— oh, we skipped a section: we skipped “‘Zizian’ members prepared for ‘violence of some form’: Acquaintance”. 😼‍💹 At last: whom is our friend? Whom could it be? Wh— 😡 Jessica Taylor, what are YOU doing here???
đŸ˜€ How she finds the time to talk to all of these rags, we’ll never know. Let’s see, what does Jessica have to say now— ok, we’re describing the scene in Ophelia’s & Milo’s prius— pistols, ammunition, night vision goggles, face respirators, ballistic helmet, shooting range targets, radios, tin foil, Milo’s acid & cipher journal
 Jessica reviews the above, & muses: “It seems like, based on what was in the car, they might have been preparing for some sort of operation or violence of some form. In terms of having bullets and walkie-talkies and wanting not to be observed.” 
â˜č Is this our New News, Jessica? Shall this be our tasty tidbit for the day? You’re telling us you sold our cow at the market, & you brought to us
 this bean? 
& w/ that, Brian est fini! We are so confused. Right up top, he promised us that “Both [of our friends] agree that group had surgical instruments and were plotting violence”. 
He gave us plots aplenty— obscure tho they may be— but how could Jessica agree that the group in Vallejo— whose number did not include Ophelia— had surgical instruments? She couldn’t have, & to her credit, seems to not have— there’s no indication the subj. came up, busy as they were speculating on that damn prius. Maybe Brian misunderstood: maybe when Jessica said that bullets & walkie-talkies seemed to belie some kind of operation, he thought she meant open heart surgery đŸ€­

We leave Brian in a daze— clutching our bingo card:
& we turn to

***
Ugh, it’s the NY Post. 
“As Zizian ‘cult’ leader is arrested, here’s what the vegan transgender group believes — and other disturbing deaths members are linked to” (to which members are linked?) comes to us via Megan Palin (not, alas, of the illustrious Palins) & Dana Kennedy. 
Megan is a senior reporter who “was won multiple national awards” â˜ș For the Post, she has written on the “Anti-Israel activist accused of torching Teslas”, who she claims “also supported Luigi Mangione”; &, for good measure, on the “Trans Tesla vandal— who allegedly threw molotov cocktails”— about whom she says such scandalous things that we won’t repeat them here. Dana has written on “X-rated seminars being taught in posh NYC private schools”, & on “corruption at a housing development-turned-illegal alien sanctuary in Texas”.
What will the M & D team make of our captivating cabal?
***

M & D deadname Ziz immediately, this is so— but they also call her “Mysterious” & “elusive”, which is quite cool. Our beleaguered cabal shows up this time as a  “largely transgender, vegan group”, & Ziz gets reintroduced to us as— surprise, surprise— she who “previously went by Ziz online”. Cut to a remarkable infographic: 
We were unaware that “Zizians” were non-civilians- perhaps military forces, police- or gov’t personnel?đŸ€”
And, after Ziz’s most recent mugshot, an even more remarkable caption: “Although Lasota prefers female pronouns HE was booked by police as male.”
😼 What’s this before our eyes? New News: “Police say members of the Zizian group could number as high as 30”! We had no idea Ziz was so popular— we
 kind of still have no idea, no offense to the cops but we think we’ll drop this in the ÂżDubious News (ÂżDN) bucket— for now! & perhaps adopt “30” as this quarter’s Zizian conversion target đŸ€­đŸ€«
Poor Ziz AGAIN is intro’d to the national public only as “born male but now identifies as female”, & her friend-group is further besmeared w/ what the Post thinks is mud: not only are “many of them
 estranged from their parents”, many of them “take hormones for their gender transitions”! They also get called “anti-sex”, which is weird; Mz. Ziz, as it happens, is dreadfully afraid of seeming like a ~predator~ & so has largely foregone the arena of love to focus on the arena of stopping demonic AI. But we’ve seen no indication that this is a Zizian requisite! 
More weird statements reach us from an “investigator familiar with the Zizians”— investigator? This sleuth asserts: “They talk as if they really believe they have supernatural powers and they believe movies like ‘The Matrix’ are real and they can manipulate reality”— none of which we have seen any evidence for. Our ¿DN bucket overfloweth.

The sleuth continues: “They talk about the Nazis and the Holocaust a lot. They’ve made it very difficult and confusing to catch them. They all have so many aliases and move around a lot. We think a lot of what’s happened can be traced back to Ziz.” 😼 & just like that— w/ his names as criminal aliases— the sleuth wins us bingo! 
As for the rest of what he says
 đŸ„± we won’t even dignify it w/ a response. These are just some anti-fascist friends who live in box trucks, & is it their fault if you can’t catch up w/ them? 
Sure enough, tho, M & D hammer the point home: “Because many of the group use numerous different names and a variety of pronouns
 it makes them more difficult to track according to police sources.” Sooo sinister! They’re doing it just to spite you! Next we find— well, well, well, Jessica Taylor, in the flesh! For shame, Jessica, blabbing to the tabs? Jessica â˜ș modestly admits to “[becoming] friendly with at least four Zizians”— that’s strange, Jessica, Ziz only mentions you once— she is the only “Zizian” to mention you at all! Jessica & the 4 Zs apparently got close at CFAR— described here as 😇 “an organization... which hosts workshops on cognitive science and 'de-biasing' with a mission to 'develop clear thinking for the sake of humanity’s future'”. 
Jessica immediately describes her old pal Ziz (HOPZ) as “creepy”— which is unfortunate bc this, as we’ve said, is the descriptor Mz. Ziz most fears— perhaps on par w/ “aggressive”. Jessica then misgenders HOPZ, & groundlessly connects “[her] group” to “six or seven” suicides! Only 2 of the dead are named: poor Maia (RIP) & Fluttershy (RIP). Maia, we then learn, left a note “referencing RATIONAL thought processes (TP)”— not Zizian TP!— & Fluttershy, in the words of the entity who wrote the mea culpa, was driven to despair not by Ziz, but by John David Pressman, who “spent years convincing her that she was a monster beyond saving, that she was irredeemably evil”. Unconscionable, Jessica, unconscionable. 
Thank god, Jessica has left the building— for now 😡 In her stead arrives John Jenkins— a friend of Lind’s. John is a true friend: never once does he misgender Lind, never once does he call him “creepy”. 
Lind, as per John, “was cool with [the Zizians]. They obviously were a little different but he was very open-minded.”
Little different? How little different?— “By 'different,'” the Post cuts in, John “said he meant the group appeared to be mostly men when they arrived to camp on Lind’s land — but then he noticed mail was coming for them with both male and female names.” And, John continues, “Then we’d see one walk down the street with his shirt off and we’d see boobies”!
đŸ€ŁđŸ€ŁđŸ€ŁđŸ€Ł Never have we seen such language in black & white, oh goodness oh gracious oh— “
It was a little confusing”, concludes John.
đŸ„Č We are laughing too hard to finish this article. We have won at bingo, we will leave it here— noting only that M & D next continue the trend of deadnaming Ophelia, w/ a sophisticated twist which we, again, have never seen before: “Ophelia, nĂ©e [Redacted]” 💀 
Au revoir, M & D, et merci beaucoup 🙏 This has been a whirlwind tour of the News on News. À la prochaine, dear readers. Bonne nuit, et bonne chance 😉
*****
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