"The man who is not a husband, father, and soldier is not a man."

I took these photos of the movie "A Special Day," which is playing on The Criterion Channel (in its current tribute to Marcello Mastroianni). Begin around 53:23 to view just this segment, which has Mastroianni's character poking around inside the apartment of Sophia Loren's character and finding her fascism scrapbook. (It's 1938, in Rome.)

"So you can have people who attempt to gesticulate. Again, modern politicians, you’ll see this sometime where they feel like, 'I’m supposed to be making hand gestures'..."

"... and they’re terrible at it. And it undercuts it. Cicero and Quintilian give some very amusing examples from ancient Rome. He says, there was this one guy who when he spoke, looked like he was trying to swat away flies because there were just these awkward gestures. Or another who looked like he was trying balancing a boat in choppy seas. And my favorite is there was one orator who supposedly was prone to making, I guess, languid supple motions. They actually named a dance after this guy, and his name was Titius. And so Romans could do the Titius, which is this dance that was imitating this orator who had these comically bad gesticulation...."

From "Transcript for Gregory Aldrete: The Roman Empire – Rise and Fall of Ancient Rome | Lex Fridman Podcast #443"

The segment on gestures begins here. Or watch the video:

How does this go on for 16 years?

I'm reading "Charges against Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs allege 16 years of abuse and crimes/The music mogul was arrested on charges of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking. He is being held without bail" (WaPo).

The crimes Combs and his associates are accused of committing and covering up include sex trafficking, narcotics distribution, arson and kidnapping. Many of these alleged crimes took place at illegal sex parties that Combs referred to as “freak offs.” During these parties, Combs allegedly threw objects at the victims and dragged them by their hair.

"Roy finds deculturation everywhere: in viral controversies over whether emotional-support animals belong on airplanes..."

"... in the recent, charged debate over whether Israeli or Lebanese people invented hummus; in Disney’s 'remixing' of traditional fairy tales into profitable mega-franchises; in the struggles of universities to attract humanities majors. What unifies these phenomena, he thinks, is that they unfold in a cultural vacuum. In the past, a society could rely on 'a shared system of language, signs, symbols, representations of the world, body language, behavioural codes, and so on' to govern all sorts of situations. Today, in the absence of that shared background, we must constantly renegotiate what’s normal, acceptable, and part of 'us.' ... [Roy writes] 'Here we are on a terrain in which culture has no positive aspect, since the old culture has been delegitimized and the new one does not meet the necessary condition of any culture, which is the presence of implicit, shared understandings'.... Around the world, cultures aren’t being replaced by other cultures; the idea of 'Westernization' is a red herring, he suggests, because, despite the worldwide popularity of pizza and 'Succession,' what’s actually ascendant are 'weak identities' constructed through that 'collection of tokens.' It’s a bit like moving from a place where your family has lived for generations to a faceless suburb. You could adopt your neighbors’ traditions, if they have any, but they don’t—they’re just a random collection of people who happen to live near one another. 'You do you,' they say...."

From "Is Culture Dying? The French sociologist Olivier Roy believes that 'deculturation' is sweeping the world, with troubling consequences." The article, by Joshua Rothman in The New Yorker, reviews Oliver Roy's book "The Crisis of Culture: Identity Politics and the Empire of Norms."

Rothman writes "I’m one of those people who is 'spiritual, but not religious'" — people who is?!! I'm one of those people who remember when The New Yorker had a noble tradition of meticulous editing. Has that degenerated into a nonculture of if it sounds good, write it? But we've already analyzed this grammar issue and come up with the answer. It's a rule. If you don't follow it, your venerable institution is crumbling. You're just a random collection of scribblers who happen to publish under the same cover.

Rothman's last paragraph gestures at the struggle over immigration that's roiled American politics:

Sunrise — 6:18, 6:41, 6:43, 6:46.

"Hundreds of pagers blew up at the same time across Lebanon on Tuesday in an apparently coordinated attack that killed eight people and injured more than 2,700..."

"... health officials said on Tuesday.... Hezbollah said that pagers belonging to its members had exploded and accused Israel of being behind the attack. The Israeli military declined to comment. The wave of explosions left many people in Beirut in a state of confusion and shock. Witnesses reported seeing smoke coming from people’s pockets, followed by small blasts that sounded like fireworks or gunshots.... Lebanon’s health minister, Firass Abiad, said... many of the victims had injuries to their faces, particularly the eyes, as well as to their hands and stomachs.... Three officials briefed on the attack said that it had targeted hundreds of pagers belonging to Hezbollah operatives who have used such devices for years to make it harder for their messages to be intercepted. The devices were programmed to beep for several seconds before exploding, according to the officials...."

The NYT reports.

"Hamas’s reasoning is simple — winning simply means surviving and, at least for now, the group has managed to do that..."

"... even if it is severely weakened... In the interview, Mr. Meshal made clear that Hamas officials are not in a rush to conclude a cease-fire with Israel at any price, and will not give up on their main demands for an end to the war and an Israeli withdrawal. Independent analysts have made similar assessments about Hamas’s priorities. 'They completely feel time is on their side,' said Ghaith al-Omari, an expert on Palestinian affairs. 'They think they’re the only game in town.'...At the war’s start, President Biden expressed a similar position to that of Mr. Netanyahu — that Hamas needed to be eliminated. But Mr. Biden no longer speaks of its eradication, and both the United States and Israel have taken part in indirect negotiations with Hamas. Mr. Meshal said he took that to mean that the United States was acknowledging Hamas was not going anywhere...."

"Hamas Is Surviving War With Israel. Now It Hopes to Thrive in Gaza Again. Khaled Meshal, one of Hamas’s most senior officials, said in an interview that the militant group expects to play a decisive role in the enclave when the war is over" (NYT).

"And, sadly, the press is still not able to cover Trump the way that they should. They careen from one outrage to the next...."

"What was outrageous three days ago is no longer on the front pages, even though it threatens the physical safety of so many people, particularly... immigrants that he and Vance have decided to demonize. And I don't understand why it's so difficult for the press to have a consistent narrative about how dangerous Trump is. The late, great journalist Harry Evans one time said that journalists should really try to achieve objectivity. And by that, he said, I mean, they should cover the object. Well, the object in this case is Donald Trump, his demagoguery, his danger to our country and the world, and stick with it.... The second thing, though, is that part of what Trump is counting on is for people to get desensitized. I mean, oh, my gosh, did you hear what he said yesterday? Did you hear who he attacked? Did you hear the viciousness? And it's just, like with a shrug, OK, fine we're moving on...."

From "Hillary Clinton: I Don't Get 'Why It's So Difficult For The Press To Have A Consistent Narrative About How Dangerous Trump Is'" (Real Clear Politics, with video from the Rachel Maddow show).

"Of the many recent failures of the American left, one of the greatest is making entry-level battle-of-the-sexes humor seem avant-garde."

"(Did you know that women often run relationship decisions past their female friends? Bitches be crazy! That sort of thing.) As Rogan himself says after he emerges in stonewashed jeans, clutching a glass of something amber on ice: 'Fox News called this an anti-woke comedy club. That’s just a comedy club!'... Rogan now lives in Austin, which has recently become known for its transformation from chilled-out live-music paradise to a miniature version of the Bay Area—similarly full of tech workers, but with fewer IN THIS HOUSE, WE BELIEVE… signs.... It is... the center of the Roganverse, an intellectual firmament of manosphere influencers, productivity optimizers, stand-ups, and male-wellness gurus. Austin is at the nexus of a Venn diagram of 'has culture,' 'has gun ranges,' 'has low taxes,' and 'has kombucha.'"

Writes Helen Lewis, in "How Joe Rogan Remade Austin/The podcaster and comedian has turned the city into a haven for manosphere influencers, just-asking-questions tech bros, and other 'free thinkers' who happen to all think alike" (The Atlantic).

That's a free-access link, because there's a lot going on in that article, beyond what I chose to excerpt.

How to argue that Trump is responsible for attracting assassins without catching hell for blaming the victim.

That's what the elite media commentators are working hard to figure out, I think, scanning the many headlines this morning. I tired of reading the commentary before even beginning, and I am also tired of the columns reacting to it.

So I'll choose one piece, on the chance that it might go a bit deeper. It's by Peter Baker in the NYT and the title suggests some sobriety and moderation: "Trump, Outrage and the Modern Era of Political Violence/The latest apparent assassination attempt against the former president indicates how much the American political landscape has been shaped by anger stirred by him and against him."

Excerpt:

At the heart of today’s eruption of political violence is Mr. Trump, a figure who seems to inspire people to make threats or take actions both for him and against him. He has long favored the language of violence in his political discourse, encouraging supporters to beat up hecklers, threatening to shoot looters and undocumented migrants, mocking a near-fatal attack on the husband of the Democratic House speaker and suggesting that a general he deemed disloyal be executed....

Mr. Trump’s critics have at times employed the language of violence as well, though not as extensively and repeatedly at the highest levels. The former president’s allies distributed a video compilation online of various Trump opponents saying they would like to punch him in the face or the like. Some of the more extreme voices on social media in the past day have mocked or minimized the close call at the Florida golf course. Mr. Trump’s allies often decry what they call Trump Derangement Syndrome, the notion that his critics despise him so much they have lost their minds.

Anger, of course, has long been the animating force of Mr. Trump’s time in politics — both the anger he stirs among supporters against his rivals and the anger that he generates among opponents who come to loathe him....

"A liverwurst sandwich with mustard is quite possibly the perfect lunch for me. It tastes somewhere between bologna and bacon."

"It's just such a rich flavor … the texture is great, too."

Said one admirer of liverwurst, perhaps liverwurst's biggest fan, quoted in "Boar's Head ditches liverwurst, a once-popular sandwich staple that Americans no longer stomach/Liverwurst is dropped from product line in wake of product recall and declining popularity" (Fox News).

Boar's Head discovered — so luckily — that its listeria problem was entirely located within a facility that made liverwurst, the product no one liked anyway.

Kind of makes you wonder how anyone got infected, but obviously some people were clinging to liverwurst. 

We'll all be on our best behavior, because — with cameras everywhere, monitored by AI — we'll all be supervised.

Says Oracle's Larry Ellison:

Oracle's Larry Ellison says a surveillance system of police body cams, cameras on cars and autonomous drones, all monitored by AI, will constantly record and report on police and citizens, leading everyone to be on their best behavior pic.twitter.com/RAq5XGaNmZ

— Tsarathustra (@tsarnick) September 15, 2024

Watch the whole Q&A session here.

Sunrise — 6:41, 6:42.

At the Medium Hot Mocha Café...

... you can talk about whatever you want.

Who wrote this headline?! What would taking it to 11 mean in this context?

Meade texts me this headline from a NYT op-ed: "Harris Is Good on Abortion Rights. Now She Needs to Take It to 11."

He comments: "Wouldn’t 'taking it to 11' be analogous to post-birth abortion?"

Cecile Richards is a former president of Planned Parenthood (and the daughter of Ann Richards, who was a memorable governor of Texas). The column asserts that Harris can win by "turning the volume up to 11 on abortion." That is, get louder, not more extreme in one's position, but the headline doesn't dictate that interpretation. It left room for Meade's grim retort.

As for Trump, he's been trying not to exhibit extremism about abortion. He says leave the legislating to the states, and he refuses to answer the question whether he'd sign legislation restricting abortion if he wins the election and gets a Congress inclined to act at the federal level. Why would we trust him? If the answer is no, say no. So what if it's hypothetical. Lots of questions asked of candidates rely on hypotheticals.

By the way — and I know I've linked to this twice before — Wikipedia has an entry for "Up to eleven." Excerpt:

The influence of the phrase "up to eleven" is such that it has been used outside of music; in 2016, for example, astronomer Krzysztof Stanek described the then brightest-known object in the universe, ASASSN-15lh, as being "as if nature took everything we know about magnetars and turned it up to 11".

Kamala Harris sounds so weary of all those people in Pennsylvania. Does she even want to be President?

Let me preface this with the assurance that I have never trusted the people who want to be President, and I have despaired over the structural problem that we're always stuck having to vote for somebody who has strongly desired the presidency. But it is possible occasionally — through ascension from the vice presidency — to end up with a President who didn't want the job.

Please watch the TikTok video I've put at the bottom of this post, after the jump, or you can also go here, for YouTube video (begin at 1:06). Alternatively, read the text.

But you won't get the point from the cold text, so I'll have to ask you to imagine a first rate actress reading the lines in the role of a woman who can barely cover up that she's really had it with being carted around to these bullshit nothing places with their tedious needy people:

"I am feeling very good about Pennsylvania, because there are a lot of people in Pennsylvania who deserve to be seen and heard. That's why I'm here in Johnstown, and I will be continuing to travel around the state to make sure that I'm listening as much as we are talking and, ultimately, I feel very strongly that I've got to earn every vote, and that means spending time with folks in the communities where they live, and so that's why I'm here.  We're going to be spending a lot more time in Pennsylvania."

Harris was speaking at a bookstore in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Can you put your usual partisanship to the side and genuinely empathize with her as human being?