Althouse: Office hours.

May 3, 2016

Office hours.

The view from my office, yesterday.

Talk about anything you want.

30 comments:

YoungHegelian said...: A very interesting exchange on O'Reilly last night, highlighting a reason while the primaries went off the rails for the anointed Republican "front runners".

One of the guest analysts was complaining about how much air time the networks, especially Fox, had given Trump. O'Reilly said:

I could not get Jeb Bush on this program, he didn't want the free air time. Ted Cruz was very hard to book in the beginning and John Kasich is still almost impossible to book. So a lot of this whining is their own fault.

Okay, so just how stupid do you have to be to NOT go on O'Reilly if you're a Republican candidate? Who cares what an asshole he can be -- it's the fastest way to reach the largest possible audience of your likely voters in the country. That these candidates didn't want to go on O'Reilly because they couldn't control the course of the interview says something appalling about these candidates, & it reflects poorly on their moral courage.

Say what you want about Trump, but he'll get into it with anybody, anytime. He's on O'Reilly all the time, & they go at each other, too. I'll often flip over to another channel, because I find it repetitive by now, but there he is, giving the world another free dose of Trump!; 5/3/16, 12:00 PM
Etienne said...: "The Egyptian peasant, who abounds in large numbers, is distinctly lower than the Sicilian, whom I have previously considered at the bottom of the human curve. They are unspeakably dirty in their habits and in their dress. On the fresh water canal I saw a man defecating in the water, while below him, at a distance of not more than ten yards, women were washing clothes; and a short distance farther downstream a village was drawing drinking water." General G. Patton Diary, December 13, 1943; 5/3/16, 12:04 PM
Sydney said...: When did it become fashionable to call people coming to this country "migrants?" We used to call them "immigrants." Perhaps I am mistaken, but I think of a "migrant" as a temporary worker, someone who is here to work then go back home or move on to another location to work. I think of an "immigrant" as someone who is going to make this country their home. Am I wrong? I think I am not.; 5/3/16, 12:21 PM
Hagar said...: And in his younger days, Georgie Patton wrote a treatise recommending that the U.S. Cavalry adobt a straight stabbing sword in place of the curved sabre.; 5/3/16, 12:21 PM
David Begley said...: Trump asserts Ted's dad knew Lee Harvey Oswald in NOLA right before JFK was shot.

Trump must believe voters are idiots. He's right.; 5/3/16, 12:47 PM
Crimso said...: Things aren't looking real confident out there.; 5/3/16, 1:12 PM
dmoelling said...: A few months back I watched a man on the street interview with two young Trump supporters. One was a man who was 100% sold on something to do about the establishment but the other was a young woman who worked as a nurse in a nursing home and was convinced Donald would do something about all the high co-pays her patients had.

Pleasant people who had no idea what Trump would or could do about their desires, just that he was a celebrity who appeared to be able to do unspecified things. This is no change from Obama. People read into him all kinds of wonderful benefits.

You can see the same effects in Greece and other places where austerity at the government level is called for. Voters just chalk it up to others getting a sweet deal and they feel they deserve their share.; 5/3/16, 1:12 PM
tds said...: it seems rather smallish, like a window on a plane; 5/3/16, 1:15 PM
Coconuss Network said...: Migrants arriving in Germany are temporary residents, and will work temporarily, until their countries at war are safe again. Maybe USA is allowing refugees as Migrants as well, unless they get a green card and are then immigrants.; 5/3/16, 1:17 PM
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...: Nice view. Purely by chance my office window looks down on the lay-down yard of a crappy neighboring muffler hut that has a long, multi-generation, reputation for selling drugs. The teenage grandson of the owners lives in a decaying travel trailer in the yard, which he periodically tags as his whim and drug use moves him. In between not-so-discreet drug deals, he's busy spray painting stolen tweaker bikes and miming his gangsta-rap moves in front of a full length mirror propped against the fence. It's a depressing view of humanity, but it makes me profoundly grateful for my own sons and how incredibly blessed we are.; 5/3/16, 1:26 PM
Char Char Binks, Esq. said...: A straight sword is fine for stabbing, but a curve facilitates slashing, which is probably more useful. A cavalry saber is not a lance.; 5/3/16, 1:27 PM
Tom B said...: Two separate incidents of racist graffiti in Madison: one case seems to merit 'hate crime' charges, yet in the other case the perpetrator will not be prosecuted at all. Compare this story to this one. What in the world could explain such vastly different outcomes for the exact same crime?

Unless.... no, it couldn't be. Justice is color-blind here in Madison.; 5/3/16, 1:32 PM
Birkel said...: Can we talk about those terrible blinds?; 5/3/16, 1:40 PM
Anonymous said...: Let me guess Begley, Oswald did it all on his lonesome? Roger Stone wrote an incredible book about this, and he is close acquaintances with Trump.

I'm guessing Don might know a bit of inside baseball on this one. Either way, it was bait. Cruz can't take heat, because he has zero sense of humor.

Checkmate.; 5/3/16, 2:03 PM
Etienne said...: tds said...it seems rather smallish, like a window on a plane

Doesn't look high enough to kill you when it becomes necessary to leap.; 5/3/16, 2:04 PM
Char Char Binks, Esq. said...: @Tom B

It's unfathomable. And the graffiti that is supposedly a hate crime used symbols that aren't necessarily racist or antisemitic, but the one that was supposedly anti-racist contained an explicitly racist message.; 5/3/16, 3:25 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "Doesn't look high enough to kill you when it becomes necessary to leap."

It's on the 7th floor... at a part of the building where the ground level is the 5th floor. (We're on a hill.); 5/3/16, 3:27 PM
Char Char Binks, Esq. said...: I might add, a specifically racist message that is defended by "progressives".; 5/3/16, 3:27 PM
Char Char Binks, Esq. said...: The fifth floor is the worst for jumping. You can jump from the third floor or lower on grass, or the eighth floor or higher. Subtract one floor for pavement.; 5/3/16, 3:49 PM
Rick said...: A quick update on the Tunsil pot smoking hack from the NFL Draft. New reports are the hacker was a former financial advisor, not the stepfather as initially suspected.

Follow up: why does an amateur have a financial adviser? Is this referring to some sort of hanger-on who advised him about whether to go pro? Or was he just hired?; 5/3/16, 3:51 PM
Hagar said...: Georgie's thesis was that the curved blade came from the Eurasian steppes via the Ottomans and was developed to slash through the stuffed fabric coats they wore for protection out there in those days, but did not work well on the steel breastplates worn by the French and German cuiraissiers, which were whom he expected to be mixing it up with in his youth.; 5/3/16, 4:36 PM
Harold said...: Weekend before last, the young, pretty Asian mom across the street and two door down had a Bday party for her child on the front lawn. A whole bunch of young ladies in skimpy attire present. I got my binoculars, and looked through the kitchen blinds.
They smiled and waved to me.; 5/3/16, 4:45 PM
jaydub said...: People I know here in Spain keep asking me "what's going on with the US election? Can Trump or Sanders really win? If so, why?" I usually answer that the people of the US are really angry at their government, and it's not so much that they are Trump or Sanders fans, but that Trump thumbs his nose at the governing elites and Sanders is an anti-capitalist, and people like that. Then people ask me why Americans are so angry at their government or dissatisfied with their economic system; I tell them it is because only 49% of the world's 1%ers (those making about $34,500/ year) live in the US under capitalism, hence they are desperate for change. Then the rubes ask, "but if the US already has half the 1%ers, exactly why are they so desperate for change?" And I then try to explain that while many poor people in the US get food stamps, subsidized housing, earned income credits, free breakfast and lunch for their school-age children, utility payments and the like, many poor people in the US also have to make do without central air conditioning, multiple color TVs or second cars and are squeezed into only 1700 sqft of living space for a family of four (okay, maybe a family of three if the father is absent.) I ask them if they could live in conditions like that without becoming angry and frustrated or looking to overthrow their entire economic system. They then usually ask "what is central air conditioning?" I don't like going down that rabbit hole, so I say, "okay, pretend you have to squeeze your family into that 1700 sqft, largely rent-free single family dwelling, how would you feel?" The more smart asses among them say they would feel like the King of Spain, but that's not a fair comparison because they aren't Americans, hence are not entitled to those kinds of expectations. And don't even think about trying to explain why Americans are so angry at having a median family income that is only 5 times higher than the world median income, and to make matters worse, that the bottom 47% are furious that they don't get to pay any income taxes. Unfortunately, we seldom get past this point in the conversation without them shaking their heads and walking away. It's almost like they think we aren't very sophisticated as a people. God knows I've tried, but I don't know how to fight that kind of ignorance.; 5/3/16, 4:58 PM
AllenS said...: Trump is kicking ass in Indiana at the present time.; 5/3/16, 5:12 PM
mikeyes said...: Donald Trump accused Ted Cruz' father of being a partner of Lee Harvey Oswald during the time of JFK's assassination quoting "sources" (the National Inquirerer) that had pictures showing a man they claim is the father in question with Oswald. Senator Cruz responded with outrage, but it still seemed to me that he was in his championship debate mode. Imagine if the Princeton team had a debate with Stanford at Yale but Stanford decided to send the band instead of the debate team. While Mr. Cruz was expounding brilliantly on the subject, the Stanford coterie is yelling "You Suck!" Princeton wins the debate judges but loses the Yale audience who cheer the Stanford band.
Donald Trump is the master of chaos, he disdains the rules while Senator Cruz lives by them. By the time this little kerfuffle is even parsed, there will be several more in place. Senator Cruz simply doesn't have a chance if he plays by Mr. Trump's rules (or lack of) and Cruz is terrible when he tries the same thing. (Of course no one else in the field was able to deal with Trump either.)
Trump really does rule this game.; 5/3/16, 5:29 PM
AllenS said...: Cruz rallying and now only down 20%.; 5/3/16, 5:32 PM
Hagar said...: Actually, I think cuirasses were last seen, except on parade grounds, in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. Winston Churchill participated in the last known full-blown horse cavalry charge with drawn sabers in the Sudan in 1899.
But Georgie was right that a cavalry charge with stabbing swords would be more effective than with curved sabers against most anyone but the horsemen of the steppes.

The cavalries of the world rode into WWI on horseback, but they rode out in trucks and tanks.
Georgie and Eisenhower became friends as "tankers."; 5/3/16, 5:33 PM
Etienne said...: Bonnards cat always looks so mean. Ears flat and the paw revealing the claws...

Meow!; 5/3/16, 6:34 PM
Saint Croix said...: happy Mother's Day ahead of time!

don't forget to use the Althouse portal; 5/4/16, 12:15 AM
Saint Croix said...: you would not believe all the work she does for no pay

amazing, truly; 5/4/16, 12:15 AM