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August 5, 2020
At the Wednesday Night Café...
... you can write about whatever you want.
And thanks for using the Althouse Portal when you shop at Amazon.
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Drove across the Madison isthmus today, twice, during the traditional rush hour. Little traffic. It really is a different world at the moment.
You could play kick ball on Boylston Street mid morning these days...
Yikes.
jvb
"It is not a too-mah"
...but ya know what is? Liberalism.
Hypocritical, Cancelling-culture, petty, pernicious Liberalism.
https://reason.com/2020/08/04/kindergarten-cop-is-canceled-likened-to-birth-of-a-nation/
You know, it's often easy to ignore just how insane Japan's foreign/military policy was in the late 30's and early 40's.
Think of it, between 1937 and 1941 they started wars with the world's most populous nation (China), the world's largest economic and industrial power (US), and the world's largest empire (UK), and that's ignoring their unofficial war with the USSR in 1939.
I know the Nazi's strategic incompetence tends to hog most of the attention in documentaries but I think people don't quite appreciate just how stupid Japan's leadership was as well.
Have I mentioned that it's over?
What's happening with the baseball?
Christopher, 8:52:
Good points. This is why I am never reassured when someone argues that a country would never do [whatever destructive, war-starting thing we're worried about] because "no one would be that crazy."
Japan under the militarists didn't have goals, only appetites. (I stole that.)
Their refusal to quit until very late in 1945 is of a piece with their earlier blindness and arrogance.
Richard Frank's "Downfall" is the best work on late-war Japan and the A-bombs I know of; I haven't read his new book on the 1930s. Bruce Lee's "Marching Orders" also has some good info on the lead-up to the August '45.
Narr
75th anniversary already!
They believed in the divine will of the shinto.
ARM,
Your funders should be paying according to merit.
Oh..that's right. Raaaaaaacist!
Been busy with stuff since dawn with no contact with inconsequential hypertext until now. On the subject of Yosemite, the word is an 18th-century Spanish missionary's rendering of a local Indian term he took, mistakenly, to be their generic name for themselves. As the good father was transliterating into his Castillian Spanish and not English using its rules of orthography, those who pronounce Yosemite as yo-SEH-meh-tee, as popularized by a certain Warner Brothers animated character, are mispronouncing it.
It was prophetic in many ways:
https://mobile.twitter.com/TheCriticalDri2/status/1290923255201767424
Lavazza Coffee has put forth a commercial with excerpts from Charlie Chaplin's final speech in The Great Dictator. Putting aside his political views in general, the speech is best described as the precursor to "Imagine." Its utopian view belies the loss of freedom that political extremism of either side of the spectrum inevitably requires. Nevertheless, here it is - draw your own conclusions:
Lavazza - The New Humanity
My prediction for the next three months:
RBG dies.
Three Gorges Dam fails.
San Andres earthquake.
So I've finished with Alias. Have to say that the final season was treading water most of the time, with the added time-wasters of brand new characters.
The series-ending final episodes were meh.
Meanwhile, the few minutes in that final season with Sydney and Bradley Cooper were much more believable and genuinely affectionate than all that unbelievable farce between Sydney and Vaughn which shows no real signs of warmth or compatibility.
And how many times did they need to neutralize some super bad guy -- only to then have them get away and then they had to confront them again later -- rather than simply shooting them in the head when they were down?
In a followup to Ariana Pekary's resignation from MSNBC's "Last Word With Lawrence O'Donnell" show, Fox News took a shot a MSNBC's Groupthink management.
Ms Pekary responded on her blog to the Fox piece:
Lastly ..., I have to emphasize that my concerns are not ideological in nature. My concerns are economic. The flawed structure of the industry affects everyone. And that means everyone - red state, blue state, purple, whatever. My goal is to work to create a fair arena for discussion, debate, and reliable information. Thoughtful, independent voices should be promoted. I firmly believe that our democracy will not succeed otherwise.
As it turns out, Fox News inadvertently proved me right. My concern, clearly stated in the post, is with the entire industry because each outlet uses the same funding model. That includes Fox News, of course, but they couldn’t help but to turn my statement into a divisive piece of clickbait. The headline skewed the intention of my piece and they removed almost all of the context in which I explain the systemic nature of the problem. That is unfortunate, but not surprising.
HINDSIGHT 2020
is "I would have never done [illegal/inappropriate] Thing X,
...if I knew then what I know now"
really exculpatory?
Pete Hamill is dead. He had a life worth living including an affair with Jacqueline Onassis. I wonder if he wrote any kind of memoir about it to be published posthumously. It must have been the most interesting story of his romantic life, but maybe he buried the lede so to speak. Gentlemen's code or something....He was reliably leftist in his thinking, but he had some original insights and he was a good writer who sometimes caught the poetry in the tedium of our moments.....I never read any of his novels, but his columns were always interesting. I don't mean this as a knock, but maybe his best writing was in brief observations about transient events.
Some people have seen people as opportunity, and, some people see people as people.
That's basically it.
Christopher writes: ...but I think people don't quite appreciate just how stupid Japan's leadership was as well.
Stupid, you say? That's one of Quaestor's most frequently used words because nothing quite applies so aptly to much that makes the news these days, however, we should be more circumspect when discussing early Shōwa era Japanese culture.
Firstly, ignorance of the West was hardly confined to leadership. With the exception of the few people who received their education in Europe or America, such ignorance was common. While it is true that Tojo Hideki, simultaneously premier and army minister in late 1941, was particularly unappreciative of the industrial capacity of the United States, the important decisions which sealed Japan's fate were made by the Konoe cabinet, a body of much more learned men. The opinions of the average Japanese regarding America were formed in large part by pulp literature and Hollywood movies. The most popular American movies in 1939 were B Westerns. The most widely published American author was Zane Grey. The inculcated image of America was of a desolate and arid wasteland sparsely populated by a turbulent and disunited people dependent on a few six-gun wielding samurai to keep a semblance of order. The fact that destitute Oklahoma farmers, a class of Americans with whom the average Japanese could easily sympathize, were able to migrate 1500 miles to California in their own cars and trucks was incomprehensible.
There were many Japanese who fully appreciated the grave danger posed by war to the knife with the United States, however, most of these men were out of power and unable to strongly influence Japanese policy; many of them were career sailors, Admirals Yonai and Nomura among them. Most IJN career officers who reached flag rank before 1941 had traveled widely in the West, giving them a certain advantage over their coevals in the Imperial army. However, the quite bitter rivalry between the two services rendered the sides immune to each other's entreaties. Yamamoto Isoroku is a special case, however. While his experience in America gave him, or should have given him, a keen appreciation of the fighting potential of the west, he evidently ignored that experience. Personal pride led him to advocate a course of action in the Pacific that could hardly have been better calculated to arouse a complacent and politically chaotic United States in the face of much opposition in the IJN general staff, including Yonai, Yamamoto's close ally in the matter of the Tripartite Pact. Things got to the point that Yamamoto resorted to naked blackmail to cow the navy general staff into surrendering their constitution authority on strategic matters to an officer in charge of fleet operations alone.
Secondly, the Japanese language itself exerted a pernicious influence on Japanese misconceptions. Admiral Nomura found it impossible to make himself understood by the Imperial foreign office regarding the degree of mistrust and anger engendered in the FDR administration by the Japanese takeover of French Indochina. Japanese is a language highly dependent on the immediate context as understood by speaker and listener and consequently ill-suited to long-distance telecommunications. The miscommunications between Nomura's Washington legation and Tokyo aren't the only example of this linguistic difficulty. There are dozens of other examples.
Lastly, to appreciate the origins of the Pacific War, one needs to appreciate the resentments, justified or not, harbored by many Japanese against the United States. While few people longed for a return to a pre-industrial shogunate autocracy, many Japanese bitterly resented the fact that it was American gunboat diplomacy and not the popular will of the Japanese people that pried open the stubborn Tokugawa oyster to reveal the pearl inside a Japan held forcibly in the 16th century for more than 250 years. The intervention of the United States in the Russo-Japanese War further exacerbated those resentments in that many believed the Tsar received a "get out of jail free" card from Theodore Roosevelt, thus denying Japan its just desserts. Finally, there is the tragic coincidence of the Great Tokyo Earthquake of 1925 and the Great Depression. To the average Japanese the fires had hardly been quenched when economic circumstances far removed from Japanese influence devasted their country more thoroughly than the earthquake. Many believed the propaganda that blamed America for Japan's suffering.
"According to a new Gallup survey, nearly nine out of 10 respondents — and more than eight of 10 African Americans — oppose having #police spend less time in their areas."
Then why does the headline say "blacks" and not "Marxists"?
They think, because they can't tell the difference, that I can't tell the difference.
Matt Walsh Looked Up Every Case Of An Unarmed Black Man Shot By Cops In 2019, but didn't look up the racist history of the United States whites are hiding - which is the context for everything he is looking up - and his lying ass knows it.
Why do white folks lie?
has Assange been ordered to testify re Seth Rich?? If True...
... "Assange Didn't Kill Himself"
Holy fucking shit; Trump did not know which political party the Senate Majority Whip, Sen. John Thune, belonged to.
https://mobile.twitter.com/kathrynw5/status/1291192921765449731
(This occurred after Thune was confronted by reporters with the idea that Trump floated, about doing his nomination acceptance speech from the White House, and Thune’s response was the out-loud question, “Is that even legal?” Reporters later asked Trump about that reaction by Thune, and Trump apparently asked what party Thune belonged to.)
It must be so hard to be President when you’re not sitting in front of a tv watching the Fox News Channel. How the heck could anybody know who John Thune is, when he’s never on Fox & Friends or Hannity?
Where's the surge, the second wave?
Im Not Seeing It
From Sharyl Attkisson:
NEW: Hard fact check truth:
I traced 18 of 20 Facebook independent oversight board members to political activist George Soros and/or his foundations.
This helps explain why fact checks so often seem to cut in one direction and are not neutral.
There's your real journalist...
Then why does the headline say "blacks" and not "Marxists"?
I don't understand your complaint. The headline is Why won’t Democrats listen to blacks about defunding cops? It's consistent with the story that follows, which reports that polls say most blacks don't want the police defunded, they want policing improved. But the Democrats are listening to the Marxists who want to defund the police. They're not listening to the most blacks.
Gahrie said..."My prediction for the next three months:
RBG dies.
Three Gorges Dam fails.
San Andres earthquake."
Hey, why not? It's 2020. The horsemen of the Apocalypse are saddled up.
Diogenes - he decided life was meaningless so he sat in a 'barrel' for 40 years - Alexander the great once came to him and asked "What is the meaning of Life?" He said "Could you just step aside, you're blocking the sun".
Ann, have I written anything terrible - you would tell me, no? I think I sometimes abuse your politeness, your good graces, by being drunk and writing to much - in your 'vulnerable' hour, ie whilst your sleeping! Sorry. But don't take it out on me in your waking hour. Don't be irrational. I'm sorry if I'm irrational. Sorry.
Let my 'freak flag' fly.
Jeff said...
I don't understand your complaint.
It's badly written. Clear?
You're worried I will say something, whilst you're sleeping, terrible. But that's been tested - proven I will never do that, to you. These three, four months I have been absolutely in the pits - have I once obviated from the 'idea' we are good?
When I go out I use a shirt that is 10 years old - it stinks of mouse droppings and old paint. There is a way of cleaning 'things' - but how do you wash blood out of the dirt?
It’s funny there are people who think that Trump’s asking what party Thune belonged to can only mean that Trump didn’t know what party Thune belonged to.
"Diogenes - he decided life was meaningless so he sat in a 'barrel' for 40 years - Alexander the great once came to him and asked "What is the meaning of Life?" He said "Could you just step aside, you're blocking the sun"."
Even better, when Alexander wrote to the Spartans, Shall I come as a friend or shall I come as an enemy. The reply, neither. The type case of the laconic.
Richard Frank's "Downfall" is the best work on late-war Japan and the A-bombs I know of;
Agreed. I did not know of a new book and will look for it. Thanks.
Pete Hamill is dead.
Are people supposed to know who that person is, or rather, was?
I skiirt near the skirts, I want to look up them - a drunk little shit - but I don't. Is that 'because'...?
To be 'princiled', to be 'good', to be rational - it hit me, today. '1984'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC_lLK1ghlM
What is wrong is oneself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtI7TWSi5sw
To be 'principeled'
Beauty, itself - Bowie didn;t know that!
I'm obsessed with David Bowie - I believe he had something to say - is that stupid?
What if I just drank myself to death - is that not what I am doing? - would you care? I am, Ann, one in a billion, a lotteray?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krxU5Y9lCS8
Back gamman and eggs, ham and eggs, very English, we decided we were very ill
I'm drunk, sorry
All that is stupid - I'm old
No one understands me, even trying to understand me, the stink of myself, as if it existed, like corpses, they flew, but did they exist, I suppose not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj405bbDsoY
What I need, Ann, is food - how miserable could that be?
We back him - why? Because he's a poet.
Poet, what an idiot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj405bbDsoY
What does one know about human beings? I know, for instance, that bobby Creigar was a great - great - guitarist but he looked up to Jim as if he were a God - Why? Because he was a God.
Bobby Krieger, so descreet, so good - Im trying who can be like him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef9QnZVpVd8
Somtimes you search and you find - perfection - how do I know that? Because I know it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef9QnZVpVd8
I love this song - first, its last time the beatles were together but, second, his dismissal of what we going through. I always thought he was a prophet - - I thought he was like Jesus and DhLawrence rolled into one. John Lennon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODIvONHPqpk
Poetry is not a tidy room, a tidy mind, it's not comfort, it's drunk and stupid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usNsCeOV4GM
What is disgusting about human beings, let us say, man? A stupidity and a cowardice. My contempt is endless. Stand up, clean your room, shut up.
This - sorry:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGLGzRXY5Bw
I'm very drunk - sorry.
You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it's evolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out
Don't you know it's gonna be
All right, all right, all right
You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We'd all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know
We're doing what we can
But if you want money for people with minds that hate
All I can tell is brother you have to wait
Don't you know it's gonna be
All right, all right, all right
You say you'll change the constitution
Well, you know
We all want to change your head
You tell me it's the institution
Well, you know
You better free you mind instead
But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao
You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow
Don't you know it's gonna be
All right, all right, all right
All right, all right, all right
All right, all right, all right
All right, all right
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: John Lennon / Paul McCartney
Revolution 1 lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Royalty Network
Do you remember when they actualy had talent? When they played ur, an instrument?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo759np9-nM
The 'pretense' of 'working class' - you never worked a day in your life - Roger Waters, a pretentious, middle class pric and now hes telling us about Isreal? That's absurd.
We didn't ask for this - to die in your trenches, to fight your wars - to be left alone, that's all we want
I wish I made the grade.
This I can't deal with - it's Martina and my son.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kszLwBaC4Sw
It's my attic - I bought that - Czech Republic.
Quaestor
I'm simply pointing out that they chose to fight three simultaneous wars against resource rich countries with far larger populations, two of whom were quite a bit more technologically and economically developed.
You can argue all you want about cultural conflicts, media based misconceptions, and language difficulties but there is no time or place in history where that is anything but an idiotic move.
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