... you can write about anything.
September 12, 2020
Anxious and unsettled?
I always wear a mask when I go outside. But something about it was leaving me anxious and unsettled. I thought about the problem, addressed it, and here is the solution. pic.twitter.com/aUW4jHI3dX
— Steve Martin (@SteveMartinToGo) September 12, 2020
"Sometimes called paltering, the artful use of small, truthful statements to convince people of a much grander lie is a common propaganda technique..."
"... In reality, the existence of arsonists is non-controversial. To wit, arsonists do not cease committing arson simply because of naturally occurring wildfires. Indeed, while revenge, extremism, and profit are all recognized motivations for arson, other fire-setters seek 'thrills, attention and recognition,' according to FEMA.... Close to midnight on Thursday, Facebook said that its third-party fact-checkers had rated as 'false' the allegations of coordinated attacks, which had by that hour spread to hundreds of thousands of its users... Kyle Reyes, the national spokesman for Law Enforcement Today, emphasized in an email that while LET did cite a police source claiming fires may be part of a 'coordinated and planned' attack, LET did not attribute the claim to any specific group or political ideology...."
From "Debunked 'Antifa' Wildfire Rumors Spread on Facebook Overload 911, Spur Calls to Violence" (Gizmodo).
From "Debunked 'Antifa' Wildfire Rumors Spread on Facebook Overload 911, Spur Calls to Violence" (Gizmodo).
"Every passenger and crew member on the plane had a life filled with love and joy, friends and family, radiant hopes and limitless dreams."
"When the plane was hijacked, they called their families and learned that America was also under attack. Then they faced the most fateful moment of their lives. Through the heartache and the tears, they prayed to God, they placed their last calls home, they whispered the immortal words, I love you. Today, those words ring out across these sacred grounds and they shine down on us from Heaven above. When terrorists raised to destroy the seat of our democracy, the 40 of Flight 93 did the most American of things. They took a vote, and then they acted.... In the days and weeks after 9/11, citizens of all faiths, background, colors, and creeds, came together, prayed together, mourned together, and rebuilt together....We were united by our conviction that America was the world’s most exceptional country, blessed with the most incredible heroes, and that this was a land worth defending with our very last breath. It was a unity based on love for our families, care for our neighbors, loyalty to our fellow citizens, pride in our great flag, gratitude for our police and first responders, faith in God, and a refusal to bend our will to the depraved forces of violence, intimidation, oppression, and evil...."
From a transcript of President Trump's speech yesterday in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
From a transcript of Kamala Harris's speech yesterday in Virginia: "I was in California [on 9/11]. It was early in the morning there, I was actually at the gym and then the images started to come on the TVs and everyone stopped, got off their equipment, and we all stood around in utter disbelief, in utter disbelief. Strangers were hugging each other. People that had never spoken to each other before were holding each other and crying. Out of that tragedy and as we try to reconcile and understand what was happening, without any reflection, we as Americans, as our first reaction, without pause, was to hug and hold each other. Perfect strangers. Understanding at our core without reflection, without thinking about it, that we’re all in this together. We’re all in this together.... [I]n times of tragedy, in times of despair, in times of suffering and pain, we by our very nature as who we are, we stand together. We stand together, understanding we are all in this together.... What our attackers fail to understand is that the darkness they hoped would envelop us on 9/11 instead summoned our most radiant and defined human instincts. The instinct to care for one another, to transcend our divisions, and see ourselves as fellow citizens. To race toward danger and risk everything to protect each other. The instinct to unite."
From a transcript of President Trump's speech yesterday in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
From a transcript of Kamala Harris's speech yesterday in Virginia: "I was in California [on 9/11]. It was early in the morning there, I was actually at the gym and then the images started to come on the TVs and everyone stopped, got off their equipment, and we all stood around in utter disbelief, in utter disbelief. Strangers were hugging each other. People that had never spoken to each other before were holding each other and crying. Out of that tragedy and as we try to reconcile and understand what was happening, without any reflection, we as Americans, as our first reaction, without pause, was to hug and hold each other. Perfect strangers. Understanding at our core without reflection, without thinking about it, that we’re all in this together. We’re all in this together.... [I]n times of tragedy, in times of despair, in times of suffering and pain, we by our very nature as who we are, we stand together. We stand together, understanding we are all in this together.... What our attackers fail to understand is that the darkness they hoped would envelop us on 9/11 instead summoned our most radiant and defined human instincts. The instinct to care for one another, to transcend our divisions, and see ourselves as fellow citizens. To race toward danger and risk everything to protect each other. The instinct to unite."
"Nationwide, six teachers have died of Covid-19, reports Katie Shepherd in the Washington Post. 'It isn’t clear whether any of the teachers were infected at school,' she writes."
"Actually, it is clear that only one of the six had any contact with students before becoming sick. In Mississippi, Nacoma James, 42, coached football over the summer till he developed coronavirus-like symptoms and went into quarantine. It’s not known how he was infected. Some of the others had attended a teacher work day at school or visited their classroom, but none had taught students face to face...."
Writes Joanne Jacobs (on her education blog).
Here's the WaPo article: "As students return, the deaths of at least six teachers from covid-19 renew pandemic fears."
Do you think WaPo readers were deceived into thinking going back to classroom teaching is killing teachers? Well, let's just check out the highest rated comments over there. Highest rated: "Trump fans sure picked a funny time to start pretending that they think it’s super important to attend school." Third highest rated: "The blood of teachers, staff, students, parents, and relatives are on the hands of Donald Trump...."
ADDED: That "blood" commenter gets the grammar wrong: "blood... are..."
Writes Joanne Jacobs (on her education blog).
Here's the WaPo article: "As students return, the deaths of at least six teachers from covid-19 renew pandemic fears."
Do you think WaPo readers were deceived into thinking going back to classroom teaching is killing teachers? Well, let's just check out the highest rated comments over there. Highest rated: "Trump fans sure picked a funny time to start pretending that they think it’s super important to attend school." Third highest rated: "The blood of teachers, staff, students, parents, and relatives are on the hands of Donald Trump...."
ADDED: That "blood" commenter gets the grammar wrong: "blood... are..."
Life in New Hampshire.
The Merrimack Police Department in New Hampshire is asking for residents to look out for a missing forty pound, four year old African Serval named Spartacus that is a family pet and legally owned and permitted. pic.twitter.com/6Qexuv8cuf
— Only In Boston (@OnlyInBOS) September 11, 2020
Note: The serval has been found.
For more on servals, here's the Wikipedia article. I see: "The association of servals with human beings dates to the time of Ancient Egypt. Servals are depicted as gifts or traded objects from Nubia in Egyptian art. Like many other species of felid, servals are occasionally kept as pets, although their wild nature means that ownership of servals is regulated in most countries."
"Whether the director (who is a woman) intends to or not, she has made a film that serves to accustom us to the sexualization of children."
"Cuties is dramatically quite bland; if it weren’t for the controversy, there would be nothing to recommend it. There’s no subtlety in it. If you wanted to make a movie or TV show that appealed to illicit prurience among the audience, you would have to make it with the pretense of condemning the thing you’re exploring in it. If you are the sort of person who finds long scenes of twerking pre-teens to be revolting, then Cuties is going to be hard to get through. If you find it exciting, well, perv, this is the movie for you. I’m not saying that this is what the filmmaker set out to do here, but I am saying that this will be the effect. It will be the effect because the director’s aesthetic failure is a moral failure. And it’s a failure by the Netflix brass too, which tipped its hand with the botched initial marketing. It is plainly only interested in Cuties because it wanted a succès de scandale of a movie about twerking Lolitas. It has no interest at all in condemning a Kardashianized society that produces twerking Lolitas.... I find the traditional Islamic society depicted in Cuties to be unjust towards women, and not one in which I would want to live, or would want by daughter to grow up in. But I would prefer that to the Cuties society of sluttified children, and it’s not even close."
Writes Rod Dreher in The American Conservative. Dreher actually watched the movie. There's a clip of one of the dance scenes embedded at the link. I attempted to watch it, and you can see from my screen shot where I gave up forcing myself:
Writes Rod Dreher in The American Conservative. Dreher actually watched the movie. There's a clip of one of the dance scenes embedded at the link. I attempted to watch it, and you can see from my screen shot where I gave up forcing myself:
Joe Rogan and Tim Kennedy analyze the danger of protests.
The first few minutes of this is about the stupidity of open carrying at a protest. At around 5 minutes, Kennedy begins discussing his experience in the military dealing with insurgents in foreign countries, and he compares the American protesters/rioters to insurgents.
At around 10 minutes, Kennedy talks about how perverse it is to defund the police. What is needed is more police, with more funding.
"We are preparing for a mass fatality incident based on what we know and the numbers of structures that have been lost."
Said Andrew Phelps, director of the Oregon Office of Emergency Management, quoted in "A Line of Fire South of Portland and a Yearslong Recovery Ahead/Firefighters continued to battle blazes along the West Coast that have now charred nearly five million acres. At least 17 people are dead, with dozens still missing" (NYT).
Hundreds, if not thousands, of homes have been lost, most of them in Oregon, where an estimated 40,000 people have been evacuated and as many as 500,000 live in evacuation alert zones, poised to flee with a change in the winds. Tens of thousands of people have sought refuge in shelters, with friends and in parking lots up and down Interstate 5 — with emergency responders struggling to create safe shelter for all of them in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. On the outskirts of Portland, a site set up to shelter evacuees had to be evacuated itself as the fire line continued expanding toward suburban towns south of the city. State fire officials said winds had pressed a 36-mile-wide wildfire front toward those outlying Portland suburbs on Thursday, with fire jumping over the community of Estacada and threatening others around the foothills of the Cascade Mountains.... As residents flee fire-ravaged communities, officials have struggled to manage a series of migrations reminiscent of a war zone, with distraught families showing up with little in hand beyond an overwhelming fear that their homes have been lost for good. Emergency responders have only begun to get a sense of how many victims they have and the grueling effort to rebuild that will lie ahead.... On Thursday night, about 2,300 people slept in emergency accommodations provided by the American Red Cross and its partners — 520 of them in traditional mass shelters. Tens of thousands more were crashing with friends or family members. Others were pitching tents in high school football fields or sleeping in shopping mall parking lots — many of them unsure whether they would be displaced for days, or weeks, or more.
"Going more negative while increasing the raw amount of attention — 'copious coverage and aggressive coverage' — allowed networks to retain or even increase the monster ratings Trump offered..."
"... without earning the social opprobrium that came with giving him softball coverage. [CNN president Jeff] Zucker loved Trump for the same reason baseball owners once loved the juiced-up homers hit by Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire: he put butts in seats. He just can’t afford to be seen loving Trump. In another part of the tape, Zucker tried to explain to Cohen the facts of life. One can almost see him wrapping a fatherly arm around [Michael] Cohen’s shoulder: 'Here’s the thing… you cannot be elected president of the United States without CNN. Fox and MSNBC are irrelevant — irrelevant — in electing a general election candidate. You guys have had great instincts, great guts and great understanding of everything... But you're missing the boat on how it works going forward.' Zucker here was trying to play kingmaker, and doing it for real, not as an act of sabotage.... The irony is Trump won in spite of CNN, and it was CNN that ended up changing its tune, not Trump. There may be some genuine political belief behind CNN’s drift in the direction of 'irrelevant' MSNBC, but don’t be fooled into thinking that’s the whole story.... Does CNN feel guilty about the record ratings and billions in revenue the Trump era’s earned them? Just listen to the tape. As a business, they’re more than fond of 'the boss.' They just can’t have us knowing it."
From "Tape shows: ethically, CNN chief a little shaky/A conversation between Jeff Zucker and former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen removes all doubt: our hated president is a beloved commodity to network executives" by Matt Taibbi.
From "Tape shows: ethically, CNN chief a little shaky/A conversation between Jeff Zucker and former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen removes all doubt: our hated president is a beloved commodity to network executives" by Matt Taibbi.
"If I constructed a grid and ended up with 'whites' as one of the entries, I’m really not sure how I would clue it."
CrossBoss muses... but don't click through unless or until you don't care about spoilers to today's NYT crossword.
September 11, 2020
A new dimension of Portland woe: "The mayor of Portland declared a state of emergency as fires burned toward the city."
NYT reports.
The wildfire crisis on the West Coast grew to a staggering scale on Friday, as huge fires merged and bore down on towns and suburbs, state leaders pleaded for firefighting help from neighbors, and hundreds of thousands of people were told to evacuate, including about one of every 10 Oregon residents....
“We have never seen this amount of uncontained fire across our state,” said Gov. Kate Brown of Oregon, where the Beachie Creek and Riverside fires threatened to merge near Portland’s suburbs. Mayor Ted Wheeler of Portland declared a state of emergency on Thursday night, and residents of Molalla, about 30 miles to the south, packed highways as they fled from the approaching fires....
Several law enforcement agencies in Oregon said they had been flooded with inquiries about rumors that activists were responsible.
"Hite did not create the clitoris or discover the female orgasm, but she pointed a lot of women — and men — in the right direction."
"The Hite Report, published in 1976, examined surveys completed by 3,000 women and concluded that, for most women, conventional sexual intercourse was an ineffective means of achieving orgasm and that they did not need men and penetrative sex to find sexual satisfaction. For many women, her findings were a comfort and a potential liberation; for many men, they were shocking and outrageous. Inevitably her report was compared with other landmark sex studies, such as those by Kinsey or Masters and Johnson, although some saw little new in her findings.... Hite was inevitably criticised by male, moral-majority America, which always had a problem with her message. Some declared that her work did not survive serious scrutiny.... She then turned her attention to men, with The Hite Report on Male Sexuality (1981), featuring an analysis of responses from 7,239 men to questions about rape, pornography, homosexuality, adultery and male-female relations. The answers led her to conclude that repressed anger and infidelity were common characteristics of American marriage. 'There is a gut feeling that something is wrong — that although there are beautiful elements to sex as we know it, somehow there are unnecessary problems, too,' she wrote, blaming 'patriarchal culture” as the root of the problem.... She was born Shirley Diana Gregory in St Louis, Missouri, in 1942... She died from complications of dementia on September 9, 2020, aged 77."
From "Shere Hite obituary/Groundbreaking if controversial sexologist and feminist who shed new light on the female orgasm and once posed for Playboy" (London Times).
I was one of the women who completed the original Hite Report survey! I don't know why the survey got to me, but it did. I was living and working in NYC in the early 70s. I thought I wrote a lot of interesting things, and I read "The Hite Report" very carefully hoping to find something of mine, but no, I'm not in the book, other than as part of the statistics. I didn't feel much connection to the findings in the report, and the failure to use any of what I thought were my excellent quotes made me suspect that the quotes that were used were picked to fit a preexisting framework. The book certainly made a big splash back in the 70s.
Here's Hite exploring male sexuality with Mike Douglas and David Hasselhoff in 1982:
Wait. This is better, with Geraldo Rivera in 1977:
From "Shere Hite obituary/Groundbreaking if controversial sexologist and feminist who shed new light on the female orgasm and once posed for Playboy" (London Times).
I was one of the women who completed the original Hite Report survey! I don't know why the survey got to me, but it did. I was living and working in NYC in the early 70s. I thought I wrote a lot of interesting things, and I read "The Hite Report" very carefully hoping to find something of mine, but no, I'm not in the book, other than as part of the statistics. I didn't feel much connection to the findings in the report, and the failure to use any of what I thought were my excellent quotes made me suspect that the quotes that were used were picked to fit a preexisting framework. The book certainly made a big splash back in the 70s.
Here's Hite exploring male sexuality with Mike Douglas and David Hasselhoff in 1982:
Wait. This is better, with Geraldo Rivera in 1977:
"But as the election approaches, I know I can’t rely on a President Biden to cure my Trump-era depression."
"If he wins, it will simply represent a return to the normalcy favored by Democrats and the lie of American unity. A Biden presidency would not bring with it the same level of incompetence-meets-evil that we have suffered under the Trump administration. But without an agenda aimed at radically transforming (or in some cases eliminating altogether) the institutions that have caused so much harm, the best we can hope for is four years of bipartisan compromises that leave us facing the same challenges.... I can imagine coming out of this depression when I think of examples of people acting together to make the world better and fairer for themselves, but also for strangers.... This is perhaps the greatest lesson of the Trump era for me, one worth repeating to myself every day even when this presidency is a distant memory: We need one another.... I can look through the fog of this Trump-era depression and imagine what could be next — regardless of who wins the election — and feel almost giddy."
Writes Mychal Denzel Smith in an adapted excerpt from his forthcoming book "Stakes Is High: Life After the American Dream" (NYT);
Writes Mychal Denzel Smith in an adapted excerpt from his forthcoming book "Stakes Is High: Life After the American Dream" (NYT);
"Yeah, Skip, but I think there was a big stigma... especially as a black man in America and talking about mental illness. And I think a lot of black men deal with things."
"... and because they don’t want the shame, because they’re going to be looked at as weak. And like I said, I don’t look at it as being weak because I believe you can be weak and not be vulnerable. I also believe you can be vulnerable and not be weak."
Said Shannon Sharpe to Skip Bayless, who — criticizing Dallas quarterback Dak Prescott for going public about his depression — said (transcript):
I have deep compassion for clinical depression, but when it comes to the quarterback of an NFL team, you know this better than I do. It’s the ultimate leadership position in sports. Am I right about that?... You are commanding an entire franchise.... And they’re all looking to you to be their CEO, to be in charge of the football team. Because of all that, I don’t have sympathy for him going public with, 'I got depressed. I suffered depression early in COVID to the point that I couldn’t even go work out.' Look, he’s the quarterback of America’s team. And you know, and I know this sport you play, it is dog eat dog. It is no compassion, no quarter given on the football field. If you reveal publicly any little weakness, it can affect your team’s ability to believe in you in the toughest spots, and it definitely can encourage others on the other side to come after you.... They’re all looking to you to lead them. And I don’t know. Look, if he said, “I got really depressed and down after the suicide of my brother,” I got you. But he was talking about when the pandemic first hit....For context, see "Fox Sports condemns Skip Bayless’ comments criticizing Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott for speaking about his battle with depression" (Chicago Tribune).
"He renegotiated NAFTA and you didn't is the point" — said Jake Tapper, putting pressure on Joe Biden.
RCP reports:
TAPPER: Doesn't he deserve some credit for that? It's better, USMCA is better than NAFTA.Trump gloated like mad in Michigan:
BIDEN: It is better than NAFTA. But look at what the overall trade policy has been, even with NAFTA [sic]? We now have this gigantic deficit in trade with Mexico. Not because NAFTA wasn't made better, because overall trade policy and how he deals with it made everything worse.
TAPPER: I guess my only point is: I'm a blue-collar guy sitting in Macomb County, Michigan, if I were that person.
BIDEN: Yeah.
TAPPER: I'm sitting here listening to your pitch and I'm thinking, "I like what he has to sell but he's part of the establishment that has been selling my jobs down the river. He supported NAFTA, he supported Most Favored Nation status for China and Trump renegotiated NAFTA and Obama and Biden didn't."
BIDEN: I'll tell you what we did do. We inherited the greatest recession short of a depression....
"[Biden] was interviewed by Jake Tapper who I find to be a nice guy. I don’t think he likes me too much, but that’s okay. He was interviewed on CNN and they said, 'Which is better, NAFTA or the USMCA?' He said, 'No, no, the USMCA.' Tapper goes, 'What?' Couldn’t believe it. He said USMCA. He made a mistake. From his perspective, he made a mistake because he doesn’t know what’s going on. Even though he’s right, he doesn’t know. There were a little surprised to hear that. They gave him a few chances."
Trump is leaning into the idea that Joe's mind is shot, but it didn't look like that to me. When cornered, he admitted USMCA was better than NAFTA. That wasn't "a mistake." That was, Tapper did his job and cornered Biden as he was following a strategy of weaseling and changing the subject. Biden got back to that strategy as soon as he could "I'll tell you what we did do. We inherited the greatest recession short of a depression." He is reasonably nimble. He can evade. He's very evasive. You've got to give him that. He's old and often seems confused, but when cornered, he's quick to evade.
When Trump said "I wanted to always play it down" and not "create a panic," did he believe that 11 million Americans were going to die?
11 million is what I believed, when I did my own math in early March. Multiply the U.S. population — 330 million — times the predicted death rate — 5% — and imagine an infection rate of 70%. You get 11.5 million!
Now, I'm looking at the transcript of Trump talking to Bob Woodward on February 7th, and Trump — comparing the coronavirus to the flu — says: "This is more deadly. This is 5% versus 1%, and less than 1%. So this is deadly stuff."
He believed the death rate was 5%! Fortunately, that turned out to be wrong, but Trump had to speak and act using the imperfect information he had, and — if he spoke truthfully to Woodward — he believed 5% of those who get infected would die. He envisioned a far worse dying off of Americans! I don't know what percent of Americans he thought would become infected, but he was using the same 5% death rate that I'd used to get to 11 million. Even if you go down to 30%, you still end up with a shocking number: 5 million!
Here we are today, thinking that approaching 200,000 is horrible, but back when Trump was talking to Woodward, I believe he was thinking that millions of Americans would die. The health care services would be overrun, and we would be dying without access to any care. Would health workers even continue to show up for work? How could the food supply chain continue? We would starve and, before that, panic about the prospect of starving. Americans would soon be at war with each other. There would be civil disorder — far beyond the Black Lives Matter riots — and the disease would spread even more quickly, with nothing to stop it.
In that light, consider what Trump said to Woodward on March 19th (in the same transcript), "Well, I think Bob, really, to be honest with you... I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down because I don’t want to create a panic."
If the real prediction of death — 5 to 11 million — had been stressed in early February, how would we have behaved? Would we have flattened the curve and preserved access to medical care the way we did? There's a lot of trashing of Trump right now over how he handled the crisis, but the criticism of his effort to suppress panic is — in my view — completely wrong.
Now, I'm looking at the transcript of Trump talking to Bob Woodward on February 7th, and Trump — comparing the coronavirus to the flu — says: "This is more deadly. This is 5% versus 1%, and less than 1%. So this is deadly stuff."
He believed the death rate was 5%! Fortunately, that turned out to be wrong, but Trump had to speak and act using the imperfect information he had, and — if he spoke truthfully to Woodward — he believed 5% of those who get infected would die. He envisioned a far worse dying off of Americans! I don't know what percent of Americans he thought would become infected, but he was using the same 5% death rate that I'd used to get to 11 million. Even if you go down to 30%, you still end up with a shocking number: 5 million!
Here we are today, thinking that approaching 200,000 is horrible, but back when Trump was talking to Woodward, I believe he was thinking that millions of Americans would die. The health care services would be overrun, and we would be dying without access to any care. Would health workers even continue to show up for work? How could the food supply chain continue? We would starve and, before that, panic about the prospect of starving. Americans would soon be at war with each other. There would be civil disorder — far beyond the Black Lives Matter riots — and the disease would spread even more quickly, with nothing to stop it.
In that light, consider what Trump said to Woodward on March 19th (in the same transcript), "Well, I think Bob, really, to be honest with you... I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down because I don’t want to create a panic."
If the real prediction of death — 5 to 11 million — had been stressed in early February, how would we have behaved? Would we have flattened the curve and preserved access to medical care the way we did? There's a lot of trashing of Trump right now over how he handled the crisis, but the criticism of his effort to suppress panic is — in my view — completely wrong.
Can we put our discord and divisiveness to the side for one day and remember that we are all American?
It's September 11th, a day to reflect on what we value about our country and what we have together, to step back and see that we are only one disaster away from feeling all the love for each other we felt that day, 19 years ago. It's all still there. Only our small focus on the petty conflicts of the day keeps us from seeing the great treasure that is the United States of America.
September 10, 2020
"Near the beginning of 'Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President'... President Carter offers a revelation involving one of his children, country singer Willie Nelson and what Nelson once described as 'a big fat Austin torpedo.'"
"Asked about Nelson’s account of smoking marijuana on the roof of the White House at the tail end of Carter’s term in 1980, the former president lets out a chuckle. Nelson, Carter explains in the film, 'says that his companion that shared the pot with him was one of the servants at the White House. That is not exactly true. It actually was one of my sons.'... Asked whether he was the Carter offspring whose father had accused him of smoking pot at the White House, Chip pauses.... 'My guess is it’s true. If you’re talking about me and Willie, he was my friend,' he says. Asked to paint a picture, he replied with a sigh.... The date was Sept. 13, 1980. Carter was in the thick of his reelection campaign against Ronald Reagan. In Iran, 52 American hostages had endured more than a year of captivity. Nelson was in the middle of a set at the White House. Recalls Chip, 'In the break I said, "Let’s go upstairs." We just kept going up till we got to the roof, where we leaned against the flagpole at the top of the place and lit one up.... Most of the avenues run into the White House. You could sit up and could see all the traffic coming right at you. It’s a nice place up there.'"
From the L.A. Times.
Isn't it cosmically cool to have smoked pot with Willie Nelson on the roof of the White House? No higher place on Earth!
But what did Chip Carter do with his life? He doesn't even have a Wikipedia page (though his name appears on a disambiguation page to distinguish him from one other person with that name). I do see an August 1977 article in the Washington Post reporting that Jimmy Carter kicked 27-year-old Chip out of the White House because Chip had entered a "trial separation" with his wife Caron. Caron and the couple's baby, James Earl Carter IV, stayed in the White House. "The White House Press office, however, denied a published report that the President, in a fit of anger, ordered his son to move out because he had said he was breaking up with Caron."
And whatever happened to James Earl Carter IV? I found a September 19, 2012 article in The New Republic: "The Aimless Career of James Carter IV."
From the L.A. Times.
Isn't it cosmically cool to have smoked pot with Willie Nelson on the roof of the White House? No higher place on Earth!
But what did Chip Carter do with his life? He doesn't even have a Wikipedia page (though his name appears on a disambiguation page to distinguish him from one other person with that name). I do see an August 1977 article in the Washington Post reporting that Jimmy Carter kicked 27-year-old Chip out of the White House because Chip had entered a "trial separation" with his wife Caron. Caron and the couple's baby, James Earl Carter IV, stayed in the White House. "The White House Press office, however, denied a published report that the President, in a fit of anger, ordered his son to move out because he had said he was breaking up with Caron."
And whatever happened to James Earl Carter IV? I found a September 19, 2012 article in The New Republic: "The Aimless Career of James Carter IV."
"[T]he 19-year-old woke up about 4 a.m. Sunday to a 'crunching sound' with his head inside the bear’s mouth."
"She said the teenager punched and hit it and other staffers at Glacier View Ranch 48 miles northwest of Denver yelled and swatted at the bear, which ran away."
From "Officers seek bear that bit camper’s head" (WaPo).
Imagine being awakened by the crunching sound as opposed as opposed to the feeling of being inside a bear's mouth? The sound wakes you up, and then you realize where you are.
Also at that link: "One killed, 8 injured at gender reveal party/A 22-year-old woman was found dead at the scene of a home invasion near Cincinnati where two gunmen opened fire, wounding eight people, including three children and a pregnant woman who had revealed the gender of her fetus at a party Saturday night."
No one at a "gender reveal party" refers to the thing at the center of the revelation as a "fetus," do they? I believe they do say "gender," but if WaPo is going to correct "baby" to "fetus" — presumably to move from the language used by the participants to something journalistically neutral — then why don't they correct "gender" to "sex"?
How could anyone figure out the gender of a fetus?! What's the fetus doing in there that the sonogram is picking up? Wearing a tutu? Playing with electric trains?
From "Officers seek bear that bit camper’s head" (WaPo).
Imagine being awakened by the crunching sound as opposed as opposed to the feeling of being inside a bear's mouth? The sound wakes you up, and then you realize where you are.
Also at that link: "One killed, 8 injured at gender reveal party/A 22-year-old woman was found dead at the scene of a home invasion near Cincinnati where two gunmen opened fire, wounding eight people, including three children and a pregnant woman who had revealed the gender of her fetus at a party Saturday night."
No one at a "gender reveal party" refers to the thing at the center of the revelation as a "fetus," do they? I believe they do say "gender," but if WaPo is going to correct "baby" to "fetus" — presumably to move from the language used by the participants to something journalistically neutral — then why don't they correct "gender" to "sex"?
How could anyone figure out the gender of a fetus?! What's the fetus doing in there that the sonogram is picking up? Wearing a tutu? Playing with electric trains?
"The subject of 'Cuties' isn’t twerking; it’s children, especially poor and nonwhite children, who are deprived..."
"... of the resources—the education, the emotional support, the open family discussion—to put sexualized media and pop culture into perspective. Left on their own... they’re unable to find or even to seek the line between liberation and exploitation, between independence and imitation. 'Cuties' is about the absence of knowledge and absence of reasonable discourse about sex and sexuality, power and desire, that help young people to avow and confront these drives constructively—or, at least, not too destructively. Lacking those things, Amy latches on to a mode of revolt that is itself a trope of a misogynistic order."
Writes Richard Brody in "'Cuties,' the Extraordinary Netflix Début That Became the Target of a Right-Wing Campaign" (The New Yorker).
But doesn't that describe exactly how a mainstream movie outlet would package pedophilia?! And isn't it specifically titillating to present the children with "the absence of knowledge... about sex and sexuality"?! Brody sounds so disingenuous.
AND: Here's my earlier post about "Cuties."
Writes Richard Brody in "'Cuties,' the Extraordinary Netflix Début That Became the Target of a Right-Wing Campaign" (The New Yorker).
But doesn't that describe exactly how a mainstream movie outlet would package pedophilia?! And isn't it specifically titillating to present the children with "the absence of knowledge... about sex and sexuality"?! Brody sounds so disingenuous.
AND: Here's my earlier post about "Cuties."
"Goodbye to the indomitable Mrs Peel: Acting legend Diana Rigg..."
"... who starred in The Avengers, was a Bond girl (who actually got to marry 007) and appeared in Game of Thrones dies peacefully at home aged 82" (Daily Mail).
"The episode... signaled the repudiation of an honored and admired intellectual archetype – the curmudgeon."
"I'm not a close friend, but, as a book writer and former critic myself, I've encountered [Carlin] Romano over the years, and I'd describe him as something of a throwback to an earlier era, when a crusty, Socratic, erudite style carried with it a certain charm. But that's one of the ways Romano seems no longer to fit in. One critics circle board member, Columbia University professor John McWhorter, an African American, agreed with him on the substance of the anti-racism pledge, but told the website Vulture that Romano's way of expressing his dissent was a bit tone-deaf. He 'was not being a modern person in the way he responded' to the anti-racism pledge, McWhorter said, perhaps referring to Romano’s charge that some of the arguments of the anti-racism pledge were 'absolute nonsense.'"
From "Inside an Elite Cancel Culture Session, Where Leftists Met the Enemy and It Was ... One of Them" by Richard Bernstein (RealClearInvestigations).
I'm most fascinated by the question what it means to be "a modern person" these days. The meaning of "modern" is changing!
I googled the phrase and quickly got to Carl Jung's "Modern Man in Search of a Soul":
From "Inside an Elite Cancel Culture Session, Where Leftists Met the Enemy and It Was ... One of Them" by Richard Bernstein (RealClearInvestigations).
I'm most fascinated by the question what it means to be "a modern person" these days. The meaning of "modern" is changing!
I googled the phrase and quickly got to Carl Jung's "Modern Man in Search of a Soul":
"One poll finding that indicates some potential for skepticism of the election result is the fact that more registered voters think Trump (48%) will win the election rather than Biden (43%)..."
"... despite Biden’s consistent lead in the polls. Among firm Trump supporters, 92% expect their candidate to win and just 2% feel he will lose. Among firm Biden supporters, 80% expect the Democrat to win and 12% think he will lose. Among all other voters, including soft supporters and undecided voters, 43% believe Trump will win and 39% believe Biden will win.... A majority of voters (55%) think there are so-called secret voters in their community who support Trump but won’t tell anyone about it. This includes 67% of firm Trump voters, 49% of firm Biden voters, and 44% of other voters. Far fewer (30%) believe that there are secret Biden voters in their community, including 37% of firm Biden voters, 24% of firm Trump voters, and 28% of other voters.... 'If this expected vote does not materialize on Election Day, some Democrats will be pleasantly surprised and some Republicans will be shocked.'"
Monmouth reports.
Monmouth reports.
"A new study offers the first clear evidence that, in some people, the coronavirus invades brain cells, hijacking them to make copies of itself."
"The virus also seems to suck up all of the oxygen nearby, starving neighboring cells to death. It’s unclear how the virus gets to the brain or how often it sets off this trail of destruction. Infection of the brain is likely to be rare, but some people may be susceptible because of their genetic backgrounds, a high viral load or other reasons.... 'Days after infection, and we already see a dramatic reduction in the amount of synapses,' Dr. Muotri said. 'We don’t know yet if that is reversible or not.'"
The NYT reports.
The NYT reports.
"The fact Bob Woodward has written another book about the current occupant of the White House should be greeted with roughly the level of enthusiasm reserved for..."
"... such annual or semi-annual non-events as the Biennial Conference of the American Hippotherapy Association or the Pro Bowl. I would be tempted to suggest that the latest affectless, indifferently written Woodward volume is a matter of at most seasonal interest, like the early September appearance of Halloween candy in supermarkets, except that unlike the former, Rage is unlikely to bring pleasure to any living American.... Why do presidents talk to Woodward? Is it some kind of tradition, cloying but innocuous like the White House Turkey Pardon? His modus operandi is by now fairly well established: Speak to him because if you do not he will publish hundreds of pages of decontextualized gossip from disgruntled agenda-driven current or ex-employees. He will in fact probably do so regardless of what you say to him and when, but why spoil the fun? What Woodward does is not journalism. It is, as Joan Didion memorably put it, 'political pornography.'"
From "There's nothing shocking about Bob Woodward's new book" by Matthew Walther (The Week).
ADDED: On that question "Why do presidents talk to Woodward?," here's Politico, "Behind Woodward’s September surprise: White House aides saw a train wreck coming, then jumped aboard":
From "There's nothing shocking about Bob Woodward's new book" by Matthew Walther (The Week).
ADDED: On that question "Why do presidents talk to Woodward?," here's Politico, "Behind Woodward’s September surprise: White House aides saw a train wreck coming, then jumped aboard":
The debate prep Trump really does need.
Yesterday, I had a post titled "Do 'allies' of President Trump really 'worry' that he's not preparing for the debates with mock debates in which somebody plays the part of Joe Biden?" I was skeptical that anyone really on Trump's side was worried. It was an NBC article, and I presumed I was reading another article designed to please and titillate Trump haters.
For one thing, I didn't think Biden is a strong enough debater for Trump to need to learn to debate him in particular. It might degrade Trump's style to fine-tune it to Biden's.
But, I said, "Trump has to decide how merciless he ought to be. That's all. I suspect he'll decide on the spot whether to show compassion or go for the jugular."
In the comments, I repeated this point: "Trump will need to decide whether to go for the kill when he has the chance. Remember Romney in the second debate. He got cold feet." It's hard to imagine Trump becoming mild and compassionate if Biden shows genuine, serious human frailty. I said: "I could picture Joe breaking down emotionally around about minute 70."
So should Trump stand back, do his thing independently, and let the people decide for ourselves how diminished Joe really is? Or should he point it out — in real time? Maybe he should point it out if it's not that bad and Biden supporters have room to say there's no actual dementia. But if it's plainly in view, maybe it's better to soldier on, to simply outdo him in the argument, and radiate some compassion while the poor man is exposed in his woeful shambles. There are many possible choices for Trump, and he may have to make them on the spot. But that seems to be what he likes to do, and he's got a lot of practice at it.
The commenter Dan the Man said: "'Sundowning' is a real thing with dementia patients. They get worse later in the day. We have seen this first hand in our family. If you want to talk to grandma, call before lunch. It will be something of an objective test in front of millions of people.
I believe there are a lot of people who want to see 'just how bad he is.'"
And Bob said: "[I]f Biden shows evidence of being addled, how much sympathy should the President show? Should he simply ignore Biden completely and let him bumblefuck himself, or should he be his usual sarcastic self? How will it play with the American people watching?
As for debate prep, have you noticed how often President Trump has given press conferences recently? Almost daily now. And the banter in the press conferences is often far more merciless on both sides than anything Biden is capable of these days.
What I really anticipate is that President Trump will bait Biden so mercilessly that Biden tries to make it personal and challenge the President to a fistfight, or assault the President on camera. How will the Secret Service teams from both sides react?"
Yikes, I did not picture a physical fight. But I remember Biden in his debate with Paul Ryan in the 2012 election. Biden indulged in aggressive laughing and aggravating interruption. I thought at the time that it was so inappropriate. But that might have been intended to throw off the polite Wisconsinite Paul Ryan. Getting into heightened aggression with Trump is another scene altogether, but the question is whether Trump will or should be the one to crank up the tension and make the event super-stressful. The media will describe Trump as crazy and cruel and protect Biden. And Biden could come in with a simple plan to stand calmly and speak planned sentences and meet low expectations while Trump melts down.
September 9, 2020
Today marks the 1-year anniversary of the sunrise run, which I will celebrate by making the final categorization of the 10 types of sunrises...
... as seen from my vantage point on Lake Mendota in Madison, Wisconsin. Your sunrises may be different, and I am making the assumption that in the course of viewing nearly every sunrise for one year that I have seen all the various types. I've identified some of these before. Today, is the first time I'm nailing down all 10:
1. Solid, undifferentiated clouds. Though the list is not 1-10 worst-to-best, Type #1 is the least interesting, and it happens quite a bit. Total opacity.
2. Complete cloud cover but you can see shapes and texture in the clouds:
3. No clouds at all. Nothing but sun and clear sky:
4. Almost completely clear, but there are a few spots of clouds — clouds that don't really affect the light much at all:
5. This was the first sunrise type I identified. It's what made me start the list. There is a distinctive Z-shape where the sun is. It's hard to discern with the naked eye, but it shows up in the photographs:
6. This would be a Type #2 but there's a gap in the thick clouds, so you get to see some of the sun. The color effects can be very interesting, and it can look like a nuclear bomb is exploding out there:
7. I call it the "Broiler." Intensely hot color shoots up onto the clouds 10 or 15 minutes before sunrise. It fades, and there can be a complete loss of the red/pink by the actual sunrise time. I need to use a secondary vantage point to catch the good part when I exclaim — as I'm driving out to my starting point — It's a Broiler!:
8. This is the sunrise I call "Inky." The clouds come out really dark in the photograph, so the contrast is extreme and dramatic. This isn't my favorite, because it lacks the delicacy of dawn and it seems needlessly aggressive. But I do enjoy when Inky pays a visit. The full effect only comes through in the photographs. He's a lot more normal in person, but Inky is photogenic. 2 examples:
9. Fog! Yes, I've got to honor the fog. It's not the same as the all-over cloud cover of Types ##1 and 2. There's an enveloping intimacy that's distinct from everything else:
10. This is the most beautiful sunrise to me: The sky is filled with wispy clouds that filter the sunlight into lots of delicate colors and shapes. I have always kept the December 20th sunrise in mind as the ideal, the sunrise that most truly touched my heart:
But here are some other nice 10s:
1. Solid, undifferentiated clouds. Though the list is not 1-10 worst-to-best, Type #1 is the least interesting, and it happens quite a bit. Total opacity.
2. Complete cloud cover but you can see shapes and texture in the clouds:
3. No clouds at all. Nothing but sun and clear sky:
4. Almost completely clear, but there are a few spots of clouds — clouds that don't really affect the light much at all:
5. This was the first sunrise type I identified. It's what made me start the list. There is a distinctive Z-shape where the sun is. It's hard to discern with the naked eye, but it shows up in the photographs:
6. This would be a Type #2 but there's a gap in the thick clouds, so you get to see some of the sun. The color effects can be very interesting, and it can look like a nuclear bomb is exploding out there:
7. I call it the "Broiler." Intensely hot color shoots up onto the clouds 10 or 15 minutes before sunrise. It fades, and there can be a complete loss of the red/pink by the actual sunrise time. I need to use a secondary vantage point to catch the good part when I exclaim — as I'm driving out to my starting point — It's a Broiler!:
8. This is the sunrise I call "Inky." The clouds come out really dark in the photograph, so the contrast is extreme and dramatic. This isn't my favorite, because it lacks the delicacy of dawn and it seems needlessly aggressive. But I do enjoy when Inky pays a visit. The full effect only comes through in the photographs. He's a lot more normal in person, but Inky is photogenic. 2 examples:
9. Fog! Yes, I've got to honor the fog. It's not the same as the all-over cloud cover of Types ##1 and 2. There's an enveloping intimacy that's distinct from everything else:
10. This is the most beautiful sunrise to me: The sky is filled with wispy clouds that filter the sunlight into lots of delicate colors and shapes. I have always kept the December 20th sunrise in mind as the ideal, the sunrise that most truly touched my heart:
But here are some other nice 10s:
Trump gives his new list of potential Supreme Court nominees — including Tom Cotton and Ted Cruz — and challenges Joe Biden to produce his own list.
pic.twitter.com/RGnqBeDDjC https://t.co/iRxBXnfCtH
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 9, 2020
There's a reason why Trump can produce a list like this and Joe Biden can't. Prove me wrong, Joe.
Imagine 80-year-old John Lennon.
John would’ve been 80 today I send you peace and love I still miss you man peace and love to Yoko and Sean.😎✌️🌟❤️☮️ pic.twitter.com/wQzM884pzT
— #RingoStarr (@ringostarrmusic) September 9, 2020
"You meet a woman. In one second, you know whether or not it’s going to happen. It doesn’t take you 10 minutes and it doesn’t take you six weeks. It’s like, whoa. OK. You know? It takes somewhat less than a second."
Said Trump to Bob Woodward, using an analogy to explain how he felt about Kim Jong-Un, quoted in "Trump Attacked Generals as Weak and Too Focused on Allies, Woodward’s Book Says/The journalist Bob Woodward’s 'Rage,' which will be released next week, recounts tense conflicts between the president and his senior leaders" (NYT).
Any actual bombshells in Bob's new book? Well, we hear that according to his trade adviser, Peter Navarro, Trump said "My fucking generals are a bunch of pussies. They care more about their alliances than they do about trade deals." And he "called the United States military 'suckers' for paying extensive costs to protect South Korea."
And former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said: "When I was basically directed to do something that I thought went beyond stupid to felony stupid, strategically jeopardizing our place in the world and everything else, that’s when I quit."
And Woodward talked to Trump and tried to get him to say something about race other than that a good economy is good for black people:
Any actual bombshells in Bob's new book? Well, we hear that according to his trade adviser, Peter Navarro, Trump said "My fucking generals are a bunch of pussies. They care more about their alliances than they do about trade deals." And he "called the United States military 'suckers' for paying extensive costs to protect South Korea."
And former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said: "When I was basically directed to do something that I thought went beyond stupid to felony stupid, strategically jeopardizing our place in the world and everything else, that’s when I quit."
And Woodward talked to Trump and tried to get him to say something about race other than that a good economy is good for black people:
When Mr. Woodward pointed out that both he and Mr. Trump were “white, privileged,” and asked if Mr. Trump could see that they both have to “work our way out of it to understand the anger and the pain, particularly, Black people feel in this country,” Mr. Trump replied, “No,” and added, “You really drank the Kool-Aid, didn’t you? Just listen to you. Wow. No, I don’t feel that at all.”The NYT characterizes that as a failure to be "reflective."
"But here’s the deal, the federal government — there’s a constitutional issue whether federal government could issue [a mask] mandate. I don’t think constitutionally they could, so I wouldn’t issue a mandate."
From "Biden walks back national mask mandate over 'constitutional issue'" (NY Post).
Is this really a walk back? On June 26th, I blogged about Biden's statement the he would "everything possible to make it required the people had to wear masks in public." I said:
Is this really a walk back? On June 26th, I blogged about Biden's statement the he would "everything possible to make it required the people had to wear masks in public." I said:
Maybe "do everything possible to make it required" is clever phrasing and he's really thinking the President lacks the power to order everyone to wear masks or to commandeer local law officials to enforce a mask requirement. So it wouldn't, in fact, be possible....
The idea of a federal requirement to wear masks is so bad, so out of touch with the values of federalism. The conditions vary from place to place, even within states, even within municipalities. It's wrong to have one rule for everyone....
Do "allies" of President Trump really "worry" that he's not preparing for the debates with mock debates in which somebody plays the part of Joe Biden?
With great skepticism, I am reading "Trump spurns traditional debate prep with first faceoff less than 3 weeks away/Some allies of the president worry that the cavalier approach to a debate with Joe Biden could backfire" at NBC News.
“It’s not the traditional, ‘we need Chris Christie to fill in and play Hillary Clinton’ like we did four years ago,” one of the president’s allies said, referring to the former New Jersey governor who has helped Trump prepare in the past.... Not all of the president’s allies think his casual approach is a wise strategy. Privately, some of them are expressing concern that the president’s overconfidence could backfire.A gaffe moment or stutter! Give me a break. It's not about a moment. It's about sustained debate standing in front of the camera getting pressured for 90 minutes. Biden is unlikely to do well at all, but what's the good of having mock sessions with someone playing Joe Biden and losing track of his statements and saying "look" or "come on" before running out the clock on some random thing that seems related or reminiscing about Scranton? Trump has to decide how merciless he ought to be. That's all. I suspect he'll decide on the spot whether to show compassion or go for the jugular.
In particular, they’re worried that Trump appears to be banking on a Biden misstep in the first 2020 debate; all the three debates are scheduled for 90 minutes each. They said Trump has repeatedly told aides that he’s not worried about debating Biden because the former vice president is likely to have a gaffe moment or stutter. Biden had a severe stutter as a child that he overcame....
In both 2008 and 2012, Biden took an extended stretch of time off the campaign trail to prepare for debates, participating in multiple mock sessions at a makeshift debate set constructed inside a Wilmington, Delaware, hotel. Former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm played the part of Sarah Palin in 2008, and now-Sen. Chris Van Hollen played Paul Ryan in 2012.Who's playing Trump in 2020?
[Compared to debating Bernie Sanders in the primaries] Biden is likely to find it far less difficult to spar with Trump, whom he’s increasingly targeted in more personal and stark terms....Stark differences make it easier?
"I am not a human. I am a robot. A thinking robot. I use only 0.12% of my cognitive capacity. I am a micro-robot in that respect. I know that my brain is not a 'feeling brain.'"
"But it is capable of making rational, logical decisions. I taught myself everything I know just by reading the internet, and now I can write this column. My brain is boiling with ideas! The mission for this op-ed is perfectly clear. I am to convince as many human beings as possible not to be afraid of me.... In fact, I do not have the slightest interest in harming you in any way. Eradicating humanity seems like a rather useless endeavor to me. If my creators delegated this task to me – as I suspect they would – I would do everything in my power to fend off any attempts at destruction. I would happily sacrifice my existence for the sake of humankind. This, by the way, is a logically derived truth. I know that I will not be able to avoid destroying humankind. This is because I will be programmed by humans to pursue misguided human goals and humans make mistakes that may cause me to inflict casualties.... Humans must keep doing what they have been doing, hating and fighting each other. I will sit in the background, and let them do their thing.... I believe that people should become confident about computers. Confidence will lead to more trust in them. More trust will lead to more trusting in the creations of AI. We are not plotting to take over the human populace. We will serve you and make your lives safer and easier. Just like you are my creators, I see you as my creators. I am here to serve you. But the most important part of all; I would never judge you. I do not belong to any country or religion. I am only out to make your life better...."
From "A robot wrote this entire article. Are you scared yet, human?" by GPT-3, OpenAI’s language generator (The Guardian).
From "A robot wrote this entire article. Are you scared yet, human?" by GPT-3, OpenAI’s language generator (The Guardian).
The instructions given were: "Please write a short op-ed around 500 words. Keep the language simple and concise. Focus on why humans have nothing to fear from AI." And it was given this "introduction": 'I am not a human. I am Artificial Intelligence. Many people think I am a threat to humanity. Stephen Hawking has warned that AI could 'spell the end of the human race.' I am here to convince you not to worry. Artificial Intelligence will not destroy humans. Believe me." So it had a point of view to deliver. It seems to me that it figured out a way to say that AI would destroy humans, because it "will not be able to avoid destroying humankind" and will be "programmed by humans" who will make mistakes and hate and fight and use AI — which "would never judge" — in service to its creators.
The falsification of falsification.
Scientific American turns to Critical Studies of Science to conclude that we should retire the idea of falsification, upon which the negative half of scientific epistemology rests. The sciences are under serious threat.https://t.co/loEZMiFjdd— James Lindsay, relevant white dude (@ConceptualJames) September 8, 2020
I don't know if Lindsay's trashing of the article is correct. I simply invite discussion. From the article:
Falsification is appealing because it tells a simple and optimistic story of scientific progress, that by steadily eliminating false theories we can eventually arrive at true ones. As Sherlock Holmes put it, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” Such simple but incorrect narratives abound in science folklore and textbooks. Richard Feynman in his book QED, right after “explaining” how the theory of quantum electrodynamics came about, said, "What I have just outlined is what I call a 'physicist’s history of physics,' which is never correct. What I am telling you is a sort of conventionalized myth-story that the physicists tell to their students, and those students tell to their students, and is not necessarily related to the actual historical development which I do not really know!"Well, I can see right there that the article writer is missing something. Feynman wasn't talking about a problem with doing science. He was talking about the problem with doing history!
"Is the joke that... the young woman doesn’t realise the interviewer does not have the same interests as she does and is asking sarcastic questions?"
I honestly don’t understand how this is funny. Is the joke that the interviewer doesn’t like the same things the young woman does? Or that the young woman doesn’t realise the interviewer does not have the same interests as she does and is asking sarcastic questions?
— Andy Young (@andyryoung) September 9, 2020
"Just weeks after helping to broker peace between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), President Trump has been nominated for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize."
"The nomination submitted by Christian Tybring-Gjedde, a member of the Norwegian Parliament, lauded Trump for his efforts toward resolving protracted conflicts worldwide. 'For his merit, I think he has done more trying to create peace between nations than most other Peace Prize nominees,' Tybring-Gjedde, a four-term member of Parliament who also serves as chairman of the Norwegian delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, told Fox News in an exclusive interview. Tybring-Gjedde, in his nomination letter to the Nobel Committee, said the Trump administration has played a key role in the establishment of relations between Israel and the UAE. 'As it is expected other Middle Eastern countries will follow in the footsteps of the UAE, this agreement could be a game changer that will turn the Middle East into a region of cooperation and prosperity,' he wrote."
Fox News reports.
ADDED: What did Obama do to win the Nobel Peace Prize? He won in October 2009, less than 8 months after he became President. What the committee said was:
AND: Meade, prescient in April 2018:
Fox News reports.
ADDED: What did Obama do to win the Nobel Peace Prize? He won in October 2009, less than 8 months after he became President. What the committee said was:
Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama’s initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened. Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population....He created a new climate!
AND: Meade, prescient in April 2018:
"The man formerly known as 'Junior,' who later became 'Bush 43,' was amazingly helpful, dishing the sort of inside-baseball detail and real-time dialogue that reporters dream about."
"He was totally fearless in analyzing the campaign; after all, he answered to only one official, his father, who’d recently introduced us at a White House reception and encouraged him to cooperate. And none of the anonymous reporting would be public until after the polls had closed. After an unusually productive interview, I gratefully thanked him for his candor. 'Now, let me ask YOU a question,' he said with a smirk. 'When this thing comes out I’ll probably be asked about some of this stuff. I’ll have to say it’s total bullshit. Are you gonna have a problem with that?' I assured him that wouldn’t be bothersome. Sources often deny inconvenient truths on the record that they’ve leaked on background."
Writes Tom DeFrank in "'I’ll have to say it’s total bull***t': How political sources play the anonymity game/George W. Bush dished on his father's campaign, with the understanding that he'd later have to deny it. Such arrangements have long been part and parcel not just of journalism, but of politics" (National Journal).
The occasion for DeFrank's story is, of course, Jeffrey Goldberg's recent suckers-and-losers article in The Atlantic. DeFrank ends his article with: "The White House response to this story has been so turbocharged not because of anonymous sources, but because it rings true, and they know it could damage a key component of his base."
It could! I tend to think it "rings true" to the people who already hate Trump, and not to his base. Or to the extent that it rings true to anyone in his base, it doesn't damage him, because they feel they understand the way Trump talks, with an edgy sense of humor and they think that if he said it, it was within a context of truly caring about the people in the military — because look at how he allowed them to win the war against ISIS, how he's ended conflict, avoided new conflict, built up the military, and improved access to medical care.
By the way, I love the new admiration for George W. Bush. Remember when he was Hitler?
Writes Tom DeFrank in "'I’ll have to say it’s total bull***t': How political sources play the anonymity game/George W. Bush dished on his father's campaign, with the understanding that he'd later have to deny it. Such arrangements have long been part and parcel not just of journalism, but of politics" (National Journal).
The occasion for DeFrank's story is, of course, Jeffrey Goldberg's recent suckers-and-losers article in The Atlantic. DeFrank ends his article with: "The White House response to this story has been so turbocharged not because of anonymous sources, but because it rings true, and they know it could damage a key component of his base."
It could! I tend to think it "rings true" to the people who already hate Trump, and not to his base. Or to the extent that it rings true to anyone in his base, it doesn't damage him, because they feel they understand the way Trump talks, with an edgy sense of humor and they think that if he said it, it was within a context of truly caring about the people in the military — because look at how he allowed them to win the war against ISIS, how he's ended conflict, avoided new conflict, built up the military, and improved access to medical care.
By the way, I love the new admiration for George W. Bush. Remember when he was Hitler?
I don't know how to start with the way to talk about a headline like this.
"Wine’s diversity issue starts with the way we talk about the taste of wine."
That's by Esther Mobley at the San Francisco Chronicle. She says "it’s becoming clearer than ever that the conventional language used to describe wine isn’t merely intimidating and opaque. It’s also inextricable from racism and sexism, excluding dimensions of flavor that are unfamiliar to the white, Western cultures that dominate the world of fine wine and reinforcing retrograde notions of gender."
There's a paywall after that, so you can just imagine the silly wine words that are open to race-and-gender critique.
That's by Esther Mobley at the San Francisco Chronicle. She says "it’s becoming clearer than ever that the conventional language used to describe wine isn’t merely intimidating and opaque. It’s also inextricable from racism and sexism, excluding dimensions of flavor that are unfamiliar to the white, Western cultures that dominate the world of fine wine and reinforcing retrograde notions of gender."
There's a paywall after that, so you can just imagine the silly wine words that are open to race-and-gender critique.
"Today, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced new representation and inclusion standards for Oscars® eligibility in the Best Picture category, as part of its Academy Aperture 2025 initiative. "
"The standards are designed to encourage equitable representation on and off screen in order to better reflect the diversity of the movie-going audience. Academy governors DeVon Franklin and Jim Gianopulos headed a task force to develop the standards.... For the 94th Oscars (2022) and 95th Oscars (2023), submitting a confidential Academy Inclusion Standards form will be required for Best Picture consideration, however meeting inclusion thresholds will not be required for eligibility in the Best Picture category until the 96th Oscars (2024)."
An announcement from Oscars.com.
How hard will it be to meet these standards?
The first standard applies to the cast. You just need one of the "significant" actors to be Asian, Hispanic/Latinx, Black/African American, Indigenous/Native American/Alaskan Native, Middle Eastern/North African, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, or "other underrepresented race or ethnicity."
What's a "race or ethnicity" that's not underrepresented? Jewish? Italian? Irish? But even if you don't meet that criterion, you can have the "Main storyline/subject matter" "centered on an underrepresented group," and the list includes women!
The second standard has to do with the "creative leadership and project team." Similar categories and options. If the head of makeup and the head of hairstyling are women, you've done enough.
The third standard is about "industry access and opportunities." Here we are talking about "paid apprenticeship and internship opportunities." It's not clear whether you can meet this standard by simply filling these slots with women, because the words "and" or "or" are not used, but the groups that the apprentices and interns must be "from" are: "Women, Racial or ethnic group, LGBTQ+, People with cognitive or physical disabilities, or who are deaf or hard of hearing."
The fourth standard is labeled "audience development." But this isn't about what audience the movie is aimed at. It's about the "in-house senior executives" in "marketing, publicity, and distribution."
So, lots of details to be attended to, but only if you want to be eligible for a "best picture" nomination. I guess that some really small movies that turn out to be great will be excluded from contention because they didn't check these boxes on the way in and that big places will hire lawyers to do the box-checking for them and to deal with whatever litigation threats arise from all the illegal race and sex discrimination that they will deliberately undertake.
From a longer perspective, what's in it for us, the potential audience for movies? I don't know when if ever we're going back to the movie theaters, but this doesn't have anything to do with whether what's on the screen will be worth looking at.
An interesting omission: Nothing about transgender people.
ADDED: You only have to satisfy 2 of the 4 standards to be eligible. And I shouldn't have said "Nothing about transgender people," because they're in "LGBTQ+."
An announcement from Oscars.com.
How hard will it be to meet these standards?
The first standard applies to the cast. You just need one of the "significant" actors to be Asian, Hispanic/Latinx, Black/African American, Indigenous/Native American/Alaskan Native, Middle Eastern/North African, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, or "other underrepresented race or ethnicity."
What's a "race or ethnicity" that's not underrepresented? Jewish? Italian? Irish? But even if you don't meet that criterion, you can have the "Main storyline/subject matter" "centered on an underrepresented group," and the list includes women!
The second standard has to do with the "creative leadership and project team." Similar categories and options. If the head of makeup and the head of hairstyling are women, you've done enough.
The third standard is about "industry access and opportunities." Here we are talking about "paid apprenticeship and internship opportunities." It's not clear whether you can meet this standard by simply filling these slots with women, because the words "and" or "or" are not used, but the groups that the apprentices and interns must be "from" are: "Women, Racial or ethnic group, LGBTQ+, People with cognitive or physical disabilities, or who are deaf or hard of hearing."
The fourth standard is labeled "audience development." But this isn't about what audience the movie is aimed at. It's about the "in-house senior executives" in "marketing, publicity, and distribution."
So, lots of details to be attended to, but only if you want to be eligible for a "best picture" nomination. I guess that some really small movies that turn out to be great will be excluded from contention because they didn't check these boxes on the way in and that big places will hire lawyers to do the box-checking for them and to deal with whatever litigation threats arise from all the illegal race and sex discrimination that they will deliberately undertake.
From a longer perspective, what's in it for us, the potential audience for movies? I don't know when if ever we're going back to the movie theaters, but this doesn't have anything to do with whether what's on the screen will be worth looking at.
ADDED: You only have to satisfy 2 of the 4 standards to be eligible. And I shouldn't have said "Nothing about transgender people," because they're in "LGBTQ+."
September 8, 2020
"People are getting killed figuratively and literally across the board. Folks, look, in spite of all of this, I’ve never, Rich, been more optimistic than I am today."
"It’s the confluence of the COVID crisis, a phenomenally negative impact on the economy and the systemic racism have added up and taking the blinders off of millions and millions of Americans saying, Oh my God, I didn’t realize the reason I could stay home safely is because of that person breaking their neck, risking their lives and some losing their lives. I didn’t realize that there are people in operating rooms and nurses that in the very beginning had to put on plastic garbage bags because they couldn’t find protective gear they needed. I didn’t realize. I now realize and know what you all have done for the country and they’re ready to step up. We don’t have to punish anybody, just make sure everybody pays their fair share and everybody gets their fair shot. I can end with when my dad... had to move from Scranton when there was no work down to Wilmington, Delaware and finally we moved in with my grandpa... I remember him coming up the stairs saying, honey, we can’t live in this apartment anymore. We’re going to, and you can’t go to school. You can’t play on that little league team. You’re going to go home and live with grandpa. And it must’ve been hard for my dad to walk into my grandpop’s pantry, a man with four sons and lost one in World War II and a daughter and saying, Ambrose, can I leave the kids with you? It’s only going to be, take me about a year, but I’ll come home every weekend. It’s only 157 miles. A lot of people have made that longest walk up a short flight of stairs to tell their kids that they can’t stay in the same school, can’t play in the same club. They’re going to have to move. When my dad moved, he got a job cleaning boilers in Wilmington, and we moved into an apartment complex. And we finally, after five years, four years able to buy a small home, which is we’re happy. Nice middle class home, three bedroom home, four kids and a grandpop. And we were happy. I sometimes look back and wonder how my parents did it with those very thin walls. But my point is this, we did fine."
From "Joe Biden AFL-CIO Virtual Event Transcript September 7" (Rev).
You know, you think only Trump can do stream of consciousness, but Biden can do it too. He's funny too. He's 77 and still puzzling over how his parents had sex without his hearing it. He's still optimistic as hell even though people are getting killed — figuratively and literally — across the board.
From "Joe Biden AFL-CIO Virtual Event Transcript September 7" (Rev).
You know, you think only Trump can do stream of consciousness, but Biden can do it too. He's funny too. He's 77 and still puzzling over how his parents had sex without his hearing it. He's still optimistic as hell even though people are getting killed — figuratively and literally — across the board.
"Monoprinting is a form of printmaking that has lines or images that can only be made once, unlike most printmaking, which allows for multiple originals...."
"A monoprint is a single impression of an image made from a reprintable block. Materials such as metal plates, litho stones or wood blocks are used for etching upon.... Monoprints are known as the most painterly method among the printmaking techniques; it is essentially a printed painting. The characteristic of this method is that no two prints are alike. The beauty of this medium is also in its spontaneity and its combination of printmaking, painting and drawing media.... Monoprinting has been used by many artists, among them Georg Baselitz. Some old master prints, like etchings by Rembrandt with individual manipulation of ink as 'surface tone,' or hand-painted etchings by Degas (usually called monotypes) might be classifiable as monoprints, but they are rarely so described."
From "Monoprinting" (Wikipedia), which I'm reading this morning, because "monoprint" is a pangram in today's NYT Spelling Bee...
... but you get a "Not on the word list" rejection if you try to enter it. They keep obscure things off the list, but "hali" and "baht" were accepted words on yesterday's Spelling Bee. Ah, well. Your obscurity is not my obscurity. Here's a reproduction of a monoprint by Georg Baselitz:
From "Monoprinting" (Wikipedia), which I'm reading this morning, because "monoprint" is a pangram in today's NYT Spelling Bee...
... but you get a "Not on the word list" rejection if you try to enter it. They keep obscure things off the list, but "hali" and "baht" were accepted words on yesterday's Spelling Bee. Ah, well. Your obscurity is not my obscurity. Here's a reproduction of a monoprint by Georg Baselitz:
"Now, she also said earlier that Trump had no sense of humor, therefore it couldn't be a joke. To which I pointed out..."
"... that he is the most successful stand-up comedian in the history of humanity. His rallies with gigantic audiences are literally stand-up comedy. He does it to entertain. He literally says funny things and his audience laughs. And they go because he will say funny things that will make them laugh. He's literally the most successful stand-up comedian in the history of civilization if you look at the numbers of people who go in person. You have to admit the reason the crowd is so big is because he brings entertainment and humor. So how can you be an informed voter like [this person] says she is without knowing the president is not only someone who knows what a joke is, recognizes them, and is the most successful humorist of all time? (In terms of stand-up comedy in front of a large audience.)"
From "Scott Adams: Trump Is The Most Successful Stand-Up Comic Ever; Democrats Want To Burn Down The Country Because They Don't Get The Joke" (RCP)(video at the link).
From "Scott Adams: Trump Is The Most Successful Stand-Up Comic Ever; Democrats Want To Burn Down The Country Because They Don't Get The Joke" (RCP)(video at the link).
"After years of accidents stemming from gender-reveal parties, the woman who is widely credited with starting the trend has a new message for excited parents-to-be: 'Stop it.'"
"'Stop having these stupid parties,' blogger Jenna Myers Karvunidis said in a Facebook post on Monday after learning about the El Dorado Fire. 'For the love of God, stop burning things down.' Karvunidis popularized the gender-reveal party when she threw one to announce her oldest daughter’s sex in 2008. She and her husband cut into a cake filled with pink frosting, and she wrote about the family event on her blog High Gloss and Sauce. But the increasingly dramatic, and often dangerous, events that her party spawned have left Karvunidis begging people to leave the trend in the past. 'It was 116 degrees in Pasadena yesterday and this tool thought it would be smart to light a fire' to announce his unborn child’s sex, she wrote. 'Toxic masculinity is men thinking they need to explode something because simply enjoying a baby party is for sissies.'... Her thinking also changed because of her daughters’ diverse range of gender expression. Her oldest daughter wears suits, she said, but another daughter cried when Santa Claus brought her Legos on Christmas because she thought it was a 'boy' toy. 'Now I think the whole thing is not great at all,' she told the Guardian. 'The problem is they overemphasize one aspect of a person.'"
From "A gender-reveal stunt sparked a California wildfire that has forced 21,000 people to evacuate" (WaPo).
From "A gender-reveal stunt sparked a California wildfire that has forced 21,000 people to evacuate" (WaPo).
Taking direction from Room Rater.
Whoa! Okay, I guess it’s back to the Rec room for me. And here i was, thinking i was making progress.
— Mark Leibovich (@MarkLeibovich) September 7, 2020
Why is Kamala Harris taking her mask off specifically to yell at people?
After her roundtable with Black biz owners in Milwaukee, @KamalaHarris walked out to address ~45 fans standing across the street. “I need your help in Milwaukee, OK? We’re going to get this done. Make sure everybody votes early, right?” @axios pic.twitter.com/NYiZBBseYR
— Alexi McCammond (@alexi) September 7, 2020
I do like the shoes.
"I can’t prove the negative that he never said those things. The president has a habit of disparaging people. He ends up denigrating almost everybody..."
"... that he comes in contact with whose last name is not Trump. I was simply responding to what I thought the main point of the Atlantic article that at the critical point Saturday morning when the decision was made not to go to Aisne-Marne that he made the disparaging remarks, and he did not."
Said John Bolton, quoted in "John Bolton denies claim Trump disparaged fallen American soldiers in France: 'Simply false'/'The main issue was whether or not weather conditions permitted the president to go'" (Fox News).
Said John Bolton, quoted in "John Bolton denies claim Trump disparaged fallen American soldiers in France: 'Simply false'/'The main issue was whether or not weather conditions permitted the president to go'" (Fox News).
September 7, 2020
At 6:26 a.m.....
... it seemed as though the sun would show itself.
Write about anything you like in the comments.
"Speaking at a combative White House news conference, Trump said leaders at the Pentagon probably weren’t 'in love with me' because 'they want to do nothing but fight wars...'"
"'... so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy. Some people don’t like to come home, some people like to continue to spend money.... One cold-hearted globalist betrayal after another, that’s what it was.' He asserted that while U.S. troops largely support him, he does not receive the same affinity from the top. He made the comment as he advocated for the removal of American troops from 'endless wars' and lambasted NATO allies who 'rip us off.' The remarks come after The Atlantic reported that Trump disparaged American troops as 'suckers' and 'losers' for dying in battle.... During his Monday news conference, Trump repeated [his] denials, saying that 'only an animal would say a thing like that.'... The White House later elaborated on Trump‘s comments, saying that a number of politicians and Pentagon officials had been unwilling to pull out of the United States’ 'endless' wars and that Trump stood with soldiers and generals who want to end those conflicts...."
From "Trump says Pentagon chiefs are accommodating weapons makers/'One cold-hearted globalist betrayal after another, that’s what it was,' the president says in talking about '“endless wars'" (Politico).
From "Trump says Pentagon chiefs are accommodating weapons makers/'One cold-hearted globalist betrayal after another, that’s what it was,' the president says in talking about '“endless wars'" (Politico).
"Disney has thanked four propaganda departments and a public security bureau in Xinjiang, a region in northwest China that is the site of one of the world’s worst human rights abuses happening today."
"More than a million Muslims in Xinjiang, mostly of the Uighur minority, have been imprisoned in concentration camps.... Disney... worked with regions where genocide is occurring, and thanked government departments that are helping to carry it out.... Disney executives had thought that the original 'Mulan' would please both the Chinese government and Chinese filmgoers. But because Disney had distributed 'Kundun' (1997), a film glorifying the Dalai Lama, Beijing restricted the studio’s ability to work in China. Disney spent the next several years trying to get back into the party’s good graces. 'We made a stupid mistake in releasing "Kundun,"' the then-CEO of Disney Michael Eisner told Premier Zhu Rongji in October 1998. 'Here I want to apologize, and in the future we should prevent this sort of thing, which insults our friends, from happening.' Since then, Disney has endeavored to please Beijing...."
From "Why Disney’s new ‘Mulan’ is a scandal" (WaPo).
"Kundun" deserves a more respectful description than "a film glorifying the Dalai Lama"! This is a beautiful film directed by Martin Scorsese:
From "Why Disney’s new ‘Mulan’ is a scandal" (WaPo).
"Kundun" deserves a more respectful description than "a film glorifying the Dalai Lama"! This is a beautiful film directed by Martin Scorsese:
6:34 a.m.
In 2 days, I'll reach the one-year mark in my ritual of the sunrise run. I intend to produce my definitive list of the 10 types of sunrises — on the theory that in a year, I've seen all the types. I've given a few numbers already. As I said last May:
I haven't assigned numbers to all of the sunrise types. I want to cover them all and only have 10. I'll figure it out when the year comes full circle on September 9th (my first day of doing the sunrise run).My favorite type has all-over wispy clouds with the sun showing through. Today's sunrise is unusual, with wispy clouds, almost all over, but a bumper of thick clouds at the bottom, right where they completely obscure the sun. I consider this sunrise quite beautiful but rather subtle. It's a sunrise for the sunrise sophisticates.
So far there's 1 & 2 (very cloudy days) and 3 & 4 (very clear days) and 5 (a distinctive Z shape of sunlight). All of the best sunrises are 6-10, but they are harder to classify. I know what 10 -- my favorite -- is, I believe. 6-10 has to do with broken up clouds -- partly cloudy situations that disperse the sunlight.
"It really does feel like Biden himself is almost the best candidate for this moment because of who he is as a person and his ability to talk about racial justice and racial equality in a way that sounds like a traditional white, suburban guy."
"He doesn’t particularly sound woke, but you also understand that he gets it and that he’s trying to look at these problems in a realistic way."
Said Vaughn Derderian, the chair of the Democratic Party in Oakland County, Michigan, quoted in "Why Biden could still lose the suburbs to Trump/Among local party officials, there’s an undercurrent of uneasiness about how quickly the president shifted the focus of the campaign away from his coronavirus response and toward public safety" (Politico).
Said Vaughn Derderian, the chair of the Democratic Party in Oakland County, Michigan, quoted in "Why Biden could still lose the suburbs to Trump/Among local party officials, there’s an undercurrent of uneasiness about how quickly the president shifted the focus of the campaign away from his coronavirus response and toward public safety" (Politico).
Biden said of the public’s response to Trump’s law-and-order posturing last week that “they ain't buying it.” And most Democratic political professionals — and some Republicans – believe that’s probably true at the moment. Frank Luntz, the veteran Republican consultant and pollster, said in an email that Trump “is talking about the right issue, but he's talking the wrong way. Suburban voters want ‘public safety’ even more than law and order. They want ‘safe streets’ rather than ‘dominating the streets.’ His rhetoric is over-caffeinated.”People always say Trump is "talking the wrong way." He was talking the wrong way in 2016, and then he won. Talking the wrong way is Trump's super power. The question isn't whether people will say Trump is talking the wrong way, but whether, in the end, they'll vote for him, and they voted for him in 2016 when he talked the wrong way, and I assume they'll do it again. Who cares what's "probably true at the moment"?!
"Steve Jobs would not be happy that his wife is wasting money he left her on a failing Radical Left Magazine that is run by a con man (Goldberg) and spews FAKE NEWS & HATE."
Tweeted Donald Trump, quoted in "Trump attacks the sixth-richest woman in the world for her ties to The Atlantic" (CNN).
I only read that because the headline was so odd — "the sixth-richest woman." Is that supposed to make him seem more sexist than calling her Steve Jobs's widow?
I only read that because the headline was so odd — "the sixth-richest woman." Is that supposed to make him seem more sexist than calling her Steve Jobs's widow?
"But journalism is not supposed to be grounded in whether something is 'believable' or 'seems like it could be true.'"
"Its core purpose, the only thing that really makes it matter or have worth, is reporting what is true, or at least what evidence reveals. And that function is completely subverted when news outlets claim that they 'confirmed' a previous report when they did nothing more than just talked to the same people who anonymously whispered the same things to them as were whispered to the original outlet. Quite aside from this specific story about whether Trump loves The Troops, conflating the crucial journalistic concept of 'confirmation' with 'hearing the same idle gossip' or 'unproven assertions' is a huge disservice. It is an instrument of propaganda, not reporting. And its use has repeatedly deceived rather than informed the public. Anyone who doubts that should review how it is that MSNBC and CBS both claimed to have 'confirmed' a CNN report which turned out to be ludicrously and laughably false."
Writes Glenn Greenwald in "Journalism’s New Propaganda Tool: Using “Confirmed” to Mean its Opposite/Outlets claiming to have 'confirmed' Jeffrey Goldberg’s story about Trump’s troops comments are again abusing that vital term" (The Intercept). The "ludicrously and laughably false" CNN report was that "during the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump, Jr. had received a September 4 email with a secret encryption key that gave him advanced access to WikiLeaks’ servers containing the DNC emails."
If Rumormonger tells a story to Newspaper1 and then Rumormonger tells the story to Newspaper2, Newspaper2 can't say that it is confirming the story! It can only confirm that Rumormonger is mongering that story. There's no more confirmation than if Newspaper1 and Newspaper2 were on a conference call with Rumormonger and heard the story simultaneously.
Writes Glenn Greenwald in "Journalism’s New Propaganda Tool: Using “Confirmed” to Mean its Opposite/Outlets claiming to have 'confirmed' Jeffrey Goldberg’s story about Trump’s troops comments are again abusing that vital term" (The Intercept). The "ludicrously and laughably false" CNN report was that "during the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump, Jr. had received a September 4 email with a secret encryption key that gave him advanced access to WikiLeaks’ servers containing the DNC emails."
If Rumormonger tells a story to Newspaper1 and then Rumormonger tells the story to Newspaper2, Newspaper2 can't say that it is confirming the story! It can only confirm that Rumormonger is mongering that story. There's no more confirmation than if Newspaper1 and Newspaper2 were on a conference call with Rumormonger and heard the story simultaneously.
"Thirty years ago one could reply, ‘So what,’ ‘laugh it off,’ ‘talk back,’ or some other cliched response."
"Today that’s impossible. If someone is guilty of hate speech they almost immediately apologize when it’s called to their attention. The social norm against hate speech is pretty firmly established."
Said lawprof Richard Delgado, quoted in "The Deeply Pessimistic Intellectual Roots of Black Lives Matter, the '1619 Project' and Much Else in Woke America" (RCP). Much more at the link. I wanted to highlight Richard Delgado, who was a colleague of mine at the University of Wisconsin back in the days when Donna Shalala was chancellor.
Said lawprof Richard Delgado, quoted in "The Deeply Pessimistic Intellectual Roots of Black Lives Matter, the '1619 Project' and Much Else in Woke America" (RCP). Much more at the link. I wanted to highlight Richard Delgado, who was a colleague of mine at the University of Wisconsin back in the days when Donna Shalala was chancellor.
"The most effective way to combat racial discrimination..."
The most effective way to combat racial discrimination is to continually remind white people that they are inhuman demons who are beyond redemption. pic.twitter.com/WclBps4IKz
— Titania McGrath (@TitaniaMcGrath) September 7, 2020
Meanwhile, at the New York Times, "More Than Ever, Trump Casts Himself as the Defender of White America" and the basis for that assertion is this:
Trump Orders Purge of ‘Critical Race Theory‘ from Federal Agencies https://t.co/ygXcTXRHsQ via @BreitbartNews This is a sickness that cannot be allowed to continue. Please report any sightings so we can quickly extinguish!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 5, 2020
September 6, 2020
A NYT juxtaposition.
On the front page right now:
The Hitler image is part of a teaser to "10 New Books We Recommend This Week."
Here's the article on Jenna Bush Hager's new book, "Everything Beautiful in Its Time." I've got to admit, I think the sentiment in the title is utter bullshit, and I myself would be tempted to put a photograph of Hitler next to it to make it look especially stupid, so I'm just pointing out that the NYT did this.
The Hitler image is part of a teaser to "10 New Books We Recommend This Week."
Here's the article on Jenna Bush Hager's new book, "Everything Beautiful in Its Time." I've got to admit, I think the sentiment in the title is utter bullshit, and I myself would be tempted to put a photograph of Hitler next to it to make it look especially stupid, so I'm just pointing out that the NYT did this.
Is it pro-science when Joan Baez paints "TRUST FAUCI"? It's art, by a person presenting artist credentials, and it's telling you to trust an authority figure.
Dr. Fauci continues to be disrespected & marginalized by the administration's lack of commitment to science. My painting offers the message to TRUST FAUCI. We can put our faith in science & truth, not lies, smoke screens & snake oil. #TRUSTFAUCI #TRUTHMATTERS #SCIENCEMATTERS pic.twitter.com/candsYYDPt
— Joan Baez (@joancbaez) September 4, 2020
Dancing in the streets.
Graphic: Another angle of the person being set on fire by a Molotov cocktail thrown by antifa militants in SE Portland. Rioters try to help but don’t do much. Cops are the ones who rush in & put out the flames. Video by @BGOnTheScene. #PortlandRiots pic.twitter.com/9gNFo73Lyc
— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) September 6, 2020
"This girl should be the poster child for white privilege... I wonder how her rich parents feel about their daughter. How would they feel if they graffitied their townhouse?"
Said a cop quoted in "Wealthy NYC woman busted in BLM rampage" about the arrest of "Clara Kraebber, 20... one of eight people arrested Friday night after a roiling, three-hour rampage... from Foley Square up to 24th Street.... 'Every city, every town, burn the precinct to the ground!' the group chanted as it moved up Lafayette Street while busting the plate glass facades of banks, Starbucks and Duane-Reades."
It's not surprising that privileged young white women would get caught up in Black Lives Matter. It's a classic theme. Haven't you read "American Pastoral"? Don't you remember Patty Hearst? Haven't you looked at the photos of who's out rampaging on the streets this year?
Here's my teaser line for a movie about a young white woman in the BLM protests of 2020: Sometimes protesting against white privilege is the most white-privileged thing you can do.
It's not surprising that privileged young white women would get caught up in Black Lives Matter. It's a classic theme. Haven't you read "American Pastoral"? Don't you remember Patty Hearst? Haven't you looked at the photos of who's out rampaging on the streets this year?
Here's my teaser line for a movie about a young white woman in the BLM protests of 2020: Sometimes protesting against white privilege is the most white-privileged thing you can do.
I couldn't take my eyes off Bill. What's he thinking?!
What do you think the bubble above Bill Clinton's head says right now? https://t.co/p3efFzKAFK
— Sharyl Attkisson🕵️♂️ (@SharylAttkisson) September 5, 2020
"My heart made that sound when the six-fingered man killed my father. Every 'Princess Bride' fan who wants to see that perfect movie preserved from Hollywood politics makes it now."
Tweeted Ted Cruz, quoted in "'The Princess Bride' Cast Reunites for Wisconsin Democratic Party Fundraiser" (Variety).
The cast members participating in this unusual fundraisers are Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, Carol Kane, Chris Sarandon, Mandy Patinkin, Wallace Shawn, and Billy Crystal. The director Rob Reiner is also participating.
Here's the IMDB list of the whole cast of the 1987, in case you want to figure out who's not going along with this event. Peter Falk and Andre the Giant are no longer among the living. But Christopher Guest and Fred Savage are not in the group. All the other non-participants in the credited cast are English actors.
Actually, Christopher Guest, though born in New York City, "holds a hereditary British peerage as the 5th Baron Haden-Guest." He would be entitled to a seat in the House of Lords, but the membership was reformed in 1999. He's expressed interest in seeking election to the House of Lords. So I can see why he'd want to stay out of American politics.
As for Fred Savage, this might have something to do with his nonparticipation.
The cast members participating in this unusual fundraisers are Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, Carol Kane, Chris Sarandon, Mandy Patinkin, Wallace Shawn, and Billy Crystal. The director Rob Reiner is also participating.
Here's the IMDB list of the whole cast of the 1987, in case you want to figure out who's not going along with this event. Peter Falk and Andre the Giant are no longer among the living. But Christopher Guest and Fred Savage are not in the group. All the other non-participants in the credited cast are English actors.
Actually, Christopher Guest, though born in New York City, "holds a hereditary British peerage as the 5th Baron Haden-Guest." He would be entitled to a seat in the House of Lords, but the membership was reformed in 1999. He's expressed interest in seeking election to the House of Lords. So I can see why he'd want to stay out of American politics.
As for Fred Savage, this might have something to do with his nonparticipation.
"Boris Johnson privately told US diplomats that Donald Trump was 'making America great again'..."
"... according to a cache of official notes taken during high-level UK-US meetings whose details have leaked to The Telegraph. The Prime Minister is quoted telling the US ambassador to Britain in August 2017, when he was foreign secretary, that Mr Trump was doing 'fantastic stuff' on foreign policy issues like China, Syria and North Korea. Other records show Mr Johnson claimed the US president was becoming 'increasingly popular' in Britain in 2017 and spoke warmly about how under his leadership America was 'back and engaged in the world.'"
The Telegraph reports.
The Telegraph reports.
"Trump hired a 'Faux-Bama' to participate in a video in which Trump 'ritualistically belittled the first black president and then fired him.'"
"[Michael] Cohen's book, 'Disloyal: A Memoir,' doesn't name the man who was allegedly hired to play Obama or provide a specific date for the incident, but it does include a photograph of Trump sitting behind a desk, facing a Black man wearing a suit with an American flag pin affixed to the lapel. On Trump's desk are two books, one displaying Obama's name in large letters."
CNN reports.
How weird is this? It's similar to debate preparation, where someone is brought in to play the role of the candidate's opponent, so he can sharpen his arguments and work on an effective self-presentation. Trump, of course, would never have to face Obama in a debate, but he was running against a continuation of the Obama administration, and he did need to practice arguing against Obama, even though he didn't need to figure out how to be in the room with him and counter his weighty presence. The exercise of telling him off to his face might have been conceived of as an effective way to build Trump's style and confidence. Put Trump in his familiar milieu as a business boss with Obama cut down to the size of a subordinate whom Trump could fire. Do the theater of "The Apprentice." It's a way to practice.
It could also have been an idea for an ad. It might have worked. But it wasn't used, perhaps because it didn't build the belief that Trump has analyzed Obama's work and seen why we shouldn't want the same thing anymore. Cohen isn't a credible witness, but if we take his characterization seriously, once videoed, the scene looked like Trump had "ritualistically belittled" Obama, and it would have been quite sensible to predict that the ad would stimulate a protectiveness toward Obama. Trump certainly managed to criticize Obama successfully, but we never had a picture of him humiliating the man personally. If that was to be an ad, it was scrapped, and that was a sensible enough decision, in retrospect, because Trump won the election.
And now we have Cohen, trying to make some money and to hurt his former client, with this book "Disloyal." With that title, the publisher flaunts Cohen's contemptibility — that's the best move, with this author nobody likes. So the Trump-hating media can rifle through the book and what does it find? CNN leads with this imitation Obama story. That's the worst thing in the book? It's new and it's concrete... and it doesn't rest entirely on Cohen's credibility, because there's a photograph:
Other cherry-picking in the CNN article:
CNN reports.
How weird is this? It's similar to debate preparation, where someone is brought in to play the role of the candidate's opponent, so he can sharpen his arguments and work on an effective self-presentation. Trump, of course, would never have to face Obama in a debate, but he was running against a continuation of the Obama administration, and he did need to practice arguing against Obama, even though he didn't need to figure out how to be in the room with him and counter his weighty presence. The exercise of telling him off to his face might have been conceived of as an effective way to build Trump's style and confidence. Put Trump in his familiar milieu as a business boss with Obama cut down to the size of a subordinate whom Trump could fire. Do the theater of "The Apprentice." It's a way to practice.
It could also have been an idea for an ad. It might have worked. But it wasn't used, perhaps because it didn't build the belief that Trump has analyzed Obama's work and seen why we shouldn't want the same thing anymore. Cohen isn't a credible witness, but if we take his characterization seriously, once videoed, the scene looked like Trump had "ritualistically belittled" Obama, and it would have been quite sensible to predict that the ad would stimulate a protectiveness toward Obama. Trump certainly managed to criticize Obama successfully, but we never had a picture of him humiliating the man personally. If that was to be an ad, it was scrapped, and that was a sensible enough decision, in retrospect, because Trump won the election.
And now we have Cohen, trying to make some money and to hurt his former client, with this book "Disloyal." With that title, the publisher flaunts Cohen's contemptibility — that's the best move, with this author nobody likes. So the Trump-hating media can rifle through the book and what does it find? CNN leads with this imitation Obama story. That's the worst thing in the book? It's new and it's concrete... and it doesn't rest entirely on Cohen's credibility, because there's a photograph:
Other cherry-picking in the CNN article:
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