२१ नोव्हेंबर, २०२०
"What if you had to argue...?
"[H]e talked about how it had all been for the best. Parkinson’s, he said, had made him quit drinking, which in turn had probably saved his marriage."
Must Hollywood cast an actor with autism to play a character with autism?
Criticism and responses here, at Twitter: "Sia faces backlash after casting Maddie Ziegler as an autistic teen in upcoming movie Music." Answers from Sia:Hollywood strikes again with another film where non-disabled actors play disabled roles. Having a neurotypical play an autistic person is offensive enough; rolling this trailer out at the start of #DisabilityHistoryMonth is a kick in the bloody teeth.
— Liam O'Dell (@LiamODellUK) November 19, 2020
No captions, either. https://t.co/VJOnVUv9Mz
The 12-foot-tall Chamberlin Rock — in the news these days as racist — is featured as a climbing destination at Mountain Project.
Sit start and work your way up the arete using holds on both sides of the corner. Top out. In my opinion this is the best problem on this rock.In the comments there:
Found some more routes on this little boulder. Hang below the plaque and climb and top out at top left corner. If you avoid using your feet on the ledge you started with it is a bit tougher V2-V3. You can also start on the southwest arete of the boulder and traverse right. If you avoid the top ridge until you top out in the center of the boulder I would rate it as a V3.The climbers are looking for what they seem to call "problems." Ah, yes... in bouldering, a "problem" is the path you take up the rock.
Problematization of a term, writing, opinion, ideology, identity, or person is to consider the concrete or existential elements of those involved as challenges (problems) that invite the people involved to transform those situations. It is a method of defamiliarization of common sense....
You can also look at the rock in a political/social-justice way and figure out the best problem. Indeed, that has been done, and the rock was determined to contain racism. This problem is not a route for climbing but something that requires people to say things about the rock until the authorities feel that their best route — their path for overcoming criticism — is to get rid of the rock.
The 70-ton boulder is officially known as Chamberlin Rock in honor of Thomas Crowder Chamberlin, a geologist and former university president. But the rock was referred to at least once after it was dug out of the hill as a “n*****head,” a commonly used expression in the 1920s to describe any large dark rock. The Campus Planning Committee unanimously voted last week to recommend to Chancellor Rebecca Blank that the boulder be removed from Observatory Hill. Blank has previously indicated she supports the rock’s removal, though a timeline for removal has not been established.
The Wisconsin Black Student Union called for the rock’s removal over the summer. President Nalah McWhorter said the rock is a symbol of the daily injustices that students of color face on a predominantly white campus. “This is a huge accomplishment for us,” she said on Wednesday. “We won’t have that constant reminder, that symbol that we don’t belong here.”...
But the rock was referred to at least once... That one verified usage of the term was in The Wisconsin State Journal in 1925. Oddly enough, this new WSJ article has the word written out. I put in asterisks in the quote, above. Go to the link. They've written it out!
It’s unclear whether or for how long people on campus referred to the boulder as “N*****head Rock.”...
Whoa! They did it twice!
Kacie Butcher, the university’s public history project director, told the Campus Planning Committee... that the rock’s removal presents an opportunity to prioritize students of color and engage in complex conversations.
Complex conversations! If we can have complex conversations, why do we need to move ancient boulders?
The rock’s next destination has yet to be decided. Options include burying the rock at its original resting place, breaking up and disposing of the rock, or moving the rock to the Ice Age Trail.... Carried by glaciers from perhaps as far north as Canada, the boulder was excavated from the side of Observatory Hill in 1925. Geochronology professor Brad Singer told the committee the department prefers it be relocated so instructors can continue using it as a teaching tool.
And here's a big complication:
UW-Madison needs to secure approval from the Wisconsin Historical Society before removal begins because the rock is located near an effigy mound. The first step requires UW-Madison to submit a request to disturb a catalogued burial site. All Native Tribes of Wisconsin are notified during the process, which can take 60 to 90 days and includes a 30-day comment period.
A complex conversation topic: Do the Native American Tribes of Wisconsin have more moral authority on this question than the Black Student Union?
Officials estimate the cost of removal ranges from $30,000 to $75,000.
Another complex conversation topic: Is this the best use of the next $30,000 to $75,000 the University spends on racial harmony?
After the rock is removed, the Black Student Union’s focus will shift to generating ideas for how students of color can reclaim the space, such as installing a piece of art, McWhorter said. “So it becomes a way to celebrate instead of having it as an empty space reminding us of what it once was,” she said.
Oh, no! Public art! If only we could see the artwork before the rock is removed and vote on whether the rock is better than the art. It's unlikely that the artwork will be better than an empty unobstructed view, and the rock is highly aesthetically pleasing... except for the plaque. Here's my suggestion — maybe we can have a complex conversation about this — how about just changing the plaque on the rock? Of course, the plaque never said "n*****head." It was always just honoring Professor Chamberlin. Write something new. Use words. Don't destroy the rock. And don't disrupt the Indian burial ground.
The main reason to stick to the demand that the rock be destroyed or carted away is that you have a demonstrable, physical result — you demanded, they acceded to your demand — and that sets you up perfectly for your next demand... presumably, to take down the statue of Abraham Lincoln.
"Kyle Rittenhouse was released from jail in Wisconsin on Friday afternoon after his attorneys posted $2 million bail..."
The first and last sentences of a Washington Post article titled "Supreme Court continues capital punishment trend with Barrett on the bench."
"Trump is a bully. He’s famous in many well-documented instances of asking or doing things that are inappropriate in most people’s view. I don’t think it would be surprising that he’d do something inappropriate today."
२० नोव्हेंबर, २०२०
"Blobby globs."
"C.S. Lewis once wrote that if you’d never met a human and suddenly encountered one, you’d be inclined to worship this creature."
"Prosecutors may still be stigmatized as administrators of racial inequality, but that reputation will perhaps be upstaged..."
"I think they’re witnessing incredible irresponsibility, incredibly damaging messages being sent to the rest of the world about how democracy functions."
But notice the way the question is asked. It's not about whether enough votes were affected but whether the motive was to affect enough votes. Biden was talking about belief that he really did win enough votes. To believe that is not the same as believing that there were no stolen votes. In that light, these poll results are inconsequential. It's easy to say I'm sure there was some fraud, in some places, and also to believe that overall the result we're seeing is legitimate. It's not perfect, but it's good enough. The point at which you say that varies depending on whether you're happy with the outcome you're seeing now.Huge: "How likely is it that Democrats stole votes or destroyed pro-Trump ballots in several states to ensure that Biden would win?"
— Rasmussen Reports (@Rasmussen_Poll) November 20, 2020
Democrats - 30% - 20% say Very Likely (VL)
Unaffiliated - 39% - 29% say VL
Republicans - 75% - 61% say VL
All Voters - 47% - 36% say VL https://t.co/NMDryxyLzq pic.twitter.com/EblRuV2AXY
Interesting that the federalist approach did not trigger “Trump-Ian” approach in your remarks.I didn't write it out, but I thought it. It seemed obvious. I'm not trying to suppress it. Throughout this year, I have defended Trump's federalism approach when he was criticized for not taking over with a top-down national approach. There's this, from April 11th:
"They FIRED YOU?? It's 2020 and companies still don't understand the benefit of digital/social marketing."
१९ नोव्हेंबर, २०२०
"Gazing at intransigence."
"This question is pathetic and exactly why people no longer trust the mainstream media. No legitimate journalist would ask this."
"Important News Conference today by lawyers on a very clear and viable path to victory. Pieces are very nicely falling into place."
UPDATE: Rudy Giuliani holds a press conference, explaining the lawsuits and citing the evidence.Important News Conference today by lawyers on a very clear and viable path to victory. Pieces are very nicely falling into place. RNC at 12:00 P.M.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 19, 2020
"[T]here is a lot of demand for me to address the situation at Vox in detail or to assimilate my personal story into a larger narrative about 'wokeness' or the culture wars."
Navel-gazing or omphaloskepsis is the contemplation of one's navel as an aid to meditation. The word derives from the Ancient Greek words ὀμφᾰλός (omphalós, lit. 'navel') and σκέψῐς (sképsis, lit. 'viewing, examination, speculation'). Actual use of the practice as an aid to contemplation of basic principles of the cosmos and human nature is found in the practice of yoga or Hinduism and sometimes in the Eastern Orthodox Church. In yoga, the navel is the site of the manipura (also called nabhi) chakra, which yogis consider "a powerful chakra of the body".The monks of Mount Athos, Greece, were described as Omphalopsychians by J.G. Minningen, writing in the 1830s, who says they "...pretended or fancied that they experienced celestial joys when gazing on their umbilical region, in converse with the Deity".
However, phrases such as "contemplating one's navel" or "navel-gazing" are frequently used, usually in jocular fashion, to refer to self-absorbed pursuits.
As long as Yglesias brought up wokeness, I just want to say that the jocular use of "navel-gazing" is a micro-aggression. You've got an unexamined premise that there is something backward about Hinduism (or the Greek Orthodox Church).
Not much of an explanation in "N.Y.C.’s Schools Shutdown, Explained."
The mayor’s 10 a.m. news conference [yesterday] was repeatedly pushed back and finally began at 3 p.m. At a separate news conference earlier in the afternoon, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo shouted at a reporter who asked whether schools would remain open.
While he was speaking, The Times reported that schools would close on Thursday....
Many parents depend on their children being in school for at least part of the week in order to work. Educators and parents had also criticized the city for not improving remote learning even though about 70 percent of children already take online classes full-time. Some students, including those in homeless shelters, have not received iPads or laptops from the city, and teachers have said that some students struggle to log on.
Where's the explanation of the shutdown? I went to that article because it's newer than this NYT article, which I'd already read and which gives the foundation for the questions I hoped to get answered and absolutely did not:
"'Defund the police' is the second stupidest campaign slogan any Democrat has uttered in the twenty first century."
The latest choice for Democrats to locate our fear and blame is the slogan from many Black and young activists who marched the streets this summer: “Defund The Police.” Conservative Democrats may change the terms and people we blame and fear year-by-year, but Democrats must take on the Republican Party’s divide-and-conquer racism head-on and not demobilize our own base.... This election, the Black youth leading the Black Lives Matter movement have turned their power in the streets into votes.... When Democratic leaders make unforced errors like showing off two subzero freezers full of ice cream on national television or cozy up with Wall Street executives and corporate lobbyists while Trump tells voters we are the party of the swamp, it is not surprising that we lose.
Edsall links to this especially good Trump ad, which magnificently exploited Pelosi's posing with her refrigerators:
Liberal advocacy groups have become more in-your-face, more intense, partly in reaction to the intransigence of the Trump regime, a development that is in turn irrevocably linked to the intensity of the conflicts across the country and within the Democratic Party itself.
Trump only gets credit when it seems like blame. Oh, he's intransigent! But what Edsall is admitting is that Trump suckered the Democratic Party into fighting itself. How did he do that? It was quite a bit more sophisticated than just being "intransigent" and thus causing other people to become "more intense."
The Washington Post viewpoint on obscurity: "For three hours, an obscure county board in Michigan was at the center of U.S. politics."
१८ नोव्हेंबर, २०२०
"Against Thanksgiving."
"For as long as there have been stages and screens, disability and disfigurement have been used as visual shorthand for evildoing..."
"When I step outside, I step into a country of men who stare. I could be making the short walk from my car to the bookstore..."
"Just five short years ago Jared and Ivanka were dinner-party royalty here in Manhattan. It’s that kind of place."
"We have every reason to believe a Trump memoir would be primarily misinformation, ungrounded opinions and flat-out lies."
"I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, other people get it, too. They realize how ridiculous the whole image of Thanksgiving is."
In one scene, the Wednesday character, cast as Pocahontas in a children’s Thanksgiving play, goes off script to take violent revenge on the Pilgrims. “You have taken the land which is rightfully ours,” she calmly seethes. “Years from now, my people will be forced to live in mobile homes on reservations. Your people will wear cardigans and drink highballs.”
That's from an NYT article, "The Thanksgiving Myth Gets a Deeper Look This Year For many Native Americans, the Covid-19 toll and the struggle over racial inequity make this high time to re-examine the holiday, and a cruel history."
Is this year a particularly good time to revisit the negative side of the origins of Thanksgiving?
At first, I thought no. For millions of Americans, Thanksgiving is a tradition within their own family's story, and that tradition is sadly disrupted by the pandemic. Many of us have recently lost loved ones, and we all have suffered for almost a year from the enforced distance from family and friends and that separation feels especially awful with the approach of Thanksgiving — the holiday that has come to mean gathering indoors with a big group of people we love. It's about love, family, and food, not being upper middle class (which is what that "cardigans and highballs" business is supposed to mean).
But then I thought, sure, why not? Why not pile on and kick people while they're down? We're already feeling terrible. Give us something else to feel terrible about. We're deprived of loving warmth we'd come to expect at this time of year, so fling open the window and make it as cold as possible. Can't do Thanksgiving this year? Well, you should have never been doing Thanksgiving anyway, so let's just call this Year 1 of America Without Thanksgiving, and let's try to think of other sacrifices you need to make.
Stop asking what am I thankful for. Start asking what more can I give up.
AND: Let's consume the entire Addams Family scene:Wait, we can not break bread with you. You have taken the land which is rightfully ours. Years from now my people will be forced to live in mobile homes on reservations. Your people will wear cardigans, and drink highballs. We will sell our bracelets by the road sides, and you will play golf, and eat hot hors d'oeuvres. My people will have pain and degradation. Your people will have stick shifts. The gods of my tribe have spoken. They said do not trust the pilgrims, especially Sarah Miller. And for all of these reasons I have decided to scalp you and burn your village to the ground.
१७ नोव्हेंबर, २०२०
"We don’t really want to see Mamaw at Thanksgiving and bury her by Christmas... It’s going to happen. You’re going to say hi at Thanksgiving, it’s so nice to see you..."
"Schools Should Be the Last Things We Close, Not the First/Why do we keep asking children to bear the brunt of a lockdown?"
Cases have definitely been more common in school-age children this fall. But when schools do the right things, those infections are not transmitted in the classroom. They’re occurring, for the most part, when children go to parties, when they have sleepovers and when they’re playing sports inside and unmasked.... The playbook for keeping schools as safe as possible has been understood for many months...
[O]ur schools are not, for the most part, prepared to deliver high quality educational content online. Kids are also social animals and need safe in-person interactions for their mental health and development.... Closing schools also exacerbates social and economic disparities.... Students who fall behind will have an incredibly difficult time catching up....
Almost everything else should be put on pause first. This is what Europe is doing. No one can explain why, once again, the United States is choosing its own path....
My hypothesis would be that both Europe and the United States are putting the interests of adults first and the difference is which adults — parents or teachers.
"My dream from the time I was probably 7 or 8 was to be 50.... That was just always my goal."
"One more lame defense you hear from Republicans: Democrats did this to Mr. Trump. But that’s false, too."
"I find this more embarrassing for the country than debilitating for my ability to get started."
१६ नोव्हेंबर, २०२०
"Pretzel in pocket."
A midday café...
"A major influence on Jimmy Wales’s conception of [Wikipedia] was an essay by Friedrich Hayek called 'The Use of Knowledge in Society'..."
"For some reason, animals keep evolving into things that look like crabs, independently, over and over again."
"Why did the Democrats win the Presidential vote but do so poorly in everything further down on the ballot -- Senate, House, and state-level races?"
"Why Are So Many Latinos Obsessed With Demonizing Black Lives Matter? It's Complicated."
Many Latinos who back President Trump bring the racial — and racist — complexities of Latin America to their attacks on the racial justice movement....
[T]his summer many Latinos started to loudly express contempt for — and falsehoods about — the Black Lives Matter (BLM) racial justice movement. For months, Latinos for Trump rallies — like one in Miami Lakes where an organizer shouted BLM “wants to tear down the Biblical definition of family!” — have been trumpeting bogus claims about the movement being anti-American.
"US stocks rose sharply Monday, and the Dow was closing in on 30,000, after Moderna said its experimental Covid-19 vaccine was 94.5% effective against the coronavirus."
Why I'm reading about a shooting that took place in 2007 over the question of exactly how tall was James Brown.
French President Macron accuses American media — with its critique of systemic racism — of legitimizing terrorism.
[Macron said] “When France was attacked five years ago, every nation in the world supported us.... So when I see, in that context, several newspapers which I believe are from countries that share our values — journalists who write in a country that is the heir to the Enlightenment and the French Revolution — when I see them legitimizing this violence, and saying that the heart of the problem is that France is racist and Islamophobic, then I say the founding principles have been lost.”
Smith proceeds to speculate that Macron is adjusting his message because he is likely to face "the far-right leader Marine Le Pen" in the next election, in 2022.
"OK, so here's a weird thing to happen at your temp job. A chunk of the country decides that you, personally, are trying to steal the election from the president of the United States."
"George Harrison once sent a handwritten letter to a Beatles fan asking them to trash Paul McCartney’s car."
Now proceed to 20 Forthlin RD. with about 6 buckets full of dirty muddy greasey water, where a shiney Ford Classic will be seen. Spread contents of the buckets evenly, so as to leave a nice film of muck over the car. You can now return home knowing you have done your deed for the day. Thank you!!!
Harrison was more of a jerk than you might think if you mostly just listen to his song lyrics. So spiritual!
Do you think of your body as a car your spirit rides around in? Do you admire a man who does?
But enough of that jerk George. What was this "Ford Classic" of Paul's? I don't know exactly when George wrote that letter and gave out what seems to have been Paul's home address. But here's a GQ article from this year, "Paul McCartney's car collection is a tour de force." It says Paul has a 1962 Ford Consul Classic 315.
Wikipedia's "Ford Classic" article has this picture (not specifically Paul's car):
(cc Charles01)
"You think that you're the man/I think, therefore, I am/I'm not your friend/Or anything, damn."
१५ नोव्हेंबर, २०२०
"The limbo of desperados."
"But while Black activists remain excited about Harris’s ascent, many now worry that the administration will not deliver much beyond her historic election..."
"Where is the evidence?"
NEW: Former National Security Adviser John Bolton urges GOP leadership to "explain to our voters... that in fact Trump has lost the election and that these claims of election fraud are baseless." https://t.co/z6SZ06zbP3 pic.twitter.com/GyXya7xYAv
— ABC News (@ABC) November 15, 2020
When is a sign not a sign? When it's art?
The black vinyl letters in the artwork “Truth Be Told” measure 21 feet high and stretch some 160 feet across the facade of the 1929 red brick building that now serves as the School, a branch of Manhattan’s Jack Shainman Gallery.
"[The Hispanic] community is not a get-out-the-vote universe... We’re a persuasion universe and should be treated like whites."
“Defund police, open borders, socialism — it’s killing us,” said Representative Vicente Gonzalez, a Democrat from South Texas... The “average white person,” Mr. Gonzalez added, may associate socialism with Nordic countries, but to Asian and Hispanic migrants it recalls despotic “left-wing regimes.”
Representative Harley Rouda of California, an Orange County Democrat who narrowly lost his bid for re-election... said he suffered with centrist voters and his district’s numerous Vietnamese-American voters, many of whom recoil from the rhetoric of socialism....
"His almost zealous commitment to moderation rankled some progressives, who had assumed that his soaring campaign rhetoric meant he was a visionary bent on overturning the status quo."
"When darkness fell, the counterprotesters triggered more mayhem as they harassed Trump’s advocates, stealing red hats and flags and lighting them on fire."
"You are looking for a way out of the decadent aristocratic game, the limbo of Jet Set desperados. I’ll show you the way."
“Neither the counterculture nor the prosecutors and prison system knew what to make of her,” Michael Horowitz, Mr. Leary’s archivist, said in a 2017 interview. “Her outspoken, upper-class European manner put people off,” he said. “She had an edge and knew how to get her way. Tim empowered her, and she in turn was tremendously loyal to him, dedicated to getting him out — whatever it took. Alienating many in the counterculture was the fallout from that.”
He got out of prison in 1976, as the 2 of them became "federal informants" That led Allen Ginsberg to call her "a C.I.A. sex provocateur." The feds put them in the witness protection program — "outside Santa Fe under the aliases James and Nora Joyce."
They were both alcoholics and fought all the time before splitting up. Ms. Harcourt-Smith moved to the Caribbean and lived on a sailboat for a few years. She stopped drinking and taking drugs in 1983 and settled in Santa Fe, where she began life anew. “I felt like a child who grew up in the forest,” she said... “I had to relearn everything.... I had so much shame and guilt that I could barely write.”
The great filmmaker Errol Morris has made a documentary about her that will be on Showtime soon. She wrote a memoir "Tripping the Bardo with Timothy Leary: My Psychedelic Love Story."
It doesn't have any one star reviews at Amazon, so I read the 2 star reviews. Here's one: