The pale edge of the sun first appeared a little way up from the shoreline, as if there was a phantom horizon:
It heated up nicely:
And, from a distance, Meade took a picture of me taking a picture.
August 18, 2021
At the Sunrise Café...
... you can talk about whatever you want. And here are some phases of today's interesting sunrise.
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Starting today, the majority of black New Yorkers will no longer be allowed to go to a restaurant, gym, movie theater, etc., because they cannot show proof of vaccination.
Well, Democrats always were the party of Jim Crow...
"And when Stephanopoulos tried to ask Biden about the horrific scenes of people clinging to and falling from departing US airplanes, the president grew combative.
“We’ve all seen the pictures. We’ve seen those hundreds of people packed in a C-17. We’ve seen Afghans falling –“
“That was four days ago, five days ago!” Biden cut Stephanopoulos, even though the images were taken on Monday.
“No,” Biden said. “I don’t think it could have been handled in a way that, we’re gonna go back in hindsight and look — but the idea that somehow, there’s a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don’t know how that happens. I don’t know how that happened.”"
I suggest an amendment to Barry's Biden putdown: Don't underestimate Joe's ability to f*&k things up, while imagining he didn't.
Remember that person? Koe Creation (aka Valkyrie Jacobson-Smith), that our Professor said was (probably/maybe?) just Pretending to be a freaked out queer?
Ms Creation, also known as Valkyrie Jacobson-Smith, is now upset that “the trolls” have found her public announcements and have not been overly impressed or encouraged by them
And, you know What? 'it' seems pretty serious about 'its' actions
Ima use this space as a melting pot.
Cultural appropriation: many good points made already. One interesting lens to view the practice through is the military. Adoption of the look and gear of fierce enemies is the pinnacle--"We're so tough we took their bearskin hats!"
Watch almost every modern army in the world adopt spiked helmets after the war of 1870-71.
(Not the French, of course, who doubled down on their own military fashions.)
We name weapons and sports teams for fierce warriors, for now anyway.
First picture with comment--Fata Morgana?
Follow-up from 2 nights ago. . . .
Mike In Snoqualmie: thanks for providing your blog/status report of your progress. Will continue to follow. Tokul!! - We've driven through there - small "community". We go past the Falls 3-4 times a year (on the way from Redmond to I-90). May take a detour to your plot and take a look at your progress.
Ignorance is Bliss: So glad that you provided update and that you are doing better than expected. I hope you provide an update in Septeber when you hit your 1st year anniversary of stem cell transplant
Althouse Thanks for allowing us to continue these small moments of connection. A refuge from the growing disconnects on FB and Twitter
All the gold in the Afghan Central Bank
Is in the Fed bank in the middle of NYC
Ten billion USD in somebody else's name.
So if you're dreamin' about a Taliban win
It don't matter at all where you've played before.
Governing is a whole new game.
Tryin' to be a hero, winding up with zero,
Sanctioned assets are not in Kabul, clown.
And all that that glitters does not glow
Especially not anymore from Moscow town.
For the most part I am happy to see more comments. There is a little more back and forth going on, which allows for learning. However, I fear we may have another Vietnam/Afghanistan situation here. Comments got out of hand when there was a number of personal conversations that pretty much were the same thing every thread. Some people seem to be a stuck record that jumps back to the same point every revolution. Now to be fair, I have a few issues that I harp on repeatedly. I think, in the curated email format, a number of my comments may have been passed up, by our hostess for that very reason. I would be in favor of fewer of my comments making the cut if there were fewer of the same song and dance from others that I think ruined the comment threads. I am actually a little surprised that some of them are making the cut recently. I try to bring a little different flavor though I sometimes add that one spice I put in almost everything. I hope that we can build a community of commenters that will try to add new content and perspectives with a little less of the same tired points. Me included.
Some time back I read the Manchester bio of MacArthur. Immediately at WWII, he took some flack from pundits and New Dealers in the State Dept. It seems that after the war, he was very lenient on Japanese war criminals and Filipino collaborators. They wanted The Reckoning, especially for the Emperor of Japan, but MacArthur kept reprisals to a minimum. Iirc, only six Japanese were hanged for war crimes. The Japanese Mengele, the one that performed, without anesthesia, experimental operations on American airmen was sentenced to something like six years in prison.....Justice was not served, but when is it ever? The occupation of Japan was successful......I don't know if it would have been possible for any American proconsul in Afghanistan to be successful, but no proconsul in Afghanistan could govern there in a way consistent with American values.....Well, anyway, it's not the graveyard of empires. Great Britain went out to bigger and better things after that defeat. The Afghan nation has never gone on to bigger and better things after their glorious victories.
TCM's Summer under the Stars has been mostly a snooze so far. But Monday, 8/23, the "Star"of the Day (6am Eastern for 24 hours) is the incomparable Eve Arden. A few of the movies I've seen a million times, but worth seeing again (Stage Door, At the Circus (including Groucho's Lydia the Tattooed Lady, reprised of sorta by Virginia Weidler in the Philadelphia Story), even Mildred Pierce). And, of course, the Our Miss Brooks movie. But every bit of Eve Arden worth seeing.
--gpm
Enjoying seeing the latest comment ability here on your blog, especially Meade. What a time to be alive. Love the sunrise pictures daily.
If any of you commenters are in Hawaii could you swing by Pearl Harbor and see if the ships are all lined up side by side?
It occurs to me that Joe Biden is a spectacularly bad President and that it doesn't reflect well on Donald Trump, that he couldn't find a way to beat that guy. Sort of what I think a lot of people feel about Hillary Clinton, how bad of a candidate was she that she couldn't beat Donald Trump.
I read an article over at National Review about Joe Biden and his son, Beau, and how in 2010 in an exchange with Richard Holbrooke about Afghanistan and what to do about it, Joe Biden insisted that he wasn't going to send his son "back in there" just to try and protect women's rights. Beau had had a stroke a few months before that and Joe was worried about him. Which I guess explains why he made the discussion personal, although that can also be a cheap way to cut off debate.
Not that Beau ever served in Afghanistan, he was deployed to Iraq but for Joe it would be same same I guess. Some foreign sh*thole. Anyway, concern over his son's well-being is understandable but I'm not convinced that for Joe Biden it necessarily extends to everybody else's kids, other than as an incidental benefit. And that concern doesn't really explain why he would now be willing to abandon thousands of American citizens to their fate in Afghanistan.
And that story is also more evidence that Joe Biden has had plenty of time to figure out the most effective way to get out of Afghanistan.
"For the most part I am happy to see more comments."
Yes and no. Fresh insights required. Some people are stuck in a rut. What did they do while comments were limited?
We went to see the Van Gogh Immersion son et lumiere show last night at Germania Place near Lincoln Park. Worthwhile but over-hyped. The big revelation was Starry Night over the Rhone at Arles (1888). The Big Dipper on full display over the river. Of course, the view that Van Gogh was capturing faced south, so it is an early example of photo-shopping. As my wife pointed out at an exhibition of Rembrandt self-portraits, selfies are nothing new. Van Gogh did a lot of those, too. Those are haunting images, particularly a self portrait in a straw hat with candles set on the brim.
Dane County Sheriff announces that everyone in jail will now be called a resident. Language matters.
COVID19 is an unpleasant and occasionally fatal virus for which one can obtain an effective vaccine for free. Some people decline to be vaccinated, often for political reasons. A market has developed for fake vaccination record cards. Why? Why pay for something you can get for free? If you’re trying to make a statement that you reject vaccination, why pay to fake being what you proudly declare you are not?
On a paranoid, tactical level, I like the simple vaccination cards, because they are single-purpose. If we wind up adopting electronic, hard-to-fake vaccine passports, then they can be adapted to track other things, like whether you have completed your anti-racist training.
Speaking of paranoid, try unpacking the rationale for black vaccination hesitancy. For starters, in the US black people have suffered disproportionately from COVID19, so if one wanted to do bad things to black people, then one would simply not develop a vaccine. Also, vaccines are desired and produced globally, not just in places with histories of “anti blackness”. Instead, the official story is that everyone is fearful of the virus and wants an effective vaccine against it. This is incompatible with the idea that a key part of vaccine development is tweaking it so that it harms black Americans (if it is simply less effective for them, then they won’t be harmed by it). Then there is the idea that
some wanted to make it available for black people first in order to use them as Guinea Pigs. That might have made sense six months ago, but now we see that tens of millions of white Americans have been vaccinated. Finally there is the possibility of a massive conspiracy stretching down to the lowest levels of CVS employees administering the vaccine to give black people a special, and evil, version.
When people talk about understanding black vaccination hesitancy, do they bother thinking this through?
I agree with Wa St Blogger about the comments.
"Fata Morgana?"
No. There's no mirage. The sun is really exactly where you see it. It's just that smoke/cloud obscured it at the normal place where you expect to see it first. It had to break above that opacity.
"Comments got out of hand when there was a number of personal conversations that pretty much were the same thing every thread."
When I see them, I do exclude comments that just attack another commenter. You can get into debates with people but when you do, you need some substance. Preferably don't name them. Don't make it personal. I am rejecting many comments for this reason, and the people who submit them can see what I reject and need to change their ways. It's not fair to me to burden me with things like that!
With the email approach, fewer comments were submitted and the difficulty of posting them caused me to apply a harder standard. Now, I'm getting a lot of comments, and I don't want to get bogged down meticulously reading everything. Mainly, what I need to do is be harsher on particular individuals — people who do "back and forth." There are some individuals who are just rejected EVERY time. I presume these are people who want to hurt me by wasting my time. What a bullshit way to live in this world.
The middle picture, it looks like Sauron is just waking up.
"Gooooood Morning all of my Nazgul, Orcs, Trolls, and other abhorred abominations of Darkness! It's going to be a lovely day of ashy haze in Mordor punctuated by the odd lava flow or burning rain of rocks so wear your asbestos helmets and socks! Now, who's ready to get out there and oppress some Elves and Men for the ol' S-guy?"
Lucien, why should I take a vaccine of mRNA, which had previously failed every other application in which it was tried, often producing bad side effects, when I already have had CCP virus and my blood test shows natural antibodies now?
What percent of the population is in exactly the same situation? Especially if there really were asymptomatic cases in addition to the wide range of infections the U.S. has had in the first two waves.
To me, the question is why is there such faith in the efficacy of the mRNA vaccines? Their history is poor and their long-term effects unknown. With Delta apparently breaking through the vaccine's antibodies quite widely, what exactly are the vaccines' benefits? Berenson has reported that the efficacy in highly-vaccinated Israel has been revised downwards multiple times and may be well under 50%.
Possibly it makes future infections weaker than otherwise, but that is not established fact. And there are those with significant experience in virology who keep warning that one big vaccination rush through the population, as the U.S. government and others are bent on doing, is almost sure to make the CCP virus mutate more potently to survive.
Healthy, strong men like Hank Aaron and Mike Mitchell have died shortly after taking the mRNA vaccine. Aaron was old but volunteered himself to demonstrate especially to African-Americans that there is nothing to fear from taking the vaccine. It was one of the new third doses that took Mitchell, in his 60s, down.
There are real grounds for caution with these vaccines, whose testing was rapid and whose makers are quite skilled at developing and presenting their data in the most favorable of lights.
Austin mentioned having a two week window where the Taliban is allowing the US to extract all Americans.
Military leadership. Almost brings a tear to one’s eye.
Mainly, what I need to do is be harsher on particular individuals — people who do "back and forth."
I’ll suggest here you’ve done it just right. The little bit you let in is like comic relief for the serious on-point posts. I enjoy it. I missed Drago, for one.
However this is just sad: There are some individuals who are just rejected EVERY time. I presume these are people who want to hurt me by wasting my time. What a bullshit way to live in this world.
It is. I’m glad that you are willing to sift the BS out. Thank you!
I did not answer Lucien's rhetorical question explicitly. If you feel safe already, or if you may not have had the CCP virus but are young and healthy, then the need to avoid being forced by government edict to put these dubious medicines into your body makes a fake vaccination certificate an attractive object. If the government makes lawless edicts (EDA rules), which one fears are physically dangerous, then it turns perfectly decent citizens into law-breakers, a la Prohibition. No one wants a certificate to make a political statement. They want it for their own health, as they understand our circumstances and the disease.
The comment debate has been going on for years (a decade, more?). I know some people just have to do their thing, but this is Althouse's house. I can't understand why people will come into her living room and take a dump on her carpet. If you want to be at the party, follow the hostess' rules. It's really a matter of decency. Apparently some people need help in that arena. Sad.
I agree with MJB in that it is nice again to read some of the better commenters more often.
Deaths from Covid are way down so vaccines are doing good work. Vaccines allow breakthrough cases but then one acquires natural immunity. It may be that the natural immunity thus acquired is better than that from the vaccines. I don't know why, overall, natural immunity is being disregarded as a source of protection by universities and government entities. From an epidemiological point of view, that policy makes no sense. Of course, vaccinated people are in the immunity register in Wisconsin which is online so their claims can be checked - secretly. But a better government would have worked out something, some statement by your doctor that counts as proof of natural immunity. And it can still be done.
"The comment debate has been going on for years (a decade, more?). I know some people just have to do their thing, but this is Althouse's house. I can't understand why people will come into her living room and take a dump on her carpet. If you want to be at the party, follow the hostess' rules. It's really a matter of decency. Apparently some people need help in that arena. Sad."
There may be some people who really don't understand what they are doing wrong. I wish they'd take a hint and just go away, but maybe they really are so far off the norm that they can't understand the hint.
Others I think actually want to destroy the blog or at least the comments section. One's "house" is more important than the ability have a "party" in it. To preserve the house sometimes you just need to stop having parties.
I have tried different ways. The current method is all moderation, which has costs and benefits. We'll see what happens.
Some people just can't see it from my perspective or just don't want to acknowledge how it works from my side. I see myself denounced as having done something outrageous by turning off comments even while keeping the email method going. Look at the comments section at Instapundit when he links to me. There will be people saying don't go to Althouse because she turned off the comments. Are these people delusional? Did they just hate the blog all along and they're just using this as an attack because it's something that can be used as an attack?
Back on Easter when I decided to turn off the comments, I got a discussion going about what I could do about the problem and several people insisted that the point of the blog was for me to host comments and that my writing didn't matter except as a jumping off point for the comments. I asked over and over again: What is my motivation? If you're right about the reason for the blog, what's my reason for putting hours a day into maintaining it? The only answer they came up with was that the traffic to the blog must be because of the comments and the traffic must produce income for me. That's my motivation?!
That argument *caused* me to turn off the comments. Talk about bad arguments. Have you ever made an argument that *convinced* someone to do the *opposite* of what you were arguing for?
Here's my take away: The comments and comment policy here cause knotty problems and inspire irreconcilable conflicts. On the other hand, there's no reason why our occupation of and withdrawal from Afghanistan could not have been managed in a smooth, orderly way that left everybody there happy.
---But a better government would have worked out something, some statement by your doctor that counts as proof of natural immunity. And it can still be done. [wildswan]
If you believe the government has the right to adjudicate our health status and what it signifies for our pre-existing conditions, aka freedoms. In your scenario, then, maybe I would not have to go to the back of the bus -- if my doctor cooperates for me, and if the PowersThatBe rule favorably on my exemption. But I cannot agree that the government has the right to govern us according to our health records. That strikes me as demanding some of the good old American orneriness that refuses to knuckle under. Don't Tread On Me.
Meantime, wildswan, deaths. Check the Israeli statistics in the Johns Hopkins data. Deaths are rising and the recent surge in cases has so far not shown any sign of peaking. It is not the kind of graph anyone wants to see, especially in one of the most highly vaccinated of nations.
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
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