... there’s still no new sunrise photo. I’m locked in by the subzero cold and waiting for Wednesday to get back to half-normal life. But there’s the indoor fun of a Saturday night café, so please join me in the long overnight conversation.
१३ फेब्रुवारी, २०२१
"Yet, there was a glaring omission in the substance of the House arguments. The managers... only briefly touched on proving any 'state of mind' needed for such a conviction."
"A perpetual stew, also known as hunter's pot or hunter's stew, is a pot into which whatever one can find is placed and cooked. The pot is never or rarely emptied all the way..."
"Heading into the 2020 election, most of the U.S. media was uninterested in, if not outright hostile to, any reporting that might have helped President Trump’s re-election bid."
"While a close call, I am persuaded that impeachments are a tool primarily of removal and we therefore lack jurisdiction."
The leader had let it be known that he believed Mr. Trump committed impeachable offenses and told advisers and colleagues he was open to conviction as the best way of purging Mr. Trump from the Republican Party. He even said publicly that Mr. Trump had “provoked the attack.”
"Some owners even chose to be buried at the pet cemetery, since they could not be buried alongside their pets at human cemeteries..."
The NYT tells its readers about the woes of life in a "tiny home" during the lockdown...
And the 2 top-rated comments are:
I've got news for you: most NYC apartments don't have the storage for weeks of supplies, either.
And:
Hooray for Ms. Jacques' and her children and how they are managing in their tiny home. As a former apartment dweller in New York City, I thought I'd mention that many a New Yorker would kill to have that kind of 660-square foot space...and with a loft!
The article uses the term "tiny home" to refer to all sorts of abodes — a converted "cargo trailer," a tricked-out school bus, and a renovated detached 1-car garage — but never mentions apartments, the tiny homes New Yorker's have dealt with forever and without any sort of trend to create a structure of delusion around the challenge. For those who did let the "tiny home" delusion inflate their spirits pre-pandemic, the cramped space seems to hurt in some special (trendy?) way.
ADDED: Blogger no longer autocompletes tags, so I have to remember or guess what my tag is. Here, I guessed "tiny home." No. It's "tiny house." I have a personal stake in the "home"/"house" distinction — because of my last name — and I rankle at the sentimentality of referring to real estate as a "home." And now I really must quote Bob Dylan:
“What kind of house is this,” he said“Where I have come to roam?”“It’s not a house,” said Judas Priest“It’s not a house . . . it’s a home”
"The defense lawyers contended that Democrats were pursuing Mr. Trump out of personal and partisan animosity, using the word 'hatred' 15 times during their formal presentation..."
"A few weeks into riding, [Michelle] Schaeffer, 34, posted a suggestion on the 395,000-member Peloton Facebook page."
How does a modern-day meaning-making community work? And is there room for old-school religion? Americans in recent decades have been rapidly ditching religious services and looking for spiritual uplift, meaning and transcendent community through experiences like yoga and spin classes, political activism and cooking — more and more of it online....
Casper ter Kuile, a Harvard Divinity School... said Peloton is part a much bigger trend he calls "unbundling." Within that, people are now browsing in a variety of places for the things they once got all at a congregation: worship, scripture, life transitions and social justice among them. As a result, he said, American religious life is very unstable, very individualized. "When religion is infusing these secular spaces, it troubles the concept of religion, but also troubles the strict secularity we’ve come to expect."
Ter Kuile noted the irony of people — Peloton riders — challenging religious institutions while they are themselves part of an activity many see as cultlike. He says that’s more about institutional religion’s current branding problem. "They’d trust Peloton as a cult but not the Catholic Church as a religion," he said.
The Trump lawyers' "Fight" montage is devastating and — if you're not bent on getting Trump convicted — hilarious.
Love story déjà vu.
Honesty is crucial. Candor is hard, even — and maybe especially — when you’re stuck in close proximity to someone for an extended period of time.... [P]roximity makes grievances harder to keep under wraps. But rather than treating forced togetherness as a death sentence for a relationship, these stories treat it as a catalyst for their characters to develop deeper understanding of each other and commit to stronger partnerships....
Does that make you want to watch a trapped-couples movie for Valentine's Day? We haven't watched a love-story movie in a long time, unless you count Season 4 of "The Crown" (the trapped couples being Prince Charles and Diana). We rarely watch actual movies, maybe only 2 in the last month or so. Which movies? "The Trial of the Chicago 7" and "Struggle: The Life and Lost Art of Szukalski."
Something else we've enjoyed — also distinctly un-couples-y — are the 2 "With John" HBO shows:
1. "Painting With John":
2. "How To With John Wilson":
१२ फेब्रुवारी, २०२१
"Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and his top aides were facing new allegations on Friday that they covered up the scope of the death toll in the state’s nursing homes from the coronavirus..."
"For academics playing word games, this is fun. For gangs of 'woke' students — or Times employees, who have managed to 'cancel' a series of the paper’s top writers recently — it can produce a feeling of enormous power and self-importance."
"The original cast of 'The Real World: New York' recently wrapped filming in their original loft at 565 Broadway..."
"A Louisiana man who thought 'Gorilla Glue Girl' Tessica Brown was 'lying' ended up in the emergency room himself after he applied the powerful adhesive to his lip."
You're responsible enough, Donald.
I was not willing to sit through the hours and hours of presentation of other things that I already knew. I wanted them to focus on the decisive question: Trump's responsibility. Some people have a low standard and think that if Trump stirred up the crowd and made them feel energized to do what they independently decided to do, he's responsible enough. But they're choosing, I think, to offer nothing to those of us who think Trump needs to have specifically intended the breaking into the Capitol. Can anyone point me to the part of the trial where my concern is addressed? I'm not willing to stare at a smokescreen.
The post title is a play on an old Obama quote that I've always found highly amusing, but I'm quite serious in asking my question. Whether or not I am part of that You're-responsible-enough-Donald crowd, I want to be pointed to the part of the trial that addresses the question: Did Trump intend that the crowd break into the Capitol and terrorize the members of Congress?
The angry, violent mob came to Washington at Trump’s invitation, the prosecution concludes.
But there is nothing wrong with drawing a big crowd of protesters. The huge crowd was overwhelmingly peaceful. Some portion of it became a mob and resorted to breaking into a building. But to say that isn't to say Trump caused the break in. And you don't need a "invitation" to go to Washington. We all have a right to travel to Washington and to protest whatever we want. Protests tend to take place at the site of the thing that is being protested. And speakers speak to crowds. We don't normally condemn that. I want to see consistency and clarity on these issues. Should Black Lives Matter speakers be denounced because they draw crowds and stir up emotions and later some of the crowd becomes a violent mob?
Even after the attack, managers say Mr. Trump showed a ‘lack of remorse.’This is a makeweight argument. If you don't confess that you've done wrong, you're tarred as lacking remorse. Of course, if you do confess, you've confessed. That's even better for the prosecution.
Vice President Mike Pence’s presence looms large as a traitor, victim and hero.So what? What relevance to Trump's guilt?
Trump still appears to have enough votes to be acquitted.Not surprising and not anything that counts against Trump.
The New York Post publishes the Bret Stephens column that the New York Times spiked.
It's not that Stephens, a regular NYT columnist, can or would just give the rejected column to another newspaper to publish. The Post tells us the column — which defends the NYT reporter who got ousted for saying the n-word — "circulated among Times staffers and others" and the Post got hold of it "from one of them, not Stephens himself." Presumably, the Post publishes it because it is newsworthy — not as an opinion on the news but because the spiking of it is news, so we need to see what it is.
Let's read it:
Every serious moral philosophy, every decent legal system and every ethical organization cares deeply about intention.
It is the difference between murder and manslaughter. It is an aggravating or extenuating factor in judicial settings. It is a cardinal consideration in pardons (or at least it was until Donald Trump got in on the act).
Speaking of Donald Trump, it's the question I think should be at the core of the impeachment trial but is not: Did Trump intend that the crowd break into the Capitol and terrorize the members of Congress?
It’s an elementary aspect of parenting, friendship, courtship and marriage. A hallmark of injustice is indifference to intention.
Yeah, why are the House Managers indifferent to this distinction? I am getting distracted! This Stephen's column reads like a criticism of the House Managers case against Trump. Trump said something, perhaps without any intention of causing the harm, but the harm did ensue. To care about the harm and not what the accused person intended is a "hallmark of injustice." Noted!
११ फेब्रुवारी, २०२१
At the Too-Cold Night Café...
... it’s another day without a sunrise photo. I can’t do my morning run when it’s below zero out there. I’ve got a few more of these double lockdown days (that is, days of confinement caused by Covid and by coldness). But it’s snuggly warm inside, so let’s settle in for some conversation.
Did you watch the Trump trial? I did not. Even with the double lockdown, I did not. Did anything new come out? I’ll read the news in the morning. My sense is that what was presented is what I have already heard. But who knows? Maybe they nailed him today.
Other topics are most welcome. For example, have you written any poetry at any point in your life (and if so why), what is your favorite smell, have you ever joined or considered joining a cult (and if you had to be in a cult, which cult would you join), would you ever support a violent revolution (and would you have been a Loyalist in the American Revolution), are you trying to lose weight (and what are your diet tips?), and... anything else you would like to add?
"Until the World Trade Center was built, most skyscrapers were supported by simple steel or concrete frames."
"[A]n unpopular hero to civil libertarians, the Devil incarnate to an unlikely alliance of feminists and morality preachers, a conundrum to judges and juries..."
Hustler’s June 1978 cover caught the enigmas of a magazine that was at once salacious, satirical, perverse, decadent, gleefully immoral and hypocritical. It portrayed a woman upside down and half gone into a meat grinder, with a plate of hamburger below. A “seal of approval” noted: “Prime. Last All Meat Issue. Grade ‘A’ Pink.” A caption quoted Mr. Flynt, “We will no longer hang women up like pieces of meat.”...
"'Love is strange,' wrote Thomas Pynchon, citing the 1956 Mickey and Sylvia hit single, in his 1988 New York Times review of Gabriel García Márquez’s novel 'Love in the Time of Cholera.'"
Andrea, Jennifer, and The 2 Williams.
Every task seems like more fun than the subject I regard as the ripest of the week, Andrea, Jennifer, and The 2 Williams.
What is wrong with me? I just got up to make my 5th cup of coffee!
Did William Shakespeare drink coffee? Did William Faulkner?...
"He didn't have coffee, he didn't have vanilla, he didn't have cocoa. Imagine writing Hamlet without a cup of coffee. That's amazing."...
Faulkner drank, but not so much coffee.
"Jeezus Christ! Have you ever heard of anyone who drank while he worked? You’re thinking of Faulkner. He does sometimes—and I can tell right in the middle of a page when he’s had his first one"
So, yes, the "2 Williams" are Shakespeare and Faulkner. They were in the news last night because Andrea — Andrea Mitchell, the NBC News chief Washington correspondent — tweeted something so mind-bogglingly stupid — stupid, evil, and hilarious — and Jennifer — Jennifer Rubin, the WaPo columnist — lunged horribly after Andrea's tweet. These people — Mitchell and Rubin — are supposed to be the elite, but they are not even elite enough to keep from stumbling over a high-school level literary reference or even to think of making sure — with the quickest Google — they're not making a gaffe.
Andrea saw what looked like it might be an opportunity to mock Ted Cruz.
Imperfect rhymes.
ME: Do you know what a pinion nut is?MEADE: Opinion nut?ME: No! A ... ... ... pinion ... nut?MEADE: Not some nutty guy with an opinion?ME: No. Pinion. Nut.MEADE: Like a pine nut?ME: That's what I thought too. No. The hardware kind of nut.
Speaking of sons...
We say "motherly" and "fatherly" and even "daughterly" but not "sonly."
Discuss!
ADDED: "Sonly" is a word. The OED has it dating back to c1443.
R. Pecock Reule of Crysten Religioun... He schal haue sonely drede to god lest he offende god.
"Sit high for a bigger view and better three-dimensional perception? Or lower, to sense g-forces more accurately?"
The ambiguous "drops."
'QualityLand' and 'A5' will not move forward as the 'Silicon Valley' co-creator continues to juggle the new take on 'Beavis and Butt-Head' for Comedy Central.These shows did get dropped in the old-timey sense of cancelled/rejected. The word has ambiguity whichever way you want to use it.
"TV coverage of the trial on Tuesday afternoon averaged 11 million viewers on broadcast networks ABC and CBS and the three main cable news outlets — CNN, Fox News and MSNBC."
१० फेब्रुवारी, २०२१
An Afternoon Café...
... in case you need to talk.
I can see that the impeachment trial is back, but I am not watching. Feel free to talk about it or anything else.
"Greene Gains Popularity With Republican Voters Following Committee Fight/Georgia freshman is now as prominent nationwide as House GOP leaders."
"Surprising words from the country that gave us Derrida and Foucault :)"
The collection of intellectuals arguing that France is being contaminated by the leftism of America was buoyed on last year after French President Emmanuel Macron appeared to side with them. In a speech in October on the 'Fight against Separatism', Macron warned against leaving 'the intellectual debate to others' as he cautioned of the 'certain social science theories entirely imported from the United States'....
Entirely!
This month also saw the publication of a book by social scientists Stéphane Beaud and Gérard Noiriel in which they claimed that race is a 'bulldozer' that destroys other subjects.... Historian Pierre-André Taguieff argued... that the 'American-style black question' was a 'totally artificial importation' to France. He said that it was all driven by 'hatred of the West, as a white civilization'....
James Lindsay — author of "Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity―and Why This Harms Everybody" — has a response at Peterson's tweet: "They have a complicated relationship with those thinkers, who were wrong, yes, but who were also bastardized by American Critical Theory frauds the French would certainly not respect in the least."
The second-oldest person in the world just survived covid 19.
"She didn’t ask me about her health, but about her habits," David Tavella, the communications manager for the [nun's] care home.... "For example, she wanted to know if meal or bedtime schedules would change. She showed no fear of the disease. On the other hand, she was very concerned about the other residents."
"If Donald Trump directly caused the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, then Democrats need to prove it...."
To be clear, I believe Trump deserves to be convicted of grave crimes against the republic and barred from ever again running for office.
"Meandering Performance by Defense Lawyers Enrages Trump/The former president was particularly angry at Bruce L. Castor Jr., one of his lawyers, for acknowledging the effectiveness of the House Democrats’ presentation."
Mr. Castor, the first to speak, delivered a rambling, almost somnambulant defense of the former president for nearly an hour. Mr. Trump, who often leaves the television on in the background even when he is holding meetings, was furious, people familiar with his reaction said. On a scale of one to 10, with 10 being the angriest, Mr. Trump “was an eight,” one person familiar with his reaction said....
None of the lawyers from the first impeachment trial who defended Mr. Trump returned for the second round. And most of the team he initially hired abruptly parted ways with him days before the trial began....
Senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana, castigated Mr. Trump’s defense lawyers in explaining why he voted “yes” on the question of whether the Senate has jurisdiction in the case even though Mr. Trump is out of office. Asked why he believed they did poorly, Mr. Cassidy replied to reporters, “Did you listen to it?” “It was disorganized, random — they talked about many things, but they didn’t talk about the issue at hand,” he said.
It is painful to watch a legal proceeding where one side has far, far better legal representation than the other. Castor is a former prosecutor, so perhaps he's used to being on the side that is much better represented and has skills honed through encounters with overworked, underprepared criminal defense lawyers. I don't know if I want to feel sorry for Trump for his lack of representation, when there are so many people struggling with insufficient legal assistance. It's easy to ignore such people. They're not in the spotlight.
ADDED: Trump is a conspicuous victim of poor representation. But I do feel bad about it. I want to see a fair fight. Yet perhaps it is his fault for trying to dictate what his lawyers must argue and leaving them in the position where their only alternative was to walk away, leaving Trump to scramble for someone, anyone who will represent him, and those are the characters who are struggling to hold up Trump's end of the fight. It's a grisly spectacle, but Trump has responsibility for it.
It was at precisely the 9-minute mark that I turned off the Bruce Castor opening statement, because I didn't need to watch someone else's nightmare.
९ फेब्रुवारी, २०२१
Lawyer tells judge "I'm not a cat."
This is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. The poor lawyer can’t figure out how to turn off the filter so offers to proceed anyway, promising the judge he’s not a cat. And kudos to @JudgeFergusonTX for walking him through it calmly without bursting into giggles https://t.co/Uu3Q2Q3q3e pic.twitter.com/6qD2TAyGCy
— Kendyl Hanks (@HanksKendyl) February 9, 2021
"I’d say that publicly asking Breyer to retire would be an easy way for any Democratic pol thought to be vulnerable to a progressive primary challenge — or who wanted to run for president — to stand out."
"The public had a right to know, and Fox had a right to cover, that the president and his allies were accusing Smartmatic (and others) of manipulating the election results, regardless of the ultimate truth or accuracy of those allegations."
“It’s a strong move on their part to try to come out and dismiss the claim,” said Timothy Zick, a professor at William & Mary Law School who specializes in First Amendment law.
Mr. Zick said that Fox was making use of the concept of “neutral reportage,” arguing that it could not be sued for defamation while covering the news. “They’re arguing that shields Fox News as an organization for simply reporting on the controversy, which is a matter of public interest,” he said.
It's -1° — feels like -12° — here in Madison, Wisconsin, so I'm pretty much stuck indoors today, but...
... I still can't picture myself turning on the television and watching the damned impeachment trial.
"I believe Althouse wants to protect her blog from reprisal by the woke crowd, but I think the main reason for her prohibition of the-word-that-shall-not-be-uttered is that she is disgusted by it, and disgusted by people that use it."
I think once you've been informed that something makes some other people feel bad, you need a good reason to keep doing it.
I learned the n-word was bad when I was a little child doing the "eeny meeny miney moe" rhyme, which in the early 1950s in Delaware had the n-word. As far as I knew, it was just another one of the nonsense words, like "miney" and "moe." Another child informed me that she had been taught that it makes "colored people" feel bad. I had no idea why this was so, no idea what it meant, but that was enough for me. I didn't want to make anybody feel bad. If there was a special group with a special sensitivity about the word, I just felt bad that I didn't know about it before, and I would never use it again. That's the kind of ethics I learned as a child.
It's not about "disgust" for the people who use the word. It's about consideration for people who could be hurt....
"An Israeli company unveiled the first 3-D-printed rib-eye steak on Tuesday, using a culture of live animal tissue.... Aleph Farms’ new 3-D bioprinting technology — which uses living animal cells..."
"Semicolons are ugly, pretentious and unnecessary; they immaturely try to have it both ways."
"My mom is a person that says like, 'You know, they killed their parents, and that’s wrong.'"
"It’s as much a war movie as anything else, with a woman as the general, and her gender isn’t the chink in her armor."
... and it rejects the word "chink." If you try to enter it, you'll be told "Not in word list."
I wasn't surprised to see this. I'd long observed the Spelling Bee's rejection of the word "coon," which can be a racial slur but, obviously, is also what people who call an opossum a "possum" call a raccoon. Last November, I blogged (at great length) about the Spelling Bee's rejection of the word "nappy."
The reason I'm blogging about this issue again, with "chink," is that the NYT printed the word "chink" 20 times in its own articles in 2020! When is a bad word so bad it's censored when it appears in a non-bad context? Take a position.
You know what? I took a position back in 2012. ESPN had fired a reporter for using the phrase "chink in the armor" in a headline that was about a Chinese basketball player. I felt sorry for the reporter, who'd used "chink in the armor" many times before and didn't mean to crack a joke about the player's race, but I wrote:
८ फेब्रुवारी, २०२१
Page 7 of Trump's Trial Memorandum concedes the very fact upon which I've said his guilt hinges.
Law Enforcement Had Reports Of A Potential Attack On The Capitol Several Days Before President Trump's Speech.Despite going to great lengths to include information regarding Mr. Trump's comments dating back to August 2020 and various postings on social media, the House Managers are silent on one very chilling fact. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has confirmed that the breach at the Capitol was planned several days in advance of the rally, and therefore had nothing to do with the President's speech on January 6th at the Ellipse. According to investigative reports all released after January 6, 2021, "The Capitol Police, the NYPD and the FBI all had prior warning that there was going to be an attack on the Capitol."
Obviously, Trump's lawyers think it's exculpatory that there was an advance plan. But I have been saying the opposite. Here's my January 10th post:
If Trump knew there was a plan to storm the Capitol building, then his speech to the crowd was an incitement, even though he never told the crowd to commit any act of violence.
2 days ago, I read Trump's [January 6th] speech looking for any language that could support the claim that he incited the crowd to storm the Capitol. I wrote a post listing the 7 most violence-inducing statements. They're about fighting and showing strength and never giving up, but they're all consistent with an idea of having a big, traditional street protest — with lots of people marching and displaying their passion for the cause through big numbers, determined-looking faces, and lots [of] words on signs and in chants and speeches.
But what if Trump knew there was a plan to storm the Capitol? Then all those words are transformed! They become an incitement to the violence, especially if the people in the crowd know he knows. The avoidance of references to violence would be part of a shared understanding — like winking. We know what we're going to do.
Now, at this point, I don't even know that there was a plan....
But now Trump's trial memo asserts that there was a plan.
Was there a plan or wasn't there? If there was a plan, when did it develop and who knew about it? If it was talked about on social media, the record exists. Wouldn't the FBI have seen it in advance and communicated to the President about it?... ... I want to see... all the evidence of a plan, and what law enforcement knew about this plan, whether Trump was informed, and why there wasn't better protection of the Capitol.
I have held off from believing that Trump incited the crowd to breach the Capitol. You can see that in my 7 statements post. But if he was informed of a plan, then I will read all of those statements as an incitement....
"What if They Held an Impeachment Trial and Nobody Came?/Maybe it’s a good thing that we’re more focused on Biden. Or maybe we’ve just given up.... Let’s not start with impeachment trial No. 2...."
"[I]nsisting on this taboo [of the n-word] makes it look like black people are numb to the difference between usage and reference, vague on the notion of meta, given to overgeneralization rather than to making distinctions."
What percentage of the Super Bowl audience did not understand — and had no hope of understanding — the bandaged faces of the male dancers in the halftime show?
The Weeknd has performed his highly anticipated Super Bowl halftime show for 2021, and unexpectedly, his face was completely normal, with no real plastic surgery in sight. The 30-year-old has been teasing fans with wild face prosthetics and bandages for weeks leading up to the performance and new album release.
Ugh! I guess if I'd been a fan of this guy, I might have noticed his PR antics, and then it would have been amusing that he hadn't had plastic surgery on his face, and it might also have been funny that the dancers were wearing the kind of bandages that he had previously worn to tease us. But for those of us who hadn't seen his pre-game teasing, it was just weird and confusing. I guess The Weeknd didn't care about reaching out to any new fans. It was just an inside joke. An inside joke about plastic surgery.
"As the quarterback has aged, he works out less with weights, which could leave him prone to muscle tears."
७ फेब्रुवारी, २०२१
Holding.
The mayor of the city, London Breed, released a statement saying, “What I cannot understand is why the school board is advancing a plan of all these schools renamed by April when there isn’t a plan to have our kids back in the classroom by then.” What’s your response to that?
I know that when it comes to schools, any opportunity to cause further division is what the mayor has contributed to. And it’s unfortunate because we need to be clear about where we are in this process. What she’s talking about as far as reopening schools, that is what we’re working on every single day. The fact that people are pointing to “We don’t have a plan”—that’s completely false.
"Like Stalin’s regime during the Great Terror, the Party doesn’t fear heretics; it needs them, because its power is renewed by crushing them."
The perfect citizen is boring, a closed case; the challenge is to tear a free mind to pieces. Only that way can there be “victory after victory” in the bowels of the Ministry of Love: victory over the past, over the individual, over reality itself.
"We have to be very cautious in our celebration of these lawsuits, because the history of defamation is certainly one in which people in power try to slap down critics."
“The competitive dynamic in the right-wing outrage industry has forced them all over the rails,” Mr. Benkler said. “This is the first set of lawsuits that’s actually going to force them to internalize the cost of the damages they’re inflicting on democracy.”
Mr. Benkler called the Smartmatic suit “a useful corrective” — “it’s a tap on the brakes” — but he also urged restraint....
The article also quotes the First Amendment lawyer Martin Garbus: “Will lawsuits like this also be used in the future to attack groups whose politics I might be more sympathetic with?” And yet:
Mr. Garbus, who made his reputation in part by defending the speech rights of neo-Nazis and other hate groups, said that the growth of online sources for news and disinformation had made him question whether he might take on such cases today. He offered an example of a local neo-Nazi march.
Before social media, “it wouldn’t have made much of an echo,” Mr. Garbus said. “Now, if they say it, it’s all over the media, and somebody in Australia could blow up a mosque based on what somebody in New York says. “It seems to me you have to reconsider the consequence of things,” he added.
Wow! We are really losing the old-time devotion to free speech that stressed standing up for the principle especially when you disagree with what the speaker is saying. Both Garbus and Benkler know what they are giving up and make reference to the old way of thinking... right after they say they support burdens on freedom of speech. Just not too much! We need "a... corrective" and a bit more acknowledgment of "the consequence of things."
Here's the Wikipedia page for Martin Garbus. His eminence in the field of free speech law is mind-bending.
Are the anti-vaxxers rightwing?!
For months, far-right activists across the country have been rallying against mask-wearing rules, business lockdowns, curfews and local public health officials, casting the government’s response to the virus as an intrusion on individual liberties. But as masks and lockdowns become an increasingly routine part of American life, some protesters have shifted the focus of their antigovernment anger to the Covid-19 vaccines. Last week at Dodger Stadium, the same small but vocal band of demonstrators who previously staged anti-mask and anti-lockdown protests in the Los Angeles area disrupted a mass vaccination site that gives an average of 6,120 shots daily. ...
In the Covid-19 era in California, vaccine opponents have found themselves increasingly in alignment with pro-Trump, working-class people sometimes eager to embrace extreme tactics to express their beliefs....
Feels like -30°? Oh, I don't know...
... I was just out there at 4:30. Didn't even zip up my coat or put on a hat. It felt crisp and beautiful. I'd say I was out there for 4 minutes. I liked it!
Bruce Springsteen (and Jeep) call us (the Super Bowl watchers) back to the middle, to "the ReUnited States of America."
There’s no art in this White House. There’s no literature, no poetry, no music. There are no pets in this White House. No loyal man’s best friend, no Socks the family cat, no kids’ science fairs. No time when the president takes off his blue suit, red tie uniform and becomes human. Except when he puts on his white shirt and khaki pants uniform, and hides from the American people to play golf. There are no images of the first family enjoying themselves together in a moment of relaxation. No Obamas on the beach in Hawaii moments or Bushes fishing in Kennebunkport. No Reagans on horseback. No Kennedys playing touch football on the Cape. Where’d that country go? Where did all the fun, the joy, and the expression of love and happiness go? We used to be the country that did the ice bucket challenge and raised millions for charity. We used to have a president who calmed and soothed the nation instead of dividing it. And a first lady who planted a garden instead of ripping one out. We are rudderless and joyless. We have lost the cultural aspects of society that make America great. We have lost our mojo, our fun, our happiness, our cheering on of others, the shared experience of humanity that makes it all worth it. The challenges and the triumphs that we shared and celebrated, the unique can-do spirit that America has always been known for. We are lost. We’ve lost so much in so short a time. On November 3rd, vote them out.
So, Bruce got what he said he wanted, the President who calms and soothes us instead of riling us up. And Bruce is driving a Jeep in Kansas to call us back into a dreamworld of Americana.