Butterfly weed:
Some headlines feel so stupid — "Finally, the dam is breaking against Trump" — that it puts me off all the surrounding headlines. It's like a disease.
Did you know monkeypox is an emergency? Did you know there's a movie called "Nope"? Did you know "Liz Holtzman Wants Another Crack at Congress, 50 Years Later"? Did you know "Joe Manchin Squanders an Opportunity and Ushers In Despair"? Are you interested in News of the Future: "Jan. 6 Panel After 8 Hearings: Where Will the Evidence Lead?"
I remember when the walls were closing in on Trump. That's gone on for so many years that it's impossible to picture the smallness of the room where Trump exists within constantly encroaching walls.
Did you think "the walls are closing in" was always a reference to "Star Wars"?
Actually, no. Franklin Roosevelt said it in 1944: "The walls are closing in remorselessly on our enemies."
But anyway, somebody seemed to think it might work to switch the metaphor to "the dam is breaking against Trump." What's the image? What does "against" refer to? Where are we to picture Trump in relation to this dam? If the evidence against him is the water pressure behind the dam, then Trump would need to be the dam? What does it mean to "break against"? Waves break against the shore, but what does a dam break against?
I'm still interested in analyzing stupid and trite metaphors, but I will not read articles that look from a distance like pornography for Trump haters.
Posts
56 comments:
Walls closing in is from The Pit and the Pendulum
"Finally, the dam is breaking against Trump"
Yes, but are the walls closing in? Isn't that the key metric? It has been up to now.
Also, do people realize that the mainstream media A/B tests news stories and headlines like this to see if you will click on them? Many news stories are written in two directly opposing ways, to see which narrative gets the most clicks ... and then that knowledge is taken forward for the next headline/narrative so as to maximize clicks and "engagement" which is the metric internet advertisers pay for (and why you see so many "bots" faking engagement fraudulently ... you know, like at Twitter.)
So, I'm guessing "the walls are closing in on Trump" type stories did well in A/B testing against those maroons still reading these stupid non-stories.
"Pornography for Trump haters" is a great description.
I don't think I've ever heard the Prof express so much ennui about the political. She's reaching a point many reached long ago, it seems.
Let's hear from the great HLM:
The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, and intolerable . . . .
The Trump haters tell each other, "Now we've got him !" then another plan goes awry. I just read a column that is another of the NeverTrumpers' that tells me more about the writer than the subject.
"Did you know monkeypox is an emergency?"
Only if you're gay and have orgies with other men who might be fucking monkeys. Snopes gave this claim a 'mostly false' label, as in it's mostly false that sex with monkeys is the cause as opposed to sex with people who may *eat* monkeys.
Mostly false. It's not often you hear about people eating their partner after fucking them, but there's so much about gay culture we don't know about. It's so underground. I hear Anthony Fauci is planning another exploratory experiment that will shed more light on this phenomenon.
I recall that the walls were always closing in on Flash Gordon.
Flash always escaped in the next episode.
First you fall into a pit of sewage and stink and debris and rats and some kind of sea monster.
And then the walls start to close in.
I don’t have the exact quote but Michael Malice has said of the establishment that ‘they think he(Trump) is the flood when he is the dam’.
“ I don't think I've ever heard the Prof express so much ennui about the political. She's reaching a point many reached long ago, it seems”
Go back to the beginning of the blog, 2004. It has been my theme all along. I have had an aversion to politics all my life. It used to be stated in the banner at the top of the blog. I have had this feeling since the LBJ administration. What evidence did you ever have that I was some kind of enthusiast? Is this blog too subtle? If it is, I don’t care. I’m not changing my style.
>Ann Althouse said...
Did you know monkeypox is an emergency?<
I just read a CNBC article that said this:
"Monkeypox is primarily spreading through skin-to-skin contact during sex. Men who have sex with men are at the highest risk right now, as the majority (98% of cases) of transmission has occurred in the gay community. However, the WHO and the CDC have emphasized that anyone can catch monkeypox regardless of sexual orientation."
Look familiar? Oh, say, from about 40yrs ago. You know, remember "AIDS isn't a homosexual disease, it's a people disease." The MSM again doing pretzel contortions to avoid stepping on the toes of one of its "special" groups.
Virtually all sexual relations in humans involve skin-to-skin contact but somehow only homosexual skin is susceptible to monkeypox transmission, you see. It's just not possible that rectal mucosa plays a role, you see. It's that doggone skin...so all you heteros be sure to wear your raincoats when you get it on.
"The dam is breaking against Trump." What a lousy metaphor. If it's not easy to grasp at first reading, it needs work.
"Finally, the dam is breaking against Trump"
Not even a colony of beavers working around the clock could save Trump now. Plus, beavers are neverTrump as a species so they're more likely to gnaw him off at the ankles than save him.
Regular walls couldn't get Trump. Maybe a wall of water will do the trick.
Are we finally past the beginning of the end?.
Maybe it's the middle of the interstitial.
"too subtle?"
Ha! Good one, professor.
I just found some Joe Pye Weed in the woods between our yard and the road about a week ago. I had no idea what it was until I looked it up (thanks to a free app I have that is pretty good at identifying plants) I am planning to let it grow. Maybe add some other butterfly and hummingbird friendly plants in that area.
Clouds are rumbling. Could it be an end to our 2-week draught? Water scarcity is also in the news, however, with all the technology and think tanks, and megalomaniac brains, there is still no solution. The River Po is drying up. Crops are done dead. Oh, but bread is on the way. ok. we're good.
Its was an old trope on TV reruns too. Our heroes (Maxwell smart, MI gang, Wild Wild west, Batman, Avengers, etc.) would be put in a room by the villian to be slowly crushed to death. That's probably where George Lucas got it for Start wars, if he didn't get it from and old Movie serial.
Anyway, the walls around Trump have been slowly moving-in for 7 years now. The MSM and the D's just want to attack Trump 365/24/7, and this is latest stick to beat him with.
Zero Hedge had an interesting article about Trump trying to declassify documents about the FBI/Intelligence/Democrat plot to destroy him over "Trump-Russia" only liberals in the DoJ, slow-walked the declassification process, so it never got done. Just more evidence that Trump was far too naive about his enemies.
"I have had an aversion to politics all my life."
In one way, this is admirable. There's a lot in politics to be averse to.
In another way, this is the cause of our troubles. It serves the regime.
Of course, occasional snark here notwithstanding, I have no illusions that the Althouses of America can fundamentally change things. But a slightly more determined opposition to destructive BS could help. To her credit, Althouse herself is playing a positive role with this blog--and not just because it enables deplorables to vent.
American politics are conducted in a way to enhance the aversion of the Althouses, the better to screw us over.
Biden uses his albuterol inhaler. This is for his chronic asthma.
The end game with J6 is to indict Trump, convict, and send him to jail. The DoJ is just waiting for the right time. Remember, when Chicom Mitch said that just because Trump wasn't convicted in the Senate Impeachment trial, didn't mean he wouldn't face criminal charges?
The Establishment has had this planned for a long time. That Biden is a lame duck, makes their job easier.
Words that end in e can be frustrating.
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Watched "The Gray Man" on Netflix. Horrible. $200m wasted.
"So much" is the key phrase. I don't even read a lot of the politics-specific (in my estimation) posts you make, or the comments, admittedly, so our measures of what counts as enthusiasm are different.
I have only been a regular since 2018, and am here precisely because your attitude was similar to mine--even if our premises and preferences and enthusiasms otherwise were (and probably still are) quite different.
I believe you about 'cruel neutrality.' I think it's a noble goal for a great blogger, and I like to think I'm subtle enough to see that you try hard to achieve it. You are misunderstood and attacked often enough already, so I explicitly withdraw and disavow any implication of political enthusiasm on your part.
As for wanting you to change? Not a bit of it. I thought I was being positive.
Althouse says "I have had an aversion to politics all my life."
I don't believe it. I think you have an aversion the tired waves vainly breaking that seem here no painful inch to gain. You appear, on the other hand, to care deeply about the flooding main.
"Walls closing in is from The Pit and the Pendulum."
While it is true that the French officer is being driven toward the deadly pit by red-hot iron walls, Poe's text is so spare that the concept of moving walls that crush probably pre-dates the 1842 story by decades if not centuries. If it was Poe's invention entirely, one would expect a much more detailed explanation.
The most common forward of torture used by the Spanish Inquisition was the strappado. With his hands tied behind his back the victim was hoisted off the floor by a rope tied to his hands. To increase his agony the suspended prisoner might be forced to swing back and forth like a pendulum. Poe interprets the pendulum torture as a literal pendulum equipped with a blade. However, there's no evidence suggesting anything like it existed in Europe. Another vicious torture was crushing. Typically the victim was forced to lie beneath a heavy unhinged door, or perhaps a ship's hatch cover. Stones or bricks would then be piled on the door until the prisoner confessed or died. Some of the accused Salem witches were subjected to crushing torture.
Historical torture methods were generally rather un-mechanical and crude, and those few that were elaborate and mechanical were often sadistic applications of beneficial machines -- a prisoner's hand or foot could be crushed in a wine press, or he could be mangled to death by being bound to the waterwheel of a mill. However, these things were often done in secret and out of sight of anyone not directly involved, leaving the details to the fantasies of gossips. A person would have to be pretty dull not to be able to invent completely imaginary tortures. Dante Alighieri made a literary career out of it. Crushing walls were almost certainly invented in the imagination of some 18th-century scribbler of gothic romances, or more likely, a 17th-century Protestant pamphleteer.
I'm reading Goethe's "Italian Journey". It's a chronicle of his trip to Italy, 1786-1788. He likes the climate. Venice is a beautiful city but smells bad. He looks and comments on a lot of paintings by artists I never heard of....So far I'm not getting much out of the book, but I'll keep plugging away with ten page installments. I'm only one hundred pages in. Maybe it will get better.
I heard “the dam breaking” from NPR this morning. ☺️
did you know 'longevous' is word. = blessed with longevity.
confirmed it after seeing in chinese drama subtitle!
The dam breaks.
The walls close in.
And yet, and yet...
Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump.
"‘they think he(Trump) is the flood when he is the dam’. "
What do you suppose is going to happen to Washington DC once people realize that their last hope, Donald Trump, isn't going to help them and that Democrat-Washington has successfully prevented him from becoming President ever again?
That there's no white knight and that their shining city on a hill is gone forever?
You think they'll just go quietly into that good night?
So, I'm guessing "the walls are closing in on Trump" type stories did well in A/B testing against those maroons still reading these stupid non-stories.
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looks like Professora is holding up wall against subjected to IPCRESS file technique
and resisting valiantly!!! against "Induction of Psychoneurosis by Conditioned Reflex under Stress"
By far the only two revenue producing college sports are football and men’s basketball. In regards to title 9 this creates a problem given the rather large roster size of college football teams (85) which has to be balanced out be adding additional women’s sports programs that are a net revenue losers. To which a feminist might fairly respond ’tough titties’. Now is it possible that a university might try to game title 9 by recruiting trans women to their football team. There aren’t any rules barring “women” from competing. Nor are there likely any rules stating what kind estrogen levels a trans women would have to have as a woman competing in a male dominated sport. You wouldn’t have to deal with any fairness issues aka Lia Thomas and so forth. The only question would be whether trans woman football player would count as “women” athletes for title 9 purposes. If so, 20 such athletes and goodbye women’s water polo.
I've heard "the dam is breaking" or "the dam will break" used as a metaphor many times. It should mean that evidence, or information, or circumstances have accumulated to the point where they can no longer be ignored. In a legal context it can mean that a prosecution, or a conviction, is now certain.
But to say "against" someone doesn't really work as a metaphor, for the reasons you mentioned. Who, or what, is the dam breaking against? To complete the metaphor, you would have to envision a person who is now like a town in the path of the flood that's coming. But that renders the metaphor kind of silly. Is Trump a small town in the valley, like Johnstown before the flood?
One of the reasons I like your blog, Ann, is your precision about the English language. But most journalists don't care. In fact, most are very lousy writers.
Ann Althouse said: "Go back to the beginning of the blog, 2004. It has been my theme all along. I have had an aversion to politics all my life."
New tag suggestion: AltGripes
"Feel free to write about anything you want in the comments. Raise your own topics."
Okay, here's one that bothers me. If you've paid attention since Thursday, you'll know that Josh Hawley has been mocked for running through the Capitol. His raised fist earlier on Jan 6 was compared to the video of him fleeing the crowd.
I'm not a fan of Hawley, but I find this very disturbing. The Januqry 6 Committee openly used this video, and the crowd in the room watching it laughed. For what? This is an official committee? There was no reason, no purpose, to play that video for the public, except to mock him. They knew that would be the result. They knew it would be repeated endlessly online.
They aren't even pretending to put together some kind of official case. They are doing it only for political gamesmanship. Not that there was any doubt. But the blatant nature of this still surprises me. No pretense of taking their roles seriously.
As many others have said, wake me up when they have a hearing on Epstein and Maxwell's ties to politicians. Or a hearing on Biden's ties to China. Or Hunter's laptop. Or Pelosi's husband. Etc. Etc.
If Trump were elected to a second term, The Daily Mail says he would fire 50,000 bureaucrats.
Trump would 'fire tens of thousands of civil servants' and 'gut the government' to sort his agenda if he runs and wins in 2024
Donald Trump has plans to purge the so-called 'deep state' beyond what any president has done before if he runs for and wins the presidency in 2024
As many as 50,000 government workers could be on the chopping block
He would clean house of mid-level staffers at the Pentagon, Justice Department, State Department and beyond and bring in 'America First' candidates.
He would clean house of mid-level staffers at the Pentagon, Justice Department, State Department and beyond and bring in thoroughly vetted candidates who were found to be more closely aligned with his 'America First' agenda.
Be still, my beating heart. Maybe I should re-evaluate my decision about a second term for him.
The BEE reports... Ilham Omar used her one phone call to call her husband and her brother!
In the big anti-Asian bias cases against Harvard and UNC, there was an interesting development this week at the Supreme Court. I haven’t seen any comment about it in the press. Up to now, the two cases had been consolidated for briefing and argument, to the point where the plaintiff in the two cases (it was the same organization in both) filed a single brief covering both cases. That happened before Justice Jackson was appointed. In her confirmation hearing, she was asked about the Harvard case because she is a member of Harvard’s board of overseers and said she would recuse herself if confirmed. This week the Court entered orders in both cases terminating the consolidation and setting the two cases for separate oral arguments. While there was no explanation in the orders for the Court’s reason for doing so, the likely explanation is that Justice Jackson intends to participate in the UNC case but not the Harvard case.
I don’t think there is any requirement that Justice Jackson must step out of the UNC case even though she couldn’t possibly participate in the Harvard case. But it is like trying to separate Siamese twins — same arguments, same plaintiff in both cases, with consolidated briefing by the plaintiff. Harvard and UNC filed separate briefs and each case has its own trial record, but those differences are irrelevant to the constitutional issues the court will decide. Those are the same in both cases. The main issue is whether Grutter should be overruled, and whether the application of strict scrutiny to the admitted use of racial preferences required a ruling on the merits for plaintiff.
Her participation in very unlikely to make any difference in the outcome. It is, however, a situation which, if Justice Thomas were in that position in a similarly high profile case, you would be seeing demands for his impeachment if he participated at all.
Trump doesn't need to go to jail. He just needs to be convicted to qualify for the 14A cancellation. Then you people can do your worst.
Both great Native pollinators. Years ago, there was a stretch of road near here, a long bank covered with butterfly weed. It was like a flaming stretch of road. They bulldozed it for a high end strip mall.
I got that from the journal review, which doesn't read much like the books, for one they made the british character, american, an unscrupulous section chief african american, and made a whole mess of chris evans character,
when do the november criminals, the ones who have brought this country to it's lowest point, become accountable rhetorical,
buck rogers as well, I can see why they updated him in the disco 70s,
the so called intelligence community is determined to cover up it's bad judgement calls, like the ones that dictated the libyan intervention,
With ornithology research winding down, am in the middle of our annual Common Teasel cutting. Since July 1 have cut by hand almost 4,000 plants (about 8,500 plants over three year). Not much will eat it and it fragments habitat. Spreads now mostly by improper moving practices. A biennial forb, it spends the first year as a basal rosette and then in year two can grow up to 8' in height. Our goal is "Teasel free by '23", although there will always be hotspots that show up. But the big colonies of this wretched weed will be gone. Set a record with a friend last Sunday of 485 plants cut.
Some headlines feel so stupid — "Finally, the dam is breaking against Trump" — that it puts me off all the surrounding headlines. It's like a disease.
The headline is a quote from Liz Cheney, who is far more credible than Steve Bannon who said after having been found guilty:
"I will never back off. I support Trump and the Constitution and I’m not backing off one inch. If I go to jail, so be it."
"I only have one disappointment, and that is the gutless members of that show-trial committee, that [Jan. 6] committee, didn't have the guts to come down here and testify," Bannon said.
Someone else, this former campaign manager for Donald Trump, had an opportunity to testify under oath and provide requested documents to get to the bottom of the January 6 putsch but refused to do so. The committee members were not on trial and had not been party to Bannon's illegal actions.
Congratulations. Is it a boy or girl?
Sebastian, 👍🏻
Times of London:
"One of the most influential studies on what causes Alzheimer’s disease may have been based on manipulated data, an investigation has suggested.
Researchers said they feared that falsified results had misled scientists for 16 years, wasting vast sums of funding..."
The open-access Science article:
BLOTS ON A FIELD?
A neuroscience image sleuth finds signs of fabrication in scores of Alzheimer’s articles, threatening a reigning theory of the disease
"In August 2021, Matthew Schrag, a neuroscientist and physician at Vanderbilt University, got a call that would plunge him into a maelstrom of possible scientific misconduct. A colleague wanted to connect him with an attorney investigating an experimental drug for Alzheimer’s disease called Simufilam. The drug’s developer, Cassava Sciences, claimed it improved cognition, partly by repairing a protein that can block sticky brain deposits of the protein amyloid beta (Aβ), a hallmark of Alzheimer’s. The attorney’s clients—two prominent neuroscientists who are also short sellers who profit if the company’s stock falls—believed some research related to Simufilam may have been “fraudulent,” according to a petition later filed on their behalf with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Schrag, 37, a softspoken, nonchalantly rumpled junior professor, had already gained some notoriety by publicly criticizing the controversial FDA approval of the anti-Aβ drug Aduhelm. His own research also contradicted some of Cassava’s claims. He feared volunteers in ongoing Simufilam trials faced risks of side effects with no chance of benefit.
So he applied his technical and medical knowledge to interrogate published images about the drug and its underlying science—for which the attorney paid him $18,000. He identified apparently altered or duplicated images in dozens of journal articles. The attorney reported many of the discoveries in the FDA petition, and Schrag sent all of them to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which had invested tens of millions of dollars in the work. (Cassava denies any misconduct [see sidebar, below].)
But Schrag’s sleuthing drew him into a different episode of possible misconduct, leading to findings that threaten one of the most cited Alzheimer’s studies of this century and numerous related experiments..."
https://www.science.org/content/article/potential-fabrication-research-images-threatens-key-theory-alzheimers-disease
In 2016, the Journal of Alzheimer's disease published a major editorial signed by 33 senior scientists and clinicians that concluded diminished immune system competence in controlling common long-resident microbes was the most likely cause of Alzheimer's. It went on to suggest that anti-viral treatment (drugs) was the best recourse to deal with these critters...instead of addressing the reason for diminished immune system competence.
Which I did in a 58-slide presentation at a 2016 scientific conference in Orlando whose focus wasn't on immunology. The applause: the sound of one hand clapping.
Looking at standard news offerings makes one feel like one of those distant satellites drifting further and further away.
I have a relative who is excited each day for the J6 hearings. Excited.
I love July weeds and wildflowers along the roads. Most beautiful month to my mind.
Michael K said...
Donald Trump has plans to purge the so-called 'deep state' beyond what any president has done before if he runs for and wins the presidency in 2024.
As many as 50,000 government workers could be on the chopping block
Be still, my beating heart. Maybe I should re-evaluate my decision about a second term for him.
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Trump already had his chance to do this. Since he didn't, once a blowhard, always a blowhard. He viewed appointing people as if he was the top honcho on the Apprentice.
The icing on the cake was his terrible choice in hiring Omarosa as assistant to the President and director of communications for the Office of Public Liaison. There were lots of other bad choices, but she was the worst:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omarosa_Manigault_Newman
From Gerard Manley Hopkins's Margaret Clitheroe; she was pressed to death in 1586.
She caught the crying of those Three,
The Immortals of the eternal ring,
The Utterer, Uttered, Uttering,
And witness in her place would she.
She not considered whether or no
She pleased the Queen and Council. So
To the death with Margaret Clitheroe!
She was a woman upright, outright;
Her will was bent at God. For that
Word went she should be crushed out flat...
When she felt the kill-weights crush
She told His name times-over three;
I suffer this she said for Thee.
After that in perfect hush
For a quarter of an hour or so
She was with the choke of woe.
It is over, Margaret Clitheroe.
The headline is a quote from Liz Cheney, who is far more credible than Steve Bannon who said after having been found guilty:
You poor dope. Liz Cheney is a Virginia resident who use to pretend to represent Wyoming. She is probably pissed at Trump because she resents his criticism on the Iraq War. Or she may be on the take, "big time" to quote her father, from the military-industrial complex. I admired Dick Cheney because, at one time, he was a real conservative.
Bannon is a very impressive thinker, which you are not.
Trump already had his chance to do this. Since he didn't, once a blowhard, always a blowhard. He viewed appointing people as if he was the top honcho on the Apprentice.
I think it was naivete and a misplaced trust in the GOP establishment but I agree it was not his strong point. Think of how much he could have accomplished if the GOPe had kept their promises to voters.
Two-Eyed Jack:
Thank you for your allusion to "Say Not the Struggle Nought Availeth" by A.H. Clough, a wonderful and inspiring poem.
I first heard part of that poem listening to W.S. Churchill's wartime speeches. He ended his April 27, 1941, broadcast speech, "Report on the War", by quoting the verse to which you aluded and the following, final one of the poem:
For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in, the main.
And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light;
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!
But westward, look, the land is bright!
This was Churchill's response to F.D. Roosevelt having sent W. Wilkie, after Wilkie had lost the election of 1940 and come to see the Predident in the White House to ask what he could do to help him, with the note the President penned on the spot to the Prime Minister and handed to Wilkie to take to him.
In that note, the President wrote, "Winston--These words apply as much to you people as they do to us.", and followed that with the first verse of H.W. Longfellow's poem "O Ship of State":
Sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity, with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
I find these personal and literary details of history--that Wilkie went to see Roosevelt after losing the election to ask what he could to help Roosevelt, that Roosevelt immediately penned a personal, inspirational note quoting Longfellow to Churchill for Wilkie to cross the Atlantic and take to Churchill, and that, some weeks later, in a radio address, Churchill acknowledged that note and Longfellow poem and replied with the quote from the Clough poem--very touching and moving.
Again, thank you for reminding me off all this.
Montage of 27 year old know-nothings parroting "The walls are closing in..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLEchPZm318
Acme has delivered a new load of dynamite to Wile E. Coyote. RoadRunner is doomed!
This time for sure.
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