२३ सप्टेंबर, २०२३
"Anyone else get a little bugged when people say Dylan has a bad voice?"
"Trump is triangulating. He sees, correctly, that the Republican Party is now on the wrong side of the public on abortion."
"Try a week of 'age belief journaling,' in which you write down every portrayal of an older person — whether in a movie, on social media or in a conversation."
"It is not lost on me how quickly some are rushing to judge a Latino and push him out of his seat. I am not going anywhere."
"Tuesday, I’ll go to Michigan to join the picket line and stand in solidarity with the men and women of UAW as they fight for a fair share of the value they helped create."
X'd President Biden, quoted in "Biden to join the picket line in UAW strike/His decision to stand alongside the striking workers represents perhaps the most significant display of union solidarity ever by a sitting president" (Politico).
The announcement of his trip was seen as a seismic moment within certain segments of the labor community. “Pretty hard-core,” said one union adviser, who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to speak publicly....
The president’s plans come as some Democrats have begun to question his response to the strike, recognizing that he needs the full backing of union workers in his presidential reelection bid....
The link on "question his response" goes to a Politico article from last Tuesday, "'Trump scooped us': Dems sound alarm on Biden’s handling of the auto worker strike/Donald Trump’s decision to head to Detroit for a speech next week is setting off alarms among some Joe Biden allies." That article says:
"Liberals can and should criticize the mistakes of conservative decisions. That is a necessary step toward reversing them..."
Writes Noah Feldman, in "The Court’s Conservative Constitutional Revolution/The bloc of conservative justices on the Supreme Court have dismantled many of the legal precedents on their hit list. What’s in store for the new term?" (NYRB).
"It’s a really hard argument in normal circumstances to say the government, who is prosecuting someone, can shut them up from defending themselves in public."
In a 1991 case, the Supreme Court upheld barring defense lawyers from making comments outside court that are likely to prejudice a jury, citing “the state’s interest in fair trials.”
But the Supreme Court also suggested that greater speech restrictions might be permissible on lawyers because they are officers of the court. It has never addressed what standard a gag order on a defendant must meet. A handful of appeals courts have addressed gag orders imposed on defendants and set different standards....
२२ सप्टेंबर, २०२३
"She laid down and used one of the dogs as a pillow, and the other dog laid right next to her and kept her safe."
"Ron DeSantis sat at her table talking in an outdoor voice indoors, failing to observe any basics of conversational ritual or propriety, reeling off an unself-conscious list of his programs and initiatives and political accomplishments."
Wrote Michael Wolff, in "The Fall: The End of Fox News and the Murdoch Dynasty," quoted in "Tucker Carlson Refutes New Book’s Claim That Ron DeSantis Accosted His Dog" (The Jewish Voice).
"Murdoch’s unhappiness and befuddlement is the throughline of... 'The Fall: The End of Fox News,' which is to hit shelves next week..."
Writes Michelle Goldberg, in "The Ludicrous Agony of Rupert Murdoch" (NYT).
"I am very self-conscious about the way that I look, in part because I am a woman who happens to be conscious."
Writes Ziwe, in "Best Foot Forward/How to feel about an 'okay' rating of your feet by strangers on the Internet" (The New Yorker).
"The original premise behind the right to shelter was, for starters, for homeless men on the streets..."
२१ सप्टेंबर, २०२३
"For decades, educators have seen speed as a marker of aptitude or mastery.... But a race against the clock doesn’t measure knowledge or intelligence."
"By what calculus would a company choose to furnish their quarters with a poster of a guy modeling a windbreaker rather than a museum-quality painting by Lichtenstein?"
"I heard that you have a collection of fake food?"/"I do. I have it all over my house. I like the worst kind..."
What do you think of this idea that Gen Z is turned off by sex scenes in movies, especially gratuitous ones? There basically isn’t a scene in any of your movies that isn’t gratuitous.
"The British government writing to tech firms demanding they financially punish and cancel Russell Brand...."
The British government writing to tech firms demanding they financially punish and cancel Russell Brand before he’s been through due legal process over the allegations against him is a very disturbing Orwellian development. pic.twitter.com/6hWPDOF8V3
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) September 21, 2023
"Am I for kids being able to read about anything in school? Yeah, I am. I don’t give a shit what kids read."
"People I dated seriously, subsequently, were people of substance. Distinguished in their professions."
२० सप्टेंबर, २०२३
"Fans of walks love to point out that Virginia Woolf dreamed up 'To the Lighthouse' on a walk around Tavistock Square."
Writes Lydia Polgreen, in "No, We Shouldn’t Make This Meeting a Walk" (NYT).
"[T]here’s... recorded evidence, documented on TV comedy specials and on [Russell] Brand’s own radio show during the 2000s..."
Writes Sophie Gilbert, in "Russell Brand Wasn’t an Anomaly/The former TV host and actor was a mascot, at best, for a media culture that routinely dehumanized and hypersexualized young women" (The Atlantic).
"When a man in Ohio found out that someone online had manipulated his 11-year-old daughter into sending intimate photos of herself, he called police for help..."
From "Police told a father his 11-year-old could get ‘child porn’ charge, video shows" (WaPo).
"But I am very conscious of male aggression and ego because I examine it a lot in myself."
Said Rick Owens, quoted in "Rick Owens will keep your male ego in check" (WaPo).
"While the September equinox usually occurs on September 22 or 23, it can very rarely fall on September 21 or September 24."
"Other than this one key fact that the rape described actually was a fabrication of this woman, the rest of the story was bulletproof."
This is the interview that's been in the news — see "Jann Wenner’s Rock Hall Reign Lasted Years. It Ended in 20 Minutes. The day after the Rolling Stone co-founder made remarks widely criticized as racist and sexist in a Times interview, the Hall of Fame called an emergency vote and ousted him" — and that we've talked about already, but I'm calling attention to something I haven't seen discussed yet.
Here's the remark I've quoted in context. The interviewer, David Marchese, is in boldface. The rest is Wenner. I've put the above-quoted remark in red:
१९ सप्टेंबर, २०२३
"YouTube suspended the comedian and actor Russell Brand on Tuesday from making money from videos posted to the social media platform..."
How does the action taken — demonetizing current videos — protect anyone from the "off-platform behavior" — which took place, if it took place, long ago? The current videos don't have anything to do with the conduct he's accused of. It seems to me that the demonetization is at most punishment in retribution for what he is accused of having done. The only conceivable "protection" it offers is from the current speech, which is about culture and politics. YouTube isn't admitting to this kind of viewpoint-based censorship, but the NYT alludes to it:
While Mr. Brand’s earlier stand-up routines had a broadly left-wing focus, skewering the British establishment and focusing on subjects like social inequality, he has recently reinvented himself to focus on conservative talking points, often seeming to target an American audience.
NOTE: This post was edited a bit to make it easier to read.
"What are some famous examples — in truth or fiction — of a character who puts a lot of effort into being able to be lazy?"
I see Instapundit is linking to "The ‘Lazy-Girl Job’ Is In Right Now. Here’s Why."
That's in the Wall Street Journal. Subheadline: "Rather than lean in, young workers say they want jobs that can be done from home, come with a cool boss and end at 5 p.m. sharp."
Here's the Instapundit link. Quips: "Career goal of the moment" and "it’s unfair if women get paid less than men."
I was thinking about blogging that "Lazy-Girl Job" story yesterday. Quip: I was too lazy.
"Mr. McCarthy, in his desperate pursuit of the speakership last winter, ran around making promises willy-nilly to the House’s small band of right-wingers..."
Writes Michelle Cottle, in "Maybe Matt Gaetz Is Right" (NYT).
"Haaning's new work Take the Money and Run is also a recognition that works of art, despite intentions to the contrary, are part of a capitalist system..."
Said the Kunsten Museum's exhibition guide, about the 2 completely blank canvases it chose to display, quoted in "A Danish artist has been ordered to repay a museum after delivering blank canvases" (NPR).
The museum had advanced Jens Haaning over $75,000 so that he could recreate an earlier work of his in which he attached actual cash to the canvas. In that earlier work, the money was supposed to represent the wage gap between Danish workers and Austrian workers. Haaning is considered a "conceptual artist," and the new work expresses a concept that the museum made a show of understanding (or pretending to understand).
१८ सप्टेंबर, २०२३
"The first thing to understand about Trump is that he’s not a normal politician. He doesn’t give a rip about policy."
"What he cares about is saying and doing whatever it takes to fulfill his desires and thirst for power, including destroying democracy if necessary. Treating him as anything other than a depraved authoritarian is not only wrongheaded, but helps his cause by legitimizing him as a reasonable choice for voters. And that’s exactly what Welker did."
I'm reading "How not to interview Trump/Kristen Welker's tenure as 'Meet the Press' moderator got off to an inauspicious start," by Aaron Rupar.
We're supposed to believe that other politicians don't say "whatever it takes to fulfill [their] desires and thirst for power."
I don't like the way the abnormalization of Trump has come at the cost of stifling our capacity to critique other politicians. The others may be more "normal" than Trump, but since when is a "normal politician" a genuine policy wonk who's dedicated to telling the truth and serving the people?
“I ran deep into the Rocky Mountains while on 24-hour fasts, used exhaustion (as well as some mind-altering drugs) to loosen the grip of reality."
"Once, at a transhumanist conference, I listened to a man with magnets in his fingers bemoan the conformism of even those brave enough to radically alter their corporeal selves."
"I don’t know why people stick up for [Biden] so much... – when he makes bad decisions, like you.... I don’t know why..."
१७ सप्टेंबर, २०२३
"In the interview, David Marchese of The Times asked Mr. Wenner, 77, why the book included no women or people of color."
From "Jann Wenner Removed From Rock Hall Board After Times Interview/The Rolling Stone co-founder’s exit comes a day after The New York Times published an interview in which he made widely criticized comments" (NYT).
"Do you think there’s an element of like, 'This is a time where men could really be men,' that’s appealing to men about this?"
"Oliver [Anthony] splits his time between the farm and a remote wooded encampment where he lives a spartan life in a tent and small trailer with his pregnant wife..."
The article says "Kennedy, a well-known conspiracy theorist," but it's causing me to think of conspiracy theories.
I'm reading "Armed man impersonating US Marshal arrested at Robert F. Kennedy event ID’d" (NY Post) and watching the TikTok video it quotes and links to.
Here are the thoughts that occurred to me as I was watching the video, preserved in real time (I'm quoting the 3 texts I sent Meade as the video played):
1. that really looks like he intended that to be seen and used after he committed murder
2. i suspect him of making this to create evidence that he was a lone lunatic
3. and i would not assume he’s a trumpster… he’s creating evidence here
Quote from the TikTok:
“I need to speak to the Hell’s Angels, I need to speak to the Mongols…. Let’s f–king break some kneecaps … Let’s f—k it up. I’m putting this planet on lockdown … Take care of each other, protect the women and the children. If I don’t make it back, call the f–king president. Your commander-in-chief, Donald J. Trump.”
"The ways you can get infected with this bacteria are, one, you can eat something that’s contaminated with it [and] the other way is by having a cut or tattoo exposed to water in which this bug lives."
"People don’t necessarily go into standup shows expecting airtight truths. They expect laughs, perhaps some trenchant observation...."
When the accused hires a lawyer, "It is a power game, because usually the victim has no representation, and I think it is completely unacceptable and unfair."
Smita Jamdar, a partner at the law firm Shakespeare Martineau who advises universities on sexual assault hearings, said: “There are increasing numbers of students choosing to bring cases of sexual misconduct of all sorts to their university rather than the police, and increasing numbers of very serious allegations.”...
Jamdar said institutions often brought her firm in because an accused student had hired a lawyer and the university needed support. “Everyone ends up arguing over legal principles that are utterly bamboozling to most student conduct panels,” she said....