April 26, 2024
"Concern for posture, as a matter of etiquette, has been around since the Enlightenment, if not earlier, but poor posture did not become a scientific and medical obsession..."
From "Beth Linker Is Turning Good Posture on Its Head/A historian and sociologist of science re-examines the 'posture panic' of the last century. You’ll want to sit down for this" (NYT).
"Biden, asked if he’s planning to debate Trump, says 'I am happy to'" — asked by Howard Stern.
Mr. Biden’s announcement, made in response to a question from the radio host Howard Stern, comes after pressure from television networks and Mr. Trump’s campaign for the president to agree to participate in debates.
Hey, I'm surprised he submitted to an interview... and irked and amused that the interviewer his people chose was Howard Stern.
When Mr. Stern asked Mr. Biden if he would debate Mr. Trump, the president replied: “I am, somewhere, I don’t know when, but I am happy to debate him.”
That should be his motto: "I am, somewhere, I don’t know when, but I am happy."
Mr. Biden’s remarks appeared to be off the cuff, rather than a planned announcement of a shift in his campaign’s strategy, according to a top Democratic official familiar with its thinking...
Oh? Let's see how they weasel out of it. It was a gaffe, right? Somehow it will be impossible to get the conditions right.
"What Harvey Weinstein’s Overturned Conviction Means for Donald Trump’s Trial."
A good title. It's something I was trying to parse on my own yesterday.
The article is at The New Yorker, written by Ronan Farrow. Subheadline: "The legal issue behind Weinstein’s successful appeal is also at the heart of the former President’s hush-money case." The subheadline in my head was: Big man brought down by sex. Or should it be: Pile everything together and the monster will be visible?
Consider this: Farrow's book about Weinstein was called "Catch and Kill" (commission earned), and in Trump's trial, David Pecker has been testifying about the National Enquirer’s "catch and kill" scheme.
From a CBS News story about Trump's lawyer's cross-examination of Pecker:
Pecker said he first gave Trump a heads up about a story in 1998.... [Trump's lawyer Emil] Bove had Pecker walk through negative stories that he had killed about other figures, including Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tiger Woods.
"The days when Democrats could get away with thinking of Hispanics as one of 'their' minority groups are, or should be, over."
In terms of voting intentions, Biden leads by just one point among working-class Hispanics but by 39 points among their college-educated counterparts. Interestingly, this 38-point reverse class gap is actually larger than the class gap in this poll among whites (30 points).... And here’s something that should concentrate their mind when considering the working-class Hispanics problem and how seriously to take it. The simple fact of the matter is that there are far, far more working-class than college-educated Hispanics. According to States of Change data, Hispanic eligible voters nationwide are 78 percent working class. And working-class levels among Latinos are even higher in critical states like Arizona (82 percent) and Nevada (85 percent).
I'm giving this post my "Biden's racial nightmare" tag, though I can't remember what made me invent that tag and will need to publish this post and click on it to find out.
UPDATE, right after posting: I now see why I created the tag. It's a pretty different topic, but I want to go back into it. It was August 13, 2020:
"If it is felony 'election interference' for a candidate to try to keep private the details of a seamy relationship, what other candidate concealments — of a lawful and entirely personal nature — must be reported?"
Writes Kimberley A. Strassel, in "Alvin Bragg and Democrats' 'Election Interference'/His theory in New York state’s Trump case is crazier than you think" (Wall Street Journal).
Dear Dan Rather: Are you trying to allude to a Beatles title?
Pardon me for fussing over a headline when the country is collapsing into chaos.
"Who is going to buy TikTok?"
At the heart of the government’s case... is that TikTok is the beating heart of a social-media industrial complex that mines our data and uses them to manipulate our behavior....why, if the government believes this is true, should anyone have access to these tools?...
One analysis of TikTok’s U.S. market values the app at $100 billion—a sum that rather quickly narrows down the field of buyers....
[A]s we’ve seen from Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, putting the fate of a social-media platform into the hands of a few highly motivated individuals can quickly turn into a nightmare.
April 25, 2024
6 quotes from today's oral argument in Trump v. United States.
The implications of the Court's decision here extend far beyond the facts of this case. Could President George W. Bush have been sent to prison for... allegedly lying to Congress to induce war in Iraq? Could President Obama be charged with murder for killing U.S. citizens abroad by drone strike? Could President Biden someday be charged with unlawfully inducing immigrants to enter the country illegally for his border policies?
So what about President Franklin D. Roosevelt's decision to intern Japanese Americans during World War II? Couldn't that have been charged under 18 U.S.C. 241, conspiracy against civil rights?
3. Justice Gorsuch makes a brilliant suggestion. If Presidents didn't have immunity from prosecution, they could give themselves the equivalent by pardoning themselves on the way out. And note the reminder that Obama could be on the hook for those drone strike murders:
Listen to the live oral argument in Trump's immunity case.
ADDED: I've listened to the whole argument and have notes, but I need the transcript to write the things I have in mind, so please carry on the discussion without me.
AND: Here's what Adam Liptak wrote in the NYT:
"New York’s highest court on Thursday overturned Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 conviction on felony sex crime charges.""
The NYT reports. Free access link.
In a 4-3 decision, the New York Court of Appeals found that the trial judge who presided over Mr. Weinstein’s case had made a crucial mistake, allowing prosecutors to call as witnesses a series of women who said Mr. Weinstein had assaulted them — but whose accusations were not part of the charges against him.
Citing that decision and others it identified as errors, the appeals court determined that Mr. Weinstein... had not received a fair trial....
Now it will be up to the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg — already in the midst of a trial against former President Donald J. Trump — to decide whether to seek a retrial of Mr. Weinstein....
If he is not retried, he still faces a 16-year sentence in California, where he was convicted of rape.
Here's the opinion. Excerpt:
"[T]ensions between the White House and the [New York] Times... had been bubbling beneath the surface for at least the last five years."
Writes Eli Stokols, in "Inside the NYT-White House Feud" (Politico).
"Please don’t speculate on who any of the real-life people could be. That’s not the point of our show."
"I hate that my tattoos are such a defining factor for me getting a job or not. Just because I have tattoos doesn’t mean I’m not going to be a good worker."
Said Ash Putnam, quoted in "Tattooed applicant claims she was denied TJ Maxx job over her ink, confronts store employees: ‘It’s so annoying’" (NY Post).
There's a big satanic tattoo on her throat and so much more."Out of control New York University protesters swarmed and berated an NYPD chief and his officers – calling them 'f–king fascists'..."
From "NYPD chief swarmed by anti-Israel protesters and berated while seeking shelter in NYU building" (NY Post)(video at link).
NYPD Assistant Chief James Mccarthy and a few officers are chased by protestors after making an arrest at NYU last night.
— Peter H (@peterhvideo) April 24, 2024
Mccarthy is seen attempting to get inside the NYU Catholic Center, but couldn't open the door. He eventually finds an unlocked door around the corner.… pic.twitter.com/WVVriOBbMP
"We think it may be to reduce competition and intimidation in the kinds of close-cooperation, within and between sexes, that’s required to make our complex, highly cooperative societies function."
April 24, 2024
"Biden and his supporters are intent on making Trump the Nelson Mandela of America."
Wow, that caught my eye, and not just because "I’m catching up on my fucking sleep ’cause I’m bored" is hilarious. Just this morning — and before reading that — I was saying, in conversation, that if Trump goes to jail the Trump movement will gain energy and "He'll become Nelson Mandela."
"We heard from employees who, because of noncompetes, were stuck in abusive workplaces."
Said FTC Chair Lina Khan, quoted in "U.S. bans noncompete agreements for nearly all jobs" (NPR).
The vote was 3 to 2 along party lines.... [The U.S. Chamber of Commerce] has vigorously opposed the ban, saying that noncompetes are vital to companies, by allowing them to better guard trade secrets, and employees, by giving employers greater incentive to invest in workforce training and development.
"I said: 'This is a terrible, toxic relationship, you and Trump. And you’ve got to break up.'"
"National Enquirer made up the story about Ted Cruz's father and Lee Harvey Oswald, former publisher says."
The paper had published a photo allegedly showing Cruz's father, Rafael Cruz, with Lee Harvey Oswald handing out pro-Fidel Castro pamphlets in New Orleans in 1963, not long before Oswald assassinated President John F. Kennedy....
"What I do know is that even the most peaceful of protests would be treated as outrages if they were interpreted as, say, anti-Black..."
April 23, 2024
"This hearing, ostensibly about violations of a gag order, doubled as a complete onslaught on the Trump ethos. "
Writes Jonah Bromwich, covering the Trump trial at the NYT.
Jon Stewart's view of the Trump trial: It's a test of the media's fairness and accuracy.
"After listening to Monday’s opening statement by prosecutors, I still think the Manhattan D.A. has made a historic mistake."
Writes Boston University lawprof Jed Handelsman Shugerman, in "The Bragg Case Against Trump Is a Historic Mistake" (NYT)(that's a free access link because there is good detail there that I haven't quoted).
"'There’s just one question on voting day. Do you want an Islamized Europe or a European Europe?'"
Writes David Broder, in "The Far Right Wants to Take Over Europe, and She’s Leading the Way" (NYT).
"I’m seeking out clients that are also neurodivergent, disabled and autistic so I don’t need to mask or hide my disabilities..."
The nothing that happened.
ADDED: I suspect that the person who posted the video actually wanted to show that the protesters were not accosting those they identified as Jews. In that light, here's a NYT article: "A Night Different From Others as Campus Protests Break for Seder/Pro-Palestinian protesters, many of whom are Jewish, prepared Seder dinners at college protest encampments, even as other Jewish students sought community in more traditional settings":The most surprising part about this is that you uploaded it. Nothing happened. Nobody even reacted. Your provocation failed. This demonstrates that you are not unsafe among supporters of Palestinian liberation.
— Daniel Baryon (@AnarkYouTube) April 22, 2024
"Do you think that someone who is a drug addict is absolutely incapable of -- that all people who are drug addicts are absolutely incapable of refraining from using drugs?..."
Roseanne's political comedy: "Joe Biden raped me."
Is this good satire?#believeallwomen. #meshoe #bergdorfdressingroom #loosemeat pic.twitter.com/yzebab8syO
— Roseanne Barr (@therealroseanne) April 23, 2024
"Lola DeAscentiis, a sophomore, zeroed in on the song 'But Daddy I Love Him,' comparing it to the Sylvia Plath poem 'Daddy.'"
I'm reading the NYT article "Harvard’s Taylor Swift Scholars Have Thoughts on 'Tortured Poets'/The students taking Harvard University’s class on the singer are studying up. Their final papers are due at the end of the month."
April 22, 2024
"He stuck his finger in the mouth to see if he might wiggle the piece loose. 'And my finger came back wet,' he said."
From "Centuries-old bottles of cherries unearthed at George Washington’s home/The two, rare intact bottles, about 250 years old, were discovered by archaeologists working in the Mount Vernon basement" (WaPo).
A puzzling criticism — in the NYT — of Trump's lawyer's building Trump up instead of "blasting" him.
This is the third time that I’ve heard lawyers for Trump talk in a New York courtroom about how successful the Trump Organization, his business, has been. It’s another way of pacifying their client — and it again shows the way that Trump’s lawyers are hemmed in by his personal preferences. Instead of blasting Trump but seeking to appeal to the jury’s fairness, they’re compelled to build him up.
The assumption appears to be that it would be a better strategy to tear Trump down and only Trump's narcissism is preventing his lawyers from taking that approach.
Maybe I'm missing something, but I would think it's better to portray Trump as a great benefactor of New York City, someone who has attracted political enemies who are bent on bringing him down.
"Dogs in large cities are essentially settler-colonial—a way for their owners to move into and occupy more of the urban space than they are allotted while making it everyone else’s problem."
"Identifiably Jewish students found themselves surrounded and cornered by protest mobs."
"He hadn’t read more than 'a couple pages' of my work, but he had seen me lecturing on YouTube, and concluded that I was 'disingenuous.'"
"For Sole-Smith, 'diet culture' has come to symbolize all the crushing expectations under which American women live."
"Did you hear Trump's take on the JFK assassination? Why he didn't release the files?"
"[T]he type of perfectionism with the steepest rise — socially prescribed perfectionism — was rooted in the belief that others expect you to be perfect...."
I'm reading "Perfectionism Is a Trap. Here’s How to Escape. Perfectionism among young people has skyrocketed, but experts say there are ways to quiet your inner critic" (NYT).
"Supreme Court to Consider How Far Cities Can Police Homelessness/A group of homeless people in a small Oregon city challenged local laws banning sleeping in public."
The plaintiffs’ argument rests in part on a 1962 case, Robinson v. California, in which the Supreme Court held that laws imposing penalties on people for narcotics addiction violated the Eighth Amendment because they punished a state of being, not a specific action, like drug possession or sale.
In a similar fashion, the plaintiffs contend, Grants Pass is punishing people for being involuntarily homeless, not for specific actions.
April 21, 2024
Things I talked about with Meade this morning.
1. How Tucker Carlson told Joe Rogan that Bari Weiss is a fraud and not honest at all. She called Tulsi Gabbard a "toady" and she didn't know what "toady" meant.
2. The similarities and differences between the Bob Dylan song "You Got to Serve Somebody" and the Band song "Unfaithful Servant."
3. The use of the tuba in popular music recorded in the last 60 years and why it matters if they had an actual tuba player in the studio as opposed to a digitalized tuba sound.
4. "Tuba players now rehearse around the flagpole."
5. Whether flags of foreign countries should be waved by members of Congress and how the use of the flag may mean different things to different people.
6. It was Richard Nixon who originated the wearing of a flag lapel pin and how everyone followed along and now they can't stop.
7. The way some people these days are calling their loved one "my person." I heard it in Salman Rushdie's new book "Knife" and I opened The New Yorker at random and saw it in a Roz Chast cartoon.
8. Some people call a dog's owner the dog's "person," and that seems related to the old joke "Are you walking him or is he walking you"?
9. Bill Maher asked why people want drag queens reading to children and said it would be better to have disabled people reading, but drag queens are entertainers and disabled people are not.
10. How little children shouldn't be exposed to overly exciting entertainment and even peekaboo can be too intense for young minds.
11. How it's already too late to go south for warmer weather and we are better off here in the north, where there was frost on the grass this morning.
12. How fluent and funny Tucker Carlson was describing his boss at the New York Post who had a hairy back that he would rub against the door jamb while he talked to Tucker and the 5 or 6 ways that Tucker could have known that the man had a hairy back.
13. What a big part of life hairiness is — for the lower animals and for us, the humans.
14. Was the hairy-backed man John Podhoretz? Carlson mutters the name.
15. The annoyingness of Carlson's laugh and how hard you have to commit to do a good enough imitation of it.
16. The energy Joe and Tucker had. Doesn't Tucker wear a hairpiece and Joe just shaved off all his hair.
17. Meeting for coffee and not an entire meal so you're free to leave whenever you want and how some people have trouble getting out of small-talk conversations and this one simple trick that's all you need.
18. The perception that a conversation can't end until both participants want it to end and the way some people keep adding new topics as if keeping a conversation going is a game.
19. The very low level of tennis playing that has you just trying to keep the ball in play as long as possible.
20. How all this talk is taking the place of writing on the blog, but I could just make a blog post out of all the topics that didn't make it onto the blog because I was talking about everything with Meade.
April 20, 2024
Much as he hates to side with conservatives, Bill Maher worries about the sexualization of children in schools and entertainment media.
Watch the whole thing to see what I mean:
"Elephants learn crucial social and behavioral skills from their mothers and other relatives, with whom they share intense emotional bonds."
A statement from PETA, quoted in "Elephant escapes circus, roams streets of Montana" (WaPo).
"There is chaos that is happening."
“We have seen an arm that has been visible that has been engulfed in total flames,” she said, two fingers on an earpiece that connected her to CNN’s control room. “We are watching multiple fires breaking out around his body and person.”
Powered off.
According to Mr. Dennett, the human mind is no more than a brain operating as a series of algorithmic functions, akin to a computer. To believe otherwise is “profoundly naïve and anti-scientific,” he told The Times.
For Mr. Dennett, random chance played a greater role in decision-making than did motives, passions, reasoning, character or values. Free will is a fantasy, but a necessary one to gain people’s acceptance of rules that govern society, he said.
Do you take offense at my post title?
"Of the so-called Big Six Romantics, he’s the hardest to place. The hikers and the introverts read Wordsworth..."
From "Lord Byron Was Hard to Pin Down. That’s What Made Him Great. Two hundred years after his death, this Romantic poet is still worth reading" (WaP0).
"They’re spread from south-east Asia to the Korean peninsula and Europe. What is [Biden] implying? All 79,000 that were never found were eaten?"
79,000 U.S. soldiers were never accounted for after World War II.
"The presidency is really hard, people age during the presidency. Maybe he’s just what a lot of 80 year olds would be like if you made them work that hard."
Chris had asked, "Do you think he really has dementia? To me he’s always seemed like he had a screw loose. Even in What It Takes" (commission earned link)("What It Takes" is a book about the 1988 presidential campaign, which Chris just read and I am rereading).Joe Biden can’t close a box and struggles to order a milkshake at a Wawa convenience store… But democrats somehow think you won’t notice and will believe he’s going to be able to solve the complex problems of the world. 🤡🤡🤡 pic.twitter.com/ZfbXtME7aV
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) April 19, 2024
"The Natural Law Party was founded in 1992 on a platform that included promotion of transcendental meditation, responsible gun use, flat taxes and organic farming...."
I'm reading "How R.F.K. Jr. Got on the Michigan Ballot, With Only Two Votes/The independent candidate persuaded a tiny party to give him its line on the ballot in a key 2024 battleground state, sparing him a costly, arduous organizing effort" (NYT).
"It’s clear to me that [university authorities] haven’t transgressed here. You can debate who you ought to be sympathetic with..."
Said Columbia lawprof Vincent A. Blasi, "who has spent decades studying civil liberties issues, said the university had articulated a 'reasonable' policy to govern protests and had every right to punish students who violate it," quoted in "Faculty Group at Columbia Says It Has ‘Lost Confidence’ in the President/The campus chapter of a faculty organization said it would 'fight to reclaim our university.' Students were undeterred by the crackdown on their protest" (NYT).
What the man who burned himself to death outside the courthouse symbolizes.
This is what he symbolizes to me and also what I think he ought to symbolize: People have grown far too emotional about politics.
Calm down, everyone. Observe. Think. Don't throw away your humanity. Don't throw away your life. The anguish — the fever pitch — is not helping.
Where the Trump jurors say they get their news.
April 19, 2024
At the Friday Night Café...
"It happens all the time" — "in a rural town, in the west" — The signs say "F Biden" and little kids give him the finger.
Enjoy this video of Biden talking about how many ‘F*ck Joe Biden’ signs he sees and how many little kids flip him off 🤣
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) April 19, 2024
pic.twitter.com/n6LRFQshuC
"In a city where many feel ready to snap, dogs have become easy targets for a bubbling undercurrent of rage."
Writes Bindu Bansinath, in "Why Does Everyone Hate My Dog? In a city bubbling over with rage, pets — and their owners — are enemy No. 1" (The Cut).
"A young man set himself on fire on Friday afternoon near the Lower Manhattan courthouse where jury selection continued in the criminal trial of former President Donald J. Trump."
The NYT reports.
"The ugly shoe conversation reminds me of..."
Sitting within good information.
I like the plants in the background, because she really is visualizing the people as plants. Watch for her snarky snicker when she knows she's characterizing NPR's news as manure for us to take root in and grow in the direction that pleases her.EXCLUSIVE: Katherine Maher doesn't just want to "stamp out bad information" on the internet. She wants to replace it with "good information"—i.e., left-wing narratives—and force the public to "sit within that good information" as "a collective."
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) April 18, 2024
Big Sister has arrived. pic.twitter.com/7kfq8VYHfj
"In 1877 a British philosopher and mathematician named William Kingdon Clifford published an essay called 'The Ethics of Belief.'"
From "The Courage to Follow the Evidence on Transgender Care" by David Brooks (NYT).
"When your community no longer reflects morals and values, it might be time to move."
Says the website Conservative Move, quoted in "Sick of Your Blue State? These Real Estate Agents Have Just the Place for You. Agents in South Carolina, the fastest growing state in the country last year, say that many newcomers are Republicans eager to leave the Northeast and West Coast" (NYT).
Yana Ghannam, a recent client of [a Conservative Move real estate agent], said that she had moved to Greenville from Livermore, Calif., because she wanted to make friends who wouldn’t criticize her for voting Republican or for being anti-union. “It was very much, ‘Oh you have to do this to fit in, you have to do that,’” Ms. Ghannam said of her life in Livermore.
There's a big difference between: 1. Wanting to live where everyone thinks like you, and 2. Wanting to be free of rejection for failing to think like everyone else.
Reason #1 is anti-diversity. Reason #2 is pro-diversity. Don't mix up the 2 mindsets! A conservative might want to leave a blue state because Democrats are treating them with hostility. That is, Democrats are in mindset #1, seeking uniformity.
What are you supposed to do if you want good social interaction among people who enjoy a diverse marketplace of ideas? I'm afraid the only option — even if your motivation is to flee hostility (Reason #2) — is to go to the place where people agree with you (which would be Reason #1 if it were your motivation).
Why is Trump doing so well in the polls?
Donald J. Trump appears to be a stronger candidate than he was four years ago, polling suggests, and not just because a notable number of voters look back on his presidency as a time of relative peace and prosperity. It’s also because his political liabilities, like his penchant to offend and his legal woes, don’t dominate the news the way they once did....
Really? I think he seems to dominate the news. But of course, he isn't President. The actual President does necessarily claim some space. In Biden's case, it's the least space I've ever seen claimed by a President. Because of all the prosecutions, Trump's first presidency is still immensely important daily news. And Trump also gets attention as the leading contender to be the next President. Biden is overwhelmed. What do we hear of Biden? He said something weird about cannibalism. He didn't wear a bow tie with his dinner jacket.
Nevertheless, Cohn seems to have convinced himself that Trump is lower profile in the news these days:
"News aggregation and analysis accounts like Mx. Spehar’s are shaping the discourse about current events in the United States, especially among young people."
From "Love, Hate or Fear It, TikTok Has Changed America" (NYT). That's a free-access link. The article has a wide scope. I excerpted what was interesting to me, an old-school blogger, a living relic of the pre-modern period.
"Biden’s Catholic faith should make him a natural middle-grounder..."
Writes Ross Douthat in "Why Can’t Biden Triangulate Like Trump?"
April 18, 2024
"Behind the scenes, Trump’s defense team is scrambling to find and review potential jurors’ social media accounts..."
"Since Donald J. Trump’s election in 2016, many campuses have become especially volatile places, seeing an increase..."
From "Colleges Warn Student Demonstrators: Enough/After years of tolerating unruly protests, some schools are starting to suspend and expel students, raising questions about where they should draw the line" (NYT).
"'I think that, like, boys’ rooms as a concept is interesting,' said Mr. Isaacson, who is a full-time comedian."
Men in stores.
Trump at an NYC bodega: Pandemonium.
— Suburban Black Man 🇺🇸 (@niceblackdude) April 18, 2024
Biden at a Sheetz gas station: Crickets. pic.twitter.com/iFRV6g22rd
Trump later proclaimed, "That was great action at the bodega," and there was an instant campaign ad.President Trump will put New York in play this November!
— Lee Zeldin (@LeeMZeldin) April 16, 2024
It is only Day 2 of this show trial, and President Trump is already breaking the internet by visiting Jose Alba's bodega.
Alba was shipped to Rikers Island by Bragg after acting in self-defense.
pic.twitter.com/60wIKUpMWT
"Furry is a fandom. We don’t think that we’re animals. I really like the idea of animals that walk and talk, so I’m going to dress up as one, as kind of a fun sort of cosplay thing."
"Donald Trump, who relentlessly undermined the justice system while in office and since, is enjoying the same protections and guarantees of fairness and due process before the law that he sought to deny to others during his term."
So says the Editorial Board of the New York Times, in "Donald Trump and American Justice."
That's a free access link, in case you want to search for details about that relentless undermining.
I got there via Mickey Kaus, who tweeted, "@NYTopinion gives zero (0) examples of Trump denying due process to others during his term."[Trump] portrays himself as a victim of an unfair and politically motivated prosecution. That defense is built on lies. Mr. Trump is no victim. He is fortunate to live in a country where the rule of law guarantees a presumption of innocence and robust rights for defendants.
I don't like how the Board is conflating the prosecution and the court and the rule of law. The rule of law is an abstraction. Rights exist within the abstraction, but rights can be violated. The abstraction doesn't guarantee the rights. People exercising power must ensure that those rights are protected, and they may deviously hide behind the abstraction... perhaps with the help of elite onlookers who make abstract pronouncements in print.
April 17, 2024
Breadcrumbing.
[I]f she has a vision of a shared future that doesn’t resonate with you... exaggerating your feelings in order to preserve the status quo would amount to “breadcrumbing”: leading her on, and preventing her from moving along with her life. The prototype breadcrumber is the manipulative cad who just wants to keep all options open on a Friday night. More typical breadcrumbers, I suspect, are driven not by cynicism but by uncertainty, and by a desire to avoid conflict....
Breadcrumbs. I tend to think of Hansel and Gretel dropping breadcrumbs to mark a path that leads back out of the forest. But breadcrumbs fail as path markers because the birds eat them. But there's also the idea of feeding a person mere crumbs. Isn't that usually seen from the point of view of the person offered the crumbs? You're just giving me crumbs! I don't think I've seen it from the perspective of the person hoping to get what they want by only giving crumbs. So I don't think this is a good buzzword — not unless it's used by the person who's rejecting the offer of crumbs.
Googling, I see that it is, in fact, a well-established term for manipulating someone. Why are people letting themselves be manipulated by metaphorical crumbs? I'm blaming the victim here.
"No one’s been harder on Trump than me. But I get it, and I’m bored with it. And there’s a different way to do this...."
Said Bill Maher, criticizing the mainstream commentators who endlessly express negativity toward Trump, quoted in "Bill Maher Defends Trump Voters in Contentious Katie Couric Sit-Down" (Daily Beast)(video at the link).
"Having rarely missed a Morning Edition or All Things Considered every day every week for every year between 1984 and 2013, by 2014 NPR became less and less tolerable to this centrist..."
That's the second highest-rated comment on the NYT article, "NPR Editor Who Accused Broadcaster of Liberal Bias Resigns/Uri Berliner, who has worked at NPR for 25 years, said in an essay last week that the nonprofit had allowed progressive bias to taint its coverage."
Highest rated: "Kudos to Berliner for having the backbone to write the essay he did. Weren’t we all thinking it anyway and he just voiced the reason many of us stopped listening to NPR on a regular basis?"
Third-highest: "Mr. Berliner was on suspension not for working for outside organizations but for truthfully criticizing NPR's bias."
Fourth: "I've been listening to NPR my entire life. Things took wild turn after 2016. And now I am finding myself disjoint from almost all conversation happening on NPR.
Remember, these are NYT readers. These are most likely liberals who are put off by the left-wing slant. I was going to write What happened in 2016? I had to laugh at myself.
"My husband...’s a frat bro who loves sports, and I’m a radical alien witch academic nerd."
Said a woman named Ann, quoted in "Lessons From a 20-Person Polycule/How they set boundaries, navigate jealousy, wingman their spouses and foster community" (NYT)(free access link).
Anyway, what does Ann's husband think? He seems quite a bit less jaunty and managerial about the whole thing. This is actually pretty sad, so I will put it after the jump, for your protection:
"I don’t think the obvious thing needs to be stated out loud, which is that when Russia blocks YouTube, they’ll justify it with precisely this decision of the United States."
By targeting TikTok... the United States may undermine its decades-long efforts to promote an open and free internet governed by international organizations, not individual countries, digital rights advocates said. The web in recent years has fragmented as authoritarian governments in China and Russia increasingly encroach on their citizens’ internet access....
"Many people with obesity... have fat deposits in the tongue and in the back of the throat. The neck gets larger with fat that narrows the airway..."
Writes Gina Kolata, in "Sleep Apnea Reduced in People Who Took Weight-Loss Drug, Eli Lilly Reports/The company reported results of clinical trials involving Zepbound, an obesity drug in the same class as Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy" (NYT).
"Many younger women, for instance, shaped in part by the #MeToo movement, are engaging in intentional abstinence."
Writes Amanda Montei, in "Can a Sexless Marriage Be a Happy One? Experts and couples are challenging the conventional wisdom that sex is essential to relationships" (NYT).
"If a belligerent state launched 186 explosive drones, 36 cruise missiles, and 110 surface-to-surface missiles from three fronts against civilian targets within the United States..."
Asks David Harsanyi, in "The World Is Paying A Deadly Price For Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy Legacy" (The Federalist).
"I spent most of Mr. Trump’s speech not far from the stage, sandwiched between two exceptionally kind older guys clad in camo..."
Writes Michelle Cottle, in "What I Found Inside the MAGAverse on the Eve of Trump’s Trial" (NYT). That's a free access link, so you can find more of Cottle's experience among the deplorables and her seeming surprise at finding them happy, not angry, and pretty nice.
"There was a vibe of unity, common purpose, faith and joy. I didn’t run across anyone sweating the trial. But I spoke with plenty of folks like Lauren Herzog — who was rocking pigtails, a MAGA hat and an American-flag pajama onesie — with her husband and a bunch of their friends, who were happy to field my questions about whether they were concerned that Mr. Trump would soon be in court. There was much laughter and even more cross talk, but the bottom-line ruling from the group was, 'Nah.'"
"Would pulling a fire alarm before a vote qualify for 20 years in federal prison?"
JUSTICE GORSUCH: Would a sit-in that disrupts a trial or access to a federal courthouse qualify? Would a heckler in today's audience qualify, or at the state of the union address? Would pulling a fire alarm before a vote qualify for 20 years in federal prison?
The fire alarm scenario must allude to the Jamaal Bowman incident, but of course, the Solicitor General proceeds smoothly and professionally, and calls it a "hypothetical":
GENERAL PRELOGAR: There are multiple elements of the statute that I think might not be satisfied by those hypotheticals, and it relates to the point I was going to make to the Chief Justice about the breadth of this statute. The -- the kind of built-in limitations or the things that I think would potentially suggest that many of those things wouldn't be something the government could charge or prove
"When Peter first showed me some restored images of the film, one was of a couple of the Beatles from the back, and..."
Said Michael Lindsay-Hogg, quoted in "Long Dismissed, the Beatles’ ‘Let It Be’ Film Returns After 54 Years Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s unloved — or misinterpreted? — 1970 documentary, the source for Peter Jackson’s 'Get Back,' will stream on Disney+" (NYT).
I saw "Let It Be" in the theater when it came out in 1970, when I was a "child" of 19. I guess I'll have to subscribe to Disney again to see this digitally restored version. If we can now see the individual strands of the famous hair....
When I get older, losing my hair... it will be digitally possible to restore your hair, to individualize the strands so that they pulsate and coruscate as never before. I was once 19, in a movie theater, gazing upon the film "Let It Be," trying to see the reason why Beatles were breaking up — couldn't Paul please lead more subtly? couldn't George tone down the sarcasm? — and now, at 73, I can strap Vision Pro goggles to my face, lie in bed, and marvel at the individuality of the hairs in the once seemingly clumpy moptops. It's getting so much better all the time.