३ फेब्रुवारी, २०२४
"For more than 40 years, our nation’s military leaders have determined that a diverse Army officer corps is a national-security imperative..."
Wrote Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar, quoted in "Supreme Court Won’t Block Use of Race in West Point Admissions for Now/The court rejected an emergency request to temporarily bar the military academy from using race in admissions while a lower-court lawsuit proceeds" (NYT).
"We are eating predigested food...."
Donald Trump, the motivational speaker.
"The grand perception of psychoanalysis, for the dramatist, is that all actions are performed FOR A REASON..."
"During the visit, she noticed that her grandmother kept sending texts to her ex — that is, Ms. Woodard’s grandfather — and grew angry..."
From "She’s Not Celibate — She’s ‘Boysober’/The comedian Hope Woodard is spreading the word about her yearlong break from sex and dating. One fan calls it 'this year’s hottest mental health craze'" (NYT)(free access link).
I suspect that Trump, on his own, is pleased that he inspires Biden to splutter dirty words.
"[Dean] Phillips has accused the DNC of working to obstruct the presidential primary process by changing the Democratic primary schedule, refusing to hold debates..."
From "Wisconsin Supreme Court orders longshot Dem candidate Dean Phillips be added to primary ballot" (NY Post).
२ फेब्रुवारी, २०२४
"Judge Tanya S. Chutkan said that she would set a new date for the proceeding in Federal District Court in Washington 'if and when' former President Donald J. Trump’s immunity claims are resolved."
"A teacher should never do your thinking for you. She should give you texts to read and guide you..."
Writes Caitlin Flanagan, in "Colleges Are Lying to Their Students/They aren’t teaching them 'how to think'" (The Atlantic).
"Trans activists often cite low regret rates for gender transition, along with low figures for detransition. But those studies..."
Writes Pamela Paul, in "As Kids, They Thought They Were Trans. They No Longer Do" (NYT).
"While the allegations raised in the various motions are salacious and garnered the media attention they were designed to obtain, none provide this Court with any basis upon which to order the relief they seek."
"Holy Week constitutes precisely the expression of a Christ away from the codes of male power."
Said the columnist Chapu Apaolaza, quoted in "'Homoerotic Christ' on posters for Holy Week divides Spain/Artist defends painting used for Easter celebrations in Seville" (London Times).
"To block the necessary amount of solar radiation, the shade would have to be about a million square miles, roughly the size of Argentina...."
From "Could a Giant Parasol in Outer Space Help Solve the Climate Crisis? Interest in sun shields, once a fringe idea, has grown. Now, a team of scientists says it could launch a prototype within a few years" (NYT).
"Grocery prices have jumped by 25 percent over the past four years, outpacing overall inflation of 19 percent during the same period...."
WaPo reports... with predictable efforts to support Biden.
Americans are finally getting a break from inflation, with prices for gasoline, used cars and health insurance all falling over the past year, relieving families and buoying President Biden’s 2024 reelection bid....
Stubbornly high grocery prices represent a critical drain on the finances of tens of millions of people and remain, along with housing, perhaps the most persistent economic challenge for the Biden administration as it tries to convince Americans the economy is back on solid footing....
१ फेब्रुवारी, २०२४
"... The Messenger... is a new publication to me. It's been around since May..."
"... and was started by the former owner of The Hill. I'll keep an eye on it. Here, it seems focused on protecting President Biden.... [And to judge from a second article] here too, The Messenger is assisting institutional insiders who need distance from more radical voices."
I wrote that last June, and I don't think I ever wrote about The Messenger again, not until now, as I see this morning, in The Washington Post, "The Messenger closes down after blowing millions on ill-fated news site/Employees learned of the collapse from a news report, then found themselves abruptly kicked off the company messaging system."
The NYT article "Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce and a MAGA Meltdown" is a tad disingenuous.
"I’m going to have to say it, and I’m sorry because I know UFO people roll their eyes at the word balloons."
"But they need to get over it because balloons of various kinds — high-altitude weather balloons, cosmic-ray research balloons, sound-detecting balloons, thunderstorm-study balloons, aerial-reconnaissance balloons, 'rockoons' that shoot missiles, propaganda balloons, toy balloons, and, most secret, crop-warfare balloons — are at the heart of this high-altitude adventure we’ve been on as a culture. None of it is paranormal, but it’s still strange.... The effect on the U.S. of all this Cold War balloonery is pretty obvious. The Air Force, the Navy, and the CIA seeded the sky with helium ghosts and made us crazy. The country was, and is, suffering from a paranormalization of the plastic bag."
I'm reading "No, Aliens Haven’t Visited the Earth/Why are so many smart people insisting otherwise?" by Nicholson Baker (the novelist/essayist), in New York Magazine.
Using the impeachment process "as a political weapon" is a "dangerous precedent," a "pointless sideshow."
While our broken immigration system is a serious matter, this impeachment push is not. There is no legitimate basis for impeaching [Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro] Mayorkas, and House Republicans have not presented any evidence that he has violated the law. Instead, they are on the verge of abusing one of the most powerful mechanisms of government to score political points, potentially setting a dangerous precedent.... Any proceedings against him will only be a distraction from the humanitarian crisis at our doorstep and the lack of leadership in Congress.... The impeachment process is not intended to be used as a political weapon. The move to impeach Mayorkas is a pointless sideshow and deserves to fail.
"Many nurses admit: They feel repulsed by our bodies and do not want to touch us. Doctors are..."
३१ जानेवारी, २०२४
"Even though it's hard, you're never alone."
I know how hard it is some days to sweep the clouds away and get to sunnier days.
— President Biden (@POTUS) January 31, 2024
Our friend Elmo is right: We have to be there for each other, offer our help to a neighbor in need, and above all else, ask for help when we need it.
Even though it's hard, you're never alone. https://t.co/ffMJekbowo
"No one should have to listen to a few people – standing bravely behind fake names – lob racist or misogynistic taunts at them, or others."
Writes Greg Borowski, the executive editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, announcing the end of the comments function in "Journal Sentinel to end commenting on stories, seek new ways to connect with and serve readers" (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel).
"The visibility out the back of many cars is pretty constrained. And then the second you have a large passenger in the back or any luggage, you can’t see anything out of it at all."
"People recognize Blinky on sight because it zooms around faster than the other bots."
From "Companies Brought in Robots. Now They Need Human ‘Robot Wranglers.’ Lost and confused automatons create work for people. Bots wander off ‘like a child’ and irritate workers by following them or ‘trying to get under their desk'" (Wall Street Journal).
"Mr. Biden did not specify what the U.S. response would be. Some Republican lawmakers have urged him to attack Iran directly..."
From "Iran is ‘not looking for war,’ the head of the Revolutionary Guards says" (NYT).
Time for anti-Trumpers to up the anxiety: It's the new shocker poll of 7 swing states.
"If it turns out it was racially motivated, then obviously that is a deeper societal issue and it certainly would make this a much more concerning theft."
The statue, which had stood in a park, was cut off at the ankles, toted away in a pickup truck, subjected to a fire, and left in pieces. It appears to be a bronze statue, so I don't think it's accurate to say it was "burned."
I hope this incident was not an expression of racial hostility. On the "bright" side, I remember an attack on statue here in Madison carried out by people who did not seem to understand the significance of the person depicted in the statue.
"Chayka, a millennial, is nostalgic for... the images he once shared on Tumblr; an earlier, jankier World Wide Web of illegal file-sharing, blogs and and massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) forums."
३० जानेवारी, २०२४
“Justice Sonia Sotomayor said she’s 'tired' and 'working harder than I ever had'.... 'And to be almost 70 years old, this isn’t what I expected.'"
"Cases are bigger. They’re more demanding. The number of amici are greater, and you know that our emergency calendar is so much more active. I’m tired,” she said. “There used to be a time when we had a good chunk of the summer break. Not any more. The emergency calendar is busy almost on a weekly basis."...
It's not just the amount of work. After a prompt about how law students feel discouraged, she said:
"I live in frustration. Every loss truly traumatizes me in my stomach and in my heart. But I have to get up the next morning and keep on fighting."
"Mr. Trump’s wing is, by a comfortable margin, the largest and most dominant force in his party."
"There is no threat to humans from wolves. I live in northern Minnesota wolf country, and wolves avoid people like the plague."
That's the top-rated comment on "What Can Americans Agree on? Wolves" (NYT). That's a free access link. The article is by Erica Berry, author of "Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear."
"Cities are no longer filling with vaulting, flowing, gooey, non-orthogonal buildings engineered through advanced computing power."
Writes Owen Hatherley, in "The new architecture wars/Traditionalist and modernist architecture are both mass-produced, industrial and international. Is there an alternative?" (Aeon).
"The United States believes Iranian-backed militants were behind the drone strike, and Biden is ramping up a reelection campaign against a leading Republican opponent who boasts of his toughness against Iran, making any option politically perilous as well as militarily fraught."
... I have concluded that I should not permit the Presidency to become involved in the partisan divisions that are developing in this political year. With America’s sons in the fields far away... I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office–the Presidency of your country. Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.
"Who cares. Didn't read it. This is not news. Do better"/"Why do I feel like these characters are being forced on us? Nobody cares."
२९ जानेवारी, २०२४
At the bobdylan subreddit this morning, somebody asks "Why doesn't Dylan speak out more about politics?"
And somebody quotes something that I track down to this 1984 Rolling Stone interview:
Do you follow the political scene or have any sort of fix on what the politicians are talking about this election year?
I think politics is an instrument of the Devil. Just that clear. I think politics is what kills; it doesn’t bring anything alive. Politics is corrupt; I mean, anybody knows that.
"In 1924, the artist Nancy Cox-McCormack recounted her experience sculpting the bust of Benito Mussolini..."
Writes Sarah Diamond, in "A Pop, Dip and Spin Through the History of ‘Pose’/Though the word 'pose' is associated with voguing, it is less a part of the vocabulary and more a part of the movement" (NYT).
"After months of languid buildup in which he held only a single public campaign event, Mr. Biden has thrown a series of rallies across battleground states, warning that democracy itself is at stake in 2024."
The chatter around Ms. Swift and the potential of reaching her 279 million Instagram followers reached such intensity that the Biden team urged applicants in a job posting for a social media position not to describe their Taylor Swift strategy — the campaign had enough suggestions already.
I guess all the job applicants were saying here's my brilliant idea: Get Taylor Swift to endorse him.
Conspicuous confusion at The Washington Post.
२८ जानेवारी, २०२४
"To the annoyance of his neighbours, he let off steam by running around the flat or jumping up and down on the bed..."
"Bill Hayes, an actor and singer whose 2,141 episodes of 'Days of Our Lives' over five and a half decades constituted the daytime drama version of an ultramarathon..."
"House Republicans on Sunday released two articles of impeachment against Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary..."
"George Carlin’s estate is suing the creators of an online comedy special that claimed to imitate the late comedian’s voice and sense of humor using artificial intelligence."
WaPo reports.