Sunrise — 5:56, 6:14.

"Taiwan must be 'mentally prepared' for a Trump victory in November — and the scrutiny that will come with that..."

"... said Mei Fu-hsing, director of the Taiwan Security Analysis Center, a New York-based research center. 'If [Trump] is reelected, he will certainly demand Taiwan to significantly increase its own defense spending and be more proactive in preparing for war,' Mei said. Improved training is a key way for Taiwan to show it is taking military readiness seriously, analysts say. But new programs have continued to face shortages of funding, instructors and equipment, leading to regular complaints from attendees about the quality of instruction, according to reservists as well as official statements acknowledging setbacks. 'It was a complete waste of time,' said Vincent Tsao, a 30-year-old scuba diving instructor who spent most of his five days of reservist training last week sitting idly inside being taught by retired soldiers who openly acknowledged they weren’t prepared to lead the program."

From "Taiwan is readying citizens for a Chinese invasion. It’s not going well. The government extended mandatory military service and revamped reservist training in an effort to make Beijing think twice. But it’s already falling short" (WaPo).

"Gianna is a beast. She’s better than I was at her age. She’s got it. Girls are amazing. I would have five more girls if I could. I’m a girl dad."

Said Kobe Bryant, about his daughter Gianna, in a quote etched in the plaque at the base of this newly unveiled statue installed outside the Lakers' Crypto.com Arena:

The Athletic supplies context: "Kobe, Gianna and seven others died in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, Calif., on Jan. 26, 2020, while traveling to a basketball tournament for Gianna. Two of her teammates, three other parents, an assistant coach and the pilot were all on board."

"Everyone... had a story about explaining basic etiquette to boorish colleagues. No, you can’t microwave fish at lunch."

"Stop cutting your toenails on your desk. Don’t bring a gun to the office.... H.R. knows that employees and managers are annoyed by its memos, by its processes, by just about anything that interrupts life as it was. When an email is sent nudging everyone to take that 45-minute online course in, say, data security, H.R. can almost hear the eye rolls."

From "So, Human Resources Is Making You Miserable?/Get in line behind the H.R. managers themselves, who say that since the pandemic, the job has become an exasperating ordeal. 'People hate us,' one said" (NYT).

"Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III on Friday overruled the overseer of the war court at Guantánamo Bay and revoked a plea agreement reached earlier this week..."

"... with the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and two alleged accomplices.... In taking away the authority, Mr. Austin assumed direct oversight of the case and canceled the agreement, effectively reinstating it as a death-penalty case.... Mr. Austin’s decision brought relief to family members of victims who had expressed anger over the deal, but it also left uncertain the next steps of the prosecution over America’s deadliest terrorist attack.... The case had become mired in more than a decade of pretrial proceedings that focused on whether the detainees’ torture in secret C.I.A. prisons had contaminated the evidence against them.... Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the longtime Republican leader, called the agreement 'a revolting abdication of the government’s responsibility to defend America and provide justice.' Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas called the deal 'disgraceful and an insult to the victims of the attacks,' and introduced legislation intended to nullify it. But Senator Richard J. Durbin, an Illinois Democrat who is the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, hailed the plea agreement as a 'small measure of justice and finality to the victims and their loved ones.'"

From "Defense Secretary Revokes Plea Deal for Accused Sept. 11 Plotters/Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III assumed direct oversight of the case and effectively put the death penalty back on the table" (NYT).

"The two candidates conveyed the customary air of indifference, neither saying anything publicly or appearing to lift a finger in his own behalf."

"Jefferson remained at Monticello, Adams at his farm, which he had lately taken to calling Stoneyfield, instead of Peacefield, perhaps feeling the new name was more in keeping with New England candor, or that it better defined the look of the political landscape at the moment."

From "John Adams" (p. 672) by David McCullough, describing the candidates' participation in the election campaign of 1800. (Commission earned.)

"I spent Hundreds of Millions of Dollars, Time, and Effort fighting Joe, and when I won the Debate, they threw a new Candidate into the ring. Not fair, but it is what it is!"

Writes Trump, at Truth Social.

Full text:

"But it’s... a different time. From school board meetings to board rooms, Americans... question whether affirmative action and diversity and inclusion programs are achieving what they’re supposed to."

"Add in widespread distrust of the political process, and it’s evident why many say they want to hear precisely how the next president will make their lives better. This may help explain why Black Americans are supporting Mr. Trump in rising, if still small, numbers.... When it comes to Ms. Harris, 'we can all see that you’re Black — everybody knows that,' said Bradley Thurman Jr., a 53-year-old self-described independent in Milwaukee. Mr. Thurman, who is Black, had not been enthusiastic about voting for President Biden. But, he said, Ms. Harris makes him 'a little bit more onboard' with Democrats. But Mr. Thurman, who co-owns a coffee shop called Coffee Makes You Black, added that he wanted to hear more detail about her ideas. 'I want to know what your policies are and what you’re bringing to the table and what you’re proposing,' he said. 'And, you know, how it’s going to affect me?' The desire to see Ms. Harris in a multidimensional way may reflect that the power of identity politics has diminished...."

Writes Jeremy W. Peters, in "Should Harris Talk Much About Her Racial Identity? Many Voters Say No. Even as Trump plays up racial divisions, many Americans said they would rather not dwell on race or identity. 'We can all see that you’re Black'" (NYT).

At Yelp, Coffee Makes You Black gets 4 1/2 stars. I enjoyed scrolling through the 52 photographs of the place. Sample review: "The food is always on point. They recently started the r&b brunch and the dj was live. Even when the dj is not present the music is good-- like our kin is running the play list. Keeps the vibes right. The service is always kind. Just need more people to get plates out. I'll wait tho... the food &vibes are just that good. IMO."

Trump rejects the old agreement to debate — with Kamala Harris swapped in for Joe Biden — and proposes a new one. But I think, in the end, the old one will prevail.

Here's what Trump wrote at Truth Social last night:

I have agreed with FoxNews to debate Kamala Harris on Wednesday, September 4th.

He has agreed. She hasn't agreed, and I don't think she will. Why would she? She's boldly claimed Joe Biden's position as the Democratic Party's candidate, and she can claim status as the successor to the agreement. And she will want to, because the terms are favorable to her, and the terms of the proposed new agreement are worse. It's Fox News, instead of ABC.

The Debate was previously scheduled against Sleepy Joe Biden on ABC, but has been terminated in that Biden will no longer be a participant, and I am in litigation against ABC Network and George Slopadopoulos, thereby creating a conflict of interest.

That "conflict of interest" is not new. It existed when the agreement was with Biden. Trump could have backed out of the agreement with Biden too. It's just a matter of how we the people would view the backing out. Is Trump afraid? Harris is already out there taunting him, saying "If you’ve got something to say, say it to my face." That's a taunt that will work against any criticism he might make of her. She's not going to give up the old agreement. Not only are the terms better for her...

The perverse incentive of prisoner deals.

"Prisoner Deals Stoke Fears of Perverse ‘Incentive’ to Grab Americans/Hostile governments like Russia and Iran are often involved, and practical alternatives are hard to come by, experts say" (yesterday, in the NYT). 

Officials and experts agree that these recent cases reflect what Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken in February called a “rising trend” in which American enemies are “wrongfully detaining people, often as political pawns.”...

[I]n roughly the past 10 years, as foreign terrorist threats have receded, the imprisonment of Americans by hostile governments on false or inflated legal charges has risen sharply, according to Danielle Gilbert, an assistant professor at Northwestern University who studies so-called hostage diplomacy....

Families of prisoners.... enlist celebrities and the media to help pressure U.S. officials to “do whatever it takes,” as they often say.... Ms. Gilbert noted that such deals have proven to be politically popular. Both Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden have benefited from heartwarming Oval Office meetings with freed prisoners and their families, and dramatic accounts of how their leadership sealed the deals....

The article links to Trump's response at Truth Social:

In the sun's spotlight in the woods today: Lycoris squamigera.

It didn't really look like it belonged there. Seemed more like something for some meticulous garden in the neighborhood. But the sun shone on it so brightly — at 2:30 in the afternoon — that I stopped and recorded the incongruous gaudiness. 

"Lycoris squamigera... is a plant in the amaryllis family, Amaryllidaceae, subfamily Amaryllidoideae. .... The flowers spring dramatically from the ground in mid to late summer; it usually takes only four to five days from first emergence to full bloom. This suddenness is reflected in its common names: surprise lily, magic lily, and resurrection lily." Wikipedia. 

It's also one of several plants that gets called "naked ladies." I was going to call this post "At the Naked Ladies Café...." — and add "... you can talk about whatever you want” — but I thought that would be pandering. I'm still providing the information that you can call this plant "naked ladies," and, of course, as usual, you can talk about whatever you want.

Where's the sunrise picture today? I overslept! Slept until 6:00.

A dark-horse contender in the VP race offers a new — better? — concept than weird: Bewildered!

Out with Tim Walz and his "weird." It's JB Pritzer and he's got a new word to sell you: "bewildered."

I'm reading: "Pritzker says Trump 'bewildered' by Harris, new Dem excitement" (The Hill).

Now, I'd written Pritzker off. I just didn't think it could be him. But he's jumping to the top of the headlines at Memeorandum, and I am tantalized by his use of a single word, a funny word — "bewildered" — so I'll bite:

"Democrats need a dad?"

Says Meade, when I read this headline out loud "Is Tim Walz the Midwestern Dad Democrats Need?" (NYT).

It's an episode of "The Ezra Klein Show." From the transcript, here's the "dad" part:

KLEIN: Let me ask you about political geography. There’s a sense of, particularly, the Midwest as “That’s where people are normal. Then they get weirder on the coast.” You’re a former Army guy, right? You’re a former football coach. You’ve got real good Midwestern dad vibes. And so you can talk about the weirdness of Trump and Vance in a way that I think a lot of Democrats would not feel they could and also in a way that they’re like, “Oh, right, maybe we’re not the weird ones.” But I always think this is a very unhealthy dimension of our politics, a sense that there are sort of “real” Americans here, not “real” Americans there, beyond the coast. I’m curious how you think about this, both from the perspective of what it’s allowed you to say — maybe that would not have landed coming from others — and also just, like, what you do about it.

The emphasis there is on the geography, the "Midwestern" part of "Midwestern dad." I wanted the "dad" part, but I'll soldier on: 

"As a lesbian, I cringe when I hear straight women refer to their platonic friends as 'girlfriends.'"

"This usage feels as if it diminishes the significance of the term within the lesbian community. Lesbians use 'friend' to mean a platonic friend and 'girlfriend' to mean a romantic partner. It feels like an erasure of lesbians (and other queer identities) when straight women use 'our' term. I’m not saying that they are intending to be homophobic or harmful, but the impact is anti-L.G.B.T.Q.+.... Given the evolving landscape of language and identity, I wonder: Would it be ethically sound for me to ask people to use the term 'friend' instead?"

That's a letter to the NYT "Ethicist" advice columnist (Kwame Anthony Appiah).  I haven't read the answer yet.

My responses, in the order they occurred to me:

1. This was once one of the arguments for same-sex marriage — a desire to use the honored terms "husband" and "wife" to refer to the most-treasured relationship. That always had this other side, even when marriage was restricted to male-female couples: You should get married if you want the rest of the world to stand in awe of the vast profundity of your commitment to your lover.

2. It's not really a matter of ethics. It's a matter of language usage. And you ought to hesitate to use your feelings about your self-expression to impose on how other people speak, especially when they are using the language that they've lived with and there's no connection to any ill will toward you or anyone who deserves special consideration. Why would you want to push people around like that?

3. It's better as a discussion topic than a request. Don't say: I'd like to ask you to refrain from using the word "girlfriend" to refer to women you're not having sex with. Start a conversation, like: You know, every time you call one of your friends your "girlfriend," I picture the 2 of you having sex, and then I have to remember that's probably not what you meant, but you keep doing it, so I thought I should confess, that's how it sounds to me — and my girlfriend.

"A whistleblower alleged that Secret Service acting Director Ronald Rowe personally cut security resources and 'retaliated'..."

"... against agents with security concerns leading up to former President Donald Trump’s rally on July 13, according to a letter released Thursday."

From "Acting Secret Service Chief ‘Retaliated Against’ Agents Who Had Security Concerns At Trump Event, Whistleblower Claims" (Daily Caller).

🚨🚨 NEW - Whistleblower tells me Secret Service Acting Director Rowe personally directed cuts to the USSS agents who do threat assessments for events. Whistleblower says those agents were NOT present in Butler - and some of them had warned of security problems for months pic.twitter.com/v9igQ5L7FZ

— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) August 1, 2024

"I mean, like, what I think probably happened on January 6th where they withheld the police presence? If something happens, well, this will sink Trump forever."

"I mean, Pelosi, her people knew about this. They knew about possible plans to breach the Capitol. And according to J. Michael Waller, there was not one law enforcement officer present on the west side of the Capitol. How can that possibly be? But of course, the Senate Committee, they didn't investigate that. The House January 6th committee obviously didn't investigate that. I mean, those were also just whitewashes, committees designed to not get to the truth, but to cover up what probably happened. Okay. To get Trump. So I completely understand the suspicion that's out there. It's legitimate suspicion, and that's why this has to be fully investigated. I'm not going to rest until we uncover things. "

Said Senator Ron Johnson (text and audio at Real Clear Politics), asked about the assassination attempt.

"There's nothing beyond our capacity when we act together. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Remember who the hell we are. We are the United States of America."

Said President Biden, next to the plane out of which emerged those freed by Russia in the prisoner exchange.

I'm glad the erstwhile prisoners are home, and I'm glad Joe Biden still walks and talks among the living, but I don't believe "There's nothing beyond our capacity when we act together," I don't believe we are "working together," I think it's interesting that a President said "Nothing. Nothing. Nothing," and I don't approve of the intensifier "the hell" on this occasion.

Most importantly, I want to muse over the announcement "We are the United States of America." It's not just a Bidenism. It's very widespread. It's "American exceptionalism." But the Russians got their prisoners back too. Is Putin out there saying «Мы — Россия»?

I get a Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair vibe. But what is grand about a prisoner exchange?

"My son has all but cut connections with me.... A year or so ago when I was visiting, I had a DNA test swab with me..."

"... and asked [my granddaughter] to supply the saliva. The good news is, it turns out she is indeed my granddaughter, although unlike all the other grandkids, she looks nothing like any of the families on my side. She looks like a clone of her mother and a lot like her half brother from a different father. The results of this test leaked out via another family member, and there was a lot of anger by the mother that I doubted her faithfulness. I did apologize, although I really wanted to know the results. My apology was not accepted as good enough...."

From "Carolyn Hax: She doubted her grandkid’s paternity. So she picked up a DNA test. A letter writer insists on the truth of a grandchild’s paternity, and wonders if it must come at a cost with the child’s family" (WaPo).

That goes into The Annals of Unaccepted Apologies.

I wonder:

1. How often does it happen that someone secretly acquires a DNA sample from another person and gets it tested? It's always wrong, so there would not usually be confessions.

2. What tempted the grandmother to give in, not only to her unseemly curiosity, but to telling someone else what she did? Did she not realize how wrong she was? Did this other person participate in gossip about the child's paternity, motivating the grandmother to whip out her proof?

3. How often has it happened, across the great span of human existence, that family members have gazed upon the face of an innocent child and formed ideas about who, really, is the father? What evils, great and small, have they committed in the name of their suspicions?

4. Did Jesus Christ look "like a clone of [his] mother"? (I know: different sex. But still.)("With the facts in place, there is only one conclusion: Jesus was trans, as he would have been born as a genetic copy of Mary, but transitioned to male at some point.")

The Washington Post shines its sharp investigative journalism at Kamala Harris.

There's so little time left, but kudos to The Washington Post for hitting the ground running.

On the front page right now: "Kamala Harris’s cooking wisdom: 7 tips from her kitchen videos."

seriously you need to watch Kamala dice the hell out of an onion (w/new bonus laugh!) pic.twitter.com/1y0gtZHCCa

— Josh Josh (Coconomenon Era) (@Josh_____Josh) July 22, 2024

2 MORE THINGS:

1. It's interesting to see the use of a video clip that emphasizes Harris's Indian heritage so soon after Trump stirred the pot about Indian heritage possibly dominating Harris's self-identity.

2. Forefronting cooking in the presidential election reminds me of the classic "First Lady Bake-Off" that started in 1992 and pitted Hillary Clinton against Barbara Bush:

The competition was inspired by a political gaffe made by Hillary Clinton in 1992... In response to questions about her career and the Whitewater controversy, she stated that "I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession, which I entered before my husband was in public life."...

Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, said that Clinton's remarks "stepped outside the bounds of what was seen as the traditional role of first lady, potential first lady [...] the price she paid was being placed in the midst of a cookie bake-off."... According to media science professor Tammy R. Vigil, media coverage of the bake-off portrayed the women participating as adhering to traditional gender roles and published anecdotes about their domestic lives that contributed to this image.

And isn't it funny? 30 years later, traditional gender roles are still front-and-center in American politics. The Democratic Party candidate is, once again, a woman. Back in 2016, Bill Clinton competed in the (re-named) cookie contest. He won, too, just as Hillary had won in 1992 and 1996, and with the same recipe: "chocolate chip cookies." (Yes, I think we all know that recipe.) And the new female Democratic Party candidate isn't even using her husband to handle the cooking. She's dicing an onion, right there on camera for us. In 2024. I suppose she could have just fulfilled her profession, but what she decided to do was go on TV with Mindy Kaling and dice an onion. 

Sunrise — 5:19, a minute before it poured rain.

The white dot is the most beautiful state capitol in the country.

"As of this afternoon’s model run, Harris’s odds had improved to 44.6 percent, as compared to 54.9 percent for Trump and a 0.5 percent chance of an Electoral College deadlock."

"It’s not exactly 50/50, but close enough that a poker player would call it a 'flip': Democrats have ace-king suited, and Republicans have pocket jacks.... Harris has a 54 percent chance of winning Michigan, a 50 percent chance of winning Wisconsin and 47 percent chance of winning Pennsylvania, states that would suffice to net her 270 electoral votes, one more than she needs to win (assuming she also holds lean-blue states like New Hampshire). She also has a 40 percent chance of winning Nevada, where her polling has been much better than Biden’s so far, and roughly a one-in-three chance in Georgia and North Carolina, which gives her some backup options that Biden lacked."

Writes Nate Silver, in "The presidential election is a toss-up/Kamala Harris is giving Democrats the race that Joe Biden couldn’t."

Silver's definition of "toss-up" is "where each candidate had at least a 40 percent chance of winning."

"Democratic Party elites and billionaire donors are attempting to manipulate Black voters by anointing Kamala Harris..."

"... and an unknown vice president as the new Democratic ticket without a primary vote by the public.... While the potential outcome of a Harris presidency may be historic, the process to achieve it must align with true democratic values. We have no idea where Kamala Harris stands on the issues."

That is a statement from Black Lives Matter.

Quoted in "Identity Politics Loses Its Power/Black Lives Matter’s statement on Kamala Harris seems to signal a shift," by Thomas Chatterton Williams, who continues:

A lot of gall.

"But while he is seen as a long shot for VP, the blizzard of Buttigieg appearances is thrilling his legions of fans on social media..."

"... who see the young Midwestern mayor turned transportation secretary as an adept messenger for a reshaped, post-Biden campaign. Fans who have stuck by Buttigieg since his 2020 White House bid often identify themselves with a bee emoji — an insider reference to his memorable encounter with a bee during an Iowa campaign rally — or recently more simply with a dragon. Across TikTok, X, YouTube and Threads, they share videos of his appearances and boost his remarks, adding notes saying he 'NAILS it,' 'SCHOOLS Fox host' or simply 'slays.'"

From "A long shot for vice president, Pete Buttigieg is suddenly everywhere/In a reshaped race, the transportation secretary has dialed up his role as a key political messenger for the Democratic Party" (WaPo).

His speaking ability really is fantastic. The tone of his voice, the speed, the substance... whether you agree with him or not, you really ought to admit that he's the best at speaking. The others in contention for VP pick are nowhere near him in this skill, which is not the only skill involved in government, even though we often act as if it is. I consider Trump a genius at speaking, but it's a wild and entertaining form of speech that makes some people worry he lacks the proper temperament to serve as President. Buttigieg sounds exactly presidential. 

"JD Vance... criticized the immigration policies of the Biden administration, which he repeatedly referred to as the 'Harris administration.'"

The NYT reports:

"I am ashamed at what this Harris administration has done, and I promise it’s gonna get better in about six months,” Vance said.

And Trump is leaning into his "Indian heritage" chaos: 

"Russia freed wrongly convicted Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich as part of the largest and most complex East-West prisoner swap since the Cold War..."

"... in which he and more than a dozen others jailed by the Kremlin were exchanged for Russians held in the U.S. and Europe, including a convicted murderer. Gershkovich and other Americans left Russian aircraft moments ago at an airport in Turkey’s capital, Ankara. Russia had kept the 32-year-old behind bars for more than a year on a false allegation of espionage. It sentenced him in a hurried and secret three-day trial to 16 years in a high-security penal colony. Moscow also released former Marine Paul Whelan, journalist Alsu Kurmasheva and Vladimir Kara-Murza, a British-Russian dissident and Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, sentenced to 25 years in prison on treason-related charges. Russia also released a number of political dissidents. The sweeping deal involved 24 prisoners and at least six countries, and came together after months of negotiations at the highest levels of governments in the U.S., Russia and Germany, whose prisoner, Russian hit man Vadim Krasikov, emerged as the linchpin to the arrangement."

The Wall Street Journal reports (with no pay wall).

"When Southwest launched in 1971, it specifically claimed the moral high ground. The company was consciously selling the American ideal of egalitarianism..."

"... saying its purpose was to 'democratize the sky.'... Over the last few decades, we’ve pivoted from the ideal of egalitarian fairness (first-come, first-served) to the ideal of 'pay more, get treated better.' This is evident not only in commerce, but in politics: Both Democrats and Republicans have moved from having government regulation assure fairness toward using market solutions to ration goods and happiness. Examples: Lexus lanes, deregulated airfares, phone service.... But maybe Southwest is embracing a new American way. In the country where efficiency became a science, we’ve been bamboozled into accepting the idea that you have to pay extra to get the basics. How sad."

"Why Southwest’s seating switcheroo is un-American/The move spurns egalitarianism and pushes the idea that only the affluent deserve decent service," writes Marc Fisher (at WaPo).

Here's a Southwest ad from the early 70s. I watched it twice and I really couldn't pick up the "democratize" message:

"She yelled 'this is unjust' at her corner and slammed her headgear on the canvas as the match in the 66-kilogram division was called off."

From "Imane Khelif, boxer in middle of Olympics gender storm, forces tearful first opponent to quit 46 seconds into fight" (NY Post).

Kamala Harris supports this…

Vote accordingly.

pic.twitter.com/RHJzfrQlvv

— John LeFevre (@JohnLeFevre) August 1, 2024

An absolute travesty at the Olympics.

Angela Carini is forced to box against a biological male. She quits after just 45 seconds, and cries hysterically as her opponent is declared the winner.

Don't look away. This is wokeness. pic.twitter.com/wOkVRs88t5

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) August 1, 2024

There's the idea that Trump is mightily courageous. Mark Kelly begs to differ: Trump is terrified!

Last night, on CNN, commenting on Trump's performance at the National Association of Black Journalists convention, Mark Kelly — the potential VP candidate — had one idea to try to sell:

 

Asked to respond to Trump's statement that Kamala Harris only recently chose "to be known as black," Kelly said: 

Well, Kaitlan, my first reaction was, you know, this is the reaction of a desperate and scared old man. It was very obvious to me watching him and just what I've seen over the last wee while she's been, you know, across the country just kicking his butt that he's afraid, that he's probably afraid to debate her. He's certainly afraid to lose an election to her in November, and he's afraid about his own future....

Kaitlan Collins, mirroring Kelly, restating his idea in the form of a question: "So you think this is just a sign that he's essentially spooked by by her momentum?

Is that catching on, Trump the big chicken?

The effort to trick Trump into making race the central issue and Trump's countervailing trickery.

This gets a little complicated, but let's begin where I began this morning, reading Shawn McCreesh, at the NYT (I've added the boldface):

Trump’s campaign seemed to have been holding onto some hope that their candidate would refrain from attacking his opponent based on race and gender. It was just last week that Trump’s spokesman, Steven Cheung, was asked at a rally if Republicans ought to be labeling Kamala Harris a "D.E.I. candidate." Cheung said then that "from the campaign’s standpoint, we haven’t done that." Asked if such attacks were "off-limits," Cheung replied: "I don’t know if it’s off-limits, but it’s not something that we’ve done. So, it is not even on our radar." Now, it is certainly on their radar. It was ABC’s Rachel Scott asking the former president if he believed Harris was a "D.E.I. hire" that set him off on his long tangent in which he questioned her ethnicity. Prodded again as to whether he considered Harris a "D.E.I. hire," Trump concluded: "I really don’t know. Could be, could be. There are some."

"Steven Cheung, was asked" — who asked him? It seems that the anti-Trump side is trying to force Trump and his spokespeople to say Kamala Harris was a "DEI hire." It seems that Harris supporters want race to be an issue, and ABC’s Rachel Scott made that happen at Trump's appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists Convention.

Let's look at the transcript in some detail and see how Scott achieved her goal. I'm using the automatic transcript generated at this YouTube video of the event, and I've corrected and punctuated it based on the video:

SCOTT: "Republicans on Capitol Hill have labeled vice president Kamala Harris, who is the first black and Asian-American woman to serve as vice president be on a major party ticket, as a DEI hire. Is that acceptable language to you, and will you tell those Republicans and those supporters to stop it?"

TRUMP: "How do you how do you define DEI? Go ahead...."

SCOTT: "Diversity Equity Inclusion."

TRUMP: "Okay, yeah, go ahead. Is that, what, your definition?"

Scott limited herself to saying what the letters stand for.

"The discussion revolves around a video showing a person moving on a rooftop near where President Trump was shot, leading to widespread speculation..."

"... that the incident was an inside job. Many users express disbelief that the Secret Service and FBI could have missed the shooter, suggesting intentional negligence or involvement. The video, obtained by Fox News, has fueled further theories and calls for accountability, with some users pointing to additional suspicious activities and connections related to the event. The overall sentiment is one of deep distrust in government and media, with a strong belief that the incident was orchestrated from within the security apparatus."

Grok attempts to summarize the discussion at X.

Here's the Fox News story: "Video from Trump assassination attempt victim's POV shows figure moving on roof moments before gunfire/James Copenhaver was shot twice and critically wounded during the assassination attempt against Trump." Copenhaver, we're told, took the video (but he was not taking video at the time he was shot).

Sunrise — 5:37, 5:40, 5:44, 5:51.

Trump's wild interview at the National Association of Black Journalists Convention.

At The NYT the headline is: "Trump Questions Harris’s Racial Identity, Saying She Only ‘Became Black’ Recently/In an appearance before the National Association of Black Journalists, Donald Trump also said his choice of Senator JD Vance as vice president will not matter to voters." 

At The Washington Post: "Trump says Harris ‘happened to turn Black,’ holds rally in Pa." (Here's that rally, by the way.)

At The New York Post: "Trump says Harris ‘became a black person’ for political purposes during animated Chicago black journalists event."

You can see there's one issue that's getting all the attention. From the transcript:

Laura Ingraham detects Trump's gender fluidity.

Ingraham: What are your pronouns?

Trump: I don’t want pronouns

Ingraham: So, you’re fluid? pic.twitter.com/KjA8tZxpnw

— Acyn (@Acyn) July 30, 2024

ADDED: As you can see a few posts down, I've been reading "John Adams" by David McCullough. After writing this post, I went out for a walk with my audiobook version and was stunned to hear a passage that fit with the topic of a President's gender fluidity. From pages 659-660, about the presidential campaign of 1800:

Not satisfied that the old charges of monarchist and warmonger were sufficient, [the propagandist James] Callender called Adams a “repulsive pedant,” a “gross hypocrite,” and “in his private life, one of the most egregious fools upon the continent.” Adams was “that strange compound of ignorance and ferocity, of deceit and weakness,” a “hideous hermaphroditical character which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.”

Higher thoughts.

I'm reading "White Dudes for Harris Was a ‘Rainbow of Beige’ That Raised $4 Million" (New York Magazine):

“I gotta laugh because I accepted the invitation not for being white, but because I’m a dude you know?” said actor Jeff Bridges, who pushed back on a philosophical point on the messaging from the campaign that Democrats must “fight” for democracy. “It’s not so much a fight, but a surrender to higher thoughts of how we want the future to turn out,” Bridges said. “That’s just my opinion, man.”

"That’s just my opinion, man" suggests he's joking. I get the reference.....

... but which way is he joking? Is it that the movie character of "The Dude" is averse to fighting and takes a slacker route to the same destination? You don't have to fight. Only surrender. That seems like a satire of the Democrats' message. Is he toying with them? Just fooling around? Or is he saying that white men really ought to surrender. Stand down and think of "higher thoughts." The future belongs to... somebody else. 

"Democrats tend to lose whenever they forget that they are, first and foremost, the party of working American families."

"Since the days when FDR won four consecutive presidential races, voters have looked to the Dems to fight for economic growth, which brings jobs and opportunity; provide a safety net to protect the unlucky from disaster; and regulate the marketplace to keep cheaters, predators, and monopolists at bay. Somewhere along the way, Democrats lost the plotline: Gallup polls show that Americans generally trust Republicans to do a better job of managing the economy, currently by a margin of 53 to 39 percent. Successful Democrats like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama — the only two leaders of their party to win reelection since FDR — made it happen by focusing like a laser on the economy.... ... Harris has to avoid the distraction of meme wars and juvenile name calling. Instead, she should stay laser focused on a proven issue on which she and Democrats can win. The economy, stupid."

Writes Errol Louis, in "The Memes Have Been Great. Now Kamala Harris Needs to Talk About This" (New York Magazine).

"A peck of troubles in a large bundle of papers.... No company. No society. Idle, unmeaning ceremony."

Wrote John Adams, complaining about what it's like to be President of the United States, quoted in "John Adams" by David McCullough (page 638)(commission earned).

I've spent so much time in the last 20 years watching numerous characters seeking the presidency. It's a wholesome respite to read about someone who doesn't like it at all.

ADDED: On the subject of the President's security: "Told there had been an attempt to break into the President’s House and asked if a guard should be posted, Adams said no, lest a sentinel at the door lead people to think the situation worse than they knew" (page 603). 

"She doesn’t look around for others to join inasmuch as she simply reflects the moment: the thrill, the fun, the catharsis, the you-have-to-laugh-to-keep-from-crying-or-punching-a-wall of it all."

Robin Givhan is writing about Kamala Harris's notable laughing, in "Kamala Harris’s powerful laughter in the face of weirdness/Her guffaws speak to a moment: the thrill, the catharsis, the you-have-to-laugh-to-keep-from-crying-or-punching-a-wall of it all" (WaPo).

There's that word "weird" again, in the headline. I checked to see if maybe Givhan resisted using it herself. Givhan is a wordsmith. You can tell by that one sentence I put in the post title. She went with "inasmuch," and she made one of those long adjectives that hyphens let you construct out of any string of words: "you-have-to-laugh-to-keep-from-crying-or-punching-a-wall." But she's not a got-to-avoid-using-the-word-of-the-day wordsmith. 

I'd hoped "weirdness" was a just-in-the-headline word, inserted by one of those nameless headline writers, but it's in the body of the essay:

How weird is it to deride a person for laughing? Not for laughing inappropriately, in the middle of a funeral, for example...

The link goes to the "Mary Tyler Moore" Chuckles the Clown episode, not — how could it be?! — Bill Clinton laughing at Ron Brown's funeral (laughing, then fake-crying). 

... but simply for enjoying a good chuckle?

But sometimes it is inappropriate — and quite mystifying — as in this widely shared example:

 

Givhan acknowledges the word-of-the-momentness of "weird":

The pervasiveness of "weird" in the mind of Tim Walz.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz — in the running for VP — has gotten attention over the past week for purveying the word "weird," but he was calling Republicans "weird" a year ago.

Here's something I blogged August 21, 2023: "Who's the 'most normal' in this 'pretty weird group'?":

Sunrise — 5:52, 5:53.

"If I were advising the candidates, I’d tell them to double down on weirdness."

Says David Brooks, on September 8, 2008.

Blogging that at the time, here, I said that Brooks observed that "Obama started out weird and did well, then got conventional and did less well, especially with McCain getting weird. 'Weirdness wins,' [Brooks] says."

I thought you might like to see that today, when so many people are saying "weird" at the same time and as if it's a bad thing.

Let me give you a bit more of Brooks:

"She either likes or loves me."

Says Donald Trump, talking about Melania's reaction to seeing him shot, live, on TV.

NEW: Donald Trump says Melania was watching his rally live when he was shot in the face by Thomas Crooks, says she is traumatized.

Ingraham: What was Melania's reaction?

Trump: She was watching live. It was all over the place. I asked her that, I mean, I wasn't there. I was on… pic.twitter.com/2CYLRuSBw4

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) July 30, 2024

"These guys are just weird. That's where they are.... The fascist depend on fear. The fascists depend on us going back, but we're not afraid of weird people. No, we we're a little bit creeped out, but we're not afraid."

Said Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, in audio played in the new episode of the NYT "Daily" podcast, "The V.P.’s Search for a V.P."

The podcast host observes that the message — "Republicans are... just too weird for America" — "does seem like it's sticking a little bit."

Is it "sticking" or is it just the word that's getting said by people who say the same word at the same time. I'm thinking of those people who all used the word "selfless" when Biden accepted getting ousted.

Here's a whole NYT article on the emergence of "weird" as the word: "One Word Has Elevated Minnesota’s Governor to the Democrats’ V.P. Wish List/'These guys are just weird,' Gov. Tim Walz, a former schoolteacher, has said of the opposition."

"Oh! Oh! I am a Democrat. Oh! So sad, so cold, so hungry! The world is dark! The world in the future, she's bleak!... The worst nightmare kind of scenario! It's a doom loop!"

Jon Stewart enacts the drama of the Democrat's recent emotional arc:

"In the span of a week, Democrats have gone from the despair of a certain Trump presidency to the joy of a statistical tie...."

The audience cheers wildly at the joy of a statistical tie.

"The Daily Show" gives us 17+ minutes of this week's show, which I think is pretty good. Highlights:

"100,000 white women? That is a giant group of white women. I believe the scientific term is actually a 'goop' of women...."

Montage of "Joe Biden is going to be the nominee.... Biden's not going anywhere," etc....

A gesture at a JD Vance/couch joke...

Montage of Republicans emoting about the "coup inside the Democratic party" and a connection to the January 6th "coup"...

"Isn't there a grosser way you can say" that Kamala Harris slept her way to the top?

Ted Cruz providing the occasion for Jon Stewart to offer a delicate way to call him fat... 

A "she was a DEI hire" montage followed by much pricking of your conscience for thinking about race.

"By Saturday, July 20, former President Barack Obama was deeply involved, and there was talk that he would place a call to Biden."

"It was not clear whether Biden had been examined or just what happened to him in Las Vegas.... 'On Sunday morning,' [a senior official in Washington told me], with the approval of Pelosi and Schumer, 'Obama called Biden after breakfast and said, "Here’s the deal. We have Kamala’s approval to invoke the 25th Amendment."... 'It was clear at this point... that she would get the nod.... But Obama also made it clear... that he was not going to immediately endorse her. But the group had decided that her work as a prosecutor would help her deal with Trump in a debate.... [Obama] had an agenda and he wanted to seek [sic] it through to the end, and he wanted to have control over who would be elected.'"

Writes Seymour Hersh, "LEAVING LAS VEGAS/Inside the last tortured days of the Biden campaign" (SubStack).

Hersh suggests that Harris continues to be under Obama's control, and "she had better perform." She's not the nominee yet.

Hersh also writes that Kamala Harris "often showed little interest" in "the President’s Daily Brief, a highly classified summary of current intelligence that is prepared overnight by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and delivered by hand to the most vital offices in Washington, including the vice president’s." Hersh says that Harris even "asked the agency to stop delivering it to her."

Speaking of Seymour Hersh... his name came up in a NYT obituary published yesterday, "William Calley, Convicted of Mass Murder in My Lai Massacre, Dies at 80/Hundreds of Vietnamese civilians died at the hands of American soldiers, but Lieutenant Calley was the only one found guilty":

At the Bee Balm Café...

... you can talk all night.

The sculptor Sabin Howard said he "studied many images from the war, including paintings like John Singer Sargent’s 'Gassed,' a portrait of soldiers blinded by poison gas."

"'Some of my earlier iterations showed the soldiers … traumatized and wounded by mustard gas,' Howard said. 'But I was asked to take it out because it was too much, too much pain. When I started looking at images online, historical images, I saw how the soldiers and wives and fiancées and girlfriends were human beings. The reference to those photos had a huge impact on me because I saw this was a memorial where you need to remember the humans that partook in this. I like to say it’s for humans, by humans, about humans."

From "25-ton sculpture honoring World War I soldiers comes to Washington/The sculpture will be the centerpiece and final element of Washington’s National World War I Memorial" (WaPo).

The pieces of 58-foot long high-relief sculpture arrived in Washington this past weekend. The 5 tons sections were maneuvered into the park through "hours of careful balancing, rebalancing and moving the pieces to fit just so." Black plastic covers everything now. The “first illumination” ceremony will be on September 13th. 

We will see how close or far it is from John Singer Sargent's "Gassed":

The men are walking like that because they were blinded, but apparently the new monument will not show blinded men, and it will even — or so it sounds — include women. The sculptor seems to imply that the men in Sargent's painting don't seem human. Was a decision made to show soldiers interacting with their wives and fiancées and girlfriends? Is that what makes men human — in government propaganda — the love of a woman? 

"White people like Vance’s grandmother who are strongly anti-institution and don’t go to church but consider themselves very much Christian..."

"... were a huge part of the Trump base from the start and explain how religious conservatives could connect with him, [said Geoff Layman, head of the University of Notre Dame’s political science department and an expert on political behavior and religion]. This phenomenon was so common that Layman and a co-author of a 2020 book about new religious-political fault lines used the term 'mamaw' to describe nominally Christian Trump supporters, an allusion to Vance’s grandmother, by then well known because of his popular memoir 'Hillbilly Elegy.'"

Writes Michelle Boorstein, in "JD Vance’s Catholic conversion is part of young conservative movement/The Republican vice-presidential nominee and Ohio senator was raised nominally evangelical, then dabbled with atheism before converting in 2019" (WaPo).

"You might recall the epic 2008 Beijing opening ceremony, which showcased the four great Chinese inventions: the compass, gunpowder, paper, and typesetting."

"This one in Paris, put up last Friday, celebrated analogous French contributions like threesomes, the Minions franchise, and dressing like a clown...."

Begins Suzy Weiss, in "Was the Opening Ceremony Demonic, or Just Cringe? Don’t feel bad for Christians—feel bad for the French" (Free Press).

Ha ha. Very well put.

The lamest lame duck executive seeks to meddle with the judicial branch.

Having faltered and fallen in his own lane, Joe Biden seems to think his view of the Supreme Court might matter.

I'm seeing "Opinion/Joe Biden: My plan to reform the Supreme Court and ensure no president is above the law/We can and must prevent the abuse of presidential power and restore the public’s faith in our judicial system" (WaPo).

I served as a U.S. senator for 36 years, including as chairman and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee. I have overseen more Supreme Court nominations as senator, vice president and president than anyone living today. I have great respect for our institutions and the separation of powers.

What is happening now is not normal, and it undermines the public’s confidence in the court’s decisions, including those impacting personal freedoms. We now stand in a breach....

I agree that what is happening now is not normal, but which way is it not normal?

Are The Washington Post and The New York Times treating the rise of Kamala Harris quite differently?

Kamala Harris is at the top of the Washington Post home page:

The Washington Post headline expresses bold pride in her takeover of the Democratic Party, ousting the unnamed man (Biden) who had won the primaries and who is still (remember?!) President of the United States. And the next headline down casts doubt on the election in Venezuela. Why not admiration for Maduro, how he "took control"? Because he did it via election?

Over at The New York Times, the top headline is "Venezuela's Autocrat Is Declared Winner of Tainted Election." Then, there is a series of headlines — inflation in Japan, the attack in Israel from Lebanon, Biden's plan for the Supreme Court — before we get to something about Kamala Harris, and it's not cheering for her:

 

She's underneath Biden, who's holding up an I'm-still-here finger, and she's walking downward, and, we're told, her "Honeymoon Phase" is "wind[ing] down." She's isolated and her head is bowed: How will she "Maintain Momentum"?

At the Oak and Sunflower Café...

... you can talk all night.

"The US could have avoided almost 250,000 Covid-19 deaths if every state had adopted stricter mask and vaccine requirements seen in the Northeast..."

"... during the height of the pandemic, according to a new study.... 'These study findings do not support the views of those opposing COVID-19 restrictions who erroneously believe the restrictions did not work,' [writes University of Virginia public policy and economics professor Christopher J Ruhm]. 'To the contrary, the package of policies implemented by some states probably saved many lives. If all states had imposed restrictions similar to those used in the 10 most restrictive states, excess deaths would have been an estimated 10% to 21% lower than the 1.18 million that actually occurred during the 2-year analysis period.'..."

From "Stricter Covid mask rules could’ve saved hundreds of thousands of lives, new study finds/Restrictions in Northeastern states likely ‘saved many lives’ say researchers" (Independent).

"Why has Connections in particular seemed to inspire so much online discourse? The people who work on it aren’t entirely sure..."

"but [Everdeen Mason, the Times games editorial director] had some guesses: 'There’s something about it that makes people want to make, like, relatability content about it in a way that they don’t about, like, the crossword or even Spelling Bee. It takes more effort than Wordle. There’s more of a story there.... ...Connections is more memeable. You can make more jokes with that screenshot.... I do want to say, our goal is not to make people mad.... There’s no like, ‘Muahaha, I just ruined someone’s day.... I think it’s a cognitive thing that happens sometimes that if people feel like they’re punching up or something, if they think that you are unequal to them, whether it’s up or down, they don’t treat you like a human being anymore...."

From "The NYT Connections Editor Knows What You’ve Been Saying/Wyna Liu makes the game every day. She isn’t sure why it makes people lose their minds" (Slate).

I love doing the Connections puzzle every day — it never makes me mad! — and I enjoy some of the talk about it on TikTok, especially this guy, purplejusthappens. (Purple represents the toughest of the 4 categories, but once you get 3 categories, whatever is left is the 4th category, and you don't need to understand why these things belong together to finish the puzzle. That's actually a flaw in the game. In the end, only you know if you knew why the final group was a group.)

"Looking anew at Harris, I see something different from what I once did: a person who stumbled as a candidate and vice president..."

"... but who kept fighting anyway. I see a woman who struggled to compete for power against her peers, buried under an array of vague and unstated expectations about whether she gave the right answers, had the right ideas, was smart or specific enough. Like any woman of ambition, I deeply relate to these experiences. As strange as it might seem, I have come to think these experiences could make her the ideal candidate in a surreal campaign against a man who is so certain of himself, who admits to no mistakes, who has no humility and who, for many of us, is utterly unrelatable...."

Writes Lydia Polgreen, in "I Was a Kamala Harris Skeptic. Here’s How I Got Coconut-Pilled" (NYT).

What is "disgusting" to J.D. Vance?

I only found one appearance of "disgusting" in "Hillbilly Elegy": "my urine turned a disgusting brown shade" (page 183).

Here's what motivated me to look, from "JD Vance Hits Back at Jennifer Aniston, Defending ‘Childless Cat Ladies’ Remarks/The 'Friends' actress, who has been open about her fertility struggles, recently criticized Mr. Vance’s 2021 comments on social media" (NYT):

In [an Instagram] post, which drew widespread attention, [Jennifer Aniston], who has been open about her fertility struggles, wrote, “Mr. Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day.”...

“Hollywood celebrities say, ‘Oh, well, JD Vance, what if your daughter suffered fertility problems?’” Mr. Vance said [on “The Megyn Kelly Show” on SiriusXM]. “Well, first of all, that’s disgusting because my daughter is 2 years old. And second of all, if she had fertility problems, as I said in that speech, I would try everything I could to try to help her because I believe families and babies are a good thing.”

Why did he say "that's disgusting"? Was it some kind of notion that Aniston was sexualizing the toddler?! Aniston was being very tactful and delicate, and he's saying it's disgusting? That's very strange. I'm getting a gynophobia vibe. 

Here's the Vance quote that provoked Aniston: "We are effectively run in this country… by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made."

By the way, I've seen Aniston's cat, and it is disgusting:

A Minion of the Anti-Christ!

"very shocking & disrespectful to make light of the Feast of Dionysus; deeply offensive to those who have devoted their lives to feasting, drinking, & salacious behavior."

Writes Joyce Carol Oates, tweeting in response to this:

ADDED: "Paris Olympics organisers apologise to Christians for Last Supper parody/Apology follows anger among Catholics and other groups at opening ceremony segment that resembled biblical scene" (The Guardian).

I googled "world leaders who laugh" and Google treated it as if I had googled "world leaders who laugh at Trump."

 

Link.

My hypothesis is that Google is actively skewing searches to influence the election. But I get the same effect at DuckDuckGo. And Bing. I also tried Grok, and it foisted Harris and Trump on me repeatedly, even when I demanded that it stop. 

I was googling a propos of the previous post, which is about Kamala Harris's laughing and got me wondering what kind of world leaders are associated with laughing. Are they heroes or villains? I could only think of one, a great American hero:

"Hillary Clinton’s laugh was criticized, and also called weird. There was a suggestion that it made her seem inauthentic..."

"... which was a bizarre point, since genuine laughter is, if not involuntary, then very hard to fake. Lenny Bruce once dared a crowd to try it four times in an hour. Calling women overly emotional or hysterical is a sexist trope, and there’s a long history of positioning laughter in opposition to reason. Plato warned against a love of laughter, suggesting it indicates a loss of control. Ever alert to the theater of power, Trump rarely laughs... ...."

Writes Jason Zinoman, in "Kamala Harris’s Laugh Is a Campaign Issue. Our Comedy Critic Weighs in. The Trump campaign sees Harris’s laugh as a vulnerability to exploit. But far from a liability, it is one of her most effective weapons" (NYT).

"What does a laugh say about a person? That he or she is human. In a divided country, it’s something we all do and enjoy. And as anyone who has hung out with friends late into the night knows, it’s contagious. That’s a powerful political tool. As the poet Ella Wilcox wrote, 'Laugh and the world laughs with you.'"

Ella Wilcox? She started that? Oh!

I am laughing at the surprise encounter with what looks like the childless cat lady J.D. Vance was talking about.

Here's the poem, "Solitude":

"As a Black woman, I am bracing for the inevitable racist and sexist attacks on her and have mixed emotions about us asking her to sprint a marathon and do something unprecedented in an impossibly short timeline."

Said Jasmine Clark, a Georgia state representative, quoted in "Harris seized the moment. Can she translate that energy to victory? After an extraordinary debut as a presidential candidate, Vice President Harris must now prove she can wage a winning campaign to defeat former president Donald Trump" (WaPo).

"Sprint a marathon" is a good expression, better than, say, "backwards in high heels," because Harris has been tasked to accomplish in 100 days what is normally done in something more like 1,000 days. Now, the competition was swept out of her path — by others. And the limited time we have to listen to her may work to her advantage, but Jasmine Clark is on her side, and "sprint a marathon" aptly expresses how she feels.

It made me think of the famous Lyndon Johnson line:

"You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, 'you are free to compete with all the others,' and still justly believe that you have been completely fair."

Now, I think Kamala Harris has led a very privileged life, and she's been boosted ahead of others, not held back, and I don't want her or her supporters to play on our empathy about race and sex to excuse her shortcomings. But she is beginning the race at the starting line when her opponent has been running for years. And yet that might be to her advantage. If she'd been exposed as the frontrunner candidate all these months, she might have many more strikes against her (if I may mix the sports metaphors).

One thing that's held against her — I see this all the time — is her awkward statement about equity:

"So there’s a big difference between equality and equity. Equality suggests, 'oh everyone should get the same amount.' The problem with that, not everybody’s starting out from the same place. So if we’re all getting the same amount, but you started out back there and I started out over here, we could get the same amount, but you’re still going to be that far back behind me. It’s about giving people the resources and the support they need, so that everyone can be on equal footing, and then compete on equal footing. Equitable treatment means we all end up in the same place."

She was carelessly loping along in a race to paraphrase LBJ and she took a header and fell near the finish line.