I'm reading Rhonda Garelick's "Americans Love a Makeover, as Long as It’s Invisible/The gutting of the East Wing of the White House and our national preoccupation with 'renovation'" (NYT).
AFTERTHOUGHT: Taking Garelick's analogy very seriously, I could believe that Trump's buildings are, for him, the equivalent of a woman's body and face.
There has alway been a womanly aspect to Trump, and I think that is one of the (many) things that trouble those of us who have focused on his weirdness over the years. A transwoman is easier to fathom. Rather that to be focused on his own body and face, he has pushed this awareness out to the buildings that surround him. He's deeply invested in extreme achievement in the field of aesthetics — he's said "I'm a very aesthetic person" — and he may be too much like those actresses who overindulge in plastic surgery as they experience their time running low.
If I am right, it's not just a matter of the "gruesome in-between stages" of the reconstruction work. It's also the final result. Why does the NYT include that photo of Kristen Chenowith?
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But we are forced to watch the disturbing and painful convulsions of TDS sufferers every day as they writher and cry out in pain. A decent compassionate people would do something to end the suffering, but alas there is nothing we can do until they decide they want help.
Well, THAT really creeped me out.
Americans love a makeover, as long as it doesn't involve Trump.
Not just another “think piece,” an express “think of it as” piece about Trump from the NYT.
Chenoweth expressed condolences at Charlie Kirk's assassination, so now she is a worthy object of attacks at the "Times."
There has alway been a womanly aspect to Trump, and I think that is one of the (many) things that trouble those of us who have focused on his weirdness over the years. A transwoman is easier to fathom. Rather that to be focused on his own body and face, he has pushed this awareness out to the buildings that surround him. He's deeply invested in extreme achievement in the field of aesthetics — he's said "I'm a very aesthetic person" — and he may be too much like those actresses who overindulge in plastic surgery as they experience their time running low.
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No concern as to who is footing the bill for Trump's transformation art project? You're inconsistent in your criticism, Miss Know-It-All.
Sometimes a Ballroom is just a Ballroom.
If Trump stepped on a cockroach there would be a NYT article on the blessings and cultural benefits from cockroaches.
But we are forced to watch the disturbing and painful convulsions of TDS sufferers every day as they writher and cry out in pain
Yes this crap would be unbelievable if not for the constant reminders of how TDS infested the populace is, both in numbers and magnitude. The ballroom has been a long overdue addition to the function of The White House. The state dinners are recognized by our international allies as an important diplomatic ceremony. Unfortunately they've been held in tents and the outdoors which creates security nightmares, so the President devises an elegant, cost effective solution to the problem but instead of celebrating the addition or, if you hate him, ignoring the solution and focusing your petty rants on some other policy we have to endure a regurgitation of how you ranted about the building at your therapist appointment last week.
"Why does the NYT include that photo of Kristen Chenowith?"
Something to distract everyone from whatever Miley Cyrus has become. It's not a one-for-one replacement ghoul, but close.
Oh noes...anyways
Byron York Notes a Simple Truth the NY Times Glossed Over in Their Belated Biden Border Invasion Story – Twitchy https://share.google/hyxy28opTxf9qZPLg
Wow, whoever was in charge of the camera really knew how to make Liz taylor look good. She looks great. Too bad the movie is so slow. The Director actually wastes 3 minutes showing us a character on an airplane, getting in a car, meeting liz, and sitting down and ordering!
Why does the NYT include that photo of Kristen Chenowith?”
Given the extraordinary amount of circle-jerking that goes on these days, it’s most likely because Chenowith has a new TV series on NBC.
Kristen Chenowith - had to look her up. Guess she's a 57 y/o actress. And she's not Jewish. She's from Okalahoma. And she expressed regret over Kirk. So, she's enemy No. 1.
"He's deeply invested in extreme achievement in the field of aesthetics"
Trump is but I don't think he is for the sake of the aesthetics themselves, at least not solely. I think he primarily is interested in it because of the way it affects people's emotional state and feelings of self and country. When he makes design and architectural updates he is trying to update America's mood. I think this squares with his negotiation tactics, showmanship, and persona which all seem much more focused on affecting a person's emotions rather than being overly cerebral. Which I think is more effective at having a meaningful effect on people than purely appealing to logic and reason. One thing I now much more closely agree with Scott Adams on is that people are much much more emotional than they think. I think most decisions by most people are made based on emotion and if reason and logic are involved it is more likely used in the reverse to come up with a rationalization of what they emotionally want to do in the first place.
Some lawyer for Obama told us that "bombing" countries didn't technically count as "hostilities." Super lucky for Obama because if the bombs were hostile he would have had to ask Congress if he could deploy them. Waterboarding is "enhanced interrogation" and not torture. So, so lucky, because torture is illegal! Time after time our leaders just luck out this way!
So yeah, sure, complete demo is a "renovation." A "penalty" is actually a "tax." A lowlevel drug runner is actually a "narco-terrorist." Words mean whatever our Top Men need them to mean.
’The Treasury Department has reportedly prohibited any further photos of the East Wing’s demolition site…’
Tyranny and censorship!!
Once you understand the motivation of the Sulzberger family - to make Trump look bad in the NYT's every single day, forever - then its interesting to see how they accomplish their mission.
Trump does this great thing. Rebuilding the east wing so it can fit more people. And he does it with private money. But the NYT's has to make that into a bad thing. Something to attack Trump on. I must say, they're clever. They found the angle of attack.
Actually, I'd say Trump's love of beauty is what drives him. He loves Beautiful (to him) buildings. He loves beautiful women. Ane he loves Beautiful golf courses. I think that's the pattern. Not being a female wanna be.
This is just TDS. Outrage over literally anything and everything. If any other Prez did this it would either (a) not be mentioned at all, or (b) considered a good thing ("revitalizing image of america" or whatever).
Many great leaders thru-out history build stuff. What is the big deal?
I think the new ballroom is a fine idea for future administrations. building it will provide jobs.. and no tax payer money is being used.
unlike the corrupt democratic party of lies and grift.
Nobody is actually bothered by the construction of a new bigger White House ballroom. There are only people who pretend to be because hating Trump and all his works is the foundation of their identity.
What’s the play Chenowith is in? “The Queen of Versailles — the documentary-turned-TV-series-turned-Broadway-musical about a billionaire real estate developer and his beauty queen wife, and their quest to build America’s largest, most expensive home, a modern Versailles.”
Wow. So original. However did they think of that?
They are truly and very seriously mentally ill.
First there is a building
Then there is no building
Then there is
"tim maguire said...
Nobody is actually bothered by the construction of a new bigger White House ballroom. "
I think people are but not because of the construction itself, at least not solely. A lot of people online have referred to the 2024 election as the "Vibe-Shift" election. Where things just feel completely different now, like we are in a new period. Others even before the election, notably Michael Malice, have said we've already passed peak woke. This jibes with my own personal experience when I see people espousing woke ideology. It just feels off to me. I've generally always disagreed with it so it always felt wrong in that sense, but now it feels out of place and dated. It feels like someone is trying to hold onto a deteriorating relic that everyone else has moved on from. For a lot of folks on the left wokeness was a core part of their identity. They felt like they had solved morality, all that was left was getting people on board. Now it feels like that is vanishing. I think many of these people are experiencing genuine grief at that. When these big, but still superficial, changes take place I think emotionally that brings up feelings of loss and pain in these people.
The left tears down entire nations and cultures promising to replace them with utopia. They don’t really give shit about the East Wing. Just like they don’t really give a shit about trans kids they’re doing radical cosmetic surgery on.
Trump just likes building stuff. It's in his genes. No analysis needed.
A much more broad and sympathetic view of Trump's renovations and reconstructions:
https://newcriterion.com/article/america-beautiful/
"A better question, beyond the hyperbole, bad-faith arguments, and elitist bigotry, is how successful the president’s many cultural and architectural projects will actually be. With more initiatives revealed by the day, the answer looks to place Trump among our greatest builder-presidents, in line with Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt. As Americans embrace his classical, representational, and traditional undertakings, the only real destruction is the loss of the establishment’s cultural hegemony." And also Barack's basketball court and trailer.
And not to forget the forthcoming National Garden, in which author Panero was a participant peer reviewer.
"history erased"
WHAT "history"?
The building was built in 1942 to cover up a bomb shelter. It's mainly known for the fact that it's too small to host reasonable sized events
"...we've already passed peak woke."
And the number of trans people will plummet, proving again the obvious, that it was only a social contagion. The first half of the 2020's will be seen by history as a collective brain fart.
D.D. Driver said...
A lowlevel drug runner is actually a "narco-terrorist."
So what "level" of a "drug runner" is high enough?
How many dead bodies worth of drugs do they have to be transporting to qualify?
"Honesty discourse" when they really mean dishonesty.
"And the number of trans people will plummet,"
I suspect that 100 years from now people will look back at how society treated people with gender dysphoria with transitioning procedures the same way we look back at how society treated women with melancholy with hysterectomies.
Or lobotomies, which is a very similar situation: unproven surgery to shut up the mentally ill. At least lobotomies met that goal.
It's a Don Henley Monday:
Can we film the operation
Is the head dead yet
You know the boys in the newsroom
Got a running bet
Get the widow on the set
We need dirty laundry
“There has alway been a womanly aspect to Trump”
In the same way that Bill Clinton was our first Black President, Donald Trump may be our first trans President! Suddenly he seems less weird.
I've got nothing against Trump or his new ballroom. I'm sure it's a useful addition and that it will be done in good taste. I note in passing that the original Hall of Mirrors is fine for the Sun King but a little overdone for just us plain folks. And nothing against Greco-Roman architecture, but over the intervening millennia, we have seen other buildings of grace and proportion be constructed. I guess when you go for something new, you risk ending up with the FBI building, but sometimes you put up a Guggenheim Museum. Greco-Roman is the safe choice, but there are other, perhaps better choices.
Trump has significant experience in this stuff and, for the most part, has been successful. However, when I see what he's done to the Oval Office, plus his plans for the East Wing Ballroom, Eisenhower Office Building, Kennedy Center, etc, I find myself thinking of the large, classic estate in Beverly Hills when some new owners painted all the female statues in the yard flesh color with dark pubic hair.
"The Treasury Department has reportedly prohibited any further photos of the East Wing’s demolition site"
I'm telling you; it's not just a ballroom they're building there. The ballroom is probably a cover for something they've wanted to build under the White House for a long time.
I think Kristen Chenoweth's picture was chosen because of her connection to the Queen of Versailles. It's unfortunate, however, that many people in the context of the article will see her as an example of too much plastic surgery. I think she looks fine. Me, I'm growing old naturally and I look terrible. I've got wrinkles on wrinkles. On the plus side, I never went bald or got fat and that's what's really important. That and not dying.
If I am right, it's not just a matter of the "gruesome in-between stages" of the reconstruction work. It's also the final result.
Well you aren’t right. Deal with it.
“It's a Don Henley Monday”
We don’t need any preaching from a coked-up clown caught in his hot tub with two coked-up, 15 year old teenaged girls (one of them OD’d) which fueled his pissy little missive.
To be clear, that’s Henley, not Howard.
"JRoberts said...
painted all the female statues in the yard flesh color "
Weren't ancient Greek and Roman statues painted originally? Isn't it just a return to tradition?
"I find myself thinking of the large, classic estate in Beverly Hills when some new owners painted all the female statues in the yard flesh color with dark pubic hair."
Those were Saudis that did that.
DeeDee taken by the short ‘n’ curlies @9:21am…
“I could believe that Trump's buildings are, for him, the equivalent of a woman's body and face.”
His opponents want to limit his renovations to the equivalent of anal bleaching and a wax.
"The Treasury Department has reportedly prohibited any further photos of the East Wing’s demolition site"
The security implications of allowing photographs of a White House building site are so obvious that one must question the mental capacity of the author.
I can think of a more valid reason to prohibit photography while the structure is demolished. The huge underground "White House Big Dig," a $375 million project from 2010 to 2014, was officially to "update electric wiring" or something similarly mundane, but unofficially everyone will admit it was to add some top-secret security features. So photographing the grounds without their building on top of them might expose something we wanted toi keep secret.
I thought you were talking about Howard. I was grudgingly impressed...
He just understands that aesthetics means a lot to other people. He doesn't drink, but he provides his customers with alcohol. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Calm TF down, people.
So what "level" of a "drug runner" is high enough?
Not sure, buddy. How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Good questions all.
What I *do* know is that cartel kingpins do not sit on top of 100 floating gas containers in the middle of the fucking ocean.
Stay gold, Ponyboy!
(Also, what are the "names" if the "narco terrorists.")
Photography of buildings and security...
The one time I got nagged by the Tokyo police was during a midnight stroll, when I tried to take a shot of the foundation steel work for a new skyscraper. They stopped me in five seconds flat, and all I was doing was standing on the sidewalk peering through a wide open gate.
"The ballroom is probably a cover for something they've wanted to build under the White House for a long time."
It's where the new Soylent Green will be made from immigrants and drug traffickers.
If you don't believe that, you must be some kind of right wingnut.
“I thought you were talking about Howard. I was grudgingly impressed...”
You have a little Polanski in ya, old and slow… 🤨
D.D. Driver said...
Me: So what "level" of a "drug runner" is high enough?
Not sure, buddy
Then why did you bitch abbot "low level drug runner", rather than just "drug runner"? Oh, it' because you're dishonest? Got it.
What I *do* know is that cartel kingpins do not sit on top of 100 floating gas containers in the middle of the fucking ocean.
So ONLY "cartel kingpins" can be killed? We can't stop anyone else?
That's quite the philosophy you've got going there.
Mine is better: it's perfectly fine to kill anyone and everyone involved in the illegal drug business, it being a business hat kills tens of thousands of Americans each year.
If you don't want to get killed for smuggling drugs, then don't smuggle drugs. Every single one of these people knew what they were doing. This isn't some sucker having a package shoved in their bags without their knowledge, or doing a favor carrying something for a friend.
If their lives are worth so little to them that they'd do this when they know they can die doing it, I see no reason why they should be more valuable to us
Legalize drugs. Have we learned nothing from Prohibition?
Freddy said...
Legalize drugs. Have we learned nothing from Prohibition?
What we learned from Prohibition is that if you ever legalize something, you can't ever change your mind.
What we also learned from Prohibition was that there were a lot fewer alcoholics in the US after it, than before it.
Was it worth it? I doubt it.
But I won't favor making all drugs legal until we get rid of the welfare state. Because I'm not willing to pay for you taking drugs
Greg The Class Traitor said...
"But I won't favor making all drugs legal until we get rid of the welfare state. Because I'm not willing to pay for you taking drugs"
If that means getting rid of all corporate welfare, I'm with you.
On a philosophical level I favor making all drugs legal, but from a practical standpoint, it would be nothing short of insane. People are just too stupid and weak to manage their lives with cheap legal drugs. Perhaps we would be better off without the one who are prone to destroying themselves, but that is an awfully harsh judgement to make.
What I *do* know is that cartel kingpins do not sit on top of 100 floating gas containers in the middle of the fucking ocean.
No shit. That's why they have lackeys doing it for them. Derp.
Those were Saudis that did that
The Bel-Arabs
Freddy said...
If that means getting rid of all corporate welfare, I'm with you.
I'm always in favor of getting rid of payoffs for the corrupt
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