"I walked around this place, paranoid of my fellow legislators, racking my brain trying to think, 'What could I have possibly said or done?'"

Said Jim Carroll, quoted in "Vermont Republican secretly poured water into colleague’s bag over months/Mary Morrissey apologizes after being filmed dumping liquid into backpack of Democratic legislator Jim Carroll" (The Guardian).

Both Carroll and Morrissey represent the city of Bennington.

It's not enough to apologize for doing this. The people who depend on this legislator need an explanation for why repeatedly did something so bizarre. You can apologize for being out of your mind, but you don't really need to. I feel sorry for Morrissey, but she needs to resign. It's interesting that she made Carroll feel that he was insane. Was Morrissey gaslighting Carroll?

Sunrise — 5:18, 5:20, 5:31.

"Another acquaintance he made in Paris [in 1792] was John Stewart, an eccentric figure known as 'Walking Stewart.'"

"His nickname came from the fact that he had walked halfway round the world, from Madras, through Persia, Arabia, Abyssinia, much of North Africa, and every country in Europe as far as Russia. He refused to take carriages because they were both elitist and cruel to horses. He came to believe that there was an impending 'universal empire of revolutionary police terror' that would 'bestialize the human species and desolate the earth.' The police state would ban his books, so he urged readers to translate them into Latin (a precaution against the supposed decay of the English language) and bury them seven feet underground. Their locations would be passed down orally until the dawn of the age of the Stewartian man made their disinterment possible. Despite these bizarre beliefs, Thomas De Quincey, who wrote a wonderful essay about him, said that his political views ‘seemed to Mr Wordsworth and myself every way worthy of a philosopher.'"

From "Radical Wordsworth: The Poet Who Changed the World" (commission earned). 

Red spotted purple and sandhill cranes.

Yesterday, at noon:

This morning at sunrise:

On the day before the solstice, the group "Just Stop Oil" besmirches Stonehenge.

Just stop oil protestors damage Stonehenge 😭
pic.twitter.com/HSQvfWIdNh

— Stonehenge U.K (@ST0NEHENGE) June 19, 2024

The group stresses its moderation: "The orange cornflour we used will soon wash away with the rain, but the urgent need for effective government action to mitigate the catastrophic consequences of the climate and ecological crisis will not."

I'm told there were a lot of these "Please Remember" billboards along the backroads north of Milwaukee.

Photographed from Meade's truck.

Here's an article about the phenomenon: "Mysterious Trump and Epstein billboards are popping up across Wisconsin" (UpNorth News).

"The support I found on this platform helped me face the toughest days..."

From a TikTok video that begins, "If you're reading these words right now, then I have died."

A view looking out at the crowd — and beautiful Lake Michigan — at the Trump rally in Racine yesterday.

"... he looked like he didn't know where the hell he was, but he didn't know where he was. He's blaming it now on AI, oh yeah, he's saying —he doesn't know what AI is — that's okay. Now, they're saying the media is manipu- — oh, he's saying the media is manipulating...."

Video by Meade, of course. As I said in yesterday's post, with the still photographs, I was not there.

"No, you keen-eyed MAGA sleuths, Biden’s aides didn’t schedule an early debate so that they could replace him after he flails."

"Nor did they engineer Hunter Biden’s conviction just to look virtuous. Democrats, it is not the case that if journalists just stop talking about Biden’s age, many Americans miraculously won’t notice it. Nor are there tea leaves auguring a revolt against Trump at the Republican convention. A respected public intellectual privately promoted that idea to me. And Michelle Obama will not — abracadabra! — be riding to the rescue.... Indulging such illusions is dangerous. Those of us who believe that Trump’s return to the White House would be ruinous must prosaically and persistently make the case for Biden’s superiority, flaws and all. We must plan, plod, slog. No sorcery will save us."

Writes Frank Bruni, in "The Election of Magical Thinking" (NYT).

Is it just dangerous illusion and hope of "sorcery" that has us thinking about ways to replace Biden as the Democratic candidate?! Biden plainly looks and sounds as though he's not capable of performing the job anymore. Trusting him even until January 2025 seems like more of a dangerous game of magical thinking. Bruni has written his column to pooh-pooh those of us who are seriously worried about Biden and to take credit for pretending there's no problem worth talking about. 

But I don't think Bruni is delusional. I think he's bullshitting in print but in his head he's got it figured out. It's too hard to replace Biden* and it seems less likely to work than just crossing your fingers and — la la la — moving along as if nothing is amiss and you are crazy if you think so.** And you know who's really crazy? Donald Trump.

_______________________________

* Word that does not appear in Bruni's column: Kamala.

** There's a word for this: gaslighting.

"An exuberant style of play and an effervescent personality made Mays one of the game’s, and America’s, most charismatic figures..."

"... a name that even people far afield from the baseball world recognized instantly as a national treasure.... Mays propelled himself into the Hall of Fame with thrilling flair, his cap flying off as he chased down a drive or ran the bases. 'He had an open manner, friendly, vivacious, irrepressible,' the baseball writer Leonard Koppett said of the young Mays. 'Whatever his private insecurities, he projected a feeling that playing ball, for its own sake, was the most wonderful thing in the world.'... 'Willie could do everything from the day he joined the Giants,' Leo Durocher, his manager during most of his years at the Polo Grounds, said when Mays was elected to the Hall of Fame.... 'He never had to be taught a thing. The only other player who could do it all was Joe DiMaggio.' But even DiMaggio bowed to Mays. 'Willie Mays is the closest to being perfect I’ve ever seen,' he said."

From "Willie Mays, Baseball’s Electrifying Player of Power and Grace, Is Dead at 93/Mays, the Say Hey Kid, was the game’s exuberant embodiment of the complete player. Some say he was the greatest of them all" (NYT).

Sunrise — 4:51, 5:16, 5:21, 5:33.

Pictures from the Trump rally in Racine, Wisconsin.

Waiting in line... the shirts...

... the people...

I'm not there, but Meade is, with his friend Ray:

Ray says: "Hey Ann, totally happy with the picture being there. If you give your readers the context that I’m very open to learning and meeting and getting the whole picture in detail instead of the soundbite that I get from the news. I want to feel this thing, talk to the people too. That context would be make me feel good about it. I’d like both sides to explore. I sincerely believe that if we sit and talk and listen with an open mind, we will come together. The fact that there’s so much political engagement makes me feel optimistic."

Great sentiments! 

Photos by Meade.

"The Democrats are making up stories that I said Milwaukee is a 'horrible city.' This is false, a complete lie..."

"... just like the Laptop from Hell was a lie, Russia … was a lie, and so much more.... It’s called disinformation, and that’s all they know how to do. I picked Milwaukee, I know it well. It should therefore lead to my winning Wisconsin. But the Dems come out with this fake story, just like all of the others. It never ends. Don’t be duped. Who would say such a thing with that important state in the balance?"

Said Trump, on Truth Social, quoted in "Trump to stage Wisconsin rally days after calling Milwaukee a 'horrible city'/Ticket-only event follows unflattering remark about state’s biggest city that will host Republican national convention" (The Guardian).

He also said this on Fox 6 News, which shows that he said something about Milwaukee: "I think it was very clear what I meant. We’re very concerned with crime. I love Milwaukee. But as you know the crime numbers are terrible, and we have to be very careful. But, I was referring to, also, the election."

Fungus of the Day.

But was there any competition? Yes, there was this mushroom who dreamed he was a sunflower and loved it... But now the dream is over... and the mushroom is awake....

"These are my 2 ravens. They're not actually mine. I'm just taming them...."

These are my two ravens ♥️🐦‍⬛🐦‍⬛#animals #birds #rfkjr pic.twitter.com/UNT4596Eeh

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) June 18, 2024

1. Is this a political message in metaphor?

2. Is this just exactly what it is — a man interacting with wildlife that happens to frequent his backyard?

3. The use of "taming" prods us to read the relevant section of "The Little Prince": 

"But it only recently struck me that in this new Cold War, we—and not the Chinese—might be the Soviets."

"It’s a bit like that moment when the British comedians David Mitchell and Robert Webb, playing Waffen-SS officers toward the end of World War II, ask the immortal question: 'Are we the baddies?' I imagine two American sailors asking themselves one day—perhaps as their aircraft carrier is sinking beneath their feet somewhere near the Taiwan Strait: Are we the Soviets?...  The self-destruction of homo sovieticus was worse. And yet is not the resemblance to the self-destruction of homo americanus the really striking thing? ... The bloated, dysfunctional bureaucracy, brilliantly parodied by South Park in a recent episode—is great for the nomenklatura, lousy for the proles.... A bogus ideology that hardly anyone really believes in, but everyone has to parrot unless they want to be labeled dissidents—sorry, I mean deplorables? Check. A population that no longer regards patriotism, religion, having children, or community involvement as important? Check. How about a massive disaster that lays bare the utter incompetence and mendacity that pervades every level of government? For Chernobyl, read Covid. And, while I make no claims to legal expertise, I think I recognize Soviet justice when I see—in a New York courtroom—the legal system being abused in the hope not just of imprisoning but also of discrediting the leader of the political opposition.... I still cling to the hope that we can avoid losing Cold War II...."

Writes Niall Ferguson, in "We’re All Soviets Now/A government with a permanent deficit and a bloated military. A bogus ideology pushed by elites. Poor health among ordinary people. Senescent leaders. Sound familiar?" (Free Press).