"It seems like him trying to buy time for what is the firing squad circling around him, calling for him to resign, but it kind of defies logic here."

Said Astead Herndon, a national politics reporter for the NYT, just now on CNN, when Jake Tapper wanted to know why Governor Northam has not resigned.

I think Herndon meant to express the idea that Northam is hopelessly vulnerable and he only accidentally referred to a circular firing squad.

I don't think he is. What's his motivation to resign? If he goes, he's defeated, and no one will care about him anymore. Where will he go? And those who are pressuring him to leave — how can they do anything more? And are they exposing themselves to political injury? Is that accidental invocation of the circular firing squad a little too apt?

Who first thought up that image of the circular firing squad? I'm seeing this in The Nation, "The Circular Firing Squad Isn’t Amusing Anymore/The left is tearing itself apart," by Danny Goldberg in July 2017:

This coming October 9 will mark the 50th anniversary of Che Guevara’s murder. Yet the pathology underlying his famous quip that when the American left is asked to form a firing squad it gets into a circle is as relevant today as a Rachel Maddow response to Kellyanne Conway’s spin du jour.

It comes from Che Guevara? I tried to confirm that and could not. And The Nation calls it "famous." Wikiquote has a huge collection of Che Guevara quotes, and the only one about a firing squad — marked as "disputed" — is...

To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary. These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution! And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate. We must create the pedagogy of the paredón [execution wall].

If you think of the killing as the destruction of a person's career and social standing, that has plenty of resonance in America today. These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. Isn't that what's being done to Northam? And shouldn't we feel good then that our firing squads form a circle?

50 years ago today: Che Guevara said "I know you’ve come to kill me. Shoot, you are only going to kill a man.”

He'd been captured in Bolivia the day before and taken to a schoolhouse, WaPo recounts.

Félix Rodríguez, a Cuban American CIA operative posing as a Bolivian military officer, would find him covered in dirt inside that schoolhouse the next day. His hair was matted, his clothes were torn and filthy, and his arms and feet were bound. The U.S. government wanted him alive to be interrogated, but Bolivian leaders decided that Guevara must be executed, fearing a public trial would only garner him sympathy. The official story would be that he was killed in battle.

Rodríguez, who was instrumental in Guevara’s capture, had mixed emotions at that time, as he acknowledged later in an interview. Here was a man who had assassinated many of his countrymen, Rodríguez said, and yet he felt “sorry for him.”

Then, he told the guerrilla leader that he was about to die. “I looked at him straight in the face, and I just told him. . . . He looked straight to me and said: ‘It’s better this way. I should have never been captured alive,’ ” Rodríguez recalled during a “60 Minutes” interview years later.

The two men shook hands. “He embraced me. I embraced him,” Rodríguez said. Then Rodríguez left, ordering a soldier to shoot below the neck because that would fit the official story that Guevara had died in combat....

The next day, his body was displayed to the world and Freddy Alborta took this photograph titled "The passion of the Che”:

When a Che Guevara humidor was a "Trumptastic" Christmas gift.

From "8 ‘Trumptastic’ Holiday Gifts" — a Politico article about a selection of gifts that appeared in the Winter 2006 issue of Trump magazine:

IN THE COMMENTS: rhhardin said:

Grab them by the humidor.

"'I don’t wear the Che Guevara T-shirt at work,' the mayor said..."

"... after joking that he kept a portrait of Guevara, the Marxist revolutionary, in his office."

"If this video doesn't inspire you to plan a trip, nothing will."

Buzzfeed offers this "Facts That Will Make You Want To Travel." Since questioning traveling is a big theme on this blog, I'm going to embed this before watching it. I'll get back to you on whether it consigns me to the category Buzzfeed considers uninspirable.



UPDATE: Second-by-second reaction.

It's a problem, making "political or philosophical" art when the market is "about hyper-capitalism" and the art is "poker chips for billionaires."

Nate Lowman is "bummed out" that "other people’s gambling habits change the meaning of paintings." Contemplate the pain of artistic success when the high prices paid "dictate how people perceive art."

Lowman’s work takes the shape of smiley faces, magnetized bullet holes, and Arbre Magique air fresheners. The images he gathers often come from the news cycle or the crime blotter (distressed blondes in general, among them Nicole Brown, murdered former wife of O. J. Simpson; “More or Less,” a 2003 show at Apex Art, featured bearded men such as John Walker Lindh, Jim Morrison, and Che Guevara), and he re-purposes “found” language that lies awkwardly between personal and impersonal, like the bumper sticker Jesus would use the turn signal, asshole.

ADDED: The linked Vanity Fair text is written by Edward Helmore, and he seems unaware of the political (and moral) incorrectness of referring to a murdered woman as a "distressed blonde."

Quizzing the Occupy Wall Street protesters about who's really in bed with the bankers.

Evan Coyne Maloney, via Instapundit.

If anybody at that tea party yesterday was carrying a sign that had any whiff of racism or insanity...

... you can be sure some anti-tea-partyist took a photograph of it and posted it on a blog.

That's the trouble with demonstrations. You're going to be judged by the company you keep. And nothing's going to make it fair and proportionate.

I've tried to be careful with things like that when I've photographed protests in Madison, Wisconsin. I remember very well the time I made a video of an anti-war march:

Here's the peace march that took place today at about 1 p.m. on State Street in Madison, Wisconsin. This clip shows the whole length of the parade. Note the man at the front, just behind the banners, who is holding a sign that says "Vive Saddam." (It's the third sign from the right.) The entire clip -- which I shot while walking in the opposite direction -- is about 3 minutes long. It includes a large dove puppet and a large papier maché skull.

I describe the worst guy, but I also show the entire parade and mention some noninflammatory details.

***

I walked down State Street today. The Ironman Triathlon was in town. Here's a picture of the winner just before he crossed the finish line:

Photo by Meade.

The winner was Raynard Tissink. He's on Twitter:

Just won IM Wisconsin. A very tough day with stomach issues, but managed to push through and take the win.

Nice going, Raynard Tissink.

Anyway, we weren't protesting. We were stretching out hands to high-five the Ironman, then skittering over to a café to wash our hands, drink iced coffee, and blog.

We saw no protests on State Street today. The closest things I saw to a protest was an old man wearing a light green T-shirt that had on it the image of Che Guevara wearing a light green T-shirt that had on it the image of Che Guevara wearing a light green T-shirt (and implicitly Che images ad infinitum).

I wish I'd stopped him, taken his picture, and — in the style of The Sartorialist — asked him some questions about what he meant by that.

About Benicio del Toro's Che-related walk-out on the interview with that Washington Times reporter.

On Tuesday, I called foul at this Washington Times piece about how Benicio Del Toro walked out on an interview when pressed with questions about Che Guevara, the character he plays in Steven Soderbergh's new movie "Che." I wanted to respect the actor who sees his place to be acting a role, not mouthing off about history and politics.

The author of the article, Sonny Bunch, wrote to me and — when I asked — gave me permission to publish this response:

You know, I was hoping that the walkout wouldn't come across as a "gotcha"-type moment. Rather, I was hoping it could be used to demonstrate just how contentious the movie is: In the midst of an otherwise ordinary interview, the actor/producer largely responsible for its creation just up and walks out. I wanted that to set the stage for a broader discussion of the movie involving the director and the regime's dissidents.

And I say "otherwise ordinary" because it was--I thought the interview was going really well until he cut it off. It wasn't particularly heated or repetitious and never veered too far off topic; the last question he took was an innocuous one about how you portray a failed revolution on film as opposed to a successful one. (I hope that came across in the web video my editorial overlords asked me to tape...) We ended up cutting most of that context because the piece was too long, but I can assure you that it was your average interview with a movie star, with one key difference: I asked follow-ups.

The movie itself isn't nearly as interesting as the trailer makes it out to be: Guevara comes across as Jesus with an AK-47, healing the sick, teaching the illiterate to read, and mowing down enemies of the people. It's split into two parts, one about the successful Cuban revolution and the second about the failed Bolivian revolution. What's left out is the time Guevara and Castro spent ruling Cuba. It's an interesting artistic choice to make, but it's also one that leaves you open to criticisms of infidelity to history by way of omission. I was curious to know what he, as a producer, made of those criticisms. That's all...

Thanks.

By the way, I've seen this trailer for the movie several times — not voluntarily, as part of a captive theater audience — and it didn't seem to take sides about whether we ought to think well of Che. It ends with this question and answer: "How does it feel to be a symbol?" "Of what?" That sounded distanced and existentialist. It made me think the movie might be a work of art of some complexity. In that context, I imagined del Toro to be an artist who immersed himself in the role and, in doing that, lost the critical eye and political perspective the reporter wanted him to use.

I'm not blaming Bunch for asking the questions now, though.

"I'm done. I'm done, I hope you write whatever you want. I don't give a damn."

If you portray a historical figure in a movie, should you be prepared to defend him or answer historical questions about him? Benicio Del Toro, who portrays Che Guevara in Steven Soderbergh's "Che" thinks not. I'd say that's fine. What I don't like is actors mouthing off about things they don't understand very well, and it looks like Del Toro is doing the complete opposite.

Now, I can certainly understand that the Washington Times would have loved to lure him into saying something stupid about Che, but give him credit when he won't go there. He took the high ground, apparently, and wanted to present himself as an actor. Respect that. Don't bully him into walking out. And don't preen about getting that reaction from him. But you did get your Drudge link and big traffic.

I call foul!

UPDATE: The Washington Times reporter writes to me and I respond.

DouChé.

DouChé.

Che abuse.

If it weren't for that one photo, there wouldn't have been all those T-shirts, posters, and so much more:

Cherry Guevara [a popsiscle] and other examples of what could be called Che abuse are now on display at the International Center of Photography in midtown Manhattan for an exhibition titled "¡Che! Revolution and Commerce."...

The exhibit works, too, as an object lesson in the power -- and on some level, the formidable beauty -- of market economies, which can absorb and commodify anything, even their bitterest enemies. Today, there are dozens of Web sites selling stuff with Korda's Che shot emblazoned on it....

In the United States, Che's life story and ambitions seem beside the point, or maybe they've just been reduced to caricature. The guy's face is shorthand for "I'm against the status quo." He's politics' answer to James Dean, a rebel with a very specific cause. And since very few people know anything about the cause, or the rebel -- besides the basics -- the Che shirt has about it the whiff of inside info. It makes you part of the thrift-store intelligentsia, even if your real focus is beer pong.

This, in brief, is why capitalism won. It's the only system that understands that we'd all like to change the world, but we are way too lazy for that sort of thing. Especially if there's ice cream around. When you get done with a Cherry Guevara, you're left with a wooden stick with the words "We will bite to the end!" stamped on it. If there are nails in Che's coffin, this, no doubt, is what they look like.

I know a lot of people get really mad about all the Che imagery. This article takes the attitude that the runaway popularization actually defeats Che's politics. Revolution is processed into rebelliousness. Are we supposed to feel good about the way our culture drains serious meaning out of things?

I'm trying to think of a way to connect this story to the current insanity around the depiction of Mohammad in cartoons. If one has an important character at the center of a political or religious movement, will the propagation or the suppression of his image serve your cause better? Should you want to propagate but control the image, so that it's presented on your terms, with the prescribed elements of reverence (nails pounded into flesh, yes, submersed in urine, no)? And if you oppose a political or religious movement, what is the more powerful move, suppressing the image -- stop showing that Che picture! -- or diluting it with ridiculous over-reproduction?

"The Motorcycle Diaries."

Chris saw "The Motorcycle Diaries." How was it?

"It was boring."

"Anything else you'd like to say?"

"It was pointless. It was just a pointless road trip. There was no character development. It wasn't even visually interesting. And the only reason people think it isn't pointless is just that it happened to be about the young version of Che Guevara."

"I could have told you that."

"Well, it got good reviews."

"Yeah, because it was reviewed by people who were impressed that it happened to be about the young version of Che Guevara."

"I think they are just trying to help out foreign movies."

"Yeah, they do overpraise foreign movies."