Clerisy heresy.

I'm reading "An Ex-Liberal Reluctantly Supports Trump/How historian Fred Siegel came to appreciate the president’s defense of ‘bourgeois values’ against the ‘clerisy’" by Tunku Varadarajan (WSJ). 

[Fred Siegel] sees [President Trump] as a champion of "bourgeois values," under threat from the "clerisy," Mr. Siegel's word for the dominant elites who "despise" those values. He regards Mr. Biden as a "captive" of this clerisy, and running mate Kamala Harris as the "embodiment of it."...

By 2012... Mr. Siegel had developed an exceedingly low opinion of President Obama, whom he describes as "a faux intellectual with preacher's cadences and an academic veneer." In his opinion, "the worst thing" about Mr. Obama was "his effect on race relations. We couldn't have the cold civil war we have now without Obama, because he, in a very cunning way, exacerbated all of our racial tensions." 

Under Mr. Obama, Mr. Siegel says, "racial grievance" took on a "new legitimacy, and it came from a president talking in asides, and saying things between the lines. He didn't push back against anything, not even against the idea that Michael Brown said 'Hands up, don't shoot' in Ferguson [Mo.], which was just a fabrication."... 

"Ferguson allowed Ivy League grads to assert their 'natural leadership,' in opposition to lowlife cops and guys with pickup trucks -- again, the deplorables." In Mr. Siegel's understanding, wokeism holds that "the important truths are already known, and that the American aristocracy has to impose those truths on the country." These are "given positions" -- irrefutable and sacrosanct. Wokeism, he says, is a "perilous threat" to America and particularly to the First Amendment. "It says we don't need debate. We don't need free speech. We don't need freedom of religion. We need to obey."...

"You have to humanize the protest and the struggle. If you don’t have the faces of the protesters in 1968 in Prague..."

"... you don’t have a story. If you don’t have the people trying to take down the wall in Berlin in 1989, you don’t have a story. If you don’t have the faces of the protesters in Tiananmen Square, you don’t show to the rest of the world the reality of the situation."

Said Eric Baradat, a photo editor, quoted in "Face of a Dissident As images from protests circulate online, some fear that individuals will become targets" (The Cut (NY Magazine).

Consider this:

“Six young men died within the first 4 years following Ferguson. All with ties to the movement. Mysteriously,” tweeted writer Resita Cox in June. “When we say blur ppl faces we mean, you bout to get folks killed for Instagram views and retweets.”

I urge ppl, especially white folks bc that’s primarily who I’ve seen w cameras at protests, to avoid publishing pics/videos where a protestor’s face/body/distinguishable features are visible. I can barely see Edward Crawford’s face in this pic yet he suspiciously died yrs later https://t.co/xmrskliu2P

— Brain Bae (@brian_bahe) June 2, 2020

The Cut hedges in the end:

Each publication must determine what they feel is ethical. Pictures can help inspire, strengthen, and grow a movement. They can galvanize people into action. Some people want to be photographed, to be seen so that their stories will be heard. At the same time, identifiable pictures of protesters, on social media and in publications, can potentially be used as evidence against them should they be arrested. Perhaps, when possible, ask the people in your photos if they would mind being identified, and if that’s not an option, ask yourself if posting might cause undue harm....

The rule I follow photographing people in public is: Are they making a spectacle of themselves? Protesters are making a spectacle of themselves, so I regard that as their intentional relinquishment of privacy. But obviously, the question changes when the people who are making a spectacle of themselves are committing crimes. You can assume they don't want to be identifiable in photographs.

The Cut seems to be suggesting that the photographer ought to be hoping to contribute to the goals of the protesters — to "help inspire, strengthen, and grow a movement." I think journalism should have professional distance and journalistic photographers should be trying to capture the reality of whatever is going on (if it is newsworthy). To decide that your photographs should advance the movement is to become an activist and to abandon journalism. And yet if you believe that the protests are against an evil, unjust regime, you should want to protect the protesters from criminal charges.

There's also the problem of the photographer getting physically attacked. Here in Madison the other night, a state legislator — a Democrat — decided to take photographs and got badly beaten. People who are already committing crimes may simply include you, the photographer, as one of their targets. Simple self-preservation may supersede ruminations about ethics.

WaPo's Fact Checker gives 4 Pinocchios to Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren for tweeting that Michael Brown was murdered.

"One can certainly raise questions about whether Wilson should have fired as many shots as he did or acted appropriately under the circumstances.... But Harris and Warren have ignored the findings of the Justice Department to accuse Wilson of murder, even though the Justice Department found no credible evidence to support that claim. Instead, the Justice Department found that the popular narrative was wrong, according to witnesses deemed to be credible, some of whom testified reluctantly because of fear of reprisal. The department produced a comprehensive report to determine what happened, making the senators’ dismissal of it even more galling. Harris and Warren both earn Four Pinocchios."

Glenn Kessler at The Washington Post.

We talked about this subject last night, here, where I accused Warren and Harris of "crudely, clumsily groping for black voters" and said it was "cynical, damaging, and patronizing."

Black Lives Matter protesters shut down a Bernie Sanders speech in Seattle.

He'd just buttered up Seattle by calling it "one of the most progressive cities in the United States of America," when 2 ladies "walked onstage and grabbed the microphone":

“If you do not listen … your event will be shut down,” one of the protesters told organizers, who offered to let them speak after Sanders. After a back and forth with the screaming protesters, organizers relented and said the demonstrators could go first.

Some in the largely white audience booed and chanted for protesters to let the senator talk. A few yelled for police to make arrests.

Marissa Johnson, one of the protesters, shot back, “I was going to tell Bernie how racist this city is, filled with its progressives, but you did it for me,” accusing the audience of “white supremacist liberalism.” She cited Seattle’s own police problems, including an ongoing Justice Department consent decree over use of force.

The activists demanded 4½ minutes of silence in memory of Brown, to symbolize the 4½ hours his body lay on a Ferguson street. While rally organizers raised their hands in support, some in the crowd yelled profanities.

After the few minutes of silence...

Silence + profanities ≠ silence.

... the protesters said they wanted to confront Sanders for failing to address their concerns when he was similarly interrupted at a town hall for liberal activists in Phoenix last month. Johnson beckoned Sanders to stand closer as she spoke — he refused.

Bernie Sanders didn't want to stand too close to Marissa Johnson, which she just might consider evidence of how racist he is... like all those other white progressives who think so well of themselves. And so Bernie couldn't get close to the microphone, and Bernie gave up trying and left — in a white Jeep — to go to the Comet Tavern where people had paid $200 to $1,000 to hear Bernie proclaim that "When we stand together, when black and white stand together, when gay and straight stand together, when women and men stand together... when we stand together, there is nothing, nothing, that we cannot accomplish."

When we stand together? When do we do that? It's safe to say that "when we stand together, there is nothing, nothing, that we cannot accomplish," because we never do stand together. Sanders wouldn't stand with Marissa Johnson when she beckoned him to stand with her, and that's just a minute particle of our overall refusal to stand together.

But in this hypothetical nation that Sanders envisions, the one in which we do all stand together, there'd be a hell of a lot of things we wouldn't be able to accomplish.

"Darren Wilson, the former police officer who shot and killed Michael Brown, an eighteen-year-old African-American, in Ferguson, Missouri..."

"... has been living for several months on a nondescript dead-end street on the outskirts of St. Louis. Most of the nearby houses are clad in vinyl siding; there are no sidewalks, and few cars around. Wilson, who is twenty-nine, started receiving death threats not long after the incident, in which Brown was killed in the street shortly after robbing a convenience store. Although Wilson recently bought the house, his name is not on the deed, and only a few friends know where he lives. He and his wife, Barb, who is thirty-seven, and also a former Ferguson cop, rarely linger in the front yard. Because of such precautions, Wilson has been leading a very quiet life. During the past year, a series of police killings of African-Americans across the country has inspired grief, outrage, protest, and acrimonious debate. For many Americans, this discussion, though painful, has been essential. Wilson has tried, with some success, to block it out. This March, I spent several days at his home. The first time I pulled up to the curb, Wilson, who is six feet four and weighs two hundred and fifteen pounds, immediately stepped outside, wearing a hat and sunglasses. He had seen me arriving on security cameras that are synched to his phone...."

So begins a long New Yorker article by Jake Halpern.

"Think Walter Scott’s death is 'another Ferguson'? Cops don't."

Writes Peter Moskos, who is a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and was a Baltimore police officer.

To see a black life snuffed out by a fellow cop is especially painful to police officers who spend much of their careers trying to protect black lives. One New York City officer wrote me to say, “This cop also just shot all of law enforcement in the back.” At home and in roll calls around the nation, cops watched the video of Scott’s killing and cringed not only at his death, but also at the officer’s betrayal of the police uniform and everything it stands for....

"The Daily Show" chooses Trevor Noah, a South African, to replace Jon Stewart.

The NYT observes that Noah is "nonwhite," but that there's a question "why the network did not choose a woman to crack the all-male club of late-night television hosts."

[Noah] grew up in Soweto, the son of a black Xhosa mother and a white Swiss father, whose union was illegal during the apartheid era. “My mother had to be very clandestine about who my father was,” Mr. Noah said. “He couldn’t be on my birth certificate.”

By the time he started performing stand-up in his 20s, Mr. Noah said he had long been taught that “speaking freely about anything, as a person of color, was considered treason.”

According to the NYT, Michele Ganeless, president of Comedy Central, "said that Comedy Central... drew up 'a shortlist' of possible successors 'and Trevor checked off every box on that list and then some.'" That doesn't make sense. If the "list" is a list of "possible successors," how could one person on that list check off "every box on that list and then some"? Obviously, there's some other list. Presumably, it's a list of things Comedy Central thought would be plus factors. I guess being female wasn't one of them. Ganeless seems to have unwittingly stated that Comedy Central really wasn't hoping to put a woman in the anchor seat. Either that or gushy puffery about Noah caused her to say something she didn't mean to say.

Why is Ganeless president of Comedy Central? Perhaps she was promoted beyond her appropriate level.

Anyway, I'm not sold on Noah. I watched the clip of him that was linked at the beginning of the NYT article — I sat through the Coke-and-Pepsi commercial for "Mixify" — which shows him in a colloquy with Jon Stewart. Noah began with what seems to be the old joke "I just flew in and boy are my arms tired." When the predictable groans ensued, Noah held his arms up in the Ferguson hands-up-don't-shoot position and said:

"No, seriously, I've been holding my arms like this since I got here. I never thought I’d be more afraid of police in America than in South Africa. It kind of makes me a little nostalgic for the old days, back home."

So, get ready for jokes against America told in a not-American accent. I guess, not American was on the Comedy Central checklist of plus factors that Noah checked off (and then some).  Yeah, I know, you don't have to get ready because you don't watch "The Daily Show." I don't either anymore. I used to watch every day. I still record every show, but I can't remember the last time I felt like clicking on the recording. Maybe I got tired of Jon Stewart's incessant yelling in disbelief. How could America be so awful? But does that mean I want to hear Noah's mellifluous murmuring about how awful America is?

I know, I'm old. The show is not intended for me. I saw the commercial for Mixify. Coke and Pepsi's effort to get people to "mix" their soda-drinking with nutritious food was, to me, a ludicrously transparent effort to fend off government regulation, not what they want you to think it is:

#Realtalk: Coke, Dr Pepper and Pepsi understand that balancing your mix of foods, drinks and physical activities can get a little tricky. And since our products can play a part in that equation, we’ve teamed up to help make it easier to find a balanced mix that feels oh so right. That’s where Mixify comes in. It’s like a balance wingman.

Bringing you new combinations to keep your mix fresh and your body right. Like mixing lazy days with something light, following sweaty workouts with whatever you’re craving, and crossing cats with dragons. Because at the end of the day, finding balance keeps you feeling snazzier than the emoji of the dancing lady in red. Balance what you eat and drink with what you do. That’s how you Mixify.

Hashtag Realtalk? A balance wingman? A little tricky? Actually, it's not tricky at all. Don't drink soda. It's not tricky to me, that is, but I take it Coke and Pepsi are trying to trick teach tricks to people who are not me. And maybe those kids will love Trevor Noah.

The NYT public editor takes back her criticism of the NYT in the reporting of the Ferguson shooting.

Margaret Sullivan regrets her accusation that the Times reporters enaged in "false balance" and gave "dubious equivalency" to anonymous sources:

Giving implicit credence to the named sources who described Michael Brown as having his hands up as he was fired on by Officer Darren Wilson, I criticized the use of unnamed sources who offered opposing information: They said that the officer had reason to fear Mr. Brown. I even went so far as to call those unnamed sources “ghosts” because readers had so little ability to evaluate their identity and credibility.

Now that the Justice Department has cleared Mr. Wilson in an 86-page report that included the testimony of more than 40 witnesses, it’s obvious to me that it was important to get that side of the story into the paper.

In other words, there was a sniper aiming at the police who were overseeing a protest in Ferguson?

"Two police officers were shot here early Thursday morning as gunfire rang out in front of the police station, throwing into panic what had been a spirited — and at times tense — but largely peaceful night of protests. Demonstrators and police officers alike hit the ground when the gunshots echoed through the crisp air. Many people ran for cover. The police, clad in riot gear, dragged their wounded fellow officers to safety. Others crouched behind cars and walls, drawing their handguns or rifles as they rapidly swiveled their heads every which way to survey their surroundings.... The shots, which witnesses said they believed originated from the top of a hill about 220 yards directly across from the station, came just hours after the Ferguson police chief, Thomas Jackson, announced that he would resign, a move greeted with praise from protesters...."

UPDATE: A CNN "breaking news" email says: "St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar called last night's shooting of two police officers in Ferguson, Missouri, an 'ambush,' saying the gunshots were directed at the police."

"Protesters in Madison" are "asking high school students to again leave class to attend Wednesday afternoon's rally" about "over the fatal shooting of an unarmed biracial man by a white police officer."

According to a very brief article at Channel3000, a local press outlet.

I think it's terrible for students to skip school to go to a protest, and whoever is advocating this deserves condemnation. But who, specifically, is calling on students to put protest above education and respect for rules? I need some names. It's not fair to attribute this bad behavior to all of the protesters.

Somewhere, a decision was made to begin referring to the dead 19-year-old (Tony Robinson) as a "biracial man." Perhaps that's how Robinson self-identified or what his family has requested.

Channel3000 also has an article titled "Network journalists say Madison is not Ferguson":

"I’ve been impressed here by the way everyone’s worked together: the police, the police union. And, of course, the family of the man who was killed,” CBS News field producer Mark Hooper said. “All asking for calm. All saying they trust the police department. Everybody working together to keep things calm.”

“One of the things I saw in Madison was older African American males sitting down with younger African American males. And they shared their experiences and fears, and hopes, in order to have a conversation for how they could go forward and how they can take action,” CBS News associate producer Ryan Corsaro said. “And I think that helped the situation to remain calm.”...

“When it came to the (Ferguson) protest side and the police side, things escalated very quickly. And things continued to do so night after night after night,” Corsaro said. “Here in Madison we didn't see the type of fervent anger with uncontrolled crowds. We still had crowds in Madison that were loud and fervent, but they weren't committing any acts of violence or theft or destruction of property.”

"A federal investigation has not found enough evidence to charge Darren Wilson with the federal crime of depriving Michael Brown of his civil rights..."

CNN reports based on "multiple sources familiar with the investigation."

CNN includes a quote from Antonio French, "a St. Louis city alderman who lives near Ferguson":

"I think you have a lot of people who will be disappointed if this does turn out to be the case. The community and the family wanted a day in court, an opportunity to see all the evidence laid out, cross-examined.... And it looks like that's not going to happen. I hope we don't have any violence as a result of this.... People have a right to protest. We will probably continue to see that. That's a good thing. But we want to keep them peaceful, nonviolent...."

"Dozens of demonstrators today stormed restaurants and targeted white diners in New York and California as part of a 'Black Brunch' protest against alleged police violence."

"Carrying banners, the chanting protesters entered a number of venues in New York City that they identified as 'white spaces', including midtown eateries: Lallisse, Maialino and Pershing Square. Once inside, they 'disrupted' customers' meals by reading out the names of African-Americans killed by police, including Michael Brown, 17, who was shot dead by officer Darren Wilson last August. Addressing staff and patrons, they shouted: 'Every 28 hours, a black person in America is killed by the police. These are our brothers and sisters. Today and every day, we honor their lives.'"

Fried.

The previous post "The best of vocal fry" has a comment by Ron: "vocal fry...fried cheese curds...what's next jalapeno poppers?" He's noticing that the post before that is "At the Fried-Cheese-Curds-and-Naked-Ambition Café." Now, I have a tag for "this blog has a theme today," but the "At the Fried-Cheese-Curds-and-Naked-Ambition Café" is yesterday's last post, so the tag doesn't fit. What to do? Well, there are clearly 2 things to do: 1. Whip out the old "I'm not making a tag for this" tag, and 2. Go forward with the theme so that "the blog has a theme today" is apt. So:

1. "Fry-oil biofuel businesses suffer as gas prices fall. Plunging oil prices mean lean times for the owners of greasy spoons no longer able to cash in on their excess fats...."

2. "McDonald's to end fry rationing in Japan.... The company has airlifted more fries into Japan to help ease the shortage and added extra shipments from the U.S. East Coast. During the shortage, McDonald's suggested customers add an extra portion of chicken nuggets to their orders and sold them at a special price of 100 yen."

3. "Kenya: Thieves Fry Kenya's Power Grid to Cook Fast Food... A vandal who is selling the toxic oil, drawn from the transformer, to chefs who use it for frying food in roadside stalls. Five liters of the viscous, PCB-laden liquid sells for $60. It looks like cooking oil, but lasts much longer, users say. Kenyans' appetite for fried food and cheap frying oil is stalling the country's urgent efforts to build a modern electrical grid, even as it sews [sic] the seeds of a public health crisis, experts say."

4. "Stephen Fry Shows Us How To Make (And Spill) a Temporary Lava Lamp.... Three parts vegetable oil, one part water, a little food coloring, some alka-seltzer and an empty tennis ball tube is all it takes...."

5. "An Eggless Egg You Can Fry.... An egg produced from plant proteins might gel, but if the gel doesn’t hold any water once it’s in the pan, the egg will evaporate the instant it touches the pan’s hot oils...."

6. "The Fry Up Police is the hilarious – and sweary – cult Facebook page that’s totally judging your attempts at the British brekkie classic. The idea’s pretty simple. You post a pic of your awesome fry up and then the page’s approx. 5000 members will let you know in no uncertain terms what they make of your efforts. It can get pretty brutal."

7. "Just hours after two New York City police officers were gunned down while sitting in their patrol car Saturday, police protesters took to the streets in St. Louis and were videotaped taunting officers there with a phrase the NYPD cop killer reportedly used on an Instagram post prior to the murders: 'I’m putting pigs in a blanket.' Specifically the small crowd chanted, 'Pigs in a blanket! Fry ‘em like bacon!' as officers stood in a line."

8. "Feminist activists in Belgium threw french fries and mayonnaise on the Belgian Prime Minister Monday in protest of what they believe is his chauvinism and promotion of the wrong economic values."

9. "Wisconsin DUI suspect blames beer-battered fish fry in 10th arrest."

10."fry (v.)... late 13c., from Old French frire 'to fry' (13c.), from Latin frigere 'to roast or fry,' from PIE *bher- (4) 'to cook, bake' (cognates: Sanskrit bhrjjati 'roasts,' bharjanah 'roasting;' Persian birishtan 'to roast;' Greek phrygein 'to roast, bake'). Meaning 'execute in the electric chair' is U.S. slang from 1929. To go out of the frying pan into the fire is first attested in Thomas More (1532)."

"We have to come together as one and show them we can be peaceful, that we can do this."

"If not, they’re going to just want us to act up so [police] can pull out their toys on us again... I learned that we have to stand up and that you can’t get nowhere with violence but you can always move people without it.

Said Joshua Williams, 19, last September. Williams, "[o]ne of the most frequently quoted and photographed Ferguson protesters was charged Saturday with setting fire to a Berkeley convenience store last week." Court documents say he has confessed to the crime.

“Josh is one of the young activists, and all of us have taken close to him. We got to know his heart, and he got to know ours,” said Bishop Derrick Robinson, of Kingdom Destiny Fellowship International. “He’s a great kid, an educated kid, a child who knows what he wants and is very active in the community.”

"The video was taken from a distance but the episode did not appear to turn confrontational until one of the men turned away, reached down and then turned back to face the officer, appearing to point his arm straight out."

The police say there was a gun in that hand, aimed at the officer, who shot the man dead. That part is not in the video.

“The Berkeley police officer exited his vehicle and approached the subjects when one of the men pulled a handgun and pointed it at the officer,” the county police department, which is leading the investigation, said in a statement. “Fearing for his life, the Berkeley officer fired several shots, striking the subject, fatally wounding him. The second subject fled the scene.”

This happened in a place called Berkeley, near Ferguson, Missouri.

Not noticing the whole "Person of the Year" business.

I loathe Time Magazine's "Person of the Year" annual nonsense. Nevertheless, I'd always given it some thought as it approaches. Who will be Time's "Person of the Year"? I'd believed it was an irresistible question, best to confront, endure, and get past in preparation for the announcement. Then there's the announcement, and you briefly note and critique it and move on.

This morning — I don't know, something about waking up at 4 a.m. — it occurred to me to check who's considered to be in the running this year, and I was surprised to see the announcement had come a couple days ago.  I realized I'd seen pictures of the cover, but the image had not registered at a "Person of the Year" cover:



Who did the ebola fighters nudge out? The first runner-up seems to be "Ferguson Protesters, The Activists":

Protest is a performance that can make the unseen visible. In this angry epic, thousands found a role.... A black President who so often seems reluctant to talk about race was forced into the fray.... This outcry was better focused than Occupy, bigger than the one that followed the Trayvon Martin case.... But to many, it was hard to square the anger with the Molotov cocktails whistling through the night....

So... raise a Mazel Tov cocktail to the ebola fighters. How can that choice possibly cause complaint? The runner up who's an actual person — an individual — would have required too much of the patient, pedantic explanation that "Person of the Year" is not an endorsement.



Keep going with the uplift... and maybe I can finally actually, fully, and completely not notice Time's "Person of the Year."

"Two hours after its creation, passersby destroyed an art installment reacting to the event at Ferguson..."

"... which was made by two UW students at the George L. Mosse Humanities Building Tuesday evening."

The piece featured a black hooded sweatshirt hung upside-down from a walkway on the building with the words, “Black be nimble, black be quick, black be dead white magic trick,” written on the sidewalk in dark-colored duct tape....

“The piece isn’t just about Ferguson... It’s about a long discourse in the history of the disposing of black bodies, and it’s important. We wanted to put this on campus because there’s conversations around this topic, and we think that it’s necessary.”

The story — in the student newspaper — doesn't explain the destruction of the artwork. I think it could easily have been perceived as hostile to black people and may very well have been removed by someone who saw it not as an artwork in support of racial harmony but as racist graffiti accompanied by a lynching effigy.

"Do Police Body Cameras Actually Work?/After Ferguson, the president is betting millions on a technology that's still being tested around the world."

Uri Friedman, in The Atlantic:

Barak Ariel, a criminologist at the University of Cambridge... currently researching the effects of body cameras on policing... insists that there isn't enough evidence so far to generalize the finding and assert that body-worn cameras offer a net benefit to community policing....

There are... privacy concerns — the fear... that cameras "could turn every officer into a mobile, closed-circuit camera, hooked up to a database tracking and recording people’s movements across the city." People could refrain from reporting incidents to the police because they don't want to appear on camera...

"As Chris Rock recently found out, there's a fine line between comedy and offense..."

"... and Palin cuts it close."

Trend watch: under-edited stream-of-consciousness writing by stressed-out liberals.

I don't know if this is a trend, but I encountered 2 examples on the same day, so I want to set up a trend watch.

First, there's a Salon article by Paul Rosenberg that was linked at Real Clear Politics (even though it was the opposite of real clear). Both Meade and I (independently) clicked on the click-bait headline: "Why are these clowns winning? Secrets of the right-wing brain/Bush tanked the country. Now the right's again running the show. Neuroscience explains incompetence of all sides."

The photo at the top is a composite of Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Scott Walker, but these people aren't even named in the article. Why they are "clowns" or why they won is not the topic.

I quickly skimmed, adjudged it junk, and left. But later that day, Meade called attention to it, and I, needing to rest my eyes, said: "Read it to me." And he did. He read the whole, huge thing out loud. It was an endless, meandering screed that seemed like the author's raw notes scribbled as he rifled through various books on academic theories of politics and brain function and talked to some scholar on the telephone. He dumps the full text of the email he sent to the scholar before the interview: