Beautiful cathedral and I'm delighted at the restoration but what on earth was Louise Bausiere doing for 2 years?

Ludicrous gaffe from NBC News, in "World gets first look at Notre Dame's new interior 5 years after devastating fire/'It was a challenge many deemed impossible, yet one we will have met on,' French President Emmanuel Macron said as he visited the medieval monument":

Louise Bausiere, who spent the last two years working on the cathedral's knave, told NBC News Wednesday said she hoped people would admire what the team of craftsmen had done.

A knave is "A dishonest unprincipled man; a cunning unscrupulous rogue; a villain" (OED).

The main part of church building is called a nave.

(Thanks to commenter Kate for pointing me there.)

"Just moments ago, Joe Biden stated that our supporters are garbage."

"He's talking about the border patrol, he's talking about nurses, he's talking about teachers, he's talking about everyday Americans who love their country and want to dream big again and support you, Mr. President. And I hope their campaign is about to apologize for what Joe Biden just said. We are not garbage. We are patriots who love America and thank you for running Mr. President."

Said Marco Rubio to Donald Trump, on stage at Trump's rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania last night. Click the video below, which is cued up to the spot. Trump appears to be hearing this news of President Biden's statement for the first time.

Trump reacts: "Wow. That's terrible.... Remember Hillary? She said 'deplorable' and then she said 'irredeemable.' Right? But she said 'deplorable.' That didn't work out. 'Garbage,' I think is worse. Right? But he doesn't know. You have to please forgive him. Please forgive him! For he not knoweth what he said."

I believe that last bit was an attempt to evoke the words of Jesus: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." 

Trump continues: "These people. Terrible terrible terrible — to say a thing like that, but he really doesn't know. He really, honestly, he doesn't. And I'm convinced that he likes me more than he likes Kamala. Convinced. But that's a terrible thing."

It was a terrible thing to say, but you can see that Trump knows that Biden's rhetoric — like Hillary's "deplorable" — was an excellent gift to his campaign. And it came just as Kamala Harris was delivering her big closing-argument speech that was supposed to reach out to all Americans and to characterize her as the one who, unlike Trump, embraced everybody.

Here's the NYT article about that: "Harris’s Mission: Disqualify Trump, but Extend a Hand to His Voters/Kamala Harris, in her closing argument to voters, acknowledged an inescapable political reality: Donald Trump is not a fringe figure within his own party or the nation" (free-access link):

"Stanford’s top disinformation research group collapses under pressure/The Stanford Internet Observatory provided real-time analysis..."

"... on viral election falsehoods but has struggled amid attacks from conservative politicians and activists." 

That's the headline at WaPo, and I'm wondering how the 2 parts of the headline relate to each other. Why did the Stanford Internet Observatory collapse? Was it because conservatives attacked it? How much of a struggle is it for a research group that specializes in monitoring disinformation to handle attacks? The word "amid" fudges the causal connection. Did X happen because of Y or did X and Y just happen around the same time?

The word "amid" also appears in the first sentence: "The Stanford Internet Observatory... has shed most of its staff and may shut down amid political and legal attacks that have cast a pall on efforts to study online misinformation."

"Amid" appears again in the 4th paragraph: "Students and scholars affiliated with the program say they have been worn down by online attacks and harassment amid the heated political climate for misinformation research, as legislators threaten to cut federal funding to universities studying propaganda."

Have I ever gone on "amid" alert before? Yes! In October 2013, there was a NYT headline, "Obama’s Uncertain Path Amid Syria Bloodshed." 

The best-seller list is "a little susceptible to artificial intelligence because the books on it are written without any particular gift in the nature of their expression."

"Stephen King is susceptible to artificial intelligence. Danielle Steel is even more susceptible to artificial intelligence. The worse the writing, the more susceptible it is to artificial intelligence. I was talking to Salman Rushdie in Frankfurt, and he told me that someone had instructed ChatGPT to write a page of Rushdie. He said it was hilariously inept. I’ve had a couple of anxious emails from authors saying should I be concerned about artificial intelligence. It’s out there, and no one knows quite how to deal with it, but it’s not relevant to the people that we represent. It is relevant to other people who tend to be very popular."

Said the literary agent Andrew Wylie, quoted in "When Ruthless Cultural Elitism Is Exactly the Job" (NYT). The NYT interviewer, David Marchese, had prompted him to talk about A.I. 

I'm amused by Wylie's blithe snobbishness: That's got nothing to do with those of us who deal in literature.

I asked ChatGPT to write a blog post in the style of Salman Rushdie and assigned a topic — the subject of the previous post on this blog — home schooling. Here's the result, which I presume Rushdie would find hilariously inept:

"That music makes the ad sound like an SNL bit. Dude, you're Darth Vader. Pay for the rights to 'Enter Sandman.'"

Said Kate in the comments to my 8:03 post "You know that Dick Cheney ad would be better without that music in the background...."

In honor of Kate's delightful comment, I've made this playlist... because even as Dick Cheney has variations — from Darth Vader to dear old Wyoming dad — "Enter Sandman" has its many moods:

"For people whose only home is a vehicle, the knock is a visceral, even existential, threat. How do you avoid it?"

"You hide in plain sight. Make yourself invisible. Internalize the idea that you’re unwelcome. Stay hypervigilant to avoid trouble. Apart from telling you to clear out, the police can harass you with fines and tickets or get your home-on-wheels towed away to an impound lot.... In the film ['Nomadland'], Fern, played by Frances McDormand, is startled by a knock that interrupts a quiet meal. She looks up with a start and swears. A face hovers at the window, and a fist pounds once, twice, three times on the door. Then comes a gruff voice. 'No overnight parking! You can’t sleep here.' Watching the character’s panic at the sudden sound of a fist hitting her van gave me anxious flashbacks. Then it made me sad. Then I felt angry, because that scene was just too accurate, and I wished it didn’t reflect the reality of how people treat one another.... Bob Wells, 65, has a popular video, 'Avoiding the Knock,' and has been lecturing on the topic for ages.... In a better world, people wouldn’t have to go to such lengths to stay out of sight.... Some towns have created areas where vehicle dwellers can sleep undisturbed." 

From "What ‘Nomadland’ Exposes About Fear in America/People who live in homes-on-wheels should not have to be in constant fear of 'the knock'" by Jessica Bruder (NYT). 

Bruder is the author of the book the movie is based on. And here's the Bob Wells video. (Wells is in the movie.)

By the way, Meade and I saw the movie. It was the first time we'd been out to the movies in over a year. I was disappointed in the experience. The image on the screen looked dim and dull. I would have preferred to watch it on TV (but not enough to subscribe to Hulu, which is what you need to do). 

I would have walked out if I had been alone. Meade, however, loved the movie. He said it was the best movie he'd seen since he saw "How the West Was Won" when he was a kid — and that movie was in Cinerama (true 3-lens Cinerama). "Nomadland" was my most extreme example of seeing a movie with someone whose opinion of it was the opposite of mine. I said, "I hated it." 

FROM THE EMAIL: Kate writes:

It's not a home. It's a car. In the effort to not shame the homeless, this author isn't helping. Be honest. It has no bathroom or kitchen. It's a car. You want to help? Get serious. Build public parking lots with bathrooms. I've lived very rough, and these kind of euphemisms are silly. Shelter, the basic human need, includes a designated place to pee and cook. Any motor vehicle that provides these services is a camper. (I haven't seen Nomadland yet. When it streams on a service I use, I'll gladly watch it.)

The vehicles shown in the movie have something like a kitchen and bathroom. That is, the toilet is a plastic bucket, and there's some device for heating food. Mostly the vehicles are old and quite ordinary vans.  

As for the word "home," there's a very important line in the movie. Asked if she's "homeless," the main character says: "I'm not homeless. I'm just houseless." A similar examination of language occurs when she's asked, "Are you married?" She says, "I am, but my husband died." The issue is, what really matters? What is a home? What is a marriage? People with less may have more.

AND: Mary emails: 

I know. The cake. Must talk about the cake.

But you did such a great job talking about the cake in the comments on that post I put up as a place for you to talk about it:

Gretchen said...

Glad Masterpiece was reversed, pretty big decision 7-2 is pretty decisive these days.

Kate said...

So the next time you have to bake the cake they'll use nice words to describe your refusal.

Teller said...

If anything, it was a decision against open hostility to religious beliefs. The more subtle, smirky hostility will eventually carry the day.

Big Mike said...

Yes, the whole thing turns on how many of the justices who concurred will be okay if the anti-Christian attitude of the members of the Commission is better disguised next time. Two? Three?

Now, I'll go read the opinions and see if I have anything special to say. But first, I would like to point out my post from last December that looked closely at what Justice Kennedy (author of today's opinion) said during the oral argument. After a long post about everything he said, I extracted his 3 concerns in order of importance to him. I think the second of the 3 things is what produced today's narrowly framed decision that won 7 of the Court's 9 votes:

Erykah Badu expresses empathy for Hitler, the human being, and creates a stir.

It's worse that that time Donald Trump said something that made it sound as though there could be a good person in there amongst the neo-Nazis.*

WaPo reports:

Badu hasn’t released a record since 2010, but she gave the interview in advance of the tentative reissue of “Baduizm” in February.

And maybe that says it all, but let's continue:

Badu said she’s hesitant to pass judgment on people such as Cosby, who was accused of rape, sexual assault or sexual harassment by at least 60 women.... Badu added, “if he’s sick, why would I be angry with him?” She admitted that her viewpoint might be poorly received, saying “I could be crucified for saying that,” but that “the rush to get mad doesn’t make sense to me.”

Then she added: "I see good in everybody... I saw something good in Hitler."

Questioned, she blurted out, “Hitler was a wonderful painter,” but of course he was a rotten painter. The interviewer informed her of the noncontroversial, no ambiguity possible, black-and-white fact that Hitler was a terrible painter, and she saw her opening to feel sorry for him for being a terrible painter — "Poor thing" — and took a stab at another basis for empathy, that he had a "terrible childhood" (though there's no reason to think she knew anything about Hitler's childhood).

One thing we know for sure: Erykah Badu exists.

____________________

* What did Trump actually say last August, after the Charlottesville protests? We all have our mental notes on the subject, but here's the transcript:

I want to make fun of the self-propelled baby stroller, but I can't.

It looks great:



Here's a poll, but please don't answer until you've watched the video:

If I could afford it and I had a baby...

I'd definitely want this.

I might want to try this.

I'd be pretty skeptical.

Absolutely not!!

 

pollcode.com free polls

IN THE COMMENTS: Kate said:

I can't make up my mind until I see it pass the Odessa Steps test.

"Kafka's hero didn't have tweets."

Writes rhhardin in the comments to the previous post, which is about the rumors about secret proceedings against Trump.

I get the commentary as it pertains to the current news, but part of me would like to see "The Trial" rewritten as a series of tweets from K.

"Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K., he knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested...." Full text at link, so have at it.

Here's Trump tweeting his response to the WaPo rumor:

They made up a phony collusion with the Russians story, found zero proof, so now they go for obstruction of justice on the phony story. Nice

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 15, 2017

IN THE COMMENTS: Kate wrote:

-No breakfast today. wtf?

-Old woman who lives opposite is a freakin busybody. Buy the book, honey!

-Come on in pal, and join the party.
Him: You rang?
No, srsly, that's what he said!
Me: Howzabout breakfast?

-Ugh. I should've stayed in my room.

-Hey, buddy, it's a free country. Peace, love. Laws. wtf are you doing in my home?

-Is this a bday prank? Cuz I can take a joke like a bawz. #candidcamera