Austin faces.

Talk about whatever you want in the comments.

"Hey, team Biden is Joe and I’m sitting here in Wilmington, Delaware. It’s a scary time. A lot of people out there confused things are changing every day, every hour."

"So I wanted to have this conversation with you now if we could, why am I doing this? Well, first so we can keep talking with each other or we can’t hold rallies anymore, but we’re not gathering in large public spaces.... And a, the second reason is I think this podcast could offer some really helpful information. I’ve seen these kinds of crises before and uh, and I’ve sat in the situation room in the oval office and we’ve grappled three crises from Daniel outbreak to the Iran nuclear deal to the auto industry rescue. And, uh, during that time I’ve been able to work with some pretty accomplished experts, women and men who have steered us through epidemics and demic.... [T]he young people who think they don’t have to worry about social dissonance distancing I should say. You know, do it for older people in your life.... You know, I have overwhelming faith in the American people when the American people have never, ever, ever, ever, ever let their country down when faced with a challenge. Never. And they’re smart. I am so darn proud. It sounds corny to be an American. How, look how we’re pulling together.... And, uh, you know, my heart goes out to all those folks who have lost somebody or have someone in the hospital who’s suffering. It just, it’s an enormous, enormous burden. And, uh, but, uh, we’re thinking about you. I really mean it and I, all Americans are pulling together, so we’re going to get through this... And, uh, in the meantime, everybody stay healthy, stay safe, and, uh, I’ll be talking to you regularly. Thank you so much."

That's Joe Biden, from a transcription of a podcast from the Joe Biden for President Website. I've added ellipses where I've taken things out, but I haven't changed anything else. You can also listen to the audio at that link.

IN THE COMMENTS:

Rick: "What is a Daniel outbreak?"

Who's the Mr. Rogers of the presidential race?

Earlier this morning, we considered whether it was Pete Buttigieg.



But, here, Elizabeth Warren is vying for the title:

I love every minute of our photo lines. Every photo we take is a chance to talk with voters and listen to their stories. Since our lines get long, I change into sneakers beforehand—I call it my “Mr. Rogers moment.” pic.twitter.com/JfnHYw5WcJ

— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) November 30, 2019

"[Y]ou could classify Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders as the pugilists in the field, whereas Mr. Buttigieg, he of the earnest manner and Midwestern zest for consensus, fashions himself a peacemaker."

I'm trying to read "2020 Democratic Candidates Wage Escalating Fight (on the Merits of Fighting)/For all the emphasis placed on the various divides among the candidates, the question of 'to fight or not to fight' might represent the most meaningful contrast" by Mark Leibovich (NYT).

I have a little trouble with "Midwestern zest for consensus."

I don't think these coastal elites who characterize midwesterners know much at all about them/us. (Should I say "us"? I've only lived in Madison, Wisconsin, a special island in the sea of the midwest, and I didn't begin living here until I was 33 years old, past my formative years, which were spent in Delaware and New Jersey, but I did grow up with a midwestern mother, though her midwest was that other college town, Ann Arbor, and I did go to college in my mother's midwestern hometown.)

It's partly my annoyance at the blithe stereotype of midwesterners as blandly nice. Is that even true? And what is this interest in superficial getting along really about? Would it really make you want a leader who acts like that too, or would you want a leader who's willing to take on the hard fighting that you won't do yourself?

Anyway... "zest" bothers me too. "Zest for consensus" — seems like too wacky a state of mind to be present throughout an entire region.

The original meaning of "zest" is the outer peel of a citrus fruit, the bright-colored part that you use to make a "twist" for a drink or grate into some dessert recipe. From there comes the figurative meaning: "Something which imparts excitement, energy, or interest; a stimulating or invigorating quality which adds to the enjoyment or agreeableness of something... Enthusiasm for and enjoyment of something, esp. as displayed in speech or action; gusto, relish" (OED). Here's the highest peak of usage, from John Keats:

O! let me have thee whole,—all—all—be mine!
That shape, that fairness, that sweet minor zest
Of love, your kiss,—those hands, those eyes divine,
That warm, white, lucent, million-pleasured breast,
Yourself—your soul—in pity give me all,
Withhold no atom’s atom or I die
Or living on perhaps, your wretched thrall,
Forget, in the mist of idle misery,
Life’s purposes,—the palate of my mind
Losing its gust, and my ambition blind!

Compare the zestiness of consensus to the zestiness of a warm, white, lucent, million-pleasured breast. Oh, no! This just popped up in my head:



There's your million-pleasured breast. There's your pugilist in the field.

ADDED: Can you beat the fighter with the nonfighter? There's this fantasy that what we need now is Mr. Rogers and that Pete Buttigieg is Mr. Rogers....



(That's just one of many articles you'll find if you google Buttigieg is Mr. Rogers.)

"Before opening night, more than 12,000 people signed a petition calling for the theater to cancel the show."

"They argued that using a puppet to portray [the autistic character] Laurence 'dehumanizes autistic children' and promotes the harmful 'common misconceptions that we lack feelings and empathy.' They also slammed the play for focusing on the parents’ experience over Laurence’s perspective. These critics adopted the hashtag '#puppetgate' to spread the word on Twitter; many included another hashtag, #ActuallyAutistic, widely used by people on the spectrum.... The backlash took playwright Alex Oates by surprise. He wrote the script based on his years of experience as a care worker for a severely autistic child. He sought input from people on the spectrum and the parents of the child who had inspired the story. As for the puppet, it seemed more sensitive to him to use a 'creative medium' than to ask an actor to mimic the condition. The controversy over Oates’s play is just one example of a deep divide in the autism community: On one side are parents of autistic children with severe traits — including intellectual disability, limited language ability and self-harm — who say autism is a medical condition that needs often-intense treatment. On the other side are supporters of 'neurodiversity,' who maintain that the condition represents a neurological difference and a disability — one that society should accept and accommodate rather than try to prevent or cure."

From "A medical condition or just a difference? The question roils autism community" (WaPo).

The problem of the puppet and the play is only a small part of what's at the link. I was struck by that part of the article because I just watched "Won't You Be My Neighbor," the documentary about Mr. Rogers, and in a memorable part — I wish I could find a clip — there was analysis of the use of puppets on the show, which also used human actors. It was clear that the purpose served by the puppets was the opposite of dehumanization. Rogers used the tiger puppet to express his own most intimate inner self and to say the things that he as a human actor could not say. The puppet was more revealing, more feeling, more human. Off the show, and meeting children in person, he used the tiger puppet to connect with children. In one clip, using the tiger, he draws a boy into revealing his sadness about the death of his dog. There can be so much humanity in puppetry.

I could say many more things about the linked article. I'd like to say more about the neurodiversity movement, which I think is important and has a downside to it (which is that the less severely affected persons are the ones doing the talking). But in the interest of keeping a blog post short, I simply want to cry out against the disrespect for puppetry!

"I just said, 'I can’t call this film The Radical Mister Rogers anymore.'"

"Because the design of the film was really to try and speak to people I don’t necessarily agree with.... [Mr. Rogers is] a rare subject that doesn’t have cultural baggage. Because he connects with us before we have identities, as little kids, he’s a rare figure that kind of transcends so much of the cultural division that we have... I felt like that title [The Radical Mister Rogers] in the context of the era that we’re in, would turn off people who needed to see it."

So said Morgan Neville, the director of the 2018 documentary that was released as "Won’t You Be My Neighbor?" He was talking to the Producers Guild of America in late 2018 and referring to a decision he made just after Donald Trump was elected.

The documentary is available on HBO on Demand (or Amazon). I happened to watch it last night. Highly recommended. It is not political at all. It is very focused on how to talk to children (very slowly and quietly and with great awareness of how strong their feelings are). The only politics I can think of is the mention that Rogers was "a lifelong Republican" and a lovely segment in which he testifies to the Senate Subcommittee on Communications about public TV financing. Here's a clip of that fantastic testimony (from 1969).



Watch the whole thing because it ends with a great punchline from the Senator, John Pastore, who'd been opposed to public TV funding and starts out being kind of mean to Mr. Rogers. I bet nearly everyone watching the documentary assumes Pastore was a Republican. I know I did. The film doesn't tell you, but — I'm seeing it now — he was a Democrat.

"Both the book and the film work hard to adjust the notion that [Fred] Rogers was... 'a two-dimensional milquetoast who spoke in warm bromides.'"

"In this endeavor [Maxwell King, in "The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers,"] seems obsessed with Rogers’s sexuality—though to be fair, a lot of people are, with the apparent exception of his wife, Joanne, to whom he was married for fifty years. King seems to almost reluctantly settle on 'androgynous' when he might have just left it with what Rogers told a friend: 'Well, you know, I must be right smack in the middle. Because I have found women attractive, and I have found men attractive.' This would satisfy a preschooler but is too loose for King, who treats his subject’s sex life as if he were conducting a police investigation: 'There was no double life. And without exception, close associates concluded that Fred Rogers was absolutely faithful to his marriage vows.'...  [In the film 'Won't You Be My Neighbor'], François Clemmons, the opera singer who played Officer Clemmons on the show, testifies that, as a gay man, he would have known if Fred Rogers was gay: 'I spent enough time with him that if there was a gay vibe I would have picked it up.' This statement turns out to be complicated by the fact that Rogers initially asked Clemmons to hide his sexuality for fear of scaring sponsors, and encouraged him to marry (which he did).... 'I’m thinking about many different ways of saying I love you,' Rogers tells Clemmons in [one] episode. 'You’ll find many ways to understand what love is,' Clemmons sings. Rogers then notes the way memories are called up by actions, like being in a pool. At the show’s close, Clemmons returns to sing a spiritual, with Rogers beaming. 'I’m so proud of you, François!' Rogers says at one point. It’s hard not to see it as an apology."

From "The Ministry of Mr. Rogers" (The New York Review of Books).

"Most of his sexual interludes with men had been furtive; to him, gay culture meant Liberace and Paul Lynde."

One of many hard-to-believe sentences in this long NYT article about James McGreevey, the disgraced former governor of New Jersey. He's 55, not 75. He got into trouble putting his lover on the state payroll in 2004, not 1974. He's a big old fraud in my book, and his effort to cloak himself in "I am a gay American" sentimentality is disgusting.

Relentlessly excavating his heart and soul, he later went into psychotherapy and resurrected the calling he said he had felt since he was an altar boy in Carteret, N.J. Now an Episcopalian with a degree in divinity from the General Theological Seminary, he’s embracing the Lord’s work with the same fervor with which he once pursued politics. 

Look, I hope he's turned his life into service and good works, but this article is fawning — PR-style.

Until recently, Mr. McGreevey and his partner had kept their relationship private. This Thursday, however, is the debut of Alexandra Pelosi’s HBO documentary “Fall to Grace,” which explores his spiritual makeover, so he’s sharing the happily-ever-after. 

Sharing the happily-ever-after? Who talks like that?

Not, he stipulates, because he’s after another ego jolt like the sort he craved as a politico, but because he’s eager to focus attention on his work.

Oh, he stipulates? Sorry, this is just making me believe he’s after another ego jolt like the sort he craved as a politico. Did the NYT writer think that passing along this fawning PR was a joke — a nudge to make us think this is such bullshit? We're shown McGreevey's partner, an "Australian financier," 9 years his junior who — we're told is "[s]turdy and handsome in an unpolished way" and "with taste for modern art." The modern art taste is nowhere to be seen in the photograph of the pair in their "pistachio-walled conservatory with worn-leather sofas and ethnic touches that could have been conjured by Ralph Lauren."

With severely cropped hair, khakis and navy sweater pocked with moth holes (his uniform), the ex-governor has the look of a missionary. Upbeat and charismatic, he laughs easily and often exclaims, “God bless!” Mr. O’Donnell has a warier, more reserved air — at least, when he’s on the record. Wearing smart corduroys and a taupe cardigan, he keeps his phone in hand and peers at the screen through thick-rimmed glasses.

Smart corduroys? Cardigan?

ADDED: The cardigan is the main thing that pushed me over the line to finding this article bloggable, because I'd just read this question in the Gentleman Scholar advice column at Slate:

Out of nowhere, my husband of 21 years has started wearing cardigan sweaters. I can't tell you how much this turns me off—the soft, sloppy, indecisiveness of the garment, not jacket, but not fully committed to being a sweater, either. He will point to younger men wearing them and say, "See? I'm bringing them back." The thing is, I'm not going home with those younger men and I don't know why the younger men are wearing them, maybe it's ironic or something? I don't know. But when I see a man in a cardigan, all I can think is Mr. Rogers. My husband usually has excellent taste but every now and then he likes to rock something positively cringe-worthy. He doesn't like me to tell him what to wear. Do I just suck it up? Or do I draw a line in the sand? Thank you!

I mean, maybe that article was ironic or something... I don't know.

IN THE COMMENTS: Palladian said: Oh my God. That piece has to be satire. Please tell me it's the smartest satire ever written. "

I just noticed the line — in the "smart corduroys" paragraph — "Mr. O’Donnell... at least, when he’s on the record."

AND: More from Palladian: "I'm still trying to imagine how they figured out how to make pistachios work as a load-bearing structural material." 

"Did you ever grow anything in the garden of your mind?"

"Did you feel like going like that?"

Via Metafilter.