There are still more Democrats registered nationwide than Republicans, partly because of big blue states like California allow people to register by party, while red states like Texas do not. But the trajectory is troublesome for Democrats, and there are growing tensions over what to do about it. Democrats went from nearly an 11-percentage-point edge over Republicans on Election Day 2020 in those places with partisan registration, to just over a 6-percentage-point edge in 2024....
It must be quite a crisis or I don't think the NYT would openly call it a crisis. They even used my favorite word, "flummox": "... Democrats are divided and flummoxed over what to do."
A big part of the problem is that they can't use nonprofits the way they used to:
Why doesn't the guy who’s been giving money to the school not want to give it anymore? Even if Zuck has turned against DEI efforts within institutions, this is a free-standing school, located in a place where it serves underprivileged children. That sounds like a traditional charity. Why would you cut that off? The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative has given only $100 million to this school over the past 4 years. What's that in the larger scheme of Zuckerberg's wealth? You're just suddenly casting out hundreds of children you've made a show of saving from the "trauma" you attributed to their status as "low-income." I'm sorry, I don't see how closing the school is worth doing.
What is the evidence that the closure of the school represents opposition to the greater DEI agenda? I'm seeing this:
Jolie listened intently to Neshat, the Iranian visual artist and filmmaker, a striking figure with kohled eyes. “Art doesn’t come from intuition,” Neshat said. “It has to come from the life you have led. It has to relate to the world.”
The actor had built homes for these individuals in the wake of the natural disaster, but the homes reportedly developed dangerous mold, leading to the class action they filed.... Pitt had spent $12 million through his Make It Right Project to build these homes, which were designed to be ecologically sustainable....
"The charity made a renewed bid for the charts this year, with a 40th anniversary 'ultimate mix' of Do They Know Its Christmas, blending vocals from the various versions of the song that have been recorded over the years, But the re-release faltered after a row over the lyrics, with critics calling the song outdated and colonialist, and Ed Sheeran saying he wasn't asked for permission to re-use his voice. In the end, the song charted at number 12, nestled between Kelly Clarkson's Underneath The Tree and Andy Williams' 1963 standard It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year."
It's funny to think of Wham and that charity duking it out over the decades. And right now, Wham has the moral high ground, because Band Aid's moralistic posturing became politically incorrect.
But Band Aid is still a charity. Shouldn't Ed Sheeran have registered his objection privately and accepted the flow of money to what presumably is still a reasonably good cause? Reading that linked article, I see that Sheeren cited a statement made by a rapper who, 10 years ago, declined to participate in Band Aid because things like that "perpetuate damaging stereotypes that stifle Africa's economic growth, tourism, and investment, ultimately costing the continent trillions and destroying its dignity, pride and identity."
The rapper, Fuse ODG, who is British-Ghanian, said "there's a way to do things without destroying our collective pride. There's a way to do things without it costing us in tourism, in investment, you know? We could make it more like a partnership - solidarity instead of charity."
The objection is surprisingly right wing! It repels tourists and investors.
That's different from the usual criticism from the left — that Band Aid is "colonial" and "more about making white people feel good than helping anyone."
"At Christmas time, we let in light and we banish shame."
Yes, I'm expending one of my 10 gift links of the month on this thing. I selected the quote in the title because that one guy said what I was thinking the whole time I was reading the article: Rich women need events to which they can wear expensive evening gowns. But I'm sending you over there so you can see some gowns (and lavishly set tables and fussily arrayed foods). I don't want you to miss that absolutely crazy photograph by Michelle Groskopft that I'll just excerpt a bit of so you can find it:
Rich women have needs, and arts associations need their money.
The other reason you should go there is to look at the numbers — how much is spent to put on the event and how much is netted. And read the comments, e.g., "This type of article is useful for showing the magnitude of the excess. The cost vs gain. This is about vanity, greed and self-promotion. The attendees don’t care about the art or the causes. If they did, they’d write checks and forgo the snow crab."
They may not care about "the art," but they care about art — the art of their own self-presentation. An audience is needed for that art — the hair, the makeup, the plastic surgery, the jewelry, the fingernails, the shoes, the gowns. Without all that would it even be worth amassing riches in the first place?
"This, they explain, is part of living their values: as effective altruists, they give everything they can spare to charity (their charities). 'Any pointless indulgence, like heating the house in the winter, we try to avoid if we can find other solutions,' says Malcolm. This explains Simone’s clothing: her normal winterwear is cheap, high-quality snowsuits she buys online from Russia, but she can’t fit into them now, so she’s currently dressing in the clothes pregnant women wore in a time before central heating: a drawstring-necked chemise on top of warm underlayers, a thick black apron, and a modified corset she found on Etsy. She assures me she is not a tradwife. 'I’m not dressing trad now because we’re into trad, because before I was dressing like a Russian Bond villain. We do what’s practical.'..."
"In this game, there’s a 51 percent chance that you create another Earth but also a 49 percent chance that you destroy all human life. If you’re using expected value thinking, and if you think that human life has positive value, you must play this game. SBF said he would play this game. And he said he would keep playing it, double or nothing, over and over again. With expected value thinking, the slightly higher chance of creating more value requires endlessly risking the annihilation of humanity.
Expected value is why SBF constantly played video games, even while Zooming with investors. He calculated that he could add the pleasure of the game to the value of the calls. The key to understanding SBF is that he plays people like they’re games too. With his long-suffering EA girlfriend, her expected value went up when he wanted sex and then down right afterward.... This is the perfection of the EA philosophy: Maximize the value of the use of any given resource. And aren’t other people resources that can produce value?"
"The average life expectancy is 83 and with a bit of luck I’ll make that, but we need someone else to drive things. I’m not leaving [Teenage Cancer Trust] — I’ve been a patron since I first met the charity’s founders.... more than 30 years ago — and that will continue, but I’ll be working in the back room, talking to government, rattling cages."
I've loved The Who since before they released their first album in the United States, but there's always somebody hearing about them for the first time:
"... where a migrant in need would easily be able to spot them. Plastic bags of food and clothing were positioned in little piles along the informal route, dated and adorned with short messages from the volunteers: 'Con mucho amor' and 'Buena suerte.' The border wall, which in California is sometimes made up of towering steel slats, and then tapers out entirely when the rugged landscape becomes a natural barrier, was a felt but unseen presence in the distance. As the volunteers climbed higher into the mountains and closer to the border, hoisting themselves up rock faces and scrambling down scrubby hills, they spotted many signs of life, including weathered shirts and hats, empty water bottles and wrappers from Mexican-brand candy...."
"To be clear, I don’t think the problem is with Goldberg, who is a decent writer when she has a meaty story to work on. The problem in this case is that attempting to blame Kendi’s problems on 'the system' just isn’t credible.... If the left wasn’t so driven by fads and celebrity, this wouldn’t have happened. Why wouldn’t it have happened? Because Kendi never would have been given all of that money in the first place. This is the best defense she can come up with. It’s not Kendi’s fault he was unprepared and undisciplined, it’s everyone else’s fault for believing in him.... But Goldberg’s readers just aren’t buying it. There are so many good responses here I’m not sure where to begin...."
This is an article in the NYT, and I'm annoyed at myself for spending the time to try to understand what is going on. These 2 showboats want our attention, and now I'm checking to see just how old, tall, and heavy each of them is and what that means in a "cage match."
Ugh. I don't like thinking about either of these men's bodies, but now I know Musk is 6'1.5" and Zuckerberg is only 5'7". Zuckerberg weighs 155 and Musk is anywhere from 30 to 70 pounds heavier, so he's something like 2 weight classes higher than Zuckerberg. Musk is 12 years older, and maybe Musk is less in shape:
The man is refusing to debate because he stands so firmly on SCIENCE. Isn't it funny that he bandies about a slur like "coalition with neofascist leanings"? Don't you have to at least act as though you're devoted to truth and reason if you want to win on the ground that you're the scientist?
"And each little dwelling is likely the most sustainable house on its block.
Solar arrays on the roofs of the homes provide more than enough power for heating, lighting and cooking, even in Seattle’s not-so-sunny climate. And all the materials and fittings — from the juniper wood for the exterior of the 230-square-foot structures to the induction cooktops in the kitchenettes — were chosen to meet the highest environmental standards.... Each Block home piggybacks on the homeowner’s water bills... and is hooked up to the grid via the homeowner’s account with the local utility.... The homes are built as permanent housing but are designed so they could be deconstructed and moved elsewhere. So far, all the structures have stayed put."
Said Myriam Ullens — "a pastry chef who married a billionaire Belgian aristocrat and turned his fortune into a globe-spanning source of philanthropy" — about the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, "the first international-standard museum in China dedicated to contemporary art."
The stepson turned himself in, and the police "proceeded to the home of Ms. Ullens and her husband, Guy Ullens, where they found her dead in a Volkswagen and Mr. Ullens beside her, in a state of shock, with a wounded leg."
I'm reading this Vanity Fair article by Caleb Ecarma. Subtitle: "The right-wing commentator’s columns, which were unedited and bankrolled by a single donor, will be shuttered Friday after a 12-year run. Sources say it was ultimately a diatribe on circumcision that was a bridge too far."
Over the last 12 years, Dreher... has built a cult following with some of the most bizarre diatribes in opinion journalism. He has warned that so-called sissy hypnosis porn is “profoundly evil;” detailed the “formal” Catholic exorcism of a friend’s suicidal wife; and recalled—in unsettling detail—the time he witnessed a Black classmate's uncircumcised penis....
"... including offices, apartments and vacation homes used by FTX’s senior executives, according to property records and FTX attorneys.
A major chunk of the spending spree went to Albany, an ultraexclusive luxury community developed in 2010 by a British billionaire with investment from musician Justin Timberlake and golfers Tiger Woods and Ernie Els.
Encircled by marshes and scrub forests, the 600-acre community of pearl-white towers is walled-off to practically everyone. A giant lawn at the community’s center, near a Rolex store, features a full-size replica of Wall Street’s famous Charging Bull sculpture. A lavish recording studio there, known as the Sanctuary, has been used by Drake, Mariah Carey and Alicia Keys.
Bankman-Fried and nine of his closest allies moved into... a sprawling penthouse atop a luxury tower... overlook[ing] an oceanfront marina where action-movie-caliber speedboats are anchored...."
"... said Luke Kemp... an 'EA-adjacent' critic of effective altruism... 'The things they push tend to be things that Silicon Valley likes,' Kemp said. They’re the kinds of speculative, futurist ideas that tech billionaires find intellectually exciting. 'And they almost always focus on technological fixes' to human problems 'rather than political or social ones.'
There are other objections. For one thing, lavishly expensive, experimental bioengineering would be accessible, especially initially, to 'only a tiny sliver of humanity,' Kemp said; it could bring about a future caste system in which inequality is not only economic, but biological.... Kemp argued that effective altruism and longtermism often seem to be working toward a kind of regulatory capture. 'The long-term strategy is getting EAs and EA ideas into places like the Pentagon, the White House, the British government and the UN' to influence public policy, he said...."
Tweeted the philosopher William MacAskill, "a founder of the effective altruism movement who has known Mr. Bankman-Fried since the FTX founder was an undergraduate at M.I.T."
Mr. MacAskill was one of five people from the charitable vehicle known
as the FTX Future Fund who jointly announced their resignation on
Thursday. In their statement, they said that “it looks likely that there
are many committed grants that the Future Fund will be unable to
honor.”
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