"They said the film ['Barbie'] promoted homosexuality and insulted the image of women."

Said the mayor of Noisy-le-Sec, France, quoted in "Muslim youths shut down Barbie screening for ‘promoting homosexuality’/The incident in a Paris suburb plays into anxiety about cultural conflict in France, whose government says Islamists may be trying to undermine society." 

This article is in the London Times, which I subscribe to and would like to trust to report the relevant facts, but I can't figure out what the "Muslim youths" did that shut down the Barbie screening. We're told there was an "incident" but not what it was and why it was enough to shut down what was to have been a free outdoor screening. The article quickly moves to the topic of "widespread anxiety" about Muslims "impos[ing] their traditions on French life."

The mayor is quoted saying "An incident at Noisy has been taken over by the far-right fringe to stigmatise a neighbourhood." If the "far-right" is spinning the incident, tell us what is the left-wing or moderate spin? Is not detailing what happened the best you can do? As for the mayor, he made a point of saying that "he had not mentioned the religion of the youths."

With 2 great search terms — Noisy-le-Sec and Barbie — I easily found an article in the Brussels Signal – which some sources identify as right wing — "French mayor cancels Barbie film screening due to threats of 'disruption.'" Here, we find more details, but word "Muslim" does not even appear:

"It’s essential to normalize 'no' and understand that no one should be forced to justify something they simply don’t want to do."

"We live in a society where 'no' is often seen as rude or selfish, but this needs to change. Each person has their own reasons, preferences, and limits, and all of this must be respected without judgment."

Said Jeniffer Castro, who has filed a lawsuit, quoted in "Flyer who went viral after refusing to give seat to crying child sues airline, passenger who filmed her" (NY Post).

It's important to remember that you do not need to articulate your reasons or even understand that you have any reasons. You can say "no" and nothing more. 

"If anything, it is a very effective form of antifascist economic policy," said Zohran Mamdani, asked to describe "Zohranomics."

Quoted in "The Case for Zohranomics/As some Wall Street billionaires melt down over Zohran Mamdani’s policy platform, a prominent progressive economist argues that it meets the moment."

ZM continues: "We are at a moment where the crisis of economic security, of affordability, that comes with basic questions of dignity and identity are being used by the far right in ways that fuel the return of fascist tendencies. I think that having an agenda that is laser-focussed on the needs of ordinary people is what we need, and that is basically where the Democrats fell flat last year. At the federal level and the global level, we are dealing with the consequences of that lack of vision right now."

I ran to Grok where my second prompt was: "Don't just restate it. I can read it. I can understand it as a series of sentences. But I regard it as empty of meaning. So tell me, quickly, what is there of substance. No bullshit."

I got this: "Anti-fascist economics means policies that ensure economic security—fair wages, affordable housing, healthcare—to prevent the far right from exploiting people's struggles. It’s about meeting basic needs to stop fascism’s appeal. The Democrats failed at this, leading to political consequences. That’s the core."

Even shorter: "Anti-fascist economics: policies ensuring economic security to counter far-right extremism. Democrats failed, causing political fallout." That's Grok. The idea is to give people so much that they won't want to change to anything else. Right now they're so deprived that they do want radical change. 

"We want diversity of opinion. We don't want diversity of facts. And how do we train and teach our kids to distinguish between those things?"

"That, I think, is one of the big tasks of social media. By the way, it will require some government, I believe, some government regulatory constraints around some of these business models in a way that's consistent with the First Amendment, but that also says, look, there is a difference between these platforms letting all voices be heard versus a business model that elevates the most hateful voices or the most polarizing voices or the most dangerous, in the sense of inciting violence...."

Said Barack Obama, in a conversation with a historian a few days ago. Video at the link.

So it seems he thinks it's "the big task of social media" to teach children to distinguish between fact and opinion. But what does it mean to say "We don't want diversity of facts"? Does it mean you don't want differences of opinion about what the facts are?

It must, because facts are facts. There is no diversity of facts. Whatever is true is true, even if not one human being knows the truth. The facts are out there, to be found, and you can think you've found the facts and be wrong. There's a sense in which to say "We don't want diversity of facts" is to say we want to be able to be able to cling to mistaken findings of fact and even to silence those who want to continue to search for the truth.

I'm irritated by how casually Obama dropped in "By the way, it will require some government." Perhaps he knew his audience at the event was eager to hear about a role for government. But he did not say that government should enforce an official version of the facts — e.g., the covid vaccine is safe and effective, the 2020 election was fair and square. Instead of content-based regulation of speech, he's talking about the manner of the speech. Is it "hateful," "polarizing," or "dangerous"? He adds the phrase "in the sense of inciting violence" to gesture at some concern for the First Amendment.

Obama's speech is incredibly convoluted and mushy. That sentence that begins "By the way" — what is he proposing? Government control of the social media algorithm to suppress the voices it deems polarizing? Yeah, I think we know what that means: Suppress my political opponents, like you did before Elon Musk bought Twitter. Can we agree about that fact or is that an opinion?

***

I'm giving this post my old "alternative facts" tag. Remember "alternative facts"?

"On Netflix for the past couple seasons, there has been a TV show that displays love — a type of love that I have never seen or experienced before."

"It's a love on the spectrum. Yeah. Best show out right now...."/"So although they have... I call them different abilities... they really about their business in what they desire and what love looks like to them....  And they'll tell you straight up, hey, baby, you don't like this? That ain't going to work for me."/"I'm telling you right now, if everybody dated how they date on 'Love On the Spectrum,' dating would be so easy.... I want to be matter of fact. I want to be able to just go in... It's so amazing to watch because if they don't like each other, they'd be like, all right, cool, I'm fine with that. And they walk away. They'll go on a date and she'd be like, did you have a good time? He was like, not really, not really. I wasn't feeling it. I didn't like you like that. But we could be cool. She'd be like, I understand. Don't worry about it. And they shake hands and hug and walk off.... If I could just wake up in the morning and say how I felt...."

I enjoyed "The Manly Deeds Podcast" talking about one of my favorite TV shows, "Love On the Spectrum":

I like the idea of neurotypical people watching the show and picking up communication hints. Now, the autistic people on the show have been taught skills that are modeled on the communication of neurotypical people. But there is room for learning in both directions.

Here's the trailer for Season 3 of "Love on the Spectrum," which I highly recommend:

"State media has... suggested the new campaign intends to target even benign-sounding puns" — like "rainy girl without melons" (yǔ nǚ wú guā) for "it’s none of your business" (yǔ nǐ wú guan)."

I'm reading "China cracks down on ‘uncivilised’ online puns used to discuss sensitive topics/Campaign targets wordplay and memes that are often used by people to get around censorship controls" (The Guardian).

China’s internet regulators have launched a campaign cracking down on puns and homophones.... The “clear and bright” campaign is targeting “irregular and uncivilised” language online, particularly jokes, memes, and wordplay, the Cyberspace Administration of China and the ministry of education announced this month....

“For some time, various internet jargons and memes have appeared frequently, leaving people more and more confused,” said an editorial by the Communist party mouthpiece, the People’s Daily.... 

The People’s Daily noted the quick turnover for online memes, and urged authorities and social media platforms to not allow “obviously ambiguous” new words to spread quickly without “rectification.”

"There is speculation among social media users that President Joe Biden's recent speech was pre-recorded rather than live."

"This speculation is based on observations that the time displayed on Biden's watch during the speech did not match the actual time of the broadcast. Some users have expressed skepticism and questioned the authenticity of the speech, suggesting that it may have been edited or manipulated."

Grok summarizes the buzz on line.

Here's the image everyone is displaying. The diagram in the upper left corner shows the time of broadcast. The image on the watch, which is harder to see and upside down, shows a time around 6:07.

Great catch on the watch, but what did you expect? Why would he do it live? Yes, we have questions about his competence, but it would have been incompetent to do this live. He couldn't even really do it properly on the video that we saw, presumably pre-recorded and the best of several attempts to get it right. It was, of course, incompetent to allow the watch to show the wrong time, but someone else should have seen to that.

But why did they make the speech so long? If they needed to use pre-recording, why did they make the task of getting it right so hard? I'm thinking this was the only take, and they decided that it was good enough because it was impossible to believe it would get better. It was very poorly articulated and I (and others I talked to) found what we did hear hard to understand because it seemed to have been said by a person who did not understand the words. It was an effort to listen to that even for 11 minutes, which was all it took. Plus, it meandered through unnecessary material (while not covering the actual issue in any depth). 

It should have been half as long. Or less. A lot less. Something he could understand and say. 

Was that the last we'll ever hear from him?

ADDED: Whatever the time, we know the season. It is the winter of his possibilities:

OMG — 😂😂😂

pic.twitter.com/QnDTNXeQIw

— Catturd ™ (@catturd2) July 25, 2024

AND: The words, according to the transcript, are: "We’ve come so far since my inauguration. On that day, I told you as I stood in that winter — we stood in a winter of peril and a winter of possibilities, peril and possibilities." I listened to that repeatedly before reading the transcript and I listened after reading the transcript, and every single time I hear "winter apparel."

IN THE COMMENTS: rehajm said:

As someone who takes many pictures of watches...I took one look at the photo and thought something is amiss...

I don't care about Joe's watch collection but others seem to be and they claim he wears couple Omegas- a Seamaster and a Moonwatch and also a Rolex Datejust. The only one of these this watch could be is the blue dial Rolex Datejust. I believe moden Datejust has lumed sword style hands and the inset photo looks like dauphine or dagger hands- not the same. It looks 'off'...

I went to find high-res of the address video. I'm watching but it is hard to tell- lots of refraction caused by bright lights. I sometimes believe I see the absence of hands between the five and seven markers- no hour hand between the six and seven markers and sometimes think I see the time reads about five after eight early in the video...

I'll look some more but I put a place marker on fake...

"But with Democrats, even when they talk about the good things they've done, it sounds fake. And I know that they're capable of sounding real."

"Throughout Monday afternoon, Trump raged at Graham in post after post on the social media platform after Graham said he 'respectfully' disagreed with Trump’s conclusions about abortion policy."

"Graham, in posts shared on X, argued that the court’s ruling on Roe 'does not require that conclusion legally.' 'The states’ rights only rationale today runs contrary to an American consensus that would limit late-term abortions and will age about as well as the Dred Scott decision,' Graham said. 'The science is clear — a child at fifteen weeks is well-developed and is capable of feeling pain.' Graham has been a staunch proponent of federal limits on abortions. Most recently, he has pushed for a ban after 15 weeks of pregnancy....  'The Democrats are thrilled with Lindsey, because they want this issue to simmer for as long a period of time as possible,' Trump said. In another post, Trump argued that by allowing states to make their own abortion laws, 'we have taken the Abortion Issue largely out of play.' 'We cannot let our Country suffer any further damage by losing Elections on an issue that should always have been decided by the States, and now will be,' Trump said...."

From "Trump rages against [Lindsey] Graham on abortion in rare break between allies/The posts from the former president came after the senator said he ‘respectfully’ disagreed with Trump’s stance on abortion Monday" (WaPo).

Graham's support for a federal statute limiting abortion undercuts an argument that abortion opponents will want to make if Congress ever creates a right to abortion in the form of a federal statute. But if protecting the life of the unborn is your highest priority, that's where you go as a matter of principle. The idea of leaving it to the states seems like a pragmatic compromise.

"President Biden will announce a new effort on Monday to reduce or eliminate student loan debt for millions of borrowers, an election-year attempt to..."

So begins the first sentence of the NYT article by Michael D. Shear, "Biden Will Try Again to Wipe Out Student Loan Debt for Millions of Borrowers/The Supreme Court blocked President Biden’s first attempt at large-scale student debt relief last summer."

The sentence piddles out tautologically:

... revive his goal of providing large-scale relief for Americans struggling to pay off their college loans, a person familiar with the plan said Friday.

Biden is reducing or eliminating debt in order to reduce or eliminate debt. Noted, and thanks for mentioning that this is happening in an election year.

But the word "attempt" doesn't fit. If what he's attempting to do is to reduce or eliminate debt, then how is the reduction or elimination of debt just an attempt to reduce or eliminate debt? A reduction or elimination of debt is a reduction or elimination of debt. We have the modifier "election-year": It's an "election-year attempt." That's such an awkward way to avoid having to say that what's being attempted — with our money — is to win the election. 

Bully.

I'm reading "White House’s Efforts to Combat Misinformation Face Supreme Court Test/The justices must distinguish between persuading social media sites to take down posts, which is permitted, and coercing them, which violates the First Amendment."

This is Adam Liptak's piece in the NYT about the case that's up for oral argument in the Supreme Court.

[A 5th Circuit panel] said the [Biden administration] officials had become excessively entangled with the platforms or used threats to spur them to act.... [The administration argues] that the government was entitled to express its views and to try to persuade others to take action.

“A central dimension of presidential power is the use of the office’s bully pulpit to seek to persuade Americans — and American companies — to act in ways that the president believes would advance the public interest,” Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar wrote.

In response, lawyers for the states wrote that the administration had violated the First Amendment. “The bully pulpit,” they wrote, “is not a pulpit to bully.”

As we await today's argument, let's take a moment to consider what the "bully" in "bully pulpit" means. In 1909, President Theodore Roosevelt exclaimed: "I suppose my critics will call that preaching, but I have got such a bully pulpit!" First, clearly, he was using "bully" — as he often did — to mean very good or excellent. And he used the word "pulpit," because he knew he was preaching, that is, proclaiming righteous opinions in public.

Pressuring people behind the scenes is not preaching. You're not in a metaphorical pulpit. You're in the metaphorical backroom. And you're not proclaiming righteous opinions, you're exerting power, intimidating people. It's not "bully" in the sense of excellent.

The OED entry for "bully pulpit" is clear that "bully pulpit" originates with Theodore Roosevelt. It explained "his personal view of the presidency." It is — as the OED puts it — "A public office or position of authority that provides its occupant with the opportunity to speak out and be listened to on any issue." 

We're also told: "In later use sometimes understood as showing bully n.1 II.3a." That meaning of "bully" is:

Originally: a man given to or characterized by riotous, thuggish, and threatening behaviour; one who behaves in a blustering, swaggering, and aggressive manner. Now: a person who habitually seeks to harm, coerce, or intimidate those whom they perceive as vulnerable; a person who engages in bullying.

If "bully pulpit" is sometimes understood that way, it's risky to argue "A central dimension of presidential power is the use of the office’s bully pulpit...."

The riposte was predictable: "The bully pulpit is not a pulpit to bully."

I want to add that what is said behind the scenes is not from the pulpit at all. A pulpit is an elevated and conspicuous platform. One thing about social media posts is that they are out there, in public, and perfectly conspicuous. If the President (or the shadowy people behind him) want to use the"central dimension of presidential power" that is the "bully pulpit," let them step up onto a conspicuous platform and proclaim opinions they intend us to find righteous.

In this case, the opinion that was conveyed behind the scenes was that social media platforms ought to take down posts on various political topics — coronavirus vaccines, claims of election fraud, and Hunter Biden’s laptop — that people wanted to debate. If it's pulpit-worthy, express that opinion outright and clearly to all of us. Don't go behind our back and intimidate the social media giants upon whom we, the little people, depend to slightly amplify our tiny voices.

"Why Trump isn’t on the GOP primary ballot in Nevada."

The Nevada Sun has a hard-to-read explanation, but I'm linking to it because what I saw elsewhere was even harder to read. I'd like a straightforward, clear account of what the hell happened.

"In unguarded moments over a 33-month tenure, he suggested that liberals were un-American and that the popular Beach Boys rock band was unwholesome."

"He likened his critics to Nazis and Bolsheviks, and insulted Black people, women, Jews and handicapped people.... 'I never use the words Democrats and Republicans,' he said in a favorite line. 'It’s liberals and Americans.'... He banned women’s pantsuits in his department, but the edict was flagrantly violated. Heralding divisiveness, he reversed the bison on the department logo from left-facing to right-facing. 'If the troubles from environmentalists cannot be solved in the jury box or the ballot box,' he quipped, 'perhaps the cartridge box should be used.' He accused his critics of using sham environmental concerns to achieve 'centralized planning and control of the society.' He told Business Week: 'Look what happened to Germany in the 1930s. The dignity of man was subordinated to the powers of Nazism. The dignity of man was subordinated in Russia. Those are the forces that this thing can evolve into.'"

From "James G. Watt, Interior Secretary Under Reagan, Dies at 85/Mr. Watt once declared that Interior Department policies over years had swung too far toward conservation under the influence of 'environmental extremists'" (NYT).

Watt resigned on October 9, 1983, after his attack on The Beach Boys and that remark about "two Jews and a cripple":

"Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. just wants you to know: The leaker didn’t come from the conservative wing of the court...."

Writes Ruth Marcus in "The aggrieved Justice Alito points fingers but offers no proof" (WaPo).

Alito didn’t name names but freely assigned motive. “It was part of an effort to prevent the Dobbs draft … from becoming the decision of the court,” he said. “And that’s how it was used for those six weeks by people on the outside — as part of the campaign to try to intimidate the court.” 

Nice work, because this is the kind of inchoate smear that is impossible to defend against....

Ah! Can we have a general rule against inchoate smears?! They're impossible to defend against, so it's scurrilous to make them. Think hard before agreeing to the rule. How will you feel when it's used against you or someone you like? And what about the unintended side effects? If smears must be not be inchoate,* then sometimes, instead of blind items or silence, you'll get names.

Critics of "woke" politics should not use the word "woke" because "one should never rely on language one cannot hope to control or even fully explain."

Writes Thomas Chatterton Williams, in "You Can’t Define Woke/The word is not a viable descriptor for anyone who is critical of the many serious excesses of the left yet remains invested in reaching beyond their own echo chamber" (The Atlantic).

I watched the viral clip of the conservative writer Bethany Mandel...

We watched and talked about that 2 days ago, here. 

Chatterton Williams recommends "limiting our reliance on in-group shorthand, and embracing clear, honest, precise, and original thought and communication."

I wonder if Chatterton Williams was named after the poet Thomas Chatterton. Ah! Yes, he was.

Do you know the amazing life story of Thomas Chatterton?

How to be a stickler in the fuzzy aura.

I'm reading "Listening to ‘The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling’ is exhausting work/A podcast promised clarity from Harry Potter author on how she feels about trans issues. But it falls to the audience to fact-check her" by Monica Hesse (WaPo).

Journalism is a business for sticklers. Reporters are discouraged from calling anyone transphobic, or homophobic, or racist, because doing so requires knowing what’s in their hearts when the only thing we can know with certainty is what comes out of their mouths. So what I can say is that what comes out of her mouth, or goes onto her Twitter account, has a fuzzy aura of harmful rhetoric. 

"YouTube really rewards straightforward, untrammeled, and unscripted discussion, and it's really what people expect on the platform."

Says Jordan Peterson, talking to Piers Morgan about how to conduct an inteview. He's distinguishing YouTube from "legacy TV." He's responding to Morgan, who has just acknowledged that Peterson is phenomenally successful on YouTube:

 

They're right about the constraints of television, but I want to show you this amazing segment of television from October 9, 1970, when the host, Dick Cavett — and guests Jeanne Moreau and Lee Marvin — kept almost entirely quiet for minutes on end while Truman Capote stumbled and mumbled his way to the most important question in the world:

Was Capote straightforward? He was untrammeled and unscripted! But straightforward may seem like the opposite of what he was. And yet, his struggle to find his point is real, and isn't that a form of straightforwardness? I don't think he's holding anything back, and I don't think he's using more words than he needs. He's just very, very needy.

Trump, in a 2016 practice debate, purportedly drew a "blank stare" from "the group," when he said "Cocked or decocked?"

From a Daily Beast article, based on the forthcoming Maggie Haberman’s book "Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America"

According to an excerpt obtained by The Daily Beast, a week before the second debate unfolded in St. Louis in 2016, Trump’s close adviser at the time, Reince Priebus, presented the aspiring political figure with a question on same-sex bathrooms. 

In playing the role of a female transgender student, Priebus asked Trump whether this hypothetical student could still use the girl’s bathroom. 

Without missing a beat, Trump said he had a question. “Cocked or decocked?” Trump asked. 

"At Zucker’s Trump-baiting CNN, Stelter thrived.... But Zucker was forced to resign from the network, and a new regime under Chris Licht stepped in..."

"... with a goal of rejiggering CNN’s programming, scrubbing it of liberal political valence....Under new ownership, CNN’s parent company was in thrall to the libertarian billionaire John Malone, who said that he wanted to see 'CNN evolve back to the kind of journalism that it started with, and actually have journalists, which would be unique and refreshing.'"

Writes Clare Malone in "A TV Face of the Trump Resistance Exits/Brian Stelter, the host of the CNN show 'Reliable Sources,' which was cancelled this week, went from media chronicler to media-chronicled" (The New Yorker).

I had trouble understanding that headline because I have been using the tag "the Trump resistance" to refer Trump and his supporters as they've resisted accepting Biden's victory in the 2020 election. That includes the January 6th riot/insurrection and the investigation into it. So it took me a couple seconds to see "the Trump resistance" as meaning the resistance to Trump and not the resistance by and on behalf of Trump. That reveals how little I have bothered with the CNN eminence that was Brian Stelter. The truth is, I don't watch any TV news channels.

Back to the article. This next sentence had me almost changing course and inviting readers to participate in a sentence-diagramming contest (or just to rewrite this in as few words as possible):

"For most of the 21st century, the feminism that has been in fashion has leaned heavily on the idea of women’s empowerment."

"Glossy, celebrity-driven rhetoric, peppered with slogans like 'nevertheless, she persisted' and reassurances that 'girl, you got this,' suggests that if women display competence and strength — or even just 'the confidence of a mediocre white man' — we will eventually earn equality. This type of feminism has taken several forms — Lean In, the Women’s March, the girlboss and hashtag feminism, just to name a few iterations. But the ultimate promise has remained the same: If we work within the system, the system will reward us.... Rather than seeking the approval and validation of an unjust system, what if we rejected the system’s legitimacy and worked from there? What strengths might we be able to tap in to if we recognized that the game is rigged and gave up on trying to 'win' it?... Colonized people around the globe have only been able to expel their oppressors by refusing to recognize the legitimacy of the systems that subjugated them....Vigilante groups such as India’s pink-sari-clad Gulabi Gang, for example, wield sticks against abusers and rapists. Abortion-rights advocates have also turned to these kinds of guerrilla tactics: In the years before the right to legal abortion was established in Roe v. Wade, a group of women known as the Jane Collective provided safe abortions, performing an estimated 11,000 procedures in the pre-Roe era.... It is always better when we’re able to secure our wins through established channels, when our rights are recognized through all levels of society — and certainly, voting remains a crucial tool in our toolbox. But the feminism of disempowerment is a reminder that even when the system is rigged against us, no one can take away our truth, our personhood, our autonomy."

From "Women, the Game Is Rigged. It’s Time We Stop Playing by the Rules" by Lux Alptraum (NYT).

This essay started out well, but then got awfully confusing. It's one thing to see the limits of "empowerment" feminism, with its celebrities and slogans, but quite something else to decide you're completely disempowered and ought to adopt the mindset — and strategies — of truly oppressed people. And is she calling for violence and vigilantism? I couldn't tell. But, you know, the system is rigged against writers who won't speak clearly and who float miscellaneous ideas without following through. 

Unsurprisingly, there's no comments section over there at the Times.