More detail here, including what appears to be the identification of the protesters, which I won't copy, because I feel so embarrassed for them and hope they can find a way to stop being obnoxious and start making sense. Notice that they're at their best when they create an atmosphere of unreason. When some people try to reason with them and invite them into a middle position of engaging in debate — which really isn't fair to the speaker — they look baffled and — like so many law students in so many law school classrooms throughout the ages — woefully unprepared.
The main protester is wearing a jacket that says "STAY WOKE" on the back, and she keeps looking at what may be her mobile phone, perhaps to get the words for shouting at the other protesters to shout back (that is, to "mic check"). The other protesters are backed up against the wall about as far as they can get from the formidable figure of Christina Hoff Sommers:
Campus safety asked @CHSommers if it was true that she came armed with a gun for security purposes. Christina’s response? “My Malti-pooh Izzy is my security but she’s not here.” pic.twitter.com/Mcf3GLmiuG
I was walking in my very quiet neighborhood, wearing a long wool coat, listening to an audiobook in my usual there-but-also-somewhere-else manner, and suddenly I'm hit in the leg with what I thought was a rock. Is someone throwing a rock at me? I turn and see a rather pathetic man holding a controller of some sort in his two hands and glance down at the ground and see the stupid drone toy of his that hit me. I give him a look that must have expressed my opinion that this is the dumbest loser I have had to interact with in a long time, said nothing, and moved on. I was glad nobody threw a rock at me and glad I didn't express my sense of relief but only my opinion of his loserhood when I had to look at him.
Also, recently: We were walking down a quiet residential street near where we live, and suddenly BANG! — a big car crash. On a street with practically zero traffic, a black car made a left turn into the path of a red car going straight. No one seemed to be hurt, but the black car spun around and had its whole passenger's side crushed in. I realized how situationally unaware I am when I'm walking. I had my eyes open and looking straight in the direction where it happened, but I don't feel that I saw it. The sound of the crash got my attention, and I looked at the aftermath and deduced what happened, but I really did not see the hit. I think I get caught up in my thoughts and I'm somehow blind without being aware of how blind I am.
There are readers who are looking for a refuge from the chaos and pain, and once they find this spot — scroll down to find it — they can soothe their weary minds.
I only clicked through to the article on Taylor Swift. Did you know Taylor Swift songs are "bombastic, unexpected, sneakily potent" and "overt... about sexual agency" and she's "barrel[ing] ahead... charting her own sui generis path"?
Language quibble: "own sui generis" is a redundancy.
Maybe I'd just always remembered his name because back in the 1970s, I knew somebody else with that unusual last name. I'd thought Toback was kind of important, so I was surprised that he'd only directed 12 films (in a 40-year period). I looked for the most famous one to impress Meade that this was indeed a well-known director. I came up with "The Pick-Up Artist" and showed Meade the image and said, "That was back when Robert Downey Jr. look like this. 1987."
According to a report by the Los Angeles Times, on several occasions Toback would invite women, usually in their 20s, to his hotel room where he would dry-hump them or masturbate in front of them, ejaculating into his pants or onto their bodies and then walk away.
Starr Rinaldi, who was an aspiring actress, told the Times that she was approached by Toback 15 years ago in Central Park. 'He always wanted me to read for him in a hotel or come back to his apartment, like, "How serious are you about your craft?" And the horrible thing is, whichever road you choose, whether you sleep with him or walk away, you're still broken... You have been violated."
Why are you "broken" and "violated" if you walk away from bad pick-up lines like that? This kind of post-Weinstein pile-on is going to dilute the righteous fury and end up boring us. There are so many people with so many stories, so many would-be actresses who never got to live out their dreams that nothing's going to stop the chatter. It's a good time to hurt and embarrass every unattractive guy who got a pretty woman to give him some time by portraying himself as a useful contact.
How could he even think he could have her if he didn't give some major career advancement in exchange!
Well, since I blogged Trump's tweet with the baseball yesterday, I guess I'm obligated to blog this Washington Post story today. But, man, the trivia! And why can't WaPo get a statement from Rose himself? We get his lawyer? Ugh.
“We do not know how Mr. Trump got the ball,” Genco said. “I can’t authenticate the ball from some Twitter picture.” He added: “I can’t speak to how Trump got the ball. Pete didn’t send it. I made that clear.”
How does Genco know?
“Pete has made a point not to ‘endorse’ any particular presidential candidate,” Genco wrote. “Though he respects everyone who works hard for our country — any outlet that misinterpreted a signed baseball for an endorsement was wrong. Pete did not send any candidate a baseball or a note of endorsement. That said, through my discussions with Pete about this cycle, I’ve learned that he believes that who to vote for is a decision each voter should decide for him or herself. Pete knows and has impressed upon me that, above politics, it’s leadership and teamwork [that] make all the difference. Both the left and right are Baseball fans — and it is those institutions and their people that make America exceptional.”
A lawyer talked like a lawyer. I'm supposed to believe that Pete "impressed upon" Genco something about "leadership and teamwork" "above politics"? Also, why capitalize "Baseball"? Blecch.
IN THE COMMENTS: Bob Boyd said:
GOP issues statement summing up the entire 2016 primary election.
Just now on "State of the Union," responding to Gloria Borger's question about that speech he gave recommending that voters vote strategically state by state to produce an open GOP convention.
Borger pushes him: "You could potentially drive his supporters into his arms even more because you're the symbol of the Republican establishment," and his response is: "Well, I've spent my life in business...."
So he's a businessman who doesn't know what impact things have politically....
This was the party's candidate — who lost the election 4 years ago — and he's admitting (or pretending) that he doesn't really do politics. He's a very handsome, polished man, and I voted for him 4 years ago, but give me a break. Either he's lying and conning us now, or he's reminding me of what Trump said about him: "You ran against Obama four years ago. It was a race that should have been an easy win... He made a fool of himself in the second and third debates. I don't know what happened to him.... What the hell did happen? Does anyone know?"
ADDED: Watch Borger's full interview with Romney here.
So why does Time Magazine plod at such a mindnumbing low level through serious social issues? Why is it complicit in this potentially very self-undermining aspect of mainstream media? I guess it's just to get attention....
The author informs us that she spent 2½ years doing research that took her to 10 states and that she talked to "more than 200 girls." So she averaged 1 girl per 4 days of research — 20 girls per state — and arrived at the stunning insight that girls post sexy pictures because it gets attention, which they like?
Politico said: "CBS ends Democratic debate with seven minutes to spare" ("CBS brought in the second Democratic debate seven minutes under time... The candidates began their closing statements with more than 10 minutes to go until the scheduled 11 p.m. conclusion"). And various more incendiary sites said things like "Democrat debate so boring CBS ended it seven minutes early."
But I think it was planned. Look at the transcript. The moderator, John Dickerson, was doing commercial breaks like clockwork throughout the 2 hours. He even said "We've got to take a break or the machine breaks down." After that, he set up the "final segment," which wasn't "closing statements" (as Politico put it), but a focused question that precluded a canned statement: "What crisis have you experienced in your life that suggests you've been tested and can face that inevitable challenge?" When that was done, Dickerson didn't say good-night or act as though they'd ended early. He said, "All right, back with some final thoughts in a moment."
What followed was very weird, but obviously planned. With the candidates still on stage but the debate now "in the books," Dickerson brought out Major Garrett to report on the CBS "partnership with Twitter," which made it possible to identify "the most-talked-about moments for each of the three candidates." What got the most tweets?
It was Hillary Clinton, "when she defended her integrity on campaign contributions and mentioned 60% of her donors are women." I imagine there were lots of tweets of the ooh-Hillary's-mad variety or "Ouch!" Bernie Sanders's moment was "I'm not a socialist compared to Eisenhower." And Martin O'Malley's height of tweetability was also taking a shot at someone not on the stage, the phrase "immigrant bashing carnival barker Donald Trump." The candidates stood there smiling as the Major delivered the results. O'Malley, who seemed boyish throughout the debate, smirked and gave a thumbs-up. Yeah, I'd like to see him cop that attitude when Trump is there to punch back.
For some reason, CBS decided it would be cool to do a partnership-with-Twitter dance and that Major Garrett was the guy to twirl with Twitter. The candidates didn't opt to leave the stage. They put up with the absurd theater of saying who won.
And by the way, when I heard Major Garrett say that Hillary "defended her integrity on campaign contributions," my immediate outburst was "Assumes a fact not in evidence!"
"By my count there's Laurel Patrick, Alleigh Marré, Jocelyn Webster and Ciara Matthews. Matthews, you recall, is the one who made headlines for being a former Hooters waitress. It reminds me of Fox News, which uses super-sexy women as on-air talent rather than a normal range of women who just happen to be good journalists. As with Fox, it's hard to believe that the most talented females available to fill Walker's frontline jobs also look like models.... What does it say to the young girls of Wisconsin who hope to do important work when they grow up, regardless of their looks? In my opinion Walker's approach sets women back 50 years, to the pre-feminist Mad Men era."
“Are you guys doing a story on this, really?” she asked Friday when asked to confirm the rumor.
But to the direct question: Were you a Hooters girl? She said, “I was.”
Matthews said she waited tables for the popular restaurant chain -- which features tasty chicken wings and waitresses in short shorts and low-cut tops –- while attending college at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.
“So you guys want to write a story that I waited tables in college,” she said. “I’m confused as to why that’s a story.”
Imagine taking a shot at a young woman for waitressing?
ADDED: Back in 2009, somebody wrote to Isthmus "Tell All" with this thing about me:
“We’d hoped it would be obvious that the strip was written before Rolling Stone admitted problems in its reporting,” he emailed. “It’s not the first time I've been overtaken by events, and it won’t be the last—the occupational hazard of a long lead time.”
“Jackie’s story was not the focus, only the setup for commentary on institutional conflict of interest in adjudicating sexual assault, an issue that did not disappear with the credibility of the article,” he emailed. “Not even UVA has claimed otherwise.”
"'She's got my arms pinned. She knows there's nothing I can do.' He then exclaimed: 'Oh god,' prompting his concerned wife to ask: 'Paul, are you ok?' Several tense seconds later, Mr Rosolie replied: 'I'm ok', yet his heart rate had noticeably increased. 'Paul, your heart rate is getting pretty high and your breathing is really labored,' one of the team members could be heard telling him. He replied: 'I'm trying to stay calm.... Stand by guys, I'm starting to feel like she's consuming me.' The snake then opened its mouth and latched on to Mr Rosolie's head. Mr Rosolie exclaimed: 'Guys, my face is down,' before shouting: 'I'm calling it, I need help!' as he feels his arm starting to break under the anaconda's grip."
Is that more evil than lame, more lame than evil, or an intoxicating, mystifying brew of evil + lame?
ADDED: With cameras and face recognition software, a school could set things up to take attendance, outsourcing an old-fashioned teacher task that I don't think many higher-ed teachers do anymore. Maybe we could forgo exams and just judge the students by whether they were there and paying attention. I hope I'm not throwing away a billion dollars by revealing this wonderful idea: Program the computer to recognize what the teacher was saying and whether the faces reveal that they pick up the message at an appropriate interval, and score the student for an entire semester of facially revealing understanding. A million data points, registered in real time, unfakable, and calculated to perfection. AND: This would not merely relieve the teacher of the work of grading papers and exams, it would rivet the students to the classroom experience and make it the real event for everyone. Result: excitement, efficiency, and intrinsic interest where it belongs.
That reminds me of a question I've been meaning to ask: Have you been using "There should be an app for this" as a comic observation? If so, explain the context.
ADDED: Or just lie and make up a context for which "There should be an app for this" is the punchline. We won't know the difference. Not without our lie-detecting app.
For some reason, most of the football-specific songs I've encountered have succumbed to at least one of three temptations: to pledge allegiance to a specific team, to mirror the speed and brutality of the game, or to use football as a mechanism for marketing a product. All three approaches stand in the way of a unifying anthem, especially now that the modified "All My Rowdy Friends" — with its immortal chorus of, "Are you ready for some football?!" — has been largely removed from popular circulation.
Why is "All My Rowdy Friends" out of circulation? According to Thompson: "ESPN pulled "All My Rowdy Friends" off its football telecasts back in 2011, due to some controversial statements [Hank Williams Jr.] had just made in an interview." What awful thing did Williams say? At the link, I see that he used hyperbole in a comic analogy: Obama playing golf with John Boehner would be "like Hitler playing golf with Netanyahu." We've forgotten it now, but at the time, we just couldn't let it go, apparently. And now football has no song.
In the old days, everyone knew the song that even without the lyrics meant football. It was the 1933 song "You Gotta Be a Football Hero."Here it is by Ben Bernie & All The Lads. And here it is in the Popeye cartoon:
The NPR writer, who has the sads about "the speed and brutality of the game" and can only gesture at The Terrible Hitler Analogy of 2011, lamely gravitates to football song to about watching football on television. He thinks he has a good idea: Replace "All My Rowdy Friends," with its TV-watching theme, with "It's Time To Party," but with new lyrics "It's Time for Football." In the old days, you were pressured to play football yourself:
You got to be a football hero
To get along with the beautiful girls
You got to be a touchdown-getter, you bet
If you want to get somebody to pet
You — and the "you" meant you young men — were told to play football, not watch it on TV, and it was assumed that you were eager to get to "pet" "beautiful girls." Apparently, these days, you're just excited that a football game is on television and you have some male friends who will watch TV with you. That's your "rowdy" "party," sitting around with men, and watching other men play the game is the end in itself. And you write letters to a man at NPR to help you think of a song and he can't even think of that song from the time when the men not only needed to play football, but playing football was not the end in itself — there was a further end, the petting of beautiful girls.
But I suppose these "rowdy" TV-watching males still get their beautiful girls, and these girls go far beyond petting. Yes, yes, I know some of the girls — we don't say "girls" anymore (except when referring to that TV show "Girls") — some of the young woman put earnest effort into decrying the way these young males today grasp after sex, the speed and brutality of the game.
What happened to all the heroes? What happened to the demand for a hero? Are we even capable anymore of understanding a Popeye cartoon? Who the hell was Olive Oyl and why was she able to command heroics? It is a mystery long forgotten.
Here at FiveThirtyEight, we spend a lot of time thinking about how to predict stuff. The science of prediction is pretty hard to get right consistently. But in keeping with the philosophy of exploring other schools of predictive thought, I decided to go to one of the classic sources of predictions — a tarot card reader — to find out what she had to say about the future, and how those predictions would stack up against rigorous statistical analysis.
There are 37 more paragraphs. And 3 graphs. If you can't guess without looking, the analysis is the most obvious insight into psychics: They predict specific-seeming general things that are already quite probable. The "rigorous statistical analysis" promised in the first paragraph — presumably to palm this off as a decent FiveThirtyEight article — is the probability of the predictions the tarot card reader made to that one guy. For example, she said he'd meet a woman with "brown or red hair," and FiveThirtyEight's "rigorous statistical analysis" applies to the real-world likelihood that women are anything other than blonde.
Amanda Hall says: "I got hit in the face by a giraffe... I had to deal with all that. That was a lot of pain to deal with already. I don’t need a fine and this on my record. I don’t 'harass' zoo animals. I’m an animal lover.... Obviously I won’t do it again... [The fence is] there for a reason. I just didn’t think twice about it. I just didn’t think it was a big deal."
So, she didn't think it was a big deal to climb into the giraffe enclosure, but a kick in the head that required "about 10 stitches" taught her a lesson, and now she doesn't see the reason for the $686 fine for harassing a zoo animal. She doesn't think it should be said that she harassed a zoo animal because she loves animals. This is someone who has a really hard time understanding the rules and how they apply to everyone. She needed a kick in the head to understand the reason for the fence, and she needs the $686 fine to understand that harassment of an animal isn't about your point of view. You did what you did to the animal and the fact that you had love in your heart is irrelevant. And we need her to pay the $686 fine to demonstrate that penalties apply equality and being (or posing as) a nice lady doesn't get you special treatment.
I'm putting my racial profiling tag on this post. Do you see why?
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