The Department of Homeland Security — on Facebook — invites us to reveal ourselves in the discussion of a painting.

Here's the link to the Facebook page, where the image is quite large and clear and it's easy to read the comments. The government's caption is: "A Heritage to be proud of, a Homeland worth Defending."

"Proud"? "Worth defending"? This sets some people off.

Even if you like that European-Americans moved across the continent and made it their own — and now your own — you may be taken aback to see America symbolized by a gigantic white woman in a diaphanous gown that whirls and swirls in the breeze — but doesn't slip off of her tenacious left tit — as she brings light, a telegraph line, and a school book westward.

The painting, "American Progress," was done by John Gast in 1872. Here's the Wikipedia article. The piece is very well composed and executed, and it's a good thing to stare at to contemplate Manifest Destiny. The Department of Homeland Security is challenging us to step up and feel proud, to see the westward expansion as beautiful... as beautiful as a half-naked woman.

"Pride among Democrats tumbles, while independents also hit new low, more than offsetting increase among Republicans."

According to a new Gallup poll, reported at "American Pride Slips to New Low."

"American Pride" is a bit awkward. The question asked was "How proud are you to be an American — extremely proud, very proud, moderately proud, only a little proud or not at all proud?"

Make acting great again: "Greatness. I know people don’t usually talk like that."

"I know we’re in a subjective business, but the truth is, I’m really in pursuit of greatness. I know people don’t usually talk like that, but I want to be one of the greats. I’m inspired by the greats. I’m inspired by the greats here tonight...."

Humility is the go-to tone for awards accepting, and Timmy eschewed it. He came right out and said he's aiming for greatness. "I know the classiest thing would be to downplay the effort that went into this role and how much this means to be, but... I poured everything I had into playing this incomparable artist, Mr. Bob Dylan, a true American hero...."

I hear Timmy's speech as part of the new masculine pride, which I associate with Trump and those in his vicinity, which is not Hollywood. But it belongs in Hollywood, and Timmy's a good exemplar of hard work and aspiration to greatness. It's okay again — isn't it? — to strive to achieve.

"Harris’s stint as vice president has often been pretty unremarkable, but it has provided a rich vein of memes, in part because she can be an awkward communicator...."

"It’s part of what fueled critical media coverage of her during the first year of her tenure, and which led the White House to largely sideline her during the first half of the Biden presidency.... As the first female, Black, and South Asian vice president, Harris was always doomed to receive an extraordinary amount of scrutiny and bias — and emphasized her persona as a 'joyful warrior' in part to combat some of those stereotypes. The joyful warrior, it seems, is sometimes a goofy one too. Harris delivers many of these lines in a genuinely funny way, with an affect unlike many politicians (described sometimes as just vibing along).... Plenty of people are... meme-ing their way to a new celebration of Harris — unburdened by what has been."

I'm reading "Why is everyone talking about Kamala Harris and coconut trees? Ironic Kamala Harris meme-ing isn’t so ironic anymore," a Vox article from July 3rd, when KH was just coasting along in the background, shielded by the seeming candidate, Joe Biden. I don't really understand what was ever "ironic" about any of this.

There are various embedded tweets at that link, including, "How are you supposed to exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you AND be, unburdened by what has been at the same time? Waiting for her 3rd great revelation that synthesizes these two." That's a reaction to this:

Four straight minutes of “what can be, unburdened by what has been.” It’s incredible. I had no idea she used it this much. pic.twitter.com/TClfC1EyH6

— John Cooper (@thejcoop) June 29, 2024

I can understand her interest in being "unburdened by what has been," but she's stepping into the candidacy without having had to fight off rivals who offered new visions or even needing to present anything of her own.

ADDED: I didn't know people had taken to calling Kamala Harris a "joyful warrior," but this year is a lot like 1968 — President withdraws, VP steps into candidacy, convention in Chicago — and the candidate, Hubert Humphrey was famously called "The Happy Warrior."

ALSO: Gretchen Whitmer has called herself "The Happy Warrior." From a July 9th article in the NYT, "Whitmer Talks Tequila, Pearl Jam and Debates in New Book/The Michigan governor will not talk about running for president. But her new book, 'True Gretch,' is full of details keeping the chatter alive":

"Fat Beach Day... is being held to coincide with Pride month at Jacob Riis Beach in New York, a location deeply ensconced in the city’s activism space..."

I'm reading "New York’s Fat Beach Day gives plus-size people a space to be themselves/Jacob Riis Beach hosts the day of body positivity and fun, in the city at the heart of the fat acceptance movement" (The Guardian).

I didn't know that fat acceptance was part of what Pride month is about or that New York had something it wanted to call its "activism space." 

... New York has, for decades, been at the heart of the fat acceptance movement. In the 1960s, about 500 protesters held a “fat-in” in Central Park, burning diet books and photographs of the supermodel Twiggy, to publicly encourage body positivity and liberation.... 

Jacob Riis Beach is named after Jacob Riis, the "Danish-American social reformer, 'muckraking' journalist, and social documentary photographer" (Wikipedia). There is some criticism of Riis, you know. This doesn't have to do with fatness. The people in Riis's photographs were skinny — poor people living in tenements.

"All he could see were articles instructing him on how to exert his will over recalcitrant patients, how to give them more standard treatment aimed at full weight restoration."

"And sometimes, because that was all he had to offer, his patients would simply stop coming to appointments. Yager would discover, later, that they had gone home and died alone on their sofas. Maybe by starvation, maybe by suicide. Maybe in pain. 'I felt like a failure,' Yager told me. 'They fired me, basically, at the end, knowing that I wasn’t able to help them anymore and wasn’t eager to just see them through the end.'... He came to think that he had been impelled by a kind of professional hubris — a hubris particular to psychiatrists, who never seemed to acknowledge that some patients just could not get better.... In academic journals, he came across a small body of literature, mostly theoretical, on the idea of palliative psychiatry.... 'I developed this phrase of "compassionate witnessing."... That’s what priests did. That’s what physicians did 150 years ago when they didn’t have any tools. They would just sit at the bedside and be with somebody.'"

From "Should Patients Be Allowed to Die From Anorexia? Treatment wasn’t helping her anorexia, so doctors allowed her to stop — no matter the consequences. But is a 'palliative' approach to mental illness really ethical?" (NYT).

"Yager" = Joel Yager, a psychiatrist at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital.

Not the "Pride Month" kind of pride.

 I'm just noticing that the previous 2 posts have the "pride" tag.

"As a successful white woman who served for many years as a judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York..."

"... I feel it is incumbent upon me and other white women in my generation to reaffirm the policies that helped us secure our positions in political institutions, academia, business, medicine and law. If the Supreme Court overturns or neuters this well-settled law, every one of us who proudly bore the title 'the first woman' must work to ensure underrepresented communities maintain access to elite educational institutions.... White women must leverage the privilege and positions they have achieved and stand alongside communities of color."

Writes Shira A. Scheindlin in "If the Supreme Court Abolishes Affirmative Action, Here’s What Women Need to Do" (NYT).

She's asking for oddly little. She speaks of those who were called "the first woman" in some area and then only the ones who "proudly bore the title." I don't think I was ever the first woman anything, and if I were, I wouldn't have regarded it as my "title" and vaunted it in any way. I don't get this "proud bearing" of a "title." I would have wanted to believe I was the best candidate, not someone chosen ahead of anyone else so that the employer could express pride in its accomplishment, finding one of those who'd do well enough in the position. 

And then even within that category of proud bearers of the "first woman" title, Scheindlin is only asking that they ensure "access" for "underrepresented communities." Access? What does that mean other than to have an open system of application and selection? That's exactly what we'll be left with if and when the Court bans affirmative action.

Finally, white women are called on to "stand alongside communities of color." What is that? What good does it do? 

"My parent friends routinely post proud images of their newborns in Ramones onesies or their sixth-graders dressed up like Margot Tenenbaum from 'The Royal Tenenbaums.'"

"I like all the pics genuinely, but I think to myself, I know what you’re doing. And then I think and Godspeed,' because the odds are just as likely that if you try too hard to tip the scales of your kid’s coolness, it will backfire. You’ll be the liberal hippie parents on 'Family Ties' and your kid will resemble Alex P. Keaton. It is utterly normal to want your kid to like what you like, just as it is normal to instill them with your values, sense of community, ethics, or flair for vintage Swatch watches. There are jokes about this in the culture, such as the still-shared Onion headline, 'Cool Dad Raising Daughter on Media That Will Put Her Entirely Out of Touch With Her Generation.'"

Writes Tracey Moore in "Parents, you can’t make your kid cool. Maybe stop trying?" (WaPo).

I think the important point here is not what "cool" is or whether it matters or how to get there. It's not about coolness at all but vanity. Don't use your children for your purposes — to boost your pride, to make you feel right about everything. You can expose them to plenty of things that you think are good, but if they're only adopting your ideas and your tastes, something's missing. And it isn't coolness. It's independence of mind.

"But I say, this is the greatest rally in the history of our country, this is the greatest movement in the history of our country.... And it’s probably the greatest movement in the history of our world...."

"Call it, make America great again, call it America first, call it what you will. I believe it’s the greatest movement probably in the history of the world. It’s just starting. It’s just starting. We are one movement, one people, one family, and one glorious nation under God. So with love of our nation, swelling in our hearts, and it does swell in your hearts. That’s why you’re standing here in the rain, listening to this person. You’re saying, 'Darling, it’s raining. Let’s go home.' But nobody is leaving all the way back hundreds and like football fields behind, football fields. 'Darling, it’s raining,' but they say, 'We’re not going home because we love our country.' But with swelling in our hearts, the spirit of America is stirring ourselves. And I say these words to you, and you’ve heard these words before, in some cases many times before, we will make America powerful again. We will make America wealthy again. We will make America strong again. We will make America, despite what you’re seeing today so sad and so pathetic, we will make America proud again. We will make America safe again. And you know what it is, we will make America great again. Thank you Alabama. God bless you all."

Donald Trump dished out hearty helpings of intense hyperbole and corny warmth at his August 21st rally in Alabama. The transcript is now out: here. 

The hearts are swelling —  swelling! — and the rhetoric is wholly swollen: It's the greatest movement the history of our world — probably. 

Despite what you’re seeing today so sad and so pathetic, we will make America proud again... and don't people want to feel proud? How easy is the other side making it for Trump when they're pushing shame — imposing shame. It's obvious that Trump is running for President, running hard, though he can't say it yet for legal reasons having to do with campaign finance law. 

I'd say it will be hard for any Democrat to run against his hugeness and his logic-transcending emotional power, and yet we just saw Joe Biden run against him, run against him and win, using a minimalist, barely-there approach. 

"The specifically English hatred of patriotism has long been kept alive by its intellectual classes, the people who, as George Orwell wrote, 'would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during God Save the King than of stealing from a poor box.'"

"Because England was not the creation of intellectuals, patriotism has never been an intellectual pastime. The ecstasies of 19th-century Romantic nationalism which gave birth to Germany and Italy were forged by poets, musicians and the re-assemblers of lost national epics and folk traditions. By this time England had been muddling along for a millennium. Unlike nations ushered into being by Enlightenment intellectuals which enshrined philosophical abstractions as national principles ('liberty, equality and fraternity' for Republican France, 'freedom' for the United States), British patriotism comes from below. Accordingly it is usually defined in hilariously prosaic terms: queueing, warm beer, roast beef, rain. These are all things disliked by intellectuals.... Our long tradition of national self-hatred has in some ways stress-tested the national consciousness. Self-hatred doesn’t portend a 'chasm.' It is something we are long-sufferingly accustomed to. Things are more dangerous in brittler, prouder America." 

From "It’s deeply British to question our patriotism/A tradition of tolerating dissent is a sign of national strength rather than something to fret over" by James Marriott (London Times).

We're brittler than Brits, he says. And prouder. He sounds proud, you might say, but not proud of his country, and that's his point about pride.

I do think our intellectuals look down on patriotism too, though less amusingly. There's a lot of expression of patriotism in America because most of us don't take our cues from intellectuals. I'm sure at least half of my readers are, right now, rankling at my acceptance of Marriott's word "intellectuals" to refer to America's present-day elite.

The top-rated comment at the London Times quotes James Boswell’s "Life of Johnson" (entry dated April 7, 1775):

Patriotism having become one of our topicks, Johnson suddenly uttered, in a strong determined tone, an apothegm, at which many will start: “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” But let it be considered, that he did not mean a real and generous love of our country, but that pretended patriotism which so many, in all ages and countries, have made a cloak for self-interest.

"You've run out of free articles. Try your first month of Slate Plus for just $1..."

Uh, no. I will not do that. Ironically, the article I would have kept reading is "How Berries Became the Juiciest Battle of Kid-Food Instagram/Fun to eat, but paying for them … not so much." 

This is about parents complaining — or faux-complaining (with cute pictures) — about all the berries their children will eat. Like a whole $4 box in one sitting. I don't know where this story goes, but I'd tell these Instagram ladies to stop giving a little kid the whole box. And stop with the humblebragging. 

I'm very far removed from having little kids to take care of, and I do remember the pride you can take in the way your child eats, but I did not have the temptation of social media as a place to display this screwy pride. So I don't care what Slate Plus has to say. I say: Control your child with portion control — e.g., 2 strawberries, 10 blueberries. And: Control yourself by never exposing your little kids — and your pride — to the creepy eyes of the internet.

***

There is no comments section anymore, but you can email me here. Unless you say otherwise, I will presume you'd enjoy an update to this post with a quote from your email.

"Remember in the Lion King when Scar cheated to win the title as king? And the pride land was overrun with the hyenas? And all of the lions lost everything they had built and maintained? Just asking. No reason."

Tweeted Donald Trump Jr., quoted in "Ivanka praises her own work in farewell message as bitter Don Jr compares Biden to The Lion King’s Uncle Scar/Members of the Trump family signed off after four tumultuous years in the White House" (The Independent).

Don't compare human beings to animals. Don't say "pride land was overrun with the hyenas"! Your father was called a racist for his statements and policies on immigration, and "pride" resonates with white pride and Proud Boys. Why would you do that? Sheer stupidity?

By the way, "The Lion King" is racist on its own. I've said that all along (having taken children to the original Disney cartoon and then to the Broadway show), but here's a 2019 article in Fast Company, "The original ‘Lion King’ had a racist hyena problem": 

Flipping the pride.

The complete takeover of the #ProudBoys hashtag is the greatest thing on Twitter right now. https://t.co/SqxiaFTZku

— Kim Wexler's Ponytail (@MadisonKittay) October 4, 2020

"... Ivanka. Always Ivanka. She stood tall on her stilettos. She rose, golden-haired, above the group."

"She was dressed in black cropped pants and blazer. She was toting a very large white handbag and later was wearing a matching face mask with tiny metallic stars.... and White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany... was in a closefitting double-breasted blazer with gold metallic buttons and skinny trousers. She was perched atop a pair of stiletto pumps — a style of footwear that this White House, all on its own, may be keeping in circulation."

From Robin Givhan's fashion-and-politics account of Trump's Bible-laden procession to St. John's Episcopal Church.

It wasn't a terribly far walk...



... but I was struck that the women had to — or chose to — wear stilettos. It made me think of those traditions of crawling to church — deliberately taking on pain and suffering as you make your way to the sacred destination. There are similarities and differences...



The look is not meant to say I am suffering. The idea is to walk fluidly alongside the men as if it's completely natural and perfectly comfortable. There's no visible expression of humility or sacrifice. If anything, the expression is of pride in the prettiness, the extra height, and the complete hiding of any difficulty.

So, it's a bit like a hair shirt, which is a hidden item of clothing that inflicts suffering and is worn as penitence. And yet the stilettos are not worn in secret. They are quite conspicuous and that is the point. And the suffering is merely endured, not undertaken for a higher purpose.

Have stilettos gone out of fashion? Robin Givhan — whose work requires her to keep up with fashion — calls them a "style of footwear that this White House, all on its own, may be keeping in circulation." That has to mean they are passé. Maybe it's like the way right-wing women in the 1960s continued to wear teased, sprayed bouffant hairdos long after other women had moved on to what was called "the natural look."

"We all know that Trump is a bully. But I say, I’m a New Yorker, and I know how to deal with bullies. I did it all the time. I’m not afraid of Trump and he knows it."

Said Mike Bloomberg, quoted in "Wounded but defiant, Bloomberg promises to keep fighting."

I don't think any of the Democratic candidates are afraid of Trump. They all say he's a bully and offer to stand up to him. The question isn't whether they're afraid, but whether they are capable of fighting to a win. Bloomberg's real answer on that question is that he's got all that money. And that he's more capable than the other finalists not because he's a fierce debater, but because he's moderate and normal.

By the way, I'd like to look at the new Bloomberg ads. Why can't I find a YouTube page that just gives me all his ads? Is it that the campaign wants to force me to go through a page where I give them my information (which I don't want to do), or is that they have targeted ads and they don't want me to see the ads that are targeting other people?

ADDED: About that "I’m a New Yorker" business. Sanders is also a New Yorker. I'm interested in the way United Statesians find important meaning in their particular state affiliation. Amy Klobuchar presents her Minnesotanosity as a compelling qualification. Buttigieg has some belligerent pride in Indiana. Biden finds meaning in Pennsylvania and Delaware. Warren goes all Oklahoma on us. They all act as though their particular state gives them special powers.

I like this about America, but it is a form of prejudice. It's apparently an acceptable prejudice, this notion that my state is superior to the other states, that I'm better than other people because I come from this state. I've lived in New York and experienced the New Yorker's attitude of superiority. I happen to come from Delaware, and I've learned that people don't think much of the Delaware person (unless it's a corporation), but I grew up thinking we were very special because Delaware is The First State. Like: We're #1.

But I learned long ago that no one outside of Delaware cares at all about that. New Yorkers, on the other hand, never let go of the belief that in their own superiority. You see that in Bloomberg. Who's nearly 80. And who's trying to convince the people in all those other states that he's their guy. He expects them to be awed by his superiority. But he was crushed at the debate. Where's the superiority?

Maybe he's too sophisticated to take the bait. These people can't make me mad. If you can find video that shows Bloomberg's face when Elizabeth Warren says "horse-faced lesbians" — most video shows only her at that moment — you'll see he does not look the slightest bit alarmed or intimidated. There's a slight smirk, like he still thinks his joke is funny or thinks Warren is merely amusing in bringing it up.

"One day in early June, Kamala Harris, the junior senator from California, tapped the glass of the bakery case at a Blue Bottle coffee shop on a non-iconic block in Beverly Hills."

"No one seemed to know who she was—another polished professional woman, grabbing an afternoon coffee—which was fine by her. She had chosen the spot, presumably for the anonymity. A few minutes later, her body woman delivered her a cookie: caramel chocolate chip, covered in a light snowfall of flaky salt. As Harris broke off small pieces and popped them in her mouth, we talked about her early life, rummaging through the layers for identifying details. The child of immigrant academics who divorced when she was young—her mother, a cancer researcher, came from India, and her father, an economist, from Jamaica—Harris grew up between Oakland and the Berkeley flats, but also spent time in college towns in the Midwest and a few years in Montreal, where her mother was teaching. 'A very vivid memory of my childhood was the Mayflower truck,' she told me. 'We moved a lot.' She speaks some French. She loves to cook and enjoys dancing, puns. She tells her own story uneasily. 'It’s like extracting stuff from me,' she apologized. 'I’m not good at talking about myself.'"

The inauspicious beginning of "Kamala Harris Makes Her Case/The Presidential candidate has been criticized as a defender of the status quo/Can she prove that she’s a force for change?" by Dana Goodyear (The New Yorker).

Here's my screen shot of one of the 2 Blue Bottle coffee shops in Beverly Hills (from Google Maps):



Where do you go when you want to look like just another polished professional and you want to pop a light snowfall of flaky salt and talk about yourself without talking about yourself?

Did I read the rest of the article? Okay, I'll force myself to skim, but I take that opening to mean that Goodyear got nothing out of her. Let's see...

Harris, who is fifty-four, has a billboard smile, and brown eyes that soften easily but just as readily turn skeptical.

6 years ago today: "Meade rescued a lost dog and managed to coax him into the house. (It's 20° out.)"

"He's got a collar, but we haven't won his trust to the point where we can read it."

No, it wasn't Zeus. It was Soleil.

UPDATE: We were able to read the tag, called the owner, and now Soleil is gone. The sun has set on our bedogged life here in Madison, and so we must go on, dogless.

Ha. Robert said:

"...and so we must go on, dogless."

An intentionally false statement, Professor.

You are missing out on one of the best parts of life.

I responded:

I must go on. I can't go on. I'll go on.

Waiting for Dogot.

And:

Our life is too good for the hubristic overreaching that would be involved in an effort to change it "for the better."

Speaking of hubris... and since I've been showing you the Pieter Bruegel the Elder depictions of sin... here's pride:


(Click to enlarge and see all the details.)

"There is a natural order of things... a woman's arm is constructed at a certain angle so that she can adequately cradle a baby."

"This is the way we're created. There are just certain things that nature intended.... I know that might not be a popular view around here, but there is a created order that we must all follow."

Said the Virginia state legislator Robert G. Marshall, back in 2006. He called himself Virginia's "chief homophobe."

And — perhaps because the natural order of things is that pride goeth before a fall and the first shall be last — he lost his bid for reelection to Danica Roem, a transgender woman.

“Discrimination is a disqualifier,” a jubilant Roem said Tuesday night as her margin of victory became clear. “This is about the people of the 13th District disregarding fear tactics, disregarding phobias . . . where we celebrate you because of who you are, not despite it.”

A new first for Alan Dershowitz.

At Twitter:



The underlying dispute if you follow the tweets back to something concrete is about whether the President can pardon himself. Dershowitz has said nobody knows, and Tribe called that "A misguided & impoverished take on what it means to answer a constitutional Q on which text, history, and SCOTUS precedent aren't definitive."

ADDED: This isn't a real dispute. Dershowitz is just choosing to take a more distanced view, and Tribe is acting more like a lawyer who's trying to win. The only interesting question to me here is psychological. Why does Dershowitz want to be distanced here? Is it that he thinks pegging the answer at "unknown" is helpful in getting through this difficult political problem? And why does Tribe think claiming to know the answer is a good idea? To begin to try to answer answer that last question, I had to look up which way Tribe knows the answer. It turns out he knows that the President can't pardon himself. That's funny to me, because I think I know that he can.