I believe it's the same bird observed at 5:23 on Monday morning, here. In the comments there, Quaestor and rehajm said owl. "Owl," "Yes, totally owl."
Jaq said: "I think that we are going to have to use Bayesian logic to figure out the bird, and before I zoomed in my first thought was buzzard, but after zooming in, I am betting my case of whiskey on owl," and then "Nah, I was thinking about it and I think that time of day, milieu, and the general silhouette has me changing my bet to a night heron flying home after working the night shift fishing," and then, "the tail is not right for a night heron."
Quaestor returned to say: "Night heron? Not enough beak or neck showing Furthermore, a night heron's legs trail behind the deck feathers in flight. I'm sticking with an owl, probably a great horned owl. They aren't usually associated with lake environments, but they are opportunistic hunters. This one could have spent the night hunting ducklings."
Rusty concurred: "Yeah. Goin' with owl. Good catch."
"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."
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:
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...
"Biden gave a preview of what’s to come in a conference call with reporters Friday, where he listed a litany of false and misleading statements from Trump.... 'President Trump stop saying false things, will ya?' Biden said. 'People are worried they are really frightened, when these things don't come through. He just exacerbates their concern. Stop saying false things you think make you sound like a hero and start putting the full weight of the federal government behind finding fast, safe and effective treatments.'... [H]e said, his house is being outfitted with equipment that would enable him to livestream events, have interactive tele-press conferences and broadcast interviews with network television. 'I would like to get in the position and we're trying to work out so that the headquarters ... to be able to accommodate my directly answering questions in front of a press that's assigned to me,' he said. 'We've hired a professional team to do that now. And excuse the expression that's a little above my pay grade to know how to do that.'"
It is a real challenge for Biden and his people to figure out how to campaign from a distance. Sitting on the sidelines and taking potshots at the man who is working nonstop to manage the crisis — this might not feel right to some of us. Biden has to stay in the game somehow, but maybe less is more. Don't make the President's job any more difficult than it is. And don't turn on the cameras just to agitate us with non-insights like "People are worried... they are really frightened." Every guy in America knows how to watch TV and then turn on the videocam and live-stream about how the President bothers him.
Or... I guess Biden wouldn't know how to make such a video. He has "a professional team" to push the little buttons for him, and he's not embarrassed to call the work "above my pay grade."
If you're trying to remember when Obama used that expression, it was in answer to the question when does the unborn have human rights: "… whether you’re looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity … is above my pay grade." I believe Obama was trying to say he is not God, so he cannot be the one to say where that subtle line is.
In the case of Biden, he was just trying to say, he doesn't do electronic gadgets. He didn't really mean that the work he can't do is above him. More like below him. Or part of a world that he hasn't engaged with and never will.
IN THE COMMENT: rehajm said:
So he's going to pretend he has a job where he has press conferences and updates people on the functioning of government even though he doesn't work for the government. Then he's going to do mystery science theater on Trump press conferences and also 'fact check' Trump and government agencies.
How faux Presidential. That's not helping...
Chris N said:
When I was young it was all sidewalks and bikes and maybe a few hot rods out there. Guys n gals at Community pools. You wanted mashed potatoes you got mashed potatoes but some people need help with the butter.
Folks, this isn’t that hard. We’re a global village now with global challenges and 18 gigs of RAM!
"The endorsement was real. 'I really do believe in Joe,' Harris told me. But coming days after the California primary, the timing of Harris’s announcement struck me as curious. ... I asked her about it. 'I had two women colleagues in the race, and I did not feel right putting my thumb on the scale [that] in any way would harm their candidacy,' Harris said, referring to Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Both ended their campaigns last week. 'So, when Elizabeth announced that she was getting out of the race, I let Joe know that I would endorse him.... Elizabeth and I have a very special relationship'...."
IN THE COMMENTS: rehajm said: "Does she know Tulsi Gabbard is still in the race? Not a friend?"
To be fair, we are all forgetting about Tulsi. And Tulsi isn't a Senator. I think Kamala meant women of my rank when she said "I had two women colleagues in the race." Senators are not "colleagues" of the folk in the lower house. The OED gives the etymology:
< French collègue, < Latin collēga , one chosen along with another, a partner in office, etc.; < col- together + legĕre to choose, etc.
If Trump did a rally and 3,000 people showed up it would be called abysmally small, wouldn't it? And it would be abysmally small for Trump.
Bernie's crowd is "massive" only in relation to the crowds of other Democratic candidates — which are apparently so small that they're "dwarf[ed]" by 3,000. (If you read far enough into the article, you'll see the shockingly piddling numbers. For their Saturday events, Biden, Warren, and Buttigieg had crowd sizes "from 158 to more than 700.")
How big are Trump's crowds? Ten times Bernie's "massive" number? And Trump just goes on as a solo act. Bernie had some celebrities — including Michael Moore and Cornel West — and very significant musical entertainment: Vampire Weekend.
“I keep forgetting Bernie is going to be here,” said Kamryn Ryan, a student at Drake University in Des Moines, and part of a trio at the very front of the line. “I want to support Ezra (Koenig, lead singer of Vampire Weekend) supporting Bernie.”
Two other students, Tanner Shade and Max Theurer, didn’t make it to the very front of the line, but they started loitering around the U.S. Cellular Center at 10:30 a.m. They’re “big Bernie fans” from Pennsylvania, have donated money to Sanders’ campaign and are involved with Pennsylvania State University’s “Students for Bernie” group. But they're bigger fans of Vampire Weekend....
There were also high school students, too young to vote, and "only here for Vampire Weekend anyway."
AdyBarkan's bio reads: "Fighting for social justice + America's democracy. Living with @rachael_scar, Carl, and Willow, in Santa Barbara. Dying of ALS. Author of 'Eyes to the Wind.'"
This is a parent who is no Trump fan, but he's so proud of "Art of the Deal" talent in his own toddler.
And it makes me wonder, what qualities do you love to see developing in your young child that you loathe when you encounter them fully developed in adults?
IN THE COMMENTS: rehajm detects "Sarcasm." And Fernandistein says:
Um (don't you hate it when people write that?), I think he's actually trying to say that Trump acts like a 3-year old because they share some characteristics; they both walk and eat, etc. It's a very clever idea, especially when you consider that it was co-opted by this progressive activist.
I admit I didn't read it as an intentional slap at Trump, but I do think rehajm and Fernandistein are right. I attribute my insensitivity to sarcasm to my recent exposure to TikTok videos featuring toddlers arguing in the manner of an asshole adult. These videos are received as delightful and celebrated on TikTok, and I'm always thinking: You are really making a horrible mistake here.
Note that Ady Barkan does not mention Trump. He's trusting his readers to make the connection. My mistake was to make the connection without giving him credit for expecting me to do that. So let me make up for that by linking to his book, "Eyes to the Wind," about which Booklist wrote, "The book’s primary question is existential: how to live when you are dying? Barkan’s answer is to share, open up, act, and capital-R Resist, and his memoir, clearly and candidly written, establishes a legacy."
"And it feels like this question, which we keep referring to, of authenticity: Trump achieves that on an order of magnitude beyond what anyone else is currently doing on the other side," says Michael Barbaro in today's "The Daily Podcast" at the NYT.
The guest on the podcast is Astead W. Herndon, one of the authors of the article. He responds to Barbaro's prompt:
"We know that each of the candidates is trying to introduce themselves to the public and to stand out from what is a crowded Democratic field and music is one of the ways they try to tell that story. When I think about the scene at Trump rallies, before the speakers begin, when the crowd is doing the 'YMCA,' the Wave, and the dancing, I think that there's actual political value in that energy. And whoever wins on the Democratic side will have to motivate their base in a way that matches or exceeds that level of energy. And it has to be done in a way that seems authentic to who that person is and that is not going to be an easy task."
They have to do it and they will not be able to do it.
Listen to the whole podcast. It's fascinating to hear Barbaro and Herndon puzzle over the strange mix that is Trump's playlist. Why is "Memory" from "Cats" there?! Does Trump listen to "Cats"?! What's with all the Queen? Maybe it's not that Trump listens to Queen, but that the entire mix of the music embodies something of America that the crowd feels as it dances and sings for hours before the speakers even begin. Maybe it's not the lyrics at all. Barbaro and Herndon don't stop to observe that "Cats" and Queen are totally British, not American at all. They also don't say mention the "surprisingly gay swagger" in Trump's music mix — which was the aspect of the "What Do Rally Playlists Say" article that I chose to blog about.
What's really clear — as you can see in my little transcription and will feel much more if you listen to the podcast — is that Trump's use of music is tremendously effective. It's an "order of magnitude beyond" what the Democratic candidates are doing. The Democratic candidates are trying to say who they are and tell their own story. Joe Biden is the average Joe. Kamala Harris is black. Kirsten Gillibrand is a feminist. They're at the level of introduction and standing out from the others. Obviously, Trump doesn't need to do that. We've known who he is for decades. But it's not just that. Trump isn't saying this is my music. Trump has a big crowd of people who have assembled and who are making a "whole scene" out of themselves that goes on and on long before he steps onto the stage. None of the Democrats are doing anything like that.
ADDED: It's funny — Trump haters are always saying that Trump makes everything all about him. But Barbaro and Herndon are perceiving that Trump rallies are about the people... the people who love Trump. And maybe they love Trump because he creates a space in which they can love themselves. That's why the slogan is "Make America Great Again" (or "Keep America Great").
(Meanwhile, the Democratic Party idea seems to be "America = racism.")
IN THE COMMENTS: rehajm said, "Trump does this to people":
Are the people doing it to themselves? Green Day didn't make the people sing like that in Hyde Park.
Rehajm adds, "The clown car of Democrats are Joni Mitchell at Atlantic City scolding the audience for not paying attention." Here's my recent post about Atlantic City and Joni. You may remember that. You probably don't remember that back in 2004, when John Kerry lost me, the thing that bothered me the most was when he snapped at a guy and said "You're not listening," and then in 2008, Barack Obama said almost the exact same thing — "The people who say [I am shifting to the center] apparently haven’t been listening to me."
NYPD says video shows male with a shopping cart placing pressure cooker on upper and lower levels at Fulton Street subway station. Watch press conference live: https://t.co/p0wrspdcs9pic.twitter.com/HI81uNG25L
"Authorities are looking to question a tall, thin white man seen pushing a shopping cart near the Fulton Street subway station, where two rice cookers were found Friday morning. A third rice cooker was found next to a trash can in Chelsea.... All three devices were stainless steel, silver commerical [sic] grade rice cookers with black handles; all three were empty."
IN THE COMMENTS: rehajm:
That John Mackey...
mccullough:
Wants to be able to make steel cut oats
Ha ha. I thought about that too. (For context, see this post from 7:08 AM about Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, who "typically packs a rice cooker with him (to make his morning steel-cut oats)."
MikeR said:
Performance art. Old tradition at subway stations.
Clinton Boisvert, a newly enrolled student at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, was arrested this week and charged with reckless endangerment after dreaming up one of the more provocative art projects of the post-September 11 era: placing 38 black boxes, bearing the word "fear" in white lettering, around the Union Square station, a crucial hub where six lines intersect. The bomb squad was called in and the station was shut for five hours last Thursday, causing a ripple effect of chaos on the network, as panicked commuters and transit workers feared a terrorist attack.
But in a city still especially alert to people behaving suspiciously in potential target zones, witnesses soon came forward to report seeing two "artsy types" distributing the boxes, a police source was quoted as saying. Police canvassed art schools, and Mr Boisvert turned himself in.... The NYPD said nobody had immediately reported the boxes when Mr Boisvert was seen distributing them, and that the art student had planned to bring friends to witness the installation the following day. If convicted, Mr Boisvert could receive up to a year in jail - and a useful boost to his profile as an up-and-coming conceptual artist.
I can't find anything on the later career of Clinton Boisvert.
It's definitely a part of the conversation, but let's keep in mind that the NYT, and frankly even (to a lesser magnitude) 538, have a lot of agenda-setting power for what's part of the conversation. So Twitter isn't an exogenous measure of what normal people care about. https://t.co/A8oHUPYJPo
You can peruse the current tweets about Gillibrand and Franken here. Two examples:
"Holding Gillibrand accountable for her statements and actions IS NOT the same as 'blaming her for Franken’s problems.' Using the #metoo movement to grab some spotlight, her instinct to govern through political theater are legitimate points of debate and criticism" (link).
"Lukewarm on Gillibrand atm, but credit must be given for alienating Clintonworld by saying Bill should've resigned, and standing her ground on Al Franken" (link).
Anyway, I'm very interested in Silver's out-and-proud encouragement of mainstream-media "agenda-setting" and his resistance to the notion that Twitter is "an exogenous measure of what normal people care about." I love that phrase! It's so weird and revelatory of anxiety.
Exogenous — it makes you think! The oldest usage of "exogenous" is in botany. It means "Growing by additions on the outside" (OED). Can that be the metaphor Silver wants? In pathology and psychiatry, it means "having a cause outside the body." What is the relevant body that Twitter could be outside of and measuring? In geology, it means "Formed or occurring outside some structure or mass of rock."
So... Twitter is on the outside... of what?... doing what? I think "exogenous" should at least have to do with something growing or forming on the outside of something, but Silver is talking about Twitter measuring, so it can't be the right word, and I'm still questioning what Twitter would be exogenous to.
The best I can do to save Silver from the conclusion that he's just tossing out a fancy word without thinking it through is that some people imagine that the normal public mind expresses itself through Twitter, and since "Twitter isn't an exogenous measure of what normal people care about," those people are wrong.
IN THE COMMENTS: rehajm said:
Nate is quantitative and is using exogenous in the quantitative, statistical sense...
A factor in a causal model or causal system whose value is independent from the states of other variables in the system; a factor whose value is determined by factors or variables outside the causal system under study.
They are discussing the meaning of why Franken tweets are trending in NY, and his point is twitter trending is not an independent variable from which we can draw conclusions since much of what trends is a result of what NYT and 538 and others choose to promote.
He didn't say "exogenous variable" or "exogenous factor." He said "exogenous measure." A factor is causal. A measure isn't a cause. I get that it's a jargon word for a statistician, but I still don't understand how it works in his statement.
“We heard about the Madison Reunion being organized from people telling us, ‘I don’t see anything I’m interested in here, this isn’t the radical Madison I know.’ It’s organized as an academic conference,” says Sarah White, a member of the local Gray Panthers and an organizer of the Radical Perspectives teach-in....
[There will be] a dozen workshops planned for Saturday, June 16, ranging from “Women Unmasking Power & Building Movements” to “The New Left’s Radical Legacy For Today.” There’s also a kickoff event the night before, including Max Elbaum reading from his book Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao and Che.
“I’d say there’s a Marxist throughline to what we’re doing that you haven’t heard in a few decades,” White says....
The approach at the teach-in will be hands-on, with an emphasis on connecting older radicals with young people who are active today. “It’s about passing the torch,” White says. “We’re old, we can’t march in the streets anymore, we have to pass the torch to other people. People are really eager to engage in dialogue with young activists.”
That’s why there are several panels on high school activism....
IN THE COMMENTS: Referring to the topic — from an earlier post — of ambiguous headlines ("crash blossoms"), rehajm writes:
Women Unmasking Power & Building Movements
There’s your crash blossom.
And I said:
Good observation.
And now I'm picturing a building that shits.
And I realize that I can picture a building that shits, because I've seen a lot of great anthropomorphized buildings drawn by one of my favorite artists Mark Beyer. Example:
I don't know if I'd be choosing this topic for Monday morning if I hadn't essentially promised to write it. Why didn't I write it last night? I fell asleep. I fell asleep, and then I woke up at 2 a.m. and watched the rest of it, including the appearance of Kirk Douglas, who is 101 years old. How did he stay up? Yes, it's Pacific Time, 2 hours earlier, but still... he's 101!
Anyway, quick impressions:
1. Did all the women wear black? The President of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (which gives out the awards) appeared on stage in a voluminous, flaming red gown, supposedly because in "her Indian culture, it’s customary to wear a festive color during a celebration." Does that amount to a disagreement with the women in black? Were they resisting the usual festivity of the occasion? Do we see some implicit ethnic critique, that the white women of Hollywood were not sensitive to the meaning of color in other cultures? I look up the meaning of wearing black in India:
Black in India has connotations with lack of desirability, evil, negativity, and inertia. It represents anger and darkness and is associated with the absence of energy, barrenness, and death. Black is used as a representation of evil and is often used to ward off evil.
2. What impression did it make, to see all that black? On the red carpet, the black made the crowd look much less glamorous. There was much less male/female differentiation, much less of a sense that the crowd was popping with especially beautiful people. In the long shots, it looked like a crowd at a boring cocktail party of ordinary-looking people. Harvey Weinstein wasn't there, but half the people in the crowd seemed not much better looking than him. There's a scruffiness to the men's "head styling," and with everyone dressed alike, the men seemed really nondescript. Inside the theater, in the long shots, the crowd looked more like a sea of white faces than usual. Even though great efforts were made to get close-ups of the black stars at the tables, the long view looked overwhelmingly white. Just the predictable effect of contrast. You'd think movie people would have better sensitivity to how component parts appear in long shots. This all-black design concept highlighted white people.
3. How did the men dress? Many of them wore not only black suits but black shirts and black ties. It looked sharp, albeit insectoid.
4. How did the men behave? I jumped over most of the men's speeches, but I think they were following a strategy of keeping it low key and throwing attention over to women whenever possible. I'd have to see a transcript to know if any of them did that old-fashioned thanking of his wife for putting up with him. I see in the news this morning that Ewan McGregor thanked his estranged wife: "I want to take a moment to thank Ev, who always stood beside me for 22 years and my four children, I love you." And then — because we need more love in this world — he also thanked his girlfriend.
5. I didn't hear any Trump-bashing. Aziz Ansari said: "I genuinely didn't think I would win because all the websites said I was going to lose." And: "I'm glad we won this one because it would have really sucked to lose two of these in a row." Wasn't that a shot at Hillary?
6. Oprah won the Cecil B. DeMille Award and gave a speech that has people saying she should run for President? Don't Trump haters realize that pushing Oprah as a presidential candidate undercuts one of the main arguments about Trump — that he didn't work his way up within politics but had the arrogance to think he could jump in and start at the top? Anyway, here's the transcript of Oprah's remarks. See if you think there's anything in there that's special. She had a tough task balancing her big moment with the need to recognize other people and to make her recognition of others about women in general (rather than black women or black people). It's a pretty gauzy text, but she sold it well:
In my career, what I’ve always tried my best to do, whether on television or through film, is to say something about how men and women really behave. To say how we experience shame, how we love and how we rage, how we fail, how we retreat, persevere, and how we overcome. And I’ve interviewed and portrayed people who’ve withstood some of the ugliest things life can throw at you, but the one quality all of them seem to share is an ability to maintain hope for a brighter morning, even during our darkest nights. So I want all the girls watching here and now to know that a new day is on the horizon! And when that new day finally dawns, it will be because of a lot of magnificent women, many of whom are right here in this room tonight, and some pretty phenomenal men, fighting hard to make sure that they become the leaders who take us to the time when nobody ever has to say “me too” again.
7. Here's the video of the Oprah speech. Notice the NBC logo — NBC, which played an ignominious role in this past year's sexual harassment journalism:
8. I got the video from the fashion writers Tom and Lorenzo, who say: "Yes, we could talk about how amazing she looks; how her gown is KILLA and the fit is insane; how her hair looks amazing and her makeup is beat to the gods. It doesn’t matter. While these two queens love a diva who turns it out, we love even more when a diva comes into her full power and uses that power to affect others. Nothing but respect for our president."
9. In the comments to this post, rehajm says:
I think she makes a big mistake about the media. They aren't entitled to their own truth. Their own truth is weasel words for lies. She sure got all those powerful women in the room riled up. I wonder if they now feel powerful enough to utilize the justice system, the one with a presumption of innocence, or if they expect to keep using the new one that's ripe for abuse.
Here's the relevant text from the transcript:
I’d like to thank the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, because we all know the press is under siege these days. But we also know that it is the insatiable dedication to uncovering the absolute truth that keeps us from turning a blind eye to corruption and to injustice... to tyrants and victims and secrets and lies.
I was going to say that's a blatant display of a lack of dedication to the absolute truth — puffery and stroking. It was spoken word, so how it feels at the time is most important, but you can see in the text that she said "the insatiable dedication to uncovering the absolute truth," not "its insatiable dedication to uncovering the absolute truth." She never credited the press with having that insatiable dedication. She only held up dedication to truth as an abstract value.
I want to say that I value the press more than ever before as we try to navigate these complicated times, which brings me to this: What I know for sure is that speaking your truth is the most powerful tool we all have.
This is the part that bothered rehajm. Interesting. Above, I was stressing the difference between putting "the" or "its" in front of truth, and now the issue is putting "your" in front of "truth."
How can there be "your truth" and also "absolute truth"? One way to reconcile the 2 ideas is to say that "your" refers not to the press, but to the women who tell their stories and who are, as individual human beings, entitled to their subjective point of view. The press is separate, and it must "navigate these complicated times."
The press is under siege — a land-based military metaphor — and out on the Ocean of Complication. It should be dedicated to the absolute truth, and part of the truth is the way women experience their own lives and tell their stories. You can give an absolutely true report of the story that Ms. X told, even if Ms. X is only telling her own story, and that story is not the "absolute truth," but an element of a proper news report that will also contain other elements.
The next lines in Oprah's speech suggest that my interpretation of "your truth" is pretty good:
And I’m especially proud and inspired by all the women who have felt strong enough and empowered enough to speak up and share their personal stories. Each of us in this room are celebrated because of the stories that we tell, and this year, we became the story.
Ah! How she slipped from TRUTH!!! to stories...
10. "And here are the all-male nominees," said Natalie Portman, before reading the names of the nominees for best director. (Guillermo del Toro won for "The Shape of Water.") That line resonated when, shortly afterward, the award for Best Musical/Comedy Film went to "Lady Bird,"which was directed by a woman, Greta Gerwig.
12. That reminds me. "The Post" got nothing, which means that Meryl Streep did not win for Actress in a Drama, so who won? Frances McDormand! She wore the best dress. It was the most anti-fashion dress I've ever seen. Not just black, but high neckline, long sleeves, long full skirt, and cut way large. It was the absence of a dress, even more so than nakedness. [ADDED: Tom and Lorenzo on McDormand's dress: "We’re not going to rip apart her nun’s habit. It’s fine. It’s who she is.... Granted, we think she could’ve worn a comfy pantsuit and come off a little more chic in the process, but whatevs."]
13. And I can't believe they didn't give Best Actor in a Drama to the guy in "Get Out." Who'd they give it too? A white man, Gary Oldman, who played the white man, Winston Churchill. Oh, no. Wait. "Get Out" got classified as a comedy. The actor, Daniel Kaluuya lost to James Franco. And I see "Get Out fans 'outraged' by Golden Globes snub: 'We're in the sunken place.'" You know what that means, the "sunken place"? (SPOILER: It means your body has been taken over by a white person, and you are just going along for the ride, able to see where your body is going, but only at a distance, and unable to speak or control your own motions, which aren't really yours anymore, but that monstrous white person's.)
14. Didn't Gary Oldman get on some political shit list a few years ago? Oh, yes, here: "Gary Oldman can't stop apologizing for that Playboy interview he did where he kept denouncing political correctness." Those were simpler times. Oldman had said: "I just think political correctness is crap. That’s what I think about it. I think it’s like, take a fucking joke. Get over it.... We all hide and try to be so politically correct. That’s what gets me. It’s just the sheer hypocrisy of everyone, that we all stand on this thing going, 'Isn’t that shocking?'"
At WaPo, Larry Downes, co-author of "Big Bang Disruption," takes aim at people who "who simply refuse to migrate to disruptive innovations even after they’ve become both better and cheaper, and even after almost everyone else has made the shift."
[T]he real holdup is that non-adopters — mostly older, rural and less-educated — just aren’t interested in Internet access, at any price.... [T]he resisters are wrong....
[N]on-adopters ultimately cost more to serve. Printing information is increasingly a waste of scarce resources as digital alternatives continue to get better and cheaper. And all of us pay for the waste...
To overcome the inertia of legacy customers, it may be appropriate for governments to step in....
[S]ome technology dinosaurs need help being euthanized. Here, regulators can serve as a catalyst, providing the final nudge for legacy customers. Once it was clear that smart LEDs would become better and cheaper than inefficient incandescent lightbulbs, for example, governments around the world began passing laws banning production of the older technology.
And while things got a little messy at the end, in 2009 Congress succeeded in turning off analog TV, switching the few remaining holdouts over to digital. To ensure no one had to go without “Let’s Make a Deal,” lower-income families were given converter boxes for older tube TVs.
What about hipsters who insist on old-fashioned turntables and vinyl record albums? How come they're not in the article? I don't have to answer the question. To ask it is to have the answer jump off the page: older, rural, less-educated, Let’s Make a Deal....
IN THE COMMENTS: rehajm said (efficiently): "Natural efficiency."
Tim Maguire said: "The smart people we've heard of aren't lazy." And by that, I assume he means that the smart and lazy people are being efficient by not drawing attention to themselves. The workplace is often administered by people who want to see that you're hard at work. The stupidest waste of time is looking busy, but it would be stupid to attract the supervision of somebody who will impose the requirement of looking busy when you have worked out ways of getting things done efficiently and want to benefit from your cleverness, not cede all the benefits to your overseer.
I have been in situations where a colleague will go on about how stressed out and terribly busy she is and assert that so are we all. The dead silence in a roomful of professors is ludicrous. You know damned well that many — I hope most — have figured out ways to work very efficiently and enjoy the freedom and flexibility of the job. But no one with an eye on self-protection will stand up and admit to not being a workaholic. And so stressed-out, busy-busyness is the atmosphere that prevails because the ones who talk are the ones who haven't found the lazy-smart path (or they have and want to deny its legitimacy for some sadistic reason).
JOHNSON: That is, sir, because others being busy, we want company; but if we were idle, there would be no growing weary; we should all entertain one another.
Just now, when everyone is bound, under pain of a decree in absence convicting them of lèse-respectability, to enter on some lucrative profession, and labour therein with something not far short of enthusiasm, a cry from the opposite party who are content when they have enough, and like to look on and enjoy in the meanwhile, savours a little of bravado and gasconade. And yet this should not be. Idleness so called, which does not consist in doing nothing, but in doing a great deal not recognized in the dogmatic formularies of the ruling class, has as good a right to state its position as industry itself....
Gasconade... There's a word you haven't used in a sentence recently, I'll bet.
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