Sunrise — 6:14.

"In his oddly charmed political life, Trump has benefited mightily from what political scientist Brian Klaas calls the 'banality of crazy'..."

"...as the body politic has grown increasingly numb to Trump’s fire hose of malice.... It must feel almost providential to Trump that his rise to power has also coincided with the downfall of much of the traditional fact-based media, as well as the emergence of just the sort of alternative-reality information silos that he needed to shape his narrative and platform his bluster, bombast and fakery. So now, despite (waves hand) all this, Trump is about to clinch the GOP nomination for the third time, and most national polls show him leading President Biden.... Has anyone ever been this lucky?"

Writes Charles Sykes, in "Donald Trump, the luckiest politician who ever lived" (WaPo).

You could just as well ask has anyone ever been this unlucky. Trump's antagonists have come at him so many times. That's why he's had so many opportunities to be lucky. Who would want all the trouble that's come his way? 

"Residents who dare leave their homes stumble across bodies that have been left where they fell."

"Port-au-Prince reached a high of 92 degrees on Friday. The smell of decaying corpses, human rights activists say, has driven some people from their homes.... One morgue director said he has received 20 calls in the past week from residents asking him to pick up bodies. Four calls came in on Friday, Lyonel Milfort said. He has refused all of them. With gangs barricading the streets, Milfort said, venturing out has been impossible.... 'What I’m witnessing today is unprecedented. It’s been too long,' he said. 'It’s heartbreaking to go around and see bodies being eaten by dogs and see the corpses covered with sheets.'..."

From "Haitians shot dead in street and there’s no one to take the corpses away" (WaPo).

"Under a policy called 'Slant' (Sit up, Lean forward, Ask and answer questions, Nod your head and Track the speaker), the students, aged 11 and 12, were barred from looking away."

"When a digital bell beeped (traditional clocks are 'not precise enough,' the principal said) the students walked quickly and silently to the cafeteria in a single line. There they yelled a poem — 'Ozymandias,' by Percy Bysshe Shelley — in unison, then ate for 13 minutes as they discussed that day’s mandatory lunch topic: how to survive a superintelligent killer snail.... Leon, 13, said that initially he did not want to go to the school, 'but now I am thankful I went because otherwise I wouldn’t be as smart as I am now.'..."

From "'You Can Hear a Pin Drop': The Rise of Super Strict Schools in England/Inspired by the academic success of schools like the Michaela secondary school in northwest London, some principals are introducing tight controls on students’ behavior" (NYT). 

***

Re "Ozymandias": Here's the full text of the poem, here's the relevant episode of "Frank Skinner's Poetry Podcast," and here's the recitation the poem in one of my favorite movies, "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs" (the scene is a traveling theatrical production in the Old West):

"We don’t have a candidate. And it’s possible in the end we won’t find a suitable candidate."

"All of the prominent candidates approached by No Labels have refused. That’s because it’s clear that their ticket is a road to nowhere. No serious person wants to end up in the single digits nationally while helping Trump win.”

Said Matt Bennett, a co-founder of the Democratic-centrist group Third Way, quoted in "Leaked Audio Shows No Labels Has Zero Idea If It’ll Find a Candidate/There was a lot of palaver about how courageous and patriotic they all are. But if you listened closely, there were also admissions that the way forward is very murky" (The New Republic)("Third Way, along with a coalition of other groups, has warned for months that a No Labels ticket would be most likely to siphon votes away from President Biden...").

"Former President Donald Trump on Thursday signaled his opposition to a TikTok ban being considered in Congress, arguing that it would help Facebook..."

"’If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business,' Trump, 77, claimed in a Truth Social post, apparently referring to Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. 'I don’t want Facebook, who cheated in the last Election, doing better. They are a true Enemy of the People!' he added."

The NY Post reports.

"The National Guard are our neighbors; these are moms and dads from our communities....They are just there as a deterrent to those who might think..."

".... that they can get away with committing crimes.... This is not heavy-handed.... It is nowhere near what ‘stop and search’ was — a policy I did not support. This is just for a temporary basis to calm things down and let people know they’re safe."

Said Governor Hochul, quoted in "Hochul defends deploying National Guard in NYC subways after 'war zone' backlash" (NY Post).

"Angela Chao, Sen. Mitch McConnell’s billionaire sister-in-law, spent her last minutes alive frantically calling her friends for help as her Tesla slowly sank in a pond..."

"... on a remote Texas ranch, according to a report.... Chao invited several of her girlfriends from Harvard Business School to spend the weekend on a gorgeous, sprawling 900-acre private property in Texas’ Hill Country.... While making a K-turn, she put the car in reverse instead of drive, she told them. While going backwards, the car went over an embankment and into a pond — and was sinking fast.... Blanco County emergency units finally arrived at 12:28 a.m. — a full 24 minutes after they received the call.... One responder described the Tesla as completely submerged. Sheriff’s deputies even stood on top of it during the rescue efforts, trying to bust open a window.... A tow truck arrived to pull the car out of the pond but it didn’t have a cable long enough to reach the vehicle.... A longer cable was finally retrieved. At least one tow truck driver, however, said he was afraid of being electrocuted by the electric vehicle...."

The NY Post reports.

Do electric cars threaten electrocution when submerged? If Chao had been able to get out of the car, would she have been electrocuted? And why was the window so hard to break? Was there a special problem with Tesla, where there's no way to open the door if the electronics fail? Did Chao believe help was on the way and decide to remain in the car? 

ADDED: Here's a Heatmap article from last October: "Help! Will My Electric Boat or Car Electrocute Me If It Sinks? Fact-checking a Trump-inspired fear."

"At least 'some' football fans, who attended January's bitterly cold Kansas City Chiefs playoff game, suffered extreme frostbite and eventually needed amputations...."

From "Some attendees of frigid Chiefs game forced into amputations following severe frostbite, Kansas City hospital says /The Jan. 13 wildcard victory over the Miami Dolphins might have come at a terrible price for some spectators who endured sub-zero cold" (NBC News).

"It was the fourth coldest football game in NFL history with the famed"Ice Bowl" of Dec. 31 1967 still serving at the frozen gridiron standard."

"It is theoretically possible, I suppose, that an 81-year-old teetotaling Catholic has suddenly embarked upon a drug-fueled lifestyle."

"But this raises the question of why, exactly, we should care that Biden is using these wonder drugs to elevate his public performance. After all, in sports, we limit steroid use and other performance-enhancing drugs because those drugs have awful side effects, and give those willing to accept them an unfair advantage. What are the side effects of Biden’s alleged drug use?... Or is the idea that Biden is somehow rigging the election by using some kind of drugs that turn him into an energetic public speaker?"

Writes Jonathan Chait, in "Biden Was So Good, Trump Is Accusing Him of Performance-Enhancing Drugs/We need a president who can get high on life?" (NY Magazine).

1. All Trump did was post, at one point during the SOTU, "THE DRUGS ARE WEARING OFF."

2. I suspect Chait knows a lot that he's not saying about how many Washingtonians use drugs. Instead of making analogies to sports and jokes about accusations of rigging elections, why not give us more information about Washington drug culture? I see that a few days ago, Rolling Stone came out with "Trump’s White House Was 'Awash in Speed' — and Xanax/Under Trump, the White House Medical Unit was 'like the Wild West,' and staffers had easy access to powerful stimulants and sedatives, sources tell Rolling Stone." How awash in speed is Washington? I'd like to know. Don't play innocent.

3. What's with Chait's subtitle? "We need a president who can get high on life?"

How to try to achieve racial diversity without trying to achieve racial diversity.

The NYT tried to find out.

 

Here's a free link to the extensive article, elaborately festooned with interactive graphics.

Sunrise — 6:43.

100% cloud cover, but at least I got out before the rain came.

Write about whatever you like in the comments.

"The UK’s first transgender national news anchor has reported 'Harry Potter' author JK Rowling to the police for 'misgendering' her as a 'man' on social media."

"India Willoughby, 58, reported having 'contacted Northumbria Constabulary' over a series of X posts Sunday by the outspoken author. Rowling, also 58, called Willoughby 'just a man reveling in his misogynistic performance of what he thinks "woman" means: narcissistic, shallow and exhibitionist.'... 'I’m legally a woman, she knows I’m a woman, and she calls me a man. It’s a protected characteristic and that is a breach of both the Equalities Act and the Gender Recognition Act...' Willoughby wrote."

The New York Post reports.

"After I did Steve Bannon's War Room, so many listeners asked me for a link they could send to friends or family members who they argue with about politics."

"That's working-class America: People are in community with folks they disagree with. Polarization is an elite phenomenon."

Tweets Batya Ungar-Sargon, who's a fantastic speaker, succinct and impassioned. She's on the left, by her own report, but she's saying what Democrats don't want to have to hear about themselves (that they do not represent the working class, and Trump does):

 

This might be the best interview in the history of War Room.

Newsweek editor Batya Sargon talks to Steve Bannon after she blew up the Bill Maher show last weekend.

'I'm a banned leftist because I tell the truth about Democrats.' pic.twitter.com/D5EprAkkEr

— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) March 7, 2024

"Donald J. Trump on Friday posted a nearly $92 million bond in a defamation case he recently lost to the writer E. Jean Carroll..."

"... a move that will allow him to appeal the verdict without having to pay Ms. Carroll.... In a separate case, Mr. Trump faces a judgment of more than $450 million levied by a New York State judge in a civil fraud lawsuit brought by Attorney General Letitia James.... Unless [the intermediate appellate court] panel cuts him a break, Mr. Trump will need to post a bond for the full amount by March 25. If he fails, Ms. James is expected to move swiftly to collect, seizing his bank accounts and potentially even some of his New York properties...."

The NYT reports.

"There were no gyms open... and so every day, I swam miles aimlessly in the lake. I'd put on a wet suit..."

"... and I'd jump in the boat dock and I'd swim down, by Johnny Cash's house, and I came back, and I did the same route every single day. Because... I knew that I had to if I wanted to continue this breakout season I was having my sophomore year into my junior year. Right? And the amount of snakes that I swam by and, like, dead catfish that are floating on top of the water that, like, hit you in your face while you're swimming is not pleasant...."

Said Riley Gaines, describing the difficulty of training during the Covid lockdown. That's part of a 2-and-a-half-hour discussion with Joe Rogan, which is mostly about her staunch opposition to allowing transgender women to compete against biologically female athletes. I've listened to the whole thing, and I think Joe is boldly risking his reputation with this material. He's very supportive of Gaines, and the two of them frequently declare that the world has gone crazy: