"I felt that, in that moment, he was being typically Donald, which is performing and shocking. Almost like Andrew Dice Clay, the stand-up comedian."

"Does he really do the things that he's saying or is that his act? And in Donald's case, I equated it that way. When he said what he said, I'd like to think if I had thought for a minute that there was a grown man detailing his sexual assault strategy to me, I'd have called the FBI."

Billy Bush speaks.

I think a lot of people don't get Trump's statements because they don't understand the humor. But why should they? They don't want to let him off the hook more than they don't want to look like they have no sense of humor.

There's the famous feminist punchline: That's not funny. 

I think it's important to perceive the humor, so you can understand why he says some of the weird things he does. You don't have to think it's funny or have a taste for that kind of humor, but you should understand that it is humor, unless you have some reason to want to stand on your obtuseness. It could serve some political purpose that you like, perhaps for yourself, perhaps for others. But if you can understand how a statement is humor and you engage in speech that treats it as if it is intended to be taken seriously because you find it useful for other people not to see the humor, you are a propagandist.

"A precedent of this Court should not be treated like a disposable household item—say, a paper plate or napkin — to be used once and then tossed in the trash."

"But that is what the Court does today in its decision regarding North Carolina’s 12th Congressional District: The Court junks a rule adopted in a prior, remarkably similar challenge to this very same congressional district."

Writes Justice Alito in the dissenting opinion to Cooper v. Harris, a 5-3 opinion released today.

About that Orb...

"Here it is..."



A hit of the Orb to MisterBuddwing, in the comments to "The Orb," about that Orb...

Morning light and shadows...

... on Meade's alliums:

Trump at the Western Wall.

Raw video:

"It is important to note that Mr. Albee wrote Nick as a Caucasian character, whose blonde hair and blue eyes are remarked on frequently in the play, even alluding to Nick’s likeness as that of an Aryan of Nazi racial ideology."

“Furthermore, Mr. Albee himself said on numerous occasions when approached with requests for nontraditional casting in productions of ‘Virginia Woolf’ that a mixed-race marriage between a Caucasian and an African-American would not have gone unacknowledged in conversations in that time and place and under the circumstances in which the play is expressly set by textual references in the 1960s."

Said the letter from the estate of Edward Albee, quoted in a NYT article about the refusal to grant rights for a Portland, Oregon production "Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" with a black actor cast in the secondary role of Nick (the character George Segal played in the movie with Richard Burton in the leading male role).

"Why the Phrase 'Late Capitalism' Is Suddenly Everywhere/An investigation into a term that seems to perfectly capture the indignities and absurdities of the modern economy."

By Annie Lowrey in The Atlantic.

A job advertisement celebrating sleep deprivation? That’s late capitalism. Free-wheeling Coachella outfits that somehow all look the same and cost thousands of dollars? Also late capitalism. Same goes for this wifi-connected $400 juicer that does no better than human hands, Pepsi’s advertisement featuring Kendall Jenner, United Airlines’ forcible removal of a seated passenger who just wanted to go home, and the glorious debacle that was the Fyre Festival. The phrase—ominous, academic, despairing, sarcastic—has suddenly started showing up everywhere.

This publication has used “late capitalism” roughly two dozen times in recent years, describing everything from freakishly oversized turkeys to double-decker armrests for steerage-class plane seats. The New Yorker is likewise enamored of it, invoking it in discussions of Bernie Sanders and fancy lettuces, among other things. There is a wildly popular, year-old Reddit community devoted to it, as well as a Facebook page, a Tumblr, and a lively Twitter hashtag. Google search interest in its has more than doubled in the past year....

Read the whole thing to understand how the usage of the term has changed over time. It used to be more of an intellectual, analytical, dark Marxist term. Now, it's more just gesturing at various absurdities of whatever it is we're doing these days.

I loved the Tumblr page, by the way. The total effect must be experienced at the link. I'll just pass on one perfect image:

"What’s the best part of trucking?"/"Freedom. Oh my God, I cannot tell you."

From a NYT collection of interviews with truck drivers: "Alone on the Open Road: Truckers Feel Like ‘Throwaway People’/President Trump ignited a national discussion of blue-collar jobs./Truck driving, once a road to the middle class, is now low-paying, grinding, unhealthy work. We talked with drivers about why they do it."

The "throwaway people" line came from a 54-year-old man who is the one interviewee who doesn't appear in the photograph that goes with his words. The line I quoted in the title came from a 33-year-old man who is a co-owner-operator.

Why am I too lazy to learn photoshop?

There's an image I really want to do with that Trump orb thing. If I took one day, I'm sure I could learn it, and yet I feel if I can't do it right now, it just doesn't matter anymore. But why not learn it today, so I'd be ready the next time some idea hits me? But that's the nature of my form of laziness kicks in: I'm completely industrious about everything I can do right now, but unwilling to prepare to do something in the future.

You might think this attitude seems immature and childish, but it's actually pretty appropriate in the old. 

"Maybe a certain naïveté is not always bad if it prevents over-interpretation, so you don’t always dissect things in detail and suspect everything."

Said Wolfram Leibe, the mayor of Trier, Germany, where Karl Marx was born. He's talking about the town's acceptance of a gift, a 18-foot-tall statue of Karl Marx, to be erected in a public square, on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Marx's birth. Leibe asserts that “It was a gesture of friendship and has nothing to do with ideology,” and yet he recounts the statement of the sculptor, Wei Weishan, on seeing the square: "This square is too small and cramped. Karl Marx was a great man and we can’t put him in a small square." 

The NYT reports, noting that "[m]illions* died in Communist political campaigns after the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949, and in a famine precipitated by an effort to collectivize agriculture in the late 1950s," but "Marx is officially revered in China."

The article also quotes Chang Ping, "a Chinese journalist who has lived in exile in Germany since 2011":

“This is not just a question of commemorating a historical figure. It’s also a question of how to deal with the Chinese government’s ambition to shine on the world stage. I think that I can see better than ordinary Germans the hideous grin behind the statue that is to be erected in Trier, and the threat it represents to the civilized political cultures of the world.”

And Geremie Barmé, "a founder of the Wairarapa Academy for New Sinology in New Zealand, the sculpture is an expression of party power":

“The Germans’ suggestion was for an early, humane, humanist Marx, a source for change in China — not the heroic, sclerotic, formalized Marx used for party purposes that Wu offered. Since we’re the only one that’s been successful and adapted Marxism to state leadership, we’ll tell you what it’s about.”

Meanwhile, in America, we're not putting up statues of heroes — revered or rejected — we're taking them down.

_________________

* "Millions" is not an adequate way to express what is something more like 45 or 65 million.

The Orb.

Look if Trump is going to take down the Illuminati he's obviously going to have to do it from the inside pic.twitter.com/58Rnd2I20P

— The Cosmic Brain (@samthielman) May 21, 2017

"'One orb to rule them all': image of Donald Trump and glowing globe perplexes internet."

The longer view:



ADDED: The "orb" is a globe, and I've already compared Trump to Chaplin in "The Great Dictator." Back in January, when this photograph was installed at the Smithsonian...



I said, "Nice picture. Especially because the apple represents the geographic place Trump dominated, it makes me think of Chaplin tossing the globe around in 'The Great Dictator'":

Trump isn't telling them what to do, but he is telling them what to do.

Here's the full transcript of Trump's speech in Saudi Arabia, which I listened to live. I want to pick out a few things:

I stand before you as a representative of the American People, to deliver a message of friendship and hope....

Trump selects a theme of hope — not, say, carnage, which some people think was the theme of his inaugural address. He doesn't think that, of course. In fact, he brings up his inaugural, as if its theme was also hope:

In my inaugural address to the American People, I pledged to strengthen America's oldest friendships, and to build new partnerships in pursuit of peace. I also promised that America will not seek to impose our way of life on others, but to outstretch our hands in the spirit of cooperation and trust.... Our goal is a coalition of nations who share the aim of stamping out extremism and providing our children a hopeful future that does honor to God.

3 things there that will recur throughout the speech: 1. He's not going to tell them what to do, 2. We all have children and our children are the future, and 3. He knows something of what God thinks.

Idea #1 repeats:

Nervous.

On "Face the Nation" today, the key word was "nervous":

ANTHONY SALVANTO, CBS NEWS ELECTIONS & SURVEYS DIRECTOR: [The people who were conditional supporters of Trump have] an increasing feeling of nervousness that they say that they feel this is back to the idea that -- that this relates -- this investigation relates to the president's judgement and temperament…. But that said, everyone that we re-interviewed [was] increasingly nervous, saying that's the word they consistently use, that they're getting more and more nervous about what the administration is doing… [F]olks who were on the fence are sort of coming over to that firmer opposition, in part because of... that nervousness....

MOLLY BALL, "THE ATLANTIC": … I spent most of my week talking to Republicans on Capitol hill and their staff and people around the Congress and… they're very nervous when -- when Anthony was talking about the -- the nervous Trump curious voters out there in the country, that was very much the vibe I got from Capitol Hill Republicans. They really still want him to be something that he hasn't been so far. They are incredibly nervous by all of these things happening….

RAMESH PONNURU, "THE NATIONAL REVIEW": [O]ne of the things that's happening with congressional Republicans is, look, they've got this feeling in the pit of their stomach. They wish the president would act in different ways, but they are keenly aware that the vast majority of Republican voters across the country, including the voters in their districts, still supports this president. And you will see a pattern where the House Republicans who are in swing seats are more nervous. The senators who are in blue or purple states are more nervous. But the bulk of Republicans don't fit into either of those categories and they're nervous but they're still going to be supporting this president....

JOHN DICKERSON, HOST: [T]hey're nervous and what about the agenda? Are they nervous about that too?… They're nervous about an unpredictable president, but what about the future in terms of getting stuff done?

Watch Trump's Saudi Arabia speech — about to stream live.

"Spiteful and destructive... sophomoric and petty."

Insulting words from one critic of Maine Governor Paul LePage, who declines to put up signs marking the way to Katahdin Woods and Waters — which Obama designated a national monument — because the Trump administration might reverse Obama's decision. LePage says Obama made "a horrible, horrible decision" and resists spending "taxpayers’ money" on signage that might not be permanent.  to signage or any type of project without knowing that it [the monument] is in place and that everyone is on board with it,” he said.

The land was donated to the federal government by the family that rich on the Burt’s Bees brand, and it's one family member — Lucas St Clair — who supplied those adjectives I put in the post title.

ADDED: Speaking of family fortunes, I wonder if LePage is related to the mucilage people:

"It was designed as an impregnable deep-freeze to protect the world’s most precious seeds from any global disaster and ensure humanity’s food supply forever."

"But the Global Seed Vault, buried in a mountain deep inside the Arctic circle, has been breached after global warming produced extraordinary temperatures over the winter, sending meltwater gushing into the entrance tunnel."

When it was opened in 2008, the deep permafrost through which the vault was sunk was expected to provide “failsafe” protection against “the challenge of natural or man-made disasters”.

Redefining forever: turns out to be only 9 years.

And there wasn't even a disaster, just one unusually hot season, in the end of 2016, when temperatures were over 7C above normal. Is it scientifically sound to refer to the temperatures in one season as caused by global warming? And speaking of what's scientific, they obviously were conning us with claims about the impregnability of the Global Seed Vault.