At the Saturday Night Café...

... you can write about whatever you want.

Vivid street theater in a NYC free-speech zone.

#RefundThePolice
pic.twitter.com/QHNfiJRH9l

— Eddie Zipperer (@EddieZipperer) July 18, 2020

After that last course in the White Woman Restaurant — the overstuffed platter from Ms. Palmieri — here's the palate-cleanser you need.

How far away are Diane Keaton’s forks pic.twitter.com/7HFRtrBK1Y

— caitie delaney (@caitiedelaney) July 17, 2020

"The white man’s path is a rut for the rest of us" — writes a privileged white woman...

.... Jennifer Palmieri, in a newspaper owned by a white man (The Washington Post, owned by mega-billionaire Jeff Bezos).

Where does Palmieri get the identitarian authority to speak for a group called "the rest of us" against "the white man"?

To her credit, she begins by showing her awareness that she really doesn't have the authority:

A few years ago, I would have dismissed as unhelpful the notion that I was a woman struggling to succeed in a man’s world. I thought I was doing great. I was working in Barack Obama’s White House. Hillary Clinton’s election as the first female president seemed to be on the horizon and....

Palmieri was Hillary's communications director.

But I no longer see it as self-defeating to call myself an outsider in a man’s world.

She'd have been an insider if Hillary had become President. But she's not saying she is an outsider, just that it's to her advantage — not "self-defeating" — to call herself an outsider.

Instead, I think the self-preservation of all marginalized people demands it.

All marginalized people need you — extremely privileged white woman — to call yourself an outsider. Their "self-preservation" depends on you claiming to be one of them?

Patiently waiting for things to improve has served only to sustain the very systems that keep women and people of color from obtaining real power.

Systems! You were communications director and your candidate lost. That's why you don't have power — and it would have been immense and real. Because your campaign fell short, you now posit "systems" that are holding you back in the same way they hold back women in general and "people of color." What were the "systems" that held back "people of color" when you were working in Barack Obama’s White House? Or do the "systems" come and go depending on whether Hillary Clinton blabbered about "deplorables" and didn't go to Michigan?

"President Donald Trump on Friday broke his silence on a tell-all book that dives into the president's upbringing and family life..."

"... distancing himself from his author niece and calling her a 'mess.' 'Mary Trump, a seldom seen niece who knows little about me, says untruthful things about my wonderful parents (who couldn’t stand her!) and me, and violated her NDA,' Trump wrote on Twitter. 'She’s a mess! Many books have been written about me, some good, some bad. Both happily and sadly, there will be more to come!'... Speaking with CNN's Chris Cuomo hours after Trump's tweet, Mary Trump [said] that she and her grandmother were 'very close.' 'My grandfather didn't really have positive feelings for anybody except perhaps Donald'.... During the explosive interview with Maddow [on Thursday], Mary Trump said that she had heard the president and other members of their family use anti-Semitic language and a derogatory slur on Black people."

From "A seldom seen niece': Trump fires back at Mary Trump over tell-all book/The author, in turn, delivers a live rebuttal on cable television" (Politico).

I'd thought that Trump was going to keep silent about Mary Trump — that silence would be an eloquent way to suggest that he knows a lot about her — leaving us to imagine that she may have mental health problems or complicated grudges and that Trump is honoring his beloved dead brother by leaving his daughter in a special sacred circle of immunity from his otherwise free-wheeling attacks.

And maybe that was what he'd decided to do but he had to reverse his position after the Maddow interview, because the poison of the accusation of racist speech requires an immediate antidote.

But was that an effective antidote? It's a hell of a thing to say to someone — your grandparents couldn't stand you.

I know I discarded the racist-speech accusation immediately because it's just about individual words that were used — used or mentioned? — in private. I need at least sentences — not isolated words — to have any idea whether what was said was even bad.

Here's the Rachel Maddow segment:



By the way: "When you ask a normal, right-handed person about something he's supposed to have seen, if he looks upward and to his left, he's truly accessing his memory of the incident... However, if he looks upward and to his right, he's accessing his imagination, and he's inventing an answer." Mary Trump repeatedly looked up and to the right to "see" the answers to the questions she was asked. I don't know if she's right-handed.

What is the real "free speech problem" on the left from the point of view of a real leftist?

I'm reading "Do Progressives Have a Free Speech Problem?/The illiberal left is a lot less threatening than the right. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist" by Michelle Goldberg (NYT). Goldberg signed the "Letter on Justice and Open Debate" that was published in Harper's, and she's using this column to expand on the topic.

She says she initially declined to sign the letter, "in part because it denounced 'cancel culture'" — a term she associates with "right-wing whiners like Ivanka Trump who think protests against them violate their free speech." I'd like to see the first draft! I want to know what had to be taken out to get so many signatures. At least we know what one person says she objected to and that it was, she says, edited out. Goldberg notes that discussions of the letter have talked about "cancel culture," even though the words aren't in the draft.

After avoiding writing about the subject — telling herself other things are more important — she got triggered by the "scathing rejoinder" written by Hannah Giorgis (in The Atlantic):

“Facing widespread criticism on Twitter, undergoing an internal workplace review, or having one’s book panned does not, in fact, erode one’s constitutional rights or endanger a liberal society.”

This sentence brought me up short; one of these things is not like the others. Anyone venturing ideas in public should be prepared to endure negative reviews and pushback on social media. Internal workplace reviews are something else. If people fear for their livelihoods for relatively minor ideological transgressions, it may not violate the Constitution — the workplace is not the state — but it does create a climate of self-censorship and grudging conformity....

"Representative John Lewis, a son of sharecroppers and an apostle of nonviolence who was bloodied at Selma and across the Jim Crow South in the historic struggle for racial equality..."

"... and who then carried a mantle of moral authority into Congress, died on Friday. He was 80.... He was among the original 13 Freedom Riders, the Black and white activists who challenged segregated interstate travel in the South in 1961. He was a founder and early leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which coordinated lunch-counter sit-ins. He helped organize the March on Washington, where Dr. King was the main speaker, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Mr. Lewis led demonstrations against racially segregated restrooms, hotels, restaurants, public parks and swimming pools, and he rose up against other indignities of second-class citizenship. At nearly every turn he was beaten, spat upon or burned with cigarettes. He was tormented by white mobs and absorbed body blows from law enforcement. On March 7, 1965, he led one of the most famous marches in American history. In the vanguard of 600 people demanding the voting rights they had been denied, Mr. Lewis marched partway across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., into a waiting phalanx of state troopers in riot gear. Ordered to disperse, the protesters silently stood their ground. The troopers responded with tear gas and bullwhips and rubber tubing wrapped in barbed wire. In the melee, known as Bloody Sunday, a trooper cracked Mr. Lewis’s skull with a billy club, knocking him to the ground, then hit him again when he tried to get up."

The NYT reports.

At the Sunrise Café...

... you can write about anything you want.

Andrew Sullivan explains why he's leaving New York Magazine and — sort of — reviving his blog.

From his final NY Magazine column (I've added boldface):

What has happened, I think, is relatively simple: A critical mass of the staff and management at New York Magazine and Vox Media no longer want to associate with me.... They seem to believe... that any writer not actively committed to critical theory in questions of race, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity is actively, physically harming co-workers merely by existing in the same virtual space. Actually attacking, and even mocking, critical theory’s ideas and methods, as I have done continually in this space, is therefore out of sync with the values of Vox Media. That, to the best of my understanding, is why I’m out of here....

[I]f the mainstream media want to cut ties with even moderate anti-Trump conservatives, because they won’t bend the knee to critical theory’s version of reality, that’s their prerogative...  But this is less of a systemic problem than in the past... I was among the first to recognize this potential for individual freedom of speech, and helped pioneer individual online media, specifically blogging, 20 years ago.

Andrew Sullivan is returning to blogging???? You know, I'm a die-hard, dead-ender blogger, and I'll do this even if it's obsolescent and obscure, but I've been half predicting a big blogging revival. So I'm excited to see Sullivan write "And this is where I’m now headed." But wait, he's got a problem with blogging:

3 occasions — this morning at sunrise — for thinking — if only momentarily — is that the comet?

(Click images to enlarge if you can't see what I was seeing.)

"Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 87, has had a recurrence of cancer, she announced on Friday."

The NYT reports.

She said she had begun a course of chemotherapy on May 19, after “a periodic scan in February followed by a biopsy revealed lesions on my liver.”

“Immunotherapy first essayed proved unsuccessful,” she said. “The chemotherapy course, however, is yielding positive results. Satisfied that my treatment course is now clear, I am providing this information.”

"Is the Anti-Racism Training Industry Just Peddling White Supremacy?"

Jonathan Chait is asking what I think is the right question. Let's see if he answers "yes." I'm afraid the "just" provides weasel room, but I have been asking the same question and my answer is yes.

So let's read Chait:

[T]he anti-racism trainers go beyond denying the myth of meritocracy to denying the role of individual merit altogether. Indeed, their teaching presents individuals as a racist myth. In their model, the individual is subsumed completely into racial identity....

The ideology of the racism-training industry... collapses all identity into racial categories. “It is crucial for white people to acknowledge and recognize our collective racial experience,” writes DiAngelo, whose teachings often encourage the formation of racial affinity groups. The program does not allow any end point for the process of racial consciousness. Racism is not a problem white people need to overcome in order to see people who look different as fully human — it is totalizing and inescapable.

Of course, DiAngelo’s whites-only groups are not dreamed up in the same spirit as David Duke’s. The problem is that, at some point, the extremes begin to functionally resemble each other despite their mutual antipathy.

I want to make clear that when I compare the industry’s conscious racialism to the far right, I am not accusing it of “reverse racism” or bias against white people. In some cases its ideas literally replicate anti-Black racism....

Chait is talking about the way "the industry" characterizes written communication, rationality, science, hard work, and planning as white. Here's his last sentence:

[O]ne day DiAngelo’s legions of customers will look back with embarrassment at the time when a moment of awakening to the depth of American racism drove them to embrace something very much like racism itself.

Is that a "yes" to the question in the post title? It's pretty close.

"Let's pretend this coffee is champagne... to celebrate life... like the rich, classy people do."

"I deleted a tweet that in retrospect was mean spirited. I’m mad at myself for commenting on someone’s looks..."

"... instead of their ideas, especially so because I didn’t realize their identity, which obviously could make my comment more hurtful," tweets Thomas Chatterton Williams, who wrote that "Letter on Justice and Open Debate" we were all talking about last week.

So what was the tweet? Whose looks did he disparage?

I don't think it's the "In the middle of nowhere expelling" tweet that became a meme, explored on Know Your Meme:

"In the Middle of Nowhere Expelling" refers to a tweet by Harper's columnist Thomas Chatterton Williams. In the tweet, he relays a story about "expelling" a person from his house because they insulted New York Times opinion writer Bari Weiss. Many parodied the tweet online as a phrasal template, replacing elements of the tweet with various other absurd situations....

Hilarious. Though he deleted that post too, it's not what I'm looking for. Whose looks did he take a shot at? I'll just take a shot at his looks — he reminds me of Pat Paulson and Taylor Mead...



... but I'm going to guess that his target was Robin DiAngelo, because that's someone he's been tweeting about substantively lately:

How many "white" people can really relate to earning up to $150,000 per month from one of their revenue streams?

"during the year preceding Covid-19 [she] gave eight to 10 presentations a month, sometimes pro bono but mostly at up to $15,000 per event." https://t.co/kmKPKAQNm3

— Thomas Chatterton Williams 🌍 🎧 (@thomaschattwill) July 16, 2020

I think DiAngelo looks great in that picture. Just perfect for what she is and what she's purveying. So maybe it's someone else. Maybe Mary Trump? I tried to watch some of her interview with George Stephanopoulos and got a little absorbed in her looks...



I think it's good, if you're a writer, to have some lines about how a person looks, but I can certainly see pushing back your antagonists for talking about anybody's looks in a negative way. And there's a certain conventional etiquette that forbids speaking about looks, even in a positive way. Thomas Chatterton Williams wants to be a public intellectual, but he's showing how easy he is to push back. Stand your ground!

Love or hate Kayleigh — she is prepared as hell.

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany flips through the topic headings in her binder during the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington, U.S. July 16, 2020. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst #Reuters pic.twitter.com/8QFTgBKa06

— Jonathan Ernst (@j_ernst_DC) July 17, 2020

Misspelled "Mueller" though.

Who's Hogan? The Republican governor of Maryland. Here's CNN from last night (after McEnany's conference):

Hogan had earlier slammed Trump's early response to the coronavirus pandemic as "hopeless" in an article published Thursday in The Washington Post, elaborating on his efforts to secure testing kits and prevent the deaths of residents in his state. His account, excerpted from his forthcoming book, subsequently drew criticism from White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany.

Mediaite covers the mind-bending binder closeup:

During her tenure, McEnany has developed a reputation for flipping open her briefing book after a particularly confrontational question and reading verbatim from pre-written responses, which often included canned attacks on the press or praise from allies.

Aw, don't they hate that — when they trigger the canned response? Oh, no, not the binder! She has a tab for that!

Interestingly, one of the tabs is "Goya." Speaking of canned....

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by President Donald J. Trump (@realdonaldtrump) on Jul 15, 2020 at 11:02am PDT

Oddly enough, that photograph could be what wins him reelection. Think about it. People are emotional.

ADDED: Looks like Kayleigh has some magnificent rings, but they are not sized correctly.

"No, Joe Biden Didn’t Introduce Man in Blackface at 1985 Fundraiser."

Snopes explains. The video you're seeing — with captions like "Joe Biden participated in 'Black Face' skit in a unfunny way" — is Biden introducing a black singer.

The true story isn't particularly good for Biden, who said, quoted in the Washington Examiner (video at the link):

“Now, the next man I would like you to meet,” Biden said. “Now, y’all got to sit down for this. We’re going to have some important people coming out in a minute. But there is one more band member that I want you to meet: Ladies and gentlemen, our vocalist tonight, Michael Jackson. Michael, would you please stand?” Biden said, pointing his hand toward the singer, who smiled and took a bow. Biden added: “Soon to become Prince, as was just pointed out to me."

But it's not about blackface.

In fact, the singer was a D.C.-based performer named Jerome Powell. Looking back at Biden's joke this week, Powell, now 75, told the Washington Examiner it was "just a big mistake" because Powell was influenced by artists such as Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, and Tony Bennett and was nothing like Jackson. "People know the difference. I mean, Michael Jackson and I were in two entirely different categories."...

Powell said that while Biden's comment was "a mistake on his side" because he shared no musical similarities with Jackson, he was not offended and did not feel Biden was racially insensitive. “I’m a very sensitive person, so my sensitivity would have kicked in when a statement like that was made. It didn’t. I would have commented or responded to it."

I wanted to find some video of Jerome Powell singing, but it's hard to look up this Jerome Powell, because Jerome Powell is also the name of the Chairman of the Federal Reserve.