At the Sunrise Café...

... you can talk 'til dawn.

"Adnan Oktar... a Muslim televangelist and cult leader... proselytised about religion while scantily clad women bopped robotically beside him."

"He and his followers had connections and influence stretching across the world.... The core female members were called 'kittens' and the men 'lions,' and many were recruited from powerful and wealthy families. The local tabloids loved it: an Islamic 'sex cult' run by Istanbul’s Hugh Hefner with a few Quranic verses thrown in. But, after a trial that has gripped Turkey, Oktar’s organisation... been shown to have committed serious crimes and destroyed the lives of many members. In an 480-page indictment prosecutors laid out charges including sexual abuse, fraud and organised crime that reached deep into Turkey’s elite.... Their message of religious understanding and liberal values resonated with [one woman who escaped the group after 10 years]. In it she found another option to the secularism common in her social class. Soon, the group edged out her old friends and her family. 'They were like best friends around me,' she said. 'I mean, they were taking a lot of care of me. They make you feel like you’re indebted to them, so you want to do something in return. Slowly your reality starts getting distorted. Very slowly, not fast. It’s not like "OK, you joined us, now you can’t go out any more."'"

From "Turkish sex cult saga ends in a 1,000-year jail sentence/A televangelist faces death behind bars while the ‘kittens’ he dominated are struggling to resume normal life" (London Times).

"The Cornish hotel flying a flag for QAnon’s cult delusion/Conspiracy theories spawned in America are taking hold in unexpected corners of British society."

 Reports the London Times.

The Camelot Castle Hotel in Tintagel, Cornwall, may be themed on Arthurian legends but the flag flown over its tower last year stood for a more modern myth.... Guests at the hotel, which displays a Q flag, said that the owner left conspiracy theory material in their bedrooms.... 

Since Mr Mappin, heir to the Mappin and Webb jewellery business, which holds a Royal Warrant, hoisted a Q flag above the battlements of Camelot Castle Hotel last January he has hosted a regular video broadcast called Camelot TV. 

In a coded message on Wednesday to his 20,000 subscribers, he likened QAnon to an oak tree. “If the roots are strong, all will be well in the spring . . . 2021 is all about the rebirth of our civilisation,” he said. 

Oh, come on. That's got to be an intentional reference to "Being There":

"Justice Sotomayor opens her dissent in U.S. v. Dustin Higgs by saying the names of every person executed by the federal government over the past year."

Justice Sotomayor opens her dissent in U.S. v. Dustin Higgs by saying the names of every person executed by the federal government over the past year. pic.twitter.com/KLHcRTWMIZ

— Sister Helen Prejean (@helenprejean) January 16, 2021

Sister Helen Prejean continues her summary, here, at Twitter, but here's the full text of the dissent, issued yesterday. Excerpt: 

"A Capitol Police lieutenant was suspended for wearing a MAGA cap during the Jan. 6 riots but told his colleagues he did it to get fellow officers out of harm's way."

"If you took the fact out that he is the president of the United States and look at the conduct of the call, it tracks the communication you might see in any drug case or organized crime case. It’s full of threatening undertone and strong-arm tactics."

Said Michael J. Moore, the former United States attorney for the Middle District of Georgia, quoted in "Atlanta Prosecutor Appears to Move Closer to Trump Inquiry/The Fulton County district attorney is weighing an inquiry into possible election interference and is said to be considering hiring an outside counsel" (NYT).

"Senate Democrats could vote to abolish the legislative filibuster, and then pass Biden’s plan on a party-line basis."

"But West Virginia senator Joe Manchin has vowed to keep the filibuster in place. In effect, this means that all regular legislation will need 60 votes to clear the Senate. The only exception to this rule are bills passed through the budget-reconciliation process, which enables legislation pertaining to the federal budget to pass the upper chamber with a simple majority.... [I]t’s hard to see how Biden could really believe there are 10 GOP votes for a $15 minimum wage, or $350 billion in fiscal aid to states, or, frankly, most of the items in his proposal. It’s possible then that this gesture toward bipartisanship is intended to fail: Perhaps, the idea is to make the GOP an offer it can’t accept — but which the voting public overwhelmingly supports — and then say, 'Well, we tried for unity but those Republicans wouldn’t even support the $15 minimum wage that red state voters are clamoring for, so we’re just going to roll everything into one giant, partisan reconciliation bill.' Alternatively Biden may simply be making an opening offer full of provisions he’s ready to concede for the sake of a bipartisan compromise. Regardless, the proposal strikes a weird balance between maximalism and pragmatism.... Hopefully, Biden & Co. know what they’re doing." 

From "The Good, the Bad, and the Odd in Biden’s Stimulus Plan" by Eric Levitz (NY Magazine).

A fantastic example of the problem of humor that some people are going to take for truth.

Honestly no. (I laughed too...but people are already using it to bash CNN. This “some people know it’s a joke but lots of other people don’t” kind of fakery has consequences. OK carry on.) https://t.co/m9o1HcIeaq pic.twitter.com/uhk5uhHpi0

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) January 16, 2021

"As mayor, I will regularly get around the city by subway, bus, or bike, because that’s the way most New Yorkers get around..."

"... and that’s how I’ve been getting around for 25 years. I will build bus rapid transit networks like the 14th street busway in every borough. I will have a fully electric bus system by 2030. [inaudible 00:10:59] electric buses. New York can move our people around in a way that’s sustainable for our neighborhoods and our planet. Building this forward-thinking transit network will require municipal control of the city’s subways and buses. As mayor, I will fight to get control of our subways and buses so we can control our own destiny." 

Said Andrew Yang, announcing his candidacy for mayor of New York City.

What vision! The transportation solution for New York City is buses. Lots of buses. They'll be electric, so that's supposed to be good for the environment, but the method of getting around is the same old method. The bus! I've lived in NYC — 1973 to 1984 and 2007 to 2008 — and the last form of transportation I'd use is the bus. Maybe 3 or 4 times in the early 70s, and never again. 

The problems were not anything that would be helped by running the bus on a battery instead of gas. It was that buses were penned in by street traffic, so the wait could be terribly long and you'd know that once you get on, the ride would be slow. There you are, standing at street level, wondering why you didn't just keep walking and whether you'd be where you were going by now if you had.

A dreary sunrise...

... but it's a café nonetheless.

"There was an eerie sense of inexorability, the throngs of Trump supporters advancing up the long lawn as if pulled by a current."

"Everyone seemed to understand what was about to happen. The past nine weeks had been steadily building toward this moment. On November 7th, mere hours after Biden’s win was projected, I attended a protest at the Pennsylvania state capitol, in Harrisburg. Hundreds of Trump supporters, including heavily armed militia members, vowed to revolt. When I asked a man with an assault rifle—a 'combat-skills instructor' for a militia called the Pennsylvania Three Percent—how likely he considered the prospect of civil conflict, he told me, 'It’s coming.' Since then, Trump and his allies had done everything they could to spread and intensify this bitter aggrievement. On December 5th, Trump acknowledged, 'I’ve probably worked harder in the last three weeks than I ever have in my life.'... Militant pro-Trump outfits like the Proud Boys—a national organization dedicated to 'reinstating a spirit of Western chauvinism' in America—had been openly gearing up for major violence. In early January, on Parler, an unfiltered social-media site favored by conservatives, Joe Biggs, a top Proud Boys leader, had written, 'Every law makers who breaks their own stupid Fucking laws should be dragged out of office and hung.' On the Mall, a makeshift wooden gallows, with stairs and a rope, had been constructed near a statue of Ulysses S. Grant.... I followed a group that broke off to advance on five policemen guarding a side corridor. 'Stand down,' a man in a maga hat commanded. 'You’re outnumbered. There’s a fucking million of us out there, and we are listening to Trump—your boss.' 'We can take you out,' a man beside him warned." 

From "Among the Insurrectionists/The Capitol was breached by Trump supporters who had been declaring, at rally after rally, that they would go to violent lengths to keep the President in power. A chronicle of an attack foretold" by Luke Mogelson (The New Yorker).

"Federal prosecutors offered an ominous new assessment of last week’s siege... saying in a court filing that rioters intended 'to capture and assassinate elected officials.'..."

"The detention memo, written by Justice Department lawyers in Arizona, goes into greater detail about the FBI’s investigation into [Jacob] Chansley, revealing that he left a note for Pence warning that 'it’s only a matter of time, justice is coming.' 'Strong evidence, including Chansley’s own words and actions at the Capitol, supports that the intent of the Capitol rioters was to capture and assassinate elected officials in the United States government,' prosecutors wrote.... 'When questioned as to the meaning of that statement, Chansley went on a lengthy diatribe describing current and past United States political leaders as infiltrators, specifically naming Vice President Mike Pence, former President Barack Obama, former Senator Hillary Clinton and U.S. President-elect Joe Biden as infiltrators involved in various types of wrongdoing,' prosecutors wrote. 'Although he stated his note was not a threat, the Government strongly disagrees.' The prosecutors’ assessment comes as prosecutors and federal agents have begun bringing more serious charges tied to violence at the Capitol.... In Chansley’s case, prosecutors said the charges 'involve active participation in an insurrection attempting to violently overthrow the United States government,' and warned that 'the insurrection is still in progress' as law enforcement prepares for more demonstrations in Washington and state capitals...."

From "'Strong evidence' suggests Capitol rioters intended to ‘capture and assassinate’ officials, US prosecutors say" (Fox News). Chansley is the rioter who's getting extra attention because he costumed himself in a fur hat and horns. He also, as the detention memo says, "has spoken openly about his belief that he is an alien, a higher being, and he is here on Earth to ascend to another reality."

"In his illuminating book 'The Ministry of Truth' a biography of '1984' and its influence, Dorian Lynskey makes a persuasive case that..."

"... the novel is structured in a way that heightens its ambiguity. Yes, the brute force of totalitarianism is an inextricable theme, but the novel’s narration — with its texts within texts — also enacts its own phantasmagoria, a world where both everything is true and nothing is true. Lynskey credits Orwell with anticipating what Hannah Arendt would describe in 'The Origins of Totalitarianism,' published a year after Orwell died: 'The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.'"

From "How ‘Orwellian’ Became an All-Purpose Insult" by Jennifer Szalai (NYT). 

The top-rated comment over there is: "To accuse the opposition of being Orwellian while actually being Orwellian has become the stock and trade of the right. How Orwellian." 

Does it make sense to refer to a "biography" of a book? Well, first, it's in the book's subtitle, "The Ministry of Truth: The Biography of George Orwell's 1984." Second, "bio" means life, so we can understand the extended use of the term: It means that the book has a life. Third, I suspect the usage is explained in the book, and it's my blogging practice to buy the book in Kindle form so I can do a search when I have a question of this magnitude. 

But, wait. I'm reading the OED definition of "biography": "A written account of the life of an individual, esp. a historical or public figure; (also) a brief profile of a person's life or work. Later more generally: a themed narrative history of a specific subject in any of various written, recorded, or visual media." An example of that more general use is the 1999 book title: " H2O: a biography of water." And there's an 1848 book title: "The plant; a biography." 

So I don't have to buy the book, but I will. Such is my dedication to this blog. Here's the closest thing to an explanation for the use of the concept "biography" to refer to a book about a book:

There have been several biographies of George Orwell and some academic studies of his book’s intellectual context but never an attempt to merge the two streams into one narrative, while also exploring the book’s afterlife. I am interested in Orwell’s life primarily as a means to illuminate the experiences and ideas that nourished this very personal nightmare in which everything he prized was systematically destroyed: honesty, decency, fairness, memory, history, clarity, privacy, common sense, sanity, England, and love....

"Adolfo 'Shabba-Doo' Quiñones, who grew up dancing in a bleak public housing project in Chicago and went on to become a pioneer of street dance in the 1980s..."

"... and one of its first celebrities after appearing in the hit movie 'Breakin’,' died on Dec. 29 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 65.... He shimmied in the video for Chaka Khan’s 'I Feel for You,' and he was the choreographer and lead dancer of Madonna’s 'Who’s That Girl?' world tour in 1987. He also choreographed (and appeared in) the video for Lionel Richie’s 'All Night Long' and advised Michael Jackson on the video for 'Bad.' Us Weekly called him the 'Bob Fosse of the Streets.' 'Shabba-Doo was an absolute Los Angeles dance legend,' the rapper Ice-T... 'We throw that word around. But not anybody can say they invented an entire dance style.' Even before 'Breakin’,' Mr. Quiñones had made a mark on the dance world in the 1970s. He danced as a teenager on 'Soul Train' with an influential ensemble called the Lockers. That group... became known for its development of the 'locking' technique, typified by rhythmic, freezing dance movements...."

The NYT reports.

"Oh, hello, nice to see you, have a seat — let’s stress-eat some chips together. Let’s turn ourselves, briefly..."

"... into dusty-fingered junk-food receptacles. This will force us to stop looking, for a few minutes, at the bramble of tabs we’ve had open on our internet browsers for all these awful months: the articles we’ve been too frazzled to read about the TV shows we’ve been meaning to watch.... For nearly a year now, many of us have been locked in a controlled environment, a closed lab of selfhood: the Quarantine Institute of Applied Subjectivity. Our homes have become biodomes designed to study the fragile ecosystems of Us. All our neuroses and addictions and habits are under the microscope. Willpower, productivity, resilience, despair. We have turned into scientists of ourselves. And so I watch myself eating chips.... The chips come like ocean waves, like human breaths, serial but unique, each part of a huge eternal rhythm but also its own precious discovery.... I believe we have reached the point, in fact, where it would be shameful to leave only what’s left.... If we stop, it will end, but if we keep going, it might last forever...."

From "Letter of Recommendation/I Recommend Eating Chips" by Sam Anderson (NYT).

In the Sunrise Café...

... you can talk all night.