At the Wildflower Café...

... you can talk about whatever you want.

"A few years ago, after Mr. Probst noticed some contestants blaming producers for their 'bad edit,' he wrote a 'Survivor' mission statement that he and his team still consult."

"'Our job is to tell the most authentic version of each person’s story in an electric, visceral, dramatic, and entertaining way,' it reads. 'But it must be authentic.'... Authenticity, 'Survivor' fans have come to know, means warts and all. It means the show can’t, per Mr. Probst’s directive, change the intent of someone’s words during editing. It’s meant watching one contestant demand another remove her fake teeth during a tribal council as payback for a blindside. It’s even meant watching a gay contestant out a trans tribemate, equating his choice not to disclose his transness with deception."

From "Jeff Probst Is the Ultimate ‘Survivor’/Despite many changes to the reality show over the last 21 years, he has been a constant" (NYT).

ADDED: The top-rated comment over there:

No mention of Probst’s mentor Mark Burnett foisting Trump on us, and getting rich , via his other show the Apprentice. Don’t know about you but that proximity to evil would bother me. Like having your tv parents also make napalm in their other job. Maybe being far away in Fiji helps.

"Robert Durst Found Guilty of Murdering Friend."

Questionable use of the word "friend" in a NY Magazine headline.

Real-estate scion Robert Durst was convicted of first-degree murder by a jury in California on Friday for killing a close friend...

There's that word again. 

... over 20 years ago. The crime is one of three murders Durst is suspected of over nearly four decades — all of which he apparently confessed to in the HBO documentary series The Jinx, six years ago.

"Calling American and Australian behavior 'unacceptable between allies and partners,' France announced on Friday that it was recalling its ambassadors..."

"... to both countries in protest over President Biden’s decision to provide nuclear-powered submarines to Australia. It was the first time in the history of the long alliance between France and the United States, dating back to 1778, that a French ambassador has been recalled to Paris in this way for consultations. The decision by President Emmanuel Macron reflects the extent of French outrage at what it has a called a 'brutal' American decision and a 'stab in the back' from Australia....  Australia on Wednesday canceled a $66 billion agreement to purchase French-built, conventionally powered submarines, hours before the deal with Washington and London was announced."

The NYT reports.

"Is Harry and Meghan’s Time profile a parody?"

Asks Joanna Williams (at The Spectator), looking at Time's "100 most influential people of 2021," which has a silly photo of them on the cover.

Harry and Meghan, we are told, ‘turn compassion into boots on the ground’. They ‘give voice to the voiceless’, ‘mental-health support to Black women and girls’ and feed ‘those affected by natural disasters’. Okay so maybe not with five loaves and two fishes, but ‘hand in hand with nonprofit partners’. In short, ‘They run toward the struggle.’ Or should that be fly? They fly toward the struggle, right? And the ‘struggle’ is a charity polo match in Aspen and the flight is a £45million private jet. The ‘voiceless’ now being given a hearing can surely only refer to the Duke and Duchess themselves: certainly it’s the case that since leaving the royal family they rarely miss an opportunity to remain silent. And the ‘springing into action’ must mean firing off a quick text to Netflix or Oprah, or, more likely, their lawyers.... 

"The University of Wisconsin Smears a Once-Treasured Alum."

A column by John McWhorter (NYT). 

The alum is Fredric March, an actor most people going to school today probably don't remember. Try streaming "The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946). He was important enough to the University of Wisconsin that they put his name on some theater buildings.

He's been attacked for an obvious reason: He belonged to the Ku Klux Klan! But it wasn't that Ku Klux Klan. It was back in 1919/1920 and there was an interfraternity group that called itself the Ku Klux Klan. To think that means something awful is to be historically ignorant, McWhorter explains:

The later 20th century Klan emerged gradually in the wake of the racist film “The Birth of a Nation” in 1915, and only became a national phenomenon starting in 1921. In Wisconsin in 1919, when March was inducted into his group, it was possible to have never heard of the Ku Klux Klan that was later so notorious.... 

Even Madison’s chancellor, Rebecca Blank, has written that March had “fought the persecution of Hollywood artists, many of them Jewish, in the 1950s by the House Un-American Activities Committee” and that March “took actions later in life to suggest (he) opposed discrimination.”...

So... it was 4 years after "The Birth of a Nation." And "it was possible to have never heard of the Ku Klux Klan"? But why was it called "the Ku Klux Klan"? McWhorter says there's "no evidence" that it's the same Ku Klux Klan. But the name is some evidence, and the lack of any other explanation of the name, and the fact that "The Birth of a Nation" had been out for 4 years are at least some evidence.

I agree with McWhorter that March shouldn't be tarred as a racist for something he did for a year as a young man and that might have been genuinely racist. But the question is whether his name should be used to name the campus theaters. We have a much more important theater-related alum — Lorraine Hansberry. I'd put her name on the theaters. Update the honoring.

Back to McWhorter:

This witch-burning mentality is something most of us less concur with than fear.... The students who got March’s name taken off those buildings made a mistake, as did the administrators who again caved to weakly justified demands, seemingly too scared of being called racists to take a deep breath and engage in reason. The University of Wisconsin must apologize to March and his survivors. His name should be restored to both of the theaters now denuded of his name, including the Madison building, which he in fact helped bring into being and funded the lighting equipment even before the building was named after him. This must happen in the name of what all involved in this mistake are committed to: social justice — which motivated March throughout his life.

ADDED: As someone who has taught the law school course called Evidence, I rankle at the phrase "no evidence." Evidence is anything that makes a fact of consequence either more likely to be true or less likely to be true. There is clearly some evidence that March affiliated himself with a racist group. It's fine to say there's not enough evidence to justify removing March's name from these buildings, especially when we also have evidence that March was an anti-racist. That's all you need to say. 

AND: This isn't a trial of March where his accusers must meet a burden of proof and the question is whether he ought to be convicted of racism. That ought to fail because he has a constitutional right to be a racist. We wouldn't even go to trial. But if it did, there wouldn't be enough evidence to convict him. But the important point here is that the question in issue is whether his name ought to be on campus buildings today. What should the burden of proof be and is it met? That's the way to analyze this controversy.

6:28 a.m.

"Life, as it is often called, was conceived as a modern take on a board game designed in 1860... called the Checkered Game of Life..."

"By 1960, the Checkered Game of Life had disappeared from most American game tables. It had been replaced by such as entrants as Monopoly, which rewarded winners with riches, punished losers with penury and became one of the top-selling board games in the United States during the Depression. Mr. Klamer’s task, as assigned by the Milton Bradley Co., was to create a game to mark the company’s 100th anniversary.... With the assistance of colleagues... Mr. Klamer updated [the Checkered Game of Life] for the aspirations of contemporary players. For instance, players of the new version would choose between a 'business' route, which afforded an immediate salary, and 'college,' which promised a larger but delayed one.... To board game enthusiasts, the Game of Life was a beauty: a marvel of topography with raised roads that players traversed in their station-wagon game pieces. According to the volume 'Timeless Toys: Classic Toys and the Playmakers Who Created Them,' by Tim Walsh, Life was 'the first three-dimensional game board using plastic.'... Destinations in the 1960 version included 'Millionaire Acres' — or the 'Poor Farm.'" 

From "Reuben Klamer, toy inventor who created the Game of Life, dies at 99" (WaPo). 

I played that game when it was new in the 1960s, and I guess those 3-dimensional aspects and the built-in spinner were pretty exciting. But what a drag it made life seem! You're a peg in a car and you gather family members to fill the hole in the car and keep driving till you get to the end. At least the end wasn't called "Death." 

And it seems that this is where we Baby Boomers learned we'd better go to college. The game had determined the income difference. But you didn't even have any fun in college or learn anything deep. You just upped your earning potential, and the point of life/Life was to make the most money. What an awful game!

"I think the media makes it sound as though you are just always going right to your personal preference."

"So if they think you are antiabortion or something personally, they think that’s the way you always will come out. They think you’re for this or for that. They think you become like a politician.... That’s a problem. You’re going to jeopardize any faith in the legal institutions." 

Said Justice Thomas, quoted in "Justice Thomas defends the Supreme Court’s independence and warns of ‘destroying our institutions’" (WaPo). 

He's saying what they all say whenever they are out and about.

In recent weeks, Justice Stephen G. Breyer, during a book tour, has emphasized that he and his colleagues are not “junior league” politicians. Last week, the court’s newest member, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, told a crowd in Kentucky that justices are not a “bunch of partisan hacks” and that their divisions are based on competing judicial philosophies, not partisanship. 

ADDED: I wish just once one of these Justices would have the nerve to approach the subject with a steel man argument for their attackers. They've been pummeling the same straw man so long. 

"Thousands of migrants were crowded under a bridge outside the border community of Del Rio on Thursday, part of a massive surge in migration across the Rio Grande this week..."

"... that has overwhelmed the authorities and caused significant delays in processing the arrivals. The U.S. Border Patrol said that more than 9,000 migrants, mostly from Haiti, were being held in a temporary staging area under the Del Rio International Bridge as agents worked as quickly as they could to process them.... The shaded area under the bridge, the Border Patrol said, was to 'prevent injuries from heat-related illness' while migrants were waiting to be taken into custody. The scene — of dense crowds sleeping on dirt or milling about in triple-digit heat amid conditions of deteriorating sanitation — drew condemnations from local officials. Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas ordered the state police and the National Guard to assist border agents in Del Rio, saying the federal response had not been enough to quell the surge in crossings. 'The Biden administration is in complete disarray and is handling the border crisis as badly as the evacuation from Afghanistan,' he said...."

From "Thousands of Migrants Huddle in Squalid Conditions Under Texas Bridge/The temporary camp in Del Rio has grown with staggering speed in recent days during a massive surge in migration that has overwhelmed the authorities" (NYT).

Sunrise, 6:42.

Early fall color, 6:54.

"Updated Covid Guidelines: A Flow Chart Wrapped in a Riddle Shrouded in a Clusterfuck."

McSweeney's answers the question "Should you wear a mask?"

The era of reality shows is over? Now, everybody gets a prize.

I'm reading "Controversial new TV show 'The Activist' drastically revamped after backlash/The format will now be more of a documentary feature rather than a competition" (The Hill).

The reality and competition style of the show drew criticism that it would promote performance activism and distract from actual social issues....

“... [I]t has become apparent the format of the show as announced distracts from the vital work these incredible activists do in their communities every day,” the statement [from the producers] began. “As a result, we are changing the format to remove the competitive element and reimagining the concept into a primetime documentary special (air date to be announced).” 

Six activists will be featured on the revamped show, and will automatically be given a cash grant to the organization of their choice rather than compete for a prize money.

I don't know if many people would have watched this show in the multi-episode competition format. How could it have worked? It's like "The Apprentice," but without the forthright motivation of greed. The contestants were still after money, but for their cause. I guess that's like "Celebrity Apprentice." But without celebrities. It was a dog of an idea. 

By making it one episode — a "special" — they're cutting their losses. And they're still trying to look altruistic. They're going to give all the erstwhile contestants a prize, as if that's magnanimous of them. To me, it seems as though they've slipped into the world of everybody gets a trophy. 

I'm looking forward to the new season of "Survivor," which begins in a few days, on the same network that nixed "The Activist." Imagine watching "Survivor" if all the participants were simply given the same amount of money!

"The White House has invited me & I think it’s a step in the right direction. Yes, I’m going. I’ll be dressed in all pink like Legally Blonde so they know I mean business. I’ll ask questions on behalf of the ppl who have been made fun of for simply being human."

Tweeted Nicki Minaj, quoted in "Nicki Minaj hits back at Biden White House after it claims vaccine-related phone call, not visit, was offered/Earlier this week, Minaj faced backlash after she wrote a tweet asserting that a friend of her cousin's became impotent from the vaccine" (Fox News). 

Also quoted: Terrence Deyalsingh, Trinidad's health minister, saying he'd government had "wasted so much time" over Minaj's tweet about someone in Trinidad experiencing swollen testicles: "There is absolutely no reported such side effect or adverse event of testicular swelling in Trinidad."

ADDED: Fox is really on this story. Here's another article: "Nicki Minaj compares cancel culture in US to China after vaccine blowback: 'Don't ya'll see'/Minaj is waiting to get the vaccine until after she's done more research."

"I remember going to China and they were telling us you know, you cannot speak out against, you know, the people in power, there, etc," Minaj said in an Instagram Live video on Wednesday night. "Don't y'all see that we are living now in that time where people will turn their back on you … but people will isolate you if you simply speak and ask a question."

AND: It will be interesting to see who, ultimately, wins Minaj. 

"The case against [Michael] Sussmann centers on the question of who his client was when he conveyed certain suspicions about Mr. Trump and Russia to the F.B.I. in September 2016."

"Among other things, investigators have examined whether Mr. Sussmann was secretly working for the Clinton campaign — which he denies.... A spokesman for Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, who has the authority to overrule Mr. Durham but is said to have declined to, did not comment.... The accusation against Mr. Sussmann focuses on a meeting he had on Sept. 19, 2016, with James A. Baker, who was the F.B.I.’s top lawyer at the time... Because of a five-year statute of limitations for such cases, Mr. Durham has a deadline of this weekend to bring a charge over activity from that date.... Mr. Baker, the former F.B.I. lawyer, is said to have told investigators that he recalled Mr. Sussmann saying that he was not meeting him on behalf of any client. But in a deposition before Congress in 2017, Mr. Sussmann testified that he sought the meeting on behalf of an unnamed client who was a cybersecurity expert and had helped analyze the data. Moreover, internal billing records Mr. Durham is said to have obtained from Perkins Coie are said to show that when Mr. Sussmann logged certain hours as working on the Alfa Bank matter — though not the meeting with Mr. Baker — he billed the time to Mrs. Clinton’s 2016 campaign."

From "Durham Is Said to Seek Indictment of Lawyer at Firm With Democratic Ties/The lawyer, Michael Sussmann, is accused of lying to the F.B.I. in a 2016 meeting about Trump and Russia. He denies wrongdoing" (NYT).

UPDATE: Sussmann indicted.

"If The New Yorker is going to make gaffes like 'deadbeat,' I'm going to have a lot more trouble going along with things like 'lambent.'"

I'm quoting something I just wrote because I want to let you know there's a big new addition to this post from yesterday.

Also: "There's a part of me that wants to admire the writer's way with words and a part of me that's about to blurt — to paraphrase George W. Bush — What the fuck are you talking about, lambent?"

That link about Bush goes back to a post I wrote in May 2004, when this blog was 4 months old and William Safire was still writing "On Language" columns in the NYT.  Oddly enough, Safire was talking about a passage in the new Bob Woodward book. 

Some things pass away and some things stay the same. From Safire:

"The Homeland Security bill was being blocked in the Senate by a filibuster,'' writes Woodward. ''Calio told the president that they were about to 'vitiate' the filibuster."

George Bush's reaction —"What the f**k are you talking about, vitiate?" — was the first time I'd written "fuck" on this blog, albeit with asterisks. I was puritanical about it, saying it was a word "which I ordinarily never write, but consider importantly quotable in this context." Ha ha.

IN THE COMMENTS: 

Deevs said:

Lambent. A word I learned from playing the Gears of War video game over ten years ago. Maybe that's also where the New Yorker writer learned the word, and his pretentiousness is actually a demonstration of his own low-brow hobbies, past or present.

Aha! 

"The Lambent are mutated Locusts who have been infected by Immulsion. A yellow liquid-based parasite used as a fuel source by the Human population of Sera..."