"American tourist rescued after being kidnapped in Uganda" — "rescued" = the tour company paid a $500,000 ransom.

I'm deciphering euphemisms in Daily News headlines.

You have to read a way into the article to get to:

Endicott and Remezo were kidnapped at gunpoint Tuesday and held hostage for a $500,000 ransom.... The touring company, Wild Frontiers, paid a ransom in a “quiet and peaceful” handover, a source with knowledge of the exchange told CNN. Wild Frontiers did not return a request for comment.

“Pleased to report that the American tourist and tour guide that were abducted in Uganda have been released,” President Trump tweeted Sunday afternoon. “God bless them and their families!”

"Released" is a better word choice than "rescued."

I suppose people think that if there's a touring company, it's fine to go to whatever foreign country you've decided is on your "bucket list." I thought that before getting to the part of the article that quotes the woman's friend, using that awful term "bucket list": “She’s a very spontaneous and independent woman, she loves to travel and it was on her bucket list … to go to Uganda, to see the gorillas, to go trekking."

ADDED: My headline assumes the company paid the full amount that was demanded, but that is not clear. Would you like to tour a "wild frontier" under the protection of a company that is known to pay a big ransom to kidnappers? It helped the women in this case, but I would think kidnappers would now target people going with this company.

UPDATE, April 9: "Suspects are arrested for kidnapping American grandmother on safari as it's claimed she was released on the border on a motorbike after the Ugandan government paid $30,000 for her safe return" (Daily Mail). That's a big change in the story I read yesterday, which made it look like the company paid and like the amount was much more.

"I blame no one, but I hate the Internet... The Internet has brought me nothing but trouble"/"I know people are treating me like a monkey... Nobody came to see me with a pure heart. You did this for money."

Said the "Vagrant Master" — Master Shen — whose words were "recorded by live-streamers, shared across ­social media in the form of 15-to-30-second videos and closely watched and analyzed by millions," quoted in "The Internet was obsessed with this philosophy-quoting homeless man in China. Now he’s fled the fame" (WaPo).

This unlikely viral star was discovered by social media when clips of him quoting Aristotle, Confucius and Dante began to surface on Douyin, a short-video platform. To the surprise of many, this homeless man — with uncombed hair, soiled clothes and unwashed beard — turned out to be well versed in literature and philosophy....

Shen quickly became an antihero for those tired of trying to climb social and economic ladders in a country obsessed with youth, novelty, education, fame, wealth and good looks.....

One video showed a road sign pinpointing Shen’s location.... Every morning when the vagabond opened his door, he would find dozens, or even hundreds, of people already waiting at the doorstep of his temporary shelter — a deserted office storeroom. Each time he opened his mouth, dozens of phones and cameras were ready to record. As soon as he finished a memorable quote, people would respond with thunderous applause and cheers....

“I know people are treating me like a monkey,” Shen said in a 25-second video on March 19, more to himself than to a full room of smartphone-wielding spectators. “Nobody came to see me with a pure heart. You did this for money.”...

“I was destined to be a trash collector,” Shen told the Red Star News. “I admire Gandhi and want to live an ascetic life like him.”....

ADDED: Either WaPo needs better editing or it's trying to get in on the mysterious words of wisdom game. Explain this line from the article: "By March 19, Shen’s cult ­following on social media had a cult following on social media."

At the Melted Lake Café....

... let your thoughts flow.

"It's a little jarring to hear an American president say, 'Our country is full,' given the history of the United States of America."

Said Chuck Todd, prodding Senator Mitt Romney to set himself apart from President Trump. But that's not what happened. Romney staunchly backed up Trump:

MITT ROMNEY: Well, we've seen a dramatic shift in the nature of immigration and illegal immigration just over the last few weeks. I mean, a number of years ago and up until just a few weeks ago, the great majority of people coming into our country were coming, looking for work. Single men and oftentimes just were turned at the border. Sent back home typically to Mexico. In the last few weeks, there's been a dramatic change and that is we're seeing unaccompanied young people, as well as families with lots of kids, pouring into the border. And they say the magic word, "I'm seeking asylum." And by virtue of our laws and processes here, we bring them into the country. We don't begin to have enough space in our facilities to maintain the kind of care that these people deserve. And so they're being just turned out into our country, 125,000 of them so far this year. It's overwhelming our system. We have got to be able to deal with this in a way. It's going to take some legislation to get it fixed.

CHUCK TODD: Well, and that's what I'm curious about. How would you be handling this?...

SEN. MITT ROMNEY: Well, I think what has to happen is an effort for Republicans and Democrats to come together, generally with presidential leadership. That's what's going to be essential to get us all together and say, “Okay, we need to fix --

CHUCK TODD: But you just said-- Senator I just heard your hesitation there. Does he have the credibility to do this?

SEN. MITT ROMNEY: Well, he does. He has the capacity to bring together the top Democrats, top Republicans and to sit down and say, "Okay, what can we do legislatively to make sure that we're not creating this extraordinary asylum magnet that's bringing people into the country?" And let me tell you, in my opinion, the Democrats are making a huge error by making border security an issue and saying it's a partisan issue. Look, this is an American issue. We can't have millions upon millions of people flooding into our country without a border that's secure, without ICE making sure the people that are here illegally are sent back. This is a winning issue I think for Republicans. But more importantly, it's a winning issue for Americans to say, "We have to have the sovereignty of our nation." I think the president has tapped into something which the people feel very deeply.

"No one looks at Trump and says 'He's like me.'"

I say, after reading this tweet out loud:

One thing I like about Pete Buttigieg is he seems the most similar to me, personally, not like some of these “identity politics” candidates out there.

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) April 7, 2019

Meade says, "A lot of people look at Trump and say: same tribe." I always ask Meade before I use quotes from him here, and I myself was confused about why he said, "tribe." I thought, if I were fictionalizing this dialogue, I'd have Meade say something like: "Actually, strangely enough, a lot of people look at Trump and think he's like me." But Meade explains his use of "tribe." He's saying people look at Trump and recognize that he is one of us, one of our tribe, the American tribe, our people, our team.

Andrew Sullivan seems to have derived inspiration from the "Goofus and Gallant" children's comic strip.

From "Is Pete Buttigieg a Transformational Candidate?":

Trump is a pathological, malevolent narcissist from New York, breaking all sorts of norms. Buttigieg is a modest, reasonable pragmatist, and a near parody of normality. Trump thrives on a retro heterosexual persona; Buttigieg appears to be a rather conservative, married homosexual. Trump is a coward and draft dodger; Buttigieg served his country. Trump does not read; Buttigieg does. Trump’s genius is demonic demagoguery. Buttigieg’s gig is careful reasoning. Trump is a pagan; Buttigieg is a Christian. Trump vandalizes government; Buttigieg nurtures it.

Here's the "Goofus and Gallant" article in Wikipedia. Excerpt:

The comic, published monthly in Highlights for Children, consists of two panels depicting the actions of two children, Goofus and Gallant. Gallant's actions are always virtuous and respectful, in contrast to Goofus's, which are always rude and selfish. They are presented side by side with a brief caption (e.g. "Goofus turns on the television when there are guests; whenever guests arrive, Gallant turns off the television at once.")...

According to Brown, who was Editor of Highlights for Children, "Without Goofus, Gallant would be bland and no one would pay attention. But kids see parts of themselves in both characters. No one is as good as Gallant, and no one is as bad as Goofus. But being more like Gallant is something to strive for." For many years, a short line of text reading "Gallant shows correct behavior" was included at the bottom of the comic....

Without Trump, Buttigieg would be bland and no one would pay attention. But we see parts of ourselves in both characters. No one is as good as Buttigieg, and no one is as bad as Trump. But being more like Buttigieg is something to strive for.

By the way, one of Sullivan's contrasts does not belong with the others: "Trump is a pagan; Buttigieg is a Christian." The disparagement of Paganism is religious bigotry.

From the Wikipedia article "Modern Paganism":

Contemporary Paganism has been defined as "a collection of modern religious, spiritual, and magical traditions that are self-consciously inspired by the pre-Judaic, pre-Christian, and pre-Islamic belief systems of Europe, North Africa, and the Near East." Thus, the view has been expressed that although "a highly diverse phenomenon", there is nevertheless "an identifiable common element" running through the Pagan movement. [religious studies scholars Michael F.] Strmiska similarly described Paganism as a movement "dedicated to reviving the polytheistic, nature-worshipping pagan religions of pre-Christian Europe and adapting them for the use of people in modern societies." The religious studies scholar Wouter Hanegraaff charactised Paganism as encompassing "all those modern movements which are, first, based on the conviction that what Christianity has traditionally denounced as idolatry and superstition actually represents/represented a profound and meaningful religious worldview and, secondly, that a religious practice based on this worldview can and should be revitalized in our modern world."

"All that was left to bring back to the camp was the poacher's bloodied head...."

From "Rhino poacher trampled to death by elephants then eaten by lions at Kruger National Park in South Africa" (The Sun).

Four other poachers... described how an angry elephant surprised them as they stalked endangered rhino and stamped their friend to death giving them a chance to run for safety.

Kruger Park Rangers... found what was left of the poacher on Thursday but it appeared he had been eaten by a lion pride....

KNP managing executive Glenn Phillips said:  “It was very sad to see the daughters of the deceased man mourning the loss of their father, and worse still, only being able to recover very little of his remains.”

Here, we only got the head.

The NYT's Charlie Warzel takes CarpeDonktum's silly Biden-massaging-Biden video and turns it into something aggressive, chaotic, toxic, and dark.

I'm reading "Meet the Man Behind Trump’s Biden Tweet/A stay-at-home dad in Kansas reveals how the lines have blurred between viral trolling and the business of politics," a NYT article by "Opinion writer at large" Charlie Warzel. That is, the NYT acknowledges and tries to deal with this:

WELCOME BACK JOE! pic.twitter.com/b2NbBSX3sx

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 4, 2019

Warzel got an interview with the "memesmith"* who calls himself Carpe Donktum, who seems like a perfectly nice man, so I felt queasy about the way Warzel undercut him:

Yep, a grainy, edited parody clip of the former vice president... [is] a perfectly unbelievable and dispiriting artifact of our fractured and chaotic political media ecosystem, where politicking is conducted through viral memes and retweets.

Chaotic? Dispiriting? It was brilliantly funny, lightweight, sweet and doesn't seem to take any position on how we ought to feel about Joe Biden. It was absurd — and hardly political at all. I think it's positively healing. Why is Warzel getting so heated up about it?

The entire event is at once silly, trivial, offensive and, thanks to Donald Trump’s Twitter feed, something we’re now begrudgingly made to pay attention to.

Oh, spare me. You're already paying complete attention to Donald Trump’s Twitter feed.  Warzel seems to hate the idea that CarpeDonktum may have "an indirect line to the Oval Office." Yes, isn't it terrible that an ordinary person, somewhere in flyover country, can just say something or show something, and the President might see it and take 10 seconds of his time to acknowledge that it exists and is funny? It's easy to imagine how wonderfully cool the same behavior would be if Obama, while President, had done the same thing with a video that made cute fun of Dick Cheney.

And his elevation — from a Kansas City keyboard warrior to right-wing internet fame as the president’s unofficial meme maker — is a telling example of how the internet has fully blurred the lines between meme posting and business of politics.

MSM wants a strong border between the professional media and social media. They're overwrought about the cacophony of illegitimate voices in the discourse. Their entire way of life is threatened. If only there could be some kind of wall to protect them from the chaos of the invasion of the horde.

“It’s definitely an organic process,” CarpeDonktum told me over the phone shortly after Mr. Trump tweeted his video. “[White House director of social media] Dan Scavino follows me on Twitter, but there’s no formal relationship there between me and the president. If there’s something I want to make sure [Scavino] sees, I’ll wait for him to post a tweet and try to be the first to reply, linking to what I want to show.” He said that he doesn’t get paid for any of his videos (other than his Patreon crowdfunding account and occasional YouTube ad revenue) and has no relationships to outside politicians....

It's a simple process, and CarpeDonktum nicely shared a tip.

[CarpeDonktum] tailors [videos] to an older generation of internet users. The elaborate memes feature footage from old Looney Tunes cartoons or depict Mr. Trump as a cowboy from an old John Wayne-style Western, slapping a man with a CNN or MSNBC logo across its head. “It’s boomer humor,” he said of his style of videos. “I’m not a boomer. But that brand of humor is most easily shareable by lots of people. So, I stay away from real violence, or overly sexualized stuff so it appeals to the largest amount of people.”

"Boomer humor" — by a younger guy who sees its value. Gee, thanks. I hear him saying that he wants something more sweet and silly, but Warzel wants to use him to show that everything's spinning out of control.

The videos share extremely well among an aging Trump supporter contingent who are prolific and aggressive posters of misinformation and hyperpartisan content on platforms like Facebook.

There's no misinformation or hyperpartisan content in that Biden video. I wonder how old Warzel is. Based on his photograph, he's Gen X or millennial. But he doesn't share CarpeDonktum's affection for the aging Boomers, at least those of us who don't accept instruction from mainstream media. Our laughter at a silly meme feels "aggressive" to him — "chaotic" and "dispiriting."

“Sean Hannity is going to play the video tonight,” [CarpeDonktum] told me... “Some kids that are 18 can retweet it and so can some grandma in Wisconsin. It’s slightly edgy but universal.”

See? CarpeDonktum thinks he's having fun and reaching everybody.

Though his videos are dressed up using cartoons or slapstick humor, all of them center on the incendiary, offensive and hyperpartisan themes of Mr. Trump’s politics (the wall, anti-media sentiment, making fun of Hillary Clinton and other Democrats). 

The Biden one doesn't. Warzel seems to be injecting his own political emotion without regard to the substance. Ironically, this is what professional journalism shouldn't do. And it just seems really mean to get an interview with what seems to be a perfectly civil good guy who's being nice and funny and sharing his tips and to call what he does merely dress-up. Dressed-up what? Suddenly a video has a surface —which might be cute and funny — and a core — which in CarpeDonktum's case is "incendiary, offensive and hyperpartisan." But the Biden video isn't incendiary, offensive and hyperpartisan. It's retweetable by some grandma in Wisconsin!

And CarpeDonktum, who described himself as “an entertainer” who “wants to make people laugh,” is not above engaging in all-caps Trumpian politics (which includes angrily tweeting at liberal politicians).

What's the evidence of his "angrily tweeting"? The NYT puts a link on those words and it goes to a search of his Twitter feed for the word "fuck"! Turns out CarpeDonktum sometimes says things like "Respectfully, you don't know what the Fuck you are talking about." To someone who did something that risked violence to another person he said, "What the fuck is wrong with you?" And he'll even say "Fuck you." Who would he say that to? Look:

John,
When faced with the reality that the people of the United States might elect a president that would not be under your thumb, you threw a temper tantrum that resulted in acts of treason.

You betrayed your country and its people.

Fuck You John https://t.co/etbuNM6TjE

— Carpe Donktum🔹 (@CarpeDonktum) March 20, 2019

Back to Warzel's hit piece:

[CarpeDonktum's] desire not to reveal his name suggests that he’s aware that those outside Trumpland find his content toxic.

Pseudonymity is a complex topic, but Warzel chooses the interpretation that says what he wants: CarpeDonktum knows his memes are regarded as "toxic." Another way to put this is: CarpeDonktum is afraid Trump haters might try to destroy his family's life.

“I’m not shy about this stuff but I don’t advertise it,” he said. “If I were to go to a party I wouldn’t introduce myself as the ‘Trump meme guy from Twitter.’”

And that's in Kansas.

That CarpeDonktum’s online musings or personal life should be picked apart is controversial in its own right. 

What? Who's picking apart his personal life? Is Warzel engaging in NYT musing about whether he should pick apart CarpeDonktum’s personal life?

At first glance, it feels silly, maybe even wrong, to elevate him. 

Elevate him? You sound like you want to destroy him.

He’s not a politician. He’s a Reddit user wielding far-right “Dad humor.” He’s not a public figure, save a few Infowars appearances and Persicope live stream videos where he films himself talking while he makes lunch for his children.

Ugh! Don't even mention the children! And look at the next thing he says:

But at a time when our politics is programmed by what’s viral on Twitter, CarpeDonktum appears — stupefyingly as it might seem — to have something approaching power in MAGAland. It appears he senses it, too.

Did Warzel contemplate the ideation that a crazy Trump hater might get from that?

“All of the memes and stuff like that.” he said. “That’s the future of political advertising. The 30 second spots on TV aren’t the way to market anymore. The stuff online that people dismiss as memes — that’s the way to motivate people,” he added. “It’s the viral political marketing of the future.”

In theory, his story is a perfect realization of the utopian understanding of the utopian promise of the internet: a truly democratic system of communication where anyone, anywhere can create things and get them seen by important people — even the president!

Yes, that's the story I see here, but that's not how the article ends. There are 2 more sentences:

But in keeping with our current political moment, that utopian vision is used for vapid, divisive ends. The reality, as we should all know by now, is darker and a whole lot dumber.

Gone are the days when the NYT could tell us there's something "we should all know by now" and we would scurry to get up to speed with what all the right people think. Warzel decries what is "divisive," but he jumped off from a completely non-divisive video and — after speaking to a nice man in Kansas — went as "dark" as he could. Ridiculous!
___________________________________

* I think "memesmith" is the NYT's word. I'm still trying to adjust to the use of the word "meme" to refer to individual items — videos or graphics — that are merely intended to be shared frequently. I accept that the word grew out of the original Richard Dawkins idea (from "The Selfish Gene" (1976)):

We need a name for the new replicator, a noun which conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation. ‘Mimeme’ comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like ‘gene’. I hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I abbreviate mimeme to meme... It should be pronounced to rhyme with ‘cream’. Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches.

It became something that didn't require imitation and copying with variations, if they acquired virality — if people really did share it compulsively. Now, the word applies to any damn thing someone makes with the hope that it will inspire massive sharing and even if it fails. So the Russians threw together thousands of dumb graphics and we're told they made 3,000 memes. Where was the virality?

Well, ultimately there was a kind virality, as Trump resisters used them in their misguided, ridiculous effort to oust the President America elected, but mostly we've heard only references to the "memes," and we're not looking at these stupid things. The only one I remember seeing is Jesus arm-wrestling with Satan. I don't think the actual graphics were compulsively shared, so they were not viral, and I don't like calling them "memes."

But if these items are to be called "memes" at the point of their creation and before any virality is achieved, I accept the word "memesmith." The ending "-smith" refers to someone, like a blacksmith, who manufactures something.

At the Saturday Night Cafe...

... you can talk about whatever you want.

"I have never had a reaction like this before. It’s been insane. And heartwarming. But now..."

"... I have to make sure the second season is even better so I’ll probably have to work much harder than usual. Annoying really," said Ricky Gervais, about the renewal of his TV show "After Life," reported at Variety.

The show centers around Tony (Gervais), a middle-aged journalist whose “perfect life” has been reduced to dust since his wife died of cancer. After contemplating taking his own life, he decides instead to live long enough to punish the world by saying and doing whatever he likes from now on. He thinks it’s like a Super Power, but eventually finds out life is more complicated, when everyone around him tries to save the nice guy they used to know.

"At the end of the day, it’s all those little mundane interactions that actually save your life — they’re the variety of life, they stop you from feeling too sorry for yourself. He’s got to take the dog for a walk, he’s got to go to work to make money to get drunk, and after all that, time heals,” Gervais explained to Variety in an interview.

I've watched 4 episodes, and it has my recommendation. It's beautifully filmed in a distinctive small city in South West England. It is a dramatic comedy about living again after your loved one has died. There's also quite a bit about the subtle pain of working on a little newspaper that reports inanely uplifting stories about local people, like the man pleased with the water stain on his wall that looks like Kenneth Branagh.

"The Alkonost is, according to Russian mythos and folklore, a woman-headed bird."

"It makes amazingly beautiful sounds, and those who hear these sounds forget everything they know and want nothing more ever again. She lives in the underworld with her counterpart the sirin. The alkonost lays her eggs on a beach and then rolls them into the sea. When the alkonost's eggs hatch, a thunderstorm sets in and the sea becomes so rough that it becomes impossible to traverse."

I'm reading the Wikipedia, "Alkonost," because I'm looking "Sirin und Alkonost"/"Birds of Joy and Sorrow," another painting by Victor Vasnetsov, whom I've taken an interest in lately:



The note says the one on the left is the Alkonost. I infer that the one on the right is the Sirin. From the Wikipedia article "Sirin":

These half-women half-birds are directly based on the Greek myths and later folklore about sirens....  Men who heard them would forget everything on earth, follow them, and ultimately die. People would attempt to save themselves from Sirins by shooting cannons, ringing bells and making other loud noises to scare the bird off. Later (17-18th century), the image of Sirins changed and they started to symbolize world harmony (as they live near paradise). People in those times believed only happy people could hear a Sirin, while only very few could see one because she is as fast and difficult to catch as human happiness. She symbolizes eternal joy and heavenly happiness....

Sometimes Sirins are seen as a metaphor for God's word going into the soul of a man. Sometimes they are seen as a metaphor of heretics tempting the weak. 

"It is as if a meteor, of the sort that killed off the dinosaurs, has struck — and the hole keeps deepening."

"They’re going down 37 feet, 11 ½ inches, every bit of it through Manhattan’s famously stubborn schist. Recently they hit quartz, which may become the subterranean floors and stairs. The finished mansion will feature an underground theater and a recording studio, a Jacuzzi and a sauna, free-floating elliptical stairs (whatever that might be) and a wall of sculpture depicting trees, animals and birds of the jungle. But to neighbors whose lives have been upended over the past year — by the noise, and vibrations, and fumes, and dust, and traffic, and wires, and Port-a-Potties, and rats — another accouterment captures the spirit of the place.... It’s as if stone that sat intact and undisturbed for millenniums beneath what would eventually become Manhattan is shrieking, 'And all this for … a swimming pool?'... ... Gabrielle Fink, a 36-year-old violinist, reluctantly moved out...  But many others, especially longtime residents like Nick Jordan, a professor of philosophy at Queens College, can’t just up and leave. For one thing, he’s 80 years old. He has lived at No. 51 since 1971...  '"Noise" isn’t strong enough,” he said of the din, by which he must now read exegeses and grade exams. '"Mindless hell and chaos" would be better.' I asked him whether any of the great philosophers had something useful to say on what he’s enduring. 'Schopenhauer argued that the higher your tolerance for noise, the lower your intelligence,' he replied. So was he getting stupider?..."

From "That Noise? The Rich Neighbors Digging a Basement Pool in Their $100 Million Brownstone" (NYT). Excellent photos of the beleaguered neighbors at the link. There's also description of "block organizers" who want to "find a way to make sure this never happens to anybody again," but "napped as the project won approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission and the Department of Buildings." I hate these cries for new law from people who don't use the law that's already there.

And, here, you can read Schopenhauer's "On Noise." Excerpt:

The superabundant display of vitality, which takes the form of knocking, hammering, and tumbling things about, has proved a daily torment to me all my life long. There are people, it is true — nay, a great many people — who smile at such things, because they are not sensitive to noise; but they are just the very people who are also not sensitive to argument, or thought, or poetry, or art, in a word, to any kind of intellectual influence. The reason of it is that the tissue of their brains is of a very rough and coarse quality. On the other hand, noise is a torture to intellectual people....

Was that this past week or every other week of Trump's presidency (as reported in MSM headlines)?

I clicked on "Donald Trump's week of utter chaos sends a message" (CNN) solely because it sounded like idiocy to me.

This wasn't the usual chaos, I suppose. Now, it's UTTER!!! chaos. Yawn.

The writer is CNN Political Analyst Julian Zelizer. He begins:

Many political observers are struggling to figure out what the President's game plan is for 2020, and no wonder: This week was hard to believe....

Just because you can't figure out what someone is doing behind the scenes and inside his head doesn't mean there's chaos. It might mean you don't know or you can't understand.

Is this just another column on how Trump talked about health care when he could have just kept talking about the Mueller report? That's a pretty dull topic. Zelizer has a couple other things — Trump for no apparent reason said his father was born in Germany and Trump — for reasons I discussed here* — said some people think wind turbines might cause cancer.

Ah, but Zelizer does give Trump some credit:

The President intends to use his mastery of the media cycle to totally control the agenda throughout the next two years....  At some level there is a logic to such a plan.

Method to the madness.

After all, Democrats are on strong ground when it comes to a large number of policies.... But if they get drowned out by coverage of Trump, that's better for the President.... Trump will do everything possible to keep Democrats out of the media other than in the light he wants to paint them. As he has done since day one in the Oval Office, Trump will continually blitz the nation with controversy, inanity, outrage and fierce polemical attacks so that in each minute of the day reporters, producers, editors, bloggers and tweeters can't resist offering some kind of response.

Which is, in turn, what the media do to him.

Trump's chaos will make the media playing field rough for Democrats. They will need to figure out a way to cut through the President's noise and to steal attention away from the shiny object that is the President of the United States.

Orange man shiny.

It's also said that Trump will get respite from media attacks because the media will have to put out a lot of material about the Democratic Party candidates. But they might be too dull. America needs a shiny object.

_________________________________

* You can see my ideas about why Trump said "They say the [wind turbine] noise causes cancer" in the poll I put up — click to enlarge and clarify — which produced these results:

I thought of an additional reason later and put it in the comments: "To create a bond with the kind of people who have fears and resistance to what experts say about science."

This post makes me think of another reason: To trick the media into talking about something other than the policies Democrats want to forefront.

"You think you’re woke but you’re sleepwalking through a nightmare" — slogan for the Time to Get Organized for an Actual Revolution National Tour.

"I’m with the Time to Get Organized for an Actual Revolution National Tour. We’re touring all across the country to organize thousands into the ranks of the revolution," said "a teenage-looking boy" in the "Free Speech Zone" near a Trump fundraiser in Beverly Hills.

Quoted in "'No Celebrities': Embarrassing Turnout at Trump’s Beverly Hills Fundraiser" in The Daily Beast.

I wonder, who was embarrassed? Was it the people at The Daily Beast imagining that Trump ought to be embarrassed? He doesn't seem like a guy who gets embarrassed. Especially about the lack of "celebrities." Isn't it embarrassing that Democratic Party candidates get all the celebrities?

Here's an article from late November 2016 in Vanity Fair, "Did Celebrity Endorsements Contribute to Hillary Clinton’s Presidential Upset?/The divide in celebrity endorsements between candidates was as large as ever in the 2016 presidential election—and the candidate with the most lost":

The gulf between celebrity endorsements on the Democratic versus Republican side is stark during every election, but this year, the rift seemed infinite. Hillary Clinton had Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, and even Lebron James. #ImWithHer hashtags decorated social output from Ariana Grande, Jennifer Lopez, the Kardashians, and Rihanna, as well as YouTube stars like Tyler Oakley. Clinton carried far and away the majority of celebrity seals of approval....

Many of the celebrity P.S.A.s this year leaned into the idea that no one wants to hear about politics from a Grammy/Oscar/Emmy winner. Lena Dunham’s parody of the earnest P.S.A., “Sensual Pantsuit Anthem,” tried to promote Hillary Clinton and voting through an attempted self-aware rap....

[Trump] removes middleman when it comes to endorsements. Instead of the transitive property of Katy Perry (“I’m a Katy Perry fan; Katy Perry is a Hillary Clinton fan; I’m a Hillary Clinton fan"), there’s the much simpler “I’m a Trump fan” equation, for better or worse.

Trump is his own celebrity. Is that better or worse than having other people to be your celebrities? Please, before answering, watch this video, which came out a few days before the 2016 election.



And come on, let's talk about what's embarrassing!

You think you’re woke but you’re sleepwalking through a nightmare...

ADDED: When the system tries to bring you down, listen to this, which was the actual soundtrack to this post, here at Meadhouse:

Saturday morning, getting started.

That first post of the day — "The Deep Rot Exposed By the Biden Flap" — made me create a new tag — "Pajamas."

Then I was off into the archive, looking for old posts that could use the tag, a task bogged down by all the appearances of "Pajamas Media," which, of course, doesn't get the tag. It even has its own tag. So does Pajama Boy. Pajama Boy! I had a tag for Pajama Boy, but not pajamas.

"Pajamas" is a great tag, by the way. Some good miscellany collected there, including my infamous episode with the subliminal pajamas in Hillary Clinton's attack on Obama. John Lennon shows up. And Hugh Hefner. There's Trump in the Treaty Room. There's JFK (who put on pajamas to take his afternoon nap). There's Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Tex.) — remember that pajama flap? There's Osama Bin Laden, shot to death because he wasn't naked. There's Rex Reed's reaction to the Manson murders. There's me in 1958. There's Marilyn Monroe.

Anyway... if you're wondering why this morning's blog session seemed to end with the gaze into deep rot, it was just me, scanning the archives for pajamas.

Now, out of pajamas, out of the past, onward to today and the relentless forward motion of the blog.

"The Deep Rot Exposed By the Biden Flap."

A funny headline in the Wall Street Journal. It makes me picture Joe Biden in drop-seat pajamas:

I hope you appreciate my stunningly non-creepy illustration of drop-seat pajamas (from Disney's "Peter Pan"). Now, just picture Joe Biden, with the flap open, and the deep rot exposed.

The opinion column in the WSJ is by its editor at large Gerard Baker.

What troubles me isn't simply this particular obsession with the former vice president's odd olfactory habits or what he does with his hands. It is what this baffling discussion says about the quality of what passes for debate now, the issues that seem to dominate that debate and the way that debate is conducted....

This obsessive puritanism is merely one symptom of the malaise in our public discourse, which runs deep and wide. It also lies...

What also lies? Oh, the malaise!

... in the trivialization of serious political issues; the willful mischaracterization of one another's views; the seething mutual contempt for an opposing voice; the rancor that suffuses discussion of even the least consequential of topics; the wild conspiracy-theorizing on both left and right as they seek to characterize each other's positions in the most poisonous way imaginable....

Baker has a degree in philosophy, politics and economics from Corpus Christi College, Oxford University. That prose made me look up his background. Especially "the rancor that suffuses discussion." This is civility bullshit, but oh, what bullshit! Is it properly called passive when the abstractions that replace the human subject are so active? "Rancor" isn't just there, it's suffusing. "Contempt" is seething. "Malaise" is running and lying.

All of this speaks to the triumph today not of reason -- the defining characteristic of the Enlightenment values that made America great -- but of emotion.

The old reason/emotion distinction. A favorite of blog commenters everywhere, so get on it.

Pundits, media companies and politicians have discovered that it is emotion, not reason, that wins votes and pulls in eyeballs. It's fun and lucrative while it lasts, but the Greeks and Romans can tell you precisely what it does to a civilization in the long run.

Because this, in the end, is what undoes great civilizations.

Make America Great Again. This obsession with greatness is as emotional as everything else. There's a gesture at erudition with a mere mention of the Enlightenment, the Greeks, and the Romans. But what has that got to do with thinking Joe Biden, because of his ample displays of sexless physical affection, should not be President? The reason/emotion distinction isn't too helpful, since what we're trying to "reason" about is how voters will feel about the super-feely Biden. Oh! But Rome fell!!!

Defeat on the battlefield overseas or destructive revolution at home only comes when the rot within is so advanced that the seemingly robust institutional structures have been fatally undermined. The condition of public discourse today is absolutely the kind of rot with that sort of potential.

Those are the last 2 sentences — conclusory and absolutely unsupported. I used the word "absolutely" because he did. I think it's a very silly word. So is "rot." Baker never demonstrated that the effort to take down Biden is "rot." And he didn't show that it was "malaise" or "obsessive puritanism."

If you want to write about elevating the discourse, elevate the discourse.

For now, my tag remains, as ever, "civility bullshit."