Wild indigo.

In the sunrise light — at 5:25 — the white flowers look yellow. Why are white flowers called "indigo"? The scientific name is Baptisia lactea — and "Baptisia" is based on the Greek word for "dye." I'm a little confused about whether the wild indigo with white flowers was used to make dye. I think the answer is yes, because the dye is made from the leaves. Here are some instructions, and, by the way, a major ingredient is urine.

This was my best sunrise picture. Today was a Type #3 sunrise — completely clear sky — and the sun had already crossed the shoreline when I reached my vantage point. It doesn't work to aim the camera right at the unclouded sun. You have to get your picture when the sun first peeks over the line or point your camera at something else.

"We will not sell facial-recognition technology to police departments in the United States until we have a national law in place, grounded in human rights, that will govern this technology."

Said Microsoft President Brad Smith, quoted in "Microsoft won’t sell police its facial-recognition technology, following similar moves by Amazon and IBM" (WaPo).

"[W]hen things get real — really murderous, really tragic, really violent or aggressive — my white, liberal, educated friends already know what to do. What they do is read."

"And talk about their reading. What they do is listen. And talk about how they listened. What they do is never enough. This isn’t the time to circle up with other white people and discuss black pain in the abstract; it’s the time to acknowledge and examine the pain they’ve personally caused. Black people live and die every day under the burdens of a racism more insidious than the current virus that’s also disproportionately killing us. And yet white people tend to take a slow route to meaningful activism, locked in familiar patterns, seemingly uninterested in really advancing progress. Theirs is still a world of signs and signaling, where actions like joining book clubs — often based in some 'meaningfully curated' readings that are probably easy to name: 'White Fragility,' 'How to Be an Anti-Racist,' 'Between the World and Me,' maybe even 'All About Love' — take precedence.... [In social media] people write long posts about the need to examine white privilege, to 'name white supremacy,' and to either proudly denounce family members or call them in to conversations.... ... I know what happens next. In a handful of Sundays, my social media feeds will no longer have my white allies 'This'-ing, or unpacking their whiteness or privilege, or nudging their kids to put down their tablets and march. Their book clubs will do what all book clubs do: devolve into routine reschedulings and cancellations; turn into collective apologies for not doing the reading or meta-conversations about what everyone should pretend to read next; finally become occasional opportunities to catch up over wine...."

From "When black people are in pain, white people just join book clubs/I’m caught in a time loop where my white friends and acquaintances perform the same pieties over and over again" by Tre Johnson (WaPo). If you're wondering what, in Johnson's view, is the right response, I can pick out the 2 words where he says it, and when you see them, you may think it's no wonder white people don't just snap to it and do what needs to be done: "dismantle systems."

ADDED: I read the top few highest-rated comments at the link, and they were all taking issue with Johnson's stereotyping of white people. What percentage of white people react to racial strife by cuddling up in book clubs murmuring about "White Fragility" and "Between the World and Me"?

"Melania has been overheard referring to Ivanka as 'The Princess'.... Ivanka, when younger, called Melania 'The Portrait' because she spoke as often as one."

Writes Dwight Garner in "A New Book Brings Melania Trump Into (Slightly) Better Focus" (NYT). Also:

[Melania] spends much of her time with Barron and her parents. Barron speaks Slovenian...  “Trump has complained to others,” [author Mary] Jordan writes, “that he has no idea what they are saying.”...

[O]ne of her former New York roommates... told the author that Melania, in those pre-Trump days, liked to watch “Friends,” ate seven fruits and vegetables a day, didn’t drink alcohol and walked with weights on her ankles to keep toned.

Jordan confirms that the first lady and her husband sleep in separate bedrooms. He likes darkly colored walls and rugs; she prefers light ones. They rarely seem to interact. He uses Irish Spring soap....

When someone once hazarded a joke about Trump’s penis size, the author writes, Melania replied, “Don’t say this — he’s a real man.”

Donald Trump appears to dwell in the White House, for the most part, like a sultan among his pillows. Melania is self-exiled with her parents and son. On many days, Jordan writes, her press office doesn’t answer questions about where she is....

"I’d just like to say Woody Allen is a great, great filmmaker and this cancel thing is not just Woody. And I think when we look back on it..."

"... we are going to see that — short of killing somebody — I don’t know that you can just erase somebody like they never existed."

Said Spike Lee on the radio on Friday, New York Magazine reports.

On Saturday, he was all: "I Deeply Apologize. My Words Were WRONG. I Do Not And Will Not Tolerate Sexual Harassment, Assault Or Violence. Such Treatment Causes Real Damage That Can't Be Minimized.-Truly, Spike Lee."

Deeply!

So he thought when he would look back on it, he'd see that you can't really just erase somebody who's done some great work, but the looking back happened the very next day and he looked back and saw that he was WRONG. That is, the new position, which he feels very deeply, is that you can just erase somebody like they never existed. And "this cancel thing" really can be just about Woody. Isolate that one man and erase him. It won't have a wider effect. It can be as if he never existed!

Is there something physically wrong with President Trump?

then, there’s the stairs. pic.twitter.com/ngwru8TTNy

— Lipstick Killer (@lipstickkills) June 13, 2020

Watch both videos, then say which of these things is most likely:

Nothing at all wrong here.

Minor problems — perhaps the heat, aging, aches and pains, sleep deprivation.

Might be a major health problem.

Fakery. To distract us and to have a health reason if he needs to withdraw from the 2020 race.

 

pollcode.com free polls

Sunrise, 5:19.

The "actual" sunrise time was 5:17.

Free free to use the comments section for any topics you might want to raise.

And remember to use the Althouse Portal to Amazon if you have any shopping to do.

"While Melania stayed in New York, Ivanka continued to establish herself in the West Wing, notorious for its cramped and limited working spaces."

"According to several people, she was eyeing real estate in the East Wing as well, the domain of the first lady. Among other proposals, Ivanka suggested renaming the 'First Lady’s Office' the 'First Family Office.' Melania did not allow that to happen. It was tradition, and she was not going to let her stepdaughter change it. Ivanka’s office remained in the West Wing. Melania’s delay in moving from New York initially put her at a disadvantage. Even some of the staff positions and budgets that would have been available to support the first lady’s office were gone, diverted to support those in the West Wing, including Ivanka.... With Melania away, Ivanka used the private theater, with its plush red seats, and enjoyed other White House perks. Some said she treated the private residence as if it were her own home. Melania did not like it. When she and Barron finally moved in, she put an end to the 'revolving door' by enforcing firm boundaries.... People working in the West Wing say they have heard Trump criticize Don Jr. and Eric and even Ivanka for doing or saying something that the president thought was not helpful, but none could recall hearing him say anything negative about Melania.... More than a dozen past or current White House officials interviewed attributed Melania’s influence to the fact that Trump believed that just about everyone else had an agenda, except Melania. He believed she had no ulterior motive and just wanted him to succeed...."

From "How Melania Trump blocked Ivanka Trump from encroaching on her domain" by Mary Jordan (adapted from the book, "The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump")(WaPo).

At the Third Quarter Café...

... you can talk about whatever you like.

Would the person named Yin who is trying to comment, please try again?

We have tried to put through your comments, but they are not appearing. We are worried that there's some kind of censorship happening that is not coming from us. We will look for you and make a screen shot next time we see you!

"So dogmatic was the dictate that we all stay at home that any attempt to question or even balance it... was deemed immoral."

"Those who questioned state-mandated lockdown and stay-at-home orders, let alone left their homes to actually protest against them, were condemned as sociopaths who were willing to sacrifice the lives of old people for economic prosperity or the trivial, troglodyte desire to go to Applebees. Oftentimes those protesting lockdowns were vilified as white nationalists or at least driven by white racialist sentiments.... How is it remotely within the scope of the expertise of epidemiologists to pick and choose which political protests should be permitted and/or encouraged and which ones banned and/or denounced? Those are plainly political judgments, not scientific ones, and the shoddy, glaring conflation of them is nothing less than a manipulation, an abuse, of public health credentials. For scientists to purport to dictate which citizens can and cannot safely choose to leave their house — based not on health judgments but on their political ideology — is repressive, and certain to erode the credibility of their profession. Yet this is exactly what they are doing: explicitly and shamelessly.... At the very least, it is vital that we have the same health and legal standards apply to all citizens and all political ideologies when it comes to the right to leave one’s home, protest or engage in other legal activities. And at least as importantly, we need to understand whether public health experts were too restrictive in their advocated measures at the start of the pandemic, are being too lax now, or somehow can reconcile the radical shift in their posture on scientific rather than political grounds."

From "The Abrupt, Radical Reversal in How Public Health Experts Now Speak About the Coronavirus and Mass Gatherings" by Glenn Greenwald (The Intercept).

"John Bolton, Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, wanted to write a book."

"He knew that the White House would do everything it could to stop him. He hired a flashy white-shoe law firm to handle the prepublication review process required by the nondisclosure agreement he signed when he got his security clearance. As expected, the White House weaponized the prepublication review process against him to keep him from publishing. If he published without approval, it said, he could face severe legal consequences. Then his lawyer, Chuck Cooper, wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed this week intended to put public pressure on the White House. In it, Cooper volunteered that Bolton had violated both his NDA and perhaps a few criminal laws, including the Espionage Act. Now, even if Bolton’s book is never released, he is facing stiff penalties. As unforced legal errors go, that’s a doozy...."

From "Here’s How John Bolton’s Lawyer Just Threw Him Under the Bus/If you can be prosecuted for keeping a classified document in your garage, you can be prosecuted for giving it to your lawyer" (The Daily Beast).

"Jonathan Turley rips Cornell Law faculty letter against me: 'It is the antipathy of the intellectual foundations for higher education.'"

A new post by William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection, linking to "Cornell Professors Declare 'Informed Commentary' Criticizing The Protests As Racism" by Jonathan Turley.

An excerpt from Turley: "What is most striking for me is the inclusion of Professors Mark H. Jackson and Cortelyou Kenney, who teach in the Cornell First Amendment Clinic. They are in fact the Director and Associate Director of the First Amendment Clinic, which is presumably committed to the value of free speech even at private institutions. So these professors teach free speech and just signed a letter that people who question the BLM movement or denounce the looting are per se or at least presumptive racists. It is reflection of how free speech is being redefined to exclude protections with those who hold opposing views."

From Jacobson: "The law school, as an institution, picked sides and declared in a Dean’s Statement that my writings 'do not reflect the values of Cornell Law School ….' I vigorously disagree with that, but was not given a chance to be heard on it, much less some process to contest it.... [T]he Dean’s statement on behalf of the institution... should have been something along the lines of: 'Though I vigorously disagree with Professor Jacobson’s views, those views are protected by academic freedom and no disciplinary action will be taken.' Period."

ADDED: "'It is the antipathy..." — Doesn't he mean "It is the antithesis..."?

In context:

Not a word about academic freedom or free of speech [sic]; not a suggestion that critics of these protests could have anything other than racist motivations. It is the antipathy of the intellectual foundations for higher education. Rather than address the merits of arguments, you attack those with opposing views personally and viciously. That has become a standard approach to critics on our campuses. Unless you agree with the actions of the movement, you are per se racist. It is a mantra that is all too familiar historically: if you are not part of the resistance, you are reactionary.

"We're supposed to be for each other! We're supposed to be for each other! No! No! No!"

Game of Dodgeball in Antifastan, Seattle. The game ended in confusion and frustration as players were told to continue playing even after getting hit by a ball to prevent hurt feelings. pic.twitter.com/bMzXhnurYD

— John Henry Cash (@fake_news_u_r) June 13, 2020

"There is little or no liberal space in this revolutionary movement for genuine, respectful disagreement, regardless of one’s identity, or even open-minded exploration."

"In fact, there is an increasingly ferocious campaign to quell dissent, to chill debate, to purge those who ask questions, and to ruin people for their refusal to swallow this reductionist ideology whole. The orthodoxy goes further than suppressing contrary arguments and shaming any human being who makes them. It insists, in fact, that anything counter to this view is itself a form of violence against the oppressed. The reason some New York Times staffers defenestrated op-ed page editor James Bennet was that he was, they claimed, endangering the lives of black staffers by running a piece by Senator Tom Cotton, who called for federal troops to end looting, violence, and chaos, if the local authorities could not. This framing equated words on a page with a threat to physical life — the precise argument many students at elite colleges have been using to protect themselves from views that might upset them.... In this manic, Manichean world you’re not even given the space to say nothing. 'White Silence = Violence' is a slogan chanted and displayed in every one of these marches. It’s very reminiscent of totalitarian states where you have to compete to broadcast your fealty to the cause. In these past two weeks, if you didn’t put up on Instagram or Facebook some kind of slogan or symbol displaying your wokeness, you were instantly suspect. The cultishness of this can be seen in the way people are actually cutting off contact with their own families if they don’t awaken and see the truth and repeat its formulae.... If you argue that you believe that much of this ideology is postmodern gobbledygook, you are guilty of 'white fragility.' If you say you are not fragile, and merely disagree, this is proof you are fragile. It is the same circular argument that was once used to burn witches. And it has the same religious undertones...."

From "Is There Still Room for Debate?" by Andrew Sullivan (New York Magazine).

"Each passing day sees more scenes that recall something closer to cult religion than politics."

"White protesters in Floyd’s Houston hometown kneeling and praying to black residents for 'forgiveness… for years and years of racism' are one thing, but what are we to make of white police in Cary, North Carolina, kneeling and washing the feet of Black pastors? What about Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer kneeling while dressed in 'African kente cloth scarves'? There is symbolism here that goes beyond frustration with police or even with racism: these are orgiastic, quasi-religious, and most of all, deeply weird scenes, and the press is too paralyzed to wonder at it. In a business where the first job requirement was once the willingness to ask tough questions, we’ve become afraid to ask obvious ones.... The media in the last four years has devolved into a succession of moral manias. We are told the Most Important Thing Ever is happening for days or weeks at a time, until subjects are abruptly dropped and forgotten, but the tone of warlike emergency remains: from James Comey’s firing, to the deification of Robert Mueller, to the Brett Kavanaugh nomination, to the democracy-imperiling threat to intelligence 'whistleblowers,' all those interminable months of Ukrainegate hearings (while Covid-19 advanced), to fury at the death wish of lockdown violators, to the sudden reversal on that same issue, etc. It’s been learned in these episodes we may freely misreport reality, so long as the political goal is righteous."

From "The American Press Is Destroying Itself/A flurry of newsroom revolts has transformed the American press" by Matt Taibbi (at his own website). Much more at the link.