Sunrise, 7:41.

"Many had run over to collect fuel... Anything spilled was viewed as wasteful in the wreck that didn’t seem dangerous until it burst into flames."

From in "Fuel tanker [truck] explosion kills over 90 in Sierra Leone" (WaPo).

Similar tanker blasts have killed hundreds of people across African countries in recent years — usually involving victims trying to bottle the leaking fuel.

One witness said, "There are dead bodies all around... There are people screaming, people burning alive... The firefighters came, but there was nothing they could do by then... The blaze was so much. There was nothing they could do to contain the inferno.”

"In my broadly shared dread that Republicans will nominate you-know-who yet again, I sometimes postulate desperately that..."

"... maybe we’ll all be saved by a deus ex machina, and the previous poser in the White House will be struck by some debilitating ailment. I’d settle for incurable laryngitis. Or maybe the guy could break out in hard, goitrous globules of insoluble lard. After all, when the supermodel Linda Evangelista had this adverse reaction to a fat-freezing procedure, she became a shut-in! ... I’m not the first to suppose that Biden... might serve only one term. Nor am I the only one who considers America’s vice-president an incompetent dolt who harbours no genuine political convictions, emits a compulsive, mirthless cackle under stress and only achieved her office by dint of sex, ethnicity and race.... Maybe something will indeed come out of left field, and I won’t have to face it. But right now I’m looking in wide-eyed horror at Kamala vs the Donald in 2024, as if standing mid-motorway with the two headlights of an HGV barrelling towards me and not being able to move."

From "Brace yourselves for Kamala Harris vs Donald Trump 2024" by Lionel Shriver (The Spectator).

"Knowing what we know now..."

Knowing what we know now, this incident at #ASTROWORLDFest has become that much more terrifying. https://t.co/FB9B3XwLZA

— Mycah Hatfield (@MycahABC13) November 6, 2021

What we know now: "8 dead, hundreds injured at Astroworld fest Friday night, hours after stampede" (ABC 13)("The worst of the incident began around 9:15 p.m. when the crowd of approximately 50,000 concert-goers began to move toward the front of the stage.... 'The crowd began to compress toward the front of the stage, and people began to panic'").

I'm reading about the song "Na Na Hey Hey" this morning because Republican taunted Democrats with it in the House last night.

As noted in the first post of the day, where I quoted Politico:

[A] rowdy group of Republicans taunted Democrats by singing across the chamber floor a lyric synonymous with schoolyard defeat: "Na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye." Democrats had mocked Republicans with the same chant in 2017, a year before the GOP lost the House after failing to repeal Obamacare....

Here's the 2017 WaPo obituary for one of the song's co-writers:

The song was last in the news in May when Democrats sang it to House Republicans, waving goodbye to them after they passed the American Health Care Act, the replacement for Obamacare.

As its use by the Democrats suggested, it wasn’t a friendly goodbye but a taunt. It was a “you’re outta here,” “you’re finished” kind of goodbye.

For Gary DeCarlo, one of the song’s co-writers, the revival in Congress was a sweet moment. Confined to a hospice with lung cancer and forgotten over the years, reporters called him up. He was thrilled  when the Democrats sang his song, he said, not for partisan reasons but because “it’s exposure”....

It was considered a throwaway song, and it was only a B-side, and the "na na" stuff was padding to make the song long enough.

But in 1977, as legend has it, the organist for the Chicago White Sox, Nancy Faust, started playing it when opposing pitchers were yanked from the game. The crowds began to chant along with the music — and a great taunt was born.

Today's Politico article calls it "a lyric synonymous with schoolyard defeat," but I think that's mixing it up with the very old schoolyard taunt "na na na na na." That's not the same thing. "Na na na na na na hey hey hey" is from that old Steam b-side, and it became a taunt in stadiums, not schoolyards. We're talking about adults choosing to be assholes toward losers. 

Which sounds Trumpian, doesn't it? But the taunt was conspicuously used against Trump:

I'm giving this post my civility bullshit tag, because the taunt is distinctly not civil, but who in politics has the credibility to decry the incivility? 

"It’s lovely being part of being part of this big blob of humans."

Said Hermione Spriggs, 33, quoted in "Tens of thousands expected at climate justice march" (WaP).

Tamara Colchester (L) and Hermione Spriggs, who lead tracking and foraging workshops, are dressed in outfits made of actual leaves and grass pic.twitter.com/FWg95daMni

— Sarah Kaplan (@sarahkaplan48) November 6, 2021

"The Women of the Wall have been holding their monthly prayers and clashing with their opponents at the Western Wall for over three decades but..."

"...the confrontations have taken on a wider significance recently as part of the political battle in Israel between the right-wing alliance of the former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who is now in opposition, and the diverse coalition supporting Naftali Bennett’s government. Five years ago Bennett, then a minister in the Netanyahu government, brokered an agreement among Jewish groups under which the prayers at the main Western Wall plaza would continue to be held under the strictly Orthodox segregated rules while 'egalitarian' groups would be allowed to hold non-segregated services in an enclosure by the southernmost point of the ancient wall, built around the Jewish Temple 2,000 years ago by King Herod. However, the ultra-Orthodox parties that had accepted the compromise pulled out when their involvement was publicised and have since adamantly opposed any concessions to the non-Orthodox groups they accuse of 'desecrating' the holy site."

From "Clashes over women’s right to pray at Wall in Jerusalem" (London Times).

Occasionally the quote of the day comes from my Congressman, and that means something to me.

It's this, from Mark Pocan: "The whole day was a clusterfuck, right?"

Full quote: "The whole day was a clusterfuck, right? At the end of the day what we all want to do is get the president’s agenda done, and that’s what we’re going to do."

Quoted in "'Whole day was a clusterf---': Dems overcome distrust to send infrastructure bill to Biden/Democratic centrists and progressives reached a detente that cleared the $550 billion bipartisan legislation late Friday night and advanced their social spending package" (Politico)l

Why was the whole day a clusterfuck?

In the end, Pelosi only lost six Democrats on the infrastructure vote, all progressives.

Pocan is one of the progressives, and we're told that "helped negotiate the rapprochement with the moderates."

Thirteen Republicans voted in favor, giving Democrats more wiggle room on the floor.

The successful vote followed hours of painstaking negotiation between moderates and progressives that yielded a statement from caucus centrists committing to the party-line social safety net bill, if cost estimates met their projections. But the caveat in that centrist statement underscored the fragility of the underlying accord — House moderates are now staking their votes on an independent budget analysis that may take weeks to produce....

Despite the uncertainty, the centrists’ statement represents a significant detente between the Democratic caucus' two warring factions after months of ideological sparring that threatened to take Biden to the mat too -- despite Democrats having full control of Washington.

In a sign of how much trust has eroded, Congressional Progressive Caucus leader Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash) asked each of the centrists who signed the statement to look her in the eye as they committed both publicly and privately to vote for the broader spending deal after they’ve seen cost estimates, according to multiple Democrats familiar with the exchange.

She's just laying the groundwork for future rhetoric containing the phrase, "You looked me in the eye and...." I presume. I don't believe she could think politicians are the kind of people whose eyes betray them when they are lying.

Jayapal later addressed reporters outside on a wintry night...

The low temperature yesterday was 34° and we're in the middle of the fall, 7 weeks away from the winter solstice, so it's pretty silly to bring the weather into this melodramatic report. Now, I'm questioning what the standard is for "clusterfuck." I'm sure a Wisconsinite like Pocan wouldn't call that night "wintry," but what's the Wisconsin standard for "clusterfuck"? Legislators fleeing the territory while the capitol building is under seige?

Back to the Politico article:

While it’s all but certain the House will have to reckon with the social spending bill again after the Senate, Democratic leaders hope the deal Friday brings an end to their party's months-long internal standoff, which caused a string of embarrassments for leadership including two high-profile abandonments of votes after Biden visits to the Capitol.

By the time lawmakers gathered to vote around 10 p.m., tempers were running high as the House stood in recess while Democratic leaders worked to wrangle the few remaining progressive holdouts.

Rep. Brian Mast (D-Fla.) aggressively heckled Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Calif.), shouting about a provision in a Democratic bill to hire more IRS enforcement. "You're an idiot," Carbajal shouted back at him as he walked away.

Before that a rowdy group of Republicans taunted Democrats by singing across the chamber floor a lyric synonymous with schoolyard defeat: "Na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye." Democrats had mocked Republicans with the same chant in 2017, a year before the GOP lost the House after failing to repeal Obamacare....

November foliage at sunrise today.

"People Tied to Project Veritas Scrutinized in Theft of Diary From Biden’s Daughter/The F.B.I. carried out search warrants in New York as part of a Justice Department investigation into how pages from Ashley Biden’s journal came to be published by a right wing website."

The NYT reports. 

This causes National File — the place that published the entire diary last year— to write: "BOMBSHELL: New York Times, FBI Confirm Legitimacy of Ashley Biden Diary Published by National File."

While the vast majority of the media ignored the bombshell revelations, perhaps dismissing their verifiability, The New York Times on Friday reported that the FBI had engaged in two raids on addresses as part of an investigation into how Ashley Biden’s diary was obtained.

The NYT doesn't talk about what is in the purported diary, but it refers to the diary as if it is established that they diary is really Ashley Biden's diary. And of course, if it wasn't really Ashley Biden's diary then how could the FBI have gotten the search warrant?

You can still read that diary and find links to it at that second link, but I don't know if I'd recommend doing that. It's a personal diary. I think the worst thing about Joe Biden is a statement of a memory of taking a shower with him that was "probably not appropriate."  

Here's James O'Keefe on "FBI and Southern District of New York Raid Project Veritas Journalists’ Homes."

"[Hunter] Biden has described his art as 'literally keeping me sane,' and more than one painting here features text..."

"... detailing his addiction and recovery. ('He began to write a new story,' reads the trippy self-portrait.) The painting of the bald figure bears a citation of the pre-Socratic philosopher Parmenides. Mr. Biden has scrawled these quotes, curiously, in a gold paint marker, the sort of craft-shop instrument beloved of scrapbookers. The gold marker recurs throughout this show, outlining bare trees and mountain ridges, rounded Gaelic characters, and quite a few snakes, some of which appear to have been done with a stencil. The snakes may have some personal significance, molting and rebirth and all that; the symbology may also, more than anything, just suggest being a dude. All of this feels rather random, rather personal, rather ingenuous."

From "Hunter Biden: Emotionally Honest, Generically Smooth/The president’s son has turned to art as a career. 'The Journey Home' is his first solo exhibition" by Jason Farago (NYT).

A look into how people talk at Microsoft.

If you’re not announcing your pronouns, race, hairstyle and accessories, you’re on the wrong side of history.pic.twitter.com/cfmynPoFX4

— Titania McGrath (@TitaniaMcGrath) November 5, 2021

"I believe strongly in bodily autonomy and the ability to make choices for your body, not to have to acquiesce to some woke culture or crazed group of individuals who say you have to do something."

"Health is not a one-size-fits-all for everybody. And for me, it involved a lot of study in the offseason. … I put a lot of time and energy researching this and met with a lot of people to get the most information about the vaccines before I made my decision." 

Said Aaron Rodgers, quoted in "Aaron Rodgers lashes out against NFL, ‘woke mob’ in defense of vaccination status" (WaPo). Or watch him making the statements on the Pat McAfee Show here.

He also says that he's getting advice from his "now good friend" Joe Rogan and that the NFL’s coronavirus protocols are "not based on science but on a more shame-based environment."

At the end of my sunrise run this morning, I encounter sandhill cranes in my path.

"The problem is here they want... White supremacy by ventriloquist effect. There is a Black mouth moving but a White idea through the running on the runway of the tongue..."

"... of a figure who justifies and legitimates the White supremacist practices. We know that we can internalize in our own minds, in our own subconscious, in our own bodies the very principles that are undoing us. So to have a Black face speaking in behalf of a White supremacist legacy is nothing new. And it is to the chagrin of those of us who study race that the White folk on the other side and the right wingers the other side don’t understand."

Said Michael Eric Dyson, talking about Winsome Sears, quoted in "‘A Black Mouth Moving’ That ‘Justifies and Legitimates’ White Supremacy: MSNBC Guest Says Winsome Sears Win Doesn’t Make GOP Racially Progressive" (Mediaite).

Do you know when you are speaking your own true thoughts and are not channeling someone's else's? Are you sure? Do you know when somebody else is speaking their own true thoughts and are not channeling someone's else's? I could see being eternally skeptical about whether anyone is ever truly speaking their own mind, 100% originality, but I'm just going to be skeptical of the people who choose to pronounce some and only some people to be the puppets of others. The selective puppet accusation itself might be channeling what somebody else is launching off the runway of your tongue.

When puppet accusations fly, I feel compelled — by my own true motivation of the heart — to post this video clip:

 

ADDED: Video of Dyson:

MSNBC guest on @WinsomeSears:

“There is a black mouth moving but a white idea running on the runway of the tongue of a figure who justifies and legitimates the white supremacist practices.” pic.twitter.com/P3O8ciTveG

— Jewish Deplorable (@TrumpJew2) November 5, 2021

"Helpfully, the fashion for ladies to wear white gloves during the tea service and even bleach their hands porcelain-white with arsenic also increased demand for black-basalt teaware, as the darkness of the basalt highlighted the cleanliness of the hostesses’ wardrobe or the purity of their genealogy."

Writes Tristram Hunt, in “The Radical Potter," quoted in "A Transporting and Cozy Biography of a Pottery Pioneer" (NYT).