Things men did to Martha Nussbaum that she didn't react to in a conventionally feminist way.

Sorry but I've got one more New Yorker article to blog about "THE PHILOSOPHER OF FEELINGS/Martha Nussbaum’s far-reaching ideas illuminate the often ignored elements of human life—aging, inequality, and emotion," by Rachel Aviv. I just wanted to pull out 2 things:

1. From her experience in the graduate program in classics at Harvard, in 1969: "When her thesis adviser, G. E. L. Owen, invited her to his office, served sherry, spoke about life’s sadness, recited Auden, and reached over to touch her breasts, she says, she gently pushed him away, careful not to embarrass him. 'Just as I never accused my mother of being drunk, even though she was always drunk,' she wrote, 'so I managed to keep my control with Owen, and I never said a hostile word.' She didn’t experience the imbalance of power that makes sexual harassment so destructive, she said, because she felt 'much healthier and more powerful than he was.'"

2. From the 1990s, when she was in a relationship with Cass Sunstein: "In an influential essay, titled 'Objectification,' Nussbaum builds on a passage written by Sunstein, in which he suggests that some forms of sexual objectification can be both ineradicable and wonderful. Straying from the standard line of feminist thought, Nussbaum defends Sunstein’s idea, arguing that there are circumstances in which being treated as a sex object, a 'mysterious thinglike presence,' can be humanizing, rather than morally harmful. It allows us to achieve a state that her writing often elevates: the 'abnegation of self-containment and self-sufficiency.'"

Gary Johnson "tells Sanders supporters to take an ideological quiz at the Web site ISideWith.com."

"'You get paired up with a Presidential candidate most in line with your views,' he said. 'I side with myself the most, and then, amazingly, I side with Bernie next closest.' Polls so far show that Johnson actually takes more voters from Clinton than from Trump. 'It’s about everything but economics,' Johnson said, ticking off the issues on which he and Sanders agree: 'on legalizing marijuana, on "Let’s stop dropping bombs," crony capitalism.'... Johnson’s theory of politics is highly rational. He assumes that voters don’t need to know much more than his positions to make up their minds. In his stump speech, he goes through a long list of his stances on issues in the areas of fiscal matters, social concerns, and foreign policy. It’s the live equivalent of the ISideWith.com quiz."

From "THE LIBERTARIANS’ SECRET WEAPON/The third-party candidacy of Gary Johnson might make the most unpredictable election in modern times even weirder," by Ryan Lizza (in The New Yorker).

The New Yorker really forefronted the stuff about marijuana. In the "history" tab in my browser, the article shows up as having the title "Flying High," and it begins: "Not long ago, Gary Johnson..., put a halt to his considerable consumption of marijuana. 'The last time I indulged is about two months ago, with some edibles,' Johnson..." The edibles, we're told, were "Cheeba Chews, a Colorado brand that High Times has called 'America’s favorite edible.'" And while we're on the subject of edible marijuana, Johnson, until recently, was C.E.O. of Cannabis Sativa, Inc., "a marijuana-branding company that hopes to benefit as legalization spreads":

At the company, Johnson told me, he hired the person who developed the branding for a product line called hi. “Small ‘H,’ small ‘I’—really cool logo,” he said. He also contributed to the development of a strain-specific edible lozenge that he said “is as good a marijuana high that exists on the planet.” How did he know? “As C.E.O., I did some testing,” he said. “Nothing was better.”

“So, if someone wanted to try that strain, how would they acquire it?” I asked.

“Legally, they couldn’t,” Johnson said.

“What about illegally?”

“Well, I’d probably be able to connect you up illegally.”

Seems like good branding. Why not a lozenge? It seems to suggest an anti-smoking message, soothing rather than irritating.

Trump's ghostwriter — telling "all" to The New Yorker — says he's giving his 2016 royalties from "Art of the Deal" to charities...

... charities chosen with an eye toward undoing the damage he feels he's done by leveraging Trump's career...

... the National Immigration Law Center, Human Rights Watch, the Center for the Victims of Torture, the National Immigration Forum, and the Tahirih Justice Center. He doesn’t feel that the gesture absolves him. “I’ll carry this until the end of my life,” he said. “There’s no righting it. But I like the idea that, the more copies that ‘The Art of the Deal’ sells, the more money I can donate to the people whose rights Trump seeks to abridge.”

Since there's no righting it, there's no use donating anything more than the royalties from just this one year, 2016. How much has Tony Schwartz made from all these years of getting half the royalties from "Art of the Deal"?

Is Schwartz a reliable storyteller? His current story is that the story he told back then was total trash, but he was useful — was then and is now, to different people.

Interestingly, Schwartz got the co-writing job in the first place after he'd "published a piece in New York called 'A Different Kind of Donald Trump Story,' which portrayed him not as a brilliant mogul but as a ham-fisted thug." Trump, we're told, "loved the article.... and sent a fan note to Schwartz." Not long after that, Trump asked Schwartz to write his book for him. Schwartz, a "lifelong liberal" who "was hardly an admirer of Trump’s ruthless and single-minded pursuit of profit," decided to do it for the money, even though he felt "his journalism career would be badly damaged." He "knew [he] was selling out."

When The New Yorker called Trump about Schwartz's "critical remarks," Trump said "He’s probably just doing it for the publicity," and "Wow. That’s great disloyalty, because I made Tony rich. He owes a lot to me. I helped him when he didn’t have two cents in his pocket. It’s great disloyalty. I guess he thinks it’s good for him—but he’ll find out it’s not good for him."

Because who's for Tony Schwartz now? Certainly not the people who got him to trash Trump.

Here's the schedule for the GOP convention.

Here. Are you going to watch much of it? I've set the DVR to record it. I hope to find at least some of it bloggable.

Each day has a theme, expressed in the form of the campaign slogan with the word "great" replaced by another simple word, safe/work/first/one*:

Monday: Make America Safe Again....

Tuesday: Make America Work Again....

Wednesday: Make America First Again....

Thursday: Make America One Again....

The first speaker on the first night is... who else?... Willie Robertson, the star of "Duck Dynasty."

I couldn't figure out who, if anyone, is the "keynote" speaker.
__________________________

* Maybe Trump has the same idea as Randall Munroe, author of "Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words" ("In Thing Explainer, he uses... only the thousand (or, rather, 'ten hundred') most common words to provide simple explanations for some of the most interesting stuff there is....").

Titanic fight between Rex Parker and Will Shortz over the Sunday crossword.

What seemed like a terrible puzzle became damned good once we found out what the clues were supposed to be.

The NYT puzzle editor, Will Shortz, showed up in the comments section of Rex Parker's blog to say: "I don't usually read this blog, because I can't take the constant personal bashing" — but he just had to defend himself. He did so cagily — "The version [of the clues that the constructor] Jeff gave was not what I got" — and Rex called him on it — "That could mean anything" — and Shortz came back and essentially admitted that he'd changed the clues in a way that ruined the whole point of the puzzle.

If you didn't do the puzzle, the theme answers (the main long answers) were the titles of 2 different movies: FROZEN WATERWORLD, TITANIC SKYFALL, SAW THE DEPARTED, etc. These had clues beginning with "Double feature" and ending boringly: "Double feature about the Arctic Ocean?," "Double feature about baseball-sized hail?," "Double feature about attending a funeral?" But in the original version of the puzzle by Jerry Miccolis, the idea was that the clue referred to another movie: "Ice Age," "Armageddon," "The Sixth Sense."

Why did Shortz eliminate what made the theme interesting? As Shortz explains it:

"Despite her delicate features and voice, Disney expects us to believe that Mulan’s ingenuity and courage were enough to carry her to military success on an equal basis with her cloddish cohorts."

"Obviously, this is Walt Disney’s attempt to add childhood expectation to the cultural debate over the role of women in the military. "

Wrote Mike Pence, back in 1999. I'm reading this out loud to Meade....

I suspect that some mischievous liberal at Disney assumes that Mulan’s story will cause a quiet change in the next generation’s attitude about women in combat and they just might be right. (Just think about how often we think of Bambi every time the subject of deer hunting comes into the mainstream media debate.)

At which point Meade says: "I'm bored." And I said: "That goes without saying. It's Mike Pence."

But let's continue:

"Who Is a Terrorist, and Who Is Simply Deranged?"

Asks the NYT on its front page, leading to an article about "wanton violence by deranged attackers — whether in Nice or in Orlando, Fla." that "are swiftly judged to be the work of terrorists."

These judgments occur even when there is little immediate evidence that the attackers had direct ties to terrorist groups and when they do not fit a classic definition of terrorists as those who use violence to advance a political agenda.

“A lot of this stuff is at the fringes of what we would historically think of as terrorism,” said Daniel Benjamin, a former State Department coordinator for counterterrorism and a professor at Dartmouth College. But, he said, “the Islamic State and jihadism has become a kind of refuge for some unstable people who are at the end of their rope and decide they can redeem their screwed-up lives” by dying in the name of a cause....

“If there is a mass killing and there is a Muslim involved, all of a sudden it is by definition terrorism,” he said.

There's nothing in this article about the shooting of police in Dallas and Baton Rouge, but I wonder if the editors saw a need to make the point in the article to get out in front of thought processes that may lead people to begin to think of Black Lives Matters as a terrorist movement.

Madmen are acting alone and only haphazardly related to a movement they may have felt inspired by and wanted to seem to be part of.

"A fresh look at an old controversy, as a master provocateur suggests that human language renders the theory of evolution more like a fable than scientific fact..."

"... [Tom] Wolfe throws a Molotov cocktail at conventional wisdom in a book that won't settle any argument but is sure to start some."

(An Amazon link to a book that's not out until next month.)

Can Trump still criticize Hillary for voting for the Iraq war, now that he's picked a VP who also voted for that war?

Watch him — on "60 Minutes" — insisting on saying he can:

Donald Trump: Yeah, you went to Iraq, but that was handled so badly. And [Iraq] was a war-- by the way, that was a war that we shouldn't have entered because Iraq did not knock down--excuse me

Lesley Stahl: Your running mate--

Donald Trump: Iraq did not--

Lesley Stahl: --voted for it.

Donald Trump: I don't care.

Lesley Stahl: What do you mean you don't care that he voted for?

Donald Trump: It's a long time ago. And he voted that way and they were also misled. A lot of information was given to people.

Lesley Stahl: But you've harped on this.

Donald Trump: But I was against the war in Iraq from the beginning.

Lesley Stahl: Yeah, but you've used that vote of Hillary's that was the same as Governor Pence as the example of her bad judgment.

Donald Trump: Many people have, and frankly, I'm one of the few that was right on Iraq.

Lesley Stahl: Yeah, but what about he--

Donald Trump: He's entitled to make a mistake every once in a while.

Lesley Stahl: But she's not? OK, come on--

Donald Trump: But she's not--

Lesley Stahl: She's not?

Donald Trump: No. She's not.

Lesley Stahl: Got it. 

That's the part I wanted to excerpt from the transcript, but I recommend the entire interview. Watch for all the times Trump jumps in and answers a question directed at Pence. And watch the body language. It reminds me of an old-fashioned husband-and-wife routine where the couple has agreed in advance that the husband should do the talking and the wife will perform silent theater with the message: This man is excellent. At one of the few points where Pence speaks, it seems as though he's reciting the message he's been on task conveying with his face: "I think this is a good man who's been talking about the issues the American people care about."

"These are attacks on public servants, on the rule of law, and on civilized society, and they have to stop...."

"We may not yet know the motives for this attack, but I want to be clear: there is no justification for violence against law enforcement. None. These attacks are the work of cowards who speak for no one. They right no wrongs. They advance no causes. The officers in Baton Rouge; the officers in Dallas – they were our fellow Americans, part of our community, part of our country, with people who loved and needed them, and who need us now – all of us – to be at our best."

President Barack Obama.

"I swear to God I love this city, but I wonder if this city loves me. In uniform, I get nasty hateful looks..."

"... and out of uniform some consider me a threat. I’ve experienced so much in my short life and these last 3 days have tested me to the core.... This city MUST and WILL get better. I’m working in these streets so any protesters, officers, friends, family or whoever, if you see me and need a hug or want to say a prayer. I got you."

Wrote Montrell L. Jackson on July 8.



One of the police officers shot dead today in Baton Rouge.

On the Piney Lake Trail last week...

... near Vail, Colorado, we had a beautiful hike.



A gentle face on that rock, no? And then this:



It seemed as though one was supposed to add a rock. I found one that I thought looked like LBJ (in profile):



It blended right in:

"Three law enforcement officers were shot dead and at least three others wounded in Baton Rouge, La., on Sunday...."

"One suspect had been killed, most likely by police gunfire, and two others, described as wearing all black, were being sought, said Cpl. L’Jean McKneely, a police spokesman. 'We do believe there is more than one suspect.'"

Is Kerry lying?

This was on CNN's "State of the Union" this morning. (The topic is the extradition of Fethullah Gulen.) Watch closely:

If you've watched the clip, vote on whether Kerry is lying:

Yes. Distinctly.

Yes, but only in the usual way.

He's being careful, hiding some things. I wouldn't say "lying."

He seems reasonably honest for a person in his position.

I see a straightforwardly honest man.

 

pollcode.com free polls

Trump-Pence post-coital...

... logo.

That's the first time I've seen fit to use the word "post-coital" on this blog, though it did appear — once — in a quote:

"I realised one day, as I gazed out on the treetops outside the bedroom of our little cottage, that the usual post-coital rush of a sense of vitality infusing the world, of delight with myself and with all around me, and of creative energy rushing through everything alive, was no longer following the physical pleasure.... I felt I was losing somehow, what made me a woman, and that I could not face living in this condition for the rest of my life."

Recognize the distinctive authorial voice? It's Naomi Wolf.

That post ends — aptly! — with this:



"Yes, a profound sense of fatigue, a feeling of emptiness followed [the physical act of love]. Luckily, I was able to interpret these feelings correctly."

Here's the Wikipedia article, "Post-coital tristesse":

Post-coital tristesse (PCT) or post-coital dysphoria (PCD) is the feeling in humans of melancholy, anxiety, agitation or aggression after sexual intercourse (coitus). Its name comes from New Latin postcoitalis and French tristesse, literally "sadness". Many people with PCT may exhibit strong feelings of anxiety lasting from five minutes to two hours after coitus.

The phenomenon is traced to the [ancient] Greek doctor Galen, who wrote, "Every animal is sad after coitus except the human female and the rooster." The philosopher Baruch Spinoza in his Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione writes "For as far as sensual pleasure is concerned, the mind is so caught up in it, as if at peace in a [true] good, that it is quite prevented from thinking of anything else. But after the enjoyment of sensual pleasure is past, the greatest sadness follows. If this does not completely engross, still it thoroughly confuses and dulls the mind."...

We'll see how Trump and Pence do. 

"In a 13-year span, Philando Castile was pulled over by the police in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region at least 49 times..."

"... an average of about once every three months, often for minor infractions."

Turning into a parking lot without signaling. Failing to repair a broken seatbelt. Driving at night with an unlit license plate. Driving with tinted windows....

His mother, Valerie, who was often called on to help when her son’s car was impounded, believes that the police were stopping Mr. Castile not because of his driving but because of his race. “Driving while black,” she said.