The "working hard" meme — it's propaganda to cover for failure.

That's on the front page of the NYT right now. The link goes to an editorial:

Since becoming secretary of state more than three years ago, John Kerry has been a man on a mission — multiple missions, in fact — relentlessly traveling the globe.... [T]here has been something honorable, even heroic, about the persistence, hard work and faith in diplomacy....

Mr. Kerry sometimes displays a naïve belief in his ability to win people to his side if he keeps talking long enough....

To get the current cease-fire [in Syria], he warned Moscow that if the violence was not halted, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states would send more weapons to the rebel groups. He insists he is not being unrealistic, although he knows from past experience that Russia could be playing a cynical game and that the cease-fire could fall apart. But you can hear the anguish when he says that this “may be the last chance we have to save a united Syria.” He deserves immense credit for trying.

Work, work, work. Trying very, very hard.  Relentlessly traveling the globe.... But even your friends call you naïve and unrealistic. And do you think maybe Vladimir Putin might take advantage of your earnest strenuousness and play a cynical game? Let me take several days to think about that, because I'm sure putting more effort into the enterprise will be laudable... honorable, even heroic... and I will deserve immense credit for working so damned hard.

When Clinton was ahead, she had opened up a lead that left Trump with barely any hope, but as Trump takes the lead we hear about how they are "locked in a tight contest."

The quote is from a new NYT piece. I watched Jake Tapper's news show last night, and they could not stop saying the race was "tightening up," even as they were showing up new polls that showed an upswing toward Trump. Trump and Clinton seem to have essentially exchanged positions, and I remember that when Clinton was in the up position, Trump was presented as falling so far behind that the GOP ought to abandon him and concentrate on winning some of the down-ticket races.

I know that the Electoral College situation justifies some of the difference in how the 2 positions are viewed, but Trump's recent advances are stunning, and I could see that the stun had occurred from the faces of Jake Tapper and his poll-describing sidekick, the one whose name I can't remember because Meade and I took to calling him "False Toobin" a long time ago.  Ah, here's video of the segment I'm trying to describe. The poll guy is named David Chalian. I don't think the name has ever registered with me. Don't you think he looks like Jeffrey Toobin?

ADDED: "False Toobin" is patterned on "False Maria"...



... and, watching that, I wondered: Hmmm, what medical treatments did Hillary get back at Chelsea's apartment?

"Americans' trust and confidence in the mass media 'to report the news fully, accurately and fairly' has dropped to its lowest level in Gallup polling history..."

"... with 32% saying they have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the media. This is down eight percentage points from last year."



Well, what did they expect when they went all in for Hillary? And now Trump is climbing in the polls — 6 points up in the new L.A. Times poll — and they've already squandered their credibility. They can't help her now. They tried too hard before. Too bad the Democratic Party didn't give us a democratic experience this time. They foisted a candidate on us, they rigged it, with the assistance of the media. And now the candidate we didn't want zombie-walks and stumbles to the finish line, and there is nothing the Party or the media can do to stir up our affection. Meanwhile, the man the media loved to hate is powering through to the Presidency, looking only stronger for all the shots he took.

As Bob Wright said to me: "Well, my concern is that they are so ham-handed about it — they're so obvious about it — that it won't work."

"Still dicking bimbos at home."

"I would rather not have to vote for her, although she is a friend I respect... A 70-year person with a long track record, unbridled ambition, greedy, not transformational, with a husband still dicking bimbos at home (according to the NYP)."

Email from Colin Powell.

ADDED: You know, maybe the women aren't bimbos. That's kind of misogynistic.

Tibetan monks construct a mandala at the University of Wisconsin.

I was just taking my traditional 3 scoops of Babcock mocha macchiato ice cream to the Sunset Lounge at the University of Wisconsin Memorial Union today, but all the usual seats had been cleared out, and Tibetan monks were scritchy-scratching colored sand onto a table...



You might think this would draw a crowd — at least a small crowd — of onlookers, but it did not. It was a beautiful day and the students were out and about.



I took a close-up shot with my iPhone and texted it to Meade...



... and he texted back "Parcheesi!"

Yes, yes... religion, practiced in the halls of the state institution. It's not really a problem, is it? Not as long as all religions are given equivalent access.

"Colorado’s monthly marijuana sales notched an all-time high in July 2016 as shops sold nearly $122.7 million of medical and recreational cannabis..."

"... a 27 percent increase from July 2015, according to state revenue data released Monday."

The monthly haul surpasses the previous record notched this past April — a month that includes the annual 4/20 marijuana holiday — when $117.4 million of flower, edibles and concentrates were sold. Medical sales accounted for $40.8 million and recreational sales accounted for roughly $76.6 million of April’s total. In July, recreational sales shot to $83.8 million, according to the Colorado Department of Revenue report....

Summer in Colorado!

(I noticed that article because I went over to The Denver Post to read "Donald Trump sensing momentum as Colorado polls appear to narrow/Hillary Clinton enduring campaign stumbles as Republicans finally establish a foothold in Colorado." Maybe that's more up your alley.)

I was in Colorado in July...



... walking in the snow on the Shrine Mountain trail.

I was going to make fun of the man who "Lives Every Day Like He’s at Burning Man."

But then I saw that the first thing he took issue with was an official Althouse bugaboo, straws!

[L]ast week, I found myself sitting around a table at Roberta’s Pizza with Entourage star Adrian Grenier, getting an in-depth lesson on the blight of plastic straws.

“We consume 500 million straws each day. The equivalent of 127 school buses filled with straws. It’s disgusting, ” Adrian Grenier declares the minute I sit down, brandishing a plastic straw that the waiter had forgotten to remove. “There should be children in those school buses, going to school, to learn, not straws,” he adds, wryly.

Grenier orders me a mezcal soda, his drink of choice. “No straw, no fruit,” he tells the waiter... Grenier is very passionate — about straws, pollution, whales, the ocean, conservation, his vinyl collection... and he talks with the unfiltered confidence of a man who is used to people listening to what he has to say. He is a fan of hugs, and back-touching, and scooping food onto your plate even if you indicate that you’re full....

Here's my anti-straw post from a couple weeks ago. My problem was not environmental, it was that you look foolish if you are a man. My problem is avoided by being a woman. Grenier's problem is avoided by using paper straws. I agree that paper straws are much better — aesthetically and environmentally. So if you are a woman, click on that link and you can get some nice old-time paper straws.

"I find it to be ironic that it has taken Donald J. Trump to bring to the fore the obvious conflict of interest that exists between..."

"... low-skilled American workers (of whatever ethnicity), on the one hand, and low-skilled foreign workers who wish to enter or remain in the United States, on the other. Isn't it interesting that his detractors NEVER EVEN ENGAGE THIS QUESTION? But, the question is fundamental for anyone concerned to improve the life chances of the most disadvantaged Americans. That's why I'm sharing this piece, from George Borjas — the Harvard economist who, perhaps more than anyone else, has been producing and analyzing data that bear directly on this issue. No, he's not a 'racist' for looking into this question. And neither am I, for taking what he has to say seriously. Indeed, those who would dismiss — or, worse, suppress — a candid examination of the consequences for poor domestic workers of having large numbers of low-skilled immigrants are the ones whose social ethics should be called into question."

Writes Glenn Loury, commenting on this Politico article, "Yes, Immigration Hurts American Workers/The candidates tell drastically different stories about immigration. They’re both skipping half the truth."

"Female staffers adopted a meeting strategy they called 'amplification': When a woman made a key point, other women would repeat it..."

"... giving credit to its author. This forced the men in the room to recognize the contribution — and denied them the chance to claim the idea as their own. 'We just started doing it, and made a purpose of doing it. It was an everyday thing,' said one former Obama aide who requested anonymity to speak frankly. Obama noticed, she and others said, and began calling more often on women and junior aides."

From "Obama’s Female Staffers Came Up With a Genius Strategy to Make Sure Their Voices Were Heard" in New York Magazine.

"I’ve never eaten a strawberry in my life. I have no desire to do that... Absolutely not."

Said Tom Brady.

Never had any coffee either.

I never ate a strawberry until I was in my 20s. My sister had told me early on that strawberries were bad — strawberries and peaches and coconut. It's like she was my taster. If she'd suffered the pain and given me the word that these things were bad, I had the advantage of avoiding the pain. Never touched it. Still won't eat coconut.

"No one's allowed to be sick. Sickness is weakness. The attitude is 'I'm irreplaceable — if I don't show up my job won't get done.'"

"Some of it is also concern about how you are going to be viewed as an employee — whether you can be counted or not. Whether by having too many sick days, too many absences, you are not seen as reliable. At the very core of being American is the idea of being a hard worker."

From a BBC.com article titled "Why Americans don't take sick days" — apparently prompted by Hillary Clinton's soldiering on despite whatever it is that's ailing her.

Hillary aside, it is something we Americans do, no? Years ago, I had what was eventually diagnosed as pneumonia. I still taught my classes, including a big Evidence class, where I can remember getting into a coughing jag that just wouldn't end. The students all just sat there, impassive, waiting for me to come around and get back to what I was supposed to be doing. When I finally went to the doctor and got the diagnosis, I asked what to do, thinking I'd be told to stay home for some amount of time that I would need to deal with and prepared to picture myself at rest. But the doctor told me I should go to work. That is, if I thought I really should be staying home in this condition, I didn't have a doctor recommending that. I'd be malingering.

The American work ethic is crazily intense, to the point where otherwise competent people worry about not just doing their work but looking busy. And institutions of intelligent people devise ways to observe and take account of just how hard you are working, thus motivating people ever more to the idiotic enterprise of looking busy.

Meanwhile, to quote Colin Powell's email: "[Hillary] is working herself to death."

"Helicopters made an emergency delivery of flares and dogs to the station on Wednesday morning in a bid to help scientists on Troynoy..."

"... an island in the Kara Sea north of the Siberian coast, fend off the [dozen polar] bears, according to Vassiliy Shevchenko, the head of the Sevgidromet State Monitoring Network...."

[T]he five-strong team of researchers had not left the station since [August 31], and that the delivery of flares had been urgently needed as the next cargo vessel was not due to arrive for another month.

“A female bear has been sleeping under the station’s windows since Saturday night. It’s dangerous to go out as we have run short of any means to scare off the predators. We had to stop some of the meteorological observations,” Plotkinov added on Monday.

However, Shevchenko said that “three puppies and pyrotechnical devices” had successfully been delivered to the station, which helped the researchers to scare some of the bears away, and allowed observations to resume on Wednesday.

Puppies!

It's hard for me to have an opinion here. I'm pro-science, but I've been conditioned to empathize with polar bears. It's their island, isn't it? Why are these people, who are not built to survive in the extreme  north, encroaching on their territory?

I note that this is Russia, so I'm wondering if Putin can help. I heard he's a strong leader. Putin has boldly confronted the polar bear. Back in 2010:

He has sunk to the bottom of the world's deepest lake, skied down volcanoes and fished in Siberian rivers. Now, Russia's action-man prime minister, Vladimir Putin, has gone one better – coming face to snout with a giant (if slumbering) polar bear during a trip to Russia's remote Arctic north....

... Russian scientists captured the bear ahead of Putin's visit and kept it captive for 10 days. After hugging the male animal round the neck, Putin fitted it with an electronic collar. Asked by a female journalist about the bear's massive paws, he said: "They're heavy. He's the real master of the Arctic."

National Anthem standoff.

There's that NFL kneeling, but there's also the MLB standing and standing to the point of not being able to stand it anymore.

Hernan Iribarren of the Cincinnati Reds and Manny Pina of the Milwaukee Brewers engaged in a pre-game standoff after the national anthem.

Both players stood with their hats and hands over their respective hearts as their teams walked back into the dugout before the game.

Pina moved first, which gave the Reds the victory.

"But in selling his case, Mr. Trump stretched the truth, saying that his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, has no such plan of her own and 'never will.'"

"Mrs. Clinton issued her plan more than a year ago, and it guarantees up to 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave for a newborn or a sick relative, financed by an increase in taxes on the wealthiest Americans. On Twitter, her campaign posted a link to her plan after Mr. Trump’s remark."

From a NYT article "Donald Trump Unveils Plan for Families in Bid for Women’s Votes." The 2 links in that quote go to the same webpage. I watched Trump's speech last night and couldn't figure out why he said Hillary had no plan of her own.

Could someone get him to explain what he meant? If there isn't some tricky explanation, it's either a blatant mistake or a lie.

"In private, [John Kerry] has conceded to aides and friends that he believes [the deal with Russia on Syria] will not work."

From paragraph 8 of a NYT article titled "Details of Syria Pact Widen Rift Between John Kerry and Pentagon."

"How many fireflies would it take to match the brightness of the Sun?"

"Not that many! I mean, it's definitely one of those gigantic numbers with lots of zeroes, but in the grand scheme of things, there aren't as many zeroes as you might expect."