GOP gerrymandering and Democratic voters’ clustering in urban districts has moved the median House seat well to the right of the nation. Part of it is bad timing. Democrats have been cursed by a terrible Senate map in 2018: They must defend 25 of their 48 seats1 while Republicans must defend just eight of their 52.Statistics and charts at the link. I just want to address the language usage: "GOP gerrymandering and Democratic voters’ clustering in urban districts..." Note where agency is ascribed. GOP politicians are doing something (gerrymandering) and Democratic voters are doing something (clustering). But you could just as well say that the district drawing (done by legislatures consisting of politicians in both parties) is bad for the Democratic Party because it presents itself in a way that appeals to voters who are living in urban areas. If you draw district lines according to traditional principles like compactness, you're going to end up with urban districts with a high concentration of people who vote for Democratic Party candidates. It's not that people are "clustering," but that a party has shaped its message and its campaigning to take advantage of the votes that are available from people who live in urban areas.
But there’s a larger, long-term trend at work too.... In the last few decades, Democrats have expanded their advantages in California and New York... But those two states elect only 4 percent of the Senate. Meanwhile, Republicans have made huge advances in small rural states — think Arkansas, North and South Dakota, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana and West Virginia — that wield disproportionate power in the upper chamber compared to their populations....
Today, the pro-GOP biases in both chambers are at historic highs...
August 7, 2017
"The Congressional Map Is Historically Biased Against Democrats."
Writes David Wasserman at FiveThirtyEight.
A new first for Alan Dershowitz.
At Twitter:
The underlying dispute if you follow the tweets back to something concrete is about whether the President can pardon himself. Dershowitz has said nobody knows, and Tribe called that "A misguided & impoverished take on what it means to answer a constitutional Q on which text, history, and SCOTUS precedent aren't definitive."
ADDED: This isn't a real dispute. Dershowitz is just choosing to take a more distanced view, and Tribe is acting more like a lawyer who's trying to win. The only interesting question to me here is psychological. Why does Dershowitz want to be distanced here? Is it that he thinks pegging the answer at "unknown" is helpful in getting through this difficult political problem? And why does Tribe think claiming to know the answer is a good idea? To begin to try to answer answer that last question, I had to look up which way Tribe knows the answer. It turns out he knows that the President can't pardon himself. That's funny to me, because I think I know that he can.
The underlying dispute if you follow the tweets back to something concrete is about whether the President can pardon himself. Dershowitz has said nobody knows, and Tribe called that "A misguided & impoverished take on what it means to answer a constitutional Q on which text, history, and SCOTUS precedent aren't definitive."
ADDED: This isn't a real dispute. Dershowitz is just choosing to take a more distanced view, and Tribe is acting more like a lawyer who's trying to win. The only interesting question to me here is psychological. Why does Dershowitz want to be distanced here? Is it that he thinks pegging the answer at "unknown" is helpful in getting through this difficult political problem? And why does Tribe think claiming to know the answer is a good idea? To begin to try to answer answer that last question, I had to look up which way Tribe knows the answer. It turns out he knows that the President can't pardon himself. That's funny to me, because I think I know that he can.
Baseball... Prince...
🎶 Purple Rain....Purple Rain... 🎶
— Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) August 6, 2017
Off to Minneapolis in style. ✈️ pic.twitter.com/OSXGv4mHqc
"Often cults are seen as aberrations, or a psychological phenomenon."
"Psychologists would see cult leaders as having delusions of grandeur. But I see them as something different—as baby religions... I think people are unaware how many of them there are, how constant they are."
Says a sociologist and scholar of new religions, quoted in "Why Are There No New Major Religions?/The story of one imprisoned prophet illustrates the difficulties of getting a 'baby religion' off the ground" (The Atlantic).
Says a sociologist and scholar of new religions, quoted in "Why Are There No New Major Religions?/The story of one imprisoned prophet illustrates the difficulties of getting a 'baby religion' off the ground" (The Atlantic).
Who was America’s first stand-up comedian?
According to "Rebel Souls: Walt Whitman and America's First Bohemians," by Justin Martin, it was Artemus Ward (1834-1867):
ADDED: The author of the quoted book doesn't attempt to define "stand-up comedian." He only describes what Ward did and sums it up: "[I]t’s fair to describe Artemus Ward as America’s first stand-up comedian." In search of the history of the term and the practice, I found this in Wikipedia:
The history section of the Wikipedia article is almost entirely about the last 200 or so years, but there is this one sentence:
Ostensibly, he was delivering a lecture called The Babes in the Wood... [H]is act consisted of a man in a dark suit, who, in a tone of complete seriousness, speaks utter nonsense. At some level, it certainly reminded audiences of all the oratories and lectures and sermons they’d been forced to endure, delivered by assorted pompous moralists...Here's the Wikipedia page for Artemus Ward (AKA Charles Farrar Browne ). Excerpt:
The impression that his performances were rambling and spontaneous was just that, an impression: he was in complete control... He would begin by struggling to describe the claustrophobic feeling of traveling inside a very small stagecoach. “Those of you who have been in the penitentiary . . . ,” he offered. But then his voice trailed off, and his eyes filled with panic. He realized his error. He’d just suggested that members of his audience had been to jail.
As Ward tried to extricate himself from this awkwardness, the audience could almost see the wheels turning in his mind. He spoke slowly, trying to buy himself time to recover: “and stayed there . . . any length . . . of time . . . ” Suddenly, his expression brightened. He added hopefully, “ . . . as visitors.” He stood up straight, pleased with himself. But then Ward’s trademark crestfallen look returned. He recognized his error. Even suggesting that members of his audience had merely visited the penitentiary didn’t do the trick. That only meant they had friends and loved ones in jail...
Ward’s show clocked in at exactly one hour. Just as it opened on a high note, it closed on one, too. As the hour mark drew nigh, Ward would reach into his pocket and retrieve his watch. He’d stare at it, an expression of alarm spreading across his face. He had been rambling rambling for many minutes, traveling countless conversational tangents, yet he’d failed to address the subject at hand, “The Babes in the Wood.” But what could he say now? What pithy comment about the topic could he offer that might tie things up? There simply wasn’t enough time left. After a few more stumbles and false starts, Ward would apologize, promising to give the subject a full airing during his next lecture. Then he’d bid a good night to his delighted audience. The next morning, the critics’ columns would be full of praise.
Browne was also known as a member of the New York Bohemian set which included leader Henry Clapp Jr., Walt Whitman, Fitz Hugh Ludlow, and actress Adah Isaacs Menken. Ward met Mark Twain when Ward performed in Virginia City, Nevada and the two became friends. In his correspondences with Twain, Browne called him "My Dearest Love." Legend has it that, following Ward's stage performance, he, Mark Twain, and Dan De Quille were taking a drunken rooftop tour of Virginia City until a town constable threatened to blast all three of them with a shotgun loaded with rock salt.Here are some Artemus Ward jokes. Example: "Did you ever have the measels, and if so, how many?"
ADDED: The author of the quoted book doesn't attempt to define "stand-up comedian." He only describes what Ward did and sums it up: "[I]t’s fair to describe Artemus Ward as America’s first stand-up comedian." In search of the history of the term and the practice, I found this in Wikipedia:
Stand-up comedy is a comic style in which a comedian performs in front of a live audience, usually speaking directly to them... [T]he comedian usually recites a grouping of humorous stories, jokes and one-liners...It's so simple, it's hard not to think that it's something human beings have done going all the way back to when we first figured out how to talk.
The history section of the Wikipedia article is almost entirely about the last 200 or so years, but there is this one sentence:
Stand-up comedy has its origin in classic Parrhesia in 400 BC used for cynics and epicureans in order to tell the reality without censorship.That has this footnote:
Foucault, Michel (Oct–Nov 1983), Discourse and Truth: the Problematization of Parrhesia (six lectures), The University of California at Berkeley.I'll have to get to that later. There's just not enough time in this blog post.
Did Rod Rosenstein tamp down suspicions about the lack of constraint on the Mueller investigation?
On "Fox News Sunday" yesterday, Chris Wallace interviewed Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general who appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel. Here's the part of the interview that deals with the suspicion some people have that perhaps Mueller is inadequately constrained and out to take down President Trump. I've added boldface:
WALLACE: When you appointed Mueller, and you were the one who did, you had to sign an order authorizing the appointment of a special counsel, and you said that he was authorized to investigate any coordination with Russia and -- I want to put these words on the screen -- any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation. My question is, does that mean that there are no red lines that Mueller or any special counsel can investigate under the terms of your order, anything he finds?Watch the whole interview:
ROSENSTEIN: Chris, the special counsel is subject to the rules and regulations of the Department of Justice, and we don’t engage in fishing expeditions. Now, that order that you read, that doesn’t detail specifically who may be the subject of the investigation... because we don’t reveal that publicly. But Bob Mueller understands and I understand the specific scope of the investigation and so, it’s not a fishing expedition.
WALLACE: I understand it’s not a fishing expedition, but you say any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation. In the course of his investigation of the issues that he is looking at, if he finds evidence of a crime, can he look at that?
ROSENSTEIN: Well, Chris, if he finds evidence of a crime that’s within the scope of what Director Mueller and I have agreed is the appropriate scope of the investigation, then he can. If it’s something that’s outside that scope, he needs to come to the acting attorney general, at this time, me, for a permission to expand his investigation. But we don’t talk about that publicly. And so, the speculation you’ve seen in the news media, that’s not anything that I’ve said. It’s not anything Director Mueller said. We don’t know who’s saying it or how credible those sources are.
WALLACE: I mean, people ask about this, of course, because you had Ken Starr and Whitewater, and this began with a failed real estate deal in Arkansas and ended up with Monica Lewinsky. To expand, he would need to get approval from you to expand the investigation?
ROSENSTEIN: That’s correct. Just as did Ken Starr. You know, Ken Starr received an expansion we believe was initiated by the Department of Justice by Janet Reno that resulted in that investigation....
August 6, 2017
At the Slap-Dash Café...
... you can slather and dab whatever you like.
But do consider using The Althouse Amazon Portal to do your shopping.
And I'll try to keep things rolling and flowing around here.
Does Senator Jeff Flake disrespect the people when he calls populism "a sugar high"?
It bothered me, but lets talk about it. Here's the context, on "Meet the Press" today (and pushing his new book "Conscience of a Conservative: A Rejection of Destructive Politics and a Return to Principle"). From the transcript:
IN THE COMMENTS: CStanley has a solid, succinct answer to my question:
SEN. JEFF FLAKE: I think today conservatism has kind of been compromised by populism... So I think that just because we have the House, the Senate and the White House, we can’t rest easy and say that populism is a governing philosophy because I don’t believe that it is....The dictionary definition of "populism" is "The policies or principles of any of various political parties which seek to represent the interests of ordinary people." That's from the OED, which gives, as one of its examples, this sentence from Time Magazine from 1972:
CHUCK TODD: Well, let me ask you this, what would you -- going in hindsight now -- what should the conservative movement have done in 2016 that they didn’t do?...
SEN. JEFF FLAKE: Well, I’m not denying that populism isn’t popular. That’s why it’s called populism. The problem is I think it’s first and foremost the duty of conservatives to tell the truth to the constituency and it’s easy to point to a shuttered factory and say, “Hey, if we’d just negotiated better trade deals, then those jobs would be there.” When really it’s automation and productivity gains. It’s much more complex and my concern is that populism is a sugar high and once you come off it, it’s particularly troublesome for the party. And so I wish that we would have been more truthful with the electorate in terms of what we can and what we cannot do in Washington....
Populism is a label that covers disparate policies and passions: among many others, New Deal reforms, consumer rage against business, ethnic belligerence.I'm concerned about the expressions of contempt for ordinary people and democracy. I can see saying we need more structured principles and sane practicality, but it feels disrespectful to say "populism is a sugar high."
IN THE COMMENTS: CStanley has a solid, succinct answer to my question:
In the context of his full responses I thought he was saying that populism was a sugar high for the GOP because it's easier for them to get votes that way than to sell the harder truths. That seems less offensive than the way Althouse is interpreting it because it's a diss of the politicians, not the voters.
"Here's The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google."
At Gizmodo. From the "screed," written by an unnamed software engineer:
Possible non-bias causes of the gender gap in tech
At Google, we’re regularly told that implicit (unconscious) and explicit biases are holding women back in tech and leadership. Of course, men and women experience bias, tech, and the workplace differently and we should be cognizant of this, but it’s far from the whole story.
On average, men and women biologically differ in many ways. These differences aren’t just socially constructed because:
- They’re universal across human cultures
- They often have clear biological causes and links to prenatal testosterone
- Biological males that were castrated at birth and raised as females often still identify and act like males
- The underlying traits are highly heritable
- They’re exactly what we would predict from an evolutionary psychology perspective...
"Hillary Clinton wants to preach. That’s what she told Bill Shillady, her long-time pastor...."
"Last fall, the former Newsweek editor Kenneth Woodward revealed that Clinton told him in 1994 that she thought 'all the time' about becoming an ordained Methodist minister. She asked him not to write about it, though: 'It will make me seem much too pious.' The incident perfectly captures Clinton’s long campaign to modulate—and sometimes obscure—expressions of her faith. Now, as Clinton works to rehabilitate her public image and figure out the next steps after her brutal November loss, religion is taking a central role. After long months of struggling to persuade Americans that she is trustworthy, authentic, and fundamentally moral, Clinton is lifting up an intimate, closely guarded part of herself. There are no more voters left to lose. In sharing her faith, perhaps Clinton sees something left to win, whether political or personal...."
From "Hillary Wants to Preach/Religion is playing a big role in Clinton’s post-election tour. What does she have to gain from sharing her faith now?" by Emma Green in The Atlantic.
From "Hillary Wants to Preach/Religion is playing a big role in Clinton’s post-election tour. What does she have to gain from sharing her faith now?" by Emma Green in The Atlantic.
"Wright’s is a Buddhism almost completely cleansed of supernaturalism. His Buddha is conceived as a wise man and self-help psychologist..."
"... not as a divine being—no miraculous birth, no thirty-two distinguishing marks of the godhead (one being a penis sheath), no reincarnation. This is a pragmatic Buddhism, and Wright’s pragmatism, as in his previous books, can touch the edge of philistinism. Nearly all popular books about Buddhism are rich in poetic quotation and arresting aphorisms, those ironic koans that are part of the (Zen) Buddhist décor—tales of monks deciding that it isn’t the wind or the flag that’s waving in the breeze but only their minds. Wright’s book has no poetry or paradox anywhere in it. Since the poetic-comic side of Buddhism is one of its most appealing features, this leaves the book a little short on charm. Yet, if you never feel that Wright is telling you something profound or beautiful, you also never feel that he is telling you something untrue. Direct and unambiguous, tracing his own history in meditation practice—which eventually led him to a series of weeklong retreats and to the intense study of Buddhist doctrine—he makes Buddhist ideas and their history clear. Perhaps he makes the ideas too clear. Buddhist thinkers tend to bridge contradictions with a smile and a paradox and a wave of the hand. 'Things exist but they are not real' is a typical dictum from the guru Mu Soeng, in his book on the Heart Sutra. 'You don’t have to believe it, but it’s true' is another famous guru’s smiling advice about the reincarnation doctrine. This nimble-footed doubleness may indeed hold profound existential truths; it also provides an all-purpose evasion of analysis...."
From "What Meditation Can Do for Us, and What It Can’t/Examining the science and supernaturalism of Buddhism," by Adam Gopnick in The New Yorker. He's reviewing "Why Buddhism Is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment," by Robert Wright (AKA Bob Wright of Bloggingheads).
Here's Bob talking to Mickey Kaus (about 10 days ago) about "mindful resistance," and Mickey says he doesn't even know what mindfulness but people tell him "it's Buddhism stripped of its religious aspects so it can be sold to the masses":
From "What Meditation Can Do for Us, and What It Can’t/Examining the science and supernaturalism of Buddhism," by Adam Gopnick in The New Yorker. He's reviewing "Why Buddhism Is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment," by Robert Wright (AKA Bob Wright of Bloggingheads).
Here's Bob talking to Mickey Kaus (about 10 days ago) about "mindful resistance," and Mickey says he doesn't even know what mindfulness but people tell him "it's Buddhism stripped of its religious aspects so it can be sold to the masses":
Headline on a WaPo book review: "Sorry, but I don’t care how you felt on election night. Not anymore."
Carlos Lozada is reviewing 3 books: "RADICAL HOPE: Letters of Love and Dissent in Dangerous Times," "RULES FOR RESISTANCE: Advice From Around the Globe for the Age of Trump," and "HOW DO I EXPLAIN THIS TO MY KIDS? Parenting in the Age of Trump."
The review begins:
There was a slightly similar feeling about Trump, but it was much, much milder. 9/11 happened suddenly one day and the pictures vividly confronted us with the reality. Election day was a known date, and the polls only made it something like 80% likely that Hillary would win. We'd been seeing Trump's success and survival against all odds for months, and even on election night the reality crept up slowly. The news media deliberately slowed it down, performing the strange theater of imagining how it could still be possible for Hillary to find a path to victory and delaying calling Michigan.
When I see the continuing shock and struggle to absorb the reality of Trump's presidency, I want to ask these people why they did not understand the people of their own country and why they do not accept the consequences of democracy? You don't believe in democracy if you only believe in it when someone you like wins. This is democracy, and these are your fellow citizens.
The review begins:
You saw them. You probably read a few. Maybe you even wrote one.Lozada is fed up with reading stuff like:
Seething political takes. Overwrought open letters. Emotional manifestos. They began invading our inboxes and Facebook feeds in the early hours of Nov. 9, 2016, and continued for days and weeks. They frothed from keyboards across the country, countless renditions of what became an instantly recognizable genre: the How I Felt on Election Night essay.
‘Overwhelmed by grief.” “Brokenhearted.” “Hopeless.” “Something inside me died on Election night.” “I woke up that morning and everything felt f—ed.”And:
“I am not ashamed to admit I am more afraid than ever,” writes novelist Meredith Russo. For novelist Mira Jacob, the moment evoked the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001: “At four [a.m.], I bolted awake with a surge of fear I have not felt for fifteen years.” And writer Nicole Chung recalls how, that evening, she and her husband “would remain up for hours, alternately swearing and reaching for each other’s hands in bleary and increasing panic.”The moment evoked the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001... That sounds awful, but I can relate to the sense of disbelief. The kick in the head — that really happened — over and over again. On and after 9/11, I remember experiencing that kick, first multiple times within each minute, gradually decreasing to perhaps once a minute or 10 times an hour, on and on, until I fully absorbed the reality. It happened.
There was a slightly similar feeling about Trump, but it was much, much milder. 9/11 happened suddenly one day and the pictures vividly confronted us with the reality. Election day was a known date, and the polls only made it something like 80% likely that Hillary would win. We'd been seeing Trump's success and survival against all odds for months, and even on election night the reality crept up slowly. The news media deliberately slowed it down, performing the strange theater of imagining how it could still be possible for Hillary to find a path to victory and delaying calling Michigan.
When I see the continuing shock and struggle to absorb the reality of Trump's presidency, I want to ask these people why they did not understand the people of their own country and why they do not accept the consequences of democracy? You don't believe in democracy if you only believe in it when someone you like wins. This is democracy, and these are your fellow citizens.
The day the comedy writers got tired.
It was July 29th, I'd say, doing a Google search — with no time restriction — for comedy writers trump:
That's called rope-a-dope:
Oh, I see what happened. A panel of comedy writers got together and admitted they had a problem. Here's Entertainment Weekly: "Late-night grapples with 'exhausting' Trump: 'I don't want this job'/Writers from ‘Full Frontal With Samantha Bee,’ ‘The President Show,’ ‘The Daily Show,’ and ‘The Jim Jefferies Show’ on the political climate in 2017."
One of the key challenges, the writers said, is finding the actual joke when so much of the news about the current administration that comes out these days seems almost unbelievable. “How do I heighten this?” Haglund said. “How do I not just show it, step back and be like, ‘Well, there’s nothing left to do with this that it’s so ridiculous?’ That’s always the challenge.”So the problem is Trump made it too easy for you, and you don't know what to do about that. He inoculated himself by being inherently ridiculous on the surface and you can't get past the surface.
Another challenge “is to try to avoid the low hanging fruit like this person talks funny or has funny hair,” Nangle added. “We try to look at what goes deeper than all that insanity? What made this man? We made him, we allowed this to happen, so as much as you can go deeper without being heavy handed, that’s what we aim for.”...
That's called rope-a-dope:
In competitive situations other than boxing, rope-a-dope is used to describe strategies in which one contender lets opponent fatigue themself by drawing non-injuring offensive actions. This then gives the contender an advantage towards the end of the competition or before, as the opponent becomes tired, allowing the contender to execute devastating offensive maneuvers and thereby winning.
Loving lichen and "‘the intense feeling of reality, of just being here."
A beautiful short film showing Kerry Knudsen, curator of lichens at the University of California Riverside, and lots of sharp focus closeups of lichen. Nice ending with Knudsen relating his interest in lichen to his experiences using LSD when he was young:
Caitlyn Jenner wears a Make-America-Great-Again hat to drive in an Austin-Healy convertible in Malibu and insists she hates Trump.
TMZ delivers the implausible explanation:
(The story continues: Jenner wears the hat, arrives at her destination, throws the hat on the floor, and, on returning to the car an hour later, picks up the hat and, only then, notices the "Make America Great Again." She's supposedly horrified — because "What he's doing to our [transgender] community is absolutely f***ing awful" — but put the hat back on for the ride to Starbucks, takes the hat off to go into Starbucks, then puts the hat back on to drive home. She drives all the way home before realizing that she left her purse at Starbucks, drives back, and, in a rush, enters Starbucks with the hat on, and it's on the drive home that a photographer seems to have taken a picture of her driving and wearing the hat.)
ADDED: Do men — as opposed to women — just slap a hat on their head and not notice the writing? I ask Meade if he just picks any hat or picks a hat by shape or whether he always notices which affiliation he's selecting. He says he always notices and pushes me to take a picture of his array of hats for the blog. So here goes:
Before leaving home she realized she needed a hat ... something better than a golf visor to protect her hair. So she rummaged through the 10 hats in her closet and grabbed one without looking at the stitching."Would anyone believe that?" I asked out loud. "Certainly not a woman," Meade answered.
(The story continues: Jenner wears the hat, arrives at her destination, throws the hat on the floor, and, on returning to the car an hour later, picks up the hat and, only then, notices the "Make America Great Again." She's supposedly horrified — because "What he's doing to our [transgender] community is absolutely f***ing awful" — but put the hat back on for the ride to Starbucks, takes the hat off to go into Starbucks, then puts the hat back on to drive home. She drives all the way home before realizing that she left her purse at Starbucks, drives back, and, in a rush, enters Starbucks with the hat on, and it's on the drive home that a photographer seems to have taken a picture of her driving and wearing the hat.)
ADDED: Do men — as opposed to women — just slap a hat on their head and not notice the writing? I ask Meade if he just picks any hat or picks a hat by shape or whether he always notices which affiliation he's selecting. He says he always notices and pushes me to take a picture of his array of hats for the blog. So here goes:
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