"Which office do I go to to get my reputation back?"

A very memorable quote, discussed in detail in "Raymond Donovan, 90, Dies; Labor Secretary Quit Under a Cloud/He faced fraud charges when he left the Reagan administration, but a jury acquitted him, leaving him to ask, 'Which office do I go to to get my reputation back?'"

"An acquaintance or colleague mistakes you for another person with the same hairdo or a similar name. But for people of Asian descent..."

"... it happens without question when there are a few other Asians in the office, even when they look and sound nothing alike.... There’s even a term for it: the interchangeable Asian.... [S]cholars of sociology, psychology and Asian American history said there was something serious — and damaging — behind this phenomenon of casual Asian-face blindness that borders on cavalier. Some pointed to unconscious biases that make office workers less inclined to remember the names and faces of Asian colleagues.... Others labeled the carelessness a form of discrimination derived from stereotypes with deep roots in American history that people with Asian heritage all behave and look alike — an army of nameless automatons not worth remembering for promotions....  If one requirement to ascend in your career is to be distinguishable to people in power, it may come as no surprise, then, that Asian Americans — who make up 7 percent of the U.S. population and are the fastest-growing racial group — are the least likely group to be promoted in the country, according to multiple studies.... An overwhelming majority of workers I interviewed said they did not clarify to their colleagues that they had been mistaken for the wrong Asian because they wanted to avoid confrontation."

From "The Cost of Being an ‘Interchangeable Asian’/At some top companies, Asian Americans are overrepresented in midlevel roles and underrepresented in leadership. The root of this workplace inequality could stem from the all-too-common experience of being confused for someone else" (NYT).

"No, Trump Did Not Wear His Pants Backwards at Rally."

Snopes had to fact-check that.

"His wife said he used to tell about the time the musician Dave Van Ronk and other friends offered to take him out for soul food..."

"... a term he didn’t know. At the restaurant, when the collards and fatback, cornbread, fried pork chops and such arrived, his friends asked what he thought. 'Back home,' he told them, 'this is what we just call "food."'"

From "Patrick Sky, ’60s Folk Star and Later a Piper, Dies at 80 He was a part of the folk revival emanating from Greenwich Village, mixing melodic songs and satire. Then he became infatuated with the uilleann pipes" (NYT). 

Goodbye to Patrick Sky. He was a big favorite of mine in the 1960s, and I still have 2 albums of his that I could go search for it right now, but I've got Spotify, so "Patrick Sky" (the album) is already playing here. This is the one that begins with "Many a Mile" (famously covered by Buffy St. Marie). 

I saw Patrick Sky in concert once. He was very funny. He has beautiful love songs, but there were also comedy songs. I remember him launching into a song I'd never heard before: "There's a man who lives over the ocean/And who has got a great notion/That he is the World's Greatest Hope/He's Giovanni Montini, the Pope." This got huge laughs. It ended: "Giovanni Montini/You know who I meanee/The one with the beanie! Giovanni Montini, the Pope."

Listen to a live version of it here. Who sings about the Pope? It was quite absurd. I didn't even know the Pope's name was Giovanni Montini, but it had a musical lilt and you could do some rhymes with it.

Here's another comical song of Sky's, one that amused me a lot in the 1960s, "Separation Blues":

 

ADDED: I didn't follow him in his "Songs That Made America Famous" period. For a taste of that, try "Fight for Liberation." I could only get a few seconds into it:

In the draft board here we sit

Covered o'er with Nixon's shit

While our sweat is turning Agnew's filthy mill

And the people, as they pass

They jam Melvin up our ass

Well I guess we've had our god damn fucking fill

Painful, but I remember that pain. Melvin. Indeed.

Sweating fungus with shadow of a hand.

"They failed in Washington. They failed all over the place. Between the impeachment hoax number one, impeachment hoax number two, all of these investigations, ah shit, we failed."

"Let’s send it to the radical left prosecutors in New York, maybe they can have more luck. They’ll never stop until November of 2024. They won’t stop. There’s no better example of the Democrat and media corruption than the 2020 election hoax. As you know, the evidence is too voluminous to even mention.... You look at what happened on that evening when the election was won and all of a sudden vast amounts of votes were taken in just in certain states, swing states. Swing states that I was leading by a lot. Then all of a sudden, oh, something happened. It was a disgrace to our country and if you think people don’t see it, people see it. People have seen it."  

Said Trump, in his North Carolina speech last night. 

The "shit" surprised me. 

ADDED: What's amazing about Trump's rhetoric is how much it trust the listener to keep up as it leaps forward. Look at that sentence in the post title. He's already trusting his people to understand the "They." If you look at the transcript, it's pretty clear the antecedent is "the Democrats," but it could be "the radical left prosecutors." If you were writing this speech, you'd never allow that confusion to exist. But he expects us to keep up. Then, he switches voices. He goes from "They failed" to "we failed." You're just supposed to understand that he decided to begin embodying the role of the "they" he's been insulting. Suddenly, he's them, saying "Ah shit, we failed." It's not just the startling slap of "shit," it's that he's them, crying out "shit," and he's saying the words he'd never want to say as himself. He's always a big winner to himself. He's saying "We failed." The audience gets it. Why aren't they confused? Why isn't he worried that they're thinking, "Huh? Who failed? Is Trump saying he failed?"?

Backyard seen from the 3rd-floor window at 5:47 a.m.

 

I love the way this was designed and grown to be looked at from above. I'm nearly always seeing it from the 3rd or 2nd floor. It's nice at ground level too, but I'm delighted by the undulating shapes of the low treetops. And of course, I love the part I call "the protractor." The long grass inside of the mown grass is wheat.

"You may think exercise is normal, but it’s a very modern behaviour. Instead, for millions of years, humans were physically active for only two reasons..."

"... when it was necessary or rewarding. Necessary physical activities included getting food and doing other things to survive. Rewarding activities included playing, dancing or training to have fun or to develop skills. But no one in the stone age ever went for a five-mile jog to stave off decrepitude, or lifted weights whose sole purpose was to be lifted." 

From "Just don’t do it: 10 exercise myths/We all believe we should exercise more. So why is it so hard to keep it up? Daniel E Lieberman, Harvard professor of evolutionary biology, explodes the most common and unhelpful workout myths" (The Guardian).

Little Emma foresees being tired of everyone and everything, but she has a plan — a very specific plan.

From r/suspiciouslyspecific:

"Jon Rahm walked off the 18th green after tying the 54-hole record and building a six-shot lead... Moments later, he was doubled over and saying: 'Not again'..."

"... having been notified he had tested positive for the coronavirus and consequently was out of the tournament. A commanding performance, which included a hole-in-one Saturday morning to complete his second round followed by an eight-under 64 to tie two Memorial records, went to waste. The PGA Tour said the Spaniard had come into close contact with a person who was Covid-19 positive, meaning Rahm could play provided he was tested daily. Every test since he arrived Monday came back negative except the one after his second round, which was completed on Saturday morning. The positive test was confirmed as Rahm was playing the 18th hole, knowing nothing except that no one was close to him on the leaderboard. 'This is one of those things that happens in life, one of those moments where how we respond to a setback defines us as people,' Rahm said in a statement he posted to Twitter."

 The Guardian reports.

You see him receiving the news in the video below. The amount of money he's losing there is $1.7 million. The announcers don't know what the bad news is, only that he's reacting to bad news (which makes you think about how much worse news can be): 

Surreal TV moment as six-stroke leader Jon Rahm learns he tested positive for COVID and Jim Nantz tries to make sense of it without knowing what Rahm's been told pic.twitter.com/WvD6LmAlxs

— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) June 5, 2021

"This more than 800-page bill has garnered zero Republican support. Why?"

"Are the very Republican senators who voted to impeach Trump because of actions that led to an attack on our democracy unwilling to support actions to strengthen our democracy? Are these same senators, whom many in my party applauded for their courage, now threats to the very democracy we seek to protect? The truth, I would argue, is that voting and election reform that is done in a partisan manner will all but ensure partisan divisions continue to deepen. With that in mind, some Democrats have again proposed eliminating the Senate filibuster rule in order to pass the For the People Act with only Democratic support. They’ve attempted to demonize the filibuster and conveniently ignore how it has been critical to protecting the rights of Democrats in the past.... The Senate, its processes and rules, have evolved over time to make absolute power difficult while still delivering solutions to the issues facing our country and I believe that’s the Senate’s best quality...  Do we really want to live in an America where one party can dictate and demand everything and anything it wants, whenever it wants?"

From "Joe Manchin: Why I'm voting against the For the People Act."

Thanks, Joe. You have garnered my respect.

ADDED: No More Mr. Nice Blog writes:

If you're concerned that criticizing him for this could inspire him to switch parties and throw full Senate control to the Republicans, don't worry. He'll never do that.

So... that concern is out there. 

"Strangers rank their intelligence."

I'm seeing that this morning because something made me want to read the subreddit "Asian Masculinity: Culture, masculinity & racial identity for Asian men," and I happened across a discussion of that video — "Ray is a good example of Asian Masculinity." Quite a bit of the discussion there is about whether a soft-spoken man can be attractive.

The video itself is quite something — inviting these 6 individuals to judge each other's intellligence and then — as they're sitting in order of supposed IQ — surprising them with an IQ test. Then they're reseated — or not — according to the test results. It was a very funny (and disturbing) situation because they were openly expressing some prejudice while decorously resisting mentioning other prejudice. 

There was some vocal assertion that "emotional intelligence" is part of IQ, but the IQ test wasn't about emotional intelligence, and the strongest booster of the idea of "emotional intelligence" lacked emotional intelligence (I think). 

And the test was taken under ridiculously nonneutral conditions, as they'd all just heard judgments about themselves and were seated right next to the people who'd judged them. Plus they were taking the test on a laptop that was balanced on their knees (or a handheld iPhone) — in front of a camera. That made it partly a test of aptitude for concentrating and keeping calm. I think the laptop-on-knees position would have shaved 10 points off my IQ.

"The moon in China has a special meaning. And when it's full, that represents the fullness and reunification of the family. So that poem struck the deep core of my heart whenever I miss my family."

Says Yuan Haiwang, author of "This Is China: The First 5,000 Years," quoted in "Li Bai and Du Fu: China's drunken superstar poets" (BBC). He was talking about a poem by Li Bai (701-762 AD).

Moonlight in front of my bed 

I took it for frost on the ground 

I lift my head, gaze at the mountain moon 

Lower it, and think of home.

I'm reading that this morning because a reader, K, saw my post about "tangping" and emailed:

Tang was the greatest age of Chinese poetry and the greatest Tang poetry included attacks on the court, and on corruption and in praise of "drunkenness" or withdrawal from the struggle to get ahead at the court. Perhaps for the Chinese "tang-ling" [sic] has some sort of resonance suggesting these great Tang poets. Asking, was the Tang era the greatest Chinese era or is Xi's China the greatest. Subtle, maybe, but the Chinese have been civilized for a long time. I wonder. Perhaps we should love bomb Beijing with millions of copies of On Walden Pond and A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers to counter the Confucian Institutes here.

I don't know what classic literature you're reading right now. Me, I've been reading G.K. Chesterton's "Orthodoxy." That line about the moon — "The moon in China has a special meaning" — caught my eye, because I'd just read this, from Chesterton:

"We should all declare within one unified voice that China must pay. They must pay. The United States should immediately take steps to phase in a firm 100% tariff on all goods made in China."

Said Trump, orating in North Carolina last night. 

He was holding China responsible for Covid19 and proposing a method — to be imposed now and without further investigation — for collecting what he called "reparations."

"Young Chinese are rebelling against society through... the tangping, or 'lying flat,' way of life... not getting married, not having children, not buying a house or a car..."

"... and refusing to work extra hours or to hold a job at all. 'I stay at home and sleep and watch television series. Sometimes I go out for walks, read books and just think a lot,' said Daisy Zhang, 28... Tangping has emerged over the last few months as the rallying call of Chinese millennials who have had enough of the rat race. Some compare them to the 1950s Beat Generation in the United States. Others call their behavior a form of nonviolent resistance or 'ideological emancipation' from consumerism. Supporters portray it as a rejection of struggle and endless striving.... Internet users identified themselves as 'lying flatists,' posting photos of cats and seals lying supine. ... When Chinese officials announced loosened family-size limits to allow all couples to have up to three children, one commentator quipped, 'We are all thinking about how best to lie down while they are pushing us to reproduce.'"

From "Young Chinese take a stand against pressures of modern life — by lying down" (WaPo). 

Here's a definition for "tangping" that somebody — LeoF — wrote up at Urban Dictionary:

"Our freedom is being overtaken by left wing cancel culture, and the Biden administration is pushing toxic critical race theory and illegal discrimination into our children’s schools."

"Now you tell me, we take this? Joe Biden and the Socialist Democrats are the most radical left-wing administration in history. Even Bernie Sanders can’t believe it. He said, I can’t believe this happened. This is worse than I ever was. I don’t know if they even know what the hell they’re signing. Somebody is drawing these documents and putting it, and it’s getting signed. It’s a disgrace what’s happening to our country. The survival of America depends upon our ability to elect Republicans at every level, starting with the midterms next year. We have to get it done. We have to get it done. We have no choice, actually. We have to get it done. Together, we’re going to defend our freedoms. You just take a look at what’s happening. We have to defend our borders. We have to do all of these things and the cancel culture, the defunding culture, the defending culture and they defend the wrong things, we’re not going to let it go any longer. Going to stand up for our values. We have to stand up for our values, and we’re going to take back our country and we’re going to take it back at a level that is very, very good for our country and it’s good for citizens because we can’t allow bad things to happen to our country. Bad, bad things are happening to us, perhaps like never before. You’ll be seeing what goes on and perhaps like never before."

From "Donald Trump Speech Transcript at North Carolina GOP Convention Dinner June 5" (Rev).

Trump sounded like his old self last night. We watched the whole thing. It was interesting to see him again. He looked fit and vigorous and focused on Republicans winning the upcoming elections in 2022. He concentrated on telling us all the things the Democrats are doing wrong — disastrously wrong in his view. 

There was some talk of the 2020 election, but that was toward the end, and it didn't come across as morbidly self-obsessed or paranoid. It was more an upbeat expression of the belief that Americans can't really be split 50-50 on issues like supporting the police and protecting the border. And protecting the security of the voting process: We need to learn what happened in 2020, so it can never happen again.

I liked this bit about Zuckerberg:

He used to come to the White House. He would call, “Oh, could I have dinner with you, sir?” “Sure.” “Could I bring my wife?” “Oh, absolutely.” He actually walked into the office one day in front of numerous people, “Congratulations, sir.” “Why?” He said. “You’re number one on Facebook.” He said to me, “You’re number one on Facebook.” I said, “Thank you very much. I appreciate it.” We had a nice dinner. The day I was out he became a rather, well, I guess it’s human nature. But we can’t let our country be run by that kind of human nature can we? Zuckerberg, it’s another beauty.

Zuckerberg may notice that at least Trump is crediting him with humanness. So often, people say Z doesn't seem like a human being, but some sort of alien. Just yesterday, a NYT columnist said he seems like "another species on another planet."

I also enjoyed the riff about furniture: