If you want people to trust vote drop boxes, it's obtuse to post political signs on them.

Seen today in Madison (near Camp Randall): 

The signs say "Banned by antidemocratic right-wing extremists," "Wisconsin Republican Legislators are crafting laws RIGHT NOW to keep you from putting your ballots in U.S. Mail Drop Boxes. BEWARE," and "NO MERCY."

Context: The Wisconsin Supreme Court recently held that these drop boxes are illegal. As The NYT wrote:

"Even if Twitter does prevail in recovering the deal or recouping a $1 billion breakup fee, a court battle [could force Twitter] to make key business metrics public..."

"... inviting questions from Wall Street about the overall health of the company, which turned its first profit in 2018 amid a major financial retooling. Donna Hitscherich, a Columbia Business School professor, said Musk’s filing will naturally raise questions about why he lost interest... Anticipating more scrutiny of the role of bots in the deal, Twitter gave a Thursday background briefing to reporters. The core of the presentation was about how Twitter calculates its estimate that unwanted bots make up less than 5 percent of what it terms monetizable average daily users, those which the company feels comfortable charging advertisers to reach. Twitter does not ban all bots, which include purposeful automated accounts, such as those that post otter pictures on the hour or the temperature in a specific location. Instead, the company is looking for indicators that include mass creation accounts or coordination among humans to artificially amplify a tweet, set of tweets or topic....  [T]he company is measuring and disclosing problematic accounts, not their activity or impressions — so a small number of accounts might have a large footprint of views...."

From "As Musk moves to abandon deal, Twitter faces ‘worst case scenario’/In attempting to walk away from the $44 billion acquisition, Elon Musk sets the stage for a legal battle, which could carry financial risks for the social network and further darken employee morale" (WaPo).

I bet you did thing there'd be otters in this story.

"President Biden is facing an alarming level of doubt from inside his own party, with 64 percent of Democratic voters saying they would prefer a new standard-bearer..."

"... in the 2024 presidential campaign, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll, as voters nationwide have soured on his leadership, giving him a meager 33 percent job-approval rating.... More than three-quarters of registered voters see the United States moving in the wrong direction, a pervasive sense of pessimism that spans every corner of the country, every age range and racial group, cities, suburbs and rural areas, as well as both political parties.... In the survey, 94 percent of Democrats under the age of 30 said they would prefer a different presidential nominee.... One glimmer of good news for Mr. Biden is that the survey showed him with a narrow edge in a hypothetical rematch in 2024 with former President Donald J. Trump: 44 percent to 41 percent. The result is a reminder of one of Mr. Biden’s favorite aphorisms: 'Don’t compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative.'"

The NYT reports.

"A New York City bodega group says the Big Apple should adopt a local version of Florida’s controversial 'Stand Your Ground' law after a Manhattan store worker was charged with murder..."

"... for defending himself. United Bodegas of America — which has rallied behind Jose Alba, the 61-year-old shop employee facing a slay rap after fending off a violent ex-con — said Sunday that the measure is needed to protect others who toil behind the counter. 'Bottom line — in Florida, this is what you would consider stand your ground,' UBA spokesman Fernando Mateo said at a press conference, referring to Alba’s case. 'That’s what New York City needs,' Mateo said of the law.... Mateo said a more expansive statute in New York, similar to Florida’s, would have provided Alba with legal grounds for stabbing and mortally wounding 35-year-old Austin Simon when he stormed behind the counter July 1 and accosted Alba. Alba tried to get past Simon and pulled a knife when he was unable to flee, in the caught-on-video incident."

The NY Post reports.

A "stand your ground" law would only save him from need to prove that he could not flee, but we are told that "he was unable to flee" (and that's how it looks in the video). The more difficult question is whether he believed he was threatened by great bodily harm, and that's still an issue if there is a "stand your ground" law. If someone is only trying to rob you, you don't get to kill them.

"I am very passionate about politics and current events, even more so after the past few years. My brother-in-law, 'Brad' is silent on these topics."

"A few times I asked my husband what he thought and he just said Brad 'wasn't very political.' I volunteer for a local chapter of a national organization that aligns with my values. Last week I saw a donor list and Brad donated a substantial sum.... I came home and asked my husband about it. I was surprised Brad has this kind of money to donate. I’m also surprised somebody who isn’t very political would use their money this way. My husband did not seem surprised at all and just said that I saw the donor list as a volunteer and I shouldn’t bring it into the family."

Says a letter to the WaPo advice columnist from a woman who finds it "really weird." I find that pretty funny, because I don't think it's weird at all. Some people hate to talk about politics, especially with somebody who's "very passionate." You might think somebody who doesn't want to talk about your issues must be secretly on the other side (or just apathetic), but I can think of lots of reasons to want to avoid conversations with someone who's intense and verbal in support of causes that I support too. If you're getting together with someone, you want to spend time with them, to learn what's going on in their personal world, not to hear something like social media bloviating. 

The columnist opines that it's weird, but only "low-key weird."

Here's a reason that I, specifically, do not talk about politics in person even with someone I agree with. I feel an ethical responsibility to represent people who are missing from a conversation, especially if my in-person interlocutor expresses contempt for those people or misstates their reasons for believing what they do. That puts me in a "really weird" position.

Why should any man becumber himself with a cucumber?

I wonder, reading...

 becumber  v.

Brit. Hear pronunciation/bᵻˈkʌmbə/

, 

U.S. Hear pronunciation/bəˈkəmbər/

, 

Hear pronunciation/biˈkəmbər/

1550    M. Coverdale tr. O. Werdmueller Spyrytuall & Precyouse Pearle xxi. sig. Hvjv   Why shulde any man..becomber hym selfe about that thing?

I'm reading the Oxford English Dictionary, specifically the entries under the second definition of the prefix "be-," which is used "Forming intensive verbs, with sense of 'thoroughly..., soundly, much, conspicuously, to excess, ridiculously,'" and which arose this morning — as these things do — in the context of "bepenised."

I had blogged a quote that referred to "the spectacle of bepenised straight heterosexual males." Quite aside from the context — go back to that post if you care about context — there was some clamor over the word "bepenised."

My dear husband Meade commented:

To bepenised or not to bepenised… 

Bespectacled. Bepenised. Bemused.

And now, I'm very proud and happy to present one of my newest and nicest friends:

"The idea that some hapless, well-meaning person would put up a poster like this, thinking that they had a cat..."

"... it just seemed so funny to her. So it was obvious that it was a joke. She really didn't expect the calls."

 

I highly recommend "The Possum Experiment," the new episode of "This American Life," which is centered on the question whether people are basically good and can be trusted. 

All the segments were high quality, not just the part about the possum experiment. There's also a part about a black male comedian who went blind:

Here's something that I philosophized this little trip. It's a trip for me. This fucks with my head a little bit. My blindness is diffusing the scariness of my Blackness. That was one of my secret weapons to be a big brother, and people get nervous. Oh, fuck. There's a big Black guy. Watch out. That shit is powerful. It was a thrill. Once people find out that I can't see, my Blackness is out the window. They treat me like I'm a Make-a-Wish baby. Uh oh, watch out. There's a big Black guy. Oh, he just walked into the broom closet. OK, no worries.

And the last part is about the alternative endings to "Clockwork Orange."

According to [the novelist Anthony] Burgess, when the book was published here in the States, the publisher told him they wouldn't put it out unless they could cut chapter 21. This was way before the movie was optioned. It was still just a novel. They said the optimistic ending was Pollyanna-ish, naive, and bland. They were like, we Americans are tougher than you Brits. We can handle a nihilistic ending. Some people are just beyond hope. That's more realistic.

But the story wasn't so simple, and Burgess seems to have been bullshitting.

Can we — most of us — come together and agree to allow access to abortion in the first 15 weeks of pregnancy — or at least the first 10?

I'm seeing this at Twitter this morning:

Roughly 15 weeks was a popular, consensus position Roe prevented for 50 years. Many on both sides will still disagree with it, but it’s likely where many states will land, and STILL more liberal than most European countries. https://t.co/JFrU63AWTl

— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) July 11, 2022

And it's something I'd discovered on my own, independently. In a post on July 2, I discussed a little unscientific poll of mine called "What sort of law protecting access to abortion do you think Congress should pass?" I'd noticed the problem with the polls I was seeing: They were just asking if there should be statutes establishing a right to abortion. But:

"Except the T has interests that are diametrically opposed to those of the LGB. How so? By denying that homosexuality is same-sex attraction..."

"... and attempting to replace it with 'same-gender' attraction. Whence the spectacle of bepenised straight heterosexual males who identify as 'trans' (and thus consider themselves 'lesbians') browbeating actual lesbians into considering them as sexual partners, with the inevitable accusations of 'transphobia' raining down on lesbians who insist that they are only attracted to women. Think I'm kidding? Google 'cotton ceiling.' Or have a look at this: https://twitter.com/Rocio_Arias_/status/1490314002295046150."

Writes Banjopotato, commenting on the Washington Post article, "Bette Midler and Macy Gray upset trans advocates. Here’s why." 

Banjopotato gets some pushback from BuffaloGal78:

Sunrise — 5:28, 5:30.

Talk about whatever you like in the comments.

Sarah Palin, praising Donald Trump.

Sarah Palin says Trump was "the best president that we've ever had." Somehow this leads to her talking about media coverage of her kids and how much Trump "cared about family" and supported "a culture of life and a culture of love." (Is she talking about the same Donald Trump?) pic.twitter.com/Q17LWWiByX

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 10, 2022

ADDED: Rupar has some more good clips:

"Searching for Rosebud, Auletta alights, for lack of better explanations, on the Weinstein brothers’ flame-haired and apparently flame-tempered mother, Miriam..."

"... (for whom their company was named, along with their milder father, Max, a diamond cutter who died of a heart attack at 52). A childhood friend told Auletta that Harvey referred to Miriam as 'Momma Portnoy,' after the shrill character in Philip Roth’s 'Portnoy’s Complaint.' [Harvey's brother] Bob, who somehow avoided growing into a 'beast,' as Harvey is repeatedly described here, allows for the possibility of Miriam’s frustration at her life’s limitations. 'She could have been Sheryl Sandberg or one of these C.E.O.s of a company. She had that kind of smarts,' he told Auletta. Instead, she proudly brought rugelach to her sons’ headquarters, and had an epitaph worthy of Dorothy Parker: 'I don’t like the atmosphere or the crowd.'"

From "‘Hollywood Ending,’ a Cradle-to-Jail Biography of Harvey Weinstein/Ken Auletta looks for Weinstein’s Rosebud in this dispiriting account of the former movie mogul’s life" by Alexandra Jacobs (NYT)(reviewing "HOLLYWOOD ENDING/Harvey Weinstein and the Culture of Silence" by Ken Auletta).

"Ed departments in colleges. If you work in a college you know, unless you work in the ed department.... They are the dumbest part of every college...."

"You can think about why for a minute. If you study physics, there is a subject. … How does the physical world work? That’s hard to figure out. Politics is actually the study of justice. … Literature. They don’t do it much anymore, but you can read the greatest books, the most beautiful books ever written. Education is the study of how to teach. Is that a separate art? I don’t think so.... If you read a book called ‘Abolition of Man’ by C.S. Lewis, you will see how education destroys generations of people. It’s devastating. It’s like a plague. … The teachers are trained in the dumbest part of the dumbest colleges in the country. And they are taught that they are going to do something to those kids. …"

Said Larry Arnn, president of Hillsdale College, quoted in "Teachers go to the ‘dumbest colleges' — who said it and why it matters," a WaPo column by Valerie Strauss.

But what's really bothering Strauss isn't the outrage of insulting education departments.

"She was defended by Alexander Graham Bell, and by Mark Twain... with a thumping hurrah for plagiarism, and..."

"... disgust for the egotism of 'these solemn donkeys breaking a little child’s heart with their ignorant damned rubbish! . . . A gang of dull and hoary pirates piously setting themselves the task of disciplining and purifying a kitten that they think they’ve caught filching a chop!'"

I'm reading Cynthia Ozick's "How Helen Keller Learned to Write/With the help of her teacher, Annie Sullivan, Keller forged a path from deaf-blind darkness to unimaginable artistry"  — from June 8, 2003 in The New Yorker.

I'm reading that because — and I can't remember why — I got to thinking how hard it is to believe that Helen Keller could have acquired the language skills needed to write the works attributed to her. (You, who are not blind, can see the entire text of her "Story of My Life" at Project Gutenberg.)

Ozick writes:

"Glad to see you finally know what a woman is," the 3-star general replied to Jill Biden's tweet.

Her tweet was: "For nearly 50 years, women have had the right to make our own decisions about our bodies. Today, that right was stolen from us."

So he loaded down her tweeted speech about abortion rights with his snark that relates to recent discourse about transgenderism. 

The Guardian reports: "US army general suspended for mocking Jill Biden’s support of abortion rights/Gary Volesky, three-star general who took on lucrative consulting role, suspended over Twitter post that appeared under his name." 

I don't think he was "mocking Jill Biden’s support of abortion rights." I think he was observing her use of "women" in the abortion context and tying it to this separate "What is a woman?" issue. It's annoying when someone uses your social media speech to give visibility to something they want to say about a different topic.

"[O]n Oct. 4, 1969, everything changed... 20-year old Diane Linkletter jumped to her death from the window of her Los Angeles apartment after allegedly trying acid."

"Her grieving father, TV and radio host Art Linkletter, told the press, 'She was murdered by the people who manufacture and sell LSD.' The newspapers ran wild with Linkletter’s take: 'LSD KILLED DIANE.' Later, when news of her clean toxicology report made the rounds, Linkletter blamed the jump on an '“acid flashback.' President Richard Nixon — in the midst of launching his War on Drugs — invited Linkletter to the White House. Nixon knew that a story like this could galvanize the anti-drug movement more than any fact or figure could.... It was the perfect moment for a book like 'Go Ask Alice.'... The fact that the author was anonymous only heightened the buzz. 'Alice' could be anyone, even your daughter. The media ran with it — everyone from The New York Times to the Library Journal presented the book as a verified teenager’s diary. A million copies sold nearly overnight. Avon Books published the paperback and two years later, in 1973, ABC aired a TV adaptation of the book. That, too, was a supersonic hit, with nearly a third of all US households viewing it...."

From "1971 druggie diary ‘Go Ask Alice’ was made up by a suburban housewife" (NY Post).

People believe what they want to believe. Too good to check! I wanted to see how embarrassing the NYT coverage of this ridiculous book was. Here, from 1973: "Diary of a Schoolgirl En Route to Death." It's a review of the ABC TV movie.