Beautiful Arches...

Just wow! The views are beyond amazing @ArchesNPS in #Utah! Pic by Dan Ransom pic.twitter.com/DOeR3Deu2K

— US Dept of Interior (@Interior) June 12, 2016

Wow, indeed.

Remember the awesome beauty of America.

Please use the comment section to talk about any subject other than the terrible incident in Orlando, which is the subject of the previous 3 posts.

"We know enough to say this was an act of terror and an act of hate."

"The FBI is appropriately investigating this as an act of terror. We will go wherever the facts lead us... What is clear is he was a person filled with hatred."

Said President Barack Obama.



The President talks about the need to find out all the facts and to be careful about what we say before all we know we can, but notably, he called it an "act of terror": We know enough to say this was an act of terror....

It's also notable that in the second half of his statement, he merged the Orlando incident with the general problem of gun violence. We're asked to think about how easy it is to have and use a gun: "And we have to decide if that's the kind of country we want to be." He didn't state which policy he favors. He leaves it to democracy. There's no mention of the looming presidential election, perhaps because he doesn't even know yet how Hillary Clinton will choose to respond. As I've said (in the previous post), I don't think Clinton will go the gun-control route, so I think Obama is satisfying the gun-control crowd by mentioning the subject, but getting out of the way.

ADDED: Hillary weighed in on Facebook. She structures her statement very much like Obama's, with the act of terror/act of hate combination and then gun control thrown in at the end:

This was an act of terror.... For now, we can say for certain that we need to redouble our efforts to defend our country from threats at home and abroad... It also means refusing to be intimidated and staying true to our values.

This was also an act of hate.... We will keep fighting for [the right of LGBT people] to live freely, openly and without fear. Hate has absolutely no place in America.

Finally, we need to keep guns like the ones used last night out of the hands of terrorists or other violent criminals. This is the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States and it reminds us once more that weapons of war have no place on our streets.

Unlike Obama, she does embrace a policy position on guns, complete with a statement that the guns this person used should be classified as "weapons of war" and completely banned.

And Trump has 4 more tweets:

Horrific incident in FL. Praying for all the victims & their families. When will this stop? When will we get tough, smart & vigilant?

Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!

Is President Obama going to finally mention the words radical Islamic terrorism? If he doesn't he should immediately resign in disgrace!

Reporting that Orlando killer shouted "Allah hu Akbar!" as he slaughtered clubgoers. 2nd man arrested in LA with rifles near Gay parade.

AND: I relistened to Obama's presentation, and he did refrain from saying "radical Islamic terrorism" or making any reference to the murderer's religion. 

How will Clinton and Trump and their proxies talk about the Orlando shooting/terrorism?

We saw how the different political candidates talked about the San Bernardino massacre, which happened last December. As I remember it, roughly, Clinton and Obama centered on guns and lectured us about the need for gun control, and Republicans talked about immigration policy and Islamic extremism.

Now, closer to the election, what framework will be imposed? Something was learned from the politics around San Bernardino and the primary season is over, so I suspect that Democrats will not choose to emphasize gun control (unless this turns out to have been a lone mentally ill person). The Democrats may try to use the idea of an attack on a gay club to criticize Donald Trump for creating a divisive atmosphere of hate, even though none of his alleged hate-mongering has been about gay people. As for what Trump and his proxies will say, it depends on who the murderer turns out to be.

I'm going to watch all the Sunday morning talk shows, and I will update this post as I hear various statements. The previous post is for comments about the terrible incident itself. Forgive me for being so brutal as to go immediately to the effect on presidential politics, but please keep the comments here to this topic, which I think is important because — like the San Bernardino massacre (and even more than it) — this event is a skewing point in electoral politics, and everyone speaking for the campaigns knows it. Sympathy will be expressed, along with warnings to wait to hear the facts, but the politics are underway, and I'm going to tell you about what everyone does on the TV shows this morning.

1. "State of the Union" with Jake Tapper devoted nearly the entire show to news coverage of the event. In the final 5-minute segment. Tapper displayed the tweets from Donald Trump — "Really bad shooting in Orlando. Police investigating possible terrorism. Many people dead and wounded." — and Hillary Clinton — "Woke up to hear the devastating news from FL. As we wait for more information, my thoughts are with those affected by this horrific act. -H" Tapper noted that the "H" at the end of a tweet on Hillary Clinton's account indicates that "she herself wrote that tweet." After that the guest is the Republican Congressman Peter King, who knows the name of the shooter but won't say it and knows of indications of "Islamist leanings," but the discussion was focused on the facts of the incident.

2. "Fox News Sunday" with Bret Baier went straight to politics, with Senator Jeff Sessions as the Trump proxy and Senator Amy Klobuchar as the Clinton proxy. Sessions, asked about the Orlando incident, said it "certainly looks like... Islamic extremism" and stressed the need to "openly and directly" confront the extremist element within Islam, including restricting immigration. Baier prompted him to connect the incident to guns and to Clinton's support for gun control, and Sessions slotted in his talking point about the Supreme Court and the supposed precariousness of the Second Amendment individual right to bear arms. Klobuchar emphasized waiting for more information and the importance of not seeming to accuse all Muslims (and she credited Sessions for having said the same thing). She brought up guns only when Baier asked her, and then only to blandly reference common-sense limits that wouldn't infringe the gun rights that she assured us Clinton believes in.

3. "Meet the Press" began with news and news analysis, and that analysis went heavily into the subject of guns, how much damage one person could do in a crowded place with the kind of guns this murderer had. The name is now being said, Omar Mateen, and there are repeated references to the man's father saying that his son was recently enraged when he saw 2 men kissing. I get the sense that the show would like to forefront hatred of gay people and minimize the significance of his religion, which is Muslim. The show switches over to Chuck Todd with the this set up: "Obviously, there are many elements to the story, we don't want to play the politics too much... but obviously, this will play into the presidential elections." That's not in the official show transcript (here). I guess the show got re-edited. Todd credits Trump and Clinton with being low key, but complains about the excessively political tweets of other, unnamed, politicians and homes in on gun control.

4. The "Face the Nation" time slot was straight news, no political spinning.

5. "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos had by far the most coverage of the presidential campaign, with a pre-recorded interview from Paul Ryan (that's worth discussing, but didn't cover the incident) and interviews with Trump's man Manafort and with Bernie Sanders. But there was a panel in the end — transcript —that eventually touched on the incident in the way that the second paragraph of this post anticipated. Katrina Vanden Heuvel was attacking Donald Trump for his "fear mongering and exploiting racial anxieties and bigotry" and, bringing up the Orlando incident, she said:

Donald Trump's idea of a counterterrorism program is banning all Muslims, bombing all families in the Middle East, essentially [sic] -- ISIS families, and torturing -- I think the, you know, grief and anger today. But we can't lose sight of senseless gun violence and the gun epidemic in this country. 66 people killed in Chicago in May. Hillary Clinton has a very strong gun control program. Trump, he's tethered to the NRA. I think that has to be...

When I heard that I said out loud, "That does not help Hillary." Then Donna Brazile followed on with generic references to "mass shootings" (and not terrorism), and I was saying "This isn't what Hillary wants to hear." That set up Bill Kristol, who prefaced his remark with "Look, I am anti-Trump" and proceeded with what I consider absolutely apt political analysis:

[I]f this was an act of Islamic terrorism, whether a lone wolf, or perhaps a lot of lone wolves turn out to have connection abroad one way or the other.... But if he was motivated by Islamist jihadist ideology, these talking points are not going to work, it's going to -- Donald Trump, the best moment, I say this with regret, the moment that helped Trump win the nomination was the San Bernardino massacre and his calling for a ban of all Muslims, which is an insane -- bad public policy, undoable, and we shouldn't do it. Having said that, it helped him. And I think we shouldn't kid ourselves. And, frankly, if these are the Democratic talking points here, senseless gun violence, it's not senseless.

It's not senseless. That's right. It's the sense of some people who have a specific ideology of hate and violence. Blaming the guns was the Democrats' instinctive move last December after the San Bernardino massacre, and it was the wrong choice politically. Hillary needs to set herself up as a resolute fighter against terrorism, and I think she will. Obviously, Trump will. It would be stupid to cede that ground to him. But real left-wingers like Katrina Vanden Heuvel — not helping Hillary —  head directly to the their anti-gun safe space.

ADDED: As noted above, what showed on "Meet the Press" for me wasn't the same as the transcript. I'm reading that now. There was a panel with Tom Brokaw, Hugh Hewitt, Amy Walter, and Joy Reid. Tom Brokaw went first and said it didn't matter whether the facts end up showing that the shooting was "connected to some kind of an international group," because, for him, the problem is guns. Hewitt focused on ISIS, but Walter and Reid stuck with the gun theme. When Hewitt said, "ISIS would do this to a hundred million Americans if they could," Reid rejoined: "But so would white nationalists."

20 dead in Orlando in what police are calling a "terror incident." UPDATE: 50+ dead.

"About 20 people were killed and at least 42 people were wounded when a gunman armed with an assault-style rifle, a handgun and possibly an explosive device opened fire inside a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., about 2 a.m., Police Chief John Mina said."

The gunman was not from the Orlando area and was organized and well-prepared, the police said.

The gunman was found dead inside the Pulse nightclub, one of the largest gay clubs in Orlando, about 5 a.m. after a shootout with officers who were attempting to rescue dozens of people who were being held hostage, said Chief Mina. He confirmed that the gunman had been killed by the police....

Here is the club's Facebook page. Its message at 3 a.m. was: "Everyone get out of pulse and keep running."

From the comments at the Facebook page:

I was there. Shooter opened fire @ around 2:00am. People on the dance floor and bar got down on the floor and some of us who were near the bar and back exit managed to go out through the outdoor area and just ran. I am safely home and hoping everyone gets home safely as well....

Glad to hear you're okay. Was the club a gun free zone...? Did they check at the door for weapons?...

no, there's no checking for weapons. But there's barely even bad looks in there. It had been, from my experience, always nice and very safe in the club....

I know what you mean.... the clubs I've been to in West Hollywood were like that, very friendly. This is the reason why I carry concealed whenever I can when I'm out, simply because you never know if you'll be in harms way or not.

Probably is a Muslim, that's the reality of shit with the way everything's been... sorry not sorry....

... 20 people have just been shot and some fools are already trying to put a blood libel on all Muslim Americans. I'm sure you're just a great guy....

the Muslim religion teaches tolerance and acceptance. Please take your close minded speculations somewhere else and open a book before you go attacking an entire religion....

my heart is heavy :( this is 2016.....why are we killing one another over our sexuality when there are so many more important things to worry about....Prayers to everyone involved, except the twatnoodle(s) who instigated this situation, I hope they find you and make your life a living hell for all the lives you've taken and the lives you've changed forever with your selfish actions.

"Listening to 'Sleep with Me,' I often feel as if Ackerman’s ramblings work by tricking my brain into believing it is drifting off..."

"... emulating the peripatetic workings of the dreaming mind. But, when I asked sleep experts if that sounded plausible, they dismissed the idea. Milena Pavlova, a neurologist in the Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, warned that, if the podcast was prolonging my slide from wakefulness to sleep—during which it’s possible to have fragmentary dreams—it might even be harming my rest. Even the doctors who saw nothing wrong with the podcast considered it, at best, 'a Band-Aid,' in the words of Rafael Pelayo, a clinical professor at the Stanford Center for Sleep Sciences and Medicine. Distracting a racing mind, they insisted, was no substitute for ameliorating it through better sleep hygiene: limiting caffeine, alcohol, and screen time, and soothing anxious thoughts through meditation or circumscribed list-making before hitting the bedroom, which is reserved for 'sleep and intimacy' only. But Ackerman, who has struggled with insomnia since childhood, thinks the podcast may work, in part, because it isn’t prescriptive like a doctor’s orders—which present insomniacs with yet another opportunity for failure. The podcast 'is there, but you don’t have to fall asleep,' he said. 'There’s not a right or wrong way to use the show.'"

Writes Nora Caplan-Bricker in The New Yorker.

I had not heard of this podcast before, but I have used audiobooks to fall asleep for more than 20 years. I'd have a problem using Drew Ackerman's "Sleep with Me" podcast because it ends after an hour or 2, and I know I wake up if the speaking ends. But I think the idea for the podcast is great and I'm sure it helps many people. I'm annoyed by the doctors arguing that this approach to falling asleep isn't as good as other things like meditation.

Having a lot of interesting thoughts flowing through your brain isn't a problem. It's a good thing! It gets in the way of sleep, so you need something to displace it. A recorded voice supplying something that's like your own thoughts relieves the brain of its natural habit of producing thoughts. In the passive, receiving position, you fall asleep.

Why cut off your thoughts the hard way, with meditation, which is getting the brain to cut off its own thoughts (or to stop paying attention to its thoughts)? I'm happy preserving my own brain's tendency to produce continually interesting thoughts and to use the trick of an audiobook to switch off the thoughts to sleep.

To me, the doctor sounds puritanical (and not a little self interested). And, by the way, I have used the iPhone app Headspace and am familiar with the sleep meditation  routine. I ended up not wanting to spend my time doing that with my mind. It was solving a nonproblem.

Let's play Scrabble.

Presidential summer vacations were different in the old days, no?

I found that photo because I was searching for pictures of how Mamie Eisenhower dressed as I was listening to Tom & Lorenzo's new podcast, which looks into Hillary Clinton's fashion and the fashions of various first ladies. They call Mamie "frumpy" and have a lot of other things to say, including that Jackie was actually not all that great — she wore Chanel knockoffs — and Nancy Reagan was perhaps better — though emblematic of a fashion decade (the 80s) that feels so alien to us today.

As for Hillary Clinton's $12,000 Armani jacket, they say women's clothes are expensive, you should expect a wealthy woman to wear expensive clothes, and Hillary would be criticized if she did not put plenty of attention into wearing the right clothes (with lots of shapewear underneath). Not that they like the cut of the jacket. They don't.

They also talk about Michelle Obama... and her famously bared arms. That's why I loved this picture of Mamie's arms.

Are Mamie and Dwight really playing Scrabble? I think they're just posing. Who starts off Scrabble with 5 words like that?

ADDED: Here's a collection of photos of Presidents on their vacations, beginning with Grant and including the Eisenhower photo above.  And here's a collection of Presidents in their swimwear. My favorite:

"I usually enjoy Ms. Weiner's contributions to the Times. But this is one of the most blatant 'humble-brags' ever."

"Poor Jennifer: she went to Princeton, published a book (or books?) and writes for the NYT, but she's still learning to feel sufficiently good about herself. Blech!!!"

Top-rated comment at "The Snobs and Me," by Jennifer Weiner.

"... Clinton supporters are analogous to the wife in Battered Wife Syndrome...."

"In a brilliant critique that I've stolen from a young family friend of ours who recently earned his degree in psychology, Clinton supporters are analogous to the wife in Battered Wife Syndrome. Go ahead and look up BWS -- you'll see it works. Now plug in Media for Wife and you'll see the same. Trumpians too, though to a lesser degree because the abusive relationship is still in its early stage of dating -- romantic steak dinners, careful grooming, fancy golden hotels, and tender sexy words whispered in their hopeful ears."

Wrote Meade, in a comment, after HoodlumDoodlum said "No matter how much the Dems shit on the Media, the Media still love the Dems. Embarrassing!"

The 8th graders' relationship contract .

Found on the floor after class in a middle school: a relationship contract between 8th graders. (He signed it) pic.twitter.com/SPmDjNdjVi

— max linsky (@maxlinsky) June 10, 2016

He signed it but it was found on the floor.

I have a lawyerly fascination with the word "these." It's a loophole, but how are you going to use it? And that's the thing. It's not a contract. There's no conceivable remedy for failing to meet these terms that wouldn't already be available without the acceptance of these terms. It's not as though he agreed to submit to the breaking of his face. He's just on notice that's how she intends to behave.

"It turns out that iconic photo of Hillary Clinton wearing sunglasses while using a Blackberry..."

"... not only launched a thousand memes, but the entire investigation about her private email account."

"What if PTSD Is More Physical Than Psychological?"

"A new study supports what a small group of military researchers has suspected for decades: that modern warfare destroys the brain."

For years, many scientists have assumed that explosive blasts affect the brain in much the same way as concussions from football or car accidents. Perl himself was a leading researcher on chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., which has caused dementia in N.F.L. players. Several veterans who died after suffering blast wounds have in fact developed C.T.E. But those veterans had other, nonblast injuries too. No one had done a systematic post-mortem study of blast-injured troops. That was exactly what the Pentagon asked Perl to do in 2010, offering him access to the brains they had gathered for research....

"Look at the size of that one!"

"Why don’t you leave suburbia for once — come and see me — either here — or at the Cape next week or in Boston the 19th."

"I know it is unwise, irrational, and that you may hate it — on the other hand you may not — and I will love it. You say that it is good for me not to get what I want. After all of these years — you should give me a more loving answer than that. Why don’t you just say yes."

JFK wrote to in a letter to Mary Pinchot Meyer in October 1963 — a letter he never sent. JFK was shot to death the next month. And the following year, Meyer too was shot to death.

From the Wikipedia page for Mary Pinchot Meyer:

In 1983, former Harvard University psychology lecturer Timothy Leary claimed that in the spring of 1962, Pinchot Meyer, who, according to her biographer Nina Burleigh "wore manners and charm like a second skin", told Leary she was taking part in a plan to avert worldwide nuclear war by convincing powerful male members of the Washington establishment to take mind-altering drugs, which would presumably lead them to conclude that the Cold War was meaningless.

"Newly released State Department emails help reveal how a major Clinton Foundation donor was placed on a sensitive government intelligence advisory board even though he had no obvious experience in the field..."

"... a decision that appeared to baffle the department’s professional staff," ABC News reports.

The emails further reveal how, after inquiries from ABC News, the Clinton staff sought to “protect the name” of the Secretary, “stall” the ABC News reporter and ultimately accept the resignation of the donor just two days later.

"Using Google Earth, satellite imagery and drones, researchers have discovered a monumental structure amid the world-famous ruins of Petra, Jordan."

"It was apparently 'hiding in plain sight' — a structure the size of an Olympic-size pool 'just south of the city center, and archaeologists have missed this for 150, 200 years'...."

About those Steph Curry Under Armour shoes.

Everyone's making fun of them.

The Under Armour Steph Curry shoe is the choice of all four Golden Girls. pic.twitter.com/RG5DbFzazk

— Dave Holmes (@DaveHolmes) June 10, 2016