"I just hate to see smart women throw their political careers away on men who only see them as the gash of least resistance."

Said Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Selina Meyer, quoted as "I just hate to see smart women throw their political careers away on men who only see them as the [slur for a body part] of least resistance" in "In satisfying ‘Veep’ finale, Selina gets what she wanted — and the final indignity she deserved" (WaPo).

I liked this headline and assumed it would be bloggable, but it's really too obvious to bother with.

"Economists often don’t know what they’re talking about" (WaPo).

ADDED: Notice that it doesn't say "Economists don’t know what they’re talking about." It's just "Economists often don’t know what they’re talking about." So they do know something, just not everything, and it's an area of study that's probably inherently beset by unknowables. Anyway, here's the old Alexander Pope verse:

A little learning is a dangerous thing;
drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
and drinking largely sobers us again.

"I'm grappling with how I feel about that subject and that material. I do grapple with things. I grapple with things personally, and racially, and politically. What does it mean to be me?"

Said Marc Bradford, quoted in a "60 Minutes" interview — presented at CBS News along with video of interviews with other artists. Excerpt:

Like Bradford, Chinese dissident Ai Weiwei thinks art should make a statement.

"I think every art, if it's relevant, is political," Ai told Holly Williams when she interviewed him for 60 Minutes in 2017.

Years ago, at a social event, I was talking with a woman who'd worked hard to acquire the ability to make distinctive and aesthetically pleasing bowls and vases and so forth. She said: "I'm still trying to figure out how to make them political." I said — in the sort of response I always imagined would make me a popular party guest — "But political art is the worst art."

ADDED: The subject Bradford says his abstract painting is about — what he's "grappling with" — is the Watts riots 1965.

ALSO: The woman who said "I'm still trying to figure out how to make them political" was absolutely not meaning to be humorous. She was utterly serious and sincere.

The stupid prisoner idea that they can talk in "code."

"I’m going to make sure something happens. I’m going to make sure I have a pizza delivered to him. He’s going to get that f------ pizza."

Said Billie Allen, quoted in "A prison gang member was overheard plotting a ‘pizza party’ for a prosecutor. He didn’t mean food" (WaPo).

New York Times opinion art.

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"What ‘Good’ Dads Get Away With" Division of labor in the home is one of the most important equity issues of our time. Yet at this rate it will be another 75 years before men do half the work. Illustration by @bonjourameliefontaine for the Sunday Review. #art #illustration #parenting #mothers #fathers

A post shared by NY Times Opinion Art (@nytimesopinionart) on May 10, 2019 at 2:57pm PDT

Opinion art. The best kind.

"... ten years ago..."

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“I used to be a corporate attorney for Coca-Cola. I worked eighty hours a week. Then one day I asked my boss for a single Friday off and he said ‘no.’ So I left my dog with my brother and flew to Europe. That was ten years ago. It’s been super fucking chill.” (Barcelona, Spain)

A post shared by Humans of New York (@humansofny) on May 10, 2019 at 8:20am PDT

At the State Street Café...

... you can bring the weekend in for a landing.

"I think that Facebook has experienced massive growth and has prioritized its growth over the best interests of its consumers, especially on the issue of privacy."

"There is no question in my mind that there needs to be serious regulation, and that that has not been happening. There needs to be more oversight. That has not been happening. My -- especially during my years as attorney general of California, one of my greatest areas of focus on this issue has been on consumer privacy. They have not been adequately informing consumers about where they are relinquishing their privacy.... Yes, I think we have to seriously take a look at [whether they should be broken up], yes. I mean, when you look at the issue, they're essentially a utility. Like, there are very few people that can actually get by and be involved in their communities or society or in whatever their profession without somehow, somewhere using Facebook. There -- it's very difficult for people to be engaged in any level of commerce without -- so, we have to recognize it for what it is. It is essentially a utility that has gone unregulated. And as far as I'm concerned, that's got to stop."

Said Kamala Harris today on "State of the Union" when Jake Tapper asked her if Facebook is a monopoly.

"Bragging rights for 'Howard Stern Comes Again' really do go to Donald Trump, who is far and away its most arresting subject.

"Stern has interviewed him many times, and the conversations leap out as if in neon. Some have already been well publicized, as when Trump remarked that dating in the age of AIDS was his personal Vietnam. But there’s so much more. His extreme richness; his treatment of the 'girls' he dates; his easily debunked lies; his excitement about hot new projects (Trump World magazine, Trump University): All are matters of record here. And the transcript of his 2001 radio brawl with the gossip columnist A. J. Benza, with Stern presiding 'like Solomon,' must be read to be believed. Trump: 'I won your girlfriend, A. J. You know it.' Benza: 'He sends things to her, newspaper clippings with him mentioned, circles his name and writes "billionaire." You have no idea. He’s out of his mind.'"

From "Howard Stern Can Talk. This Book Shows He’s Also a Good Listener" by Janet Maslin (NYT). The book, a collection of interviews, is "Howard Stern Comes Again" (available May 14th). Maslin likes the book but warns you not to read it straight through: "That will make it seem long and repetitive, with Stern frequently hitting on his favorite themes — which is to say, the ones that have the most to do with him. He likes asking about masturbation, money, making it big and psychotherapy, all of which demonstrate more narcissism than curiosity."

In NYT fit-to-print style there's this sentence: "[Gwyneth] Paltrow’s helpful hint on how to quiet an obstreperous husband will be one of the book’s big takeaways, even though these radio interviews aren’t technically news." The quote in the book — as I know from reading about it just about anywhere else — is: "One of the things you can do to make your man happy, ladies, is, like, sometimes in the middle of a fight, I just blow him. It ends everything."

ADD: Here is audio of that A.J. Benza/Donald Trump interview. Incredibly entertaining. Thanks to J. Farmer (in the comments) for pointing to that. I don't know how it looks in the transcript (in Stern's book), but in the audio Trump dominates brilliantly and hilariously and Benza is reduced to a pool of beta. Maslin presents it as if maybe Benza got the better of Trump. That's what you call fake news.

"What would it take for President Trump to lose your support?"

"It's a joke until it happens. DJT was a joke until it happened. The funniest thing may be the most likely thing."

Yesterday, on Facebook, my son John declared an "Open thread for your predictions on who’ll win the 2020 presidential election. I know it’s too early, but it’s still fun to guess." There were lots of answers, mostly "Trump," but some said Biden or Harris or Buttigieg. After 4 hours of that, I said:

Hillary. It’s her turn.

I laughed and I got laughs:

But is it a joke? Someone else commented...

She's perhaps counting on a brokered convention that no one can win so they have to call her in to be their "savior". LOL.

... and I said:

She's there in reserve. It's a joke until it happens. DJT was a joke until it happened. The funniest thing may be the most likely thing. All the other candidates are bad. I'm not sure the extent to which I was joking. You can't tell the difference between jokes and what's real in America anymore.

I certainly think Donald Trump is by far the most likely to win the election. That's easy to say because his party is pretty much adapted to him. That fight is over. What Trump did to the GOP has played out and (mostly) resolved. The Democratic Party is currently going through some kind of crack-up or evolution. It's fractured and chaotic, and there are — what? — 20 candidates and not one of them is much good. None seems equipped to go head-to-head with Trump.

But John's question is not which party do you think will win the 2020 election. He asks you to pick out a person, and the Democratic Party side is this huge collection of candidates. How can you pick out one and think he/she is more likely than Trump?

So let's ask the question a little differently...

News from the future: The Democrats beat Donald Trump in the 2020 election. It was nothing in particular that he did. He stayed the same. And nothing changed in the economy or foreign affairs or domestic violence or anything like that. It's all about the performance of the Democratic candidate. Now: Who was Democratic candidate?

I'll stick with my Hillary answer!

Should this woman's life be ruined? Which woman — the MTA worker who ate on the train or the woman who tweeted this?

The original tweet had a photograph showing the face of the black MTA worker who ate on the train.

From "A D.C. author shamed a Metro worker for eating on the train. Now her book deal is in jeopardy/The backlash was swift, with many accusing the woman, Natasha Tynes, of trying to get the employee fired" (WaPo).

Eating on the train is a criminal violation in DC, but the current policy is not to hand out tickets. The head of the MTA workers' union asserts that because Metro Transit Police Chief Ron Pavlik sent an email on May 8, telling officers to "cease and desist from issuing criminal citations in the District of Columbia for fare evasion; eating; drinking; spitting, and playing musical instruments without headphones until further advised," the worker eating on the train was "clearly was doing no wrong." If that logic worked, then everyone jumping the turnstile is clearly doing nothing wrong.

Tynes — who identifies herself as a "minority writer" — has taken down the post an apologized. I see (at Heavy) that Tynes is "Jordanian-American." Her book, "They Called Me Wyatt," is described at Amazon like this:

When Jordanian student Siwar Salaiha is murdered on her birthday in College Park, Maryland, her consciousness survives, finding refuge in the body of a Seattle baby boy. Stuck in this speech delayed three-year old body, Siwar tries but fails to communicate with Wyatt’s parents, instead she focuses on solving the mystery behind her murder.

This is a problem with reincarnation, no? All the babies have a backstory. Anyway, this book, whatever its worth, is apparently not going to get published because people on the internet were so offended that Tynes would invoke the city's law against the city's own uniformed representative, where the uniformed representative is a black woman.

Tynes styles herself as "a Social Media maven" (quoted at Heavy), and she's written for mainstream media (including WaPo) and appeared as pundit on TV shows on the subject of "immigration, race and the need for belonging in a new land."

Tynes got battered with criticism on Twitter. She was called "anti-black" and a "snitch." The company that was going to distribute her book — Rare Birds Books — wrote:

"[Tynes] did something truly horrible today in tweeting a picture of a metro worker eating her breakfast on the train this morning and drawing attention to her employer. Black women face a constant barrage of this kind of inappropriate behavior directed toward them and a constant policing of their bodies. We think this is unacceptable and have no desire to be involved with anyone who thinks it’s acceptable to jeopardize a person’s safety and employment in this way."

And the company that was publishing her book, California Coldblood, is postponing publication and supposedly considering what to do. It said:

“We do not condone her actions and hope Natasha learns from this experience that black women feel the effects of systematic racism the most and that we have to be allies, not oppressors.”  

At WaPo, the highest-rated comments are supportive of Tynes. #1:

What the? The person who did the right thing is punished while a Metro employee who embodies so much that is still wrong there is not? The fight against racism is tarnished when the charge becomes a shield to deflect legitimate criticism.

#2, addressing the statement by Rare Books (quoted above):

Absolute nonsense. And I say that as a black man. Only in a First World country is this "something truly horrible". I have lived and worked around the world. When it comes to horrible things done to women, this does not even make the top 1000. Rules are rule[s]. Black woman or not. If metro will not punish her, then no one else should be punished. Just get rid of the no eating rule.

Rules are rules. That's something not everyone is willing to say these days. Of course, there is a difference between believing in the rules and appointing yourself as the enforcer and choosing public shaming as the method of enforcement. Does racism play a part in the motivation of private individuals to self-appoint and to shame? And does the shame-chooser take her own race into account and think she has a privilege if she is non-white? There are obviously some big risks invoking that privilege. And if you've made a reputation in a field that has to do with minorities and empathy — things like "the need for belonging in a new land" — the stakes are sky high.

Imagine riding on the metro one day and you're irked to see a uniformed worker openly eating when everyone else has been told for years no eating on the train, and you're a social media adept, or so you think, and you snap a picture and toss up a little tweet thinking you've said something pithy and apt. And your whole life is ruined.

On the plus side, when you're a writer, everything is material. There's always the next book: "They Called Me Racist."

By the way, in retrospect, "You worry about yourself" — which sounds jerky — was fantastically good advice.

At the Circular Café...

... you can frame your observations carefully.

The photo is by Meade, from a couple weeks ago when we were at Arches National Park. And, since this is a café (i.e., an open thread), it's an occasion to remind you that you can show your support for this blog by using the Althouse Portal when you shop at Amazon. The "Althouse Portal" link is always in the banner.

"No place tries like California, a mind-set as much as a place. California always leans toward reinvention. It is closer to the future than anywhere else."

"Nothing feels permanent, even without earthquakes and fires. So it is with the Warriors. It is so California to come up with something cool and coveted, and at its peak try to lift it to something bigger and better, risking all that made it cool in the first place. It is why In-N-Out Burger expanded to Texas, why Levi’s made Dockers, why skateboarding is joining the Olympics. Will Apple, with origins in a suburban garage, ever be as loved as it was before it grew big enough to build a $5 billion headquarters that looks like a spaceship? Will the San Francisco skyline ever be as beautiful as it was before the Salesforce Tower rose like a middle finger to the city’s low-slung aesthetic, amid a rising fist of preening (and leaning) towers? The Warriors did not need to leave the grit of Oakland for the gloss of San Francisco. They chose to do so...."

From "The End of the Warriors as We Know Them/No matter how they finish in the playoffs, the Warriors will leave Oakland in a move that is quintessentially California, where reinvention has long been a state of mind and a force of nature" by John Branch in the NYT.

This gets my "coolness" tag. There's not as much discussion of coolness as there used to be. I think we're losing our grip on coolness... or maybe we don't care anymore or the culture doesn't give us room to care.

ADDED: The Wikipedia article on coolness — "Cool (aesthetic)" — breaks it down into 5 parts: 1. a behavioral characteristic ("defiance behind a wall of ironic detachment, distancing itself from the source of authority rather than directly confronting it"), 2. a state of being ("composure and absence of excitement"), 3. aesthetic appeal ("widely adopted by artists and intellectuals... a shield against racial oppression or political persecution and source of constant cultural innovation"), 4. fashion ("deviation away from the standard uniformity of dress and mass-production of dress, created by the totalitarian system... disengagement [limiting] thoughts of worthlessness"), and 5. epithet ("a general positive epithet or interjection").

Lots more at that Wikipedia article, including the history of the concept. Excerpt:

"Aristocratic cool", known as sprezzatura, has existed in Europe for centuries, particularly when relating to frank amorality and love or illicit pleasures behind closed doors; Raphael's "Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione" and Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" are classic examples of sprezzatura....



Sprezzatura means, literally, disdain and detachment. It is the art of refraining from the appearance of trying to present oneself in a particular way. In reality, of course, tremendous exertion went into pretending not to bother or care.

English poet and playwright William Shakespeare used cool in several of his works to describe composure and absence of emotion. In A Midsummer Night's Dream, written sometime in the late-16th century, he contrasts the shaping fantasies of lovers and madmen with "cool reason," in Hamlet he wrote "O gentle son, upon the heat and flame of thy distemper, sprinkle cool patience," and the antagonist Iago in Othello is musing about "reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts."

The cool "Anatolian smile" of Turkey is used to mask emotions. A similar "mask" of coolness is worn in both times of stress and pleasure in American and African communities....

AND: On reflection, "maybe we don't care anymore" reveals the paradox. It isn't cool to care. And how can you have "grip on coolness"?! It's a paradox. Try and it will be gone.

"Facing withering attacks accusing him of seeking foreign assistance for President Trump’s re-election campaign, Rudolph W. Giuliani announced on Friday night that he had canceled a trip to Kiev..."

"... in which he planned to push the incoming Ukrainian government to press ahead with investigations that he hoped would benefit Mr. Trump. Mr. Giuliani, President Trump’s personal lawyer, explained that he felt like he was being 'set up,' and he blamed Democrats for trying to 'spin' the trip. 'They say I was meddling in the election — ridiculous — but that’s their spin,' he said."

The NYT reports.

Please stop saying Kamala Harris would be "the first black woman President."

This is a very common phrase in the news, and it should stop.

If Kamala Harris wins in 2020, she will be the first woman President, which is a big first. She will also be the second black President, which is worth saying but not as big a deal. If there had already been a woman President and she were the second woman President and the second black President, it would be a good idea to call her "the first black woman President."

The term "the first black woman President" puts her in a smaller category, making the first a smaller step. If you say Kamala Harris would be "the first black woman President," you're implying that later some candidate would have the distinction of being "the first white woman President." But we are not going to say that. The accomplishment in the offing is first woman President. First black President already happened.

"First black woman President" should only be the stock phrase if that's the largest category in which a first is still possible. It made sense to talk about Stacey Abrams as potentially "the first black woman governor" in America because there have been black governors and there have been female governors, but never yet a black female governor.

I anticipate that many of you are about to comment that you wish people would stop talking about race and gender and just see people as individuals. But my argument above suggests why that's a bad idea for the comments on this post. We've already had that discussion, and this is a new topic. See the value of the specific thing that is new.