"With no place to go, the terrorist leader blew himself up along with three of his children, who he was using as human shields. The dog’s injuries highlighted the importance of military working dogs in special operations. Often, they will enter the danger zone with a camera on their backs before the humans do so. 'The dog is a war veteran and a valued member of the team,' a currently serving soldier assigned to Delta Force told the Washington Examiner.... Within the community, he says, 'The injury to the dog is an injury to one of us. These dogs are a special breed of courageous.'... The multipurpose canines, usually German shepherds or Belgian Malinois, are capable of a variety of tasks, including attacking the enemy and bomb-sniffing. They are often the first into the breach in a fight, giving them special significance among the special operations forces with which they operate.... Traditionally, the dogs hold the rank of a noncommissioned officer. They outrank their handlers as a way to prevent mistreatment, according to the U.S. Army...."
What the president saw, according to military and intelligence officials, was overhead surveillance footage on several video screens that, together, provided various angles from above, and in real time....
But those surveillance feeds could not show what was happening in an underground tunnel, much less detect if Mr. al-Baghdadi was whimpering or crying. For that, Mr. Trump would have had to have gotten a report from the commandos directly, or relayed up through their chain of command to the commander in chief.
9 paragraphs later, we get "It is not clear whether the dog that followed Mr. al-Baghdadi into the tunnel was wearing a body camera."
"It’s sort of equivalent to being a silver fox: your hair might be gray, and you might be taking it a little slower, but you can still be hot!"
Says Naomi Fry, a staff writer at The New Yorker, quoted in "What Does It Mean to Be ‘Cali Sober’?" (NY Magazine). NY Magazine defines "Cali sober" as abstaining from alcohol but smoking marijuana.
Wikipedia has a list of famous people who have been nicknamed "silver fox" — and all are men (George Clooney, Anderson Cooper, Charlie Rich, Duke Snider, Eduard Shevardnadze...).
The Merriam-Webster website defines the "silver fox" as "generally meaning 'an attractive middle-aged man having mostly gray or white hair'" and gives a history of the term going back to a 1920s baseball player, Jess Petty, who had gray hair. But...
Silver fox is sometimes used to refer to women with gray or white hair as well (in fact, the bestselling exercise video Richard Simmons and the Silver Foxes from 1987 clearly meant both men and women, since they perform the workout together behind the fitness guru), but many uses make clear reference to the fact that the term usually designates men...
I don't think Naomi Fry is very old herself. I was reading her Twitter feed...
... but it strikes me as really unattractive for an older women to proclaim that she's sexually attractive. And I feel completely alienated from the idea that you're "hot" and preserving your last chance to have an "enjoyable" life because you smoke weed. And I see no equivalence between leaving your head in its naturally gray condition and infusing your natural head with an intoxicating substance.
"... supposedly the next step: Engage so meaningfully, the trip actually changes you. This can mean extreme adventure travel... Or it can mean wellness-inflected, small-group trips aimed at building fellowship, as with a slew of female-focused companies... Black Tomato, a New York- and London-based agency, recently debuted a 'Get Lost' service, which drops travelers into remote destinations, requiring them to find their way out.... This past spring I swallowed my skepticism.... ... I was whisked from the Lisbon airport in a black sedan with tinted windows by the driver and a local guide. After dropping my bags at a hotel on Lisbon’s central Praça do Rossio, the guide, Edgar Miguel Rodrigues, took me on a walking food tour of central Lisbon. We tried ginjinha, a smooth, sour-cherry liqueur, ate bifana... Edgar dropped me off at the hotel at the point of bursting and informed me that my next guide would soon arrive for — I’m not kidding — an evening food tour, coinciding with the Feast of St. Anthony.... [T]he breakneck pace and constant chaperoning felt suffocating, and the only viable option seemed to be drinking heavily until I joined a cluster of middle-aged women dancing wildly to an onstage band playing pimba, an up-tempo style of Portuguese shlock-pop, in a packed Alfama square.... The next morning, moderately hung over, I was in the back of a car headed for... pastel-hued villas and palaces... [W]e found ourselves descending the spiral stone staircase of the initiation well at Quinta da Regaleira... 'This is the rebirth process,' said [the guide] Susana as we made our way through a tunnel... 'You are buried in the earth. You go through the dark, this tunnel, until you come out and are born again. The entrance of the cave is …' She trailed off. 'A vagina? I offered. 'Yes, like a vagina,' Susana said...."
I'm interested in that Black Tomato "Get Lost" idea. When I was a teenager, I used to drive my car until I got lost, then try to find my way back home. But that's not really possible anymore, not if you have a phone that sees where you are and gives you directions. Does Black Tomato take away your phone? This service you pay for is strangely like getting victimized by a crime. Some will rob you with a sixgun and some with a fountain of youth promo.
“... and flaunting their open wounds in public parks. And I was a successful, capable celebrity who wandered red carpets demanding attention and flaunting her open boobs on TV. It’s totally different. When I was dropped off at rehab, I thought it was the end of my life. Seemingly overnight, I had lost almost all of what I hold dear: My relationships, my body and my career were in relative shambles… Even as a chronic over-sharer I lived in fear of anyone finding out…. Being me has sometimes hurt so much that I couldn’t bear it. But being me is also a super-power, and it’s the same for all of you… [A] woman who has overcome an addiction can do fucking anything."
Said Lena Dunham, quoted at Variety. Her addiction was to prescription pills — she's had painful medical problems — and she was doing a fundraiser for Friendly Houses.
Said an expert on consumer sentiment, quoted at The Hill in an article about how people aren't spending so much money on Halloween anymore. Halloween is not a necessity, so willingness to spend on it is some indication of how wealthy people feel and also how wealthy they want to look: "Halloween is the expenditure-visibility holiday."
But, come on, it's just Halloween. Halloween had become stupidly important to adults in recent years. I'm hoping the change isn't about consumer confidence generally but cultural change. Maybe the new adults — Generation Z — will look on Halloween as something that only an embarrassingly old adult would get excited about. When I was a young adult, Halloween was a children's holiday, but then adults younger than I am got enmeshed in Halloweenery. Now those adults are old and there are younger adults. Perhaps the pendulum is swinging back. The things your parents did tend to look out-of-date and awkward, so you may find your way back to your grandparents' attitude.
Imagine being in your 20s now and having grown up with a mother who dressed up as "sexy [whatever]" every Halloween. You might think I'll get some candy in case any kids come around. That would be what your grandparents probably did.
"... said Ned Price, a CIA officer at the time of bin Laden’s death who later served as a spokesman for the National Security Council under Obama.... Obama spoke of the anguish of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, emphasized the nation’s resolve in recovering, and praised the skill of the intelligence experts who tracked bin Laden down and the courage of the Special Forces who killed him. He also took a measure of credit. 'I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice,' said a president who was routinely assailed by Republicans as weak and feckless on foreign affairs. He took no questions from reporters. By contrast, the Trump show on Baghdadi started with a tweet. 'Something very big has just happened!' the president posted on social media Saturday evening, and the White House media office quickly announced that Trump would make a 'major announcement' — 11 hours later at 9 a.m. Sunday. Critics speculated that the president was eager to upstage the Sunday morning political talk shows in a bid to drown out coverage of the House Democrats’ impeachment effort against him...."
In so many ways, Trump is not like Obama. But I presume that each man — on the success of a raid that killed a feared terrorist enemy — made a public display that he believed would advance American military interests and his own political interests. Obama chose to be circumspect and conventionally presidential. After hearing Trump, who was vividly emotional, I relistened to Obama's announcement, and I was struck by the restraint — the blandness. There was nothing about how bin Laden looked or acted as he faced his death. Obama seemed to want to inspire confidence that everything was done with precise correctness. Trump seemed to want us to experience the righteous anger and the vengeance and contempt. These are radically different choices from 2 very different men.
Remember that the Obama administration made a point of communicating with the world about the respectful treatment of bin Laden's corpse:
"Traditional procedures for Islamic burial was followed... The deceased's body was washed (ablution) then placed in a white sheet. The body was placed in a weighted bag. A military officer read prepared religious remarks, which were translated into Arabic by a native speaker. After the words were complete, the body was placed on a prepared flat board, tipped up, whereupon the deceased's body slid into the sea.''
"Study what General Pershing of the United States did to terrorists when caught. There was no more Radical Islamic Terror for 35 years!," he tweeted. That was after "The United States condemns the terror attack in Barcelona, Spain, and will do whatever is necessary to help. Be tough & strong, we love you!"...
"They were having terrorism problems [in the Philippines], just like we do," Trump said, according to a February 2016 account in the Washington Post. "And he caught 50 terrorists who did tremendous damage and killed many people. And he took the 50 terrorists, and he took 50 men and he dipped 50 bullets in pigs’ blood — you heard that, right? He took 50 bullets, and he dipped them in pigs’ blood. And he had his men load his rifles, and he lined up the 50 people, and they shot 49 of those people. And the 50th person, he said: You go back to your people, and you tell them what happened. And for 25 years, there wasn’t a problem. Okay? Twenty-five years, there wasn’t a problem."
That's quoted in a blog post of mine in August 2017. I commented:
[Trump] thinks its a good idea to let radical Muslim terrorists know we might mess with their dead bodies in a way that he (presumably) thinks they think will wreck their afterlife. He might think that threat will influence the terrorists, but not necessarily. He might just think that he had a cheeky tweet to entertain his fans and confound his MSM antagonists.
"Some in the section below him turned to him, shouting and jabbing fingers. The president, who faces impeachment by the House over his efforts to pressure Ukraine to provide incriminating information about Democrats, then found himself on the receiving end of a chant that might have sounded familiar. 'Lock him up!' the crowd chanted, a turnabout from the 'lock her up' his supporters would chant about Hillary Clinton in 2016. Mr. Trump offered no noticeable reaction and took his seat as the game resumed before slipping out in the eighth inning."
Why did the President go to the game? He had to know he'd be met with this kind of negativity.
One answer is, the man loves baseball. Here are "6 Things You Didn't Know About Donald Trump's Baseball Career": "6. He Was Scouted by the Phillies and Red Sox... 5. He Could 'Throw 80 MPH'... 4. He Smashed His Friends' Bats and Wouldn't Apologize... 3. He Hit Into the Shift to Overpower People... 2. His Dad Wouldn't Buy Him the Latest Glove... 1. Claims He Was 'The Best Baseball Player in New York.'"
Another answer is that he's unconventional, as #3 shows. He was hitting into the shift. Maybe he's doing that with the impeachment too — hitting into the Schiff. From the "6 Things" article:
Even at a young age, Donald liked to use his power to "overpower" people. Donald reportedly had so much pop as a right-handed hitter that the infielders would put the shift on him. Naturally, what did he do? He purposely tried to hit into the shift to "overpower" the defense physically.
Do you understand baseball enough to absorb and analyze that metaphor? Here are "9 things you need to know about the shift/Baseball's biggest defensive trend may not be what you think." Is this the blog post from hell — leading from one list to a longer list, ad infinitum? No. I am genuinely trying to understand what personality trait is expressed by a decision to hit into the shift. Presumably, the infield defensive players reposition themselves because of the likelihood that the batter will hit to the place where they are moving to. So the batter could try to hit elsewhere, if he can.
If Trump "purposely tried to hit into the shift," that has to mean that he had the capacity to do something other than what defensive players were counting on, but he chose not to. Now, did he do that because he thought he was so much stronger in that direction that it was more likely to work than trying to hit the ball to the poorly defended part of the infield or was it about showing off and humiliating the opponents (which is what the "9 things" article seems to be saying)?
The most relevant thing in the "9 things" article for our purposes here is #7, which is that the shift increases home runs. As one ballplayer said "You don't beat the shift by hitting around it or through it, you beat the shift by hitting over it." That is, what Trump isn't evidence of negative character traits special to him but what any ballplayer could or should figure out is the best offensive tactic. Or was Trump hitting through the shift? Maybe that is the hardest and least advisable approach for the average player. But maybe it's the best bet for some players, and Trump was one of those players.
All right. There's your baseball analogy for Trump. Think about it in other contexts. His antagonists have put the shift on, and they think that might get him to try to hit around it, but he's hitting over it. Going to the baseball game even though he knew he'd face a shift — there would be booing and not the usual honoring of a President — was the choice to hit over the shift. To avoid the games altogether would have been to try to hit around the shift. To avoid all the World Series games when they are in Washington, D.C. would have been a display of weakness.
In baseball, if you can tell if the tactic of hitting over the shift works. There will be a hit. In political life, it's more ambiguous, and it may depend on the observer's angle:
"They were led to certain death. He reached the end of the tunnel, as our dogs chased him down. He ignited his vest, killing himself and the three children. His body was mutilated by the blast, the tunnel had caved in on it in addition, but test results gave certain, immediate and totally positive identification it was him. The thug who tried so hard to intimidate others spent his last moments in utter fear, in total panic and dread — terrified of the American forces bearing down on him.... Baghdadi and the losers who worked with him — and losers they are — they had no idea what they were getting into. In some cases they were very frightened puppies, in other cases they were hard-core killers. But they killed many, many people. Their murder of innocent Americans James Foley, Steven Sotloff, Peter Kassig and Kayla Mueller were especially heinous. The shocking publicized murder of Jordanian pilot — a wonderful young man, spoke to the king of Jordan, they all knew him, they all loved him — who was burned alive in a cage for all to see, and the execution of Christians in Libya and Egypt, as well as the genocidal mass murder of Yazidis, rank ISIS among the most depraved organizations in the history of our world. The forced religious conversions, the orange suits prior to so many beheadings, all of which were openly displayed for the world to see — this was all that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi — this is what he wanted, this is what he was proud of. He was a sick and depraved man. And now he’s gone. Baghdadi was vicious and violent, and he died in a vicious and violent way, as a coward, running and crying.... He died like a dog. He died like a coward. The world is now a much safer place."
From the transcript (at the NYT) of Trump's statement this morning.
I was struck by the clarity of the speech and the forthright contempt.
Interesting that Baghdadi was compared to a dog — "He died like a dog" (and "they were very frightened puppies") — but there were also hero dogs on our side — "our dogs chased him down." The comparison to a dog was intended to make the death feel more painful to his supporters — on the theory that Muslims hate dogs — and the dogs on the our side boosted our admiration for the American military — as Americans clearly love dogs. During the question-and-answer part — which is not in the transcript — whenever Trump said that none of our men were killed or even injured, he would add that a dog was injured. Though it's often been noted that Trump — an oddity among Presidents — has no dog, he certainly knows that Americans adore dogs, and that was manifested by the care he took never to say that on our side, "no one was injured." I think he knew very well that there are Americans who would take offense and yell "A dog was injured!" at their TV screen.
The obituary has that "austere religious scholar" language in the first paragraph and proceeds to tell his story within that framework:
When Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi took the reins of the Islamic State of Iraq in 2010, few had heard of the organization or its new leader, an austere religious scholar with wire-frame glasses and no known aptitude for fighting and killing....
[D]espite [ISIS]’s extremist views and vicious tactics, Mr. Baghdadi maintained a canny pragmatism as leader, melding a fractious mix of radical jihadists and former Iraqi Baathists and army officers into an effective military force. It was this combination of extremist ideology and practical military experience that enabled the group to seize and hold territory that would form the basis of a declared Islamic caliphate....
He graduated from the University of Baghdad in 1996 and received a master’s degree in Koranic recitation from the Saddam University for Islamic Studies in 1999.... By 2003, at age 31, he was well on his way to a doctorate and a shot at a full professorship. But after U.S. troops invaded Iraq that year, he signed up with a local resistance movement...
He was arrested in the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004 and, in a fateful turn, landed at the notorious and now-defunct Camp Bucca prison. The vast, U.S.-run detention facility warehoused nearly 26,000 Iraqi men at a time in communal tents, and U.S. military officials later acknowledged that it served at times as a recruitment and training center for jihadists.
“Extremists mingled with moderates in every compound,” Vasilios Tasikas, who served at the time as a Coast Guard lieutenant commander in charge of legal operations at the prison, wrote in a 2009 essay in the Military Review. Over time, he wrote, the mixing of hardened jihadists and Iraqi civilians “fueled the insurgency inside the wire.”...
[I]n 2014, Mr. Baghdadi... announc[ed] the founding of the caliphate... [with himself] as the living heir to the line of great warrior-emirs from Islam’s early history.
In his dress and movements, he symbolically evoked the prophet himself, from his black turban and robe to the traditional miswak, a carved wooden teeth-cleaning stick that Muhammad was said to have favored.
ADDED: The oldest comment at the WaPo obituary is:
Foreshadowing? (fingers-crossed)
President Trump “had run into a ‘dead-end tunnel’ before he ‘ignited his vest,’ killing himself and three of his children,
And that is followed by:
That would be too kind. Trump has earned public humiliation and global scorn. He deserves to suffer. Locked-in syndrome sounds appropriate. We can parade him around and pelt him with offal.
Incredible.
ADDED: They've changed it. As of 11:34 (CT), the front page teaser for the obituary is "Extremist leader of Islamic State dies at 48":
... including Darrell Hammond in his old role as Bill Clinton and Fred Armisen as Erdogan, so I was really pushing myself to stick with this:
But I clicked it off at 2:10. It was that fatal combination of boring and irritating. Nothing was funny. I watch the actual Trump rallies, and Trump is funny. The original is already funny. Now, I do understand that if you hate him, you won't find him funny, and then, maybe for you what "SNL" is doing allows you to get some insulation and to enjoy what is too horrible for you to look at directly. But for me — I'm not a Trump fan but I've got a weird sort of emotive objectivity I call "cruel neutrality" — the real thing is highly entertaining and the professional comic reenactment of it feels watered down and dull... but yell-y. So annoying!
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