At the Forest Light Café...

... you can say what you want.

“Fill that seat” chant goes up as Trump’s rally begins in North Carolina.

I'm watching on YouTube.

He says his nominee will be a woman.... then takes a poll. Woman or man? Woman wins. By a lot.

“It will be a woman. A very talented, very brilliant woman."

ADDED: He’s still going strong, more than an hour and a half later.

AND: He's finally done. Nearly 2 hours. His closing music is not the usual "You Can't Always Get What You Want" but "YMCA." He got out of the airplane with "Macho Man" playing. The show featured 2 Village People songs. 

"[W]hen U.S. Appeals Court Judge Amy Coney Barrett of Chicago came up as Trump was picking a successor to Justice Anthony Kennedy, the president said: 'I'm saving her for Ginsburg.'"

"Trump changes his mind all the time. But Republicans tell us Barrett, 48, a favorite of conservative activists, remains at the top of the White House list. Twitter already calls her 'ACB.'"

From "A court fight for the ages" (Axios).

But also be clear about this: Was Barack Obama wrong to nominate Merrick Garland? You must clearly say that he was or I won't "let you" be clear.

Let me be clear: The voters should pick a President, and that President should select a successor to Justice Ginsburg.

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 19, 2020

ADDED: From Barack Obama's statement on the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg:

Four and a half years ago, when Republicans refused to hold a hearing or an up-or-down vote on Merrick Garland, they invented the principle that the Senate shouldn’t fill an open seat on the Supreme Court before a new president was sworn in.

A basic principle of the law — and of everyday fairness — is that we apply rules with consistency, and not based on what’s convenient or advantageous in the moment.

How does that basic principle apply to you, President Obama? You went ahead and made a nomination. Why shouldn't the new President follow his predecessor's precedent. What can you say to me that isn't "based on what’s convenient or advantageous in the moment"? It's hard to play the hypocrisy card!

AND:

.@GOP We were put in this position of power and importance to make decisions for the people who so proudly elected us, the most important of which has long been considered to be the selection of United States Supreme Court Justices. We have this obligation, without delay!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 19, 2020

ALSO: Speaking of "what's convenient or advantageous in the moment," why did Senator Kamala Harris vote against Neil Gorsuch?! Here's her statement. Can anyone seriously portray that as based on anything lofty?

Judge Gorsuch's deeply conservative views put him well outside the mainstream.... Given the controversial nature of this nominee, it is deeply unfortunate Senate Republicans took unprecedented steps to ram Judge Gorsuch through the Senate instead of the President working with Democrats and Republicans to find a consensus nominee.

That's a frank claim of power by a Senator. Obama frankly exercised the power that he had to make a nomination, and the Senate majority at the time frankly exercised the power that they had. Why should we expect the current Senate majority to do anything other than to cast the votes it has and confirm? All I can think is that they might become convinced that it will help them win Senate elections if the issue is left open for the election. That could happen, especially considering that they can still complete the appointment after the election and before the Senate and the presidency can change hands.

"Democrats and Joe Biden have made clear they intend to challenge this election. They intend to fight the legitimacy of the election."

"As you you know Hillary Clinton has told Joe Biden 'under no circumstances should you concede, you should challenge this election.' and we cannot have election day come and go with a 4-4 court. A 4-4 court that is equally divided cannot decide anything. And I think we risk a constitutional crisis if we do not have a 9-justice Supreme Court, particularly when there is such a risk of... a contested election.... I think we have a responsibility — a responsibility to do our job. The president should nominate a principled constitutionalist with a proven record and the Senate — it's going to take a lot of work to get it done before Election Day — but I think we should do our job and protect the country from the constitutional crisis that could result otherwise."

Said Ted Cruz, appearing on Sean Hannity's show last night:

Tonight, we mourn the passing of a historic justice and a legendary advocate.

WATCH: My response on @seanhannity to news of the passing of Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg. 👇 pic.twitter.com/yFYbVHVEhk

— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) September 19, 2020

Also in that video: Trump's reaction to hearing that RBG had died (discussed in this earlier post).

"What if a modern-day Black American woke up one morning to find herself on a Civil War–era slave plantation?"

"That’s what happens to Eden (played by Janelle Monáe), though the movie opens on her life in captivity and takes a while to reveal its contemporary twist. Antebellum evokes Octavia Butler’s chilling 1979 masterpiece, Kindred, in which an African American woman is mysteriously transported back in time and experiences the deep suffering of her enslaved ancestors. But that novel didn't relish the brutality that its protagonist experienced, and it offered profound insights into power, memory, and the psychology of enslavement. Antebellum isn’t worthy of the comparison. It loads up on visceral scares and disturbing imagery in service of a shallow film that feels like a gory theme-park ride showcasing the horrors of slavery.... Strangely, the whole estate seems to function only as a place for sadistic punishment. The first 40 or so minutes of Antebellum are a ceaseless torrent of violence and abuse.... The terrifying realities of slavery are reduced to horror-movie tropes. This cycle of violence and rape exists only to gin up the viewers’ fury and prepare them for the climactic sequence of revenge.... The middle part of the film snaps the audience back to the present, crucially revealing that 'Eden' is a popular lecturer and writer named Veronica, who has a gorgeously appointed home and a loving family... Here’s where I spoil the big reveal, in case you haven’t already figured it out: The plantation is fake, a present-day re-creation designed by rich racists so that they can act out vile power fantasies. Veronica, the viewer is meant to understand, is the sort of independent and liberated Black person who might draw ire from racists. That’s why she’s been targeted and pulled into their absurd experiment at restoring the hierarchies of the past."

From "Antebellum Is a Shallow Schlock-Fest About Slavery/To make a point about the evils of white supremacy, the film subjects its Black characters to unceasing brutality" by David Sims (The Atlantic).

Let's look at Ginsburg's language: "I will not be replaced until a new president is installed."

That is the form of her dying wish, as told to us by her granddaughter Clara Spera, who is a fellow at the American Civil Liberties Union. It is hearsay, and we don't know for certain that Ruth Bader Ginsburg said those words at all — though of course we assume that the basic idea expressed is something that she did indeed wish. But did she use the verbs "replaced" and "installed"? Is that Spera's paraphrase?

The words sound wrong to me, especially "installed." We normally speak of electing a President. If you look up the words "install" and "president" in the New York Times archive, the relevant hits are about colleges and professional organizations "installing" a president. There, a president is chosen by an elite group, not by the people.

I read through a long page of old NYT headlines and finally arrive at one that looks like it may be a political leader: "Silurians Install President" (April 16, 1963). Who are Silurians?! Is Siluria some country that has escaped my attention all these years?



Click to enlarge and clarify. Key line: "The Silurians is an association of men who have been on New York City newspapers for 25 years or more." Another professional organization, the sort of thing that installs its president.

You see my point. It is a strange and revealing word choice. And if there's one thing you can say about Donald Trump, it's that he was not installed. The 2016 election was a populist expression that gobsmacked the elite. If Hillary had won, it might make some sense to declare that she was "installed."

Ah! And now you see a motivation for Ginsburg's use of "installed." If Biden wins — which is what Ginsburg hoped for (and "a new president" implies) — it really is more of an installation. The Democratic Party elite have been working to install him. It's not his own doing. It was a reaction against the populist expression that had Bernie Sanders winning in the primaries.

When I hear "installed," I think of appliances — dishwashers, refrigerators — that need to be positioned and hooked up by licensed professionals. That resonates with the Biden story... except that no one would install an appliance so superannuated and marginally functional.

And I don't like the use of the word "replaced" either. Ginsburg filled a seat, seat #6, established February 24, 1807. She was the 13th person to sit there. "I will not be replaced until..." suggests a sense that there ought to be a new version of her, someone who will carry on as she would have. But she took over that seat from Byron White. Was there any sense that she was supposed to be like him? She certainly wasn't. The seat belongs to all of us. Just as we control who is elected President, we have a collective interest in that seat, which now needs to be filled.

Justice Ginsburg exercised her own will by holding on to the seat despite grave illness, and there was some ability to choose who would take her place, but the force of nature kept her from completing that task. The Constitution gives the appointment power to the President, and a Supreme Court Justice cannot grab that power from him.

The Constitution has its complicated method for determining who will be President. I won't elaborate on it here, but it does have something to do with what we, the people, want. The last time we cranked through the mysterious process, Trump popped out. It was very weird! But he is the President, and a Supreme Court Justice has vacated a seat.

We can make political arguments that Trump should wait and let us make filling that seat an issue in the election. I'd love to see Trump and Biden debate and give us the question: What kind of Justice we want?

Biden was chair of the Judiciary Committee for so long. Let's grill him about what he did to Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. Let's ask him to show us his list of potential nominees as President Trump has. I think that would be great. But I also think that if the tables were turned and a Democratic President had a Democratic Senate, we'd get the nomination and confirmation quickly and without fussing about inferred principles that have nothing to do with the text of the Constitution.

ADDED: Wikipedia: "The Silurian is a geologic period and system spanning 24.6 million years from the end of the Ordovician Period, at 443.8 million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Devonian Period, 419.2 Mya. The Silurian is the shortest period of the Paleozoic Era.... A significant evolutionary milestone during the Silurian was the diversification of jawed fish and bony fish."



But also: "The Silurians are a race of reptilian humanoids in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who.... The first Silurians introduced are depicted as prehistoric and scientifically advanced sentient humanoids who predate the dawn of man; in their backstory, the Silurians went into self-induced hibernation to survive what they predicted to be a large atmospheric upheaval caused by the Earth capturing the Moon."



ALSO: From the OED entry, "install":

1817 S. T. Coleridge Biogr. Lit. I. iii. 60 It is said that St. Nepomuc was installed the guardian of bridges because he had fallen over one, and sunk out of sight....

"Wow. I didn’t know that. I just — you’re telling me now for the first time. She led an amazing life. What else can you say? She was an amazing woman."

"Whether you agree or not, she was an amazing woman who led an amazing life. I’m actually sad to hear that. I am sad to hear that."

Said Donald Trump, quoted in "Donald Trump to put forth nominee to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in coming days: Sources/Mitch McConnell says he does plan to vote on Trump's nominee" (ABC News).

We learned of Ginsburg's death as we were watching Trump's Minnesota rally last night. Trump continued his speech, apparently without learning the news until he spoke with reporters afterwards. There must be a way to relay information to the President while he is doing a speech.

I thought he might learn the news during the rally and speak extemporaneously from the stage. Perhaps he did learn and merely pretended to be hearing the news for the first time as he spoke to reporters, but I'll assume it was genuine surprise when he said, "Wow. I didn’t know that. I just — you’re telling me now for the first time."

Those who think he's a narcissistic weirdo who blurts out inappropriate remarks should take note of the utter appropriateness of what he said with no time to think: "She led an amazing life. What else can you say? She was an amazing woman. Whether you agree or not, she was an amazing woman who led an amazing life. I’m actually sad to hear that. I am sad to hear that."

There was just a slight awkwardness to "Whether you agree or not," which in literal context could be taken to mean, whether you agree that she was an amazing woman. Clearly he meant, whether you agreed with her legal interpretations or not.

ADDED: Here's the video. So evocative, with "Tiny Dancer" just beginning and louder than that voices:



I discussed the "slight awkwardness" to "Whether you agree or not," but it's very clear in the video that he said "Whether you agreed or not," which is much less susceptible to the interpretation that the possible disagreement is over whether she was an amazing woman. He meant whether you agreed with her legal interpretations or not, which I had already thought was clear.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was 5'1", so "Tiny Dancer" feels like a special tribute to her.

AND: The video is so cinematic. You couldn't have staged it, lit it, acted it, and scored it better. Trump's whole-body reaction, the pauses, the double hand gesture — uncannily right. The music is cued perfectly. The backlighting outlining the shoulder. He turns to lumber toward the plane and we see his wide back as the line plays "Ballerina, you must have seen her, dancing in the sand." It makes you cry!

At the Friday Night Café...

... we're saying goodbye to the great Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but you should go to one of the 2 previous posts to talk about her and how we will get by without her, so please restrict this post to other topics, all of which are permitted and encouraged.



Photos taken at 6:46 and 7:02. A Type #4 sunrise ripened into an Inky (Type #8). (Here's the post explaining 10 types of sunrises.)

Will Trump and the GOP Senate get a new Justice confirmed before the election?

My first thought was that they won't even try. They'll use the open seat as a political issue — an argument why it is so important to reelect Trump and to keep a GOP majority in the Senate. And the backup plan can be that if Trump loses, they can accomplish the appointment after the election, before the new Senate and President are sworn in. So what if they said something else before the election?!

But then — in discussion here at Meadhouse — the thought came up that this election could be contested. There's so much talk about election fraud and mail-in voting, that there could be Bush v. Gore type litigation arising in various states, and the outcome of the election could well depend on that. Right now, the Supreme Court has only 8 Justices, and though there are presently 5 conservatives and only 3 liberals, a 4-4 tie is possible, with one vote switch, and Trump might want his person on the Court to lock in a conservative majority.

ADDED: The strongest argument for Trump to go right ahead and immediately nominate someone is that President Obama made a nomination in the election year of 2016 when Antonin Scalia died. Obama's nominee was not confirmed, but that was because the GOP controlled the Senate. There was nothing about Obama's lack of support in the Senate that made him more willing to put forward a nomination in an election year. He made the nomination in spite of the lack of support. Why should Trump refrain when he has Senate support?

AND: "McConnell says Senate will move to confirm Ginsburg replacement" (WaPo).

“President Trump’s nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate," McConnell said in a statement hours after the court announced Ginsburg’s death.

Also at that link: "More than 90 minutes after news of Ginsburg’s death broke, President Trump — speaking at a campaign rally in Bemidji, Minn. — seemingly remained unaware of the news.
While closing out the rally, however, Trump alluded to the importance of the Supreme Court’s direction in the upcoming election. 'We will nominate judges and justices who interpret the Constitution as written,' Trump told the crowd, to cheers and shouts. He told his supporters that the next president 'will have anywhere from one to four' vacancies on the Supreme Court to fill. 'Think of that,' Trump said, warning that conservatives would be 'stuck' for decades with a Supreme Court they did not like if the Democrats won in the fall."

And (same link): "Days before she died, Ginsburg told her granddaughter that she felt strongly that her Supreme Court seat not be filled until after the presidential election, according to NPR. 'My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed,' she dictated in a statement to her granddaughter, Clara Spera."

Joe Biden ought to come right out and say who he will nominate if he is elected.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died!

I just heard it announced on Fox News.

ADDED: "Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Champion Of Gender Equality, Dies At 87" (NPR).

AND: What a grand figure in the history of American constitutional law! How tenaciously she hung onto life. I remember where I was when I heard that President Clinton had nominated her. I was truly thrilled to have a second woman on the Supreme Court, and I followed her writing so closely over the years. What a giant!

ALSO:

This is a story that Judge Jeffrey Sutton shares about an encounter late in my dad's life, when he bought his friend Ruth two dozen roses for her birthday. "Some things in life are more important than votes." pic.twitter.com/wjCJvFcdHm

— Christopher J. Scalia (@cjscalia) September 19, 2020

"Many Danes believe children should not be shielded from the realities of life, giving them a lot of unsupervised time to play and explore, even if they might hurt themselves."

"'We recognize the significance of a bruise,' said Sofie Münster, a nationally recognized expert in 'Nordic Parenting.' 'Danish parenting generally favors exposing children rather than shielding them.' One famous example of how far the Danes take this philosophy was the euthanization and dissection of a giraffe at the Copenhagen Zoo in 2014, where children observed from the front row.... A children’s program featuring naked adults might be taking the Danish approach to the extreme, she admitted. But the Danish way of dealing with easing children’s anxieties over body issues is 'to expose them' to naked bodies....  'On Facebook or Instagram, many people are fashion models,' [a 76-year-old naked woman said to a child who asked why she was doing this]... 'I hope you will understand that normal bodies look like this,' she told the audience, pointing at her naked self.... The recorded episodes, now available in censored clips of the program on YouTube, feature adults with different body types — white, Black, fat, thin, short, tall, old and young. There was John, a person with dwarfism, and Muffe, a man who had small horns implanted under the skin of his bald head.... [and] Rei, who is transgender, had a vasectomy and testosterone treatment, and who identifies as they/them.... 'I’m not used to seeing volunteers butt naked and asking them questions,' [one child] said. 'But we learned about the body and about how other people feel about their bodies.'"

From "A Danish Children’s TV Show Has This Message: ‘Normal Bodies Look Like This’/The program aims to counter social media that bombards young people with images of perfect bodies" (NYT).

"Lena Stringari, the Guggenheim’s chief conservator, said the instructions will be quite easy to follow and are quite complete in addressing questions like how often to change bananas..."

"... (7 to 10 days) and where to affix them ('175 cm above ground'). 'Of all the works I have to confront, this is probably one of the simplest,' Ms. Stringari said. 'It’s duct tape and a banana,' she added. The conservation of conceptual art is not always so straightforward for museums increasingly asked to preserve works made from of all kinds of ephemeral substances, like food. How does one care for a scale model of an Algerian city made out of couscous? A sculpture made of interlocking tortillas? Fruit stuck on a coatrack? (All works the Guggenheim has shown.)... 'Once you think art is an idea and the material is secondary then it does not matter if that material lasts for a long time,”' said Melissa Chiu, director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden at the Smithsonian in Washington. The Hirshhorn has its own conservation specialists who tend to art created from 'time-based' materials that degrade. 'A lot of them are really challenging. The museum’s role in a way is to preserve the work forever.'"

From "It’s a Banana. It’s Art. And Now It’s the Guggenheim’s Problem/Ephemeral works of art, like Maurizio Cattelan’s creation out of fruit, can often pose conservation challenges for the museums that have them" (NYT).

Highly rated comment: "This type of work is infuriating. It puts the rest of us creative types in the awkward position of defending support for the arts when this is what that support is being used for. Sure, in better times, the conversation sparked by the 'work' has value, but the tone deaf absurdity of the thing itself plus its maintenance in this time of national trauma is a bit grotesque."

Maybe work that causes you to think deeply about time and decay is especially valuable during a national trauma.

"Rich guys like rockets, I don’t know, they like rocket, boom."

Context, from "Donald Trump Mosinee, WI Rally Speech Transcript September 17":

We will land the first woman on the moon and the United States will be the first nation to land an astronaut on Mars. And, NASA is now the hottest space center anywhere in the world. And, when I took over three and a half years ago, there was grass growing in the runways, you know that it was closed down, it was a mess. We are now the hottest in the world. You see what’s going up. And, we’ve got a lot of rich guys sending them up too. I liked that better. I said, “Let them do it.” Rich guys like rockets, I don’t know, they like rocket, boom. I see dollars going right up, but they need a good place to launch. We have the best places. We have the best places, so it’s been incredible what we’ve done with NASA.

I'd love to hear Trump's uncensored analysis of rich guys and their rockets. I note the hand gesture. Obviously, it's about masculinity... potency... boom.

"[The real estate agent] took honest photos of the space, capturing the charm, but also the clutter and wear and tear that had accrued over nearly 50 years."

"They listed the loft at $1.99 million, underpriced because of the sale’s many contingencies and complications. The back windows, for example, could not be accessed: one was covered by a metal shutter, a vestige of the building’s industrial past, and the others were obscured by heavy curtains, the path to them blocked by furniture and an unfinished second bathroom.... Ms. Blumstein scheduled two open houses in late January. About 450 people showed up; there were lines around the block. [The owner, Linda] Sampson sat inside, receiving her many visitors and answering questions about her life and the history of the neighborhood. In the end, they received 14 all-cash offers.... With the windfall from the sale, [Sampson] had a rental budget of $6,000 a month, but staying Downtown would have necessitated moving to a much smaller space, which she didn’t want to do. Instead, she signed a two-year lease on a large Tudor-style house in Rego Park, Queens.... 'When someone like Linda leaves SoHo, it loses one of the sparks of light and history,' said her friend, Ms. Albert. 'But then, the neighborhood isn’t what it was. All the people in the arts who had a skill and a talent and a dream, who came and interacted, that’s what made it so special and vibrant. 'Linda and her loft are a piece of the past,' she continued. 'Another piece of the past that’s moving on.'

From "The Last of the SoHo Pioneers/An artist who bought a loft on West Broadway for $15,000 in 1972 sells it for $2.4 million and retires to her home borough of Queens" (NYT). The 18 photographs at the link are fascinating. The clutter is shocking or beautiful, depending on what sort of person you are. Go through the slide show and don't miss photos 12, 13, and 14, which are "virtually staged." That is, you "see" the space completely cleared out and painted white, but all the owner's belongings were still there, and would-be buyers who toured to the place had to wend their way through "pathways" that the agency had "crafted... so people could access the different areas."

Sampson — who is 75 — doesn't really like Rego Park, and she's thinking of coming back to SoHo, even though there's almost nothing left of what made it so great in the 1970s.

"Most of the things I like are gone,” Ms. Sampson said. Dean & DeLuca closed last year and many of the artisan shops that followed in the galleries’ wake disappeared long ago: the fine jewelry stores, Norma Kamali and her famous sleeping bag coats, all the little coffee shops and restaurants. “It’s become very generic,” she said.

I remember when Dean & DeLuca opened. It was 1977. I lived around there at the time. It was the lovely beginning of things getting too upscale. Still, where else can you go? If I were Sampson, with $6,000 a month to spend on rent, I'd pare the possessions down like hell and move back to SoHo.

How can you keep all that stuff at the end of your life? Who will deal with it when you are gone, and how can you yourself keep it in order as you age? I realize she's not a big "order" person, but everyone has their comfort point between order and chaos, and you have to think about where, for you, the balance is tipped.

What just happened?

Trump just leapt 7 points in one day in the "strongly approve" column at Rasmussen.



The change in the approve column was only 2 points. It's the strongly approved that jumped. In one day. Some of that is just the usual imprecision of polls, but that's a huge jump. Did something specific happen? There was the signing of the Middle East agreement. That was 3 days ago.

There was the news that Trump got nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize — for 2 different peace agreements. I see — also at Rasmussen — that "A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 45% of American Adults think Trump should be given the Nobel Peace Prize for the new peace deals and keeping America out of new wars, among other things." 46% say he doesn't, so Biden backers can hold tight to that.

Can it be the 1776 project, designed to go counter the 1619 Project?