Sunrise — 6:45.

"At the most famous annual gathering of America's conservatives, the chairs are empty, the energy is low—and everyone seems a little bit defensive about it."

"The Sad, Desolate Scenes of CPAC 2023" (The New Republic).

ADDED: Watch Trump's speech here.

Sunrise — 6:28.

"Twice in the past week, Republicans scored wins and divided Democrats by employing an arcane maneuver known as a resolution of disapproval..."

".... The biggest victory came on Thursday, when President Biden told Senate Democrats that he would sign a Republican-led resolution blocking the District of Columbia’s new criminal code if it reached his desk. It was a reversal from his earlier opposition and a frank acknowledgment that Republicans had gotten the better of Democrats on the hot-button topic of violent crime. It is somewhat unusual for the president to have to confront legislation he opposes when his party controls at least part of the Congress — in this case the Senate — since his allies on Capitol Hill can usually bottle up legislation they don’t like and spare him from a veto or a tough decision...."

 
Writes Carl Hulse, in "Republicans Use Arcane Political Tactic to Thwart Democrats/The party has used resolutions of disapproval to confound President Biden and Democrats, forcing them to make tough decisions and debate issues they would prefer to avoid" (NYT).

"Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) felt that sense of tension, or agita as her Italian family might say, the moment she walked into the massive hotel — that burden..."

"... from helping lead so many policy retreats here. Then, calm. 'You don’t have any responsibilities,' the former speaker told herself, attending the annual getaway for House Democrats as a congressional commoner for the first time in more than 20 years. As Biden administration officials gave policy presentations on Wednesday, Pelosi said she whispered a message to those at her table: 'If you don’t like your pillow, it’s not my fault. If you don’t like the menu, I don’t care. I don’t even care.'"

From "Nancy Pelosi untethered: The former speaker revels in newfound freedom/The former speaker isn’t in charge of anything now but is doing exactly what she wants in what some call 'Pelosi 3.0'" (WaPo).

The bird news.

1. "Two suspected illegal immigrants shot and killed a bald eagle with the intention of cooking it for dinner, and the town’s sheriff whose department arrested them says federal authorities, who could keep them behind bars, won’t return his calls" (Washington Free Beacon).

2. "Swedish power giant Vattenfall did a two-year, €3 million study of seabirds at an offshore wind farm off Scotland.... Not a single collision between a bird and a rotor blade was recorded... 'these birds are really good at avoiding the turbines'" (electrek).

3. "This year marks the 80th anniversary of the federal duck stamp. Since its enactment, this landmark initiative has generated well over $900 million to conserve nearly 8 million acres of wetlands all across the United States through the Migratory Bird Conservation Fund" (Democrat and Chronicle).

4. "Exploring how birds use contractions... A team of researchers at Kyoto University has found evidence that the wild passerine species Parus minor appears to merge two consecutive calls into a single vocal message... the cognitive capability known as core-Merge...." (phys.org).

5. "New Yorkers’ beloved owl, Flaco, escaped from his Central Park Zoo enclosure a month ago. After eluding various rescue attempts... he has been spotted resting among the trees of Central Park, flying overhead at night and even clutching the occasional rat between his talons" (CNN).

"W. David Marx, the author of the book 'Status and Culture,' said that for luxury goods to function as status symbols, they need... to be used in a way that is not only to mark status."

"Someone carrying a beat-up Hermès bag suggests that they are not simply wearing it because of its label, according to Mr. Marx. It can give the impression, he wrote in an email, that 'I don’t even care if it gets beat up, because I’m not using this for status marking.' 'It’s just a bag,' he wrote. 'Who cares if it’s beat up?'"

From "Your Pristine Hermès Bag, to Some, Looks Tacky/As a growing resale market has made the brand’s handbags available to more people, some say the image that they convey depends on their condition" (NYT).

If you care, you're not doing it right. And if you don't care, you wouldn't even be trying. So, go ahead now....

U.S. News says the law schools withdrawing from its ranking system are in prep mode for the end of affirmative action.

I'm reading "Defending Its Rankings, U.S. News Takes Aim at Top Law Schools/The publication accuses Yale and other schools of trying to evade accountability — and sidestep a likely end to affirmative action — by opting out of its ratings" (NYT).

“Some law deans are already exploring ways to sidestep any restrictive ruling by reducing their emphasis on test scores and grades — criteria used in our rankings,” Eric J. Gertler, the executive chairman and chief executive of U.S. News, wrote in an opinion essay on Tuesday in The Wall Street Journal....

It's a little hard to figure out the causality. If law schools can't directly take race into account, why would they make an adjustment that puts less emphasis on test scores and grades?

"Don’t hand that government more power under the guise of conservatism.... We shouldn’t look for larger-than-life personalities, but rather we should fight power in the rooms like this one."

"We can’t become the left, following celebrity leaders with their own brand of identity politics — those with fragile egos who refuse to acknowledge reality. … We can’t shift blame to others, but must accept the responsibility that comes to those of us who step forward and lead."

Said Mike Pompeo, at CPAC, quoted in a WaPo column titled "Pompeo’s personal dig at Trump."

If you're going to tell people to stop fixating on the big person, you have to offer some big substance. You can't just invoke generalities like leadership and fighting "power." You're seeking power. And you've already allied yourself with the big celebrity in your rise to power, so I can't even understand your point. You want us to follow you because you're not a celebrity, after you followed the same celebrity we're — some of us — still following?

I'm limited to what the WaPo columnist (Aaron Blake) chose to quote. I searched for the full text of the speech. Couldn't find it. Not even in his Twitter feed. 

Sunset — 5:44, 5:51.

Photos by Meade.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

I haven't used my tag "the stupid party" in a while, but I'm thinking about it this morning...

... as I scan the bloggable headlines at Memeorandum.

Both parties compete for the designation, though they insist the other party deserves the title.

Right now, the Republicans are making a big play for the anti-honor. Must I copy and paste the headlines that have caused me to write this post?

"My conspiracy theory about eye cream is very arguably correct, but I had failed to consider a larger lesson of conspiracism: Truth isn’t the only thing that matters, and it might not even be that compelling.”

That's the conclusion of the essay — in The Atlantic — "The Truth About Eye Cream/Is it just facial moisturizer in a smaller, more expensive tub?"

"Drag is a job. Drag is a legitimate artistic expression that brings people together, that entertains, that allows certain individuals to explore who they are..."

"... and allows all of us to have a very nice time. So it makes literally no sense for legislators, for people in government, to try to ban drag."

Said culture and gender studies professor Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes, author of "Translocas: The Politics of Puerto Rican Drag and Trans Performance," quoted in  "As Tennessee, others target drag shows, many wonder: Why?" (AP News).

I found that after struggling to read "Tennessee curbs trans treatment and drag for children" (BBC):

"For our £120, we got 45 minutes of brightly coloured splats [David] Hockney has done on his iPad..."

"... blasted around the four walls while the old ham belted out his... platitudes in quadraphonic stereo all around us ('I love life,' 'the world is beautiful when you look, but most people don’t'). There were all the old banalities about the 'quality of the light' in Los Angeles, lots of film of him 'being inspired' while driving round the California mountains in a convertible while listening to Wagner (even duller than your best mate’s hourly Instagram posts from holiday) and then endless minutes of his opera sets, complete with cringey faux-naif animations that reminded me of when it said 'cartoon' in the TV schedule in the late 1970s and you switched on hoping for Tom and Jerry but got some depressing shadow puppet thing from 1950s Czechoslovakia.... [W]e were laughing so much we had to leave, through a shop in the foyer where they had attempted to find interesting things he has said over the years to put on their brightly coloured 'quote totes' (£20 a pop, if you please) but clearly couldn’t find anything better than 'If you’re not playful, you’re not alive,' 'I’m greedy for an exciting life,' and, from the militant old smoker, 'Health is wealth'...."

Writes Giles Coren in "Don’t splash out on Hockney’s splats and platitudes" (London Times).

"Suddenly, everywhere you look, the Jews are disappearing. You feel it like a slow moving pressure system..."

"... an anxiety of exclusion and downward mobility. Maybe you first noticed it at your workplace. Or maybe it hit when you or your children applied to college or graduate school. It could have been something as simple as opening up the Netflix splash page. It’s gauche to count but you can’t help yourself: In academia, Hollywood, Washington, even in New York City—anywhere American Jews once made their mark—our influence is in steep decline. For many Jews, the first instinct is to look inward: We blame intermarriage, assimilation, the loss of the immigrant work ethic. This is, of course, a cope. Because the most significant cause of the decline isn’t Jews themselves, but that American liberalism, our civic religion, has turned on us. Where Jewish success was once upheld as a sign of America’s strength and progress over its prejudices, Jewish 'overrepresentation' is again something to be solved, not celebrated...."

Writes Jacob Savage in "The Vanishing/The erasure of Jews from American life" (Tablet).

(I know "Judaism" isn't the right word for this issue, but it's a tag I've had for a long time.)

Sunrise — 6:41, 6:55.

The light changes from blue...

... to gray:

Talk about whatever you like in the comments.