Tuesday, May 05, 2020

Sauce for the Goose...


...is sauce for the gander, is a complete dissolution of Constitutional order.

But as long as Mitch McConnell gets his judges appointed, right?
Posted by at No comments:

That's a nice chart


I have one, too.



This graph presents a moving average of confirmed new cases of covid-19 from January 22, 2020, to May 4, 2020.  That top green line, way above all the others, is the United States.

We're No. 1!

The "great testing" is revealing how bad off we are, IOW.  And seven million people is just over the population of the Dallas/Fort Worth area.  So, not that much of the country at all.
Posted by at 1 comment:

Does This Mean the Rallies Can Begin Again?


Well, it's not THAT bad.

Undoubtedly someone of Kushner's caliber, rather than a doctor with administrative experience; you know, someone who is actually qualified.
Everybody's tired of staying home, right?
Posted by at No comments:

(Still) Mourning in America


I wasn't sure about this critique the first time around.  Now I see the wisdom of it.
Posted by at No comments:

< weird music >


Posted by at No comments:

Laser-focused...


...on the important tasks of Presidenting.

If you missed it, Trump unleased 4 tweets at 1 a.m. this morning responding to the video.  Without those tweets, the video would undoubtedly just be bouncing around among a select few on Twitter right now.
Posted by at No comments:

For Those Of You



Who didn't get my "Dr. Strangelove" reference or did and couldn't remember the speech entire, don't say I never do anything nice for you.

It's suprisingly easy to imagine George C. Scott as Chris Christie; too disturbingly easy.
Posted by at No comments:

"...which means death..."


Not subtle about it, is he?   But this is what he thinks "sucessful" would be:

Or does this mean death?

So it means "death" when....?

Posted by at No comments:

Monday, May 04, 2020

That Was Then?

When George C. Scott gave this speech in “Dr. Strangelove,” it was understood to be satire.
Posted by at No comments:

The Long, Hot Summer



Except, of course, the reopening is going slow, and will go slowly.  I got an e-mail from a theater chain, a survey of what I want to see before I'll return.  One was restricting people in the bathrooms to one at a time.  Given what's happened in Stillwater, OK, and Detroit, Michigan, it may take an armed guard to control people.  And can they force patrons to wear masks, much less hold their beer until it's their turn to pee?  I won't be rushing back because I won't even drink water in the movie under those conditions, but I also don't want to have to go to a crowded bathroom (as it usually is).

So businesses understand the problem.  Restaurants know it's more than a matter of spacing tables and closing the bar area.  A bathroom with more than two stalls is too big, for now.

Sure, 1000 people a day went to theaters in San Antonio over the weekend.  Is that enough to keep those theaters open, though?  Will the novelty wear off, especially if the contagion increases?  I don't want it to increase, but Trump "doing what's right for himself" is neither right for himself nor for the country.

On the other hand, how many Americans are willing to stay home from work and everything else until a vaccine is found?  That could be in 18 months, but history says it's more likely to be in 4 years.  Can we avoid this virus that long?

There is no easy way out of this, and assuredly, no way out that serves Trump's interests.  Deaths per day are projected to decline to 74 per day by August 4.  But 135,000 bodies by that same date is quite a stack of corpses to stage a re-election campaign on.
Posted by at No comments:

Too Much Reality



"Get 'em out by Friday!" is suddenly ringing in my ears.  Misspent youth, or something (it's a Genesis song, if you're still wondering. Yes, Google is still your friend.)
But doesn't it affirm the Darwin Awards concept?
The problem with the Darwin Awards:  we are all implicated.

And just because I've ignored the date all day:

And since, frankly, I'm kinda tired of "Star Wars", I'll be your friend, too.  Or annoy you; or give you an ear worm:



Posted by at No comments:

"Laughing or crying, you know it's the same release"--Joni Mitchell

Posted by at No comments:

Because Government Spending is Wicked Evil?


Because "blue" states don't deserve it, bein' profligate 'n' godless 'n' all?

More good news!

That elevated number of cases/death count is starting to look more and more realistic.
Posted by at No comments:

Mourning in America


Or double the number dead so far.  Alternatively, it's a head fake:


Given Trump's comment in front of Honest Abe last night:

I'm inclined to give Nate Silver the benefit of the argument.  Which would be a way of cushioning the rising caseloads, deaths, and hospital stresses, that come from "opening up" the economy?

This whole thing is fucked up.

"Good times are comin'/But they're sure comin' slow."--Neil Young
Posted by at No comments:

Gathering the Day Together


Interesting the tacit acknowledgement that testing isn't what it should be.

Today is also the 50th anniversary of the shootings at Kent State.  Neil Young's song, which I remember electrifying the crowd as the final encore in a packed stadium in Texas gathered to hear CSNY, is now a cliche more than a call to action.  The photos are so iconic they're practically dull.  But one thing has changed dramatically since that time.

National Guard troops opened fire on unarmed students.  Almost all the students shot or killed were not even involved in the protests.  And yet the students were blamed for being in the way of the bullets, for pushing the Guard into firing on them, for protesting the Guard being on campus (and not the war in Vietnam).  I remember it well.

Today?  Who would accept that the Guard had no choice, that the students were at fault, that the blame lay with the victims?  Who would accept even that the Guard was on campus with live ammunition?

Improvement is slow, and incomplete, and only partial.  But the arc of the universe is long, and it bends towards justice.
Posted by at No comments:

Agitprop


Clearly.








Posted by at No comments:

Not Really a Dave Eggers Fan


But I hope you can read the rest of this:

A: Listen. People are fatigued. They want to go back to work. They want to shop. More than anything, they want to roll balls toward white pins and make loud bang-bang sound. And then possibly end up with a tube inserted in their trachea, helping them breathe while their lungs cease to function, until they almost invariably die and die alone.

P: Why don’t we just freeze the economy? Just close most businesses and have the government give everyone a living wage while we wait until there’s a vaccine?

A: Hmm. First of all, ridiculous. Second, that would take significant coordination between local, state and federal governments.

P: Can we do that?

A: Well. I don’t know … I mean … OK. For starters, we’d need superadvanced ways to coordinate everyone. We’d certainly need phones. Maybe email. We might even need spreadsheets and/or computers.

P: Do we have all those things?

A: I think we … might? But there are still so many questions. Like, how would we know who to give money to? We’d have to have a national database with all the salaries of all the nation’s workers.

P: Don’t we have that? Seems like we could get that.

A: Here’s another plan: We promise money to pretty much every person and every business. We give this money to maybe half the people, and to a very small percentage of businesses. We let big banks control most of this money meant for small businesses, and the big banks can funnel it to their biggest clients.

P: That sounds terrible.

A: Those big banks sure know how to handle cash!

P: It seems it would just be easier to give people the exact salaries they had before they lost their jobs to one of the deadliest viruses in 100 years. Just freeze everything. Just mutually agree to pause, together, so we don’t have to lose 730,000 more souls.

A: First of all: boring. Where’s the intrigue? The drama? With our system, you have wave after wave of unemployment, with no end in sight. Every week brings something new: business closures, bankruptcies and ruptures of the supply chain — a never-ending, cascading, domino-orgy of lost savings, empty storefronts and shattered dreams. That’s much more exciting than some boring old guaranteed income that would allow everyone to simply ride out the pandemic knowing their jobs and businesses would be there when the virus was defeated.

P: So there’s no plan.

A: Having no plan is the plan! Haven’t you been listening? Plans are for commies and the Danish. Here we do it fast and loose and dumb and wrong, and occasionally we have a man who manufactures pillows come to the White House to show the president encouraging texts. It all works! Eighteen months, 800,000 deaths, no plan, states bidding against states for medicine and equipment, you’re on your own, plans are lame.

P: I’m going to lie down. I don’t feel good.

A: Should we sing a patriotic song? I feel like our forebears would be so proud of us now. It’s just like how we all pulled together in World War II, every element of society, from the White House to Rosie the Riveter, with common purpose and shared sacrifice. This is just like that, except instead of coordination, we have competition, and instead of common cause, we have acrimony and chaos. Instead of fireside chats, F.D.R. and Churchill, we have tweets, Lysol and Ron DeSantis. Other than that, it’s exactly the same.
Posted by at No comments:

In Case It Wasn't Obvious Already


He had me at "elite progressive opinion writers."
Posted by at No comments:

Sunday, May 03, 2020

Putting That In Perspective


Posted by at No comments:

“The horror! The horror!”




Posted by at No comments:

No, He Doesn’t Know

Posted by at No comments:

"I ran a casino into bankruptcy."


"I have a well-earned reputation for stiffing people who had contracts with me.  I stole money from a phony charity that I told people was set up to help children, but it was set up to help me.  I've stiffed cities across the country, leaving them with the hefty costs of providing security to the POTUS for a visit just so I could pump up my own ego at their arenas."

"Trust me.  I have a good feel for this stuff.  We gotta get back open.  All my hotels and golf courses are bleeding money."*

(True addendum:  I ordered a meal from a steakhouse tonight.  Nothing elaborate, and it's a middling quality steakhouse.  Still, I'd never ordered to-go from there, but during the shut down, everybody's doing carry-out, right?  I arrived at the designated time, called the designatied number, got an answering machine.  They had opened over the weekend, but hadn't updated their "order on-line/pick up curbside" information.  The signs were even still out.  I finally went inside.  The place was a tomb.  I was the only customer there.  My food was waiting for me, probably had been for 10 minutes before I got there.  It was cold and not all that good by the time I got home.  But nobody was beating down the doors for this place to open.  I suspect that's true around the country.  If you open it, will they come?  Probably not....)

So Grandpa needs to die for the grandchildren?

I'm just glad I don't have cable.
*I thought Trump was addressing the fantasy in his brain. Turns out he was talking to a caller who had lost her job, hadn’t gotten her stimulus check, couldn’t get unemployment, and was about to be evicted. Every time you think it can’t be worse...
Posted by at No comments:

"My death, is it possible?"







In seminary I read Sherwin Nuland's book How We Die.  It ain't pretty in the best of circumstances, and despite even having family there, you die alone:  no one can go with you, or do it for you (now would be a good time for a revival of "Everyman," too).  But it's the people left behind who suffer because they couldn't attend, say "goodbye," even stand at the grave before it is closed.  Don't discount the importance of these things.  None of us is an individual, separate and apart.  We are all bound up in the lives of each other, and your death is forever; your decision to go to the beach can be made another time.  Just because it's inconvenient doesn't mean it's permanent; only death is permanent.

We really need to learn that lesson all over.  Memento mori.  But we don't.  It might be better if we did.
Posted by at No comments:

Mark Twain Observes

It was a great plague! It was the best plague! Nobody had ever seen a plague like it in history!  Big men, strong men, men with broad shoulders, went up to the President and said "Sir, this is the greatest plague in the history of the universe!  We've never seen a plague like this!  Nobody has seen a plague like this!"  And they were weeping, these big, strong men!  They had tears in their eyes!  They had tears running down their cheeks!  And they said "Sir, it's like the flu!"

And I said "No, it's not like the flu!  We can't say that anymore!"  "But," I said, from this death and destruction we will rose, always remembering its many lost souls, but not as many as could have been, always remember we saved millions!  Millions and millions!, and we lost many more souls all over the World, more than all the souls in America combined!,  and we tested more people in America than all the world combined, tested and tested and tested because Americans can always be tested and never be bested!  And we left all those dead behind in refrigerator trucks and sanctuary cities and states that didn't deserve our help because of their sanctuary cities, and we were greater than ever before, greater than anybody has ever seen, ever in history!"

"It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said."


Posted by at No comments:

Believe the Woman!


He did it, isn't that what matters?!  Where and when and to whom and what he did or didn't do because he wasn't or was there at that time or another time when someone was there or wasn't, is irrelevant!

Right?

It really is most unfair of him.  Who is going to ask him about that?
Posted by at No comments:

Cabin Fever Fever


I know; I'm reusing this.  Because:

Someone want to explain to this guy we can hug strangers later?  And "later" does not mean:  after the end of the world as we know it.

Well, at least we're Making America Great Again Again.

If it's any comfort to you, these are the people in charge:
Posted by at No comments:

"....I gotta wear shades"




Posted by at No comments:

This is not helping


I read an NYT article full of hand-wringing about who to believe and what to believe and how to believe and whether or not the (implicitly) holy sacrament of casting a vote (when the vote itself is a holy object/act/speech act (?)) could be done in such straitened circumstances (because that "my vote is too good to squander on either candidate" posture worked out so well in 2016), and rather than post and comment on it I just left it alone (and I'm not going to look for it again).  It was very much the view from 30,000 feet among a very privileged class of women (men can be as privileged, look at the story on Greenwich, CT just below) whose sensibilities are strung as taught and vibrate as easily as a spider's web (sorry, just cleaned out the garage; we seem to be spider central this spring).

And their concerns must be served by investigations and more questions and still more answers that I really don't see too many people clamoring for, there being more serious matters to attend to (like, is it safe to go to the store?  Is my family member going to come home from the hospital, is there going to be a funeral I can't attend?  Is the POTUS a complete idiot or just an idiot?  Is there going to be daycare when my boss says 'Come back to work.'?).

And then there's this.  We are supposed to "believe" the woman (where "believe" means take at face value and in blind faith, the very act the same people deride in religious adherents and what they think they do) no matter what.  But facts are stubborn things.  And Ms. Reade (who is separate from this story) is now claiming she got death threats, and so declined to be interviewed on camera by FoxNews.  Did she report these, or just report it to Twitter?  Because I'm trying to imagine people ginned up enough for Joe Biden they'd made death threats.  Trump supporters I would believe.  Biden supporters?

It beggars the imagination.  We need an investigation, alright; but then who would be trusted to do it?

Maybe we just have to decide for ourselves.
Posted by at 1 comment:

Politics Is About Feelings


Jim Campbell was the chairman of the Republican Town Committee. The Campbells, like the Bushes, had deep roots in town. Jim prepped at Exeter and graduated from Harvard and Harvard Law School, before working in Europe and returning home as a real-estate executive. On a fall evening, Campbell attended a reception for Jeb Bush at the Belle Haven Club, a private tennis-and-boating club overlooking Long Island Sound. Jeb was expansive and mild, which struck Campbell as precisely wrong for the political moment: “He gave a whole talk about a woman named Juanita in South Florida, and how ‘immigration is love,’ and I just looked at the people I came with and said, ‘Does he think he’s already the nominee? He’s running in a tough Republican primary, and just because we’re at the Belle Haven Club doesn’t mean we’re all voting for him.’ ”

At home one night, watching television, Campbell happened on a Trump rally in Iowa. “I’m not a hard-core conservative—I’m a Republican from Greenwich,” Campbell said. “But I listened, and he had that line that he would use: ‘Folks, we either have a country or we don’t.’ And I felt the chill—like Chris Matthews with the little Obama zing up the leg. I’m, like, ‘Oh, my God, this is a really good line.’ ” To Campbell, Trump was describing immigration in ways that resonated: “Could somebody finally say that we’re allowed to enforce the law at the border without being called a racist? I lived in Switzerland for ten years. Do you think I was allowed to go around without a passport?”

Campbell tapped out a text message to a friend: “Trump live - can’t turn the channel. Unbelievable. I don’t think any R can beat him.” Campbell watched the rally for forty-five minutes. “He was mesmerizing,” he said. Not long afterward, he saw a Republican debate in which Trump described the invasion of Iraq as a mistake. For Campbell, the acknowledgment came as a catharsis. “Of course it was a big, fat mistake,” he told himself. “He says everything I think.”

And about where you put the em-FA-sis.  Yes, Trump was right about Iraq.  No, that didn't qualify Trump for high office.  But who votes on qualifications, anyway?  If we did most of the Presidential elections since 1964 would have turned out very differently. I understand the appeal of Trump; but I don't feel it.  I don't think it, either, but then I find very few people think as I do.  That doesn't set me above, just apart; and apart and $4 will buy you a coffee at Starbucks.  Especially in politics.

As for Greenwich, Connecticut and the support Trump has there; I seem to recall Orange County was full of mossbacked arch-conservatives desperate to protect their own and turn the clock back on the century as well.  Lot of rich people there, too.  Just because you're rich doesn't mean you're smart; or that what you want is what the country needs.

And Trump's victory still came from  yahoos in the Midwest who voted when no one else bothered to.  Same ones shouting in each other's faces while carrying semi-automatics in the Michigan State House.  They probably represented Trump's margin of victory in 2016, too.

But feelings against Trump are running high, and with November just a few months away, those feelings matter.  Since his ratings fell a month after he took office, Trump's approval has never been higher than 45%, and now it's back down to 43%.    He couldn't win re-election if Joe Biden dropped dead in September.
Posted by at No comments:

All the King's Horses and all the King's men...


Um...because we've been dismantling government for 40 years, and we can't put it back together again in two months?
Posted by at No comments:

"The Masque of the Red Death"


The red death had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal -- the madness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. And the whole seizure, progress, and termination of the disease, were incidents of half an hour.

But Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his crenellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince's own eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts.

They resolved to leave means neither of ingress nor egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the "Red Death."

It was toward the close of the fifth or sixth month of his seclusion that the Prince Prospero entertained his thousand friends at a masked ball of the most unusual magnificence.

It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But first let me tell of the rooms in which it was held. There were seven -- an imperial suite, In many palaces, however, such suites form a long and straight vista, while the folding doors slide back nearly to the walls on either hand, so that the view of the whole extant is scarcely impeded. Here the case was very different; as might have been expected from the duke's love of the "bizarre." The apartments were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced but little more than one at a time. There was a sharp turn at the right and left, in the middle of each wall, a tall and narrow Gothic window looked out upon a closed corridor of which pursued the windings of the suite. These windows were of stained glass whose color varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it opened. That at the eastern extremity was hung, for example, in blue -- and vividly blue were its windows. The second chamber was purple in its ornaments and tapestries, and here the panes were purple. The third was green throughout, and so were the casements. The fourth was furnished and lighted with orange -- the fifth with white -- the sixth with violet. The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue. But in this chamber only, the color of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes were scarlet -- a deep blood color. Now in no one of any of the seven apartments was there any lamp or candelabrum, amid the profusion of golden ornaments that lay scattered to and fro and depended from the roof. There was no light of any kind emanating from lamp or candle within the suite of chambers. But in the corridors that followed the suite, there stood, opposite each window, a heavy tripod, bearing a brazier of fire, that projected its rays through the tinted glass and so glaringly lit the room. And thus were produced a multitude of gaudy and fantastic appearances. But in the western or back chamber the effect of the fire-light that streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood-tinted panes was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the countenances of those who entered, that there were few of the company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all.

It was within this apartment, also, that there stood against the western wall, a gigantic clock of ebony. It pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when the minute-hand made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to be stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to hearken to the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and while the chimes of the clock yet rang. it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused revery or meditation. But when the echoes had fully ceased, a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly; the musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at their own nervousness and folly, and made whispering vows, each to the other, that the next chiming of the clock should produce in them no similar emotion; and then, after the lapse of sixty minutes (which embrace three thousand and six hundred seconds of Time that flies), there came yet another chiming of the clock, and then were the same disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as before.

But, in spite of these things, it was a gay and magnificent revel. The tastes of the duke were peculiar. He had a fine eye for color and effects. He disregarded the "decora" of mere fashion. His plans were bold and fiery, and his conceptions glowed with barbaric lustre. There are some who would have thought him mad. His followers felt that he was not. It was necessary to hear and see and touch him to be sure he was not.

He had directed, in great part, the movable embellishments of the seven chambers, upon occasion of this great fete; and it was his own guiding taste which had given character to the masqueraders. Be sure they were grotesque. There were much glare and glitter and piquancy and phantasm -- much of what has been seen in "Hernani." There were arabesque figures with unsuited limbs and appointments. There were delirious fancies such as the madman fashions. There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust. To and fro in the seven chambers stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams. And these the dreams -- writhed in and about, taking hue from the rooms, and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem as the echo of their steps. And, anon, there strikes the ebony clock which stands in the hall of the velvet. And then, for a moment, all is still, and all is silent save the voice of the clock. The dreams are stiff-frozen as they stand. But the echoes of the chime die away -- they have endured but an instant -- and a light half-subdued laughter floats after them as they depart. And now the music swells, and the dreams live, and writhe to and fro more merrily than ever, taking hue from the many-tinted windows through which stream the rays of the tripods. But to the chamber which lies most westwardly of the seven there are now none of the maskers who venture, for the night is waning away; and there flows a ruddier light through the blood-colored panes; and the blackness of the sable drapery appalls; and to him whose foot falls on the sable carpet, there comes from the near clock of ebony a muffled peal more solemnly emphatic than any which reaches their ears who indulge in the more remote gaieties of the other apartments.

But these other apartments were densely crowded, and in them beat feverishly the heart of life. And the revel went whirlingly on, until at length there commenced the sounding of midnight upon the clock. And then the music ceased, as I have told; and the evolutions of the waltzers were quieted; and there was an uneasy cessation of all things as before. But now there were twelve strokes to be sounded by the bell of the clock; and thus it happened, perhaps that more of thought crept, with more of time into the meditations of the thoughtful among those who revelled. And thus too, it happened, that before the last echoes of the last chime had utterly sunk into silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who had found leisure to become aware of the presence of a masked figure which had arrested the attention of no single individual before. And the rumor of this new presence having spread itself whisperingly around, there arose at length from the whole company a buzz, or murmur, of horror, and of disgust.

In an assembly of phantasms such as I have painted, it may well be supposed that no ordinary appearance could have excited such sensation. In truth the masquerade license of the night was nearly unlimited; but the figure in question had out-Heroded Herod, and gone beyond the bounds of even the prince's indefinite decorum. There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made. The whole company, indeed, seemed now deeply to feel that in the costume and bearing of the stranger neither wit nor propriety existed. The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all this might have been endured, if not approved, by the mad revellers around. But the mummer had gone so far as to assume the type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in blood -- and his broad brow, with all the features of his face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror.

When the eyes of Prince Prospero fell on this spectral image (which, with a slow and solemn movement, as if more fully to sustain its role, stalked to and fro among the waltzers) he was seen to be convulsed, in the first moment with a strong shudder either of terror or distaste; but in the next, his brow reddened with rage.

"Who dares" -- he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who stood near him -- "who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? Seize him and unmask him -- that we may know whom we have to hang, at sunrise, from the battlements!"

It was in the eastern or blue chamber in which stood Prince Prospero as he uttered these words. They rang throughout the seven rooms loudly and clearly, for the prince was a bold and robust man, and the music had become hushed at the waving of his hand.

It was in the blue room where stood the prince, with a group of pale courtiers by his side. At first, as he spoke, there was a slight rushing movement of this group in the direction of the intruder, who, at the moment was also near at hand, and now, with deliberate and stately step, made closer approach to the speaker. But from a certain nameless awe with which the mad assumptions of the mummer had inspired the whole party, there were found none who put forth a hand to seize him; so that, unimpeded, he passed within a yard of the prince's person; and while the vast assembly, as with one impulse, shrank from the centers of the rooms to the walls, he made his way uninterruptedly, but with the same solemn and measured step which had distinguished him from the first, through the blue chamber to the purple -- to the purple to the green -- through the green to the orange -- through this again to the white -- and even thence to the violet, ere a decided movement had been made to arrest him. It was then, however, that the Prince Prospero, maddened with rage and the shame of his own momentary cowardice, rushed hurriedly through the six chambers, while none followed him on account of a deadly terror that had seized upon all. He bore aloft a drawn dagger, and had approached, in rapid impetuosity, to within three or four feet of the retreating figure, when the latter, having attained the extremity of the velvet apartment, turned suddenly and confronted his pursuer. There was a sharp cry -- and the dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon which most instantly afterward, fell prostrate in death the Prince Prospero. Then summoning the wild courage of despair, a throng of the revellers at once threw themselves into the black apartment, and seizing the mummer whose tall figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in unutterable horror at finding the grave cerements and corpse- like mask, which they handled with so violent a rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form.

And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.

--Edgar Allan Poe
Posted by at 1 comment:

Saturday, May 02, 2020

This Would Require A Fundamental Change

Posted by at No comments:

We Also Spend a Lot of Money


....researching carcinogens and trying to remove them from the environment, as well as trying to change behaviors which can obviate heart attacks.  If we could do something as a society to precent Alzheimer's, we would.

All of these things require changes in behavior much more long-lasting than working from home and limiting the places you can go for a month or two.

I think that number of fatalities in 10 weeks is deserving of a bit more attention than just complaining about "shutting down the country."  Especially since a lot of people have been working that entire 10 weeks, most of them at low-paying jobs with little or not benefits and great risks of infection.

Maybe we could spare a thought for them.

And as for the "everything will be different when this is over:"  traffic in my nieghborhood is up significantly as of yesterday, the first day the "stay at home orders" were relaxed.  A lot of small business owners are desperate for things to get back to "normal," and judging from the traffic, so are no small number of people around me.  Had this gone on for 4 years, like our involvement in WWII, it might have changed things.  2 months?  Get real.  Culture doesn't alter near that rapidly or fundamentally.
Posted by at No comments:

Live From Camp David

33 tweets today. Maggie Habermann throws the best shade.

VERY Presidential!

UPDATE:  He stayed busy all day:
Posted by at No comments:

Little Girl Lost?



According to a transcript of her 2019 interview with the AP, Reade said: “They have this counseling office or something, and I think I walked in there once, but then I chickened out.” She made a similar statement in a second interview with AP that same day, according to written notes from the interview.

On Friday, Reade said she was referring to having “chickened out” by not filing full harassment or assault allegations against Biden. In multiple interviews with the AP on Friday, Reade insisted she filed an “intake form” at the Senate personnel office, which included her contact information, the office she worked for and some broad details of her issues with Biden.

Reade was one of eight women who came forward last year with allegations that Biden made them feel uncomfortable with inappropriate displays of affection. Biden acknowledged the complaints and promised to be “more mindful about respecting personal space in the future.”

During one of the April 2019 interviews with the AP, she said Biden rubbed her shoulders and neck and played with her hair. She said she was asked by an aide in Biden’s Senate office to dress more conservatively and told “don’t be so sexy.”

She said of Biden: “I wasn’t scared of him, that he was going to take me in a room or anything. It wasn’t that kind of vibe.”
I will wear out my welcome here, but this report depends more and more on "I was just a scared little girl" excuses, and the repitition of "sexual assault" and "sexual harassment" as if they were the same thing.  Well, and she wasn't that upset in 2019, but she is now.  I'm not discounting the truth of her reports of her emotional state; but this goes against, not towards, her credibility.

The AP reviewed notes of its 2019 interviews with Reade after she came forward in March with allegations of sexual assault against Biden. But reporters discovered an additional transcript and notes from those interviews on Friday.

A recording of one of the interviews was deleted before Reade emerged in 2020 with new allegations against Biden, in keeping with the reporter’s standard practice for disposing of old interviews. A portion of that interview was also recorded on video, but not the part in which she spoke of having “chickened out.”

The AP declined to publish details of the 2019 interviews at the time because reporters were unable to corroborate her allegations, and aspects of her story contradicted other reporting.

In recent weeks, Reade told the AP and other news organizations that Biden sexually assaulted her, pushing her against a wall in the basement of a Capitol Hill office building in 1993, groping her and penetrating her with his fingers. She says she was fired from Biden’s office after filing a complaint with the Senate alleging harassment.
....

Reade says she was reluctant to share details of the assault during her initial conversations with reporters over a year ago because she was scared of backlash, and was still coming to terms with what happened to her.

Now, the thing is, that may be true; but it's also damned convenient.  It's the equivalent of the evasive "I don't remember" when you don't want to admit you have information that will make you look bad, or even get you in trouble with someone else if you talk.  Is it true?  Is it not true?  Damned hard to tell.

Two of Reade’s associates said publicly this past week that Reade had conversations with them that they said corroborated aspects of her allegation. One, a former neighbor, said Reade told her about the alleged assault a few years after Reade said it happened. The other, a former coworker, said Reade told her she had been sexually harassed by her boss during her previous job in Washington.

Are we talking about the same account here?  One says "assault," which is very serious; the other says "harassment," which is serious, too, but not sexual assault (and even there we have to distinguish between criminal and civil assault, because just touching someone in a way they find disagreeable can be civil assault.  Sexual assault is, again, a much more serious matter.)

The AP has also spoken to two additional people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect their families’ privacy, who said Reade had told them about aspects of her allegations against Biden years ago.

One friend, who knew Reade in 1993, said Reade told them about the alleged assault when it happened. The second friend met Reade more than a decade after the alleged incident and confirmed that Reade had a conversation with the friend in 2007 or 2008 about experiencing sexual harassment from Biden while working in his Senate office.

There we go again:  assault v. harassment.  Harassment could be unwanted touching; sexual assault would be what Reade has alleged now:  digital penetration.  Which story was told when?  That's the detail that matters.  And 2007-2008; isn't that when Biden was considering running for President; and Bernie Sanders was, too?

And this is the problem with trying these matters in the court of public opinion.  As the Lovely Wife said last night, it's impossible to imagine Joe Biden putting his finger in Ms. Reade as she alleges he did, because that's so unlike Joe Biden.  It's impossible to imagine Trump doing that to a woman either, she said, because he doesn't have the guts.

The linchpin of Reade's allegation, for her supporters, was that personnel report.  Now that it appears it might appear, suddenly Reade has an excuse for it not saying anything, and that excuse is:  "I was just a scared little girl."  Sexual harassment is a serious matter, and it happens, and it shouln't.  Sexual assault is a serious matter, and it happens, and it shouldn't.  But while everyone wants Joe Biden to speak (and he did), the burden of proof is still on Ms. Reade.  Biden is not guilty until he proves his innocence (how does anybody do that?).  She needs to bring forth credible evidence.

And now she says she doesn't have it, except for her emotional state (which no one can gauge.  Is she even distraught?  She says so, but does that prove anything?) and her memory.  And apparently she doesn't want to say anything about that on camera.

And a blithe confusion of "sexual harassment" and "sexual assault," which is really just sloppy journalism.

Someday people are going to realize we can see them on the internet.
Posted by at No comments:

Friday, May 01, 2020

Because What Matters


...is how low the number comes in below projections; not that each number represents a dead human being.

Ghoul.  Monster.  Sociopath.  President.
Posted by at No comments:

Apparently It's Joanna Lumley's Birthday



I once owned this car.  Well, not the one in the picture.  Actually, mine was an MG Midget.  And it was orange, not yellow, and it didn't have Joanna Lumley sitting on the bonnet.

But the first car I fell in love with was an MGB.  And I've loved Joanna Lumley since "The New Avengers."  Well, kinda.

Damn, I miss that car.
Posted by at No comments:

Bernie Bros. Go Mainstream (or try to)

When I brought up Michael Stern's column on Tara Reade's accusations against Joe Biden, I didn't mention this part, on purpose:

During 2017 when Reade was praising Biden, she was condemning Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s efforts to hijack American democracy in the 2016 election. This changed in November 2018, when Reade trashed the United States as a country of “hypocrisy and imperialism” and “not a democracy at all but a corporate autocracy.”

Reade’s distaste for America closely tracked her new infatuation with Russia and Putin. She referred to Putin as a “genius” with an athletic prowess that “is intoxicating to American women.” Then there’s this gem: “President Putin has an alluring combination of strength with gentleness. His sensuous image projects his love for life, the embodiment of grace while facing adversity.”

In March 2019, Reade essentially dismissed the idea of Russian interference in the 2016 American presidential election as hype. She said she loved Russia and her Russian relatives — and "like most women across the world, I like President Putin … a lot, his shirt on or shirt off.” 
What does that have to do with Joe Biden?  Well, maybe this:

Pivoting again this month, Reade said that she “did not support Putin, and that her comments were pulled out of context from a novel she was writing,” according to The Times. The quotations above, however, are from political opinion pieces she published, and she did not offer any other "context" to The Times.

Reade's writings shed light on her political alliance with Sanders, who has a long history of ties to Russia and whose stump speech is focused largely on his position that American inequality is due to a corporate autocracy. But at a very minimum, Reade's wild shifts in political ideology and her sexual infatuation with a brutal dictator of a foreign adversary raise questions about her emotional stability.

Suspect timing. For 27 years, Reade did not publicly accuse Biden of sexually assaulting her. But then Biden's string of March primary victories threw Sanders off his seemingly unstoppable path to the Democratic nomination. On March 25, as Sanders was pondering his political future, Reade finally went public with her claim. The confluence of Reade’s support of Sanders, distaste for the traditional American democracy epitomized by Biden, and the timing of her allegation should give pause to even the most strident Biden critics.   
I left that out of my post because it was a whole other tangent and I didn't have access to the opinion pieces Stern mentioned.  Now, however...  These tweets don't disprove Reade's allegations; but they support Stern's argument.

Gossip and innuendo were not invented by the internet, especially in political campaigns.  There's the apocryphal (maybe) story of LBJ telling a staffer to start a scurrilous rumor about a political opponent.  When the staffer objects that the story isn't true, LBJ tells him "I know it's not true!  I want to see him deny it!"  Pretty much what seems to be going on here.  For example:


Yeah, maybe not all that important, after all.
Posted by at No comments:

This Story Just Became More Credible

< /sarcasm > 

 And why now?
Coincidence? I think not. So, the evidence is what Reade told people within the last year. And her story has changed twice in that time, three times in 27 years. Sure, I believe her.
Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)