Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Let there be snark.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

Fight them, without becoming them!

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

The revolution will be supervised.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Peak wingnut was a lie.

I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Thursday Morning Open Thread: ‘Awkward’ Timing

Thursday Morning Open Thread: ‘Awkward’ Timing

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… The United States issues a similar statement for each anniversary but the timing this year was awkward as President Donald Trump has threatened military force against nationwide protests over racial injustice.

Pompeo released a photo of himself meeting four figures from Tiananmen Square including Wang Dan, perhaps the most prominent of the student leaders behind the massive demonstrations for democratic reforms…

While the non-lethal force in Washington’s Lafayette Park was a far cry from Tiananmen Square, Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing leader has accused the United States of double standards in criticizing the city’s own clampdown on protesters demanding preservation of autonomy.

Pompeo earlier denounced China for preventing an annual Tiananmen commemoration in Hong Kong on the grounds that mass gatherings went against guidelines in fighting the coronavirus.

Trump in 1990 said that China’s leaders “almost blew it” in Tiananmen Square but ultimately showed “the power of strength,” comments on which the real-estate tycoon faced criticism as he ran for president.

Korean editorial cartoon:

Reader Interactions

132Comments

  1. 1.

    R-Jud

    There’s a BLM protest here in Birmingham today. I’m sorry I can’t go. The Child’s sensory issues mean she is terrified of crowds and noise, and her Dad is up north doing some home repairs for his parents.

    After a run of absolutely spectacular weather, it’s grey, cool and rainy today, but in my experience that rarely stops people who live in England from turning up to these things.

  2. 2.

    prostratedragon

    I see the Korean cartoonist depicted the CNN reporter who got racially profiled. Could do us good to be made aware that other people notice things.

    American microcosm:

    “Ode to Billy Joe,” Bobby Gentry

    My Mississippi-born father, who would have been 100 this year, as well as several of his siblings, loved this song for its mysterious treatment of the place. That’s about how it was, he’d say.

  3. 3.

    NotMax

    Couple of items which recently caught the peepers.

    1) “Driftwood, driftwood, driftwood, wheel strut, drif— — hold on a gosh darned minute.” (Note is made that short video included there is auto-play.)

    2) “Stick with the apples, Izzie baby, ‘k?”

    [Isaac] Newton claimed that “the best” way to cure the plague was to suspend a toad “by the legs in a chimney for three days,” collect its vomit “with various insects in it, on to a dish of yellow wax,” and to then combine “powdered toad with [its] excretions” in order to make lozenges that would be “worn about the affected area” and “banish the contagion.” Source

  6. 6.

    R-Jud

    @NotMax: Isaac Newton makes me think of the scientists I know today who are taken up with astrology, bulletproof coffee, and overly elaborate intermittent-fasting/diet regimes.

    (I also feel like saying “Isaac Newton” more than once on this blog will make Tom Levenson appear in a puff of smoke.)

  8. 8.

    WereBear

    I went through a spell of dizziness and nausea yesterday, feel much better today.

    I think part of it is the pandemic doom hanging over us, of course. I have no idea if I’ll have a job in the future: I’m in tourism, for the last 20 years, which has diluted the IT skills I started with. Mr WereBear is a high risk person because of his chronic illness. Still a lot of tenseness worldwide.

    But yesterday was some kind of turning point. I was cranked into a high state of anxiety by all the federal government idiocy, but Tuesday was full of people pushing back. Wednesday was about processing the pushback and I think the threat of a coup (because I knew Trump WOULD try it) was far less.

    I think that’s what I was dealing with. So now, we are back at a normal state of emergency…

  9. 9.

    NotMax

    @Baud

    “Hey, Fred? For future reference toad in the hole is a food, not a prescription instruction.”

  10. 10.

    Anne Laurie

    @NotMax: Newton claimed that “the best” way to cure the plague was to suspend a toad “by the legs in a chimney for three days,” collect its vomit “with various insects in it, on to a dish of yellow wax,” and to then combine “powdered toad with [its] excretions” in order to make lozenges that would be “worn about the affected area”

    Well, announcing that you were wearing toad-and-insect lozenges would certainly assist with social distancing…

  13. 13.

    JPL

    @different-church-lady: While looking at the pictures down below of the Angers castle, I was reminded how young our country and democracy is. Apparently Cotton isn’t concerned about burning it all down and starting over. It’s appalling that the NYTimes allowed his opinion piece. Preserving our Constitution is not a two sided issue.

  14. 14.

    JPL

    @WereBear: Hang in there because trump only wins if he can suppress the vote.   We need to be healthy enough to walk over hot coals to vote, if necessary.

  15. 15.

    Baud

    @different-church-lady:

    editorial page editor James Bennet explained the decision to run Cotton’s essay as part of an obligation “to our readers to show them counter-arguments, particularly those made by people in a position to set policy.

    I wonder if the NYT would publish an op/ed from a former presidential candidate explaining that the NYT is garbage.

    As an obligation to their readers.

  17. 17.

    JMG

    The Times story on the controversy reported that three Times reporters (didn’t say what beats, could be music, hockey, who knows) told their editors that some of their sources had told them because of the Cotton op-ed, they’d no longer be talking to the New York Times. THAT is how to get the paper’s attention. If you’re in position to, give scoops to its competition.

  18. 18.

    debbie

    The local board of health has announced that one of the protesters here has tested positive for COVID-19. The person had been symptomatic since May 29th, but attended every day anyway. So it goes.

  20. 20.

    Amir Khalid

    @NotMax:

    This may explain why he was a trialblazing mathematician and physicist, but little remembered for his work in medicine.

  26. 26.

    Ken

    @WereBear: Or, as David Anderson said last night, maybe a nice guest editorial from the head of NAMBLA. I’m sure it would make David Brooks think.

  27. 27.

    germy

    LEGO is taking a firm stand in support of protestors and the Black Lives Matter movement. On Wednesday, June 2, LEGO announced on Twitter that it would donate $4 million to “organizations dedicated to supporting black children and educating all children about racial equality.” The toy company behind the popular The LEGO Movie franchiseand The Lego Batman Movie did not stop there, however, as the company went on to announce that it would be remove any marketing for any toy sets that include police characters or are based around a police theme.

    https://www.vulture.com/2020/06/lego-pulls-advertising-for-police-toys-donates-usd4-million.html#_ga=2.196919471.246803452.1591269236-602633248.1591269236

  28. 28.

    danielx

    @debbie:

    Currently waiting for the FNYT to publish admiring profile of “Tom Cotton: A Senator Who Speaks His Mind” or some such. Probably rank right up their with their works about that populist leader from Bavaria all those years ago.

  31. 31.

    Chyron HR

    @Baud:

    [E]ditorial page editor James Bennet explained the decision to run Cotton’s essay as part of an obligation “to our readers to show them counter-arguments”

    Did I miss the NYT’s original “Trump shouldn’t nuke Manhattan” editorial to which they were apparently allowing Cotton to present a counter-argument?

  32. 32.

    Amir Khalid

    Yesterday I received an apologetic and mystifying Whatsapp message from the music store re my guitar strings. Apparently, some weird confluence of the Eid season and the Covid-19 lockdown caused the courier to not collect my package from them, which in turn caused the online market (Lazada) to cancel the order and refund me.

    Whatever. I reordered, and this time I hope I get the strings.

  37. 37.

    Immanentize

    For those looking for a long read during our home stays, Neil Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle (a trilogy) is really fantastic (IMO). It starts with a young Newton, flashes back to the execution of Charles the First, includes the Newton/Leibniz fight about the calculus, and ends with Newton’s time as head of the treasury all told by a scientist as a world turns from superstition to reason. But it is a set of novels, almost Pynchon-like (Mason Dixon mostly). Plague, art, the King of Orange, banking, beautiful powerful women. It’s got it all.

  44. 44.

    Kay

    It IS kind of interesting that Cotton just launched his 2024 presidential campaign in the NYTimes and Trump hasn’t even lost yet.

  48. 48.

    germy

    Tom Cotten will be running for president in 2024. No doubt about it.

    I’ll probably get in trouble for this, but to not say something would be immoral. As a black woman, as a journalist, as an American, I am deeply ashamed that we ran this. https://t.co/lU1KmhH2zH— Ida Bae Wells (@nhannahjones) June 4, 2020

    Running this puts black @nytimes writers, editors and other staff in danger. pic.twitter.com/wCy4LMov5x— roxane gay (@rgay) June 3, 2020

    as if it weren’t already hard enough to be a black employee of the New York Times— Jazmine Hughes (@jazzedloon) June 3, 2020

  50. 50.

    Kay

    I thought it was a conspiracy theory that Barr put his own special army on the streets of DC but that is in fact, true. Ridiculous egomaniac authoritarian cobbled together special “troops” from all over the country so he could command them.

  51. 51.

    Immanentize

    I was at a zoom meeting regarding crisis care (read rationing of resources) last night.  We dodged the bullet in wave one of the ‘rona, but folks in the hospital world are not sitting back to see if we get lucky again in round two.  This is a regional question — all the hospitals will act together and, if necessary, pull the plug (pun intended) together.  It was a grim reminder of how much we are all at risk from CV2, even as the world is burning around us.

    And in India they have locusts, too!

  54. 54.

    Kay

    @germy:

    Yup. And the NYTimes just ran his first campaign ad. Free.

    He’s a US Senator so he has an enormous microphone and extraordinary, daily access to media platforms but they figured they’d donate some real estate to this up and comer.

    Wonder what it says about Trump that the hyper-ambitious far Right are already looking beyond him.

  56. 56.

    WereBear

    @Kay:

    Wonder what it says about Trump that the hyper-ambitious far Right are already looking beyond him.

     
    They will just re-brand, like they did with the Tea Party. They are a marketing firm for oppression, essentially.

  57. 57.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: A Fox News poll that came out yesterday shows Biden up two points over Trump in Ohio. Does that sound right to you?

    The same poll also showed Trump trailing in AZ and WI too. Biden has held a small but consistent lead over Trump in every poll in Florida since mid-March.

  59. 59.

    hueyplong

    Free of Clouds and Shadows, Arkansas Senator Stakes His Claim to National Leadership

    Future, fawning FTFNYT headline as they get all filled with misty watercolor memories of their 1922 love note to that up-and-comer, A Hitler

  61. 61.

    Betty Cracker

    @WereBear: You’re absolutely right about the coming re-brand. My hope is that Trump gets such an ass-kicking that it sidelines the more overt fascists and obvious toadies for at least a cycle. Squishes like Rubio will rush to seize the banner!

  63. 63.

    JPL

    @Baud: ha   When they reveal that trump has a mysterious illness that causes him to resign, they’ll introduce the new and improved Cotton/Haley ticket.    Pence will be offered a prime spot on OAN.   you heard it here first..

  64. 64.

    Mary G

    Andrew Sullivan actually tweeted that there is a coup going on at the FTFNYT because uppity reporters object to the Cotton op-ed. I used to defend him here long ago. I was wrong. I blocked him.

  65. 65.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: I think it has. My impression is their state-level party is an even bigger basket case than Florida’s, but maybe someone with local knowledge can enlighten us.

  66. 66.

    John S.

    @Betty Cracker: I’m hoping the polls have the opposite effect they seem to have had in 2016.

    Then, a lot of folks didn’t vote because they assumed Hillary would win and figured there was no way a batshit insane Donald Trump could be President.

    This year,  I hope a lot of folks vote because they are worried that a batshit insane Donald Trump could get re-elected as President.

  70. 70.

    Sab

    @rikyrah:  I stopped by the office yesterday and the skeleton crew was trotting around the office maskless. Sigh.

    The office manager was the one pushing for birthday parties in March. I am sure that with reopenimg her life is back to normal. She won’t believe the virus is real until somebody in her immediate family has it.

  71. 71.

    MattF

    My guess is that the NYT hasn’t figured out that Cotton has gone beyond the R senatorial standard ‘collaborator’ to wannabe dictator. It’s not about ‘policy’ any longer, it’s about ‘kneel down or I’ll shoot you’.

  72. 72.

    Sm*t Cl*de

    @Immanentize:

    Neil Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle (a trilogy) is really fantastic (IMO). It starts with a young Newton,…has got it all.

    Except an editor.

  73. 73.

    Sloane Ranger

    @JPL: Don’t joke about this. I was developing a conspiracy theory along those lines because the problem is it might just work!

  75. 75.

    WereBear

    @Sab: I stopped by the office yesterday and the skeleton crew was trotting around the office maskless. Sigh.

     
    The unforgiveable sowing of confusion the Trumpov administration did at the beginning will continue to give fools excuses to do what they want to do, instead of the right thing.

  77. 77.

    Haroldo

    @MattF:

    My guess is that the NYT hasn’t figured out that Cotton has gone beyond the R senatorial standard ‘collaborator’ to wannabe dictator. It’s not about ‘policy’ any longer, it’s about ‘kneel down or and I’ll shoot you’.

    As is increasingly the case, sadly.

  79. 79.

    Amir Khalid

    @Mary G:

    Sully is a pretty good writer. Unfortunately, he writes well enough to make it easy to overlook that he is actually a very silly person.

  80. 80.

    charluckles

    @Mary G:

     

    WTF.  That is just shameful and stupid.  And a fair number of journalists that I actually respect are on there essentially agreeing with him and tut-tutting the concern of those calling out the NYT.

    Privilege at it’s finest.

  82. 82.

    David Evans

    @WereBear: What’s in Kindle Unlimited in the UK is simply a checklist of the titles. The books themselves are on Kindle for a total price of around £20.

  86. 86.

    Mary G

    @Amir Khalid: He can be a hell of a writer, yes, but I liked his writing better on his blogs. He did better when he had the “dissent of the day” where a reader yelled at him. His long form stuff for NY Mag now is really overwrought. You can tell nobody’s yelling at him now except the voices in his head.

  90. 90.

    Ladyraxterinok

    @debbie:

    Yesterday a student at OK State U who took part in a protest in Tulsa tested positive. (There have been protests at the major super large malls and at an upscale shopping area )

  92. 92.

    mrmoshpotato

    @different-church-lady:

    It appears that even the New York Times has had enough of the New York Times: 

    “Fuck the fucking New York Times!” said staff of the errrr……fucking New York Times.

  95. 95.

    germy

    Are the rats fleeing a sinking ship?

    Well, isn't this interesting.

    I wonder why Sean Reyes, candidate for Attorney General in UT, deleted this full throated endorsement from Donald Trump, Jr. on behalf of his father? https://t.co/3zaiYcJZBd

    — soonergrunt ?? (@soonergrunt) June 4, 2020

  96. 96.

    satby

    Good morning all (evening Amir)! After John’s delightful review of my soap and lotions, I got an entire months worth of orders in 12 hours ?, so I’ve been a bit out of the loop. Sounds like the protests continue but the violence is dropping? Hope so anyway. Several friends have all gone to protests and though there were potentially tense moments at a couple, all were reported to be peaceful.

  97. 97.

    germy

    Meghan McCain Responded After Her Neighbor Called Her Out For Making False Claims About The Black Lives Matter Protests In New York

    Yesterday, Meghan McCain tweeted about the protests happening in New York City following the killing of George Floyd by four police officers in Minneapolis.

    “My neighborhood in Manhattan is eviscerated and looks like a war zone,” she wrote.

    Meghan’s neighbor Kristen Bartlett — who happens to be the co–head writer of Full Frontal With Samantha Bee — refuted her claim, writing, “We live in the same building, and I just walked outside. It’s fine.”

    After the tweet went viral, Meghan responded, admitting that she wasn’t actually in New York at the time. The 35-year-old said she was just tweeting about what she saw “on the news” and “different media platforms”

    https://www.buzzfeed.com/terrycarter/meghan-mccain-admitted-she-wasnt-in-new-york-protests

    Who funds The Federalist?

  99. 99.

    satby

    @satby: No edit function to add, all these friends were in different cities. Most proud of Mayor Justin Cummings of Santa Cruz (in the tweeted picture taking a knee with his police chief and hometown Chicago guy), where he’s instituted townhall style workshops on police reform for his city.

  100. 100.

    The Pale Scot

    @Kay:

    Ridiculous egomaniac authoritarian cobbled together special “troops” from all over the country so he could command them.

    Got a link for that?

  101. 101.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Nicole:

    Of course, not one of them touches the NYT not allowing reader comments on Cotton’s plea for fascism. 

    No comments section?  What a crazy shitshow that would be!

  103. 103.

    germy

    This officer was investigated by internal affairs after 79 instances of force in his 3 years on the job, according to the @MiamiHerald.

    If police aren’t held accountable, they’ll continue to endanger lives—especially the lives of Black men and women. pic.twitter.com/LIYdzMKRN9

    — Julián Castro (@JulianCastro) June 4, 2020

    In this clip, a black female police officer confronts a white male officer, after the male officer attacks a female protester.

  106. 106.

    Anya

    @different-church-lady: in addition to all the reasons that  are already mentioned Cotton’s piece doesn’t present a unique perspective. I’ve read a variation of his  It’s a garbage take from Twitter idiots. What was unique about it exactly? Despots the world over use force against their citizens all the time. Is the uniqueness because   the Op-Ed desk thought this opinion is something worth importing to America?  Mr. Bennet didn’t give us any persuasive argument. Why didn’t he just come out and say: this was NYT brown-nosing to right wingers.

  107. 107.

    eric

    @Anya: shouldn’t the OpEd desk have sent the piece straight to the national bureau so that they could write a story about a US Senator proposing the use of the US military to quell protests against the Commander in Chief?  The piece is newsworthy, not as a opinion piece, but as a confession of wanted violations of human rights and American law by a sitting Senator sworn to uphold the Constitution.

  108. 108.

    mrmoshpotato

    @germy: Hahahaha, it’s even better that John McCain’s daughter was called out on her bullshit by a comedy writer!

  112. 112.

    YY_Sima Qian

    I was in 6th grade in 1989, that spring and early summer was a truly heady time. I could barely comprehend what was being shown on the news, but I distinctly remember a sort of hopeful carnival atmosphere in the cities. The CCP leadership was divided and paralyzed as to how to respond to the protest movement, there was overwhelming support among the urban population. Even cadets from police academies were marching on the streets.

    I would not say the vast majority were marching for democracy at the time, most had no idea what it is. Most of the students only had vague notions, too. What united the people was anger against growing corruption, bouts of hyperinflation, the shock of the economic cycle (after decades on the iron rice bowl, which were in the process of being dismantled). Urbanites saw their fixed incomes decimated by inflation, and yet access to foodstuffs and daily necessities were still rationed (buying stuff required both cash and ration coupons). Urbanites were definitely marching for personal freedom, since the Party was much more intrusive into people’s lives, which were closely supervised and monitored by one’s work unit, even marriage were often arranged and approved by cadres in work units. Central to the movement were the intellectual class, which had been privileged for millennia in Chinese society, but who had suffered immensely during the Anti-Rightist Campaign and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution during the Mao years. The reforms and loosening of the 80s brought them first hope, then frustration, as they found themselves marginalized economically in the first decade of reforms. Students were assigned work places after graduation, university professors earned less than street vendors. They were inspired by the loosening in the fUSSR and Eastern Europe.

    However, after the People’s Daily published a harsh editorial denouncing the protest movement in late Apr., those with more experience with the CCP rule knew the sky was darkening. I remember my maternal grandfather warning my older cousin, who was a freshman in college at the time, not to go to the streets. He even told my uncle and aunt to make sure the cousin stayed in the dormitory. He said a crack down was coming, and it would end in tears.

    By late May, the movement was running out of steam. A hardcore group of about 3K students held out at the Tiananmen Square by the evening of June 3rd, fortified by the more enthusiastic recent arrivals from the provinces, whereas many of from Beijing’s universities had gone back to campus or home. The daily marches dwindled in number, as Beijingers generally returned to work and life. That was when Deng Xiaoping ordered the army to march in and clear out the Square. The regime either underestimated the reaction of Beijing’s citizenry to the use of military force, or did not care. Beijing residents came out onto the streets in throngs to stop the soldiers, building makeshift barricades along Chang’an Avenue to slow their movement toward the Square. It appears the soldiers were ordered to clear the Square by any means necessary, but it is not known what prompted their shifting warning shots into the air to aimed shots into the crowds, nor the rule of engagement clear (many reports of soldiers firing into the apartment buildings that lined Chang’an Avenue, where families of government officials lived). The vast majority of the blood spilled that tragic evening were along the approaches to the Square, not in the Square itself.

    I have always wondered why the regime did not simply wait out the protest movement, a few more weeks might have seen it peter outs. On the other hand, the protests in 1989 was the last of a series of protest movements throughout the 80s. The regime probably knew that if the one in ’89 ended, it could reignite at any moment on any fuse.

    In hindsight, there was no chance that the movement in ’89 could have toppled the CCP regime, unless the regime itself gave up. The protest movements in the 80s were entirely urban, but Chinese population was 90% rural at the time. The peasants were the first beneficiaries of the Reform and Opening, during its first decade, the Party retained enormous support in the countryside at the time. The vast majority of the soldiers and officers in the army also came from the countryside.

    After suppressing the movement, the CCP regime suffered a crisis in legitimacy among the urban population. There was policy paralysis for 3 years, as the leadership debated how to proceed. Deng Xiaoping broke the impasse in 1992 and turbocharged economic reforms. The regime then  systematically went about addressing the grievances of the urban intellectuals and workers that fueled the protests. The Party steadily retreated from people’s personal lives. People had substantial freedom of movement, the work unit loomed ever less, college students were allowed freedom of employment, urban wages increased rapidly. During the second and third decades of Reform and Opening, it was the urbanites and intellectuals who benefited, the rural population that fell behind, and China saw the most rapid urbanization drive in the history of mankind. I have heard Sinologists say that the CCP regime rarely admits error, but generally learn from its mistakes. (Failure to sustain regulations of wildlife trade i wet markets after SARS in 2003, is clearly an exception!) That is why the regime has survived for so long, and its rule still appears to be secure. The People’s Liberation Army suffered a body blow to its prestige for firing on civilians, and it took two decades of enormous and truly heroic efforts at disaster relief, as well as massive propaganda effort, to substantially repair that damage.

    I think it is true that most Chinese have chosen amnesia with respect to the Tiananmen Square Tragedy. It was still hotly discussed and debated among the Mainland Chinese emigres overseas in the 90s, such as my father and his circle of friends, but the subject just does not come up any more. When prompted, people of the Tiananmen G\generation, including those who marched and occupied the Square, often would concede (even in private, even when not in China) that restoring order was the correct decision, though they would still denounce the regime for employing such violence. Yes, the subject is indeed taboo in Mainland China, but it is not difficult to hop over the Great Fire Wall with VPN. Tens of millions of Chinese tourists venture overseas every year, tens of thousands of students go abroad annually to pursue higher education. Any bookstore in Hong Kong (still), Macau or Taiwan will have volumes on the Tiananmen Square Tragedy featured prominently, along with shelves of material denouncing the evils of the CCP regime. The odd Mainlander may pick up a volume, out off curiosity, but I do not sense these have any impact at all. Even the Mainland Chinese immigrants educated and living overseas, anti-CCP is definitely in the small minority, though I would not say most are actually pro-CCP, either. It is pretty common to encounter people who were much more anti-CCP when they were in China, but became more patriotic and more pro-CCP after leaving China, either physically or virtually via VPN. The commonly cited reasons: the ugly reality of democratic politics as practiced in the US/UK/AUS/CAN (where the vast majority went), the stunning hypocrisy of western politicians’ commentaries on China, and the clear bias and myopia of Western MSM coverage of China.

    I guess performance legitimacy is real. The Chinese dream for the past two centuries has been restoring the nation and its people to position of wealth and power. That was the goal of generations of reformers and revolutionaries, since the end of the First Opium War and the start of the “Century of Humiliation”. Whether their leaning was liberal democrat, fascist or communist, monarchist or republican, that was the common aim. All the “-isms” were merely means to that end. The CCP regime is now delivering on restoring wealth and power to China, and dramatically improving the lives of the vast majority of the people in the process. That goes a loooong way.

  114. 114.

    PST

    @Mary G: Another good thing about Sullivan in blog-sized portions was that you could skip over those of his hobby horses you had grown tired of (I know it’s tough to be gay and Catholic but what more can be said) and if you found something egregiously wrong headed you could roll your eyes and hope for better in an hour. Sullivan was my window into many good blogs, including this one, IIRC.

  116. 116.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @PST: Ha! I found this blog (and Booman Tribune) via Andrew Sullivan during the 2008 campaign. His silliness was much easier to stomach during the Obama years.

  119. 119.

    debbie

    @germy:

    Not those guys. It’s totally ego. James Clavell wouldn’t allow one single edit, not even for punctuation. James Frey demanded his manuscripts not be touched or altered in anyway, talentless though he is.

  125. 125.

    cmorenc

    @germy:

    The toy company behind the popular The LEGO Movie franchiseand The Lego Batman Movie did not stop there, however, as the company went on to announce that it would be remove any marketing for any toy sets that include police characters or are based around a police theme.

    Aw…so no more good cop/bad cop character?

  128. 128.

    L85NJGT

    Yes, let’s get Rudy’s hot take, and up next Mike Francesa.

    I find institutional NYC oddly regressive, or even sclerotic. I’m not sure why that is, but it seems to be stuck in the 90’s. Maybe an outcome of 9-11?

  131. 131.

    rikyrah

    @satby:

    Been using a soap this week.

    Went back to work today,with your sanitizer and a mask, and hand cream for my soon to be very damaged hands from excessive washing.

    You do great work, satby. Thanks.

  132. 132.

    PST

    @Betty Cracker: I wish there were some way an American could pull off use of the expression “barking mad,” but it’s impossible. It would come off as more affected than saying, “Let’s take the lift to my flat and watch the telly.”

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