Donald Trump rushed feds to Portland to protect statues but won’t lift a fucking finger as people die from wildfires:
Over the past 24 hours on his Twitter feed, President Trump has attacked Democrats and racial injustice protesters nearly a dozen times, mentioned law and order, and made false claims about mail voting.
But on the increasingly deadly, catastrophic wildfires in California and Oregon that have displaced 500,000 people, caused fire tornadoes, killed a 1-year-old in Washington state, and blotted out the sun in one of America’s largest metropolitan areas, he has been silent.
A search of the president’s Twitter feed and his public comments from Factba.se, plus a search of recent White House news briefings, finds no mention by him or his press secretary of one of the worst natural disasters to hit the West in modern times.
These two states are running out of money and manpower to fight the blazes eating millions of acres and neighborhoods. One of the only times the president has talked about this was in late August at a news briefing on the coronavirus, where he announced that he had approved an emergency declaration to open up federal funding for California to fight the wildfires. As the crisis escalated, he approved similar funding for Oregon on Thursday — but the public heard about it from a Democratic congressman, not the president.
I fucking hater this monster.
Kent
If a major hurricane slams into swing state Florida in the next month it will be interesting to compare and contrast the Federal response.
Keith P.
I’m waiting for Trump to actually come out and say “Well, if they will elect Republican leaders, I’m sure they would get all kinds of help from the federal government.”
chopper
i’m getting really sick to bloody death of all of this.
kindness
Joe Biden is going to win the votes even though there already is & will be foul play. The really scary ride is going to be from the days after the election to January 20th. I’m kinda fearful of that time span.
Baud
You won’t get that this Christmas, but hopefully we can enjoy Presidents Day.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Hell Cole, you think you hate Trump, I’m the one with the orange fucking sun. I can look at it, it’s fucking orange as Trump.
Gvg
I don’t expect him to actually help Florida even though it would be in his self interest. He doesn’t help, he mouths off. He gets his feelings hurt. His help to his friendly states has….not been in the news because he doesn’t carry through and he is a miser and usually he try’s to talk them into forcing schools open and going without masks…which are not help. He expects us to help him. He is abnormal and useless.
trollhattan
Has he Sharpied these fucking fires out yet? Seems like the least he could do.
WaterGirl
@Gvg: The dumpster lives in an upside-down world where everything is about him.
He sings this song every day, though he lacks all the charm and credibility of this guy.
His friends aren’t this classy, either.
Baud
To tide you over
Mike J
He just tweeted that he signed 37 Stafford Act declarations, “including Fire Management Grants”. Which probably means he’s shoveling money to his friends.
Roger Moore
@kindness:
This. Trump and company won’t know whether to spend more time stealing everything they can grab or wrecking everything they can’t steal.
CaseyL
FYI, I sent multiple pleas to the ICC some months ago. Here is their response:
Seems odd to me that the only way monsters can be charged for their crimes is if their country is a member of the treaty group, since NOT being a member gives a great big green light to atrocities, but there it is.
Martin
@WaterGirl: A few months ago I was going to write about our personal climate change efforts as a series of guest posts. Covid then came along. Would this be a good time to try and get that going again?
Benw
Let’s not just focus on Trump, the Republican party is totally fine with this, and will do worse if not stopped.
prostratedragon
@WaterGirl: Why is it such a scream when he first hits the chorus? I mean, it’s not like you don’t know what he’s going to sing or how it will sound. I guess confirmation is funny sometimes —yes, he really did go there.
NB: This is from over 10 years ago. Yet, is it conceivable that this was about anyone else?
JPL
@Kent: nope.. Folks are dying in the west today. Folks are losing everything they had today in the west. It won’t be fun or interesting but it will be expected.
TS (the original)
Rachel running through the headlines – we have a right to be worried & stressed. The news is horrendous.
Unfortunately we then have to watch Mrs Greenspan
Kay
He’s killing some more of his supporters, just like he did with lying about covid.
I hope they don’t get in the way of sane people trying to evacuate.
JMG
The US Code contains many laws about genocide, crimes against humanity, etc. enacted after WW2. The only reason Trump wouldn’t be prosecuted under them is political cowardice. The Village would pitch its all-time greatest fit. “How dare you say Bill Barr, whom I’ve dined with many times, is subject to the death penalty!”
PsiFighter37
It will only get worse before it gets better, and what is worrying is that some people are acting like flipping the calendar to 2021 will all of a sudden make things better. It won’t. I expect next year to be just as bad, if not worse, than this year – and that is even if Biden wins.
cain
A couple of things
So you can thank Oregon republicans for running away and hiding and preventing what looks like a critical vote to manage wildfires. Instead, their constituents have lost their homes, their businesses, and some have lost loved ones or have gone missing.
On top of that assholes like Andy Ngo are “reporting” that BLM protestors are out there setting fires. Causing law enforcement pushing back because on radio scanners BLM meant Bureau of Land Management – but the rumors that are spreading is that black people are setting wild fires.
Fuck these people.
We can weaponize that stupid stunt and get more of our folks into the legislature so we don’t need those assholes.
Roger Moore
@PsiFighter37:
To me, the worst part about 2020 has been the feeling that things are just piling on. Every time it seems like we’re finally turning a corner and things might get better, something worse comes along. Every time I think things have reached rock bottom, they find a way to prove me wrong. Even if 2021 is as bad as 2020, it will seem better if there’s just a glimmer of hope that doesn’t get crushed by one awful thing after another.
Martin
@Roger Moore: Yeah, I don’t agree with Psi on this. So much of what’s terrible is problems getting ignored and then growing to such a level that they then demonstrate that things are busted.
Some things will be worse, but lots of problems will just go away, some others will be dealt with in a competent way.
TS (the original)
@PsiFighter37:
The issue is getting enough people to abide by the restrictions and stop the GOP & others suing Governors who try to implement policies to reduce the virus impact.
Melbourne (Australia) has gone from 700 cases per day to 37 today after 6 weeks of incredibly strict shutdown which includes a curfew, work from home whenever possible, one shopping trip per household per day & travel no more than 5km from home – other than for work/emergencies. Most stores are closed. The shut down is not yet lifted. Penalties/fines are high. Complaints are high but are not changing any rules.
Is it remotely possible that a US State could do anything like this?
Elizabelle
Putting in a plug for Carl Hiaasen’s brand new book, Squeeze Me.
It is a book about Trump that will have you laughing rather than sobbing, and that’s worth the money/trip to the library. Plus, the dreadful one’s name is never, ever mentioned.
Set in Palm Beach, home to the ancient wealthy and expensively spoiled. And the Winter White House (“Casa Bellicosa”) of code name “Mastodon.” And his spouse who detests him, “Mockingbird.” Mastodon was so thrilled with his manly Secret Service code name that he demanded they lay on a visit to the National Zoo so he could see a live one. They tell him that, regrettably, the Zoo’s herd is on longterm loan in Christchurch, New Zealand.
No William Barrs or Giulianis or any other deplorable administration officials. Just lots of appalled Secret Service members. (“A pathogen,” despairs one, as he catches the latest impromptu Mastodon press conference.) Rachel Maddow and Sean Hannity do get name-checked.
Don’t read the Washington Post review — it’s favorable, but way too many spoilers.
Since we are stuck with “Mastodon” for the immediate future, might as well laugh at the asshole. Hiaasen sure does. And at the Palm Beach gazillionaires who suck up to him. It’s a fast read, and a fun one.
Yer book reviewer,
Elizabelle
Bonus: Fresh Air interview with Carl Hiaasen:
Author Carl Hiaasen Skewers Palm Beach And Florida Life In ‘Squeeze Me’
The Miami Herald columnist’s new novel is a mystery featuring wealthy widows, the president and first lady, a scrappy wildlife removal specialist, and some gigantic Burmese pythons. (transcript, and audio — 37 minutes)
Book Passage bookstore hosted a virtual event this week, with humorist Dave Barry interviewing Hiaasen. Click on “Read More” and register (it’s free), which will give you access to the hourlong program. Book Passage has great archives, and some upcoming events (Chasten Buttigieg, Jon Meacham on his John Lewis bio).
raven
Georgia STEM
3h ·
BREAKING- UGA ranks #1
Sadly it is not in something to brag about. According to data compiled by the New York Times, The University of Georgia has the highest number of cases of SARS-CoV2 and sadly does not have one of the highest testing rates. In fact case numbers went up last week as testing went down. This is very worrisome. Surveillance testing of asymptomatic students is also up from less than 1% 3 weeks ago to over 8%.
The large numbers at UGA make us 2nd in the nation behind only Texas even though we are much smaller and have a much lower population than the Lone Star State.
Before you guys even comment- yes we are aware that these infections will probably not be lethal for these individuals. That is not the biggest concern. The problem is that they spread the virus to a large number of others (R-0 4/6).
Some individuals do suffer long term with COVID and it has been shown to have long lasting lung, heart, brain and even reproductive implications.
So what can you do?
1. Avoid the Athens/Clarke County area. If you live there- try to shop online and do not eat out in a restaurant. (CDC says you are twice as likely to contract the virus eating in the restaurant- pick up food or cook at home)
2. Model good social Distancing and mask behavior and try to be a good example to others. Avoid gatherings of people even for short periods of time. New research says the virus may be picked up in a crowd in shorter than 15 min and can travel further than 6ft.
3. Sadly- avoid social interactions with individuals in the 15-29
Age group. This is the age group with the highest R0.
Mike J
@Roger Moore:
raven
@Mike J: I’ll always remember the sign at the register in the Urbana Eisners.
12 Items or
LessFewer
Dan B
@Martin: Climate solutions could be an interesting topic. We’re part of Seattle Solar Homeowners which is great for newbies and people considering solar pv and other things. I always read the posts and learn new things.
trollhattan
@raven:
Something I’ve muttered dozens of times in various supermarkets.
Our dead tree paper seems to have no headline or copy editors anymore because every issue has errors or unintentional humor. It’s embarrassing, but they’re the only show in town and hanging on by fingernails at that.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Elizabelle: I heard Terry Gross interviewing Hiaasen about this book. It sounded pointed and hilarious.
Kent
Right. I live in the fire zone. I’m breathing toxic air today. My parents live in Clackamas County currently under a Level 2 evacuation order. I agree. But you know what I mean. The contrast will be informative.
Odie Hugh Manatee
I’m pretty sure that as far as he’s concerned Oregon didn’t vote for him so we don’t deserve anything.from him. Hair Furor has said he doesn’t just get people back for slighting him, he gets them back ten times worse.
At least we can be thankful that he isn’t sending federal troops in to pour gas everywhere.
Ryan
@trollhattan:
Won’t even lift a fucking sharpie, Dude.
youtube.com/watch?v=4Wu598ENenk
Kent
I am fewer than impressed with this change.
Elizabelle
@Dorothy A. Winsor: It was a lot of fun.
Aleta
“Some people feel that Donald Trump will bring the revolution immediately, if he gets in. Then things will really, you know, explode.”
She never tweets about how well it’s going, the revolution and the things exploding. But she’s still blaming centrists even though Mr. Immediate Revolution Dream did get in. And I’m still angry at the hypocrisy.
patroclus
Is Neil Young going to have to change his song to “HelpFewer, HelpFewer, HelpFewer, Helpfewer?”
Reboot
@Kent: Pretty sure the only part of FL that would be helped in event of a hurricane would be Mar-a-Lago.
Kathleen
@Kent: If AP style book starts permitting “fresh baked” or “fresh brewed” I’m done.
RobNYNY
@Mike J:
“Less” and “fewer” have never been mutually exclusive. This is a classic example of how normative grammarians invent a rule, and then grasp at it to prove their social superiority. This is how Strunk & White have damaged so many writers.
Now, under the influence of S&W, I hear “fewer than three days,” “fewer than three liters,” “fewer than half a percent of the population,” and “fewer than a million dollars.” It is pedantic, hypercorrective, and mostly a marker of superior social status.
“Fewer” is acceptable for integers, but not exclusively. It does not make sense for non-integers, or for things are highly divisible, or for percentages, or for very large quantities.
Grammatical markers of superior status never die. Split infinitives, “impact” as a transitive verb, “hopefully” as a predicate adverb. There was a time when use of “finalize” was a marker of social inferiority.
trollhattan
@RobNYNY:
Submitted for review: Boz Skaggs’ “Loan Me a Dime” should be changed to “Lend Me a Dime.” Discuss.
Aleta
@Kent: My niece lives in Oregon City and my nephew to the west, both Level 2 in Clackamas. This afternoon I heard it might be a little bit under control for now, but who knows. Their mother lives in Wheeler County.
Lower taxes, yay. (I’m making an assumption w/o any actual information.)
Laurel Ann
This is an aside, but I read
in the original post and immediately thought, “Last year?!” Then I remembered that August of this year has actually happened.
RobNYNY
@Mike J:
“Less” and “fewer” have never been mutually exclusive. This is a classic example of how normative grammarians invent a rule, and then grasp at it to prove their social superiority. This is how Strunk & White have damaged so many writers.
Now, from writers under the influence of S&W, I hear “fewer than three days,” “fewer than three liters,” “fewer than half a percent of the population,” and “fewer than a million dollars.” It is pedantic, hypercorrective, and mostly a marker of superior social status.
“Fewer” is acceptable for integers, but not exclusively. It does not make sense for non-integers, or for things are highly divisible, or for percentages, or for very large quantities.
Grammatical markers of superior status seldom die. Split infinitives, “impact” as a transitive verb, “hopefully” as a predicate adverb. There was a time when “finalize” was a marker of social inferiority.
Kent
On the topic of you can’t win for trying.
My wife works for Kaiser Permanente in the Portland area. Apparently they have spent the past several months re-engineering their HVAC systems at the clinic to draw in fresh air to the greatest extent possible into the clinic and all the exam rooms because that is the recommended protocol for reducing Covid risk.
So she turns up at the clinic this morning for her regular shift to see patients and the entire place is more smoky inside than outside. They actually had to issue N95 masks to all the doctors for the smoke. By noon they gave up and called all the patients to cancel afternoon appointments or switch them to virtual visits. Apparently you can’t just switch things back that easily to recirculated air with a flip of a switch.
We are living in the worst fucking timeline.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@patroclus: Neil’s Canadian, so the same rules may not apply.
trollhattan
Good news where you find it comment: The county health department reports 47 new COVID cases and 0 deaths Sept 7. This is a significant curve-bending since the July 20 peak of 403 new cases and August 17 peak of 11 deaths.
Kent
@RobNYNY: What about the word proactive? Are you cool with that?
EDIT: I guess it’s an actual word. I just cringe at it’s endless use by government managers who I have worked for.
Brachiator
Trump will claim that he didn’t want anyone to panic.
Inventor
@RobNYNY:
That made my head literally explode.
Kent
@Aleta: Wheeler county has like 25 people living in it.
EDIT….I looked it up. The actual number as of 2018 was 1,366 people. For a 1,715 square mile area. Which is substantially larger than the state of Rhode Island. Half the population is old retired people. So they really can’t afford much with local taxes and won’t exist without state help.
RobNYNY
@trollhattan:
Both formulations are valid, and have been for many years.
Who is Boz Skaggs? Noted grammarian?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kent: Looks like Wheeler County is mostly BLM, per Wikipedia.
Chetan Murthy
@Kent: Me talk good one day.
Alison Rose
Please for a next respite open thread, dear front pagers, I nominate Dolly Parton, the Patron Saint of Keeping Kids in School and Getting Them to Read, who would also make a much better president. (Low bar, yes.)
Jeffro
Did any of you grammar nuts pick up a copy of Dreyer’s English when it came out a while back?
It’s seriously funny AND will reinforce your sense of superiority/self-worth. I know I felt that way, anyway!
I think it’s going for around $15 on Amazon but I hear you can get it for fewer… ;)
Jeffro
PS it looks like Uncle Joe is about to put the knife in by…simply having a plan to beat back the coronavirus. Who could have guessed he was such a savage? I wonder if he will win any votes this way?
RobNYNY
@Alison Rose:
Between composing “I Will Always Love You,” and her work for literacy, she should be getting an invitation to Oslo. She is some sort of genius.
RobNYNY
@Jeffro:
I am going to have nightmares about “fewer.”
RobNYNY
@Inventor:
I know. I had to clean my monitor and keyboard.
Jeffro
@RobNYNY: Oh, it’ll be a funny in-joke…until it isn’t, anyway ;)
Get some rest. No one should have less hours of sleep than they need…
AnotherBruce
@Roger Moore: At that point, they are looking at jail. Or Russia.
Amir Khalid
@Mike J:
Other things that bug me about American English include using the simple past tense where a past participle is required, e.g. “I have went” instead of “I have gone”; the gratuitous insertion of “of”, e.g. “It’s too good of a chance to miss”; using “purposefully” instead of “purposely” as a synonym for intentionally, e.g. “This was purposefully done”. I could name many more.
zhena gogolia
@Kent:
“proactive” (why not just “active”?) and “mentee” (formed from “to ment”?) are my pet peeves
Chetan Murthy
@Amir Khalid: “We go to Kent Drake, who will tell us what the weather is presently”. “I’ll be there momentarily.”
trollhattan
@RobNYNY:
In my world–where the sky is orange-to-brown-to-yellow–lend is the verb and loan, the noun.
Boz Skaggs and Duane Allman. Stay ’til the end.
zhena gogolia
@AnotherBruce:
Serebryanyi Bor is beautiful that time of year.
RobNYNY
@Jeffro:
Just say “less sleep than they need,” and you will avoid pissing off half of the grammarians (normative and descriptive) who are out there. I do this all the time.
trollhattan
@zhena gogolia:
To separate the “pro” from the “re”? Confess I never pondered it before.
marklar
“Less” is a meteorologist at WKRP
“Fewer” is how a Conservative with rhotacism refers to the President.
West of the Cascades
@cain: i would love to see these assholes reduced even further in the Oregon legislature, and some change to the quorum rules so they can’t pull these childish, destructive stunts any more.
NotMax
@RobNYNY
What do you mean, “was?” It continues to be fingernails-on-chalkboard stridulent.
(Although I’d couch it as educationally, not socially, inferior.)
;)
Jeffro
@Amir Khalid: I think the “rules” of English were invented just to keep people arguing so strenuously that they’d be too tired to kill each other back in the good old bad old days.
I mean, it has a certain logic to it… ;)
RobNYNY
loan
Your argument is not with me, it is with the University of Cambridge.
verb [ T ]
US
dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/loan
/loʊn/ UK
to lend:
This library loans books and CDs.
[ + two objects ] I’d loan you the money if I could./I’d loan the money to you if I could.
Jeffro
@marklar: double win
Aleta
Gin & Tonic
@zhena gogolia: “Mentee” is back-formed from “mentor,” I’m pretty sure.
RobNYNY
@NotMax:
I can tell you categorically that well educated people use “finalize.”
lumpkin
I am hoping that he doesn’t start amplifying the idiotic antifa rumors and really get that crazy shit going. There’s already been reports of vigilante roadblocks by armed lunatics.
NotMax
@trollhattan
Take it up with the lending shark.
:)
RobNYNY
@Gin & Tonic:
Yes, you are right. “Mentee” was “protegee” (accent omitted) in the past.
West of the Cascades
@Kent: Fun Fact – Wheeler County had no Covid-19 cases as of the last time I looked (about two weeks ago when I checked before I went hiking out there).
Amir Khalid
@zhena gogolia:
It is apt to use “proactive” when explicitly/implicitly contrasting it with “reactive”; but it’s a Pointy-haired Boss word, and too many use it to seem all managerial and stuff.
I agree 100% about “mentee”. Too few remember to use “protege(e)”, and too many who do forget the difference between male “protege” and female “protegee”.
jackmac
@Elizabelle: Thank you for the heads-up on Carl Hiassen’s new book. I just went and ordered it on Amazon and look forward to it arriving next week. He’s a national treasure (and has the most inventive ways of killing off characters!). Even his toned-down kids books are great reads!
Chetan Murthy
@zhena gogolia: People who haven’t heard of “protege'”.
Alison Rose
@RobNYNY: Honestly, she really is. And just a damn good human.
NotMax
@RobNYNY
I can tell you categorically that being well-educated does not provide immunity from error.
;)
@Gin & Tonic
And tramples roughshod over the perfectly cromulent “protege.” (For the nitpicky, “protégé.”)
Amir Khalid
@RobNYNY:
Yes. Educated people spell it “finalise”.
//
Chetan Murthy
@Amir Khalid: Argh! And “blond” vs “blonde”. A man is “blond”, dammit.
Aleta
@Kent: There’s a lot of BLM and other federal land in Wheeler. Resentment of federal laws. Majority Trump voters.
RobNYNY
@NotMax:
Or “protégée.”
NotMax
@Chetan Murthy
Blond, blonde, person, camera, TV.
:)
Sab
@Amir Khalid: Around here (Ohio/Pennsylvania border) we say “the cat needs fed” instead of “the cat needs to be fed.”
patroclus
@marklar: WKRP! More Music and Less Nessman!
RobNYNY
@NotMax:
You want to know what Yale alumni say about Harvard alumni?
“Frequently wrong, but never in doubt.”
Elizabelle
@jackmac: Yea!
I am Trumped out, and I enjoyed Hiaasen’s book.
2liberal
when that GA-14 q-anon whack job wins the race, is it a possibility that the House won’t seat her?
Amir Khalid
@NotMax:
Accents in loan words are optional, and their use should depend on either a writer’s personal preference or a publication’s house style. Just don’t go overboard like The New Yorker does with diaereses, and insist on absurdities like “coördinate” and “reëlect”.
SiubhanDuinne
@zhena gogolia:
One of my pet peeves — I have many — is using “anywho” (“anyhoo”) in place of “anyhow.” I’m probably offending any number of jackals, and one or two FPs, who find “anywho” irresistibly amusing, and I’m sorry about that, but it annoys the bejesus out of me.
NotMax
@RobNYNY
Also too, Bryn Mawr alumnae.
;)
Amir Khalid
@RobNYNY:
To me, a “mentee” is a marine mammal.
pat
@Kent:
And I cringe at the use of it’s to mean its.
IT’S is a CONTRACTION OF IT IS.
Sheesh.
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
Advice which oughtn’t disappear into the vacuüm.
:)
danielx
@Roger Moore:
Not like they have to choose.
prostratedragon
@NotMax:
LEVERAGE AS A VERB!Excuse me, uh, leverage as a verb.RobNYNY
@Sab:
That might be a Germanism. I grew up in a midwestern state with a lot of German speakers, and when I moved to the East Coast, I had to relearn a lot of grammar, syntax, and vocabulary.
“Dat war hern store-boughten bread.” “He hef a pair kine.” (That was the bread that she bought in the store. He has a pair of dairy cattle.)
After I studied in Germany, it became clear that a lot of it was Bavarian, Austrian (not Viennese), and Swiss.
@Sab:
RobNYNY
@prostratedragon:
I have an MBA in leverage. It’s a noun, it’s a verb, it’s a lifestyle. That is why I am an editor.
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
She spent time as a mentee under a very accomplished protegor.”
:)
RobNYNY
@Amir Khalid:
I live in New York, so my bathtub is big enough only for a small walrus. A manatee would be a continuing delight, and I think I would need about three of them.
NotMax
@RobNYNY
Dugongs or go home.
:)
Ian
@Jeffro:
The “rules” of proper English were written by people incapable of following their own bullshit.
Language is a medium. I believe the correct way to use it is whatever gets the point across.
RobNYNY
@Amir Khalid:
Apparently (and by reputation) The New Yorker still pays by the word. That is why you still see expressions like “in nineteen hundred and seventy six” or “over three billion, five hundred million, four hundred thousand, and eight hundred and seventy four.”
prostratedragon
@RobNYNY: I assume the ax is safely locked behind glass.
(And at this moment I’m hearing Mazur conduct the second movement of Ein Deutsches Requiem at the pace of a forced march. As the grass, indeed. Oh, here he goes, he can hardly wait …)
Amir Khalid
@SiubhanDuinne:
On one of Cupcake Jemma’s YouTube videos, I heard her say “anyhoodles”. Cupcake Jemma and I agree that it’s a very cromulent word.
danielx
@Ian:
This is true, which is why concise statements like “fuck that orange guy in the White House” are so popular here at BJ. Follows the ABCs – accuracy, brevity, clarity.
Uncle Cosmo
IMO you are quite mistaken. They’re still there, drawing infllated salaries as they pursue their Primary Directive: To ensure that every headline and article lede is twisted to imply that whatever the problem is, it’s the fault of the Democrats.
I’m less than half joking. I honestly believe the Far Wrong has infiltrated copy/headline editor positions in news media across the country and pays them under the table (when creeps like Pinche Sulzberger and Dean Baquet aren’t paying them enough) for pushing “the news” to the plutocrat-friendly people-hating end of the spectrum.
RobNYNY
@Ian:
The first few editions of Strunk & White are full of breaches of their own rules. Split infinitives, double prepositions (does that even exist any more?), prepositions at the ends of sentences, etc. Well, f*ck, it comes at the end of a sentence, it’s not a preposition. It’s a postposition. “That’s what I asked for.” A postposition. It’s a German thing. “Meiner Meinung nach.”
Please, to all of the persons out there who are learning to write, learn by reading and by writing. Take a quick look through Strunk and White (and even worse Zinsser) to see what publications expect, and then burn it to light a joint. Or a fart. Writing on deadline is an excellent lesson, because it forces the writer to make decisions. Hitting deadlines is hard.
Chetan Murthy
@Uncle Cosmo:
With respect (b/c the effect is the same) I don’t think they need to. Sky-high student loan balances do the job just as well. By the time these editors have discharged them, they’re well-trained little running-dogs.
Uncle Cosmo
@RobNYNY: I never saw the movie The Owl and the Pussycat, but based on what I heard about it, here for your consideration is a fairly accurate paraphrase of one of Barbra Streisand’s lines therein:
RobNYNY
@prostratedragon:
It’s a singular movement. It is in triple time, in a minor key, and paced like a march. All flesh is as grass. My ex used to sing it ll over the world, and I still don’t know what to think of it.
@prostratedragon:
RobNYNY
@Uncle Cosmo:
Thank you for your insightful comment.
Kent
Proactive just makes your teeth ache when you hear it 48 times in a motivational training session from a high priced outside consultant telling you how to make your science agency more “customer-forward”
Been there. Done that too many times.
NotMax
@RobNYNY
The contents of Strunk & White are guidelines, not necessarily strictures. And I for one would never pooh-pooh it as an aid to communicating with clarity.
Steeplejack
@Mike J:
I loved @StillmanJeff’s comment: “I’m getting fewer impressed with professional journalism all the time.”
Amir Khalid
@RobNYNY:
In all of Strunk & White, there are only three words that a writer need take to heart: “Omit needless words.”
ballerat
Trump’s genocidal tendencies were evident in 2017 when hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico. He didn’t give a fuck, except when he thought he could use it for a fund-raising photo op, dissing the locals by flipping rolls of kitchen paper at them when they were homeless and destitute. It was a fuck-you gesture to the mud people his white racist base understood instantly.
But if that didn’t clue anyone in, there were the California fires in 2018. He didn’t give a fuck then either. He literally blamed the victims.
It should’ve been clear then this was a president of his voters only, and that he was willing and able to facilitate the deaths of people he doesn’t like by the passive-aggressive action of using his position to withholding literally life-saving resources.
If it wasn’t clear then it should’ve been crystal clear by the end of March. The pandemic raged in blue states and he did everything possible to thwart any measures to reduce the death toll, and in fact did many things to insure it would increase.
We know now from the Woodward tapes that he was aware, he knew what he was doing.
In these new west coast fires, as before, his seeming inaction is really action. It is a conscious choice. It takes effort to still the machinery of disaster response and to neuter the disaster aid agencies, to stonewall governors asking for a federal response, and, for Trump, it takes effort to be silent, to avoid the cameras and twitter and play at being the hero.
If he held someone under water until they drowned, he’s clearly a murderer. How is he not any less a murderer if he holds a life preserver out of reach of the drowning person?
It may be worth noting it takes effort to hold a life preserver out of reach. In these disasters he is neither passive nor oblivious.
Trump has shown he creates crises where his efforts at passivity are focused to harm mostly certain kinds of people, or where he opportunistically capitalizes on disasters to kill people again through his active inaction, and again only mostly certain kinds of people.
He’s a genocidal psychopath.
He is killing us. Not from stupidity and by accident. It’s from malice and it is by design.
Shrillhouse
@marklar:
Don’t think Nessman was a meteorologist by training. Just a journalist.
He did do those “eye witness weather” reports, though.
That’s when he would look out the window, and tell listeners what he saw…
NotMax
@Steeplejack
Leave us not forget the composer of Baby, It’s Cold Outside, Frank Fewer.
:)
Kent
EVERY place in Oregon outside the Portland metro, Salem, the college towns and maybe Bend is majority Trump voters.
I don’t mind these places like Wheeler County. Gotta have some place to get gas and a snack when I drive out to the desert or go to the John Day Fossil Beds. I just resent their sometimes outside influence relative to population. Like Wyoming relative to California in the Senate
Or we could just buy out the 1200 residents and give the whole place back to the Paiute. That would be cool too.
2liberal
back in usenet days, whenever anyone posted to the redsox newsgroup with an error they would be immediately pointed to: alt.possessive.its.has.no.apostrophe
Jeffro
@Ian: agreed! English is just plain fun and also misery, which makes it fun on top of fun.
Tehanu
My company pays rebates for energy-efficient products, so of course the soulless Six-Smegma MBAs refer to the practice as “incenting” customers.
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
Their battle, against needless, and excessive, commas, is also of value.
;)
RobNYNY
@NotMax:
I think that’s right. But S&W has become dogma. That’s the problem. I have read grammar books in four languages, but few present the context in which one talks or writes (even formally) in the way that the grammar books present. And I don’t write or speak the same in every situation. The way I spoke to my father (8th grade education) is not the way that I spoke at my interview for a top 10 job in NYC. There are contexts. I joke with my friends that I am bilingual. Working class midwest, and elite East Coast.
I am able to fake a neutral accent. But I saw qualified candidates turned down for legal and banking jobs because their accents might “alienate” important clients. Those alienating accents changed over the years (Australian went from a negative to a positive), but it was still there.
Amir Khalid
And another thing! I’ve seen too many people, including some on these here threads, who can’t tell active voice from passive voice.
RobNYNY
@Amir Khalid:
I can tell the difference between the passive and active voice. But there is nothing inherently wrong with the passive voice, or for that matter, with the active voice.
“I was robbed last night.”
“I had my house painted.”
“My car was booted.”
See?
I object to the passive voice when someone wants to evade responsibility.
“Mistakes were made.”
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
Irregardless and importantly, they got the point across, hopefully with the speed of lightening.
(Physically restrains one hand from repeatedly slapping face.)
Chetan Murthy
@NotMax:
FTFY.
RobNYNY
@Chetan Murthy:
reining in
Fixed that for you.
NotMax
@Chetan Murthy
As the driver of the team bus for the Mets said, “To Shea!”
:)
prostratedragon
@RobNYNY:
A funeral march, yeah, but Mazur seemed to want the gold medal. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see the orchestra form the word “der Tod” on the stage. The effect is almost comical that fast, because, whatever good news might be hiding in the work as a whole, it ain’t there. (Regarding your friend, I will admit that it’s also pretty hummable.)
Chetan Murthy
@RobNYNY: Oh, uh, sorry, I was trying to keep the gag going. *grin
RobNYNY
@Chetan Murthy:
Sorry, I am humor impaired.
prostratedragon
@ballerat:
Why I call him Chickenshitler. He yearns to be one of the big (mass murdering) boys, as long as he doesn’t have to own up to it.
mrmoshpotato
@kindness:
Yup. It’s going to be one of the most dangerous times in modern American history, but he’ll know there will be hell to pay (even state-level) come the afternoon of 1/20.
Amir Khalid
@RobNYNY:
There are some who see weasely evasion in a sentence and immediately cry, “A-ha! Passive voice!” Even though it is perfectly possible to speak evasively in active voice, and to use passive voice without evasion.
Fun fact: In the language of my people, the word for grammar is tatabahasa.
RobNYNY
@Amir Khalid:
Somebody did it, and we are searching for them.
That is active voice.
Amir Khalid
@kindness:
President-elect Biden’s team will likely have to make do without a proper transition period, and with gaping holes in the preceding administration’s work records. Plus any “presents” the Trumpistas may choose to leave behind.
RobNYNY
@Amir Khalid:
Active voice:
Somebody painted my house, and I paid them to do that.
Passive voice:
I had my house painted.
Active voice:
A person or persons unknown stole my car.
Passive voice:
My car was stolen.
Soprano2
@prostratedragon: That’s a beautiful work, but hard on us mezzo sopranos. I’ve sung it twice, once as a soprano and once as an alto; the alto part was a much better fit for my voice. The opening of the last movement is a killer because you’ve already sung so much in the higher part of the register.
Ms. Deranged in AZ
@prostratedragon:
Well that fits nicely into the passive and active voice discussion going on elsewhere in this thread. As Hair Fuhrer likes to say, “A lot of people are saying…”
@Tehanu: Because incentivizing is too many syllables?! The use of the word synergy causes my face to twitch.
@Amir Khalid: Thank FSM I have never heard anyone use the word mentee. To me it sounds like someone who eats Mentos. Also, something I have never seen in real life.
SWMBO
@Reboot: Doral. They would get help also. Plus Rick Scott’s place, and Ron DeathSantis place.
Ms. Deranged in AZ
@RobNYNY Do you reign or rein in pedantry? ;-). Jk
I mostly speak “double-wide Southern” or “nasally non-accented mid-Atlantic”. All joking aside… I have had close family members tell me that they can’t understand what I am saying because I am using words that are ‘too big”. I have to really force myself to revert to a simpler vocabulary. They think I’m putting on airs but my inner vocabulary is simply more advanced. I’m the only one in my family that has a college degree, much less a Master’s degree. And don’t get me started on the fact that I can speak Spanish with a very good accent. It blows their mind. I’m like some alien baby that got left on their doorstep. They don’t understand me, but I understand them only far too well.
Chetan Murthy
@Ms. Deranged in AZ:
It’s one of the most apparent markers that someone is well-educated, eh? They use appropriately complex words to express themselves. There’s nothing wrong with it — nothing at all.
Amir Khalid
@RobNYNY:
“A mistake was made. It will be rectified.” — The Cigarette-Smoking Man.
Ms. Deranged in AZ
@Chetan Murthy: I agree with you, but they don’t where I come from (Southeast Memphis, TN to be precise).
Chetan Murthy
@Ms. Deranged in AZ: Nor where I come from (Weatherford, TX). I trust you escaped to a place where anti-intellectualism isn’t a point of pride.
Sally
@Jeffro: I love that book! It sits permanently on my desk. Aside from the sense of superiority ( // ), it’s very useful for editing both writing and speaking. I try to rid my language of superfluous words. This might not be noticeable in my comments here.
Other MJS
@SiubhanDuinne: I picked the word up from OPus the penguin in A Wish for Wings That Work. I can’t recall hearing it anywhere else.
Sloane Ranger
I’m the Secretary to our local U3A committee and wrote the Annual report for our AGM. I sent the draft round to the other committee members for review and we discussed it at our meeting yesterday. We ended up having a serious debate about whether “The committee have…” should be amended to “The committee has…”
The Chair finally ruled that both were in common use and equally clear as to meaning, so could we please move on to the next agenda item.
J R in WV
@zhena gogolia:
“mentee”? Isn’t that a candy?
;-)
There go two miscreants
@Sally: This might not be noticeable in my comments here.
Well, you have to put the superfluous words somewhere after all!
Michael Cain
Too long in tech for me — “finalize” is a precise technical term for something you do to an optical disk when you’re done writing data to it. (Even worse, “finalization” is the noun for the process.) But it is easy for the word to sneak into my casual conversations when I mean “take the very specific steps necessary to finish” something.
Beth
@Kent: I am stunned that a health facility didn’t understand that air brought in from outside needs to be filtered!
I had filters installed on my house, for goodness sakes! What about pollen exacerbating respiratory illnesses, for just one example, and there are many more? And pollution happens.
Sorry, but this was not well thought out. Bring in fresh air, but use state of the art filters, and possibly ion cleaners as well. Just my two cents as someone concerned about air quality for decades.
ETA: I’m here on the West Coast, so I’m sitting in this muck, too. It’s not that I don’t understand the horrific strain of it all, it’s just that this sort of thing was predictable and good planning is key. We look to institutions to have some comprehension of what they are dealing with, and best practices.
Chris T.
But I like those! The other option is a hyphen: “co-ordinate” and “re-elect”.
Without these, how will we ever read “the coöp’s coop” correctly? (That’s the chicken coop owned by the co-operative.)
The Nameless One
@Kent:
When work changed incidents and problems and changes to things like “Epics” and “Stories” and “Chapters” I tried to do a Tommen from Game of Thrones in the meeting room.