Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

This really is a full service blog.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

The willow is too close to the house.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

He really is that stupid.

“woke” is the new caravan.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Come on, man.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Foreign Policy Open Thread: Proud to Be An American

Foreign Policy Open Thread: Proud to Be An American

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That is objectively one fine photograph.

Yeah, we can afford the gesture. So, if not us, if not now, when?

Reader Interactions

128Comments

  1. 1.

    Ken

    This may explain that recent poll that showed various nation’s popular opinions of the U.S. Most countries had a better opinion of the US than they did in January, in many cases by double digits. However China’s numbers had decreased.

  3. 3.

    Nora

    @rikyrah: Thanks for sharing that.  The pictures brought tears to my eyes.  I really want to believe there are more of us than there are of them.

  9. 9.

    dmsilev

    Naomi Wolf got herself banned from Twitter, finally. Last straw apparently was her musing that perhaps covid-vaccinated people should use segregated sewer systems, apparently to prevent the evil (and entirely nonexistent) shedded proteins from crawling up the insides of toilets of unsuspecting pure non-vaccinated folks and causing Bad Things to happen to them.

  21. 21.

    Just Chuck

    @rikyrah: Word.  These laws need to be backed with overwhelming force.  As in teams of federal marshals to arrest officials for brazen violations.  Elections happen over a day, they’re not something we can drag through the courts for years just to ask them to pretty-please not do it again.

  26. 26.

    Geminid

    @Feathers: Some new Texas political news: after less than a year on the job, carpetbagger Allen West has resigned as Republican State Chairman. Some Republicans are griping that he was just using the post as a stepping stone to elective office. West was coy about his future plans, although he did say that suburban Dallas Democratic Congressman Colin Allred needed a good challenger. Some speculate, though, that West may go after Governor Greg Abbot in next year’s Republican primary. I hope he does.

  27. 27.

    dmsilev

    @germy: She’s been saying that for a while. Not sure why this particular straw is what broke the camel’s back, but I guess we’ll take it.

  29. 29.

    Elizabelle

    I am proud of fellow Americans like Lt. Col Kemter (USA-ret), age 77, whose speech was censored by some wingnuts formerly associated with Ohio’s Hudson American Legion Post.

    The Akron Beacon Journal printed the draft of his prepared remarks, which he delivered.  In his “Army voice” when the wingnuts cut his mic, because hearing the true history is … dangerous.  I’ve put up the “controversial” part and a bit more, but do click and read his whole speech.  Lt. Col. Kemper is a very good American, a patriot, a soldier, and apparently a pretty good scholar.

    Welcome all. It is a pleasure to see so many of you turn out to honor and pay our respects to those who gave their lives while serving our country.

    I am Lieutenant Colonel Barney Kemter U.S. Army Retired and an alumnus of Hudson High School, Class of 1962. I shall do the math for you, I’m 77 years old.

    … Today is Memorial Day. This is the day that we pay homage to all those who served in the military and didn’t come home. This is not Veterans Day, it’s not a celebration, it is a day of solemn contemplation over the cost of our freedom. Memorial Day was born out of necessity. After the American Civil War, a battered United States was faced with the task of burying and honoring the 600,000 to 800,000 Union and Confederate soldiers who had died in the single bloodiest military conflict in American history. The first national commemoration of Memorial Day was held in Arlington National Cemetery on May 30, 1868, where both Union and Confederate soldiers were buried.

    Several towns and cities across America claim to have observed their own earlier versions of Memorial Day or ‘Decoration Day’ as early as 1866. (The earlier name is derived from the fact that decorating graves was and remains a central activity of Memorial Day.) But it wasn’t until a remarkable discovery in a dusty Harvard University archive [in] the late 1990s that historians learned about a Memorial Day commemoration organized by a group of freed black slaves less than a month after the Confederacy surrendered in 1865.

    But in recent years the origins of how and where Decoration Day began has sparked lively debate among historians, with some, including Yale historian David Blight, asserting the holiday is rooted in a moving ceremony held by freed slaves on May 1, 1865, at the tattered remnants of a Confederate prison camp at Charleston’s Washington Race Course and Jockey Club – today known as Hampton Park. The ceremony is believed to have included a parade of as many as 10,000 people, including 3,000 Black schoolchildren singing the Union marching song “John Brown’s Body’ while carrying armfuls of flowers to decorate the graves.

    More importantly than whether Charleston’s Decoration Day was the first, is the attention Charleston’s Black community paid to the nearly 260 Union troops who died at the site. For two weeks prior to the ceremony, former slaves and Black workmen exhumed the soldiers’ remains from a hastily dug mass grave behind the racetrack’s grandstand and gave each soldier a proper burial. They also constructed a fence to protect the site with an archway at the entrance that read “Martyrs of the Race Course.”

    The dead prisoners of war at the racetrack must have seemed especially worthy of honor to the former slaves. Just as the former slaves had, the dead prisoners had suffered imprisonment and mistreatment while held captive by white southerners.

    Not surprisingly, many white southerners who had supported the Confederacy, including a large swath of white Charlestonians, did not feel compelled to spend a day decorating the graves of their former enemies. It was often the African American southerners who perpetuated the holiday in the years immediately following the Civil War.

    African Americans across the South clearly helped shape the ceremony in its early years. Without African Americans, the ceremonies would have had far fewer in attendance in many areas, thus making the holiday less significant.

    My generation grew up listening to the famous radio personality Paul Harvey. Paul would say at the end of his broadcast, “And now you know the rest of the story.” And now you know the rest of the story about the origin of Memorial Day.

    If you visited the moving tribute to the fallen heroes from Hudson on what we old timers call the village green, all the men shared this oath and obligation:

    “I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”

    It is a gift or pledge of their lives to the United States of America. That oath is a major part of who we are in the military. It forms the bedrock of what we stand for and are willing to fight for.

    The oath fully embraces what we do and we let them guide our military service. …

    I chose to join the military and part of making that official is the oath — the promise we make to be a part of this elite group of Americans. We made that oral commitment so all will know what our country means to us and what we will do to defend it, its values, and the right to our way of life.

    I am a soldier.

    I do not choose the time or the place.

    Convenience is not in my vocabulary.

    I stand at the ready.

    When my orders come, I go.

    I am a soldier.

    I may not see a child born,

    A wife, a husband, parents, friends, I may never see them again.

    But willingly and with conviction I go.

    I am a soldier.

    The job that I’m given to do.

    I will do even if it costs me my life.

    I will do it.

    I am a soldier.

    A car approaches, a bicycle, a cart.

    I fix my stare and hone my senses.

    I have but a short time to take action.

    But I show restraint, it is part of my job.

    I am a soldier.

    I repair hospitals, schools and homes.

    I help rebuild smiles for people that I’ve never met before.

    This too is part of my job.

    I am a soldier.

    I gaze at those around me.

    In a foreign land I see a child.

    A wife a husband, parents, friends.

    Oh how I wish I were home.

    Oh how I wish they were mine.

    I am a soldier,

    Yes, take me home, but only when the job is done.

    Only when the job is done.

    I am a soldier.

    Thank you for your participation today.

    God bless you and God bless America.

  32. 32.

    PsiFighter37

    That won’t make the Chinese happy, but at this point, the U.S. needs to make a point to China that its authoritarian overreach isn’t acceptable.

    What’s a shame is that, if both Brexit and the 2016 election went the other way, China could very well be on a much better path – both for it, but for its relations to the outer world. I think Xi and the CCP only went the way they did because they knew that the ‘West’ was facing something of an existential crisis, and it decided to try and use the gap to solidify/normalize certain behaviors because they knew Trump and a neutered Europe would be distracted. Had Clinton won and the UK remained in the EU, methinks China and the West would have been much more integrated and aligned on things like climate change, and Hong Kong would not be suffering under the repressive new rules it is now operating under.

  33. 33.

    J R in WV

    So, Open Thread…

    Yesterday I went to town for a long series of visits to shops of a widely varying nature. As I left the house, the puppies, as always, got excited and wanted to accompany me, barking all the way out the farm road, so when I opened the front door to walk down the path to the car, there was a small 3-dog pack boiling ahead of me.

    They stopped suddenly and their barking changed totally just 20 or 30 yards out the path — I jokingly said “Don’t sniff the snake!” but when I got out far enough to see, it WAS a snake, coiled up with tongue flickering, mostly black with some very pale patterns in places, almost certainly a black pine snake, which we have seen many times over the years. Wife and I gradually got the dogs into the house, and I left my garden cart where it was and walked down the steps, leaving Mr Sneke alone in the middle of the shaded path.

    We have more black king snakes and a few ringneck black snakes to go with the black pine snakes, which are silver when first hatched, they darken gradually as they mature, peaking at around 60 inches. When they’re about half grown it is possible to mistake them for copperhead snakes, this guy still had the typical silver pattern showing in some places, but was pitch black mostly. Very small head compared to the size of the body.

    The best thing about having lots of black snakes is that they out-compete copperhead snakes in every way. They’re better at capturing rodents, so there is less small game for copperheads to hunt, and the black snakes can prey upon copperheads, reducing the population still more. While several gardening friends have had copperhead bites in the larger neighborhood, I don’t recall ever seeing a snake I was sure was a copperhead on our farm.

    Years ago I was in the old now torn down barn to feed livestock, when a really huge black king snake fell off a rafter and landed next to me on a pile of old heavy kraft paper feedsacks, and I’ve always been grateful it didn’t land on my shoulders, what a shock that would have been! This guy was 6 or 7 feet long and as thick as my arm, which back then was pretty muscular from the farm work. When you feed livestock your barn tends to have plenty of rodents to encourage the snake population.

    Pretty clumsy of Mr Sneke to fall out of the rafters like that.

  37. 37.

    MagdaInBlack

    @J R in WV: My husbands Missouri side of the family loved to tell the story of my then 18 y/o father in law standing on top of a tractor throwing wrenches at a black snake, because it had “chased ” him.

    I do not know if the story that they will chase you is true, but he certainly believed it ?

  39. 39.

    Geminid

    @MagdaInBlack: I’ve walked up on black snakes unexpectedly for both of us, and seen them vibrate their tails in dead leaves as a warning. I’m not sure if they were mimicking rattlesnakes, but it was kind of funny to see.

  40. 40.

    J R in WV

    Some year ago I had several large tarps folded up lying against the concrete footers which support the garage. On a pretty fall day I went to gather them up and put them away. As I gathered the first one into my arms, I saw that there were several tiny black snakes, ring-necked, curled up under the tarp on the warm concrete. These guys were the size of a ballpoint pen filler, newly hatched.

    I picked them up and stashed all of them under the brush-hog where they would be safe from predators. Probably a couple of dozen under 3 different tarps. Cute little things… black with a cream colored collar around their neck.

  41. 41.

    Kelly

    @J R in WV: One morning after camping along the Deschutes river in central Oregon I was about half way into my kayak when I saw the fat coil of a bull snake poking out from under the seat. I’m not a snake expert and thought it was a rattlesnake. Levitation is possible if you have sufficient incentive. I’d pushed all my buddies rafts off the beach and they had drifted out of sight without noticing I’m out of my boat shakinging it and banging it on the ground to dislodge the beastie. Snake had a good grip on it’s spot under the seat and it took several minutes to convince it to leave. Since then I always lean it up against a tree to make it a little harder to get into.

  42. 42.

    mrmoshpotato

    @MagdaInBlack:

    My husbands Missouri side of the family loved to tell the story of my then 18 y/o father in law standing on top of a tractor throwing wrenches at a black snake, because it had “chased ” him. 

    Makes it sound like he had a whole toolbox full of wrenches and was just chucking away.

  45. 45.

    CaseyL

    @J R in WV: That was very sweet of you!  Newly hatched reptiles are just exquisite, tiny jewel-like versions of themselves.  Every scale, spike, and marking perfect.​

  46. 46.

    debbie

    @Elizabelle:

    Not sure if it made the news in your area: The post has been closed and the guy who muted him has been forced to resign.

  47. 47.

    Kent

    @dmsilev:Naomi Wolf got herself banned from Twitter, finally. Last straw apparently was her musing that perhaps covid-vaccinated people should use segregated sewer systems, apparently to prevent the evil (and entirely nonexistent) shedded proteins from crawling up the insides of toilets of unsuspecting pure non-vaccinated folks and causing Bad Things to happen to them.

    And to think this woman was once considered smart enough to earn a Rhodes Scholarship.  That must have been one impressive example of white privilege.

  49. 49.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Ken: Well… it’s complicated, I think. A lot of people in the Hong Kong protest movement had a weird reverence for Trump–to them, he was mainly a symbol of opposition to the PRC government.

  50. 50.

    Kirk Spencer

    @J R in WV: My years ago – i was at a week-long summer camp in my early teens and decided to take a (regular) shortcut through the weeping willow instead of following the path around. Peeled the hanging branches off my arm in glee when suddenly one of the branches decided to wrap around my other arm. Multiple times. And start climbing.

    To this day I’ve no idea how long that snake was, nor what kind it was. I know it was greenish brown. I know it was long enough to wrap several times around my skinny arm. I know i was loud and forceful in shoving it off my arm but not frightened enough to run away, instead watching it move swiftly away from the noisy and painful tree it had found instead.

    Oh, and I nevermore since have run forcefully through curtains of leafy branches. Pushed my way through, yes, but blindly run? never.

  51. 51.

    Another Scott

    In other news, JuanitaJean – Who Is Subject to the UCMJ? (or Why hasn’t Mike Flynn Been Court-Martialed?)

    A perspective from someone formerly in the military service but is not a lawyer.

    So what does this mean for active duty military personnel, reserve military personnel, retired reserves, retired military, etc? The legality of calling someone back to active duty for the purpose of court-martialing them is complicated by every variable in the book: age, active/active-reserve/inactive reserve/retired-reserve, retired, pay status, branch, and the elusive “good of the service.” The decision involves politics, sometimes international politics. Sometimes the military needs to court-martial someone; sometimes they need to let a civilian court take over.

    When my husband was in R.O.T.C. in college, a case was described in the military law part of the course. A civilian woman killed her military spouse on the base…in Germany. The German government refused to try her: she was the Americans’ problem. The military *could not* try her: she was a civilian. Neither legal entity wanted the case. (He wasn’t told what finally happened; my guess is she was arrested by military police–who can arrest civilians–and transported back to the US to be handed over to civilian police there.)

    An interesting read.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  52. 52.

    TerryC

    @MagdaInBlack: My mom always told me the story about coming out of her house – I was less than a year old – and finding two huge black snakes curled up in the sun with me in my playpen

  53. 53.

    MagdaInBlack

    @TerryC: I always understood them to be harmless, but that man was just plain scared to death of snakes, all snakes.

  54. 54.

    Another Scott

    One's anti-racist education can never truly end. This is a quote from a National Association of Real Estate Broker textbook from the 1940s. From a stunning book I'll be blurbing called "Freedom to Discriminate: How Realtors Conspired to Segregate Housing and Divide America"… pic.twitter.com/AfURZyrhYk

    — Rick Perlstein (@rickperlstein) June 5, 2021

    Click on over.

    It was all out in the open, and totally acceptable to them.

    Just infuriating. Racism has done so much damage, and we have to recognize it to start repairing that damage.

    Grr…!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  58. 58.

    Catherine D.

    @Kent:

    And to think this woman was once considered smart enough to earn a Rhodes Scholarship.  That must have been one impressive example of white privilege.

    Well, Cecil Rhodes is a monument to white privilege all on his lonesome …

  59. 59.

    Ken

    @Kent: And to think this woman was once considered smart enough to earn a Rhodes Scholarship.

    I’m blanking on the name, but what’s it called when someone is good in one field (such as poetry) and immediately thinks they are expert in everything?  It’s not exactly Dunning-Kruger though possibly related.

    Perhaps the world would be better if such people universally decided “I am good at finance” and immediately got a harsh lesson about their limits.

  60. 60.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Ken: I don’t know a general term, but I’ve heard “Engineer Syndrome” and “Physicist Syndrome” used in reference to specific subvarieties.

  61. 61.

    Geminid

    @Kent: Wolf’s bad takes are probably due less to lack of intelligence than to character defect, maybe narcissism. I’ve never paid much attention to her, but I know that Wolf was once considered an important, cutting edge intellectual, and her reputation has  faded since her time in the spotlight. She seems to be angry at a liberal establishment that won’t give her due recognition anymore. Mere intelligence doesn’t protect smart people from waging bitter vendettas, and Wolf wouldn’t the only one.

    Wolf and her husband seem to have gone full horseshoe, with Wolf tweeting pics of her firing an assault-type rifle at trees, and the hubby explaining that people on the left are training with weapons on account of the Chinese threat.

  62. 62.

    Just Chuck

    @Ken: Far as I know, it is Dunning-Kruger, some kind of corollary anyway: people expert in one field are terrible judges of their knowledge in other fields.

  63. 63.

    Brachiator

    @PsiFighter37:

    That won’t make the Chinese happy, but at this point, the U.S. needs to make a point to China that its authoritarian overreach isn’t acceptable.

    Unfortunately, I think that the US and the West should understand the limits of their influence. When China took back Hong Kong from Britain in, what, 1997, it allowed the UK some face saving, but it was clear that Hong Kong’s former masters were now simply irrelevant and in no position to make any demands, or even requests.

    Neither BREXIT nor the 2016 elections would have had any effect on Chinese oppression of Tibet (old story), its Muslims or Hong Kong.

  66. 66.

    smith

    @Another Scott:  Thanks for that — there had to be a word, didn’t there? In my experience, physicians are the worst of the lot.

    There’s another related phenomenon that I think underlies a lot of belligerence among Goobers: it’s when they know that someone else has expertise they don’t have (so not the lack of awareness in Dunning-Kruger), but it chafes their self-esteem so mightily to be intellectually outclassed, that they completely reject any and all of the expertise offered. They react to someone else knowing  things they don’t know as if the expert is bragging in an offensive way. Deep insecurity combined with massive shoulder chips.

  67. 67.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Update about that American Legion post censoring retired Army Lt. Col. Barnard Kemter:

    The head (Garrison) of an American Legion post in Ohio stepped down Friday amid criticism following the decision of Memorial Day ceremony organizers to turn off a retired U.S. Army officer’s microphone while he was speaking about how freed Black slaves honored fallen soldiers just after the Civil War.

    American Legion leaders in Ohio also suspended the post’s charter and are taking steps to close it.

    The moves come in the wake of intense backlash to the decision to censor retired Army Lt. Col. Barnard Kemter, who said he included the story in his speech because he wanted to share the history of how Memorial Day originated.

  70. 70.

    Another Scott

    @smith: Yup.

    “You’re not better than me!!1”

    You should hear my J’s stories about her days in physics grad school.  ;-)

    Honestly, I don’t know if physicians are worse – lots of people in every field seems to have chips on their shoulders.

    A few anecdotes:

    1. Excellent physician with poor interpersonal skills treating J’s 88+ year old father.  “Look at him!  He’s had a good run, but he’s past his life expectancy…”  He took offense when I pointed out that life expectancy at 88 is very different from that at birth.  Grrr…
    2. My polymath EE father with his undergraduate degree in math.  He could still prove, 50 years later, that there are no whole numbers between 0 and 1.  Fixed the AC on his Volvo by tracing the electronics and modifying the circuit board and writing to Volvo corporate and telling them how to fix it.  Voracious reader.  Had a copy of The Bell Curve with dozens of bookmarks.  Tried to talk with me once about Obama’s birth certificate, and got quiet when I said that courts had looked at the issue and found nothing there.  Grrr…

    One of my favorite aphorisms is “where you stand depends on where you sit”.  If you’re immersed in an insular group of physicians or physicists or RWNJs or anarchists or whatever, you eventually end up mostly thinking like them (with notable exceptions).

    Just about everyone could stand to be more humble!  :-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  71. 71.

    Brachiator

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    The moves come in the wake of intense backlash to the decision to censor retired Army Lt. Col. Barnard Kemter, who said he included the story in his speech because he wanted to share the history of how Memorial Day originated.

    Good. The remarks were simple history, inclusive and inspiring. That anyone would deny people the opportunity to hear this man is insane.

  73. 73.

    Mary G

    CA Gov. Gav pulled the first set of 15 inoculated people for the first round of vaccine lottery yesterday on a set that looked like a cheesy game show. Prize is $50,000 each. They are not releasing any information on the winners, except the county they live in, which is nice. From SFGate:

    June 4, 9.30 a.m. Fifteen vaccinated Californians will win $50,000 today.

    LATEST June 4, 10.30 a.m. Fifteen winners were selected at random by Gov. Gavin Newsom at 10 a.m., Friday morning, including six Bay Area residents. They will be contacted directly; until then, the only information we know about them are their counties of residence, which are:

    Alameda County
    Los Angeles County (3 winners)
    Mendocino County
    Orange County
    San Diego County (3 winners)
    San Francisco County (2 winners)
    San Luis Obispo County
    Santa Clara County (3 winners)

    (Note entries switched to be in time order.)

    All of these very blue close to the coast and full of elites.  The other 50 counties struck out, including the people who want to secede to worship Trump and live in a state called Jefferson; sucks to be them. Their odds were lower because they won’t get the shot, of course.

    I have not heard from the governor that I won. ???

    My chances in the OC were approximately 1 in 1,901,840, which is how many people had received at least the first shot as of Thursday. Oh well. I rarely win at casinos or drawings or lotteries; I wasn’t holding my breath.

    Would’ve been nice since the bathroom I am renovating keeps getting dinged by the city for not being up to code. The house was built in 1950, of course it’s not up to code! Between waiting for an electrician to deign to both appear and write an estimate (contacted 11, 8 said too busy or we don’t want to deal with the building inspectors from hell. Three showed up and promised estimates, only one did. Easy choice.)

    The guys doing the work thought I was as rich as my neighbors and were disappointed. Still it was OEM and even my budget upgrades are a million times better than what was in there, including yellow tile with maroon edges. I did splurge on a lighted vanity mirror and I am now the proud owner of a three-switch light control at the door.

    It is very fancy. It turns the lights, fan, and mirror on with a motion sensor. The fan turns itself off automatically when the humidity lowers to a set amount. The motion sensor is extremely sensitive and turns it all on when you pass by in the hall even if the door is only open a crack. We will be keeping it closed when not in use.

    If it is ever finished I will be happy. Four people using my bathroom has been hard on all of us, plus the garage is full of tile, vanity, toilet, vanity top, etc. and it’ll be nice to put my little car inside again.

  75. 75.

    Brachiator

    @Another Scott: ​
     

    Excellent physician with poor interpersonal skills treating J’s 88+ year old father. “Look at him! He’s had a good run, but he’s past his life expectancy…” He took offense when I pointed out that life expectancy at 88 is very different from that at birth.

    This kind of illogical thinking also fed the lie that older people who died because of Covid-19 were going to die soon anyway.

    Historians as well as lay people still misunderstand the relationship between average life expectancy at birth and human lifespan. I sill see crap that implies that in the past everyone died around age 40.

    ETA: I still love this great bit of conversation between then 90 plus year old comedian George Burns and a 60 minutes reporter:

    60 Minutes: You still smoke a cigar every day. What does your doctor say about that?

    Burns: Nothing. He’s dead.

  82. 82.

    WaterGirl

    @Central Planning: They were actually going into SPAM.  Maybe it was all that talk of snakes!  shudder

    Just kidding about that being why you went into spam.

    Try to post something right now and I’ll see if it shows up or goes into spam again.

  83. 83.

    Feathers

    @Geminid: Also, the work she was known for back in The Beauty Myth days, was about recognizing patterns in popular culture. When you become famous it can place you at a distance from being able to spend a great deal of time simply observing the world around you. I recall someone talking about the problem of being famous as having to maintain an inner motivation and direction, while existing as an object that is observed and acted upon, and constantly having to react to that.

    Conspiracy theories are basically pattern recognition gone awry. The errors found in The Beauty Myth and her other work suggest a certain intellectual laziness, which compounded with the talent for pattern recognition shown in her early work. She was trying to do independent research and journalism without a support structure, whether this was narcissism or the best path available to her, she chose the wrong path

    Apologies for not currently having the bandwidth this afternoon to come up with different ways of saying pattern recognition.

  84. 84.

    JPL

    @germy: Same.   My second shot was 2/2/2021.   The peace of mind was worth it though, since I was able to help out with the great grand imp.

  85. 85.

    Brachiator

    @Mary G:

    CA Gov. Gav pulled the first set of 15 inoculated people for the first round of vaccine lottery yesterday on a set that looked like a cheesy game show. Prize is $50,000 each.

    It’s absurd that these dopes get rewarded for their stubbornness or stupidity. I also bet a lot of them complain about “wrongheaded government spending.”

  90. 90.

    germy

    A major Krysten Sinema backer is now saying she should support abolishing the filibuster or get out of the Senate. Former AZ AG Grant Woods prominently endorsed her in 2018 and has been a big backer. https://t.co/j5h4mt9REj

    — Amanda Terkel (@aterkel) June 4, 2021

  95. 95.

    Geminid

    @germy: Netanyahu is desperate to hang onto power. He and his political allies have mounted an intense pressure campaign to derail the 8 party “change coalition” before an expected Knesset vote around June 14.

    Others are making death threats: both Bennett and Yamina deputy Shaked are under enhanced state security, and Meretz MK Tamar Zafkind vacated her home last week after fake death certificates were circulated on the internet, with her name on them.

  96. 96.

    Mary G

    @germy: We are included in CA; the big lotteries are for all vaccinated people regardless of date givem. There are $50 gift cards which are limited; I am hoping to use that as incentive for the teen who is needle-phobic. I found that the pharmacy right across from the high school school is giving the Pfizer shot walk-in all day, so there is no excuse for distance.

  97. 97.

    Another Scott

    Ooof. This sounds like an own-goal by Adams.

    Sometimes I think the Adams’ campaign forgets it is running in the D primary. This is the kind of intense fulminating you get from Giuliani. https://t.co/PIYgsTiHZb

    — southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) June 5, 2021

    We don’t need Democrats running on some sort of “Tough on Crime™” platform. Grr…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  98. 98.

    Mary G

    @Brachiator: Believe it, in the end of article they talk to a Democrat saying whatever works is good, and before him three or four Republicans who are screaming about the poors getting their precious tax dollars and are convinced it will ensure the success of the recall effort. Whatevs.

  99. 99.

    Another Scott

    I recall a similar thing happening years after the GOP took in Donald Trump. https://t.co/rTdQU7EcMs

    — Mrs. Betty Bowers (@BettyBowers) June 5, 2021

    Is there some horrible, yet karmically predictable, golden escalator incident in TFG’s future??!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  101. 101.

    Mary G

    Bots, trolls, and the 27% are thrilled about this, because they think it will ensure the recall of Gov. Gav:

    Cal/OSHA, the board that oversees workplace safety, is ordering all Californians to remain masked at work until at least October, unless everyone around them is vaccinated. – @NBCNightlyNews https://t.co/uH16nvQSiO— NBC News (@NBCNews) June 5, 2021

  102. 102.

    WaterGirl

    @germy:   I feel like it’s more performance art with her. Backers would absolutely hold more weight than voters.  I also get the feeling she thinks she’s hot stuff.

    Not what I am looking for in a senator.

    edit:  Now I want another backer to speak up and say the same thing.  That increases the chances of getting the ball rolling.

  105. 105.

    LosGatosCA

    When it comes to Hypocrisy, America is absolutely #1.

    Fuck, yeah!

    We’re gonna need some more candles next January 6.

  106. 106.

    JoyceH

    @rikyrah:

    Mr. President, 44???

    Talking with

    Mr. President, 46???

    Awwwwwww!

    What’s interesting is that in 2008, Biden seemed to be perfectly cast as The Sidekick. But he turned on the Presidential like a light switch!

  108. 108.

    Matt McIrvin

    @germy: I’m just glad to be out of the lottery for who gets COVID. Or at least playing with better odds.

  111. 111.

    Brachiator

    @JoyceH:

    What’s interesting is that in 2008, Biden seemed to be perfectly cast as The Sidekick. But he turned on the Presidential like a light switch!

    Cool observation. Well said!

  112. 112.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @WaterGirl: Unless they are arguing that there is some moral equivalence between the T Square protesters and the Jan. 6 insurrectionists, I stand by my comment.  And if they are….  Well, I can’t even.

  115. 115.

    Anne Laurie

    @Kent: And to think this woman was once considered smart enough to earn a Rhodes Scholarship. That must have been one impressive example of white privilege.

    Naomi Wolf’s not dumb, she’s just… lost the plot.  Literally.  When I was growing up, there would’ve been murmurs about her ‘change of life’ (menopausal psychosis).  Which, given how she made her name in the first place…

    Remember who the Rhodes Scholarship is named after?  Their board has always been biased towards articulate, well-dressed candidates who are willing to perform in a fashion that tickles elderly white men’s ‘we of the elite’ fantasies.  Some of those candidates are now women and/or POC, but the presentations remain, as far as I can tell, pretty much the same.

  117. 117.

    Anne Laurie

    @Just Chuck: The rainbow flag is also a nice touch.

    Yep, what I meant when I called it a great photo.

    We Americans don’t believe in killing one’s citizens to keep them in line.  Also, we support LGBTQ+ rights.  Because we *can*.

  118. 118.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Feathers: I recently ran across an article by someone who went back and re-read “Beauty Myth” and found that Wolf’s paranoid streak showed up even then. It wasn’t just the patterns Wolf pointed out how about advertising, etc. reinforced/created societal stereotypes — Wolf perceived this as a deliberate effort by an unspecified them to do so in order to oppress women.

  121. 121.

    Geminid

    @Feathers: Perhaps in a few years Wolf will have the self-knowledge and humility to understand how she and other intellectuals can be lead astray by false pride and narcissism, and write a book titled, “The IQ Trap.”

  122. 122.

    Geminid

    @Another Scott: Erick Adams’ statement was prompted by Representative Ocasio-Cortez’s endorsement of Maya Wiley. Wiley was endorsed a couple weeks ago by Democratic Congressional Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries (D-Brooklyn). Kind of interesting to see Jeffries and Ocasio-Cortez on the same page.

  125. 125.

    sab

    @satby: I am impressed that my local paper 1) covered it (if they even turned up I knew their reporting would be excellent), 2) also put it on the front page, although below the fold. I am also impressed 3) that they quoted the colonel’s whole speech verbatim.

    Good day for the Akron Beacon Journal. Sucky day for our part of the state.

  127. 127.

    Anne Laurie

    @Omnes Omnibus: Unless they are arguing that there is some moral equivalence between the T Square protesters and the Jan. 6 insurrectionists, I stand by my comment.

    Remember TFG defending his lord & paymaster, Putin: What, you think we’re so great?  Like America’s never done anything wrong?

  128. 128.

    Mary G

    This is a huge fucking Biden deal, if it goes through:

    Finance Leaders Reach Global Tax Deal Aimed at Ending Profit Shifting
    The Group of 7 nations agreed to back a new global minimum tax rate that companies would have to pay regardless of where they are based.

    From the FTFNYT, so I just copied the heads.

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