I'm kind of surprised that my college Spanish, which I haven't used in forty-five years, still allowed me to stagger through his speech. But, once you figure out some basic coding, Spanish is not that far a stretch from English. At least, not for the kind of language people use in speeches. Literature, I assume, would be beyond me now.
I'm worried that the schadenfruede won't happen. She seems to have committed crimes involving contracts--not getting competitive bids, giving jobs to friends etc. WHo is going to investigate, bring charges?
There are people who can't do an art but set themselves up as keepers of standards about that art, standards they present as Truth, rather than their own perspective. The same thing happens with visual art. The gatekeeper gets legitimacy by upholding convention and, thereby, the establishment (or those who consider themselves to be the establishment and have the power to act that way). The establishment that the gatekeeper represents probably has expectations for women which are in the standard. There may be more of a tolerance of men who deviate from the standard than women.
Interestingly, in terms of visual art, the convention is to be seen as unconventional, and the establishment loves the "outsider" that has been taken in as an insider.
I know I am over-simplifying. I think the dynamic I described exists but there are other dynamics as well. One is all the fans who ignore the gatekeepers and love the artists of their choice anyway. Another is commerce and marketing which can shower vast rewards on someone who is hated by the gatekeepers.
And, of course, there is such a thing as good and bad in any art. I just don't think clothing choices count as part of the evaluation.
I'm 73. I was a teen in the 1967 to 1971 era. A college student attempted to seduce me when I was about 15. I shudder to think now of all the trouble he could have gotten himself into if I hadn't been well trained in setting limitations. Statutory rape for starters and possibly paying child support instead of finishing his degree.
He's the only example of a toxic male that I have directly experienced myself. Sure, I've met guys who had some underlying attitudes about roles and expectations, but not to the point that it interfered with me being able to be myself. Sometimes a little assertiveness has been needed on my part, but I've never experienced anything that rose to the level of toxic.
I know the predators are there. I just haven't met them at anti-war protests or later as a public-school teacher or later yet as an in-home care provider. I haven't met any truly toxic men in my current life as a committee warrior in a HOA, either. Toxic people, sure. But not specifically toxic due to being male.
Most guys at this HOA seem to be aware that they don't want to be mansplainers or condescendingly superior assholes due to their gender, (Many are condescendingly superior assholes due to being Formerly Important People, but that's a different phenomenon). When I watched Mad Men, I was really shocked and I thought, "My god, my mother grew up with that as the norm. No wonder she was an alcoholic."
Of course, Mad Men assholery and toxic maleness are on a continuum, though it seems logical to me that a lot of one being present will enable some of the other. Both could be norm in social milieus that I have never experienced.
It's not a consistent or cohesive or reality-based perspective because it is just egotism transformed into politics. The Vance/Trump/typicalCongressionalRepublican/etc who believe that shit do it because it gives them a feeling of superiority and entitlement and that's what they want more than anything else. They are the insiders, all others are outsiders. It's their excuse for pursuing power for its own sake. Hubris.
I'm going to Escalante/Staircase Nat; monument in May. Flying into St George and driving the most beautiful road in America through Zion, past Cedar Breaks, past Red Canyon and Bryce to the holy land around Boulder. It is a pilgrimage.
I think it's the rocks that I love. Geology gives such a since of time and perspective. I am very sorry for this poor fucked up world. My escape is to go where geology is so prominent that acts of mankind seem like blips in the timeline.
I agree with the framing given by Nous. Though it is really tempting--I do it all the time--to write off MAGAs as just bad people, in the long run we need to get as many out of the thrall of the Republican party as possible. The thrall is the thrill of victimhood, as conceived of by Goebbels. That thrill is what fuels the love of cruelty, the support for harm to others, the support for attacks on our elections, and the subversion of our institutions into tools for partisanship. As long as Republican voters wallow in the thrill of victimhood, they will support fascism. Trump will stroke out, but they and the party that exploits them will remain.
So give them a way back. "OO ick, weird people don't deserve your support" leaves the door open to join us not-weird people. They won't suddenly become progressives, but maybe they will stop voting for fascists.
Sir Rod Stewart released a video statement about Trump's diss of UK soldiers.
That Tacticus quote is right on the money-which is why the actions in Portland and Minneapolis are so important and inspiring. There's no giving in to cynicism there and a strong assertion of the moral values the dictator is trying to destroy.
That poem is exactly right. In terms of civic involvement, sociopathy is the norm with R base voters, combined with self-aggrandizement and self-pity. I wonder if there has always been a percentage of the population that is like this or is or were they created by Faux and the rest of the hate propaganda network? Or always there, but more apparent now, give the decades Republicans have spent encouraging this mindset?
That really shows world domination clearly. And not coincidentally, many people are leaving those colonized parts of the world for because of the difficult living conditions.
I have been noticing incidents of cultural transfer possible because of the Internet. Have you seen/heard "Jerusalema?" It started with a South African musician using European musical instruments but his own language and music traditions who wrote a song about a Middle Eastern religion. He produced a video of people dancing in the style of his cultural background which because a global phenomenon of people doing watered down versions of the dance. The song is simple, addictive, and emotionally resonate, full of yearning. It is notable how much better the dancers are in the African videos!
Another example is Music for Change, tho they focus on songs that originate in the US, mostly.
If we are converging globally, I hope some of the better aspects of other cultures influence us rather than just us influencing them. I mean values, not just food and music.
I think aging has affected my attention span. I CANNOT listen to videos. It seems like no one has the skill of getting concisely to the point. I can't tolerate rambling, circling the point without landing the plane, or a long buildup of "context" that I already know. A video presentation should be like a persuasive essay: the thesis should be stated clearly at the outset.
I like Talarico. He entered the race before Crockett, so no conspiracy against her by evil white liberals--despite the rumors on Bluesky. I think Talarico's reclaiming of Christianity is hugely beneficial. Also, he is clear spoken and makes the moral issues front and center--the morality of Dem policies and the immorality of so many Texas Republican actions and policies. He isn't defensive. He is attacking and moving the Overton Window.
I like Crockett, too, but I don't think she has the ability to change the terms of the conversation the way Talarico can.
That change in the terms of the convo seems important since it is unlikely that either will win a Senate seat. The goal needs to be to change TX politics over the long term by changing hearts and minds and that means reframing perceptions.
Of course I don't live there, so I won't be voting and likely don't have sufficient local knowledge to support my opinions.
A million years ago when I was, oh, about twenty I can remember being very afraid of the year 2000. I thought by then 1984 would be true plus global warming. I thought that the death would come of everything I love: nature, animals, free thought...and I thought the killer would be the substitution of international corporations for national governments. Oceania, etc. with the real decisions made in board rooms.
I was also scared to death of getting old.
I comforted myself with the thought that I would die just about the time everything I care about dies. I think I am right about that, though off by about 25 years.
Well, I'm certainly starting the new year off on a happy note! Sorry about that. I guess I need to buy some hydrangeas.
To me, shocking as the murder, it is even more shocking that people in Minneapolis can't go about their routine lives anymore without running into harassment by shit tons of ICE border patrol prosecutors and, apparently, armed militias who have empowered themselves to join it. And this is being covered with headlines about "surges" in response to "protests breaking out" language that assumes the invasion by Trump forces is legit while supposedly there is something scary about the protests.
I desperately hope the people of Minn can stay nonviolent. When the George Floyd protests degenerated into riots, that movement died and all that was accomplished was help for the Republicans in the midterms.
It's becoming clear through statements by Rubio and Miller, that the goal is hemispheric dominance by the US for the sake of dominance. Of course, there's no commitment to freedom or elected government--they oppose that here and they sure don't support it elsewhere. Trump, in rare bursts of honesty, has stated his motive: he sees money for himself. He has been planning for a while now to broker a deal with oil companies to give them access to Venezuela's oil and he will want a percentage for himself beyond the money already paid to his election campaign.
I was generally optimistic about the near future (within the framework of being a doomfreak) until this week. I thought the tide was tipping against King Pussygrabber and that, as his support eroded, the Rs in Congress would start showing some spine and Dems would win lots of elections.
Instead it's Iraq all over again except this time with an executive who is literally insane. Rubio is similar to the people around Bush in that he believes in a kind of domino theory (US takes one nation and the others fall into line, maybe with some more pushing we win!) that completely ignores the spirit of nationalism in other nations and their desire to not be de facto colonies. The war(s) will be marketed to the rubes in the US by wrapping it up in a flag and demanding that all good true real Americans all salute.
Bush's Great Adventure ended in tears, of course, and now even Republican voters will say that Bush fucked up. The initial flush of jingoistic excitement ran aground on the short American attention span and some American deaths (Who cares about all the civilians who died or the million refugees or the destabilization of Syria? Down the Memory Hole.)
So I think the War for Greater Trumpistan will also run around on the limited attention span of the voters and the unwillingness to invest more than a couple thousand American lives. I think that even MAGAs would object to trading American lives for oil--if they know that's what's happening.
The past being the best predictor of the future, moral principles, rule of law, the exposure of lies, and foreign civilian deaths will not influence public opinion here beyond those who are already appalled, so the Republican party won't be held responsible for this any more than they were for Watergate, Iran/countra, Iraq, Trump's attack on Congress, or Trump and all of his crimes, or anything else they do. They represent the worst in human nature and, sadly, there's always going to be enough of that around for a viable party.
I don't watch TV news so I don't know how far the regression has gone, but CBS, aka Pravda West, has had the opposite of an epiphany.
The msm let themselves get used by Republicans to promote slanders, lies, fake investigations, all kinds of bullshit until part way through Trump's first term when they finally figures out that they needed to be more than a megaphone. An epiphany! They needed to actually do their jobs.
CBS is collaborating by spreading Republican lies. The coverage consists of extensive repetitions of Republican false allegations, followed by a brief partial rebuttal, followed by horse race coverage of how the false allegations might affect Walz. At no point to they explain that the Biden admin already did a massive investigation and achieved around 50 indictments. A viewer would come away with the impression that Minn had done nothing about the fraud, that DHS deserved all the credit and that opps! a Republican blogger was mistaken about the Somali day care centers. Not one word said about the devastating flood of hate now directed at those centers.
And, of course, not one word about the organized hate campaign now underway by Republicans against all Somalis.
"through an Overton lens, Trump’s increasingly-insane inanity will make any Bush-style Republican very attractive in 2028. a white man who isn’t a psychotic narcissist will be soberly declared, by once-again-endorsement-friendly editorials everywhere, to be the kind of stable genius we all need. the press will wet themselves in bliss at the idea of the GOP returning to a normal balance."
This is my fear. And I don't think the Republicans under that hypothetical person will be different in substance than they are not. In degree, yes. Substance, no. And the substance will be gerrymandering, election rigging, tax cuts for the rich and screw everyone else, pro-corporate power and anti-public interest legislation, and more Federalist SOciety ideologues in judgeships as they go full steam ahead on the plant to turn the US into a one-party oligarchy and only looks like a representative democracy.
On “A little language practice”
I'm kind of surprised that my college Spanish, which I haven't used in forty-five years, still allowed me to stagger through his speech. But, once you figure out some basic coding, Spanish is not that far a stretch from English. At least, not for the kind of language people use in speeches. Literature, I assume, would be beyond me now.
On “The Last Noem Standing”
I'm worried that the schadenfruede won't happen. She seems to have committed crimes involving contracts--not getting competitive bids, giving jobs to friends etc. WHo is going to investigate, bring charges?
On “Yuja Wang, networking, transactionality and that guy”
There are people who can't do an art but set themselves up as keepers of standards about that art, standards they present as Truth, rather than their own perspective. The same thing happens with visual art. The gatekeeper gets legitimacy by upholding convention and, thereby, the establishment (or those who consider themselves to be the establishment and have the power to act that way). The establishment that the gatekeeper represents probably has expectations for women which are in the standard. There may be more of a tolerance of men who deviate from the standard than women.
Interestingly, in terms of visual art, the convention is to be seen as unconventional, and the establishment loves the "outsider" that has been taken in as an insider.
I know I am over-simplifying. I think the dynamic I described exists but there are other dynamics as well. One is all the fans who ignore the gatekeepers and love the artists of their choice anyway. Another is commerce and marketing which can shower vast rewards on someone who is hated by the gatekeepers.
And, of course, there is such a thing as good and bad in any art. I just don't think clothing choices count as part of the evaluation.
On “Perpwalk Imperial”
I'm 73. I was a teen in the 1967 to 1971 era. A college student attempted to seduce me when I was about 15. I shudder to think now of all the trouble he could have gotten himself into if I hadn't been well trained in setting limitations. Statutory rape for starters and possibly paying child support instead of finishing his degree.
He's the only example of a toxic male that I have directly experienced myself. Sure, I've met guys who had some underlying attitudes about roles and expectations, but not to the point that it interfered with me being able to be myself. Sometimes a little assertiveness has been needed on my part, but I've never experienced anything that rose to the level of toxic.
I know the predators are there. I just haven't met them at anti-war protests or later as a public-school teacher or later yet as an in-home care provider. I haven't met any truly toxic men in my current life as a committee warrior in a HOA, either. Toxic people, sure. But not specifically toxic due to being male.
Most guys at this HOA seem to be aware that they don't want to be mansplainers or condescendingly superior assholes due to their gender, (Many are condescendingly superior assholes due to being Formerly Important People, but that's a different phenomenon). When I watched Mad Men, I was really shocked and I thought, "My god, my mother grew up with that as the norm. No wonder she was an alcoholic."
Of course, Mad Men assholery and toxic maleness are on a continuum, though it seems logical to me that a lot of one being present will enable some of the other. Both could be norm in social milieus that I have never experienced.
On “Take your’n and beat his’n”
It's not a consistent or cohesive or reality-based perspective because it is just egotism transformed into politics. The Vance/Trump/typicalCongressionalRepublican/etc who believe that shit do it because it gives them a feeling of superiority and entitlement and that's what they want more than anything else. They are the insiders, all others are outsiders. It's their excuse for pursuing power for its own sake. Hubris.
On “Open Thread”
Thank you for the article, Nous. I might use it in a novel I just started. I love the idea of finding deep time in an urban area.
"
I'm going to Escalante/Staircase Nat; monument in May. Flying into St George and driving the most beautiful road in America through Zion, past Cedar Breaks, past Red Canyon and Bryce to the holy land around Boulder. It is a pilgrimage.
I think it's the rocks that I love. Geology gives such a since of time and perspective. I am very sorry for this poor fucked up world. My escape is to go where geology is so prominent that acts of mankind seem like blips in the timeline.
On “Separated by a common language”
I agree with the framing given by Nous. Though it is really tempting--I do it all the time--to write off MAGAs as just bad people, in the long run we need to get as many out of the thrall of the Republican party as possible. The thrall is the thrill of victimhood, as conceived of by Goebbels. That thrill is what fuels the love of cruelty, the support for harm to others, the support for attacks on our elections, and the subversion of our institutions into tools for partisanship. As long as Republican voters wallow in the thrill of victimhood, they will support fascism. Trump will stroke out, but they and the party that exploits them will remain.
So give them a way back. "OO ick, weird people don't deserve your support" leaves the door open to join us not-weird people. They won't suddenly become progressives, but maybe they will stop voting for fascists.
On “Xi and China’s military: an off the wall theory”
Apparently some big officer guy in Germany is forcing all the men under him to view Melania. We need to do some purging here of wackos and nutcases.
On “Moral insanity”
Sir Rod Stewart released a video statement about Trump's diss of UK soldiers.
That Tacticus quote is right on the money-which is why the actions in Portland and Minneapolis are so important and inspiring. There's no giving in to cynicism there and a strong assertion of the moral values the dictator is trying to destroy.
"
That poem is exactly right. In terms of civic involvement, sociopathy is the norm with R base voters, combined with self-aggrandizement and self-pity. I wonder if there has always been a percentage of the population that is like this or is or were they created by Faux and the rest of the hate propaganda network? Or always there, but more apparent now, give the decades Republicans have spent encouraging this mindset?
On “An interesting map”
That really shows world domination clearly. And not coincidentally, many people are leaving those colonized parts of the world for because of the difficult living conditions.
I have been noticing incidents of cultural transfer possible because of the Internet. Have you seen/heard "Jerusalema?" It started with a South African musician using European musical instruments but his own language and music traditions who wrote a song about a Middle Eastern religion. He produced a video of people dancing in the style of his cultural background which because a global phenomenon of people doing watered down versions of the dance. The song is simple, addictive, and emotionally resonate, full of yearning. It is notable how much better the dancers are in the African videos!
Another example is Music for Change, tho they focus on songs that originate in the US, mostly.
If we are converging globally, I hope some of the better aspects of other cultures influence us rather than just us influencing them. I mean values, not just food and music.
On “Talarico”
LJ, I was not complaining about you or your posts! I appreciate you watching stuff so I don't have to! And I appreciate you making posts.
"
I think aging has affected my attention span. I CANNOT listen to videos. It seems like no one has the skill of getting concisely to the point. I can't tolerate rambling, circling the point without landing the plane, or a long buildup of "context" that I already know. A video presentation should be like a persuasive essay: the thesis should be stated clearly at the outset.
"
I like Talarico. He entered the race before Crockett, so no conspiracy against her by evil white liberals--despite the rumors on Bluesky. I think Talarico's reclaiming of Christianity is hugely beneficial. Also, he is clear spoken and makes the moral issues front and center--the morality of Dem policies and the immorality of so many Texas Republican actions and policies. He isn't defensive. He is attacking and moving the Overton Window.
I like Crockett, too, but I don't think she has the ability to change the terms of the conversation the way Talarico can.
That change in the terms of the convo seems important since it is unlikely that either will win a Senate seat. The goal needs to be to change TX politics over the long term by changing hearts and minds and that means reframing perceptions.
Of course I don't live there, so I won't be voting and likely don't have sufficient local knowledge to support my opinions.
On “An open thread”
GtNC is scaring the crap out of me.
A million years ago when I was, oh, about twenty I can remember being very afraid of the year 2000. I thought by then 1984 would be true plus global warming. I thought that the death would come of everything I love: nature, animals, free thought...and I thought the killer would be the substitution of international corporations for national governments. Oceania, etc. with the real decisions made in board rooms.
I was also scared to death of getting old.
I comforted myself with the thought that I would die just about the time everything I care about dies. I think I am right about that, though off by about 25 years.
Well, I'm certainly starting the new year off on a happy note! Sorry about that. I guess I need to buy some hydrangeas.
"
To me, shocking as the murder, it is even more shocking that people in Minneapolis can't go about their routine lives anymore without running into harassment by shit tons of ICE border patrol prosecutors and, apparently, armed militias who have empowered themselves to join it. And this is being covered with headlines about "surges" in response to "protests breaking out" language that assumes the invasion by Trump forces is legit while supposedly there is something scary about the protests.
I desperately hope the people of Minn can stay nonviolent. When the George Floyd protests degenerated into riots, that movement died and all that was accomplished was help for the Republicans in the midterms.
On “2026, as f**ked up as 2025”
It's becoming clear through statements by Rubio and Miller, that the goal is hemispheric dominance by the US for the sake of dominance. Of course, there's no commitment to freedom or elected government--they oppose that here and they sure don't support it elsewhere. Trump, in rare bursts of honesty, has stated his motive: he sees money for himself. He has been planning for a while now to broker a deal with oil companies to give them access to Venezuela's oil and he will want a percentage for himself beyond the money already paid to his election campaign.
"
I was generally optimistic about the near future (within the framework of being a doomfreak) until this week. I thought the tide was tipping against King Pussygrabber and that, as his support eroded, the Rs in Congress would start showing some spine and Dems would win lots of elections.
Instead it's Iraq all over again except this time with an executive who is literally insane. Rubio is similar to the people around Bush in that he believes in a kind of domino theory (US takes one nation and the others fall into line, maybe with some more pushing we win!) that completely ignores the spirit of nationalism in other nations and their desire to not be de facto colonies. The war(s) will be marketed to the rubes in the US by wrapping it up in a flag and demanding that all good true real Americans all salute.
Bush's Great Adventure ended in tears, of course, and now even Republican voters will say that Bush fucked up. The initial flush of jingoistic excitement ran aground on the short American attention span and some American deaths (Who cares about all the civilians who died or the million refugees or the destabilization of Syria? Down the Memory Hole.)
So I think the War for Greater Trumpistan will also run around on the limited attention span of the voters and the unwillingness to invest more than a couple thousand American lives. I think that even MAGAs would object to trading American lives for oil--if they know that's what's happening.
The past being the best predictor of the future, moral principles, rule of law, the exposure of lies, and foreign civilian deaths will not influence public opinion here beyond those who are already appalled, so the Republican party won't be held responsible for this any more than they were for Watergate, Iran/countra, Iraq, Trump's attack on Congress, or Trump and all of his crimes, or anything else they do. They represent the worst in human nature and, sadly, there's always going to be enough of that around for a viable party.
"
I saw this in a comment on Blue Sky: Wag the Dog meets Grand Theft Oil.
On “Moving towards Epiphany”
Than you, Russell. That was lovely. You all might find this comforting: Turning Toward the Morning
"If I had one thing to give you, I would tell you one more time that the world is always turning toward the morning."
"
I don't watch TV news so I don't know how far the regression has gone, but CBS, aka Pravda West, has had the opposite of an epiphany.
The msm let themselves get used by Republicans to promote slanders, lies, fake investigations, all kinds of bullshit until part way through Trump's first term when they finally figures out that they needed to be more than a megaphone. An epiphany! They needed to actually do their jobs.
But CBS seems to have regressed: DHS conducting massive investigation after viral video alleges fraud at Minnesota day care centers | Watch
CBS is collaborating by spreading Republican lies. The coverage consists of extensive repetitions of Republican false allegations, followed by a brief partial rebuttal, followed by horse race coverage of how the false allegations might affect Walz. At no point to they explain that the Biden admin already did a massive investigation and achieved around 50 indictments. A viewer would come away with the impression that Minn had done nothing about the fraud, that DHS deserved all the credit and that opps! a Republican blogger was mistaken about the Somali day care centers. Not one word said about the devastating flood of hate now directed at those centers.
And, of course, not one word about the organized hate campaign now underway by Republicans against all Somalis.
Fuck you, CBS.
"
"through an Overton lens, Trump’s increasingly-insane inanity will make any Bush-style Republican very attractive in 2028. a white man who isn’t a psychotic narcissist will be soberly declared, by once-again-endorsement-friendly editorials everywhere, to be the kind of stable genius we all need. the press will wet themselves in bliss at the idea of the GOP returning to a normal balance."
This is my fear. And I don't think the Republicans under that hypothetical person will be different in substance than they are not. In degree, yes. Substance, no. And the substance will be gerrymandering, election rigging, tax cuts for the rich and screw everyone else, pro-corporate power and anti-public interest legislation, and more Federalist SOciety ideologues in judgeships as they go full steam ahead on the plant to turn the US into a one-party oligarchy and only looks like a representative democracy.
On “An inscrutable Merry Christmas”
Merry winter solstice to everyone. I hope you all are safe and warm.
On “Weekend Music Thread music thread #09 In Russia, Christmas music sings you!”
I like these: Heather Dale: Huron Carol, in 4 languages (Huron, French, English, American Sign Language)
This is a Mongolian band. It's very rich and interesting: GG 16x9 Multipants v25 0 c linh phuonglelinh hoanh
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.