Category Archives: Uncategorized

Gary Larson may be off to a rocky start, but his resumption of The Far Side is now begun. Hopefully, he’ll master his new pen soon enough.

Or all of his late fans will rise from the grave and

… was never this sweet.

The documentary Fabergé: A Life Of Its Own (2014) has three phases: the historical phase, detailing the chronology and personalities among both creators and its consumers; its pop culture phase, characterized by the scavenging of the famous name by popular culture in order to engage in the capitalistic practice of monetization; and the collectors phase, which explores the brand’s resurrection within the connoisseur set. Each has a lesson to teach.

An Imperial gift, with a visage to remind you just who’s in charge.

The historical section, which I found the most interesting, covers the early history of Fabergé, as well as its peak period: objects produced, methods of the workshops, and surrounding society. From his humble beginnings to his death as a Russian Revolution refugee in Lausanne, Switzerland, Carl Fabergé takes a remarkably quiet center stage. He appears to have been an alert businessman, yet perhaps unaffected by the lure of wealth. His most famous patrons, of course, symbolized the importance of deft diplomacy, even in a merchant: the Imperial Russian family. Being alert to the preferences and currents of the high Russian family may have meant it was critical that he produce great and unique art rather than mass production and maximization of profit; after all, the peasants could not hope to afford even his cheapest product. There is no denying that he had wealth, but the documentary chooses not to emphasize it; whether that’s a choice reflecting reality or the movie makers’ preferences is not clear.

He may have been simply dedicated to his end product. In the end, though, most of his artisans, drafted into the army, died at the front, whether from combat or disease, and that was the beginning of the end for Fabergé, an end which was given an exclamation mark by the end of the Romanov dynasty.

The second phase, perhaps purposefully, showcases the use of the Fabergé name to promote many modern products. It’s crass, it’s vulgar, and while interesting in showing how the pursuit of wealth results in quite ridiculous uses of the old brand, in the end it’s repugnant. It’s a lesson in 1960s-1970s American bad taste.

A late period egg by a rare female artisan.

The final phase gives us more views of the artifacts of Fabergé as the initiation of the period of collecting them is covered. A number of collectors are interviewed, although it seems a bit flat. However, at least for me, that all faded away in one interview. The context I brought to the moment was this: I was musing on the disaster that befell the Russian Imperial family at the hands of the Soviet usurpers, and wondered if the situation that led to their terminal predicament was the fault of a family convinced that it had the blessing of Heaven on it to rule Russia, or if the situation was simply intractable and their doom sealed no matter what they might have done, other than flee. As I thought about that, I was struck by a collector’s awestruck remark that the object he held in his hand was absolutely perfect.

The death of Imperial Russia dreams.

In my mind flashed scenes of peasants dying of famine, Russian soldiers slaughtered at the front as their weapons didn’t work, the mutiny of the military, bloody revolution, the revolution being co-opted by opportunists, all the elements of dystopia.

For a surrealistic moment, I wondered if that exquisite piece had, in its very fashioning, drained all around it of right and goodness, leaving little but dross in its wake. To understand that these artifacts, as well thought out and made as they were, were created in the dusk of a once-mighty empire makes for an admiration that is bittersweet.

If you enjoy the beauty and intricacies of Fabergé work, the artifacts and the history are fascinating. But, as one of the experts remarks, nearly all of them are about the past, not the future. In a sense, those made for the Imperial family were, like much artwork throughout history, about justifying the positions the owners, as well as those celebrated in that art, held in society. In the case of the Russian Imperial family, they inadvertently become markers on the path of doom and disaster.

National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesman Jesse Hunt:

Republican senators have incredible records of accomplishment on behalf of their constituents and it’s important they tell that story. Those accomplishments stand in stark contrast to the disturbing pattern of scandal and extremism that’s engulfed Democrat campaigns. [WaPo, edited]

Given that Republican senators have lamented how this Congress’ Senate, under the leadership of Senator McConnell (R-KY), has done virtually nothing beyond confirm conservative judges, their “incredible” accomplishments will be confined to those four years prior to to 2018. The 2016-2018 period of accomplishments consisted of a failed effort to replace the ACA with an inferior bill in which most Senators did not participate in writing that bill, and the ineffective 2017 tax reform bill, which gifted higher profits to corporations, while doing diddly-squat for everyone who was not an investor.

The two years before that was the end of the Obama Administration, in which McConnell, once again, permitted very little to happen.

I fear these campaigns by GOP incumbents will be a great tax on their storytelling capabilities. Much of it will be justifying their votes on the Kavanaugh nomination and, even more painfully, the Trump impeachment trial.

And Hunt will be desperate to justify a remark which appears to be ridiculous, if only to their family.

Benjamin Radford of the Center For Inquiry (CFI) addresses recent rumors concerning Covid-19 Parties:

So what about the widely-reported recent covid parties in Kentucky, Washington, and Alabama?

Well, evidence of the coronavirus parties that Kentucky governor Andy Beshear mentioned never materialized, and Beshear never provided any follow up information or details on what, exactly, he was referring to.

The reports from Washington state turned out to be a mistake. As The New York Times reported, “officials retracted those comments and said the so-called Covid-19 parties may have been more innocent gatherings. Meghan DeBolt, the director of community health for Walla Walla County, said county officials were learning more about the cases that have emerged from the recent social gatherings. She said they were still hearing reports of parties where infected people were present but do not have evidence that the people who became ill after the gatherings had attended out of a desire to be exposed.” In other words, young people were recklessly gathering at parties—something happening all across the country and having nothing to do with covid parties. …

The reports have all the typical ingredients of unfounded moral panic rumors: anonymous sources sharing stories and warnings online, soon legitimized by local officials (teachers, police, school districts, governors, etc.) who publicize the information out of an abundance of caution. Journalists eagerly run with a sensational story, and there’s little if any sober or skeptical follow-up.

It’s important to note that Radford doesn’t deny they may occur, but rather, to use his words: Is it a Thing? If it follows the usual pattern, this is more about the people in power, whether political or moral, thinking perhaps a little less of their people than they should. It happens.

The folks at CFI, now publisher of Skeptical Inquirer, are more than just buzz-kills for UFO groupies and Sasquatch lovers. They actually publish studies and articles on the sociology behind many of these phenomena in an effort to understand why people sometimes believe the silliest things. Bradford’s article a good take on moral panics and Covid-19.

And I always enjoy each issue of Skeptical Inquirer.

The Trump critics seem to have stretched their critiques a little thin when it comes to the Russian bounty scandal, and it’s been bugging me since yesterday. Here’s Steve Benen:

There are a few relevant angles to this. Right off the bat, it’s worth emphasizing by Donald Trump’s reasoning, there are no leakers to uncover because, as the president put it last week, the entire story was “made up” by journalists as part of an elaborate conspiracy to “damage” his re-election campaign and his party. The “secret source” behind the reporting, Trump added, “probably does not even exist, just like the story itself.” The president concluded that the entire matter is “just another hoax.”

If Trump were right, then why would the White House seek out a leaker who doesn’t exist? How could officials “narrow down the universe of suspects to fewer than 10 people” if the underlying claim was manufactured by nefarious reporters? It would seem the investigation itself debunks the president’s claims.

I don’t agree. What if the story was made up, not by the newspapers, but by someone in the Trump Administration? That hypothesis would certainly justify an investigation.

And while it might seem vengeful, the Obama Administration was also known for going after leakers. No Administration likes them, so this is no surprise.

And while Benen says, “Soon after, most of the nation’s leading news agencies confirmed the story …“, I would prefer corroborating information on a story like this by something stronger: a senior intelligence official speaking in public, perhaps. Or an ambassador admitting to it after a fair bit of prodding … or have we used that plot device too many times already?

All that said, I’m not twisting myself into a pretzel to be fair to a President who hardly deserves it. No, being scrupulously honest when evaluating situations is a way to keep yourself from being trapped by gambit by an adversary. Just as taking that apparently wayward knight will cost you your queen two moves later in chess, this apparent leak could be a trap waiting for credulous reporters to stumble into, making the press vulnerable to charges of bias and thus discrediting them.

Sure, maybe I don’t know enough about this particular scandal – but, from here, I’d like to see a bit more evidence that there’s really a bounty before I’d get too het up about how the Administration is dealing with it.

It’s a gorgeous color combo.

The race for the open Senate seat in Kansas is becoming more and more interesting, and primaries are still to come on August 4. But this development seems a little baffling as to what it may portend:

Kansas Democrat Barbara Bollier raised more in a three-month period than any candidate in Kansas history for federal, state or local office, her campaign announced Wednesday.

Bollier’s U.S. Senate campaign took $3.7 million in contributions from April through June, a quarterly record in the state. The Mission Hills doctor and state senator hopes to be the first Democrat to win a U.S. Senate race in the GOP-leaning state since 1932. Her campaign said it has more than $4 million cash on hand. [Kansas City Star]

But it doesn’t say if those contributions are from state residents, or out of state contributions, nor the median size of these contributions.

Even more interesting is that Bollier is a former Republican who switched parties while a member of the State legislature. How that will play with a conservative State that has suffered through some of the Republican fantasies regarding taxation and had to be rescued by a coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans should be quite interesting. There are several scenarios waiting on the primaries:

1. Candidate Kris Kobach, a far right wing candidate who had previously held the Kansas Secretary of State position, but subsequently lost a run for Governor to a Democrat, loses to his primary competition, most likely current Rep Roger Marshall (R-KA). In this case, Marshall becomes a proxy for President Trump, as he has a TrumpScore in excess of 98% – and while this might be excusable in this Congress, in the previous, GOP-controlled House he had an equally high score. This makes it simple for the Democrats to cast Marshall as Trump and hence a referendum on Trump policies and behaviors.
2. Candidate Kobach wins the primary. He’s an interesting character: PhD in political science from Oxford, Yale Law Degree, and campaigned for governor with a machine gun. He’s no slouch, one might even suspect that he’s an exception to the general notion that Republican elected officials are second-raters, but he’s also a big target and representative of an ideology for which Kansans may not have much fondness.
3. But Bollier has her own primary competition, and while her war chest may make her the favorite, there are no guarantees. What if she loses? Her competition is Robert Tillman, who has little experience in winning campaigns. If he wins the primary, that may guarantee the GOP this seat.
4. And if Bollier wins, as a former Republican she may be seen as an apostate – or as a stomachable alternative to either Kobach or Marshall.

In the end, the Kansas Senate race may be the closest thing to a true referendum on Republican politics in 2020. The two most likely Republican candidates represent far right conservatives, and if Bollier survives the primary and then wins the Senate, this may be a decisive step in the repudiation of the current Republican Party.

On the other hand, a victory by the GOP isn’t necessarily a victory for the ideology, especially if it’s a razor thin victory. A big victory, sure, the GOP rides high in Kansas – but I’m not expecting that. I expect Bollier to make this a close race regardless of the identify of her opponent.

But using money as the metric seems dubious.

Following up on this rhetoric-heavy post concerning lack of follow through in this Administration, the World Health Organization (WHO) is finally in receipt of a letter announcing the American intent to withdraw in a year from the organization:

The United States officially notified the United Nations on Tuesday of its withdrawal from the World Health Organization, a White House official said.

The notice, which comes as the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread around the globe, was submitted to the U.N. secretary-general and to Congress. The withdrawal is expected to take effect July 6, 2021.

A spokesperson told NBC News that the WHO was aware of reports but declined to comment further. [NBC News]

I was wrong; sometimes this Administration does what it says it will do. Note the date when it becomes effective; any country withdrawing from the WHO requires a year of delay from date of notification.

I’ll omit passing judgment on this move, because the Republicans are doing it for me:

Lawmakers from both parties, including Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., swiftly criticized the move.

“I disagree with the president’s decision,” Alexander, chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said in a statement. “Certainly there needs to be a good, hard look at mistakes the World Health Organization might have made in connection with coronavirus, but the time to do that is after the crisis has been dealt with, not in the middle of it.

“Withdrawing U.S. membership could, among other things, interfere with clinical trials that are essential to the development of vaccines, which citizens of the United States as well as others in the world need,” he added. “And withdrawing could make it harder to work with other countries to stop viruses before they get to the United States.”

Hopefully, a vaccine or treatment for Covid-19 will have been developed before a year has passed. However, Senator Alexander may be referring to other hypothetical new pathogens.

If President Trump wins reelection in November, will the letter be withdrawn?

The result of Magical Thinking is when reality reaches up and slaps you, much to your surprise.

The result of Science is the same as Magical Thinking, without the surprise.

You may or may not have heard that SCOTUS ruled, 5-4 along ideological lines, that President Trump may fire the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) at his discretion, contrary to the legislation that created it.

As may any future President as well, as former CFPB head Richard Corday points out. And, further, that by only addressing that issue, SCOTUS may have implicitly signaled that the CFPB is not a zombie agency, soon to be removed by the judicial eraser, but still alive and waiting for an activist leader to be appointed once again.

But behind this issue is the deeper issue of just who should have the right to watch over the shoulder of such leaders, and remove them when they don’t perform well. It’s an important but complex and subtle question, and on Lawfare law professor and historian Jed Handelsman Shugerman thinks the conservative justices, in their textualist, originalist glory, are fudging the record. It’s a long article, but if this is an issue that interests you …

These events reveal mostly the complexities of collective decision-making—an example of how Congress is often a contradictory “they,” not an “it.” Refocusing attention from a deliberately muddled legislative debate to the actual statutes that the first Congress passed, it becomes clearer that—if there was any decision of constitutional significance from these debates—it was that Congress had broad powers to regulate, delegate and distribute removal powers.

It’s also an important topic, because who fires these people is determined on the legal consensus behind the unitary executive theory. For those who are not intimate with this theory:

The unitary executive theory is a theory of US constitutional law holding that the US president possesses the power to control the entire executive branch. The doctrine is rooted in Article Two of the United States Constitution, which vests “the executive power” of the United States in the President. Although that general principle is widely accepted, there is disagreement about the strength and scope of the doctrine. It can be said that some favor a “strongly unitary” executive, while others favor a “weakly unitary” executive. The former group argue, for example, that Congress‘s power to interfere with intra-executive decision-making (such as firing executive branch officials) is limited, and that the President can control policy-making by all executive agencies within the limits set for those agencies by Congress. Still others agree that the Constitution requires a unitary executive, but believe this to be harmful, and propose its abolition by constitutional amendment. [Wikipedia]

And, as we’ve seen, a corrupt Executive can wreak real damage when the theory of a strong unitary executive holds sway. I tend to not give it much credence myself, although for reasons that are virtually irrelevant to governmental theory, but instead going back to the days when I helped run a number of BBSes and a network connecting them by deliberately devolving as much authority and responsibility to my co-hobbyists as I possibly could. That experience, seeing as it was partly of a governmental form, was instructive as to the strength and competence of many vs the strength of just one.

It may be helpful to consider why the strong unitary executive theory is conducive to corruption. First, we need to realize that it means that, as with the CFPB director, the leaders serve at the pleasure of the President, once they are confirmed; that is, they have to keep the President happy. Now, that’s fine if the President is a fine, upstanding politician, as many have been. But when the leaders are faced with a President that is motivated by personal, rather than State-interests, and the leaders in question quite naturally would prefer to stay in their positions, then their performance can be impaired and even corrupted.

I find I far prefer a model in which, as now, the President nominates candidates, and the Senate confirms or rejects. But, post-confirmation, these folks, from Cabinet level on down, may operate as they wish, so long as they are in conformance with their duties and those are performed to the best of their ability, and no corruption occurs, (which may be redundant with performing their duties).

If the President wishes to remove a confirmed candidate from their position, then they must submit a request to do so to the Senate. In an emergency, they can submit a request for an immediate trial and decision, but then the President must come to the trial and present the evidence. Whether a super-majority of the Senate is required is an important detail.

In either case, the person to be removed may present contrary evidence, as can the investigative arm of the Senate. There should be a process for Congress to remove a poorly performing or corrupt person as well.

It seems far more sensible than this flawed unitary executive theory. Oh, and for those who wonder about the Department of Defense, the President is explicitly named as the Commander-in-Chief of the military by the Constitution, so we shouldn’t need to worry about an out of control military.

One more little tidbit from Shugerman:

Here comes the incorrect part of this story. According to the unitary executive theorists, this last bloc prevailed in the House, with Madison crafting language designed to imply that the power originated from the Constitution. Then the Senate split 10-10 on the subject, and Vice President John Adams broke the tie in favor of presidential power. And thus the first Congress confirmed, fixed, constructed or “liquidated”—as various judges, scholars and officials have put it over the years—a unitary executive as a matter of constitutional law. Like Roberts, many lawyers and judges rely heavily on this story to explain why the Constitution shields presidents from congressional limitations on their power.

There’s just one little problem with this founding myth of the unitary executive: The story is wrong. In fact, this story never made sense. But the unitary interpretation really unravels with newly identified evidence from the Senate. The Senate was closed and did not officially record debates. But a senator’s diary recorded a far messier reality: The first Congress actually retreated from the argument that the Constitution vests sole removal power in the president, even for the Department of Foreign Affairs (the equivalent of today’s Department of State) and Department of War (the equivalent of the Department of Defense), which would have been the strongest domains for presidential power. It settled on deliberately vague language instead, because doing so was necessary to get sufficient votes to establish the first executive departments.

Which is fascinating. Sometimes obscure political machinations will echo down the centuries until they impact us, hard, right between the eyes.

Heather Cox Richardson’s overnight summary of the Trump Administration’s apparent management goal of Covid-19 has been stuck in my brain:

Looming over Trump’s portrayal of his version of America, though, was the coronavirus. While other advanced countries have gotten the virus under control and are cautiously beginning to reopen, we are moving the opposite direction. As of today, we have almost 3 million confirmed cases and more than 130,000 deaths. In a number of states, especially in the South, cases are hitting new highs. Europe has banned American visitors, and Mexico and Canada have both closed their border with the U.S. Rather than trying to stop the crisis, the White House is launching new messaging about the coronavirus: “Learn to live with it.”

Trump is doubling down on the idea that the United States must simply reopen, and take the resulting deaths as a cost of doing business. Three people who have been privy to administration thinking about the issue told reporters for the Washington Post that officials are hoping “Americans will go numb to the escalating death toll and learn to accept tens of thousands of new cases a day.” Advisors have urged Trump to try to avoid responsibility for the administration’s disastrous response to the pandemic by simply blaming China for it. Their goal is to try to repair the economy before the election, recognizing that economic recovery is the only way to make up the gap between Trump’s poll numbers and those of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

I finally found a suitable analogy: a mechanic on a Formula 1 race car, upon discovering his car’s engine has a broken piston, insists he can carve a new one out of wood and it’ll be better than ever.

And if that doesn’t work, well, the remaining pistons will cover it fine and, ya know, last place isn’t that bad if we don’t acknowledge there was anyone else in the race and … add your favorite strident self-delusion here.

Look. All it takes is comparisons, honestly done, to show how poorly this Administration has performed. That’s it. We can always talk about how much we hate our grandparents, our friends with health conditions, and all the folks who have heart attacks and can’t be treated at the local ICU because the Covid-19 patients are using all the beds, all with great sarcasm.

But we may, tragically, end up having all this magical thinking terminated by the great head slap of reality. Hospitals overflowing with patients, friends and family dying when they could have been saved.

If the GOP falls in line behind this rationale, they will have truly become the Party of Death. Historians will point out that this never had to happen.

Kevin Drum ruminates:

As near as I can tell, the most common reaction from most high-profile, movement conservatives to the toppling of Confederate statues is . . . sarcasm. Hey, how about toppling statues of Margaret Sanger? Burn! Why aren’t we toppling statues of Marx and Engels? Burn! How about the Hollywood Walk of Fame? Burn! And your hero Lincoln was just a big ol’ racist too. Why aren’t we toppling statues of him? Burn!

Is there something in the water that prevents so many conservatives with big media platforms from taking this seriously? There is, obviously, a perfectly good case for tearing down Confederate statues but leaving nearly everything else alone. I should know, since it’s pretty much my position. After all, it’s one thing to have been racist in the past, when explicit racism was all but universal, and quite another to literally fight a war of secession in defense of Black slavery.

1. The current conservative movement tends to operate as a team.
2. Partially due to the movement’s religious element, they are arrogantly sure they are right.
3. They hate change, as it implies they were wrong about something, even that they’ve sinned.
4. Their leader, President Trump, is vociferously supporting that revulsion at change. His motivations may not be congruent with the movement’s general motivations – he may be, in fact, a racist and a neo-Confederate – but he’s not talkin’.
5. The “left” wants the statues down, and the right’s current operating mode is to oppose whatever they want, on no particularly noteworthy principle. It’s the same reason the ACA is continually under attack, even now when it’s been most useful.
6. Finally, the big media conservatives cannot be seen as breaking ranks – or they’ll lose their jobs. Remember, Rush Limbaugh has publicly stated he’ll say anything for money. No doubt, the rest feel the same. The smaller fry are not always in line – I’ve seen Erick Erickson rebuking some of the Covid-19 skepticism memes, for instance. But the big boys, oh, money is their God and they adore it, so they’ll say The Right Thing in order to keep their cred up with the “conservatives”.

I don’t know Drum, but I suspect he’s the sort who’s more interested in truth than kant, who’d rather find the proper solution than back the ideological solution. He claims to be center left, and I’d believe it.

In a sense, if you’re going to pay attention to pundits, stay away from those doing it for big bucks, because that’ll twist their “truths”. For example, the very few times I’ve had the stomach for Mark Thiessen or a couple of other pundits of his ilk, both at WaPo and National Review, it’s very hard to reconcile their facts and arguments with a search for truth. It’s just a defense of their ideology. Obviously, there’s a tension because it takes time to have valuable opinions and more time to write them up in a comprehensible manner, so a modicum of pay is both reasonable and necessary. But pleasing the audience’s preconceptions is a corruptive influence, and so is buying into the emotional belief that the opposition is the enemy.

This is appalling:

A brother and sister working at a different plant both got sick in early April. The brother wound up on a ventilator, spending six weeks in the hospital, nearly all of it unpaid, his sibling said. He was still in a medically induced coma when the chicken plant began urging her to come back.

Though he survived, they recently received documents from the hospital in English, which they don’t speak. The only thing they understood was the number at the bottom for the cost of his hospital stay: $61,000. [WaPo]

It seems to me that if you’re deemed essential to the well-being of the nation, and are asked to put your life on the line, your medical bills connected to the risk become the responsibility of the Federal Government. Just like military personnel.

The “party of morality,” aka the Republican Party, should know this, they shouldn’t have to be told it. Why isn’t Majority Leader Senator McConnell (R-KY) not up at a lectern, pounding on it while demanding the Democrats in the House deliver legislation to cover the costs of these workers?

Quite lovely, but perhaps a little common.

In Slate, Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Kende point at the next legal reformation that we should soon see popping up as a wart on America’s hide – it’s called Washington v. Davis:

In Washington v. Davis, decided in 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that laws or government policies that disproportionately harm Black people do not violate the Constitution’s equal protection clause. The case was brought by aspiring Black police officers challenging the statistical disparity in test scores between Black and white test takers as a reflection that the D.C. police department’s hiring policy was unconstitutional. The test, known as Test 21, was chock full of white cultural and idiomatic references that may well have contributed to the fact that from 1968 to 1971, 57 percent of Black applicants failed the test as compared with 13 percent of whites.

In a 7–2 decision penned by Justice Byron White, the Supreme Court decided that courts can only find that a law or governmental action violates the equal protection clause when a plaintiff can show that a state actor intended to discriminate, and that this intention, in turn, caused a discriminatory result. But discriminatory intent is virtually impossible to prove. Who openly admits they are racist? This nearly insurmountable bar means that laws that treat Black people worse than white people (for example, laws requiring exponentially harsher sentences for crack possession than for cocaine use) remain tolerated throughout society.

It’s not exactly mind-reading, since intent is often written down, but when it’s racism it’s often concealed, and paper trails are either never permitted to exist, or erased when possible, as Lithwick and Kende point out.

As Osagie K. Obasogie noted in the New York Times, the result of this decision was the perpetuation of systemic racial discrimination and the ascendance of “what is now known as the ‘intent doctrine,’ which emerged in later cases as a simplistic search for a smoking gun—individual bad actors intentionally doing bad things with nothing but racial animus on their minds.”

Which is little more than denial of a systemic problem. But as was shown, contingent on confirmation, in this study, systemic racism is not necessarily even a conscious act; it may be the result of something as innocent as incomplete knowledge of a chronic situation.

Statistical analysis is necessarily a fuzzy understanding of a situation, and thus it takes specialist skills to decide if situations such as that motivating Washington v. Davis are coincidental or, as the authors suggest, causative. I think Washington v. Davis needs to be replaced by some sort of law that says if a respectable statistical analysis suggests structural racism is occurring, then call in a specialist (I believe legal jargon calls them special masters) to examine the matter. Not to assign blame or punishment, but to point out the causes of the structural racism and to supervise their correction.

Two more NBA teams are now offering their arenas for voting use, as have the Atlanta Hawks:

The three teams that have so far offered their spaces — the Atlanta Hawks, the Detroit Pistons and the Milwaukee Bucks — are located in presidential battleground states. More than a third of the league’s teams are in states that could help determine the presidential contest this fall. [NPR]

And now we see the source of pressure under which the NBA may be laboring:

And the offers come as many of the NBA’s mostly African-American players have upped their involvement in social causes following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody. Last month, for instance, superstar LeBron James announced a new organization aimed at protecting Black citizens’ voting rights.

The group, More Than A Vote, has praised the NBA franchises volunteering their spaces, while also egging on others with a hoops-like challenge: “Who’s got next?”

There’s no doubt at all that the NBA exists on the backs of its superstars, From Mikan to Kareem to Jordan and James. Fans come to see them perform – and for the underdog roles of the lesser known players who play against them. It’s a fabulous story.

So the implicit threat in the More Than A Vote organization of the superstars choosing to sit out a season – or three – exerts a great deal of pressure on the money hungry NBA, which has to pay superstar salaries.

But I think the NBA teams are more likely very tired of the GOP, which is mostly responsible for the management, if not genesis, of the two events which are costing the NBA its business – the pandemic and the systemic racism-unrest.

So even if it’s not true that there have been deliberate efforts to suppress voting by communities thought to be inclined to vote Democratic, these offers, and those that follow, are symbolic of an industry that is entirely fed up with a Party that has become increasingly isolated from mainstream America, built an epistemic bubble in order to limit apostasy and keep the faithful, well, faithful, and continues to try to reassure itself that it represents normal America by labeling everyone else ‘Marxists’ and ‘terrorists.’

All the while, their ‘normal America’ was the one that repressed the black community and put absolute rights above public health and safety. So long as the Democrats continue to push this message, they should have a good chance of success in November.

From NewScientist (13 June 2020):

The oldest and largest known monument built by the Mayan civilisation has been found in Mexico. Called Aguada Fénix, it is a huge raised platform 1.4 kilometres long.

Aguada Fénix was built around 1000 BC, centuries before the Maya began constructing their famous stepped pyramids. Its design suggests that early Mayan societies were fairly egalitarian and didn’t have a powerful ruling class.

There’s a lovely accompanying remote sensing picture of the area, but I was curious what it looks like au naturel, so I dug a picture up:

Source: Pagina66

It makes me wonder what’s under my feet. I’ve found several toys from previous owners of this property, but somehow they don’t have the magic of a Mayan ruin. But this picture explains why we keep finding ancient civilization artifacts, even huge ones – they’re very well hidden.

The other day I happened to look at the running kitchen sink tap when sun was coming in the window, and I could see a fine mist that I decided to try to photograph. Did I get the spray?

Well, yes. But that didn’t turn out to be the star of the show:

They’re like bubbly icicles.

For World War II buffs, the D-Day invasion of Normandy, followed by the battle for Europe and the final suffocation of Nazi Germany is a signal and gallant part of the war. It’s depressing, therefore, to read this:

Bomb-cratered landscapes can also tell the heartrending tale of the civilian cost of Allied air operations over Normandy. In the daily operational records of air squadrons, it is rare to find any acknowledgment that attacks on targets in towns, villages, and the surrounding countryside may have incurred civilian casualties, Passmore says. But it is becoming clear as research continues that as many as 60,000 to 70,000 French civilians died as a result of air attacks in support of the Normandy campaign and later operations across France. “This narrative warrants more attention,” says Passmore, “and archaeology can make a significant contribution by carefully documenting the survival of landscapes that testify to the extent, range, and intensity of the attacks that brought civilians in harm’s way tens, or even hundreds, of miles behind the front.” [“Letter from Normandy,” Archaeology (July/August 2020), page 5]

70,000 civilians dead as two ideologies struggled for supremacy, or even three, if we count the Soviets – although they were busy recovering Soviet territory and, if I remember my history properly, retaking Poland.

I’ve remarked that the roots of the Nazi Party were nourished by the soil of the Treaty of Versailles, a punitive treaty the French employed to exact their end; it’s my belief that without that treaty, the Weimar Republic, which succeeded the discredited German monarchy would have had a far better chance of success, and Hitler would have been dismissed as an impotent goof.

But it did exist, it discredited democracy in Germany, along with conventional morality, and in the end the Allies had to fight their way through every hedge in order to extirpate the Nazi Party – and, even then, Nazi ideology is still employed by some dead-enders.

This is what happens when ideology is clung to beyond reason and sanity, and it discourages me now. All of this is known, but sometimes it’s worth reiterating such points when we’re observing such obstinacy as with the Republican Party.

… this is what it looks like:

“The Republican Party under Donald Trump has become a party wandering aimlessly in the street talking to itself and responding to itself, and all the rest of us have become the pedestrians trying to avoid that guy.” – Patrick Gaspard

In other words, the epistemic bubble that so many pundits identified and worried about so many years before I started writing a blog (but I’ve been reading blogs since 2000 or earlier, when the BBSes dried up) are now getting to see the endpoint of those worries – a sclerotic Party in which the members are terrified of grabbing the wheel and not grabbing the wheel. (For those with a historical bent, here’s a reference to concerns about epistemic closure, an equivalent term, from 2007.)

I am so glad I’m not a Republican, because the Party sounds like just another chamber in the insane asylum in Hell. A President who can only divide, not lead; he may be, medically speaking, demented; madcap messages and actions such as The Confederacy deserves to be honored! (oh, maybe that very first one back in the late 1700s), foolish religious tenets (the Laffer Curve); demands for 100% support of the leader; zombie elected officials who cannot envision being rid of their leader; & etc.

This is toxic team politics at its worst, folks. Study, distill, and put the results in a textbook about how not to run an American political party.

Shambolic:

confused and badly organized:

• Things are often a bit shambolic at the beginning of the school year.
• Anna is far too shambolic to be able to run a business. [Cambridge Dictionary]

Noted in “Obama at Biden fundraiser: ‘Whatever you’ve done so far is not enough’,” Tal Axelrod, The Hill:

“The good news, what makes me optimistic, is the fact that there is a great awakening going on around the country, particularly among younger people, who are saying not only are they fed up with the shambolic, disorganized, mean-spirited approach to governance that we’ve seen over the last couple of years but, more than that, are eager to take on some of the core challenges that have been facing this country for centuries,” he said.

I never knew what it meant.

In response to my latest update on climate change, a reader remarks:

I hate to be a downer, but civilization will be toast by the end of this century — and it’ll be an ugly trip to that destination.

Maybe. But humanity sometimes finds a way to wriggle its way out of dubious situations. I think the Covid-19 pandemic, along with the chronic incompetency of Trump, has slapped a whole lot of people in the face about the realities of wishful thinking.

In fact, yesterday I was wondering what I would do if I was confronted with a pack of MAGA-hat wearing oldsters, as we happen to have a retirement community just across the street, and another one a-building down the road. In my fevered imagination, it’d go something like this, keeping in mind my hair went prematurely white years ago:

ME: Hey, folks.

CRANKY OLD GUY (COG): Hey, are you with us? (Shakes his cane at ME.)

ME: What are you?

(All together): Trump supporters!

(COG): See our hats? (Waves hat, exposing a pale pate.)

ME: I certainly am not.

(Discontented yelling and muttering. More cane swinging.)

COG: Why not? Are you a fucking Democrat?

ME: (smile) I’m an independent!

COG: Yeah? Hit by cars going both ways, then – hah!

ME: Not in the least, I’m far too fast on my feet. No, friends, it just means I get to think for myself.

(More muttering)

ME: Look, everyone settle down and I’ll tell you a story.

COG: Why?

ME: Because … I feel like it. OK, everyone settled? (COG mumbles but shuts up.) Back in the 1930s – anyone here grow up then? No? – the United States was mostly isolationist. Folks believed getting involved in the events in Europe that were leading to World War II was wrong; they were not our affair. So we didn’t officially get involved in the Spanish Civil War, and when Hitler’s Germany became more and more menacing, again Americans didn’t wish to become involved.

COG: We did nothing?

ME: Not precisely. President Roosevelt was not an Isolationist, and in fact arranged the Lend-Lease Program, wherein we sent obsolete naval vessels to the British, virtually for free.

But the shared view of Americans definitely tied his hands and restrained him from preparing properly for the storm clouds on the horizon.

And then came December 7, 1941. The day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor – remember? The day before, we were a nation of determined isolationist sentiment. The day after, we were in shock. And the day after that, America had discarded its shared delusion and began preparing for war, whether it was joining the service, beginning rationing, or transitioning businesses to a war-time footing.

COG: So what?

ME: Friends, I see a definite similarity between December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attack was the great slap of reality to our face, and the two defining incidents of today.

COG: Yeah? I don’t think so.

ME: Sure. Here are the great face slaps that reality has administered to us recently. First, the Covid-19 pandemic, our vastly incompetent response, the lives we’ve lost – surely you all have lost friends to it – and how badly we compare to many other countries has, has exposed our leadership – President Trump – as a monumental fraud.

COG: (Enraged) Bah!

ME: You can scoff if you wish, but then there’s the second incident. President Trump has campaigned on promises of No Change, Everything Will Be OK and You’re Fine How You Are! Isn’t that what attracts you? He told coal miners that their jobs would return, factory workers that factories would reopen, investors that the economy would come roaring back, that he’d rebuild the military, and all would be just as fabulous as it was before?

COG: So?

ME: And then came the George Floyd incident, and the black community said, once again, It’s Never Been Great, It’s Never Been OK, It’s Not Even Tolerable. They reminded us of slavery, the Tulsa White Supremacy riot which killed so many, the Tuskegee Experiment, the Democratic Convention riots, sharecroppers, segregation, separate but equal, police harassment of the black community, lynchings, and systemic racism.

COG: S-s-so?

ME: And they forced it upon our attention: maybe it was great for you folks, but not for them. Floyd was, from all appearances, deliberately murdered by a policeman, as have been a number of other blacks over the years. That’s the other great slap of reality that should eliminate the magical thinking that has infected American thinking for the last thirty years.

COG: Fuck you! (Turns and wave his cane at the crowd.) Come on! Fuck you!

(The crowd is angry but uneasy)

ME: I don’t expect anyone here to change their minds. Not right now. All I want to think is that you’ll go home and think about your support of a man who continually claims that all we have to do is go back to how things were. When racists could lynch blacks, for example. And how you can approve that.

COG: Fuck you! (Turns to leave, beckoning the crowd!) Fucking liberal! Come on, folks.

(As the crowd leaves, several are holding their red hats in their hands, and as they file away, one sails through the air and lands in a garbage can.)

I do have lurid fantasies.