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... you can talk all afternoon... but, once again, let's not use the café post to talk about Trump and the Trump resistance. As I did yesterday, I've given you 7 posts before lunch on Trump topics, so scroll down if you want to talk about that.
There's so much else in the world. Like all this ice. Have you fallen on the ice this winter? Have you slipped or tripped over anything recently? Did you put ice on it? Are your dreams becoming more detailed and interesting? Is your car holding up all right? Is the battery pesky? Could you — if your life depended on it — explain exactly how an internal combustion engine works? What is your favorite kind of hat? How good would a robot dog need to be before you'd pay $10,000 for one? What's your favorite lake?
Is it some notion that government officials deserve a higher level of personal security or an idea that the building that houses government is sacred?
Media were rightfully shocked when the People's House was vandalized. They should also be shocked when people's private homes and businesses are damaged in "peaceful protests."
— Gov. Bobby Jindal (@BobbyJindal) January 8, 2021
Trump says he won't attend the inauguration.
Just before that tweet, there was this:To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2021
And last night, this zombiesque performance:The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2021
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2021AND: Here's the transcript for that zombiesque performance. I saw some people calling this his "concession," but I listened and heard no concession:
We have just been through an intense election and emotions are high, but now tempers must be cooled and calm restored. We must get on with the business of America. My campaign vigorously pursued every legal avenue to contest the election results. My only goal was to ensure the integrity of the vote.... Now Congress has certified the results. A new administration will be inaugurated on January 20th. My focus now turns to ensuring a smooth, orderly and seamless transition of power. This moment calls for healing and reconciliation.... We must revitalize the sacred bonds of love and loyalty that bind us together as one national family....
He's saying the process for challenging the result has concluded and he will not challenge it anymore. It's not that Biden really won, but that the process is really over. What exactly is "concession"? It's not a technical term. Nothing depends on it. It's a nicety. We want a particular locution... but why? Is it like saying "uncle"?
From the Wikipedia article "Concession (politics)":
In modern U.S. elections (presidential or otherwise), a concession is usually a two-step process: first, the losing candidate makes a concession phone call to the winning candidate and congratulates them personally. Second, the losing candidate makes a televised public speech, known as a concession speech, to their supporters, on an (improvised) podium surrounded by the candidate for the vice presidency, their spouses or other important relatives and friends. The concession speech consists of four elements:
1. The statement of defeat: an admission that the candidate has lost the election to their opponent, who is congratulated on their victory.
2. The call to unite: an expression of support for the victor's upcoming term in office, and a call for unity under their leadership, necessary after an often divisive and polarizing election campaign.
3. The celebration of democracy: a reflection on why democracy and the participation of millions of voters in the electoral process is important, and that their choice should be respected.
4. The vow to continue the fight: a reminder of the importance of the issues the candidate has raised during the campaign, and the policies their party advocates for. The candidate says that these remain important goals to strive toward, promises to continue fighting for them, and urges their supporters to do the same...
Trump's speech does not have the most important element: The congratulation of the opponent! He never mentions Biden. He does not concede that Biden won, only that the process was conclusive.
Elements 2 and 4 are there, but the 3rd element is reversed. He doesn't say that people voted and he must bow to the people's choice. He's keeping alive the belief that the result that has been certified is not what the qualified voters actually voted for. In his rhetoric, democracy does not prevail. The idea that supersedes democracy is order — smooth, seamless orderliness.
BUT: Element 2 is incomplete. He wants the people to unite, but just in general. He doesn't say unite behind our new leader!
"Some of you will understand why. Some will not. I am sorry, but standing up for election integrity and our right to vote in fair elections is too important for me to not be there."
Said Jeff Taff, a high school social studies teacher, quoted in "Burlington teacher suspended after allegedly directing students to watch video questioning election results" (Wisconsin State Journal).
He told students he would be gone from school Tuesday through Thursday and planned to return Friday. In the online lesson plan, he directed students to review materials that included a video discussing debunked claims calling into question President-elect Biden’s victory in the Nov. 3 election over incumbent President Donald Trump....
Last fall, after students raised questions about the Black Lives Matter movement, fourth-grade teacher Melissa Statz taught a lesson regarding the movement and led a classroom discussion about racial injustice. BASD School Board members later held a public discussion about the situation, and permitted supporters and critics alike to publicly evaluate Statz’s teaching methods, with many complaining that the lesson was not part of the curriculum. Darnisha Garbade is president of the Burlington Coalition to Dismantle Racism, a group that has rallied behind Statz and called out incidents of alleged racism in Burlington....
Garbade said she believes it would be wrong for Taff to use the classroom as a forum for promoting the pro-Trump beliefs that spawned Wednesday’s riot in Washington.... Statz said she was aware of Taff's situation, but she does not think her working to promote racial tolerance can be equated with what she considers to be evidence of Taff's blatant politicizing in the classroom. "I don't think it's fair of people to compare the two," she said.
I don't think the classroom should be politicized at all, but if you think it can, what a teacher can do shouldn't depend on which way it is politicized. If you want to say some politicizing is permissible, but the line must be drawn at blatant politicizing, then we'll have to sift through the evidence, and we're likely to disagree, and disagreements about when the line is crossed are going to be intertwined with politics.
Teaching law school for 30+ years, I especially liked keeping my political opinions out of the discussion. It was already my predilection. But I knew plenty of law professors who not only put their politics into the classroom discussion but argued that what they were doing was good, because it's better to be transparent. They thought politics would always be in the discussion anyway.
According to his page on the BASD website, Taff... is engaged in “self-directed leadership education that teaches one how to think for oneself.” Taff was scheduled this school year to teach courses titled “Modern American History” to sophomores and “Modern World History” to juniors.
You never know with these teachers who say they want the students to think for themselves!
"What was already shaping up as a volatile final stretch to the Trump presidency took on an air of national emergency as the White House emptied out and some Republicans joined Speaker Nancy Pelosi..."
"... and a cascade of Democrats calling for Mr. Trump to be removed from office without waiting the 13 days until the inauguration of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. The prospect of actually short-circuiting Mr. Trump’s tenure in its last days appeared remote. Vice President Mike Pence privately ruled out invoking the disability clause of the 25th Amendment to sideline the president, as many had urged that he and the cabinet do, according to officials. Democrats suggested they could move quickly to impeachment, a step that would have its own logistical and political challenges. Representative Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, the assistant speaker of the House, said Friday on CNN that the Democrats could get an impeachment vote to the House floor as early as the middle of next week...."
I'd like the Democrats — who have won — to show calm steadiness and grace, not crank things up to higher and higher hysteria! What was the point of dragging old man Biden to the fore and using him — rather than Sanders or Warren — to defeat Trump if not to rope in those of us who just want things to be sensible, moderate, and practical?!
I enjoyed the phrase "a cascade of Democrats" — it could be the collective noun, you know, like "murder of crows" and "exaltation of larks."
Biden won the election because people wanted calm, moderation, and normality.
But it's not enough that he may be a calm, moderate, normal person. He must lead. Where is he now? Can he show his supporters how to gracefully accede to power? Can he unite us? I want an aura of beneficence, dignity, and inclusion!
5 days ago I noted the promise he made:
Commenters mocked me for "believing" this promise. I said (in the comments):Here’s my promise to you: I’ll be a president for all Americans. Whether you voted for me or not, I’ll wake up every single morning and work to make your life better.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) January 3, 2021
I believe that he made the promise. That's what matters. I will hold him to it and link back to this post whenever I need to. It doesn't matter whether you trust a politician to do what he says. You should still note the promises that are made so you can judge the performance.
I'm judging.
When liberals decide men must be in control of their wife...
ADDED: Did the wife do something that should be considered an impeachable offense? It strikes me as very similar to praising the Black Live Matter protests despite the riots that emerged from them. Either we think big street protests are great or we think they risk devolution into chaos. Pick one.Clarence Thomas should be impeached over this. Yes, these posts were from his wife, not himself, but having a far-right conspiracy provocateur wife who says "GOD BLESS YOU" to seditious terrorists should unequivocally disqualify any SCOTUS justice. https://t.co/BT3de6UbVV
— Tami Burages (@tburages) January 8, 2021
How far will the anti-Trump forces go in crushing their opposition?
That tweet is a response to the news: "Simon & Schuster Cancels Plans for Senator Hawley’s Book/The publisher faced calls to drop the Missouri Republican’s upcoming book, 'The Tyranny of Big Tech,' following criticism of his efforts to overturn the presidential election" (NYT).‘You’re not entitled your book contract,’ can quickly become ‘United doesn’t have to let you onto its planes’ ‘Marriott doesn’t have to let you stay at its hotels,’ or ‘Visa doesn’t have to let you use its cards.’
— Abigail Shrier (@AbigailShrier) January 8, 2021
And maybe that’s the point.
“We did not come to this decision lightly,” Simon & Schuster said in a statement. “As a publisher it will always be our mission to amplify a variety of voices and viewpoints: At the same time we take seriously our larger public responsibility as citizens, and cannot support Senator Hawley after his role in what became a dangerous threat.”...“This could not be more Orwellian,” he said. “Simon & Schuster is canceling my contract because I was representing my constituents, leading a debate on the Senate floor on voter integrity, which they have now decided to redefine as sedition... We’ll see you in court."...
The subject of Mr. Hawley’s book... is not about the election or Mr. Trump, but about technology corporations like Google, Facebook and Amazon. Its cancellation was remarkably swift and raised questions about how publishers will approach future books by conservatives who have supported Mr. Trump’s efforts to invalidate the election....
ADDED: Here's Hawley's full statement:
I'm not sure what his "First Amendment" theory is, but I'd love to see his explanation. There's a folk meaning of "First Amendment" that simply means "freedom of speech," but Hawley is a Yale Law School graduate who had a clerkship with Chief Justice John Roberts, so we must attribute the highest level of constitutional law understanding to him. I await the explication!My statement on the woke mob at @simonschuster pic.twitter.com/pDxtZvz5J0
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) January 7, 2021
ALSO: Hawley's book about the "tyranny" of Google, Facebook, and Amazon ought to discuss the problem of the repression of freedom of speech, and for all I know, he's got some sophisticated First Amendment theory in there. Send me a PDF of your book, Josh — or just the pages with the First Amendment material. I will give it a sympathetic read!
At the Rime and Hoar Café...
... you can talk all afternoon... preferably about things that are not raised in this morning's posts. Please challenge yourselves to discuss anything other than Trump, the last election, and yesterday's events in the Capitol. There are 7 posts this morning on those topics, so scroll down if you want to talk about that.
It's a new year. What have you been up to? Have you embarked on a wholesome sunrise run routine or anything like that? Are you decluttering and "death cleaning"? Have you read any good books? What TV shows are you following these days? What are you cooking? Are you feeling blue? Are your dogs and cats okay?...
"Even if you believe — as David Bernstein states above — that the election didn’t turn on fraud, you should be concerned that so many people do."
"It’s important... that elections not only be free of fraud, but trusted by the vast majority, even among those who lose. We don’t have that, and the huge number of stories about potential election fraud that were running in mainstream media right up until election day indicates that if Trump had been declared the winner, Democrats would be running around screaming fraud. We need a system that is obviously trustworthy enough that the vast majority of people will trust it, and we certainly don’t have that. Other countries do."
Writes Glenn Reynolds, pointing to this post — also at Instapundit — by David Bernstein.
From Bernstein's post: "There is no evidence of widespread fraud that could plausibly be said to have cost Trump the election, nor even a single state.... And all that is why Trump’s lawyers lost every single case they brought before judges of all parties and ideologies.... Even if you accept any of the not-completely-crazy theories I’ve seen of how the election was 'stolen,' at best that gets Trump to a narrow victory in the Electoral College. Yet the president continues to insist not just that he won, not just that the election was stolen, but that he won in a 'landslide.'... If the election process is a total fraud, then violence is to be expected. Even in the face of the violence yesterday, Trump, while telling the rioters to go home, also continued to insist that he really won in a landslide, thus continuing to foment violence."
"Cotton appeared to be referring to Hawley, his potential rival for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, whose campaign sent out a fundraising email Wednesday..."
"... promoting his plan to object to Pennsylvania’s electoral votes. The email was sent shortly before a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, bringing a temporary halt to the counting of the Electoral College vote and leaving offices and hallways in the Capitol ransacked."
The Hill says, commenting on this tweet from Tom Cotton (which says "while," not "shortly before"):
Some senators, for political gain, misled supporters about their ability to challenge the election results--some even sent out fundraising emails while insurrectionists stormed the Capitol.
— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) January 7, 2021
That stops now--Republicans ought to focus on countering the Democrats' radical agenda. pic.twitter.com/e0JDg2bsJy
"One administration official described Trump’s behavior Wednesday as that of 'a total monster,' while another said the situation was 'insane' and 'beyond the pale.'"
"Fearful that Trump could take actions resulting in further violence and death if he remains in office even for a few days, senior administration officials were discussing Wednesday night whether the Cabinet might invoke the 25th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to force him out, said a person involved in the conversations.... Aides mortified by their boss’s conduct said they were weighing whether to resign or to stay in office to help ensure the transition to the Biden administration.... Considerable internal anger was directed toward chief of staff Mark Meadows, according to four aides, both because of what many view as his incompetence in managing the White House and his willingness to prop Trump up while indulging his false election fraud claims. People who interacted with Trump on Wednesday said they found him in a fragile and volatile state.... As rioters broke through police barricades and occupied the Capitol, paralyzing the business of Congress, aides said Trump resisted entreaties from some of his advisers to condemn the marauders and refused to be reasoned with. 'He kept saying: "The vast majority of them are peaceful. What about the riots this summer? What about the other side? No one cared when they were rioting. My people are peaceful. My people aren’t thugs,"' an administration official said. 'He didn’t want to condemn his people.'... A former senior administration official briefed on the president’s private conversations said: “The thing he was most upset about and couldn’t get over all day was the Pence betrayal. … All day, it was a theme of, ‘I made this guy, I saved him from a political death, and here he stabbed me in the back.'"
"While this represents the end of the greatest first term in presidential history, it’s only the beginning..."
That's Trump's statement, which, as the NYT puts is, "had to be issued through surrogates since Mr. Trump’s Twitter account was suspended." It "came moments after Vice President Mike Pence affirmed Mr. Biden as the winner of the presidential election shortly before 4 a.m. after the final electoral votes were tallied in a joint session of Congress."...fight to ensure that only legal votes were counted. While this represents the end of the greatest first term in presidential history, it’s only the beginning of our fight to Make America Great Again!”
— Dan Scavino🇺🇸🦅 (@DanScavino) January 7, 2021
"The disturbing breach of security at the U.S. Capitol is raising serious questions about the safety of lawmakers and staff who work there..."
"... and drawing criticism toward the security services who are meant to keep them safe. Images of a mob scaling walls, breaking down fences, and storming the seat of the country’s Democracy have led to criticism that the Capitol Police should have been better prepared for the possible assault. 'What the hell was law enforcement on Capitol Hill thinking by not having secured the Capitol today?' former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta asked on CNBC... 'Everybody knew that there would be a disturbance, everybody knew that there would be people who were interested in doing nothing but creating havoc in the Capitol, and very frankly it was the responsibility of the law enforcement and the Capitol Hill Police to secure the Capitol.'"
From "Capitol Police face heat following mob breach" (The Hill).
It has been demonstrated how insecure the building is. What happens next time?
This is not unrelated to the way the police were ineffectual when mobs broke into storefronts last summer. We live our lives as if buildings protect us, but they only protect us until they don't.
"America’s shellshocked politicians regrouped in sombre mood after the broken glass of the Capitol had been swept up and the blood cleaned from the corridors...."
"... determined to resume the work of democracy. The violence of the mob appeared to have instilled a sense of common purpose that has been sorely lacking during the partisan clashes of the Trump years. Senators reconvened at 8pm and after two hours of debate voted by 93 to 6 to reject the call to oppose Arizona’s results. Members of the House came back an hour later and also threw out the rebellion, by 303 to 121. It was emphatic confirmation that President Trump’s fantasy of overturning the election was as dead as his shredded reputation. There were portentous words at the outset from Mike Pence, the vice-president, back in the chair after being whisked to safety by armed guards almost six hours earlier. 'To those who wreaked havoc today: you did not win,' he said. 'Violence never wins. Freedom wins. This is still the people’s house.'... James Lankford, a Republican from Oklahoma, then resumed the debate in a more contrite manner from where he abruptly left off while setting out his objections to the results in Arizona. After stating that he believed Joe Biden won the election and all he wanted was a study of claims of fraud, he quickly sat down.... [Defeated Georgia Senator Kelly Loeffler said,] 'I fully intended to object to the certification of the electoral votes, however the events that have transpired today have forced me to reconsider and I cannot now in good conscience object... The violence, the lawlessness and siege of the halls of Congress are abhorrent and stand as a direct attack on the very institution my objection was intended to protect, the sanctity of the American democratic process.'"
From "Mob violence instils sense of common purpose in US Congress after Capitol stormed" (The London Times).
"In a surreal scene of chaos and glee, hundreds of Trump loyalists roamed the halls, taking photos and breaking into offices."
"No police officers were in view. In a room where there were images of mountains and maps of Oregon on the wall, a man in a leather jacket ripped a scroll with Chinese characters. A young man put a framed picture of the Dalai Lama in his backpack. 'We’re claiming the House, and the Senate is ours,' a sweaty man in a checked shirt shouted, stabbing his finger in the air. Nearby in the first-floor Crypt, the heart of the Capitol building, the police appeared to be overwhelmed. One wiped tear gas from his eyes. When a man approached to ask where the bathroom was, he said softly, 'We just need you guys to get out of here safely.'... Another officer stood by a stairway, watching everything unfold and answering a few questions, including directing a woman to the bathroom. One protester came up to him and shouted in his face, 'Traitor!' When another man approached to apologize to the officer, the officer replied, 'You’re fine.' 'Everybody’s been OK today, except that guy,' he said, motioning to the yeller. Most of the crowd in the Crypt just milled around. A young man in a red Trump hat smoked a cigarette. Several men shouted and screamed. A man in a backpack with two American flags jumped underneath a chandelier, yelling, 'Whose house,' as the crowd answered, 'Our house.'"
The chant "Whose house/Our house" is very familiar to me from the Wisconsin protests in 2011, when opponents of the newly elected governor, Scott Walker, lay siege to the Wisconsin Capitol building (which looks a lot like the U.S. Capitol building):
The text at that video says:
That's In February, I was deeply moved by the fact that in spite of there being 13,000 Protesters at the Capitol, everyone was allowed to enter. I asked my girlfriend how this could be. She replied that the Capitol was "our House." When I returned from a road trip a couple weeks later I, and the rest of the public were all barred from entering Our House though lobbyists could enter without much problem. Walker had stolen the most profound Democratic feeling I've ever had. He had stolen Our House. The "Whose House? Our House!" chants outside Our House grew as did the crowds (to over 100,000). I felt moved to write this song....
At the Wednesday Night Café...
... you can do all the talking.
I’ll withhold my comments until tomorrow. It’s been a strange day. I’m waiting for things to settle down.
"I didn't support animal skin guy..."
Less humorously...I didn't support animal skin guy, but he is our new leader and we should give him a chance to grow in office https://t.co/Ci4SDaXJBi
— Jonathan Chait (@jonathanchait) January 6, 2021
You are a joke. You are a traitor. You are a disgrace. You demanded this. You created it. You are guilty and you should be held accountable.
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) January 6, 2021
this you? pic.twitter.com/7iDRFk5knn
— Dmitry Pozdniakov (@Hambo_dev) January 6, 2021
This has an excellent healing quality: "Biden to nominate Merrick Garland as attorney general."
CNN reports.
MEANWHILE: From Politico: "The results of the Georgia Senate runoffs aren’t yet final. But left-wing activists are already pressuring Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer to take advantage of a possible Democratic majority in the Senate and retire.... President-elect Joe Biden has committed to nominating a Black woman to the next open Justice seat... Bakari Sellers, a former South Carolina Representative who has been involved in several presidential campaigns, tweeted Tuesday night that if Senate Democrats win the majority 'I need Justice Breyer to announce retirement at 12:01pm on January 20th.'"
"The Georgia results broke the back of Trumpism. His phone call to Brad Raffensperger was hunker-in-the-bunker bonkers."
"The President’s coattails are toxic. He under-performed all five Republican congressmen in Wisconsin, who won election without difficulty. Had he matched their performance, he would have won the state. Georgia, we should note, elected a Republican legislature in November and until today had two Republican U.S. senators. Republicans in November flipped two Democratic seats to take 10 of its 14 House seats even as Trump lost the state for the first Republican defeat in 28 years..... As for the crazies who would suspend the Constitution in order to install Donald Trump for four more years, they are our version of the Squad and their social justice warriors. Tuesday 2021 is on Donald Trump.... It will take some time for the Republican party to detoxify itself from Trump’s paranoid narcissism. But the man did show the way to a worker-oriented, traditional values political movement. The party’s task is to find someone with the common touch who isn’t batty. So far, Sen. Tom Cotton looks good. Maybe Ben Sasse or Nikki Haley. Like they say after hurricanes, we will rebuild."
Says David Blaska (on his blog).
It looks as though the Democrats have won control of Congress.
Does this frighten you or is your heart lightened? Surely, it's a complicated mix, whichever side you're on.
If, overall, you support the Democratic Party, yes, of course, you feel good, but what worries you about the prospect of the Democratic Party control of Congress? What's the downside?
If, overall, you support the GOP, it's got to hurt, but how might your party benefit long term?
I'm asking these questions with the assumption that Joe Biden will be sworn in as President. Please don't use the comments here to bring up the challenge to the Electoral College, which is doomed and which must be blamed, at least in part, for the GOP losses in the Georgia runoff.
"It's really evidence about the perspective of Officer Sheskey at each moment and what would a reasonable officer do at each moment. Almost none of those things are answered in that deeply disturbing video that we’ve all seen."
"Officer Sheskey felt he was about to be stabbed... All the discussion that [Blake] was unarmed contradicts what he himself has said to investigators," said Kenosha County District Attorney Michael Graveley, quoted in "Prosecutor: No charges against Kenosha police officer Rusten Sheskey in Jacob Blake shooting" (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel).
Blake's lawyer B’Ivory LaMarr said: "We believe all of the elements of attempted homicide were met and we believe the city and community is being deprived of their constitutional right to be the trier of fact. In 2021, it shows one very important thing, and that is that there are three justice systems in America: There’s one for Black and brown people, one for police officers, and one for the rest of the America. And we won’t stop until there is truly one nation under God, with liberty and justice for all."
"You just look at the facts. You see things as they are, not as you want them to be. Then, you make a plan. So, I made my plan to survive."
Said Jonathan Ceplecha, quoted in "A 59-year-old Army veteran was pinned under a tree for four days -- and survived/Jonathan Ceplecha drew on his military training to formulate a plan for survival" (Kare 11).
He knew that it was only Thursday, and that he might need to wait until the end of the weekend for his children, ex-wife or other family members to realize they had not heard from him, since classes at his school in Marshall would not begin until Monday.... Rainfall on Thursday evening provided Ceplecha about a cup and a half of drinking water....
“Breaking stuff down into time periods. That began to occur on Saturday, when things were… difficult. And I would say to myself, ‘well, you think you can survive another half-hour? Yeah, I can do that.’ So I would survive another half-hour.... Think you can make it another five minutes? I would do that periodically.... The nights, if you can imagine it, were more difficult than the days....
On the Monday afternoon of Aug. 31, the Redwood County Sheriff’s Office received a request for a welfare check on Jonathan Ceplecha, who apparently had not shown up to work at his school in Marshall...
Maybe don't go cutting trees on your own without telling someone first, but if you do get pinned under a tree, "You have to understand that you are stronger than you think you are. People love you, no matter what. And if you use that as a motivator, you can make it through anything."
Snappy headline undercut by paragraph squirreled away in the lower reaches of the article.
NPR headline: "Conifer Cuisine: Don't Toss Your Christmas Tree Yet! Here's How You Can Cook With It."
Squirreled-away paragraph: "Some Christmas trees are poisonous if eaten — like cypress, cedars and yews. And be sure your tree wasn't sprayed with pesticides and other chemicals. 'So if you have any doubt that you're that your Christmas tree might not have been grown to eat, then maybe don't eat it'...""South Carolinians Mock Redesigned Palmetto Tree on Proposed State Flag."
Scott Malyerck, a political consultant who helped create the design as a member of the South Carolina State Flag Study Committee... "It’s hard to come up with a quintessential palmetto tree that everyone will be in favor of.”...
Ronnie W. Cromer, a state senator who helped create the flag study committee, said... "It would be nice to have a little nicer-looking tree.”...
[T]he state has not had one official design for the flag since 1940, when the flag code was repealed.... “The idea is just to make it historically accurate and uniform,” Mr. Malyerck said. “Flag manufacturers should not decide what it should look like.”
Here's the proposed flag, which relied on a 1910 pencil drawing:
And here's the pencil drawing, which was done by a woman:
The new flag designers seem to have gotten caught up in the idea of honoring the woman, and they went quite literal. A flag image needs a stark, shapely outline. A pencil drawing — like this one — can be sketchy, impressionistic, indicating light and shade. That's not going to work for a flag.
To make a good palmetto tree flag, look for some actual flags that use an image of a tree and select the most successful ones, for example this flag of a county in Norway (Vest-Agder) that depicts an oak tree:
"In city after city, from New York to New Orleans, charters have found ways to reach the children who have been most consistently failed by traditional schools."
"The evidence for their success has become overwhelming, with apolitical education researchers pronouncing themselves shocked at the size of the gains. What was ten years ago merely an experiment has become a proven means to develop the potential of children whose minds had been neglected for generations. And yet the second outcome of the charter-school breakthrough has been a bitter backlash within the Democratic Party. The political standing of the idea has moved in the opposite direction of the data, as two powerful forces — unions and progressive activists — have come to regard charter schools as a plutocratic assault on public education and an ideological betrayal. The shift has made charter schools anathema to the left. 'I am not a charter-school fan because it takes away the options available and money for public schools,' Biden told a crowd in South Carolina during the Democratic primary, as the field competed to prove its hostility toward education reform in general and charters in particular. Now, as Biden turns from campaigning to governing, whether he will follow through on his threats to rein them in — or heed the data and permit charter schools to flourish — is perhaps the most unsettled policy mystery of his emerging administration."
From "Unlearning an Answer/Charter schools deliver extraordinary results, but their political support among Democrats has collapsed. What will Biden do?" by Jonathan Chait (New York Magazine).
Thick fog made the 3-dimensionality of the sun photographable this morning... or no, it was just an illusion...
... wasn't it?
"UW-Madison chancellor signs off on removing rock seen by some as symbol of racism."
The Wisconsin State Journal reports.
The university’s Campus Planning Committee in November unanimously approved recommending the boulder be relocated off university property to a location on or near the National Park Service’s Ice Age Scenic Trail.
UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank accepted the committee’s recommendation on Monday....
The rock’s removal is not yet a done deal. Because the boulder is located on or near a Native American burial site, the Wisconsin Historical Society needs to sign off and all Native Tribes of Wisconsin need to be notified and given time to provide input....
Ricky Gervais visualizes his dead body fed to the lions... as a scene like the spaghetti scene in "Lady and the Tramp."
For reference:
As the tags on this post indicate, there's also a discussion of masturbation... and death.
"An Interactive Tour of Everything Hilarious and Bizarre on the Web."
My program of working on some sort of housework every day has me decluttering desk drawers today, and these things that were once strikingly useful are so absurdly useless now...
I've still got the disc for Word when no version number was part of the name...
"If Congress purported to overturn the results of the Electoral College, it would not only exceed [its] power, but also establish unwise precedents."
"First, Congress would take away the power to choose the president from the people, which would essentially end presidential elections and place that power in the hands of whichever party controls Congress. Second, Congress would imperil the Electoral College, which gives small states like Arkansas a voice in presidential elections. Democrats could achieve their longstanding goal of eliminating the Electoral College in effect by refusing to count electoral votes in the future for a Republican president-elect. Third, Congress would take another big step toward federalizing election law, another longstanding Democratic priority that Republicans have consistently opposed. Thus, I will not oppose the counting of certified electoral votes on January 6. I’m grateful for what the president accomplished over the past four years, which is why I campaigned vigorously for his reelection. But objecting to certified electoral votes won’t give him a second term—it will only embolden those Democrats who want to erode further our system of constitutional government."
"More than 225 Google engineers and other workers have formed a union, the group revealed on Monday, capping years of growing activism..."
"... at one of the world’s largest companies and presenting a rare beachhead for labor organizers in staunchly anti-union Silicon Valley.... [U]nlike a traditional union, which demands that an employer come to the bargaining table to agree on a contract, the Alphabet Workers Union is a so-called minority union that represents a fraction of the company’s more than 260,000 full-time employees and contractors. Workers said it was primarily an effort to give structure and longevity to activism at Google, rather than to negotiate for a contract.... [U]nions have not previously gained traction in Silicon Valley. Many tech workers shunned them, arguing that labor groups were focused on issues like wages — not a top concern in the high-earning industry — and were not equipped to address their concerns about ethics and the role of technology in society...."
I love these reviews of sinks in various public bathrooms.
Here's a link to a page of all the reviews (at TikTok). I'll just embed the one that got me started — a review of the sinks at the Museum of Modern Art:
@sinkreviews The Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan ##Welcome2021 ##fyp ##sinks ##sinkreview ##sinktok ##nyc ##2021
♬ You Are Wherever Your Thoughts Are - Steve Reich
"Julian Assange cannot be lawfully extradited to the US to face charges over WikiLeaks because of his mental health and suicide risk..."
"... a judge has ruled. District Judge Vanessa Baraitser highlighted the intense restrictions and isolated conditions he would be likely to face in the US, saying they mean extradition would be 'oppressive.'... [S]ection 91 of the Extradition Action 2003.... states that when 'the physical or mental condition of the person is such that it would be unjust or oppressive to extradite him, the judge must order the person’s discharge.' The court heard that Assange has been held at HMP Belmarsh in London since April 2019, and has been under a care plan for prisoners at risk of suicide or self-harm for the duration of his imprisonment. Medical notes record numerous occasions of him telling a prison psychologist and other medical staff that he has suicidal or self-harming thoughts, felt despairing or hopeless and had plans to end his life, the judge said.... District Judge Baraitser said she had accepted experts’ findings that Assange suffers from a recurrent depressive disorder, which is sometimes accompanied by psychotic features. She said she also accepted the opinion that Assange suffers from autism spectrum disorder, 'albeit high-functioning,' and Asperger’s syndrome...."
The Independent reports.
Note that the decision is entirely based on Assange's mental state and the conditions of detention in the United States. It's not about the substantive merit of the charges against him. The judge said the crimes alleged against Assange are also crimes in the UK and specified that the prosecution is in good faith: "There is little or no evidence to support hostility by President Trump towards Mr Assange and WikiLeaks."
There will be an appeal. What's most disturbing to me is a British judge impugning the conditions of imprisonment in the United States.
I don't remember reading — before this — that Julian Assange is autistic.
ADDED: From the 2011 book "WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy":
His obsession with computers, and his compulsion to keep moving, both seemed to have origins in his restless early years. So too, perhaps, did the rumblings from others that Assange was somewhere on the autism spectrum. Assange would himself joke, when asked if he was autistic: "Aren't all men?" His dry sense of humour made him attractive — perhaps too attractive — to women. And there was his high analytical intelligence....
If you think that's just a joke, here's a Reason article from 2007: "Could It Be that All Men Are a Bit Autistic?"
"A 33-metre reinforced concrete vagina has sparked a Bolsonarian backlash in Brazil..."
"... with supporters of the country’s far-right president clashing with leftwing art admirers over the installation. The handmade sculpture, entitled Diva, was unveiled by visual artist Juliana Notari on Saturday at a rural art park... In a Facebook post, Notari said the scarlet hillside vulva was intended to 'question the relationship between nature and culture in our phallocentric and anthropocentric western society' and provoke debate over the 'problematisation of gender.'... Bolsonaro’s US-based political guru, the professional polemicist Olavo de Carvalho, weighed in with a customarily foul-mouthed tweet."
The "foul-mouthed tweet" isn't quoted (in Portuguese or in translation), but I clicked through to Twitter and read: "Por que estão falando mal da buceta de 33 metros em vez de enfrentá-la com um pirocão?" And I have Google-translated it for you: "Why are they talking bad about the 33-meter pussy instead of facing it with a dick?"
I guess he's suggesting that opponents of the hillside ought to devise a way to rape it, or no, maybe he's just calling for equality and would like another hillside with a sculpture representing male genitalia. Google translates "enfrentá" as "facing," but also as "confronting" or "encountering."
Obviously, I am incapable of assessing the humor or hatefulness of a Portuguese tweet. One idea is to translate the responses at Twitter. For example: "Professor Olavo, you are a great intellectual and an exceptional teacher. But this compulsion for hostility and bad words related to sexual organs and waste are symptoms of psychiatric disorder. Try to treat yourself, your ideas will gain more strength!"
If you search for monumental constructions that represent genitalia, the vast majority of what you will find is male. Here's the Wikipedia article on "Phallic Architecture." There's no way feminist sculptors could ever carve enough concrete into hillsides even to begin to achieve equity.
For another example of a monumental vagina sculpture, see "The Dirty Corner," a gigantic construction at Versailles, by Anish Kapoor, who described it as "the vagina of the queen coming into power." The article at the link — from BBC in 2015 — quotes a random German tourist: "It's confusing, a big vagina and a palace. It's one of the most famous places in Paris and I just wanted to see it and I saw this building, this statue, and I don't know what it is." That sculpture has been vandalized, and Kapoor, who is male, has denied calling it a vagina: "I never said vagina—I said ‘she sits here on the lawn’ or something to that effect."
Ah! The difficulties of translation!
Goodbye to Gerry of Gerry and the Pacemakers.
The Guardian reports: "Marsden’s family said in a statement on Sunday: 'Gerry died earlier today after a short illness in no way connected with Covid-19. His wife, daughters and grandchildren are devastated.'... And his heart has taken some battering over the years. He had a triple bypass, an aortic valve replacement and ironically he also had a pacemaker.... Gerry and the Pacemakers played regularly alongside the Beatles. Both groups were part of Brian Epstein’s Liverpool-based management stable. They played together for the first time in June 1960 – when the Beatles were still the Silver Beetles – and in December that year they were contracted to play a four-month stint in Hamburg, prompting the group to give up their day jobs to become professional musicians. 'We went over with the Beatles and had a good laugh,' Marsden later recalled. The group’s first hit, How Do You Do It?, was first recorded by the Beatles in 1962, but rejected by them and given to Marsden’s band by the producer, George Martin, becoming their first No 1 in April 1963."
If you have the wonderful book "150 Glimpses of the Beatles" by Craig Brown, please read the delightful fantasy that is Chapter 148, an alternate reality in which Gerry and the Pacemakers and not The Beatles become the phenomenal success:
Why did Gerry and the Pacemakers succeed in overtaking musical rivals like the Dave Clark Five, the Searchers, the Beatles and the Swinging Blue Jeans to become four of the best-known faces in the world of pop?
For a start, their repertoire was broader than their rivals’: by 1960 they had built up a repertoire of 250 songs, from rockers like ‘What’d I Say’ to ballads such as ‘Will You Love Me Tomorrow?’ Contemporary Merseybeat groups like the Beatles, who met with similar success in the early years, never possessed quite the same range. Moreover, the Beatles lacked a front man, so had no focal point. It’s hard to imagine, but had things gone differently, the world might now be talking of John, Paul, George and Ringo (the first names of the Beatles) instead of Gerry, Fred, Les and Arthur....
"Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is, the data you have is wrong."
Via "‘I just want to find 11,780 votes’: In extraordinary hour-long call, Trump pressures Georgia secretary of state to recalculate the vote in his favor" (WaPo):
The rambling and at times incoherent conversation offered a remarkable glimpse of how consumed and desperate the president remains about his loss, unwilling or unable to let the matter go and still believing he can reverse the results in enough battleground states to remain in office.The worst of it is the threat:
During their conversation, Trump issued a vague threat to both Raffensperger and Ryan Germany, the secretary of state’s general counsel, suggesting that if they don’t find that thousands of ballots in Fulton County have been illegally destroyed to block investigators — an allegation for which there is no evidence — they would be subject to criminal liability.
Trump’s conversation with Raffensperger put him in legally questionable territory, legal experts said. By exhorting the secretary of state to “find” votes and to deploy investigators who “want to find answers,” Trump appears to be encouraging him to doctor the election outcome in Georgia. But experts said Trump’s clearer transgression is a moral one.
Edward B. Foley, a law professor at Ohio State University, said that the legal questions are murky and would be subject to prosecutorial discretion. But he also emphasized that the call was “inappropriate and contemptible” and should prompt moral outrage.
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