Friday, February 12, 2021

Althouse

Althouse

"On Earth, you've got to do something with your life... to prove you're alive..."

Posted: 12 Feb 2021 08:08 AM PST

A pithy montage of incitement hypocrisy.

Posted: 12 Feb 2021 06:48 AM PST

"Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and his top aides were facing new allegations on Friday that they covered up the scope of the death toll in the state’s nursing homes from the coronavirus..."

Posted: 12 Feb 2021 06:45 AM PST

"... after admissions that they withheld data in an effort to forestall potential investigations into state misconduct. The latest revelations came in the wake of private remarks by the governor's top aide, Melissa DeRosa, and a cascading series of reports and court orders that have nearly doubled the state's official toll of nursing home deaths in the last two weeks....  In a conversation first reported on by the New York Post, Ms. DeRosa told a group of top lawmakers on Wednesday during a call to address the nursing home situation that 'basically, we froze,' after being asked last summer for information by the Trump administration's Department of Justice.... 'We were in a position where we weren't sure if what we were going to give to the Department of Justice, or what we give to you guys, and what we start saying, was going to be used against us and we weren't sure if there was going to be an investigation,' Ms. DeRosa told lawmakers, according to a partial transcript obtained by The New York Times...."

"For academics playing word games, this is fun. For gangs of 'woke' students — or Times employees, who have managed to 'cancel' a series of the paper’s top writers recently — it can produce a feeling of enormous power and self-importance."

Posted: 12 Feb 2021 06:23 AM PST

"But if you're Macron or any sensible European observer, seeing a United States in which playing the national anthem or displaying the flag is deemed 'offensive' and 'problematic,' in which professors are suspended or threatened for quoting Supreme Court opinions verbatim when they contain unapproved language and which has seen months of urban riots tearing apart some of America's biggest cities, how could you not say 'no thanks'? By its fruit the tree is known, and the fruits of woke leftism in the United States have been poisonous. No honest observer could claim that our campuses are friendlier, our cities healthier or our institutions more productive as a result of its introduction. The defenders of woke theory say that France is becoming more diverse, and that's why it needs more of the overt race-consciousness and blame-assignment that their theory provides. But, of course, France's increased diversity is precisely why it's right to shun a philosophy of race that is affirmatively based on racial name-calling, division and guilt-mongering."

"The original cast of 'The Real World: New York' recently wrapped filming in their original loft at 565 Broadway..."

Posted: 12 Feb 2021 05:56 AM PST

"... a source close to production confirmed to Page Six on Thursday after much speculation" (NY Post). 

Great. I love "The Real World" — at least as it was in the first 3 or 4 seasons. I dropped out after that. The new season will have the cast from the first season, now almost 30 years older. I think when I dropped out of the viewership it was because the people were too young. I started out maybe 10 years older, but that thing went on for 33 seasons. When the people are 20 — or 30 or 40 (!) — years younger than you, their problems and antics get really tiresome. You're talking about a whole season of episodes and getting to know many characters. I seem to remember that after the really excellent 3rd season, things went into decline. I don't think it's merely that I got older and more age-separated from the cast. The show's manipulators seemed bent on getting pretty people to do sexual things to each other. They were always getting into a hot tub and drinking. That's even boring to do, but it's horrible to watch.

"A Louisiana man who thought 'Gorilla Glue Girl' Tessica Brown was 'lying' ended up in the emergency room himself after he applied the powerful adhesive to his lip."

Posted: 12 Feb 2021 05:42 AM PST

"Len Martin, 37, said he tried out the Gorilla Glue challenge for himself after Brown to prove that it was 'not as serious as she was trying to make it'.... The aspiring rapper filmed himself gluing a Red Adhesive cup to his upper lip....  [H]e denied that he pulled the latest stunt for attention. 'I would never want to stick no Gorilla Glue to my lip and have it stuck there and go through all the situations that I had to go through,' Martin said.... 'You got Valentine's Day coming up. I can't even kiss my lip.'"


What's a "Red Adhesive cup"? What is kissing your own lip? Why did Len Martin think the unbelievable part of the Tessica Brown story was whether it would be terrible to put Gorilla Glue in your hair rather than whether she really thought it wouldn't be terrible to put Gorilla Glue in her hair? These stories. Why am I blogging this when I didn't blog the original Gorilla Glue Girl story? I try, at least some of the time, to deny attention to people who are seeking attention or maybe only just getting too much attention, but this guy seems to exemplify the problem of people spending too much time isolated with their smart phone and idly, idiotically searching for something to do. 

You're responsible enough, Donald.

Posted: 12 Feb 2021 07:41 AM PST

I just wanted to elevate something I jotted out in the comments section to the previous post. The post is mostly about a spiked NYT column that criticized a NYT decision to fire a reporter who had said the n-word. 

The columnist's focus on the speaker's intent connected to what I said was "the question I think should be at the core of the impeachment trial but is not: Did Trump intend that the crowd break into the Capitol and terrorize the members of Congress?"

In the comments, David Begley said, "Ann is correct in focusing on Trump's intent. Did the House Managers even talk about intent?" 

I responded:
I was not willing to sit through the hours and hours of presentation of other things that I already knew. I wanted them to focus on the decisive question: Trump's responsibility. Some people have a low standard and think that if Trump stirred up the crowd and made them feel energized to do what they independently decided to do, he's responsible enough. But they're choosing, I think, to offer nothing to those of us who think Trump needs to have specifically intended the breaking into the Capitol. Can anyone point me to the part of the trial where my concern is addressed? I'm not willing to stare at a smokescreen.

The post title is a play on an old Obama quote that I've always found highly amusing, but I'm quite serious in asking my question. Whether or not I am part of that You're-responsible-enough-Donald crowd, I want to be pointed to the part of the trial that addresses the question: Did Trump intend that the crowd break into the Capitol and terrorize the members of Congress?

ADDED: I'm reading "Takeaways From Day 3 of Trump's Impeachment Trial/The House managers concluded their case by asserting that the Jan. 6 violence wouldn't have happened without former President Donald Trump and that his supporters believed he had invited their help" in the NYT. 

It confirms my sense that my question was never focused on. 

The "takeaways" are, first: 
The angry, violent mob came to Washington at Trump's invitation, the prosecution concludes.

But there is nothing wrong with drawing a big crowd of protesters. The huge crowd was overwhelmingly peaceful. Some portion of it became a mob and resorted to breaking into a building. But to say that isn't to say Trump caused the break in. And you don't need a "invitation" to go to Washington. We all have a right to travel to Washington and to protest whatever we want. Protests tend to take place at the site of the thing that is being protested. And speakers speak to crowds. We don't normally condemn that. I want to see consistency and clarity on these issues. Should Black Lives Matter speakers be denounced because they draw crowds and stir up emotions and later some of the crowd becomes a violent mob? 

The second "takeaway":
Even after the attack, managers say Mr. Trump showed a 'lack of remorse.'
This is a makeweight argument. If you don't confess that you've done wrong, you're tarred as lacking remorse. Of course, if you do confess, you've confessed. That's even better for the prosecution. 

The third "takeaway:
Vice President Mike Pence's presence looms large as a traitor, victim and hero.
So what? What relevance to Trump's guilt? 

The fourth "takeaway":
Trump still appears to have enough votes to be acquitted.
Not surprising and not anything that counts against Trump.

The New York Post publishes the Bret Stephens column that the New York Times spiked.

Posted: 12 Feb 2021 04:22 AM PST

It's not that Stephens, a regular NYT columnist, can or would just give the rejected column to another newspaper to publish. The Post tells us the column — which defends the NYT reporter who got ousted for saying the n-word — "circulated among Times staffers and others" and the Post got hold of it "from one of them, not Stephens himself." Presumably, the Post publishes it because it is newsworthy — not as an opinion on the news but because the spiking of it is news, so we need to see what it is. 

Let's read it:

Every serious moral philosophy, every decent legal system and every ethical organization cares deeply about intention. 

It is the difference between murder and manslaughter. It is an aggravating or extenuating factor in judicial settings. It is a cardinal consideration in pardons (or at least it was until Donald Trump got in on the act).

Speaking of Donald Trump, it's the question I think should be at the core of the impeachment trial but is not: Did Trump intend that the crowd break into the Capitol and terrorize the members of Congress?  

It's an elementary aspect of parenting, friendship, courtship and marriage. A hallmark of injustice is indifference to intention.

Yeah, why are the House Managers indifferent to this distinction? I am getting distracted! This Stephen's column reads like a criticism of the House Managers case against Trump. Trump said something, perhaps without any intention of causing the harm, but the harm did ensue. To care about the harm and not what the accused person intended is a "hallmark of injustice." Noted!

Most of what is cruel, intolerant, stupid and misjudged in life stems from that indifference. Read accounts about life in repressive societies — I'd recommend Vaclav Havel's "Power of the Powerless" and Nien Cheng's "Life and Death in Shanghai" — and what strikes you first is how deeply the regimes care about outward conformity, and how little for personal intention. I've been thinking about these questions in an unexpected connection.

Me too. I'm thinking about Trump. But I know you want to talk about your erstwhile fellow Timesman, Donald McNeil.

Late last week, Donald G. McNeil Jr., a veteran science reporter for The Times, abruptly departed from his job following the revelation that he had uttered a racial slur while on a New York Times trip to Peru for high school students. In the course of a dinner discussion, he was asked by a student whether a 12-year old should have been suspended by her school for making a video in which she had used a racial slur. 

In a written apology to staff, McNeil explained what happened next: "To understand what was in the video, I asked if she had called someone else the slur or whether she was rapping or quoting a book title. In asking the question, I used the slur itself." 

In an initial note to staff, editor-in-chief Dean Baquet noted that, after conducting an investigation, he was satisfied that McNeil had not used the slur maliciously and that it was not a firing offense. In response, more than 150 Times staffers signed a protest letter. A few days later, Baquet and managing editor Joe Kahn reached a different decision. 

"We do not tolerate racist language regardless of intent," they wrote on Friday afternoon. They added to this unambiguous judgment that the paper would "work with urgency to create clearer guidelines and enforcement about conduct in the workplace, including red-line issues on racist language."

This is not a column about the particulars of McNeil's case. Nor is it an argument that the racial slur in question doesn't have a uniquely ugly history and an extraordinary capacity to wound. 

This is an argument about three words: "Regardless of intent." Should intent be the only thing that counts in judgment? Obviously not. Can people do painful, harmful, stupid or objectionable things regardless of intent? Obviously. 

Do any of us want to live in a world, or work in a field, where intent is categorically ruled out as a mitigating factor? I hope not. 

He's not saying the deliberate intent of the accused should always be decisive, only that it's wrong to entirely exclude intent, which Baquet and Kahn explicitly did. I would add that the biggest problem is the retroactive declaration of a strict liability standard. If the NYT had declared in advance that any saying of the word is a firing offense, that would have been fair, even if it's too repressive. But we can see that was not the policy, because the original decision was not to fire O'Neil. It was only in response to protest by the staff that O'Neil was ousted. There's the injustice.

That ought to go in journalism as much, if not more, than in any other profession.

That sentence needs editing — "to go" is ambiguous. I think he means "That ought to hold true...." 

What is it that journalists do, except try to perceive intent, examine motive, furnish context, explore nuance, explain varying shades of meaning, forgive fallibility, make allowances for irony and humor, slow the rush to judgment (and therefore outrage), and preserve vital intellectual distinctions? 

That's a good question. I'll put it in boldface. 

Journalism as a humanistic enterprise — as opposed to hack work or propaganda — does these things in order to teach both its practitioners and consumers to be thoughtful. There is an elementary difference between citing a word for the purpose of knowledge and understanding and using the same word for the purpose of insult and harm. Lose this distinction, and you also lose the ability to understand the things you are supposed to be educated to oppose.

Well, you could understand the distinction but still choose to exclude the word, all the time, because you know the harm that it causes and you want to care for others. The problem is establishing a policy, so that people know in advance they can never say the word, for whatever reason. Clearly, the NYT didn't have that policy. It could adopt that policy and put everyone on notice. Has it done that, even now? Would it fire a black reporter who was just singing along to a rap song while alone in her car? Inflexible, draconian rules are possible, but you have to be brutal, and racial discrimination in employment is against the law.

No wonder The Times has never previously been shy about citing racial slurs in order to explain a point. Here is a famous quote by the late Republican strategist Lee Atwater that has appeared at least seven times in The Times, most recently in 2019, precisely because it powerfully illuminates the mindset of a crucial political player. "You start out in 1954 by saying, 'N*****, n*****, n*****.' By 1968 you can't say 'n*****' — that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, 'forced busing,' "states' rights" and all that stuff."

I put those asterisks in. The column, as published in the NY Post — and as, presumably, offered to the NYT — has the word written out. Should Bret Stephens be fired for writing the words? But he's quoting the NYT (quoting Atwater). Not long ago. Recently. 2019. Should whoever wrote that and whoever was involved in publishing that be fired?

Is this now supposed to be a scandal? Would the ugliness of Atwater's meaning have been equally clearer by writing "n—, n—, n—"?

This is the argument for allowing the word to be used precisely to cause the effect, to make people feel hurt: You want to depict the ugliness of something somebody says. But a newspaper might chose to protect its readers from the word. But the NYT used to print the n-word. Look at all these n-word headlines! I'll just point you toward them. Just to indicate what's there: "Up From N*****" (1976), "'The Legend of N***** Charley' Three escaped slaves fall in with drifters while fleeing a bounty hunter" (1971), "White N***** Of America" (1971), "Rap's Embrace of 'N****' Fires Bitter Debate" (1993).

A journalism that turns words into totems — and totems into fears — is an impediment to clear thinking and proper understanding. 

So too is a journalism that attempts to proscribe entire fields of expression. "Racist language" is not just about a single infamous word. It's a broad, changing, contestable category. There are many people — I include myself among them — who think that hardcore anti-Zionism is a form of anti-Semitism. That's also official policy at the State Department and the British Labour Party. If anti-Semitism is a form of racism, and racist language is intolerable at The Times, might we someday forbid not only advocacy of anti-Zionist ideas, but even refuse to allow them to be discussed? 

He's opening up a big new topic in that paragraph — the banning of ideas. I'm not even convinced that there's a slippery slope in the banning of words. It's just that one word. The NYT doesn't even avoid "fuck" anymore. For so many years, "fuck" was THE ONE WORD. Maybe there is a weird fetish that there must be one word — and only one word — that you just can't print. It could be "God." There are those who must write "G-d." And these days, the one word is the n-word... at least when it's not in "Rap's Embrace." 

The idea is absurd. But that's the terrain we now risk entering. We are living in a period of competing moral certitudes, of people who are awfully sure they're right and fully prepared to be awful about it. Hence the culture of cancellations, firings, public humiliations and increasingly unforgiving judgments. The role of good journalism should be to lead us out of this dark defile. Last week, we went deeper into it.

I had to look up "dark defile." It's a reference to this Kipling poem, I believe. "Defile," the noun, means "A narrow way or passage along which troops can march only by files or with a narrow front; esp. (and in ordinary use) a narrow pass or gorge between mountains" (OED). Stephens is picturing us — all of us, not just the NYT — entering risky terrain, and we are vulnerable in this passageway. The NYT — or whoever the "good journalists" are — needs to lead us out of there, not "deeper into it." He doesn't say exactly what he wants, though it's clear he's strongly opposed to the firing of McNeil. But he's laying out a challenge, issues for the NYT to take up. And the NYT said no. It doesn't even want to see the questions. Or do you think it was just that writing out of the word in the Atwater quote?

I want to be completely out front that I, like Stephens, do not purport to tell you what all the answers are here. I want to get the questions out there and shed light on them. I want to have the conversation. Ha. That makes me think of all the times NYT-type people call on America to have a conversation. Where's the conversation now, you preening power-wielders?

And let me leave you with that 1993 NYT article, "Rap's Embrace of 'N****' Fires Bitter Debate." It's got the n-word written out more than 50 times! Presumably, it's doing that to force you, the reader, to see what the subject of discussion is.

One of America's oldest and most searing epithets -- "n*****" -- is flooding into the nation's popular culture, giving rise to a bitter debate among blacks about its historically ugly power and its increasingly open use in an integrated society. 

Whether thoughtlessly or by design, large numbers of a post-civil rights generation of blacks have turned to a conspicuous use of "n*****" just as they have gained considerable cultural influence through rap music and related genres. 

Some blacks, mostly young people, argue that their open use of the word will eventually demystify it, strip it of its racist meaning. They liken it to the way some homosexuals have started referring to themselves as "queers" in a defiant slap at an old slur....

Blacks who say they should use the word more openly maintain that its casual use, especially in the company of whites, will shift the word's context and strip "n*****" of its ability to hurt.... 

"When I hear it, it makes me angry and very sad," said [Jocelyn] Jerome, a 53-year-old mother of three grown children and the director of a program that tries to encourage more minority students to become physicians. "There are times when I honestly feel like crying." 

She says she has made it her mission to discourage young black people from using the racial epithet. In a recent incident, a group of young blacks got on Ms. Jerome's bus and spoke in a conversation that consisted of little more than 'n***** this and n***** that,' Ms. Jerome said, she decided to speak up. "I put my newspaper down and said, 'Look, I know my talking is not going to make you change today or tomorrow, but I have a question: why are you constantly using that word? Do you know what that word means?' " 

She said the youngsters listened to her respectfully, occasionally telling her that "n*****" was a term of endearment among young blacks. 

Little changed, but that has not weakened her resolve. 

"As far as I'm concerned," Ms. Jerome said, "no one has the license to use it."

At the Too-Cold Night Café...

Posted: 11 Feb 2021 06:43 PM PST

 ... it's another day without a sunrise photo. I can't do my morning run when it's below zero out there. I've got a few more of these double lockdown days (that is, days of confinement caused by Covid and by coldness). But it's snuggly warm inside, so let's settle in for some conversation. 

Did you watch the Trump trial?  I did not. Even with the double lockdown, I did not. Did anything new come out? I'll read the news in the morning. My sense is that what was presented is what I have already heard. But who knows? Maybe they nailed him today. 

Other topics are most welcome. For example, have you written any poetry at any point in your life (and if so why), what is your favorite smell, have you ever joined or considered joining a cult (and if you had to be in a cult, which cult would you join), would you ever support a violent revolution (and would you have been a Loyalist in the American Revolution), are you trying to lose weight (and what are your diet tips?), and... anything else you would like to add?
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