Thursday, March 25, 2021

Althouse

Althouse

A rare sighting! Biden does a press conference!

Posted: 25 Mar 2021 10:15 AM PDT

Or so we're told. Starting time is right this minute. Keep watching here: 

"The effort by Ms. Harris to address the root causes of migration, which can take years, is..."

Posted: 25 Mar 2021 10:16 AM PDT

".... unlikely to quickly produce the swift action demanded by Republicans and some Democrats to reduce the overcrowding at the border."

From "Biden Names Harris to Work With Central America on Migration/The president gave the vice president a prominent role in the politically charged issue at a time when thousands of children are being detained in facilities along the border" (NYT).

The "root causes" language is a reference to something Harris said: "While we are clear that people should not come to the border now, we also understand that we will enforce the law. We also — because we can chew gum and walk at the same time — must address the root causes that cause people to make the trek."

Walking and chewing gum at the same time is a metaphor,* initially designed to insult someone who can't do these 2 relatively easy-to-do things simultaneously. It doesn't work too much as a brag, unless you're saying that the 2 things are easy to do at the same time. 

What are the 2 things? There's a huge difference between wanting people not to come + caring about root causes and effectively enforcing all of the law restricting the border + changing the conditions that are causing people to come to the border. 

The first set of things is easy to do, damned near effortless. The second set is nearly impossible, done together or done one at a time. Might as well laugh about doing them together because you know you're not going to make much progress at all on either.

_________________________

* "The term is recorded in a Texas newspaper in [1964]. President Lyndon Johnson allegedly said that then-Congressman (and later president) Gerald Ford couldn't 'fart and chew gum at the same time.' As early as the 1900s, it was observed that women talk a lot and chew gum a lot, but don't 'talk and chew gum at the same time.' Entertainer and cowboy philosopher Will Rogers was described in 1926 as 'the only man in the world who can chew gum and talk sense at the same time.' It's probable that the saying 'walk and chew gum at the same time' developed from the earlier 'talk and chew gum at the same time.'" That's at Quora. To speculate more coherently: People said women can't "talk and chew gum at the same time," then some crude fellows thought it was funner to say "walk and fart at the same time" — because walking and farting is a very funny subject. (I've seen George Carlin demonstrate the hilarity.) Then it got turned around for fun to LBJ's "fart and chew gum at the same time." Then it got cleaned up into the present-day corruption, "walk and chew gum at the same time."

"You Never Did That Before."

Posted: 25 Mar 2021 02:32 PM PDT

Here's Buster Keaton with Cliff Edwards playing one ukulele (in the 1930 movie "Doughboys"): 

And you might think this goes to show that you can't predict what will be the next Althouse post, but there is a flow here, and if you understood it well enough, you did have a chance at predicting that this charming duet would be the next thing. 

Yesterday, there was a post about a musical tribute to Joe Biden's accomplishments. It was comical — including the way it made some conservative men cringe — but I told you it gave me chills, and I ascertained that the chills were caused by the amazingly effective music from "The Little Mermaid," "Part of Your World."

That led me to play what I think is clearly the most beautiful song from a Disney animation, "When You Wish Upon a Star." But who is the singer? It's Cliff Edwards, AKA Ukelele Ike. I read about him at Wikipedia:

Edwards was born in Hannibal, Missouri [in 1895]. He left school at age 14 and soon moved to St. Louis, Missouri and Saint Charles, Missouri, where he entertained as a singer in saloons. As many places had pianos in bad shape or none at all, Edwards taught himself to play ʻukulele to serve as his own accompanist (choosing it because it was the cheapest instrument in the music shop). He was nicknamed "Ukulele Ike" by a club owner who could never remember his name.

He got his first break in 1918 at the Arsonia Cafe in Chicago, Illinois, where he performed a song called "Ja-Da", written by the club's pianist, Bob Carleton. Edwards and Carleton made it a hit on the vaudeville circuit. Vaudeville headliner Joe Frisco hired Edwards as part of his act, which was featured at the Palace in New York City—the most prestigious vaudeville theater—and later in the Ziegfeld Follies.

He recorded many of the pop and novelty hits of the day, including "California, Here I Come", "Hard Hearted Hannah", "Yes Sir, That's My Baby", and "I'll See You in My Dreams"... "Paddlin' Madeleine Home" (1925), "I Can't Give You Anything but Love" (1928), and the classic "Singin' in the Rain" (1929), which he introduced....

He also recorded a few "off-color" novelty songs for under-the-counter sales, including "I'm a Bear in a Lady's Boudoir," "Take Out That Thing," and "Give It to Mary with Love"...

I couldn't find "Take Out That Thing." I tried! Wait — there's a different title: "Mr. Insurance Man" ("She said: Mr. Insurance Man, take out that thing for me... I crave some indemnity.... Oh, Mr. Insurance Man, let me take out that thing. Let me look at your policy.... Oh, Mr. Insurance Man, take out that thing for me. Let me see the numbers on that policy, just how much I'm gon' get").

In 1929, Cliff Edwards was playing at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles where he caught the attention of movie producer-director Irving Thalberg.... Edwards had a friendly working relationship with MGM's comedy star Buster Keaton, who featured Edwards in three of his films. Keaton, himself a former vaudevillian, enjoyed singing and harmonized with Edwards between takes. One of these casual jam sessions was captured on film, in Doughboys (1930), in which Buster and Cliff scat-sing their way through "You Never Did That Before"....

And that's when I found the clip I'm featuring in this post. 

Anyway, Edwards went on to play Jiminy Cricket in Disney's "Pinocchio" and the lead crow in "Dumbo." In the 40s, popular taste turned away from his style, toward "crooners" like Bing Crosby. But then there was TV, and he had his own show in the really early days of television — 1949. And he used to appear on "The Mickey Mouse Club," which I remember watching (in the 1950s), but I do not remember ever being this good:

Fantastic! There's some sad stuff in the Wikipedia article — alcoholism, late-life destitution. Read that if you like. But I highly recommend searching his name on Spotify (or wherever) and listening. Such a distinctive voice, many peppy, jazzy songs. If you ever — like me — went through a phase where you loved the Jim Kweskin Jug Band or Leon Redbone — not to mention Tiny Tim — you'll love it, I bet.

"Sen. Grassley presses FBI on false testimony during Justice Kavanaugh confirmation."

Posted: 25 Mar 2021 07:13 AM PDT

Writes Sharyl Attkisson (with the full text of Grassley's letter).

Amy Coney Barrett "may be giving Justice Elena Kagan a run for her money in the department of well-designed hypothetical questions" — according to Linda Greenhouse...

Posted: 25 Mar 2021 07:26 AM PDT

... writing in "Testing Time at the Supreme Court/The outcome of a property rights case could foretell how much conservatives can expect from the justices" (NYT). 

The California law, enacted in 1975 as the product of Cesar Chavez's drive to organize the state's farmworkers, authorizes the union to approach workers in the field before and after the working day for up to three hours on 120 days of a year.

"So let me ask you this," Justice Amy Coney Barrett said to [the lawyer arguing that any authorization of entry onto private property is a taking]. "What if California had a regulation that permitted union organizers to go onto the property of your clients one hour a day, one day a year. Is that a taking subject to the per se rule?"

Yes, the lawyer replied. His answer was certainly no surprise to the justices listening remotely to the argument. His theory of the case required precisely that answer, as Justice Barrett — who may be giving Justice Elena Kagan a run for her money in the department of well-designed hypothetical questions — surely knew.

Nonetheless, it underscored just how audacious the Pacific Legal Foundation's position is....

"I felt that it would give women the confidence to be able to request that leave if it was required, as opposed to just being stoic and getting on with life, when they knew that they needed time, physically or psychologically, to get over the grief."

Posted: 25 Mar 2021 04:38 AM PDT

Said Ginny Andersen, the New Zealand legislator who drafted the bill discussed in "New Zealand Approves Paid Leave After Miscarriage/The measure, believed to be among the first in the world, would apply to couples who lose a pregnancy at any point" (NYT). 

Ms. Andersen added that she had not been able to find comparable legislation anywhere in the world. "We may well be the first country," she said, adding, "But all the countries that New Zealand is usually compared to legislate for the 20-week mark." 

The new law does not apply to abortions, Ms. Andersen added. New Zealand decriminalized abortion last year, ending the country's status as one of the few wealthy nations to limit the grounds for ending a pregnancy in the first half.

Is New Zealand in the vanguard — or is this another manifestation of a culture that outlawed abortion until only last year? The bill highlights the importance and reality of the child that was lost, even though it never reached the age where it could have survived outside the womb. This is the stage of development where, in America, the woman has a right to end the pregnancy and the state cannot intervene to save the life of the child. 

Now, New Zealand has created a benefit that officially cares for parents who experience the early end to a pregnancy, but it excludes the parents/mothers who chose to end the pregnancy. The gesture of exclusion of the aborters means something, doesn't it? But what does it mean? 

  • We don't think you have any grief that you need 3 days to get over. 
  • Don't ask us to help you with this particular pain, which you chose. 
  • By aborting, you declared that what was in you was not a human being, so, within your own concept of of the universe, there was no death to grieve. 
  • We want you to feel bad about aborting.

Why did Medium's algorithm offer porn to Joe Biden? What a mystery!

Posted: 25 Mar 2021 04:14 AM PDT

We talked about the problems at Medium yesterday, here. Today, I'm seeing an article at The Verge —  "The Mess at Medium" — and it begins with some material that doesn't really have much to do with the rest of the article — which is about the problems paying writers enough within the business model of the publishing platform that is Medium. But it's really funny — one of these "mysteries" that has an answer that's so obvious that you only need Occam's Razor to solve:

Last week, a partnerships manager at Medium working with the White House found that there was a strange problem with the platform: President Joe Biden was being served porn.

The manager was in a video conference with a White House staffer to discuss how Biden, who had used Medium as a campaign blog in 2020, could begin posting to the official Medium @POTUS account. While sharing his screen with the White House, the staffer logged in to @POTUS and saw the first article recommended to him by Medium: "A is for After," which a sub-headline described as "a cuckold love story."

It's unclear if the White House saw the story. But after the meeting, the Medium staffer tried to improve Biden's recommendations. He followed political topics; he "read" posts by President Obama and Vice President Kamala Harris while logged in as the president. When he refreshed his recommendations, Medium recommended another piece of erotica: "Getting a Piece (and Some Pizza Too)," a story that carries the sub-headline "step sister taboo erotica."

The employee previously found that Medium had somehow added Biden as a writer on 10 "garbage publications," as well as at least one software development blog. "President Joe Biden is Being Served Erotica on Medium.com," the staffer complained in an internal post. The episode captured Medium in all its complexity: a publishing platform used by the most powerful people in the world; an experiment in mixing highbrow and lowbrow in hopes a sustainable business would emerge; and a devotion to algorithmic recommendations over editorial curation that routinely caused the company confusion and embarrassment.

It's only a "strange problem" if you think Presidents don't look at porn. 

As Bob Dylan sang long ago, "Even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked." ("Bob Dylan: making people picture the president naked since 1965. Thanks, Bob.")

But somebody ought to have helped him set up something other than the official Medium @POTUS account for reading his cuckold and step-sister stories. Come on, people! You know he needs help with his computers. He's 78, for God's sake!

At the Gray Café...

Posted: 24 Mar 2021 06:07 PM PDT

IMG_3193 

... you can talk about whatever you want.

What does it mean that Biden has put Kamala Harris in charge of the border crisis?

Posted: 24 Mar 2021 04:11 PM PDT

Here's a collection of articles on the subject.

Do you think choosing her is an effort to give her the opportunity to do something important and prominent so she can burnish her reputation in preparation for taking over the presidency? Or do you think it is more of an effort to hold her back, to saddle her with a huge problem that she's unlikely to handle well, and the idea is to keep her from edging Biden out?

"Kamala Harris to hold discussion with Bill Clinton on 'empowering women and girls'.... 'Is this a ... joke?' asked Juanita Broaddrick."

Posted: 24 Mar 2021 03:54 PM PDT

Fox News reports.

I guess this is good news for Andrew Cuomo: Bill Clinton, never cancelled, and now, forefronted, with special access to the first woman Vice President.

Okay, guys, but I've got to tell you — even though I see what you're seeing — and in spite of my stoical distancing — I got chills — repeatedly, even on a second viewing.

Posted: 24 Mar 2021 03:41 PM PDT

Can I explain getting chills? I'm not a fan of the Biden administration or a sucker for social programs, but the music is familiar and emotionally effective, and the woman's commitment to the role — with added silliness — is disarming. I can't tell that this particular performer is a dimwit fan of the new administration. This clip made me think of this extremely silly extolling of Trump: 

 

It's humor. But does it sell the politician? Does my getting chills mean that propaganda is working on me? I rewatched "The Little Mermaid" sequence with that song, and I got the chills in all the same places. So I tend to think it's all about the music. That's some powerful emotional manipulation.

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