Wednesday, March 3, 2021

Althouse

Althouse

Now who's saying the Nazi imagery was unintentional?

Posted: 03 Mar 2021 09:38 AM PST

I'm reading "CPAC's 'Nazi Rune' Stage Designed By A Liberal Company Which Has Worked For Biden, MSNBC"(National Pulse): 

The company – Design Foundry – told Forward it "had no idea that the design resembled any symbol, nor was there any intention to create something that did."... The statement comes days after mainstream media outlets and left-wing Twitter activists slammed the conference for intentionally designing a stage to depict a Nazi rune, as outlets ran stories like "Nod or blunder? No CPAC 2021 apology for a stage shaped like a white supremacist symbol" and "CPAC veers into neo-Nazi fantasy: Was it deliberate? That hardly matters."

That last one, saying the deliberateness "hardly matters," was in Salon, here.  Does it still hardly matter when you could accuse this design firm of branding CPAC as Nazis?

"Dear Ted, What has happened to us? I don't know. I feel myself in a spiral, going down down down..."

Posted: 03 Mar 2021 08:31 AM PST

"... into a black hole from which there is no escape, no brightness. And loud in my ears from every side I hear, 'failure, failure, failure...' I love you so much ... I am too old and enmeshed in everything you do and are, that I cannot conceive of life without you ... My going will leave quite a rumor but you can say I was overworked and overwrought. Your reputation with your friends and fans will not be harmed ... Sometimes think of the fun we had all thru the years ..." 

That is the suicide note of Helen Palmer, the first wife of Theodore Geisel AKA Dr. Seuss. Here's her Wikipedia page. She was born in Brooklyn, he was born in Massachusetts, she went to Wellesley, he went to Dartmouth, and they both went to Oxford, where they met. 

She later stated, "Ted's notebooks were always filled with these fabulous animals. So I set to work diverting him; here was a man who could draw such pictures; he should be earning a living doing that."...

For about a decade following World War II, Ted worked to feed a booming children's book market... [relying] heavily on the encouragement and editorial input of Helen. In fact, throughout much of his career, he relied on her support. After realising that her husband was having an affair, Helen committed suicide in 1967 with an overdose of barbiturates after a series of illnesses spanning 13 years. ...

About Helen's death, Ted's niece Peggy commented: "Whatever Helen did, she did it out of absolute love for Ted." Secretary Julie Olfe called Helen's death "her last and greatest gift to him." Eight months later, in June 1968, Ted married Audrey Dimond, with whom he had been having an affair before Helen's death.

That links to a 2000 article in the NYT: 

Audrey Dimond was married with two children when she fell in love with Ted Geisel. Mr. Geisel, 18 years her senior, was also married. In the wake of their affair, Mr. Geisel's wife, Helen, committed suicide, causing, as Mrs. Geisel puts it, ''a rather large ripple in the community of La Jolla.''

Mrs. Dimond divorced her husband to marry Mr. Geisel, 64, and when she did, her daughters, 9 and 14, were sent away to school.

''They wouldn't have been happy with Ted, and Ted wouldn't have been happy with them. He's the man who said of children, 'You have 'em and I'll entertain 'em.' Ted's a hard man to break down, but this is who he was. He lived his whole life without children and he was very happy without children. I've never been very maternal. There were too many other things I wanted to do. My life with him was what I wanted my life to be.''

Did you know and remember this story? I didn't. Had I read it in the NYT back in 2000? I must have, but it was shocking news to me when I encountered it as I was poking around on Geisel's Wikipedia page this morning after blogging about the current to-do over the man. 

ADDED: Palmer was herself a children's book author. This is her most famous book:

Knowing what happened to her, it's hard not to imagine her answer to the question: Commit suicide! 

And it's hard not to think of the super-greedy boy as Geisel. Some people thought the book was actually written by Geisel, and Snopes took the trouble to debunk a rumor which it states as: "Dr. Seuss once wrote a children's book since banned due to its references to suicide and violence."

The Snopes piece is long and interesting, going beyond getting the authorship straight and delving into why the book could be understood to have a violence problem: 

Some of the prose in Do You Know What I'm Going to Do Next Saturday? does sound a little odd if read without the context provided by its accompanying photographs, a feature the creator of the "Banned Book" page capitalized upon. For instance, at one point the child narrator declares:

Did you ever beat more than one kid at a time?

Well, I'm going to beat five kids at a time.

And then I'm going to beat their fathers, too.

The photos show a boy playing tennis with kids and volleyball with men.

Likewise, the following lines are a little difficult to fathom when considered in isolation:

I'll dump water on Sam.

I'll make him take a walk.

I'll make Sam walk about a hundred miles.

The photos show kids hiking and playing. 

Even the innocuous can sound ominous when taken out of context:

I'll run around and yell and yell.

Next Saturday I'll yell my head off.

I'll blow horns. I'll blow and blow.

Next Saturday I'll blow my head off.

No one is going to stop me next Saturday.

In the photo, the kid is playing a tuba, but you can see you don't want to hear your child say "Next Saturday I'll blow my head off"!

You Know What I'm Going to Do Next Saturday? was never "banned," and nothing about it was really the least bit unwholesome....

Yeah, well, actually it is. The whole point is that there are double meanings and the photo is always the good meaning, but you can still figure out the dangerous meaning. That's why it's funny. And once you know the author killed herself, aren't you ready to keep it out of the hands of your little darlings?

Press coverage of Dr. Seuss, worn at a slant.

Posted: 03 Mar 2021 07:29 AM PST

I was reading this Vox piece, "Meltdown over Dr. Seuss/Biden didn't mention Dr. Seuss in his Read Across America Day statement. All hell broke loose from there," and of course, I could see from the title the piece was massively slanted... 

Oh! Maybe I shouldn't use the word "slant" in the vicinity of the Dr. Seuss dispute. It's the worst word he ever used. Oh, no, it's not cute:

That's from "If I Ran the Zoo," a 1950 book that Dr. Seuss enterprises has just withdrawn from publication.  

Vox writes its article at a slant on a website where everything must be a rant. I'm not staying there long. I won't and I can't. But I noticed this one thing that seemed slightly wacky — a press conference question aimed at poor Jen Psaki:

Q A question about Dr. Seuss, since this may be the only day that you can bring up Dr. Seuss in the briefing room. It is National Read Across America Day. It's also Dr. Seuss's birthday. Both former Presidents Obama and Trump mentioned Dr. Seuss in their Read Across America Day proclamations, but President Biden did not. Why not?

MS. PSAKI: Well, first, the proclamation was written by the Department of Education, and you could certainly speak to them about more specifics about the drafting of it. But Read Across America Day, which has — you're right, has not existed forever; it has only been around for a short period of time — elevates and celebrates a love of reading among our nation's youngest leaders. And the day is also a chance to celebrate diverse authors whose work and lived experience reflect the diversity of our country. And that's certainly what they attempted to do or hope to do this year. And as we celebrate the love of reading and uplift diverse and representative authors, it is especially important that we ensure all children can see themselves represented and celebrated in the books that they read.

Q So does the omission have anything to do with the controversy about the lack of diverse characters in the author's books?

MS. PSAKI: Well, again, I think it is important that children of all backgrounds see themselves in the children's books that they read. But I would point you to the Department of Education for any more details on the writing of the proclamation. 

It was a hot topic and she made it quite dull. If you want to be a press secretary, that's something to mull.

"Is there a bigger joke in broadcast news than Chris Cuomo? Now, he says, he cannot cover his brother, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, because it’s a conflict of interest...."

Posted: 03 Mar 2021 06:56 AM PST

"Apparently no such conflict arose when Chris constantly hosted his brother during the height of the pandemic, tastelessly turning his nightly news show into 'The Cuomo Brothers Variety Hour.' The governor took time out of his busy schedule — consisting of daily ego baths dressed up as press conferences and writing a book about leadership while allegedly sexually harassing at least one young employee and eugenically shunting old people with COVID into nursing homes and certain death — to answer hard-hitting questions and accusations such as these, posed by little brother Chris: 'No matter how hard you're working, there's always time to call Mom. She wants to hear from you.' "'ou know that what people are saying about how you look really can't be accurate, so it must be hard for you to make sense of what is real and what is true now. I feel for you.' 'Now I've seen you referred to a little bit recently as the LuvGuv and I'm wondering if that's bleeding into your demeanor at all and making you a little soft on the president?' 'Do you think you are an attractive person now because you're single and ready to mingle?'"

From "How is Chris Cuomo still on the air at CNN?" by Maureen Callahan (NY Post).

The ludicrous babying of Biden.

Posted: 03 Mar 2021 07:25 AM PST

I'm reading "Opinion: The White House's use of Zoom for meetings raises China-related security concerns" by Josh Rogin in The Washington Post:
The Biden White House is using the teleconference platform Zoom for most of its unclassified government-related virtual interactions, even as the Justice Department is prosecuting one of the company's China-based executives for working with Beijing's intelligence services to interfere in Zoom calls. Some lawmakers, former officials and experts are warning that the Biden administration may be ignoring the risks....

May be?!!!

"[A] robot protagonist... meets mostly sultry, suggestive women who moan, gyrate, and throw themselves at his feet."

Posted: 03 Mar 2021 06:14 AM PST

"It is strangely reminiscent of a middle-aged male fantasy, but with clunkier chat-up lines. 'I wish my binary self had a body like that,' he says to one woman. He tells her she has lips like 'warm honey' and says: 'I'll make love to you all over your body.'... Another scene features the robot with a man who drops his trousers and tells him, antagonistically: 'You've got a finger in my butt.' They stand facing each other on an almost bare set... Questions on life, companionship and mortality are voiced but they seem like emotionless musings with no sense of drama, depth or story, and the robot moves on from one surreal scene to the next, as if in a bad dream.... It is all fairly puzzling and quite a relief when the hour is over."

From a review of a play about a robot that was written by a robot —  "On the scene, like a sex-obsessed machine: when a robot writes a play/In a drama written by artificial intelligence, the computer's imagination touches on themes of love and loneliness – but is mostly obsessed with sex" (The Guardian).

I need to know what was fed into that artificial intelligence. That had to have been human-written text. If the results are "strangely reminiscent of a middle-aged male fantasy," I suspect that's because the writings of fantasy-prone middle-aged men were fed into the nonjudgmental robot. Perhaps the play should be viewed not so much as evidence of the shortcomings of robots but as a window into the weaknesses of human minds. But you have to tell us which human writers were uploaded into the computer!

"Hunters in Wisconsin killed more than 200 wolves last week, far exceeding the state’s limit as they scrambled to take advantage of Trump-era wildlife rules..."

Posted: 03 Mar 2021 05:53 AM PST

"... that they worry may be tightened by the Biden administration. At least 216 wolves were killed in less than 60 hours, exceeding the state quota of 119 and prompting Wisconsin to end what was meant to be a one-week hunt four days early.... Environmentalists... said the large number of wolves killed in such a short time underscored the need for President Biden to put the gray wolf back on the list of animals protected under the Endangered Species Act. 'These animals were killed using packs of dogs, snares and leg-hold traps,' Kitty Block, chief executive of the Humane Society of the United States, said on Tuesday. 'It was a race to kill these animals in the most cruel ways.'... The resurgence of wolves in certain parts of the country has been called a success story for conservationists. But as their numbers grew, ranchers have had to contend with wolves' appetite for cattle and sheep. Conservationists counter that wolves keep deer, elk and other species in check and therefore help prevent more vegetation loss.... Hunter Nation said the large number of wolves hunted in such a short period of time showed that the population had 'significantly increased.' The group said that in 2014, it took two months for hunters to kill about 100 wolves. 'This season it took just three days!'... Richard M. Esenberg, a lawyer for Hunter Nation, said it was misleading for animal rights activists to claim that hunters had killed double the number of wolves allowed by the state. The state had set a quota of 200 wolves, with 119 for hunters who applied for permits with the department and 81 set aside to the Ojibwe Tribes under their treaty rights.... But the tribes consider wolves to be sacred and made a deliberate decision not to hunt them, said Dylan Jennings, a spokesman for the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, which represents the tribes. The tribes saw their allocation as a way to conserve a large number of the wolves — not to give hunters more animals to kill, he said."

From "Wisconsin Hunters Kill Over 200 Wolves in Less Than 3 Days/The gray wolf lost Endangered Species Act protections last year, prompting a recent hunt that killed at least 216 wolves — far exceeding a quota set by state wildlife officials" (NYT).

So many conflicting interests there. But obviously there are a lot of wolves, and presumably the endangered species category needs to be restricted to animals that are quite scarce, not animals that we love. Here you have an animal that is loved — even regarded as sacred. The hunters probably love the animal in a hunterly way. Some people hate or fear wolves, and some farmers and ranchers have anti-wolf economic interests. I have no idea what the solution is, but I think I'd recommend rationality over sentimentality. It may be rational to defer — to some extent — to the tribes' belief in the sacredness of the wolves and that corresponding reverence for wolves that lives in the hearts of some of the people.

At the Sunrise Café...

Posted: 02 Mar 2021 05:36 PM PST

IMG_2583 

... you can write about whatever you like.

And please think of supporting this blog by doing your shopping through the Althouse portal to Amazon, which is always right there in the sidebar. Thanks!
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