Tuesday, March 30, 2021

Althouse

Althouse

"Kipling Williams has studied the effects of the silent treatment for more than 36 years, meeting hundreds of victims and perpetrators in the process..."

Posted: 30 Mar 2021 10:19 AM PDT

"A grown woman whose father refused to speak with her for six months at a time as punishment throughout her life. 'Her father died during one of those dreaded periods... When she visited him at the hospital shortly before his death, he turned away from her and wouldn't break his silence even to say goodbye.' A father who stopped talking to his teenage son and couldn't start again, despite the harm he knew he was causing. 'The isolation made my son change from a happy, vibrant boy to a spineless jellyfish, and I knew I was the cause,' the father said to Williams. A wife whose husband severed communication with her early in their marriage. 'She endured four decades of silence that started with a minor disagreement and only ended when her husband died,' Williams said. Forty years of eating meals by herself, watching television by herself—40 years of being invisible. 'When I asked her why she stayed with him for all that time... she answered simply, "Because at least he kept a roof over my head."'" 

From "What You're Saying When You Give Someone the Silent Treatment/Social ostracism has been a common punishment for millennia. But freezing someone out harms both the victim and the perpetrator" by Daryl Austin (The Atlantic)(paywall challenge to overcome).

WaPo Fact Checker gives Biden 4 Pinocchios for saying that the new Georgia voting law is "sick … deciding that you’re going to end voting at five o’clock when working people are just getting off work."

Posted: 30 Mar 2021 09:15 AM PDT

Glenn Kessler writes: 

On Election Day in Georgia, polling places are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., and if you are in line by 7 p.m., you are allowed to cast your ballot. Nothing in the new law changes those rules.... 

So where would Biden get this perception that ordinary workers were getting the shaft because the state would "end voting at five o'clock"? We have one clue. The law used to say early "voting shall be conducted during normal business hours." Experts said that generally means 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The new law makes it specific — "beginning at 9:00 AM and ending at 5:00 PM."

Obviously, nearly everyone would read Biden's statement to refer to Election Day. The bit about early voting could have been used to cut Biden some slack and back off from the full 4-Pinocchio denouncement, but that would be wrong, because the new law didn't even cut back early voting. 

I'm glad to see Kessler giving 4 Pinocchios when deserved. Last month, I was critical of him for backing off to 3 and said: "Stop babying Biden! He's the damned President. If he needs to be babied, get him out of the presidency."

"Three burglars botched a jewellery heist when they were caught running from a neighbouring tweed shop covered in brick dust having set off the alarm on a safe by drilling through a cellar wall."

Posted: 30 Mar 2021 08:35 AM PDT

"The trio broke into the Cheltenham Tweed Company shop in the spa town's promenade on January 9 and drilled their way through the dividing wall in the basement to get into the adjacent antiques and jewellery shop. Tim Burrows, for Newman said: 'They were all flummoxed by the safe. It was while they were trying to gain entry into the safe that the alarm went off.' Judge Ian Lawrie, QC, interjected: "They behaved like three buffoons with utter incompetence in carrying out this burglary.... Judge Lawrie told Rabjohns: 'You were a complete idiot to get involved in this burglary. You need to take greater care who you mix with in future.'"

That's from England, obviously. Lots of clues, and I didn't even include the part about the "spanner" in the "boot." Notice the spelling "jewellery." In America, we laugh at people who speak as if "jewelry" were spelled "jewellery."

From "'Buffoon' burglars sentenced for botched jewellery heist" (The London Times).

It's one thing to get caught committing a crime, quite another to have the judges all mocking you for how stupid you were to get caught. 

Running from a tweed shop covered in brick dust! 

Judge Lawrie: "I don't think the three men visiting the clothing shop were really interested in adding tweed to their wardrobe when they went on a scouting mission in December."

"Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Monday that neither a gas tax nor a mileage tax would be part of President Joe Biden's sweeping infrastructure plan to be detailed on Wednesday."

Posted: 30 Mar 2021 08:12 AM PDT

 CNN reports. 

The absence of both taxes to fund the infrastructure proposal marks a shift from Buttigieg's comments Friday.

"I think that shows a lot of promise," Buttigieg said of the mileage tax. "If we believe in that so-called user pays principle, the idea that part of how we pay for roads is you pay based on how much you drive.... The gas tax used to be the obvious way to do it -- it's not anymore, so a so-called vehicle-miles-traveled tax or mileage tax, whatever you want to call it, could be a way to do it... [I]f there's a way to do it that doesn't increase the burden on the middle class, we can look at it, but if we do, we've got to recognize that's still not going to be the long-term answer."

That was last Friday, after which Buttigieg got "roasted" (according to The Week). The big problem with that "user pays principle" is that richer people live in the more close-in suburbs and have the benefit of a shorter commute, and the poorer people who must buy further-out real estate and put up with a longer commute would now be expected to pay more for their opposite-of-privilege.

Here's Buttigieg displaying absurd glibness embracing the principle and acting like he and that principle never met:

"These highly-qualified candidates reflect the President’s deeply-held conviction that the federal bench should reflect the full diversity of the American people – both in background and in professional experience..."

Posted: 30 Mar 2021 07:58 AM PDT

Says "President Biden Announces Intent to Nominate 11 Judicial Candidates" (White House press release). 

Quote attributed to Biden:

"This trailblazing slate of nominees draws from the very best and brightest minds of the American legal profession. Each is deeply qualified and prepared to deliver justice faithfully under our Constitution and impartially to the American people — and together they represent the broad diversity of background, experience, and perspective that makes our nation strong."

Who writes this stuff? You've got the "best and brightest" cliché (puffed up with "very"). You've got the silly mixed metaphor, "trailblazing slate." You've got the syrupy ideology  — "broad diversity... makes our nation strong."

Looking at the list, I see that 9 of the 11 are female.

Here's the NYT article: "Biden Names Diverse Nominees for the Federal Bench/The president's first choices for district and appeals court openings reflected his campaign promise to choose judges from outside of traditional backgrounds."
Mr. Biden is not the first Democratic president to try to reshape the federal bench. When Mr. Obama was elected, his lawyers also considered appointing judges who did not have the traditional pedigrees of litigating experience at major law firms, graduating from top colleges, selection to elite clerkships and service as federal prosecutors.
But when Mr. Obama's counsel's office sent the names of public defenders or sole practitioners to the American Bar Association for the standard review before nomination, the group frequently objected. One person familiar with the effort said the Obama White House ran into what he called "endless difficulties" with the bar association, which would indicate privately that it intended to rate such candidates poorly. 
Late last year, during his transition, Mr. Biden agreed with advisers to end the tradition of Democratic presidents of submitting names to the bar association before nominating them. The association will be free to issue judgments on those nominees, but only after the president has already made his selections public. 
That could help Mr. Biden fill judicial vacancies more quickly, said several people familiar with the process. The president and his lawyers are keenly aware that Democratic control of the Senate may not last past the midterm elections in 2022, giving him a short window in which to make his mark on the judiciary....

ADDED: In my American experience, the phrase "The Best and The Brightest" has a dark, sarcastic edge.

"It’s more necessary than ever to find the empathetic experience of meeting another person, being in another culture, to smell it, to suffer it, to put up with the hardship and the nuisances of travel, all of that matters."

Posted: 30 Mar 2021 07:52 AM PDT

The pro-travel position, aspirationally articulated by Paul Theroux, quoted in "Would the Pandemic Stop Paul Theroux From Traveling? No. Of course not" (NYT). 

Nice photo of Theroux's workspace at the link. I'm a longtime fan of that genre of photography, and I declare this example worth a click. 

I'm also a longtime participant in the debate about whether to travel, and I'm more of a con than a pro. In that light, I'll say that Theroux sets a somewhat high bar for what you're supposed to be doing in this thing called travel — "empathetic experience," "being in, "smell it," "suffer it," "put up with the hardship." It's no pleasure trip. 

Another Theroux quote at the link: "You cannot be a grumpy traveler. You will not get anywhere. You'll be killed, you'll be insulted, you won't be able to travel. So you need to get along with people. I think that I'm characterized as cantankerous perhaps because if you see things the way they are, and you just describe things the way they are, you can be accused of being unkind."
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