Tuesday, April 20, 2021

Althouse

Althouse

Chauvin guilty on all counts.

Posted: 20 Apr 2021 02:34 PM PDT

I'm sure that is an immense relief to many, many people

From the NYT:

Outside the building in Minneapolis where the verdict was read, there was a shout — "Guilty!" — and then an eruption of cheers. When all the counts came back guilty, the cheer changed: "All three counts!"...

At George Floyd Square, the memorial to where Floyd was killed, a woman nearly collapses in tears. When she straightens, she manages to croak out, "We matter. We matter." 


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6:07 a.m.

Posted: 20 Apr 2021 02:35 PM PDT

IMG_4203

"The removal of the classics is a sign that we, as a culture, have embraced from the youngest age utilitarian schooling at the expense of soul-forming education."

Posted: 20 Apr 2021 08:16 AM PDT

"To end this spiritual catastrophe, we must restore true education, mobilizing all of the intellectual and moral resources we can to create human beings of courage, vision and civic virtue. Students must be challenged: Can they face texts from the greatest thinkers that force them to radically call into question their presuppositions? Can they come to terms with the antecedent conditions and circumstances they live in but didn't create? Can they confront the fact that human existence is not easily divided into good and evil, but filled with complexity, nuance and ambiguity? This classical approach is united to the Black experience. It recognizes that the end and aim of education is really the anthem of Black people, which is to lift every voice. That means to find your voice, not an echo or an imitation of others. But you can't find your voice without being grounded in tradition, grounded in legacies, grounded in heritages."

Write Cornel West and Jeremy Tate in "Howard University's removal of classics is a spiritual catastrophe" (WaPo). 

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"We don’t know if it is going to ever be over... I will be masked up for many, many years... There are too many unknowns."

Posted: 20 Apr 2021 08:08 AM PDT

"I would give anything just to hold someone's hand. People need other people. You need human contact to survive in this world.... [My daughter] said, 'Mom, I already had COVID, so I don't think I need the shot.' I said, 'Yes you do. You could get COVID twice. I know people who have gotten it twice... She's just — I mean, you can't really do so much. I said, 'You're not gonna see me until you're fully vaccinated. Because you're not gonna come up here and kill me.'... I get winded very quickly because of my heart issue, and it's very difficult for me to breathe with a mask.... But I will not take it off.... The only time I will ever take the mask off is when I hear there are zero deaths, and it stays that way for a couple months, and there's no new infections.... But I highly doubt that is going to happen anytime soon."

 Said Robin Argenti, a 57-year-old woman, quoted in "The Forever Maskers" (NY Magazine).

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"Yes, a book claiming objectivity on abortion (if that is indeed what Barrett produces) would just be a continuation of the dishonesty of Supreme Court nominees..."

Posted: 20 Apr 2021 07:59 AM PDT

"... acting as though they haven't really thought much about the most heavily discussed and controversial cases in the history of constitutional law. Once confirmed, most of them fall silent until they actually rule on the relevant cases. Maybe Barrett's book deal is in fact a big advance on a tome she will write after she has helped overturn Roe — in which case, she could publish a book of recipes or something about her stamp collection and grateful anti-abortion activists would snap it up. And at that point no one would much care whether her 'personal feelings' had anything to do with the chore Trump placed her on the Court to perform as part of his transactional relationship with the Christian Right."

Writes Ed Kilgore — with over-the-top hostility — in the "Justice Barrett Gets $2 Million Deal to Tell Readers What They Don't Want to Hear" (NY Magazine). 

"What They Don't Want to Hear" is the discussion of the role of a judge in following the law without interposing personal feelings. Kilgore assumes the people who would buy a book written by Amy Coney Barrett are simply those who believe abortion is murder and want it stopped, however it can be stopped. 

Kilgore's basis for accusation is thin. He speaks of "the chore Trump placed her on the Court to perform," but Barrett has life tenure and free of any "chores" that must be performed. And I don't think Trump is much of an abortion opponent. He many have won the votes of the "Christian Right," but now that the elections are over, he's not in a "transactional relationship" with these people. Trump had the power to appoint when he had it, and he used it to make an appointment of a person that he knew would be on her own once sworn in. Kilgore scribbles about a deal was made and remains alive, and I guess that's what he gets paid for. And isn't that's what New York Magazine subscribers pay to hear?

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"All that transpired played a role in his condition," said the medical examiner, in the case of Officer Brian D. Sicknick, who died after the January 6th breaching of the Capitol.

Posted: 20 Apr 2021 09:53 AM PDT

"His office said that it attributes death to natural causes when it can be ascribed to disease alone and that 'if death is hastened by an injury, the manner of death is not considered natural.'" Yet the medical examiner, Francisco J. Diaz, determined that Sicknick died of "natural causes."

I'm reading "Officer Attacked in Capitol Riot Died of Strokes, Medical Examiner Rules The determination is likely to complicate efforts to prosecute anyone in the death of the officer, Brian Sicknick" (NYT).

"The determination is likely to complicate the Justice Department's efforts to prosecute anyone in the death of Officer Sicknick, 42; two men have been charged with assaulting him by spraying an unknown chemical on him outside the Capitol. But an autopsy found no evidence that Officer Sicknick had an allergic reaction to chemicals or any internal or external injuries.... Two men were charged last month with assaulting Officer Sicknick, but prosecutors have avoided linking the attack to his death...."

That's written confusingly. If "prosecutors have avoided linking the attack to his death," then what are the "efforts to prosecute anyone in the death of Officer Sicknick"? The assault is an assault regardless of whether it caused a death that happened to occur soon afterward. But there's also that discrepancy between what the medical examiner said — "All that transpired played a role in his condition" — and the assertion that the finding of death by "natural causes" excludes the idea that death "was hastened by an injury."

Not discussed in the New York Times article is the way the media ran with the notion that the Capitol protesters had killed a cop. That's the legend they created, and I bet that legend will live.

FROM THE EMAIL: I'm getting a lot of email, much of it expanding what I've already said in that last paragraph. I get the sense many readers need that to be said more elongatedly, more emphatically. But let me give you this emailed comment, from James. It's short and pithy, and it kicks things up with an observation that I didn't make — speculation that there was deliberate delay to give life to the legend:

Maybe the reason prosecutors have not tried to link anyone to Officer Sicknick's death or charge anyone with homicide is that they have known for months that he died of natural causes and there was no homicide. The powers that be just did not bother to let the rest of us know this until after the "they killed a cop" narrative was firmly rooted in the public mind.

ALSO: Glenn Greenwald is especially outraged for the way other journalists treated him: 

Because of its centrality to the media narrative and agenda, anyone who tried to point out the serious factual deficiencies in this story — in other words, people trying to be journalists — were smeared by Democratic Party loyalists who pretend to be journalists as "Sicknick Truthers," white nationalist sympathizers, and supporters of insurrection.

For the crime of trying to determine the factual truth of what happened, my character was constantly impugned by these propagandistic worms, as was anyone else's who tried to tell the truth about Sicknick's tragic death. Because one of the first people to highlight the journalistic truth here was former Trump official Darren Beattie of Revolver News and one of the few people on television willing to host doubts about the official story was Tucker Carlson, any doubts about the false Sicknick story — no matter how well-grounded in truth, facts, reason and evidence — were cast as fascism and white supremacy, and those raising questions smeared as "truthers": the usual dreary liberal insults for trying to coerce people into submitting to their lies....

"[L]ast year, Hsu Hsiu-e, 84 and Chang Wan-ji, 83—a married couple who own a laundromat in Taiwan—became global social media stars thanks to their Instagram account..."

Posted: 20 Apr 2021 07:08 AM PDT

"... @wantshowasyoung. The pair pose in compelling outfits styled from clothes their laundromat customers have left behind. The account is now up to over 654,000 followers and the pair was recently named the ambassadors for Taipei Fashion Week." 

From "Grandpa Style: Why 20-Somethings Are Dressing Like Senior Citizens/Thanks to Instagram accounts like @Gramparents and books like 'Chinatown Pretty,' milllenials and Gen-Z are coming to appreciate their gray-haired elders' fashion sense" (WSJ). 

 I'm amused by the way the WSJ tried so hard to get the double letters in "millennial" right and came up with "milllenials." 

Anyway... @wantshowasyoung isn't about youngish people dressing like really old people. It's old people wanting to "show as young" — look young. I'm blogging this little side issue, because I like the Instagram account. Such a perfect idea. Example:

As for millennials and Gen Zers dressing like "grandfathers," my favorite example of this is the YouTube icon Review Brah, who explains here — in his mesmerizing style — why he dresses like that: 

 

The Wall Street Journal has written on this subject before. Back in 2013, it had "Grandfather Knows Best — Instead of idolizing Dad, some well-dressed men reach a further generation back for their style cues":

"My grandfather taught me that a man always carries a handkerchief and always needs a clean-cut hairstyle," said Max, a private-equity firm associate who lives in Chicago....While his father is no slouch, Max explained, "he requires comfort in his dress."

Perhaps it's the legacy of the baby boomers who loosened their collars and made every day a Casual Friday, but many men are looking past dear old Dad and finding lessons in their grandfathers' wardrobes....

FROM THE EMAIL: Mr. Wibble writes: 

Over the past year I've fallen down the rabbit hole that is the historical costuming community on Youtube, and one interesting point that gets raised by these (mostly) women time and again is how much "comfort versus style" is a false-dichotomy. The two are not at odds; in fact, dressing well can often be more comfortable.
A well-fitting corset is far superior in support to a bra, natural fibers such as cotton, linen, or light wool breathe far better than modern fabrics, and the clever use of tailoring and padding can help create the fashionable shape and hide any number of sins. 
Personally, I've found that a jacket, tie, and slacks are far more comfortable for everyday wear than jeans and a t-shirt. I have to wonder if the rise of mass manufactured clothing post-WWII has played a role in the sloppiness of modern society. Modern fabrics (read, "plastic and rubber") sewn by Vietnamese workers and designed to fit the most body types without any adjustment will always look sloppy and feel uncomfortable. 
Also, that suit is too big for that young man. He needs it taken in, and needs to sit up straight. 
*rambles like an old man*

I agree that casual clothes can be uncomfortable and dressy clothes can be comfortable. It's a matter of fabric and fit. But it takes some thought and searching and, often, extra money to get yourself into dressy clothes that are comfortable. 

And I don't buy that corsets are more comfortable than bras. "Bra" is not just one thing. There's a whole range, and if you have something of good quality that fits, it might be pretty comfortable. For casualness, you can just toss out that bra, though some women insist that they are less comfortable with no bra at all! Personally, I think that's a problem caused by bra-wearing, which provides external support for what is otherwise be supported from the inside. But are corsets more comfortable than a well-made, properly fitting bra? Maybe they are if they are well-made and properly fitting, but it might depend on the person.

As for modern fabrics, I think the really high quality stuff that you find in athletic wear may be superior to cotton. Runners and hikers are advised not to wear cotton.

As for Review Brah, he wears what he likes, and he like oversized, baggy clothes. He gets people telling him all the time that his clothes should be more fitted, and he adamantly rejects the advice. His position is wear what you want, and he's wearing what he wants.

"I wish elected officials would stop talking about this case, especially in a manner that is disrespectful to the rule of law and to the judicial branch and our function."

Posted: 20 Apr 2021 08:00 AM PDT

"I think if they want to give their opinions, they should do so in a respectful and in a manner that is consistent with their oath to the Constitution to respect a coequal branch of government. Their failure to do so I think is abhorrent, but I don't think it has prejudiced us with additional material that would prejudice this jury." 

Said Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill, the judge in the Derek Chauvin case, quoted in "Jury ends first day of deliberating with no verdicts in Derek Chauvin murder trial/With the dismissals of the alternates, the jury of 12 is now half white and half people of color" (Star Tribune). 

It's a hopeless wish. People are going to talk. And disrespect is part of human expression. An important part. The rule of law is one of the all-time great ideals, but the way the law plays out in real life deserves — and benefits from — the expression of disrespect. It's fine for the judge to wish for respect, but it's up to him to do what earns respect. 

His main point here is to deny that there has been a mistrial because of what's been said out there in public, particularly what Rep. Maxine Waters said — that protesters need to get "more confrontational" if there is no guilty verdict. It's horrible to think that all the hard work of conducting a trial could be squandered by one wild-talking politician. Of course Cahill denied the motion.

But does the threat of riots unfairly prejudice the jury — and does Waters's one inflammatory statement make all the difference? What does "more confrontational mean"? It could just mean bigger, louder, more passionate demonstrations. But perhaps we're supposed to know that she meant destruction and violence — just like the way the supporters of the last impeachment were sure that when Trump urged people in the street to "fight like hell," everyone was supposed to know he advocated criminal disorder.

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