Althouse |
- Peony.
- "Liz Cheney is a bitter, horrible human being. I watched her yesterday and realized how bad she is for the Republican Party."
- Gazumping.
- "I picture 5 people in a barrel... A table made of bread etc... Green garbage-less grass stretching in yoga poses..."
- "I do miss the quiet, the strange peace, the empty streets, the feeling of solidarity among those of us who stayed, who don’t have country houses or parents or fancy friends with guest rooms."
- "But wasn’t this all just a big con? Nakajima had tricked people with a 'cool girl' stereotype to boost his Twitter numbers."
- Cheney defiant.
- "I didn't even vote. Out here in California, it's like, why vote for a Republican president? It's just not going to work. I mean..."
- "I loved this story. In a precise, concise exercise the question exposed the empty verbiage of people who dare to think they can govern or worse, think they can lead."
- Rose Marie Magnolia.
| Posted: 12 May 2021 12:35 PM PDT    |
| Posted: 12 May 2021 09:53 AM PDT "She has no personality or anything good having to do with politics or our Country. She is a talking point for Democrats, whether that means the Border, the gas lines, inflation, or destroying our economy. She is a warmonger whose family stupidly pushed us into the never-ending Middle East Disaster, draining our wealth and depleting our Great Military, the worst decision in our Country's history. I look forward to soon watching her as a Paid Contributor on CNN or MSDNC!" So blogs Donald Trump. I got there via Memeorandum, not because I check Trump's blog with regularity. The link went to the post page, not to the blog proper, and I was thrown for a moment by the words just above the post: "back to feed." Those words appear right next to an image of Trump bent over a table, and, without looking more closely, I thought: He's back to feed — feed upon the other politicians, upon the journalists, upon random tidbits of American culture. We're all a grand feast for him! I think of Robert Bork's "I think it would be an intellectual feast...." But of course, "back to feed" was a hot link, a place to click, that would get you back to his "feed," that is, his blog. If you're on an individual post page of my blog, the hot link to click on says "Home." It would be weird if it said "feed." But this is an out-and-proud blog, and Trump's blog is trying to seem like Twitter. Arguably, Twitter is a blog — "micro-blogging" — but it's different from a blog because all the blogs are interwoven in one humongous feed. There we feed/we are the feed.  |
| Posted: 12 May 2021 09:40 AM PDT I learned a new word just now. Seeing it in a headline — "Clooneys gazumped me for French vineyard, rival buyer says" (London Times) — I thought it might be a made-up word. But the OED identifies it as a slang word that goes back to 1928: 1928 Daily Express 19 Dec. 2/7 'Gazoomphing the sarker' is a method of parting a rich man from his money. An article is auctioned over and over again, and the money bid each time is added to it. ... 1934 P. Allingham Cheapjack xv. 189 Grafters speak a language comprised of every possible type of slang... Quite a number of words are Yiddish. These include 'gezumph', which means to cheat or to overcharge. 1971 Guardian 8 Nov. 13/2 'Gazumping'—a system of profiteering by double selling and pushing prices up—is creeping into the property market... The word is car trade slang for selling to one buyer and then, as values rise, to a second buyer. It means "To swindle; spec. to act improperly in the sale of houses, etc." As the Times article notes, gazumping violates French law. Guy Azzari, the buyer's lawyer, alleges his client had agreed a price of €6 million (£5.14 million) in August for the six-bedroom 18th-century bastide set in 172 hectares that include woodland, an olive grove, a vineyard and an ornamental lake. The seller is accused of raising the price after the offer was accepted, and it says here that there's "no suggestion that the Clooneys did anything unlawful, or indeed knew of the alleged gazumping." "Gazumping" should not be confused with "galumphing," which is one of the many words coined by Lewis Carroll in "Jabberwocky." "Galumphing" is clumsy, heavy walking. And we know the dashing George and the lovely Amal would never do that. He left it dead, and with its head/He went galumphing back.... That's got nothing to do with celebs attaching their names to the trendiness of rosé wine.  |
| Posted: 12 May 2021 09:04 AM PDT Meade writes, in a text that quotes this: "A group of five people sat around a campfire in a barrel next to a table of bread, donuts, oranges, graham crackers and water. Green grass with no garbage stretched out between the clusters of tents." The quote comes from an article in The Wisconsin State Journal, "City softens approach to close homeless camp, explores options for men's shelter site." I had to read the quote carefully to see what was so funny about Meade's interpretation and then I laughed a lot. A group of five people sat... in a barrel next to a table of bread.... Green grass... stretched out.... Of course, the problem of homelessness isn't funny, though if you have the patience to read the linked article, you might find the slow-moving confusion of city officials something to laugh at. FROM THE EMAIL: Douglas is reminded of the 3 Wise Men of Gotham. Here's the nursery rhyme: Three wise men of Gotham,But what's the story behind that? Wikipedia explains:
Perhaps — in a similar way — the homeless people of any given town might trick the authorities into leaving them alone. It may be wise to appear to be the opposite of wise.  |
| Posted: 12 May 2021 06:41 AM PDT "Perhaps this is because it reminds me of the East Village I moved into 40 years ago, when streets were deserted at night; when you could make out on your doorstep for an hour and not a soul would pass to catcall; when you knew your neighbors, knew the shopkeepers. We're all in this together, that was the feeling. Despite the dirt, the rampant crime (one block west boasted one of the city's highest murder rates, as drug gangs fought for turf), we were a community. Just by buying bread at the bakery around the corner (sturdy semolina, nothing fancy), I was invited to dinner at Phyllis's, the counterwoman's, house and later to her granddaughter's wedding. The block was bustling with seemingly indestructible old women—Polish, Sicilian, Irish, Spanish—who would, before sunset, drag folding chairs to the sidewalk to watch another day dwindle.... This is how it felt during lockdown. Passers-by might be few, but those of us remaining, we were in it together. Fear of crime might be replaced by fear of contagion, but if fear doesn't drive people apart, it can drive them together." From "'Sometimes I Miss the Lockdown' On silence, solidarity and a feeling, a year later, of life on thin ice in the city" by Thomas McKean  |
| Posted: 12 May 2021 06:04 AM PDT "He hadn't elevated the role of women in motorcycling; if anything, he'd supplanted them. And the character he'd created was paper thin: Soya had no internal complexity outside of what Nakajima had projected, just that eternally superimposed smile.... But some of Soya's followers have said they never felt deceived: It was Nakajima — his enthusiasm, his attitude about life — they'd been charmed by all along. 'His personality,' as one Twitter follower said, 'shined through.' In Nakajima's mind, he'd used the tools of a superficial medium to craft genuine connections. He had not felt real until he had become noticed for being fake.... Nakajima said... he's grateful for the way [Soya] helped him feel: carefree, adventurous, seen."
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| Posted: 12 May 2021 06:45 AM PDT There's only one word for it — defiant.  The word "defiant" is based on the root "fi" — which means "faith." The oldest meaning has to do with renouncing faith — such as renouncing allegiance to the king and declaring hostility or a state of war. But it's long meant to challenge and resist power openly. In the Liz Cheney situation, she's losing her own position of leadership as the group chooses a different leader. I don't think complaining about losing the support of the group is defiance. The group always had power to pick the leadership it wants, so the allegiance remains the same, to a process of choosing leadership. Is Cheney saying there's something wrong with that? She just thinks they're making the wrong choice. It's funny that all the press outlets are choosing the same word, "defiant," when it's not the right word. I understand that the word is often used loosely, just to mean staunch and feisty, but when everyone picks the same loosely applicable word, there's something fishy. But what's fishy? I think it's a desire on the part of the press to imbue Cheney with some sort of righteous entitlement to leadership. They have allegiance to her. They feel defiant. By rights, she ought to lead the Republicans. That's not factually true, of course. I'm spelling this out to expose it as ridiculous. ADDED: "No one outside of Wyoming, except Peggy Noonan, cares a whit about Liz Cheney. The question is whether the NeverTrumpers, abetted by the Democrats, can kill Trump's chances of a political resurrection" — writes Conrad Black, in "Liz Cheney and the 'Big Lie'/When the No. 3 House Republican gets the high jump this week, the real loser will be the attempt to suppress any real examination of what happened in the last election" (American Greatness.) |
| Posted: 12 May 2021 05:01 AM PDT "... it's overwhelming. It was voting day, and I thought, the only thing out here in California that I worry about, which affects people, is the propositions that were out there. And I didn't see any propositions that I really had one side or the other. And so it was Election Day. And I just couldn't get excited about it. And I just wound up going to play golf and I said, eh, I'm not doing that." Said Caitlyn Jenner, quoted in "Jenner says she didn't vote in 2020. But records show she did." Oh, the fakery! I guess she didn't realize this was a fact that could be checked. And as for the propositions — there were 12, including things having to do with future of cash bail, affirmative action, gig workers, rent control, and criminal sentencing. But she didn't "see" any that she "really had [a] side" on, so she went eh, not doing that and played golf. Which would be bad enough, but it wasn't even true. That's the bullshit she made up. Either she just doesn't care and doesn't respect her audience or she doesn't want to say how she voted on these things. She wants to be free to equivocate.  |
| Posted: 12 May 2021 04:53 AM PDT "The truth exposes their credentials vs knowledge. Political candidacy has become formulaic even shallow. This simple query sifted the chaff from the wheat. It works as short hand test for cities across the US." Top-rated comment at the NYT for a story titled "It's a Home in Brooklyn. What Could It Cost? $100,000? Shaun Donovan and Raymond J. McGuire, candidates for mayor of New York, were way, way off when asked to estimate the median home price in the borough." Shaun Donovan was the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Obama Administration and housing commissioner in the Bloomberg Administration. His answer was "In Brooklyn, huh? I would guess it is around $100,000." How could he be so out of touch? Only Andrew Yang got the answer right: $900,000. How did Donovan get his high positions when he's that clueless? I looked at Wikipedia: He holds three degrees from Harvard University: an A.B. in engineering sciences from Harvard College in 1987, a Master of Public Administration degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1995, and a Master of Architecture degree from the Graduate School of Design in 1995. Credentials! I know I'm impressed. Amazing when one question ruins a candidate — amazing, yet entirely justified. For the record, afterwards, he tried to explain it away as based on a belief that the question referred to the tax assessment value of the houses. Please follow up on that. Are the assessments out of whack? Are $900,000 houses assessed at $100,000?  |
| Posted: 11 May 2021 04:52 PM PDT   |
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