Althouse

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• Redbud.
• Biden "will often snap" — says the NYT, based on interviews with "more than two dozen current and former Biden associates."
• Is transparent propaganda not even propaganda?
• There really is another choice.
• The Cal Ripken of television.
• "Microaggressions at the office can make remote work even more appealing/Extended remote work during the pandemic has highlighted how much energy people of color, women, and people with disabilities expend dealing with microaggressions in the office."
• "I’m terrified... Terrified, and I do not scare easily."
• The only thing to freak out about is freaking out itself.
• He's my Congressman!

Redbud. Posted: 14 May 2021 07:17 AM PDT   Meade texted that to me from the backyard yesterday.  I responded... charming  i like the way the tree looks like a bent arm wearing a very old sweater

Biden "will often snap" — says the NYT, based on interviews with "more than two dozen current and former Biden associates." Posted: 14 May 2021 07:13 AM PDT I'm reading "Beneath Joe Biden's Folksy Demeanor, a Short Fuse and an Obsession With Details/As Mr. Biden settles into the office he has chased for more than three decades, aides say he demands hours of debate from scores of policy experts" by Michael D. Shear, Katie Rogers and Annie Karni.  Before making up his mind, the president demands hours of detail-laden debate from scores of policy experts, taking everyone around him on what some in the West Wing refer to as his Socratic "journey" before arriving at a conclusion. Those trips are often difficult for his advisers, who are peppered with sometimes obscure questions. Avoiding Mr. Biden's ire during one of his decision-making seminars means not only going beyond the vague talking points that he will reject, but also steering clear of responses laced with acronyms or too much policy minutiae, which will prompt an outburst of frustration, often laced with profanity. Let's talk plain English here, he will often snap.... On policy issues, Mr. Biden, 78, takes days or weeks to make up his mind as he examines and second-guesses himself and others. It is a method of governing that can feel at odds with the urgency of a country still reeling from a pandemic and an economy struggling to recover..... Those closest to him say Mr. Biden is unwilling, or unable, to skip the routine.... Mr. Biden is gripped by a sense of urgency that leaves him prone to flares of impatience, according to numerous people who regularly interact with him... So... urgent and not urgent, simultaneously? [S]everal people familiar with the president's decision-making style said Mr. Biden was quick to cut off conversations. So... long conversational journeys but also cutting off conversation? I'm not really seeing a big problem here. The President should control when things go long or need to be cut short. It's only a problem if he's reacting based on his temper rather than his degree of understanding.  Three people who work closely with him said he even occasionally hangs up the phone on someone who he thinks is wasting his time. Who cares?! Most described Mr. Biden as having little patience for advisers who cannot field his many questions. Fine! "You become so hyperprepared," said Dylan Loewe, a former speechwriter for Mr. Biden. "'I've got to answer every conceivable question he can come up with.'"... So? Well, maybe now I'm suspecting the NYT of making a bullshit show of critiquing him when they're really praising him. "He hates blandishing fast-talk that sounds like double speak," said Chris Jennings, a former health policy aide who engaged frequently with Mr. Biden when he was vice president. "Doesn't trust it, and he's certain voters loathe it."... Hmm. My hypothesis gathers steam.  If you keep going in this article, you'll get to stuff about what he and Dr. Jill eat: "vanilla chocolate chip Haagen-Dazs ice cream, Special K cereal, one bunch of red grapes, sliced cheese, six eggs, sliced bread, one tomato from the garden, and at least two apples on hand at all times." Biden drinks Orange Gatorade, and Jill is "an oenophile of the first degree." That's like something W.C. Fields would say for a laugh: "an oenophile of the first degree."

Is transparent propaganda not even propaganda? Posted: 14 May 2021 06:23 AM PDT Amazing but not surprising: no mention at all of the anti-police BLM marches and riots last year. Not even as one contributing factor. https://t.co/mmK7915raZ — Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish) May 14, 2021

There really is another choice. Posted: 14 May 2021 06:21 AM PDT The rule is now simple: get vaccinated or wear a mask until you do. The choice is yours. — President Biden (@POTUS) May 13, 2021 It's incoherent to demand that people follow science and to misrepresent the options. There's also the choice to avoid both the mask and the vaccination. Everyone knows that. If I had to defend the President, I'd say it's so obviously not true that no one takes it as true, so it doesn't count as a lie.

The Cal Ripken of television. Posted: 14 May 2021 06:17 AM PDT Thanks to all wishing me get well - hard to do since I feel perfectly fine, but I appreciate it! Most upset about ending my streak going back to 1993 of never missing a Politically Incorrect or Real Time episode. Oh well, even Cal Ripken had to sit one out at some point. — Bill Maher (@billmaher) May 14, 2021 Maher has tested positive for Covid, but he's symptomless — and vaccinated — so it may be a false positive. In any case, I know from listening to him on the Joe Rogan podcast that he takes great pride in doing an hour-long live show, done without commercial breaks, in which he's actively involved in every segment.  It really is an impressive achievement, and I wish he could just do his show — do it with distance. But I guess the show made a rule — everyone must be tested and test negative — and rules are rules. No exceptions.  The lawyer in me says just make a rule where you're not within the rule: Every guest must be tested and test negative. The host is not within the rule. But you'd have to justify exposing the guests to the positive-testing host. Still: What if all the guests are vaccinated? And distance is maintained. And Maher wears a mask? It might be hard to sell. First, Maher looks like an example of the vaccinated person who still catches the disease. Second, Maher needs to be funny, and he could bomb trying to be funny from behind a mask. We wouldn't see his smirk!

"Microaggressions at the office can make remote work even more appealing/Extended remote work during the pandemic has highlighted how much energy people of color, women, and people with disabilities expend dealing with microaggressions in the office." Posted: 14 May 2021 06:04 AM PDT A headline at WaPo. From the text: In a Twitter discussion on office microaggressions, people said working at home has largely spared them from having to deal with such incidents as: having colleagues touch their hair  being mistaken for another colleague of the same race (a problem solved by having names displayed in video meetings)  overhearing insensitive commentary on or being pressured to discuss traumatizing news events such as racist violence or coronavirus outbreaks in their home country  fielding comments from passersby on their "angry" (actually focused) expressions.... Allowing people to work in an environment where they don't feel the need to keep their guard up means "releasing that mental burden from people who are … getting paid to think".... Notice the potential for a legal argument: Denying the work-at-home option constitutes race/sex discrimination. There's also new reason to see a failure to accommodate the disabled: [One employee's] health improved at home, away from colleagues wearing asthma-triggering scents. Workers with disabilities may have been spared the stress of navigating building access and transportation challenges.... And there's the general fear of violence that can be framed as discrimination — and it's not even discrimination in the workplace that the employer could attempt to fix: And given the documented rise in anti-Asian violence over the past year, Asian workers who reasonably fear for their safety while commuting on public transit might feel safer if they continue working from home.... I guess concern about "anti-Asian violence" is in vogue, but what about women? Obviously, women feel burdened by threats of violence when making their way from the home to the workplace and back again. I suspect that the option to work at home — for any work that can be done at home — has already become something that cannot be denied. Arguments that work needs to be done in person will be countered with the real-world evidence of how it was done at home during the lockdown. ADDED: I'm saying it's already happened: The right to work at home has already come into being. No sooner did I say that then I realized: It's systemic racism! (And systemic sexism. And systemic ableism.) What has been created is an option to behave in a way that will be attractive to women and minorities and the disabled.  As they take this option, for their own individual benefit, they remove themselves from the workplace, make themselves invisible, and cede the active arena to the white males — the able white males — as it was in the past! And it will all be done under the cover of supporting the workers in the groups that were once excluded from the workplace. And by "it," I mean: exclusion from the workplace! Oh! White male supremacy is devious indeed! Here, we'll give you what you want. You'll be so much more comfortable here. At home!

"I’m terrified... Terrified, and I do not scare easily." Posted: 14 May 2021 05:13 AM PDT I'm reading the top-rated comment at the NYT article, "Hundreds of Epidemiologists Expected Mask-Wearing in Public for at Least a Year/The C.D.C. said Thursday that vaccinated Americans no longer needed masks in most places. Other disease experts recently had a different message: that masks were necessary in public."  The NYT seems to be stimulating fear in reaction to the CDC announcement. The survey the headline refers to was taken before the CDC took its new position, so these epidemiologists — 723 of them — were, I suspect, passing along the party line. Did they do their own studies? Even if they did, do they study the costs of the restrictions or simply, endlessly default toward caution? Here's the full comment:  This is a horrible, horrifying decision. There's no way to prove who's vaccinated and who isn't. People are going to lie about their status. We were out shopping today and my husband saw a woman wearing a mask that said "This mask is as useless as my Governor." Does she seem trustworthy? Does she maybe seem like someone who'd doff her mask at the first chance, whether she'd been vaccinated or not, because she's an imbecile and has no regard for the lives of others? What difference does it make? If you know you're vaccinated and you believe vaccines work, you're fine without your mask, and only the unvaccinated are at risk. Why are you obsessing about the mind of a stranger? That's a social/political relationship, and it's got nothing to do with the science of disease. Ironically, you're scoffing at her lack of adherence to science while you yourself veer away from science. I know social life and politics are more fun, but if you get your jollies from imposing physical restraints on other people, you need to look into your own heart. The comment continues: I think that it's moronic to lift the ban until enough of the population has been vaccinated to achieve herd immunity. I'm including the under-18s in that. I had Covid last August and it has ripped my life apart. I'm terrified of the prospect of getting it again. Terrified, and I do not scare easily. Fewer masks and fewer precautions means more chances for the virus to mutate. We don't know if the vaccines will protect us from mutations. I do not know what having Covid again would do to me, but I'll tell you up front that permanent damage to my sense of smell would be ample reason for me to give serious consideration as to whether I still want to live. Oh, &*%$ hell. I haven't had Covid, but I've lived with a seemingly permanent loss of the sense of smell for years. I don't go around saying it makes life not worth living! What crazy hysteria! And from a person who claims not to be easily scared. I guess it's all relative. Maybe this person lives in a truly timorous community. In the land of the raving hysterics, the terrified man is equanimous. I can't let go of the fear of what could happen to my loved ones. I'm stunned that the CDC has acted so irresponsibly. Why not just say you're stunned to hear the new announcement? What is the basis for judging it to be irresponsible? You seem to be substituting your emotion for science. I know, though. This commenter can say he's relying on the NYT survey of 723 epidemiologists. I wonder if there's a term for the pseudoscience of surveying large groups of experts.

The only thing to freak out about is freaking out itself. Posted: 14 May 2021 05:28 AM PDT I'm reading From "Opinion: Don't freak out about inflation yet" by Catherine Rampell (WaPo). Key point: If everyone interprets recent price spikes as temporary shocks that will disappear as the economy reopens and production ramps up, then inflation and overheating concerns should fade. But if people start to freak out about inflation, then inflation becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Businesses start preemptively raising prices and wages, because they expect everyone else to do so, too. So if there's inflation, it will be our fault. Calm down, settle back. It's only going to be a problem if you make it a problem.  ADDED: It's all in the mind, so....

He's my Congressman! Posted: 14 May 2021 05:09 AM PDT I wasn't expecting to get such a laugh when I clicked on the headline "Anti-Israel Congressman You Never Heard Of Whines About Why No One Is Attacking Him On Social Media" at Instapundit and landed at Legal Insurrection, where the subheadline is "After Rep. Mark Pocan noted that he condemned Israel but no one criticized him, people responded that they never heard of him." The tweet that post is about is: "I'm seeing a lot of right-wing extremists criticize my wonderful colleague, @IlhanMN, because she rightly condemned the murder of Palestinian children & Israel's violence against Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrar & at Al-Aqsa. I did the same, wonder why they're not criticizing me?"  You see what's going on there: He's insinuating that the criticism of Ilhan Omar is anti-Muslim. Otherwise the critics would go after him too. The taunting response to his insinuation is that he's not famous. Legal Insurrection embeds many tweets with the same you're-not-famous answer to Pocan's "wonder why they're not criticizing me."

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