Wednesday, June 16, 2021

Althouse

Althouse

"If you stand in front of a Rothko, the things that he evokes go far beyond the pain that Rothko was experiencing in his personal life at that moment."

Posted: 16 Jun 2021 12:58 PM PDT

"I don't paint from emotion or feeling, which I think are both very ephemeral... For me, painting is much more about kind of trying to bring forth what is, I think, the universal truth. The universal truth is that everything is connected and that there's something that goes far beyond what is our five senses and that connects us all."

Babbled Hunter Biden, quoted in "Hunter Biden's artwork is actually good and will be worth a lot, experts say" (NY Post).

Is art about showing that everything is connected? Interestingly, there was a Metropolitan Museum exhibition on precisely that topic not long ago (though, I don't think it's at all what was flitting through the Biden-brain when the words quoted above tumbled out). But it's a better subject than Hunter's dabblings, so check it out:

Biden declined to do a joint press conference with Putin, so Putin had the stage to himself.

Posted: 16 Jun 2021 12:50 PM PDT

From the NY Post report of the event:

Putin reframed accusations of harboring cybercriminals with the dubious claim that the US is more responsible than Russia for hacking... "I'm talking about something that's already well known, but not known to the broader public, not from American sources, I'm afraid," Putin said through a translator....

The Russian leader changed the topic when a journalist asked about his government imprisoning opposition leader Alexei Navalny, pointing to the prosecution of more than 400 supporters of former President Donald Trump for allegedly storming the Capitol on Jan. 6 to disrupt Biden's victory. "People came to the US Congress … they face prison sentences, up to 20, maybe the 25 years — they're being called domestic terrorists," Putin said....

He also cited alleged US "torture" of detainees at Guantanamo Bay and at secret CIA prisons established in Europe after 9/11 and the Black Lives Matter movement as evidence of American violations of human rights. The US "recently had very severe events … after the killing of an African American and an entire movement developed known as Black Lives Matter," he said.

Cristiano Ronaldo moved 2 Coke bottles out of his way, held up a bottle of water — and said "Agua!" — and $4 billion fell out of the Coca-Cola market value.

Posted: 16 Jun 2021 04:54 AM PDT

"It’s just incredible, when they blow in the winds they look like wave. It does look creepy the way it covers all the signs and everything."

Posted: 16 Jun 2021 04:53 AM PDT

"You can't really see it in the photos but there are spiders all over. It's like thousands and thousands of spiders."

Said Jena Beatson, quoted in "'They look like waves': spider webs blanket Gippsland after Victorian floods Flooded roads and paddocks disrupt local spiders which seek higher ground on road signs, trees and any tall grass they can find" (The Guardian).

"When President Biden, standing at NATO headquarters on Monday, referred to President Vladimir V. Putin as 'a worthy adversary,' ears perked up in Moscow...."

Posted: 16 Jun 2021 01:11 PM PDT

"'Putin's goal is to transition to a respectful adversarial relationship from the disrespectful one we have today,' said Vladimir Frolov, a Russian foreign affairs columnist. 'That seems to be in line with Biden's objectives for a "predictable and stable relationship."'...  In his interview with NBC taped last week, Mr. Putin praised Mr. Biden as a 'professional' who had spent 'just about all his conscious life in politics.'"

From "In Geneva, Putin Wants Respect. Biden Might Just Give Him Some/By calling the Russian leader 'a worthy adversary,' the president raised expectations in Moscow, but he will expect the favor to be returned" (NYT).

Praised? I don't think that was praise!  

One day Biden called Putin a "killer," and later Biden was calling him "a worthy adversary." Can you be both, did Putin change, or was Biden bullshitting both times or only once? In any case, how can it be that Putin thinks of Biden as anything but weak? 

Putin sloughed off the "killer" accusation as macho Hollywood talk of the sort people in America go in for. I'm sure he no more susceptible to compliments like "worthy adversary."

ADDED: From "No sign of thaw between Russia and US ahead of Geneva summit" in The Guardian:

Analysts suggested that the upcoming summit would be "boring" and a carefully-controlled "snoozefest" as both sides attempted something of a reboot following a catastrophic meeting between Putin and Donald Trump in Helsinki in 2018, which Trump insisted on holding without any aides. Top US aides were apoplectic as Trump emerged from one-on-one talks with Putin and rejected his own FBI's assessment that Russia had interfered in the 2016 elections. "President Putin says it's not Russia. I don't see any reason why it would be," he told reporters. One advisor later said she considered faking a medical emergency to end the press conference....

The White House does not want a joint press conference this time. Biden told reporters: "This is not a contest about who can do better in front of a press conference to try to embarrass each other."

Don't compete in events you can't win. Know your limitations. But does Biden know all his limitations and have the wisdom to decline to participate in all the activities he can't handle?  

 

ADDED: Tom emails "For some reason I thought of that scene in The Big Lebowski, where Walter is musing about Vietnam":

"We talk about 'old movies,' but I like to think of movies that come out today as 'old,' because they come from an industry that’s been around for over a century."

Posted: 16 Jun 2021 01:01 PM PDT

"I'd rather talk about movies from the 1920s as 'young movies.' It can be exciting to see the medium in its youth, when the whole idea of a movie was more fresh and new, not as weighed down by the accumulation of influences and expectations." 

Writes John Althouse Cohen as he begins a blog called "101 Years of Movies" (subtitle: "My favorite movies of each year from 1920 to 2021").

His choices for years 1920 and 1921 are already up. I know he's put a lot of movie-watching and thought into this project and these are genuinely personal choices. 

ADDED: John writes: 

My goal is to be positive about the movies on this list, not to criticize any other movies or to suggest that my taste is better than anyone else's. I hope this website inspires other people to make their own list and to explore more movies.

So there's no reason to argue with him about his choice. Just follow his example and make your own choice. Is there some 1920 or 1921 movie that you've put above his choice? Have you seen "Way Down East" and "The Kid"? Maybe you adore "The Sheik"... and "The Mask of Zorro."

"Can’t you just wait a while and leave it alone?" says Rita Moreno, defending Lin-Manuel Miranda who is criticized for not casting dark-skinned Hispanic people in his new movie.

Posted: 16 Jun 2021 02:23 AM PDT

So now Rita Moreno is trending on Twitter, with endless denouncements.

 

A sampling of anti-Moreno tweets: "'Can't you just wait a while…' EXCUSE ME?? Rita Moreno really just told dark skin Latinos to sit there and wait. Let the light skin ones go first. IM SICK"/"Rita Moreno opened her mouth and my abuelita spoke through her. Disappointed, but not actually surprised. Because having HER, of all people, dismiss the colorism problem in the latine community basically shows how deep it runs"/"I love Rita Moreno. Yes, Lin-Manuel has done whole lot. It doesn't mean he couldn't do better with representation for Afro Latinos. Why does the fair skinned always say wait your turn to darker skinned people?"/"Rita Moreno *this* close to changing her name to Rita Blanquita"/"Rita Moreno inadvertently giving 'West Side Story' (2021) bad PR for its bad casting months before its release."

Sunrise — 5:18 to 5:20.

Posted: 15 Jun 2021 05:15 PM PDT

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These attacks on people who are supposedly getting Critical Race Theory wrong are evidence that its proponents have failed to explain and defend it.

Posted: 15 Jun 2021 04:38 PM PDT

I had more to say on this subject yesterday, in a post criticizing a NYT column called "Demonizing Critical Race Theory" (NYT). I said: "I challenge proponents of Critical Race Theory to speak to ordinary people in terms they can understand and explain the theory, why it's a theory, and what is meant by 'critical.'... Why can't that be done clearly and straightforwardly? People are right to feel anxious and suspicious about something so big and powerful that can't be talked about. To say 'In fact, I don't even believe that most people have any real concept of what critical race theory is' is to blame the people for failing to understand what isn't being discussed clearly. That's perverse and elitist."

Jon Stewart suddenly reinvents himself.

Posted: 15 Jun 2021 04:13 PM PDT
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