Trendlist: Althouse

Sunday, January 30, 2022

Althouse

"My mom was terrified that my dad, a police inspector in charge of Senate security, was not coming back on March 1, 1954, the day four Puerto Rican nationalists pulled out guns and sprayed bullets..."
"Freedom of association means freedom of disassociation as well. If your neighbors annoy you, you should always be free to move somewhere the neighbors are less annoying."
Ice fishermen drive out onto Lake Mendota at sunrise.
2 almost-promises candidate Trump made at his rally yesterday in Conroe, Texas.
Who needs vaccines? "Music is our planet’s sacred weapon, uniting and healing billions of souls every day."
The NYT says that "Black women in the legal community are bracing for the possibility that the yet-to-be-named nominee will be judged unfairly as an affirmative action appointment."
At the Bird Finial Café...

"My mom was terrified that my dad, a police inspector in charge of Senate security, was not coming back on March 1, 1954, the day four Puerto Rican nationalists pulled out guns and sprayed bullets..."

Posted: 30 Jan 2022 08:50 AM PST

"... from the spectators' gallery above the House floor. Five representatives were wounded. My father ran over from the Senate and wrested a 38-caliber pistol from one of the shooters. My brother Kevin, then in second grade, was traumatized by my mom's terror as she stood in the kitchen, frozen, before she got word that my dad was OK... I thought about this listening to Dominique Luzuriaga, Officer Rivera's widow, give her eulogy through sobs... Officer Rivera and his 27-year-old partner, Wilbert Mora, died answering a 911 call from a mother in Harlem who said her son had verbally threatened her. They walked down a hall in the apartment and the son jumped out and opened fire, fatally wounding both officers... [Rivera] was the class clown, but he got a serious crush on Dominique in grade school. Teachers had to sit them apart so they could focus... When she was called to Harlem Hospital, she said, 'Walking up those steps, seeing everybody staring at me, was the scariest moment I've experienced.' Standing by her dead husband, wrapped in sheets, she told him: 'Wake up, baby. I'm here.' In the eulogy, she often talked directly to her husband, as though he were standing at her side: 'The little bit of hope I had that you would come back to life just to say "Goodbye" or just to say "I love you" one more time had left. I was lost. I'm still lost.'"

From "Rhapsody for a Boy in Blue" by Maureen Dowd (NYT).

To read more about that March 1, 1954 incident, here's the Wikipedia article. Excerpt: "The assailants were arrested, tried and convicted in federal court, and given long sentences, amounting to life imprisonment. In 1978 and 1979, their sentences were commuted by President Jimmy Carter."

And from "Rafael Cancel Miranda, Gunman in '54 Attack on Congress, Dies at 89/He and three others opened fire on a crowded House chamber in the cause of Puerto Rican independence. Some saw him as a terrorist, others as a hero" (NYT, March 3, 2020):

"Can you imagine us thinking we could overthrow the U.S. government with little pistols?" he told The Militant. "I wish I could!"
He referred to the attack as "an armed demonstration."
"We knew that if we went with signs, we weren't going to get attention," he said.

"Freedom of association means freedom of disassociation as well. If your neighbors annoy you, you should always be free to move somewhere the neighbors are less annoying."

Posted: 30 Jan 2022 07:41 AM PST

"Similarly, Spotify should be allowed to decide whom to do business with.... Content creators and content consumers alike choose their preferred associations.... But I do worry about the continued fragmentation of society that attends the idea that everyone sharing a cultural space must align ideologically to coexist... I'm wary of boycotts generally, as there are few limiting principles once you decide you cannot tolerate someone's thinking. Given Young's own controversial, science-averse advocacy on such issues as life-saving, child-blindness-averting GMOs, one could ask what's stopping a retaliatory boycott. Or, to return to the real estate analogy, freedom of association means you're free to move, but you shouldn't be able to threaten an exodus to get the homeowners' association to evict a neighbor.... There's something deeply corrosive about attempting to live in a way that demands everyone agree with you...."

From "What concerns me most about Neil Young's Spotify fight" by Sonny Bunch (WaPo).

Yes, let's agree to try to live together...

Ice fishermen drive out onto Lake Mendota at sunrise.

Posted: 30 Jan 2022 09:07 AM PST

I was running on the snow-covered ice, much nearer to the shore, when I caught this cheerful sight:

2 almost-promises candidate Trump made at his rally yesterday in Conroe, Texas.

Posted: 30 Jan 2022 06:23 AM PST

The one that's getting press is pardons for at least some of "those people from January 6th":

"Another thing we'll do, and so many people have been asking me about it, if I run and if I win, we will treat those people from Jan. 6 fairly," Trump said to applause. "We will treat them fairly. And if it requires pardons we will give them pardons. Because they are being treated so unfairly."

The one I'm not seeing, but I heard and would quote if I had a transcript, is that he will rehire all the military people who were let go because they were not vaccinated. And he supports backpay.

Here's the whole rally. Maybe you can find it:

Who needs vaccines? "Music is our planet’s sacred weapon, uniting and healing billions of souls every day."

Posted: 30 Jan 2022 04:21 AM PST

I'm reading "Nils Lofgren Pulls Music From Spotify in Solidarity With Neil Young/'We encourage all musicians, artists and music lovers everywhere, to stand with us all, and cut ties with Spotify,' guitarist writes" (Rolling Stone).

One way to do science would be: Have artists look admiringly at their favorite artists and nod to one another that they're all going to do the same thing at the same time.

I can't get over the paywall at Rolling Stone, but I see the Nils Lofgren is trending #1 over there...

... and that's competing with penis toadstools, so you know it's really important. And the penis toadstools have Katy Perry and this is just Nils Lofgren. Honestly, I don't remember who Nils Lofgren is, and I'm a Boomer. Oh, the E Street Band. I prefer The Penis Toadstools.

Here's the full context of his quote, which is so bereft of a science orientation that it's funny:

"We encourage all musicians, artists and music lovers everywhere, to stand with us all, and cut ties with Spotify... Music is our planet's sacred weapon, uniting and healing billions of souls every day. Pick up your sword and start swinging. Neil always has. Stand with him, us (Joni Mitchell!) and others. It's a powerful action you can all take now, to honor truth, humanity, and the heroes risking their lives every day to save ours.

Pick up your sword and start swinging! Don't think, don't study, don't test any hypothesis, just pick up a sword and don't even aim it. Swing wildly! Like Neil. Stand in solidarity with him, because he's always picked up a sword and swung it. That's how you "honor truth" — by wildly swinging a deadly weapon around.

Yes, it's metaphor. Science isn't done by metaphor.

***

Joni Mitchell's statement — at her website, here — said:

Read An Open Letter to Spotify: A call from the global scientific and medical communities to implement a misinformation policy.

From that open letter (boldface added):

The average age of JRE listeners is 24 years old and according to data from Washington State, unvaccinated 12-34 year olds are 12 times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID than those who are fully vaccinated.

The link on the word "data" goes to a document from "COVID-19 Cases, Hospitalizations, and Deaths by Vaccination Status," where you see this:

How do you get "12 times more likely to be hospitalized"? It says 5 times! Here they are demanding censorship of Joe Rogan for spreading misinformation and their short letter contains egregious misinformation? They are so harsh toward someone discussing the facts and maybe getting something wrong, but will they go easy on themselves or will they self-condemn?

If they'll confess that their methodology is looking at their friends and seeing what everyone else is doing and supporting the group that's their group, then I won't call them hypocrites if they say Oh, what's the big deal, so we made a little mistake.

The NYT says that "Black women in the legal community are bracing for the possibility that the yet-to-be-named nominee will be judged unfairly as an affirmative action appointment."

Posted: 30 Jan 2022 04:45 AM PST

I'm reading "Black Women in Law Feel Pride and Frustration Ahead of Court Nominee As Biden prepares to nominate the first Black woman to the nation's highest court, members of this small, elite group are watching with complicated emotions," by By Tariro Mzezewa and Audra D. S. Burch.

They quote a black female lawyer (Alisia Adamson Profit, 38): "People are going to say she only got this because she was a Black woman, and that could not be further from the truth. She would not even be considered if she wasn't qualified, prepared and ready. There will be a segment that will discredit her ability to serve."

First: Why is the NYT — the voices sought out by the NYT and featured here — implying that affirmative action is disreputable?! I read the NYT every day, and it's my impression that the NYT strongly supports affirmative action and is especially keen to support it this year, as the Supreme Court is about to consider 2 cases challenging affirmative action in higher education admissions. So why should there be any stigma — or any recognition of stigma — to getting a position through affirmative action? To say that affirmative action devalues a person's achievement is to talk like Clarence Thomas. If you support affirmative action, say hooray for affirmative action. Isn't it wonderful that President Biden is openly committed to affirmative action and about to perform it? If your answer isn't yes, NYT, please do your soul-searching in express and clear words. Don't muddle up the discussion!

Second: Ms. Profit's statement doesn't make sense. The nominee will almost certainly be "qualified, prepared and ready" and "ab[le] to serve," but that won't negate the fact that that she "only got this because she was a Black woman." We know from Biden's express commitment that only black women will be considered. If this person who becomes the nominee were not a black woman, then it is plainly the case that she would not have received the nomination. Is the problem that "people are going to say" what is obviously true? Why can't we say it? Is it a secret? Is it shameful? But Biden is openly saying it, and as I've spelled out in the previous paragraph, you need to decide whether you are pro-affirmative action or not.

Third: Biden's advance announcement of intent prevents him and everyone else from doing what is normally done — asserting that the person chosen is actually the very best judicial mind in all the land. Maybe the theater of excellence is desirable and uplifting, and maybe it's bad to single out this candidate to be deprived of the glory of that rhetoric, but she won't be the only one. It happened to Sandra Day O'Connor after Ronald Reagan committed in advance to choosing a woman. But maybe it's time to be a lot more honest, mature, and sophisticated and admit that the President is NEVER choosing the very best one. He's systematically eliminating people who are too old or who have the wrong politics, and there are surely endless other attributes that get you stricken from the President's list that have nothing to do with how wonderfully you can decide legal cases.

***

The slogan popped into my head: "Why not the best?"

Yes, whose slogan was that. I needed to remember because I believed it would make my point. Ah, here:

Isn't it pretty to think we could have the best? Oh, he's the best, Jimmy Carter.

No, he wasn't the best, but he was the one we came up with at the time, at the end of a grueling, ridiculous process that never gives us the best. We're lucky if we even get someone reasonably good and not horrible.

The Justices on the Supreme Court — now, and after one is replaced by a new one who will be a black woman — are good enough but presumably not the best. Surely, the best never even make the short list. How could they? They can't — and shouldn't — fit the needs of the President.

At the Bird Finial Café...

Posted: 29 Jan 2022 04:18 PM PST