Althouse

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• "After several home invasions by the Red Guards, Father decided to burn all his books, and I was his helper."
• The chair of the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry was suspended for tweeting "Whether a work of art or freak of nature she’s a beautiful sight to behold."
• The "legally blind" 65-year-old woman who mountain bikes "along knifelike cliff edges where one false move would mean a 2,000-foot fall."
• "My wife begins with the same optimized word everyday. I change mine up daily. I don’t know how long I can stay married to such a person."
• "The New York Times has endorsed the notion that JK Rowling’s supposedly retrograde bio-essentialism is not merely unfashionable – it makes her very existence regrettable."
• "A group of US truckers embarked in a convoy of vehicles on Wednesday on a 2,500 mile cross-country trip from Barstow, California to Washington DC to protest against coronavirus restrictions."
• "In the late 1980s, when [Rick Doblin] wanted to do research on the effects of psychotherapy with MDMA... 'no one would let me... I realised that politics was in the way of science. So I decided to study politics.'"
• Why don't we see more of Secretary of State Antony Blinken?
• Putin says his goal is the "demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine" — defending "civilians, including citizens of the Russian Federation" from "persecution and genocide by the Kyiv regime."
• At Grennie's Café...
• "The two prosecutors leading the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into former President Donald J. Trump and his business practices abruptly resigned on Wednesday…"
• "The Olympics brand is really struggling. A lot of people don’t feel that emotional connection anymore... Audiences watch the Olympics for the stories."
• "Fur coat? It is said that nobody wants fur these days, but animals do. Rehabilitators, like those at Sacred Friends, in Norfolk, Virginia, cut up old coats and..."
• "Since Father’s vision was deteriorating, he had started to use a magnifying glass for reading. Once, before a sentencing rally..."
• "But we were pulling... out with very great strength.... we would have gotten out with tremendous strength and dignity and power and respect. Instead, we look like we surrendered.... We were gonna pull out with great strength...."

"After several home invasions by the Red Guards, Father decided to burn all his books, and I was his helper." Posted: 24 Feb 2022 08:43 AM PST "We stacked the books up next to a bonfire, and one by one I tore out the pages and tossed them into the fire. Like drowning ghosts, they writhed in the heat and were swallowed by flames. At the moment they turned to ash, a strange force took hold of me. From then on, that force would gradually extend its command of my body and mind, until it matured into a form that even the strongest enemy would find intimidating. It was a commitment to reason, to a sense of beauty—these things are unbending, uncompromising, and any effort to suppress them is bound to provoke resistance. The Anti-Rightist Campaign was targeted at the cultural elite, but the Cultural Revolution set its sights on everyone. Schools closed down to allow students to 'engage in revolution,' and many teachers, accused of taking the 'bourgeois education line,' were abused and humiliated, or worse.... Hide-and-seek was our favorite game, and once, in search of a good hiding place, I climbed through a window into an empty office.... I was struck dumb by what I saw there: before me lay photographs of my father and family, bundles of letters, and pages and pages written in his familiar hand. These things had been our most prized possessions... my father's most personal memories...." From "1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows" by Ai Weiwei.

The chair of the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry was suspended for tweeting "Whether a work of art or freak of nature she’s a beautiful sight to behold." Posted: 24 Feb 2022 08:21 AM PST The NYT reports, on the plight of Jeffrey Lieberman, one of the most prominent psychiatrists in the country. He was commenting on this tweet: It is not a work of art made of black stone or granite. She is Sudanese model Nyakim Gatwech. The most beautiful among the black beauties. She is in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the darkest skin ever seen on earth. She is also known as the QUEEN OF DARK. pic.twitter.com/gbyoNizcEJ — Mynameis...Miro (@zg4ever) February 17, 2022 He was suspended even though he apologized, called his tweet "racist and sexist," and said he was "deeply ashamed" of his "prejudices and stereotypical assumptions." He even said: "An apology from me to the Black community, to women, and to all of you is not enough. I've hurt many, and I am beginning to understand the work ahead to make needed personal changes and over time to regain your trust."  The basis for the outrage seems to have to do with displaying idea that it's amazing that a person could be very dark. It seems obvious that he thought that because he was giving a compliment, that it was uplifting to stress the model's darkness (which she herself and the photographer are stressing). But he's essentially saying that he loves how weird it is, and that's alienating and otherizing.  But it is very hard to think about the problem apart from the harshness of the punishment. That's almost completely distracting. The lesson taught is nothing sophisticated about cross-racial understanding, but something closer to: never never never comment on anyone's skin color.

The "legally blind" 65-year-old woman who mountain bikes "along knifelike cliff edges where one false move would mean a 2,000-foot fall." Posted: 24 Feb 2022 07:38 AM PST Profiled in the NYT, here: "At 65 and Legally Blind, 'Sister Shred' Has Never Met a Slope She Wouldn't Ride/Kris Nordberg still loves rolling through rock gardens and shredding powder on her ski bike — sometimes, in a nun costume."  She has pseudoxanthoma elasticum, a progressive genetic disorder, and "riding with her head turned to the side, she can use her peripheral vision to make out people ahead of her on the trail and shapes and colors." When she encounters a particularly tricky section of a trail — for instance, a rock staircase with jagged boulders that could snag a front wheel and send a rider over a bike's handlebars — she sometimes asks strangers for guidance. She carries a bright orange strap and politely asks other riders if they could use it to mark the path of least resistance.

"My wife begins with the same optimized word everyday. I change mine up daily. I don’t know how long I can stay married to such a person." Posted: 24 Feb 2022 08:16 AM PST That's the top-rated comment at "When It Comes to Wordle Strategies, It's Personal/Aficionados of the deceptively simple word game, including Monica Lewinsky and J. Smith-Cameron, weigh in with their opening gambits" (NYT).  By the way, who cares about Monica Lewinsky playing Wordle? ADDED: Meade texts:

"The New York Times has endorsed the notion that JK Rowling’s supposedly retrograde bio-essentialism is not merely unfashionable – it makes her very existence regrettable." Posted: 24 Feb 2022 07:17 AM PST "A commercial for the NYT, which appeared online and in public spaces last week, features a subscriber called Lianna listing a few of her favourite things. Rather than raindrops on roses and warm woollen mittens, she mentions 'Breaking the Binary' and 'Heritage in Rich Hues.'And then, shortly after, she is seen in a field, wearing a sort of wizard's cape and flourishing a wand, 'Imagining Harry Potter Without its Creator.'... Of course, 'Imagining Harry Potter Without its Creator' might just be a harmless intellectual or a creative exercise, like imagining a nose that goes missing from a man's face and is later found to have surpassed him in rank in the Russian civil service. Or a pair of trousers that goes on holiday without any legs in. The absurdity might be the point. But I don't think it is. This has been going on for some time, and various attempts to cancel the woman who famously lost billionaire status only because she gave too much of her money away have pinged gratifyingly off the force field of her not giving a fuck...." From "The erasure of JK Rowling/Harry Potter would not exist without her talents. It's demented to pretend otherwise" by Simon Evans (Spiked)(internal links added). Here's the NYT ad:

"A group of US truckers embarked in a convoy of vehicles on Wednesday on a 2,500 mile cross-country trip from Barstow, California to Washington DC to protest against coronavirus restrictions." Posted: 24 Feb 2022 06:33 AM PST "The group, which is calling itself the 'people's convoy,' is one of several starting from different parts of the country and due to start arriving in the US capital at various points through to late next week – all inspired by the demonstrations that recently paralyzed Canada's capital city, Ottawa, for weeks....  Some of the trucker groups are scheduled to arrive in time for Joe Biden's State of the Union address next Tuesday, 1 March.... The Pentagon said on Tuesday it had approved 400 national guard troops from the District of Columbia, who would not carry weapons, to help at traffic posts from this Saturday through 7 March. About 50 large tactical vehicles were also approved to be placed at traffic posts. In addition, up to 300 national guard troops from outside of Washington were approved to come to the city to assist at traffic posts if needed. Brian Brase, a truck driver who is one of the organizers, said that, regardless of where the trucks stop, 'we're not going anywhere' until the group's demands are met.... We plan to stay a while and hope they don't escalate it the way Trudeau did with his disgusting government overreach'... Organisers bill the convoy as non-partisan, trucker-led, and supported by a wide range of ethnic minorities and religious faiths. However, as in Canada, significant elements of the protest appeared to attract a rightwing crowd...." From "US trucker convoy gathers for cross-country trip to protest Covid rules/Group calling itself the 'people's convoy' is one of several due to arrive in capital, similar to the demonstrations in Ottawa" (The Guardian).

"In the late 1980s, when [Rick Doblin] wanted to do research on the effects of psychotherapy with MDMA... 'no one would let me... I realised that politics was in the way of science. So I decided to study politics.'" Posted: 24 Feb 2022 04:26 AM PST "He enrolled in the Kennedy School of Government, at Harvard, and he founded the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies to lobby for and ultimately to fund clinical research into psychedelics... Though possession of psychedelic drugs outside a research setting is still an offence under federal law, the Food and Drug Administration has recognised breakthroughs in the therapeutic use of MDMA for PTSD in 2017 and of psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression. An effective campaign for political reform has been led, in particular, by American military veterans who have championed the use of MDMA for PTSD; an unexpected reversal from the days when psychedelics became part of the protest movement against the Vietnam War. Part of the legal backlash against the drugs had a much broader target than just Leary and Alpert, said Mason Marks, leader of the Project on Psychedelics Law and Regulation at Harvard Law School. 'President Nixon wanted to shut down voices that opposed his political agenda.'" From "Harvard takes a new trip into the world of psychedelic drugs/Six decades after Timothy Leary's controversial experiments on his willing students, scientists are taking a more sober approach, writes Will Pavia" (London Times).

Why don't we see more of Secretary of State Antony Blinken? Posted: 24 Feb 2022 03:33 AM PST His fleeting expression at 0:40 would be hilarious if the situation were not so dire:    And that "humphf" at 0:56. When in doubt, say "swift and severe."

Putin says his goal is the "demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine" — defending "civilians, including citizens of the Russian Federation" from "persecution and genocide by the Kyiv regime." Posted: 24 Feb 2022 03:17 AM PST According to "Putin announces a 'military operation' in Ukraine as the U.N. Security Council pleads with him to pull back" (NYT).  Mr. Putin cast his operation both as an attack on "Nazis" in Ukraine, as well as rejection of the American-led world order. Ukraine's aspiration to join NATO, he said, represented a dire threat to Russia. He evoked the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 and the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 to make it clear that he viewed the West as morally bankrupt. "For 30 years, we deliberately and patiently tried to reach agreement with the NATO countries on equal and indivisible security in Europe," Mr. Putin said. But Russia was met, he said, with "cynical lies" and "blackmail" on the part of the West. The American-led West, he said, represented an "empire of lies." ... "You and I know that our strength lies in fairness and truth, which is on our side," Mr. Putin said [addressing the Russian people]. "And if this is so, then it is hard not to agree that it is strength and readiness to fight that are the foundation for independence and sovereignty."  I don't think Biden has responded to the charge of Nazism, militarization, genocide, and persecution. He simply blames Putin for choosing to go to war and notes that war brings "death and destruction." That works as an argument against ever fighting a war — including a war against genuine Nazism, militarization, genocide, and persecution.  I would like to hear a strong, clear statement detailing what's wrong with Putin's justification of his war. I would like something more erudite and fact-based than saying it was "bizarrely" asserted. From Biden's February 23rd speech: Yesterday Vladimir Putin... bizarrely asserted that [two] regions are no longer part of Ukraine and they're sovereign territory... Who in the Lord's name does Putin think gives him the right to declare new so-called countries on territory that belong to his neighbors? I'd like to hear Biden address Putin's reasons, which sound like the kind of reasons American leaders give when they invade other countries. Where's the sophistication that was supposed to come with the ousting of Trump? I can do without rhetorical questions involving "the Lord."

At Grennie's Café... Posted: 23 Feb 2022 04:45 PM PST   ... you can bark about whatever you like.

"The two prosecutors leading the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into former President Donald J. Trump and his business practices abruptly resigned on Wednesday…" Posted: 23 Feb 2022 04:47 PM PST "... amid a monthlong pause in their presentation of evidence to a grand jury, according to people with knowledge of the matter, throwing the future of the high-stakes inquiry into serious doubt. The prosecutors, Carey R. Dunne and Mark F. Pomerantz, submitted their resignations after the new Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, indicated to them that he had doubts about moving forward with a case against Mr. Trump, the people said. Mr. Pomerantz confirmed in a brief interview that he had resigned, but declined to elaborate. Mr. Dunne declined to comment." The NYT reports.

"The Olympics brand is really struggling. A lot of people don’t feel that emotional connection anymore... Audiences watch the Olympics for the stories." Posted: 23 Feb 2022 09:13 AM PST "They need that superhero story, that star quality. They don't really see the Olympics as a true sporting event, but rather as something more personal." Said Tang Tang, a media professor at Kent State University who has studied the Olympics, quoted in "Beijing Olympic Ratings Were the Worst of Any Winter Games/NBCUniversal's coverage had 11.4 million viewers per night on average, compared with 19.8 million for the Pyeongchang Games in 2018" (NYT).

"Fur coat? It is said that nobody wants fur these days, but animals do. Rehabilitators, like those at Sacred Friends, in Norfolk, Virginia, cut up old coats and..." Posted: 23 Feb 2022 09:06 AM PST "... use the scraps as little capes and stoles to keep sick animals warm... peta wants your pelts, too. The organization donates them to the homeless ('the only humans with any excuse to wear fur,' according to its Web site), and lately it has shipped fur garments to Afghanistan and Iraq for use by refugees.... Your old bras are welcomed with open arms at the Bra Recyclers, a Phoenix-based enterprise that has sent more than four million bras to homeless shelters, schools, foster programs, and other nonprofits all over the world. As Elaine Birks-Mitchell, the founder of the Bra Recyclers, explained to me over Zoom, bras are not just about fashion. For girls in developing countries, they make it possible to play sports and attend school without embarrassment." From "A Guide to Getting Rid of Almost Everything/Once you've thanked and said goodbye to the items that do not spark joy, what can you do with them?" by Patricia Marx (The New Yorker).

"Since Father’s vision was deteriorating, he had started to use a magnifying glass for reading. Once, before a sentencing rally..." Posted: 23 Feb 2022 08:15 AM PST "... a security officer burst in, grabbed the magnifying glass, and then climbed a ladder up onto the roof of the auditorium, where, peering through the glass, he scanned the horizon for any sign of hostile activity, such as a pending attack by some rival militant faction. That image of a man trying to use a magnifying glass as a telescope has always stayed in my mind as an example of the ignorance and folly of the Cultural Revolution years." From "1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows" by Ai Weiwei.

"But we were pulling... out with very great strength.... we would have gotten out with tremendous strength and dignity and power and respect. Instead, we look like we surrendered.... We were gonna pull out with great strength...." Posted: 23 Feb 2022 07:47 AM PST Said Donald Trump on the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show — audio and transcript, here. Full quote: "After 21 years, I wanted out of Afghanistan. We were gonna be out. I got it down to 2,000 we were getting ready to pull them out, but we were pulling them out with very great strength. We were gonna keep Bagram, not because of Afghanistan. We spent billions building this base, has the biggest and longest runways in the world, and it's one hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons. So I was keeping that and keeping it in full force. But I was getting out of Afghanistan, and we would have gotten out with tremendous strength and dignity and power and respect. Instead, we look like we surrendered.... We were gonna pull out with great strength, we were gonna keep Bagram, and we were pulling out of other locations, too, where there's no reason for us to be there. They hate us. We don't particularly like them...." He wasn't President at the time, so he doesn't have to compare his abstraction to what happened in the real world, and that's the great consolation of losing an election. You keep your dreams. You have the humiliation of being the loser, but in that world that might have been, you can be anything you want. You can surrender the most profound and beautiful surrender in the history of the universe — so strong, so dignified!  Who's to say it wouldn't have been so? Who can know what would have happened at the Bagram Airbase we did not keep?

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