Friday, April 15, 2022

Althouse

Althouse

I'm seeing various reports that Charlie Rose is poking up again, but nothing about anything worthwhile he might be saying.

Posted: 15 Apr 2022 03:44 AM PDT

"Disgraced journalist Charlie Rose is back conducting interviews — but this time it's for his own website," The L.A. Times informs us.
"I'm proud to share this recent conversation with Warren Buffett," the 80-year-old newsman wrote on his website. "It is his first interview on camera in almost a year, and the first I've done in more than 4 years. It is a step in a journey to engage the most interesting people and explore the most compelling ideas in the world."

Rose is 80. That's 11 years younger than Buffett, but still, why not keep to your private life? Yes, the world has its "most compelling ideas" that could be "explored" and "most interesting people" to be "engaged," but you're not giving off the slightest ray of hope that you're the man to do it. You were disgraced, and we'd pretty much forgotten about you.

The article has nothing about the substantive content of that interview, which you can watch, here, at Rose's website. I'm certainly not recommending it.

"Musk’s attempted takeover came in the middle of a 'focus week' at Twitter. Employees were treated to... minimal meetings throughout the week."

Posted: 15 Apr 2022 03:47 AM PDT

"During focus weeks, company-initiated nonessential meetings are canceled, and individual teams are encouraged to do the same, to give employees more uninterrupted time to finish projects.... 'Hey this is a focus week at Twitter, this is not helping,' one engineer for the company tweeted in response to Musk announcing his takeover offer.... Some workers have expressed disappointment and disdain at the news. 'Just go to therapy dude,' a team lead at the company wrote, referring to Musk. But other Twitter users joked about the potential takeover and the reactions to it. 'I'm going to leave Twitter if Elon Musk takes over is the new I'm going to move to Canada if Trump wins,' one user shared."

From "Twitter employees complain that Elon Musk ruined their calm 'focus week'" (Fortune).

That's kind of a junk article compared to what I was trying to find, which is something more like percentages of Twitter workers who hate the idea of Musk taking over and those who like it or are neutral. What proportion of Twitter workers have jobs devoted to the kind of censorship that Musk might seem to be about to eliminate? Are these people planning to quit? Do they think they might sway Musk to appreciate at least some of their moderating function? Are they just hoping to hold onto their jobs and ready to readjust to the new agenda? How passive and resigned are they? Is there some plan of action? Are they preparing sabotage?

At the Forest Café...

Posted: 14 Apr 2022 05:19 PM PDT

IMG_9937

... you can talk about whatever you want.

I've got 10 selections for you today from TikTok. Let me know which one(s) you like best.

Posted: 14 Apr 2022 12:32 PM PDT

1. Walking like Obama/Biden/Trump/Macron/Erdogan/Putin.

2. Get creative when annoying your wife.

3. Living in a narrowboat on the British canal system without a permanent mooring.

4. Dining versus eating — in the mind of Nancy Pelosi.

5. Something white people can do that black people can't.

6. That lady from HR.

7. Jack White can guess from just 1 second what Beatles song you're playing.

8. This poor man is so uncomfortable.

9. "Daddy, where are we?" (Daddy = Steven Tyler)

10. When women get passionate talking about nothing.

"Margaret Sanger believed in euthanasia and sterilization of 'unfortunates,' the mentally challenged, and Blacks. She was the founder of Planned Parenthood, which, like all organizations..."

Posted: 14 Apr 2022 10:05 AM PDT

"... expanded its brief (originally one of control of subhumans) into control of all conception. Her insights were taken up in the 1960s when 'hygiene' classes became 'sex education,' educators holding that because perhaps the children were not taught at home, the higher orders needed to take charge. And now we have kindergartners trained in a bizarre catechism of sexual identity politics. How could a school be a complete community? The church or synagogue was not, neither was the shop or business. Each was understood to be a part of a community, a community that would thrive as each of its components contributed its own unique efforts. A school could be a complete community only if all other aspects of the community were destroyed. The Hitler Youth could be a complete community. It was a gang. The gang exists to supplant both the family and the marketplace, as we now see with education, having taken upon itself schooling not only in sexual practices but in political (and so economic) direction...."

Writes David Mamet in "Recessional: The Death of Free Speech and the Cost of a Free Lunch."

"We’re entering a new age where male-presenting bodies are feeling comfortable wearing effeminate shapes, effeminate fabrics that did not exist when I was growing up."

Posted: 14 Apr 2022 09:51 AM PDT

"It feels like a very brave new world. We're really trying to explore and push and question the binary that has limited us for so long.... This was born on the dance floor.... Everything was so curated and wonderful and beautiful.... I needed to step up what I needed to wear, whether it was a soft harness instead of all the leather, or the metal on the market, or a body-con bodysuit that would accentuate my features as a male-presenting person."

Said Louis Dorantes, 30, who founded the men's lingerie company Leak NYC, quoted in "Sexy Lingerie for Men Is Here/Lacy thongs and sheer undergarments designed for men's bodies are shaking up the traditional lingerie market" (NYT).

I note the term "male-presenting person." It appears the NYT for the first and only time in that article:

 

Keep an eye on that. It may become the new standard term.

"[E]xperiencing ambient music — to allow its political, philosophical and oppositional knowledge to become visible — requires a full use of the senses."

Posted: 14 Apr 2022 09:09 AM PDT

"It means tapping into the sensorial vitality of living: the tactile, spatial, vibrational and auditory experiences that being human affords us. The experimental music pioneer Pauline Oliveros foresaw how a sensorial approach to music and listening could cultivate politically dynamic thinking. She spent her life developing a theory of deep listening, a practice that promotes radical attentiveness. In this approach, there is a distinction between hearing versus listening; the former is a surface-level awareness of space and temporality, and the second is an act of immersive focus...  I practiced deep listening... especially with the new-age innovator Laraaji's composition 'Being Here.'... This is music that curls into the ears, mutating into an imagined Elysium, stopping time and space. It's not just scenery, not a simple balm for immeasurable pain.... It asked me to forget the looping of time, to disengage with any kind of predictive chronology.... Being here, slowing down, was not about inactivity or lack of energy.... It was an insurgent break in time — a call to drench myself in the reality of a catastrophic present and to equip myself to do something about it."

Writes Isabelia Herrera, an arts critic fellow, in "Ambient Music Isn't a Backdrop. It's an Invitation to Suspend Time. In the face of crisis, our critic turned to music that demanded that she relinquish control" (NYT).

ADDED: I see that my little excerpt included the idea of politics twice, even though it doesn't at all reveal what's political. I guess it's political to ignore politics. Some people seem to need everything to be political. So ambient music contains "political... knowledge" and might lead to "politically dynamic thinking." Getting a good night's sleep might lead to "politically dynamic thinking." So might eating a nice dinner. 

I decided to check out all the other appearances of "politics" (and its variants) in this article. There are only 2 others. We're told that ambient music can be an "escapist salve for... political instability" and that it can "soften barriers and loosen ideas of sound, politics, temporality and space."

I've been listening to "Being Here" as I write this post, and it just sounds like music to get a massage by. Maybe I'm hearing but not listening (to quote a phrase from "The Sounds of Silence"), but I really don't think there's anything political about it other than that you receive it into your brain and you use that same brain to do politics.

"Secret Service agents were outraged last year by the White House’s attempt to downplay bite injuries caused by then-first dog Major — even trying to get President Biden to personally pay for a damaged coat, newly released documents show."

Posted: 14 Apr 2022 06:26 AM PDT

The NY Post reports in "'Now I'm pissed': Secret Service agents outraged by White House spin over First Dog bites." 

The records, released in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by Judicial Watch, show that attacks occurred both earlier and later than previously known. They also show internal discord at the Secret Service, which has been embroiled since last week in a bizarre infiltration scandal that involves at least four agents. 

White House press secretary Jen Psaki acknowledged just one biting incident at a briefing on March 9, 2021, saying that one day earlier "the first family's younger dog, Major, was surprised by an unfamiliar person and reacted in a way that resulted in a minor injury to the individual." 

The March 8 bite actually was the final attack in an eight-day streak and the wounded agent — whose injuries were categorized as "severe" by a colleague — fumed about Psaki's spin. "NO I didn't surprise the dog doing my job by being at [redacted] as the press secretary just said! Now I'm pissed," the agent wrote to a coworker....

"The last year has been extremely painful and distracting for me, flying back and forth to visit my dying husband who passed just a few weeks ago."

Posted: 14 Apr 2022 06:05 AM PDT

"But there's no question I'm still serving and delivering for the people of California, and I'll put my record up against anyone's."

Said a written statement from Dianne Feinstein dated, March 28, quoted in "Colleagues worry Dianne Feinstein is now mentally unfit to serve, citing recent interactions" (San Francisco Chronicle).

I'm creating a new tag, "gerontocracy" to keep track of the news about the many aging politicians and judges and other leaders who seem to be gaining in power as time wears on. There's an instinct to be kind and forgiving or at least polite to these older folks, an instinct that may be about our own self-preservation. We may fear our own aging, and the loss of power and influence that threatens to accompany it. But we also fear that will be accused of discrimination or bigotry if we impugn the old, even if they crowd out the younger people who should be rising into the most challenging positions.

Anyway, this obviously isn't just about Dianne Feinstein. It's about President Biden and Donald Trump and many other individuals who don't know when it's time to scale back. Obama had his "bitter clingers," who were just ordinary people who didn't have much and were "clinging" to things that everyone can have — guns and religion. But the clingers of the gerontocracy are depriving others of something — power. They may have lost the ability to use that power competently. And we ordinary people can barely bring ourselves to criticize them for clinging (other than in the stupidly partisan manner that has infected and thoroughly debased American political speech).

"If there’s no community control of the schools, what we have is kids being not only indoctrinated but groomed in a very real sense by people who are, whether they know it or not, sexual predators."

Posted: 14 Apr 2022 05:36 AM PDT

Said David Mamet, quoted in "David Mamet slammed over claim that many male teachers are 'inclined' to be pedophiles" (NY Post).

"Are they abusing the kids physically? No, I don't think so. But they're abusing them mentally and using sex to do so," he added. "This has always been the problem with education – teachers are inclined, typically men because men are predators, to pedophilia," the 74-year-old said....

"People have gone nuts and people are frightened because there's huge changes in society, that are brought about by the people in power," Mamet said. "The people in power, as always, are to a large extent, parasites who are feeding off of the decaying flesh."

"I made an offer."

Posted: 14 Apr 2022 05:06 AM PDT

"On April 13, 2022, the Reporting Person delivered a letter to the Issuer (the 'Letter') which contained a non-binding proposal (the 'Proposal') to acquire all of the outstanding Common Stock of the Issuer not owned by the Reporting Person for all cash consideration valuing the Common Stock at $54.20 per share (the 'Proposed Transaction'). This represents a 54% premium over the closing price of the Common Stock on January 28, 2022, the trading day before the Reporting Person began investing in the Issuer, and a 38% premium over the closing price of the Common Stock on April 1, 2022, the trading day before the Reporting Person's investment in the Issuer was publicly announced." 

From Musk's letter to Twitter Chairman Bret Taylor: "I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy... Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it."

ADDED: He's promising us free speech. Can we trust him? I don't know, but: 1. We can't trust the current owners of Twitter, and 2. We need to stay engaged and hold his feet to the fire: You promised us free speech, now, and you must give it to us. That won't assure that we get free speech. It will always be a struggle. And not just with him, but with ourselves. You can't know that you will continue in your love for free speech. You may love it in the abstract, but you might fall out of love if you really see it in practice.

In November 2019, they all laughed at Dennis Prager for saying what, in 2022, they all get mad at you for not saying.

Posted: 14 Apr 2022 03:51 AM PDT

At the Skunk Cabbage Café...

Posted: 13 Apr 2022 04:16 PM PDT

IMG_9916 

... you can talk all night.

IMG_9930

(Photos taken around 2 in the afternoon today, as it was about to rain, at the Skunk Cabbage Bridge in the UW Arboretum.)

"On the flip side, CNN engages in this partisan coverage filtering as well."

Posted: 13 Apr 2022 04:45 PM PDT

 

ADDED: Here's the WaPo opinion piece on that segment: "CNN's Brian Stelter blindsided by co-author of Fox News study" by Erik Wemple. CNN's Brian Stelter was "blindsided" because the researchers who were expected to criticize Fox News proceeded to say CNN does it too.

Stelter said: "And basically, you're proving what we've sensed for a while, which is that Fox viewers are in the dark about bad news for the GOP" [said Stelter].

But the professor, Joshua L. Kalla, said: "On the flip side, CNN engages in this partisan coverage filtering as well as that we find. For example, during this time, the Abraham Accords were signed, and these were the agreements where Israel, the UAE and Bahrain signed a major peace agreement. And we see that Fox News covered this really major accomplishment about 15 times more than CNN did. So we established both networks are really engaging in this partisan coverage filtering. It's not about one side, it's about the media writ large." 

As Wemple puts it: "Stelter objected that this was a venture in bothsidesism."

Let's take a closer look at CNN+.

Posted: 13 Apr 2022 05:52 AM PDT

Yesterday, we talked about the news that CNN's new streaming service had only picked up 10,000 subscribers, and I wrote: "$5.99 a month for CNN is pretty ridiculous. 10,000 subscribers... hilarious."

But — curious about what was actually on CNN+ — I looked at its webpage and was surprised to see that you can subscribe for only $2.99 a month — and "save 50% for life" — if you sign up by April 26. So there has been pressure to sign up before that offer ends. That makes the 10,000 number look much worse.

Anyway, what is on CNN+?

CNN+ subscribers experience: 

  • Live daily and weekly shows as they happen from familiar faces like Anderson Cooper and Poppy Harlow and fresh personalities like distinguished anchor Chris Wallace, basketball legend Rex Chapman and acclaimed radio host Audie Cornish 
  • An impressive library of award-winning content from original series like Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown and Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy to CNN Films like Blackfish and RBG 
  • Interview Club, an interactive interview experience where your questions are answered live by CNN reporters, industry leaders and expert guests.

I love the phrase "fresh personalities like distinguished anchor Chris Wallace." How on earth is Chris Wallace a "fresh personality"? Freshly moved from Fox News. Was Fox keeping him on ice? I guess it's that he's not one of the "familiar faces like Anderson Cooper and Poppy Harlow," because potential subscribers for CNN+ would not have had a chance to familiarize themselves with Wallace. He was on Fox!

"'I don’t think that most people appreciate that most years, alcohol kills more people than drugs,' Kristof told me, though he clarified that he does not believe this is true of the type of alcohol that he makes."

Posted: 13 Apr 2022 06:26 AM PDT

"He also does not think that profiting off the sale of alcohol and lowering rates of alcohol addiction, two of his stated immediate goals, are in conflict. 'You know, I've lost friends to alcoholism, but I haven't lost any to Pinot Noir alcoholism,' he said. 'I wouldn't be in favor of barring alcohol in general. I think that wine can be, or cider can be, a social good and can create social capital. Things that bring people together, I think, are good for society. I think alcohol can do that, and I think that's true of wine and cider. I take your point that some people start with nice Pinot Noirs and then… ,' he trailed off. 'But I think that is much less common, and those who die, the mortality from alcoholism, it's driven really by working-class Americans, and it's in kind of bulk hard liquor particularly. I don't think that good wine and cider add significantly to the problem.'"

That's the most hilariously elitist thing I've read in a long time. Kristof is Nicholas Kristof, the former NYT columnist, who left that job to run for governor in Oregon, but got stopped in his tracks by the state law requirement of 3 years' residency, and he only had 1.

The quote is from "Nicholas Kristof's Botched Rescue Mission/How the lauded Times columnist lost the race for governor of Oregon before it even began" (NY Magazine).

Why did he think he could run if he didn't meet that very specific requirement? Answer: lawyers! Just as his vineyard doesn't produce the kind of wine that entails the usual problems of alcohol, his 1 year could count as 3, couldn't it? With fancy enough arguments, his 1 could be the Pinot Noir of 3... couldn't it?

You know they say the states are the laboratories of democracy. It's such a shame we didn't get to see the mind of Kristof applied to the laboratory that is Oregon!

"The person of interest in Tuesday’s mass subway shooting in Brooklyn... Frank James, 62... raged about the war in Ukraine, and said it would become the precursor for a race war to wipe out Black people."

Posted: 13 Apr 2022 05:16 AM PDT

Says The Daily News, in "Person of interest in NYC subway shooting ranted for hours in YouTube videos about Mayor Adams, homelessness and race wars." 

"They're white, you're not. They're doing that to each other? What do they think they're going to do to you?" he fumed. "It's just a matter of time before these white motherf---ers say, 'Hey listen, enough is enough, these n-----s gotta go.' What're you going to do? You gonna fight. And guess what? You gonna die." 

NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell said... "We're not calling them threats. He made some concerning posts, or someone made some concerning posts.... They were general topics of concern. Complaints about homelessness, complaints about New York."

Bill Maher has a podcast. Watch him talk with Bella Thorne about sex.

Posted: 13 Apr 2022 06:45 AM PDT

 

My favorite thing about this discussion — the reason I'm blogging it — is the disconnect on the question whether music is a key component of a sexual encounter. Bill: "No music?? NO MUSIC?!!??" Bella doesn't want the distraction, the sense of fucking to this song. And Bill seems as though he can't conceive of sex without music — it would be "dry" — and how can you not have "a soundtrack." The overall vibe here is weirdly fake — the decor, the lighting, the we're getting high together ....

Meanwhile, Bill was on Joe Rogan's show. That's where I found out about Bill's new podcast. And you can tell that Bill and his people are trying to create a similar aura of intimacy, but there's a big difference. What Joe has isn't easy to copy. There's something that's missing in Bill Maher's setup. It's hard to figure out exactly what!

"For years, people marched, got tear-gassed, donated and literally put their lives on the line in the hopes of Black emancipation — not a Black influencer McMansion."

Posted: 13 Apr 2022 04:16 AM PDT

Writes Karen Attiah in "Black Lives Matter needs to get its (real expensive) house in order" (WaPo).

[T]he Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation secretly purchased a $6 million, 6,500-square-foot mansion near Malibu, Calif., using donated funds. According to memos quoted in the report, the foundation's leaders settled on a tactic of describing the mansion as both a "safehouse" and a place providing "recording resources and dedicated space for Black creatives to launch content online and in real life focused on abolition, healing justice, urban agriculture and food justice, pop culture, activism, and politics." Huh?... 

I emailed BLM's national organization. They did not respond to questions. The lack of transparency is a serious betrayal. During the Trump years, many of us wanted to protect the movement from attacks by the right. But we can't defend a BLM national leadership that arrogantly refuses to be accountable to Black victims and communities....

From the top-rated comment over at WaPo: "This isn't just a blunder, it sounds like they're heading down the road toward tax fraud. Frankly, the IRS needs to do a better job at enforcement of laws pertaining to non profits."

"Gajda says that she used to be uncomfortable with the idea that courts could balance protections for an individual’s dignity and liberty with protections for a free press and free speech..."

Posted: 13 Apr 2022 03:49 AM PDT

"... as a journalist, she was worried that an overzealous judiciary might curtail the reporting of real news that powerful interests were keen to keep secret. Now she seems to see things differently, placing what seems to me a surprising amount of faith in the judicial branch and even Facebook's Oversight Board, of all things, to generate norms that balance speech with privacy and 'unite the world as one.'"

From "'Seek and Hide' Grapples With the Complexity of the Right to Privacy/The law professor Amy Gajda writes about the tug of war between the right to know and the right to be let alone" — a NYT book review by Jennifer Szalai.

I hope someday you'll join us/And the world will live as one....
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