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Starbucks said it would permanently close six stores each in the Seattle and Los Angeles areas, two in Portland, Ore., and single locations in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. by the end of the month

"Light travels at 186,000 miles per second. And that light that you are seeing on one of those little specks has been travelling for over 13 billion years."

Posted: 12 Jul 2022 06:13 AM PDT

"And by the way, we're going back further, because this is just the first image. They're going back about 13 and a half billion years. And since we know the Universe is 13.8 billion years old, you're going back almost to the beginning."

Said NASA administrator Bill Nelson, quoted in "James Webb telescope takes super sharp view of early cosmos" (BBC).

President Biden dragged the profound down to earth, to rah-rah-America-is-great politics: "These images are going to remind the world that America can do big things, and remind the American people — especially our children — that there's nothing beyond our capacity. We can see possibilities no-one has ever seen before. We can go places no-one has ever gone before."

You're looking at an image that shows a tiny part of the universe, including what is 13 billion years old, and that's what you want to say? That is so far beyond the existence of Earth, let alone the existence of human beings. It makes me think of how infinitesimal America is, not how big. We can look back 13.5 billion years, where no one has gone before, but we are not going there, and it is something — something huge — that is beyond our capacity.

"They gather on Telegram to let out howls of grief and short, sharp shrieks of pain. 'Eeeeeeee!' yowls a young woman. 'Waahahahah,' roars a man in a deep baritone."

Posted: 12 Jul 2022 05:42 AM PDT

"A third person wails like a baby. These are victims of the cryptocurrency bloodbath, 3,315 of whom have assembled in a 'Bear Market Screaming Therapy Group' group to vent their anguish. 'I had a few people lamenting and crying,' says the group's founder, a 30-year-old cryptocurrency investor who gives only his first name, Giulio. 'I decided not to ban them. I felt bad. They weren't even able to scream any more. They were just sobbing.'"

From "'They couldn't even scream any more. They were just sobbing': the amateur investors ruined by the crypto crash" (The Guardian).

You don't hear about scream therapy much anymore. It was a 1970s thing. There was a book by Arthur Janov called "The Primal Scream." John Lennon and Yoko Ono talked about it. Here's the Wikipedia article "Primal Therapy":

Janov states that neurosis is the result of suppressed pain, which is the result of trauma, usually trauma of childhood origin.

Not so much about losing money in the financial markets.

According to Janov, the only way to reverse neurosis is for the neurotic to recall their trauma in a therapeutic setting....

In 1973 a "birth simulator" was in use at the Primal Institute. The simulator was a 10-foot-long adjustable pressure vinyl tube. The patient was covered with a slick substance to simulate birth. Reports were made of bruises from obstetricians' fingers appearing on the skin of patients reliving their births....

The things that used to be presented as science. Today, they've devolved into social media like Bear Market Screaming Therapy Group.

"Uber paid high-profile academics in Europe and the US hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce reports that could be used as part of the company’s lobbying campaign."

Posted: 12 Jul 2022 05:22 AM PDT

"The Uber files, a cache of thousands of confidential documents leaked to the Guardian, reveal lucrative deals with several leading academics who were paid to publish research on the benefits of its economic model.... Using techniques common in party political campaigns, Uber targeted academics and thinktanks to help it construct a positive narrative, namely that it created well-paid jobs that drivers liked, delivered cheap transport to consumers and boosted productivity.... Scholars were excited about Uber's data because it gave them rare real-time evidence about the effect of prices on markets – one of the key issues among liberal economists arguing for free markets."

From "Uber paid academics six-figure sums for research to feed to the media/High-profile professors in Europe and the US were engaged as part of lobbying campaign, leak shows" (The Guardian).

"Politics right now in the world is all kinds of crazy, and I feel like the creature that I drew kind of resembles the craziness of politics and the world right now."

Posted: 12 Jul 2022 05:46 AM PDT

Said Hudson Rowan, 14, who entered the Ulster County competition to design the new "I VOTED" sticker, quoted in "What Has 6 Legs, 2 Eyes and 158,500 Votes? This 'I Voted'' Sticker. 'This is how we all feel about politics right now,' a Twitter user wrote of one submission for a New York county's 'I voted' sticker design contest" (NYT).

It's a voting sticker and they put it up for a vote — along with 5 other submissions from teenagers. You can see them all here. The rest are respectfully sedate, reflecting the concept of voting as a civic duty. In the predictable style of internet voting — need I say "Boaty McBoatface"? — the wild-eyed voter-insect has 93% of the vote.

An "I VOTED" sticker is supposed to reinforce the values of democracy. You walk around on Election Day in your city or town, and you see your neighbors wearing their stickers, and you think — they want you to think — these are all good people, doing their best, hoping, working, coming together to select our representatives. Surely, they read the newspapers, they talked earnestly and openly with one another and thought deeply about what we need as a group, and they made the effort to arrive at their polling place and to do their little part, contributing to the welfare of the community.

But that's not the message with Hudson Rowan's "I VOTED" guy. You see that sticker and you think something more like: Oh, my God, everyone's nuts and we're trusting them to pick the lunatics who will govern us!

But I salute Hudson Rowan. He didn't just follow the assignment. He transformed it. And he got out his own message — a message worth thinking about, scaring us about democracy.

"If there’s one consolation in Biden’s age, it’s that he can step aside without conceding failure. There’s no shame in not running for president in your 80s."

Posted: 12 Jul 2022 04:26 AM PDT

"He emerged from semiretirement to save the country from a second Trump term, and for that we all owe him a great debt. But now we need someone who can stand up to the still-roiling forces of Trumpism. There are plenty of possibilities: If Vice President Kamala Harris's approval ratings remain underwater, Democrats have a number of charismatic governors and senators they can turn to. Biden said, during the 2020 campaign, that he wanted to be a 'bridge' to a new generation of Democrats. Soon it will be time to cross it."

That's the end of the new Michelle Goldberg column, "Joe Biden Is Too Old to Be President Again" (NYT).

There's a link on "underwater" and "bridge" but not on "a number of charismatic governors and senators." I wonder who that refers to but guess that they sound more charismatic without names attached. Those wonderful governors and senators out there somewhere. Gavin Newsom, presumably. One is a number, after all. Two can be as bad as one.

Anyway, did the NYT notice the ambiguity in the headline. Does it mean he wasn't too old the first time, but if he wants to be "president again," we must inform him that now he's aged out? Or does it mean he was too old before and he's too old again?

Who wrote these stupid lines for Jill Biden — "as distinct as the bodegas of the Bronx... and as unique as the breakfast tacos here in San Antonio"?

Posted: 12 Jul 2022 03:04 AM PDT

That's a description of human beings!

It's like something you'd make a politician character say in a movie comedy — and I don't mean a sophisticated comedy. Just a mainstream comedy that would make a general audience laugh.

I'm reading "Jill Biden rebuked after saying Latinos as unique as 'breakfast tacos.'"

Jill Biden was praising civil rights icon Raul Yzaguirre during the annual conference of UnidosUS....

"Raul helped build this organization with the understanding that the diversity of this community — as distinct as the bodegas of the Bronx, as beautiful as the blossoms of Miami, and as unique as the breakfast tacos here in San Antonio — is your strength," Biden said.

When addressing the Bronx bodegas though, she mispronounced the convenience stores and said "bogedas."...

The National Association of Hispanic Journalists panned the remarks, stating, "We are not tacos."

Isn't it obvious that you don't liken an ethnic group to its conventional food? Notice that the words seem to be intended to say that the individuals within the community are different from each other. There's diversity within the set of people who are Hispanic. But then she cited a stereotypical food — breakfast tacos — and presented them as diverse. That's the level of individualism — the way a breakfast format accommodates different food items.

I can't think of any other examples of public speech comparing an ethnic or a racial group to the food people associate with them. Maybe you can suggest a comparable statement about white people — as unique as the....

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Tuesday, July 12, 2022

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