Monday, July 4, 2022

Althouse

Althouse

Why are doubts something to "chip away" at? Why wouldn't you explore doubt?

Posted: 04 Jul 2022 06:30 AM PDT

I'm trying to read "New Insights Into Trump's State of Mind on Jan. 6 Chip Away at Doubts" by Peter Baker in the NYT.

I'm thinking about how reasonable doubt is the standard for judging criminal guilt.

I'm thinking about how George W. Bush used to be condemned for being incurious. 

Why wouldn't you look into doubt? Why wouldn't you see doubt as inviting exploration and contemplation? Why would you think in terms of destroying doubt — like it's some cloddish block of stone and you've got a chisel and mallet? 

Baker writes:
But for a man who famously avoids leaving emails or other trails of evidence of his unspoken motives, any doubts about what was really going through Mr. Trump's mind on that day of violence seemed to have been eviscerated by testimony presented in recent weeks by the House committee investigating the Capitol attack....

The issue is what was Trump thinking. Did he know he'd lost the election and decide to hold onto power by leading an insurrection? I still don't see it. There's certainly reasonable doubt, but it doesn't even seem more likely than not.

"Doubts about what was really going through Mr. Trump's mind... have been eviscerated"? Well, it says "seemed to have been eviscerated." The weasel word "seemed" gnaws away at the guts of "eviscerated."

Please, move on, Democrats. I don't want Trump coming back as a candidate either, but your one-sided hearing — your disregard for fair procedure, your predetermined outcome — are chipping away at and eviscerating your own reputation. 

"Women, of course, have been accommodating. They’ve welcomed transgender women into their organizations."

Posted: 04 Jul 2022 06:02 AM PDT

"They've learned that to propose any space just for biological women in situations where the presence of males can be threatening or unfair — rape crisis centers, domestic abuse shelters, competitive sports — is currently viewed by some as exclusionary. If there are other marginalized people to fight for, it's assumed women will be the ones to serve other people's agendas rather than promote their own. But, but, but. Can you blame the sisterhood for feeling a little nervous?... For essentially ceding to another backlash?... Seeing women as their own complete entities, not just a collection of derivative parts, was an important part of the struggle for sexual equality. But here we go again, parsing women into organs.... Those women who do publicly express mixed emotions... are maligned as somehow transphobic or labeled TERFs.... When not defining women by body parts, misogynists on both ideological poles seem determined to reduce women to rigid gender stereotypes.... Women are maternal and domestic — the feelers and the givers and the 'Don't mind mes.'... Gender identity workbooks created by transgender advocacy groups for use in schools offer children helpful diagrams suggesting that certain styles or behaviors are 'masculine' and others 'feminine.' Didn't we ditch those straitened categories in the '70s?"

"If, God forbid, Trump runs and wins in 2024, the first thing he’ll do is find any pretext to prosecute Joe Biden, and then it’s off to the races."

Posted: 04 Jul 2022 06:03 AM PDT

Says Bret Stephens, in the context of a conversation — with Gail Collins at the NYT — about what Merrick Garland ought to do about maybe prosecuting Trump. 

Gail Collins responds:
Well, if I wanted to make sure the reputation of Merrick Garland didn't suffer, I'd prosecute rather than risk being remembered as the guy who wimped out. And as a matter of principle … well, gee.

Is "wimped out" something we're still allowed to say?  Why not "I'd prosecute rather than risk being remembered as a pussy"? Where's the line these days? You're allowed to impugn a man's masculinity with... which words?* Or are we moving toward regarding all the once-gendered words as nonbinary?

Stephens inserts: 
Though, sometimes, not prosecuting is the truly gutsy thing to do. Sorry, go on.
Collins goes on, conceding "there's a danger to setting that kind of precedent." She sees the Trump of the Future the same way Stephens does: "You're totally right about what Trump would try to do if he got himself re-elected in 2024." 

Whether their prognosticating is right or wrong, it's good that there's restraint inspired by the fear of what will happen when the tables are turned.

And Stephens and Collins move on to talking about Trump as a 2024 candidate. Stephens sees fit to use abortion as a funny metaphor:
It hasn't gone unnoticed in Trump's inner circle of political advisers that there's a quiet but palpable turning away from the 45th president among a lot of Republicans.... Of course, from everything I know about Trump, this will just be an incentive for him to abort the DeSantis candidacy in utero, so to speak, by announcing sooner rather than later that he means to run.
And with that indiscretion, I will close the door on the Bret-and-Gail confabulation.
______________________

* 10 years ago, I blogged about the word "wimp" in great detail, with lots of OED material. The context at the time was Mitt Romney, the presidential candidate. There was an effort to besmirch him as a wimp.

 
At one point, I exclaimed:
Fascinating! Stepping back, I can see softness and weakness associated with the left. It's the conservatives who think they are hard, strong, manly, and courageous, and this must make liberals want to get the accusation of wussiness/wimpiness going the other way.

Go to that link for more. And, yes, I do get to "wimp factor" (George H.W. Bush) and "mush from the wimp" (Jimmy Carter). 

How will the Supreme Court nominees of Democratic Presidents answer the question "Will you vote to overrule Dobbs?

Posted: 04 Jul 2022 04:31 AM PDT

That's my question, jumping way ahead after reading the New York Magazine headline, "Could Dobbs Be Reversed Like Roe Was?" 

That's by Ed Kilgore. I'll have to publish this post and click on my "Ed Kilgore" tag to see what I've thought of his published musings over the years, but come on. Obviously, Dobbs can be overruled. We won't be able to stop talking about overruling Dobbs. Remember, we talked about overruling Roe for 50 years before it happened? Do the Dobbs haters have that kind of passion and stamina? 

At some point in the next 50 or 100 years, there will be a majority of Supreme Court Justices who want to overrule Dobbs and get back to Roe (or forward to a new, better Roe (Casey was already a new, better Roe, and Roe can be re-improved)).

Now, let's see what Kilgore says:

The political conditions necessary for Democrats to re-flip the Court are exceptionally daunting. They'd have to hold on to both the White House and the Senate for long enough to get lucky with conservative vacancies....

He proceeds to talk about the 2022 and 2024 elections. What a short time frame! The anti-Roe forces worked for 50 years to achieve their goal. But in Kilgore's nearsighted vision, it's a fight in state legislatures, the very fight envisioned by the Dobbs majority envisioned. 

He doesn't get anywhere near my question: What will the confirmation hearings look like in the future when a Democratic President gets to fill a vacancy? For decades we've seen the nominees of Republican Presidents grilled about whether they would overrule Roe. The tables are now turned, and the new nominees will be asked about overturning Dobbs. I suppose they will plug in the usual material about the value of stare decisis and decline to discuss whether Roe or Casey or Dobbs were correctly decided because it's a question that might come before the Court.

We'll get the right back, I'm guessing. And it won't take 50 years. And then we'll get back to looking for Republican Party nominees who will restore Dobbs. It will never end.

"BookTok is not dominated by the usual power players in the book world such as authors and publishers but by regular readers, many of them young..."

Posted: 04 Jul 2022 03:29 AM PDT

"... who share recommendations and videos of themselves talking about the books they love, sometimes weeping or screaming or tossing a copy across the room. The most popular videos don't generally offer information about the book's author, the writing or even the plot, the way a traditional review does. Instead, readers speak plainly about the emotional journey a book will offer."

From "How TikTok Became a Best Seller Machine/#BookTok, where enthusiastic readers share reading recommendations, has gone from being a novelty to becoming an anchor in the publishing industry and a dominant driver of fiction sales" (NYT).

The top comment over there: "Truly — I don't get TikTok. A direct feed to China, a few seconds of messaging, it's like walking into a circus, with crowds, noise, sights, chaos, confusion. That it has taken off and become the vehicle of choice for young people says nothing good about our limited and shrinking attention span. Even if it's pushing a book."

Yeah, whatever happened to "Booknotes" with Brian Lamb? Here's the last episode, from 2004: "Why Read?" 

I love the way that commenter bitches about young people lacking the capacity to pay attention while seemingly admitting that all he did was take a quick look, perceive chaos, and adopt the opinion of not getting it. 

Sunrise — 5:25:04, 5:25:39, 5:25:43.

Posted: 03 Jul 2022 06:34 PM PDT

IMG_1468

IMG_1471

IMG_1470

Those are just my sunrise pictures from this morning. You can write about anything you want in the comments.

I have 6 TikToks for you tonight and no idea which one you'll like best. So let me know.

Posted: 03 Jul 2022 04:56 PM PDT

1. Random boy doesn't seem to know what freckles are.

2. The Italian husband makes caprese salad.

3. Do you think your happiness depends on finding that special someone?

4. Why not paint your car Tiffany blue?

5. Time to practice hippie dancing.

6. The Canadian guy was warned: Don't let New York City change you.

"I walk around the neighborhood that encouraged me for so many decades, and I see the reminders of Harvey and the Rainbow Honor Walk, celebrating famous queer and trans people."

Posted: 04 Jul 2022 02:48 AM PDT

"I just can't help but think that soon there will be a time when people walking up and down the street will have no clue what this is all about."

Said Cleve Jones, who lived in the Castro neighborhood in San Francisco for 50 years before moving out of the city altogether, to live in a small house with a garden, quoted in "Once a Crucial Refuge, 'Gayborhoods' Lose L.G.B.T.Q. Residents in Major Cities/Many are choosing to live elsewhere in search of cheaper housing and better amenities. They are finding growing acceptance in other communities after decades of political and social changes" (NYT).

It's not just about housing costs:
L.G.B.T.Q. couples, particularly younger ones, are starting families and considering more traditional features — public schools, parks and larger homes — in deciding where they want to live. The draw of "gayborhoods" as a refuge for past generations looking to escape discrimination and harassment is less of an imperative today, reflecting the rising acceptance of gay and lesbian people. And dating apps have, for many, replaced the gay bar as a place that leads to a relationship or a sexual encounter....

"What I see in Houston is we are losing our history," said Tammi Wallace, the president of the Greater Houston L.G.B.T. Chamber of Commerce, who lives in Montrose, the city's gay neighborhood. "A lot of individuals and couples are saying, 'We can move to different parts of the city and know we are going to be accepted.'"...

 The men and women who established these neighborhoods "wanted to segregate and be surrounded by gay people," [said urban planning professor Daniel B. Hess]. "In contrast, when you ask young people today what they want, they would prefer an inclusive coffee shop. They don't want anyone to feel unwelcome."

Are some people nostalgic for the time when their group was more oppressed? Or is this really about competition for real estate? As for the "young people today" who will say they want "an inclusive coffee shop" where no one feels "unwelcome," well, of course, that's what they will say. But what do they want? 

I can see wanting the "gayborhoods" to remain gayborhoods. There's the diversity of accepting everyone into a neighborhood, but there's also the diversity of neighborhoods being different from other neighborhoods. This issue makes me think of Jimmy Carter's disastrous gaffe about "ethnic purity" back in the 1970s — a time when I was very happy to move into the gayest neighborhood in NYC.

***

Now, there's something weird about this article, which is written by Adam Nagourney. In the beginning, we're told that Jones "left for a small home with a garden and apple and peach trees 75 miles away in Sonoma County after the monthly cost of his one-bedroom apartment soared from $2,400 to $5,200." But much later in the article, we're told that Jones's "landlord asserted that he forfeited his rent control protections by living in Sonoma County, effectively forcing him out by more than doubling his rent." 

That makes it sound as though Jones already had the house in the country/suburbs, and the apartment was one of 2 homes, which disqualified him from participating in rent control. The Times ought to be straightforward about whether the landlord had the law right! Either Jones was entitled to rent control or he wasn't. How long did Jones have the house before the landlord figured out that rent control no longer applied? This is a legal dispute that ought to be presented with clarity, and breaking up the information looks like an effort to make the facts fit the story the journalist wants to tell.

Why did the rent "soar"? Was it because of a greedy landlord or market forces or was it because of the forces of rent control and Jones's disqualifying himself by buying the house in Sonoma County? 

Trump is the most popular political figure in America.

Posted: 03 Jul 2022 11:30 AM PDT

 According to the new Harvard-Harris poll:


The key to understanding this is that all of the other political characters are more unpopular than Trump.

ALSO... and this must scare the bejeezus out of a lot of people:

"The [Rainbow] gathering is organized around large camps and communal kitchens that serve coffee, tea and food. No money is exchanged."

Posted: 03 Jul 2022 11:51 AM PDT

"At a trading post, kids and adults bartered for jewelry, stones, glass pipes and Snickers. A painted rainbow was being erected over the 'Granola Funk' stage in the meadow, where a musical, a gong show and other performances would take place. At the Christian-themed Jesus Kitchen, one attendee said the nondenominational gatherings had made him a believer. 'I'd never seen Christians do it the way these guys do it,' said Gavin Boyd, 25, a carpenter from Fort Collins, Colo. It was, he said, less orthodoxy and more spirituality."

This weekend is the 50th Anniversary of the first Rainbow Gathering.

Most of the WaPo article is about the locals worrying about the environmental impact of the gathering and the group's basically good reputation for sanitation and cleanup. There was a little something about politics:
[I]n a nation that often seems to be divided in two, the Rainbow Gathering's half-century assembly told a story of many Americas.... Attendees skew left but probably also include a few "Trumpsters" and QAnon devotees, said one longtime camper. The era's political divisions, in any case, did not dominate conversations. 
"You have the whole continuum of people," said Ray, 70, who on Friday was pulling a 100-pound cart of supplies up the 1.5-mile trail from a parking area to what is known as the Main Meadow, site of communal dinners and the event's pinnacle, a July Fourth silent peace prayer and meditation....
"There's also politics here. The right of the people of America, United States, to gather peacefully — that's supposed to be a right — on the people's land… To practice spiritual belief, freedom of religion," said Ray, a retired health-care worker from southern Oregon. "To assert those rights at a time when, in my view, fascism's grip is getting tighter and tighter and tighter."
Here's the group's webpage. And here's their video:

 

Meade overheard that and said "Sounds like something from 'South Park'... Tegridy Farms."

Here's the Wikipedia page, "Rainbow Family":
Rainbow Gatherings emphasize a spiritual focus towards peace, love, and unity. Those who attend Rainbow Gatherings usually share an interest in intentional communities, ecology, New Age spirituality, and entheogens. Attendees refer to one another as "brother", "sister", or the gender neutral term, "sibling". Attendance is open to all interested parties, and decisions are reached through group meetings leading to some form of group consensus. Adherents call the camp "Rainbowland" and refer to the world outside of gatherings as "Babylon". The exchange of money is frowned upon, and barter is stressed as an alternative.... 
Participants make the claim that they are the "largest non-organization of non-members in the world." In addition to referring to itself as a non-organization, the group's "non-members" also even playfully call the group a "disorganization."

Hippie humor. It never changes. 

This use of the rainbow predates the LBGTQ use of the rainbow, which began in 1978. But it doesn't predate the Rainbow People's Party, AKA the White Panther Party, which began in 1968 in Ann Arbor. And it doesn't predate the Rainbow Coalition, which began in 1969 in Chicago. And it doesn't predate Rainbow/PUSH, the Jesse Jackson group, which began in 1971.

"One complication in this case has been the chaotic jumble of rich and famous people who moved in and out of [Jeffrey] Epstein’s orbit."

Posted: 03 Jul 2022 08:53 AM PDT

"The names thrown about over the years have driven a frenzy of media interest but led to no clear evidence of wrongdoing.... Leland Nally, a writer and film-maker who painstakingly called all 1,500 people in Maxwell and Epstein's little black book of contacts for an article that appeared in Mother Jones magazine in 2020, warns against jumping to conclusions based on whose name was jotted down. Epstein was obsessive. 'He absolutely was a social-ladder-climber and a collector of these people, so I think he was very quick to put people in this black book,' he says. That said, it is surprising that those who were around Epstein with any frequency did not have at least an inkling of what he and Maxwell were doing. 'I think it's impossible for many of the people who were close with them throughout the years to have no idea of what was going on,' Nally says.... When [Virginia] Giuffre, now 38, asked Epstein why [Bill] Clinton spent time with him, she claims he laughed and told her: 'Let's just say he owes me favours.' Epstein cultivated this image, Nally says: 'He enjoyed being seen as a sort of supervillain wacky billionaire.'"

"On Capitol Hill, House Democratic leaders are discussing ways to force Republicans into uncomfortable positions on abortion..."

Posted: 03 Jul 2022 06:09 AM PDT

"Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) sent a letter to colleagues Monday noting that leadership had been discussing potential votes related to abortion... House leaders have asked committee chairs to flag legislation that they could consider voting on to hold Republicans accountable on numerous protections, according to two House Democratic aides who spoke on the condition of anonymity to outline private deliberations. A House GOP aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss their member's thinking, acknowledged that such votes could put them in a tough spot with their base. Some senior Democratic aides in the Senate have voiced wariness of deploying a similar strategy in their chamber, worrying that holding such kinds of votes might allow Republican senators who voted to confirm Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe to claim they acted to uphold women's reproductive rights.Those dynamics arose in the Democratic caucus meeting where a group of women senators discussed strategy ahead of the court ruling — tamping down the possibility that there might be a string of 'show votes' to demonstrate Republican opposition to abortion rights and potentially other freedoms. Instead, the three Democrats familiar with the meeting said, a likelier strategy is to attempt over the summer to pass bills on the floor by unanimous consent — a maneuver that would publicly demonstrate GOP opposition to popular measures but would not require all senators to cast votes on them."

"It’s curious that booing is absent from modern theatre, because it’s as old as European drama."

Posted: 03 Jul 2022 05:47 AM PDT

"The earliest reports of audience booing were recorded at the annual festival of Dionysus in Athens where playwrights competed to win prizes for their efforts. The verdict was delivered by the crowds who howled (that is, booed) at the worst dramas and cheered for the best.... [These days a]udiences have developed alternative ways to express their dissatisfaction. Coughing is the commonest method.... Noisily turning the pages of the programme tells your neighbours that you're unimpressed by the antics on stage. Fiddling with sweets or rattling your ice cubes has the same effect. Snoring is sometimes heard in the stalls – surely the most lethal form of theatre review.... We are confused about booing. We enjoy the sound because it represents a revolt against authority, against celebrities who misbehave, and against poor taste. Yet we also consider it discourteous and even vulgar...."

Writes Lloyd Evans, in "Three cheers for booing in the theatre" (Spectator).

The oldest meaning of the verb "boo" — going back to the 1500s — is "To low or bellow as a cow does" (OED): "The ungodlye colleges of priestes..that dayly boo and rore the holye scriptures" (a1555).

The familiar meaning, to make the sound "boo" to express disapproval or contempt, goes back only to the early 19th century: "The whole school raised a yell, booing, hissing, and scraping feet" (1833).

Why — of all the animal noises — did the sound of a cow come to dominate audience noisemaking? We use it — if we ever use it — without even knowing that it once was understood — at least in English — as the sound a cow makes.

I've got to wonder if the booing that went on in ancient Greece was the sound "boo" and whether it was imitative of a cow. Perhaps some other animal, more familiar to the Greeks. A goat? "Maaaaa." Of course, the animal sounds are represented by different letters in different languages.

And even within one language, the letters used to represent an animal's sound can change over time. Apparently, back in the 1500s, the cow said "boo."

And are you old enough to remember when the frog did not say "ribit"? Are you old and as up on pop culture as I am to know that "ribit" as the sound for a frog was a complete innovation that can be ascribed to a single comedy sketch that came on TV one night in 1968? 

I was pleased to see that the OED corroborated my memory. Its entry for "ribit" has as its first quote:
c1968 in Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (annotated T.V. script for rebroadcast programme) No. 8. 62 That's right. Ribit! I am. I am a frog.
 
(The sketch is too long, so feel free to scroll to 5:30 to get to the "ribit" part.)

"Numerous people close to the committee’s work say the abrupt decision to go public with Hutchinson’s testimony, which surprised even some of its top aides..."

Posted: 03 Jul 2022 05:05 AM PDT

"... and which involved presenting the world with details the committee itself had learned only days earlier, was necessary to prevent her account from leaking. With evidence that Trump allies were trying to influence her decision to talk, some members also worried she might back out if they waited any longer.... [B]y rushing Hutchinson onto the witness stand, the committee has also exposed itself to criticism that it failed to thoroughly vet her claims. Hutchinson has come under intense scrutiny from Trump and his allies, who have accused her of lying or derided her for relaying hearsay that would not hold up in a criminal proceeding. So far, no one has publicly corroborated her account of a struggle between Trump and the Secret Service in his presidential SUV.... Officials have said anonymously that the Secret Service agents involved are prepared to contradict Hutchinson in sworn testimony.... One person familiar with the investigation who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to address sensitive matters, called the story of Trump lunging at a Secret Service agent an 'unforced error' that amounted to a colorful aside, when the main point, not in dispute, was that Trump was furious at being barred from proceeding to the Capitol...."

From "The Jan. 6 committee bet big with Cassidy Hutchinson. Did it pay off? The decision to accelerate her testimony has led to second-guessing but also produced some of the most memorable hearing moments to date" (WaPo).

I don't care whether "Trump was furious at being barred from proceeding to the Capitol." There's got to be more about what he believed would happen there. I'm stuck on the idea that what he wanted was a huge, attention-getting protest against resolving the election without more inquiry into whether the vote counts were accurate. If he had joined the crowd it would have been a stunning sight. But he didn't get his way. It was too dangerous. That he thought he could do it seems to be evidence that he was NOT picturing a violent scene. So what if he was "furious" that he didn't get to do his gigantic, historic photo-op?
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