By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Bird Song of the Day
Western Meadowlark, Wind Cave National Park; SD Route 87; mile marker 47, Custer, South Dakota, United States. Two adult male Western Meadowlarks counter singing.”
Patient readers, I am finishing up a post on the Administration’s horrid, vax-only Project NextGen, so this is an open thread. Talk amongst yourselves! –lambert
Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From JM:
JM writes: “Here is a photo of Trillium and Solomon’s Seal from the Dell, Mt. Auburn Cemetery, during the peak bird migration this spring.”
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Essential reading from Public – NC needs a big pharma section for items like this.
https://public.substack.com/p/power-and-greed-behind-fdas-promotion?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Hmmm…. Anybody else contemplating getting a Master’s Degree in Cynicism? The University of Life, School of Hard Knocks is giving a special introductory cut price offer. (You still have to pay up front, the retail price, and then apply to the Federal Government for the tax rebate.) See, you already have begun the course!
‘America is the Greatest Country in the United States’ as Judah Friedlander asserts.
I didn’t even have to take one of his courses…
A short essay on the theme, “Is the US government evil?” https://theduran.com/is-the-u-s-government-evil/
US claiming to “police” the world, the way the Chicago and LA and NY and Philly and other “Great City” cops “police” their beats. Abuse and corruption all the way down. In the link, the author points to nearly 300 exercises of military violence in foreign lands over the last 77 years, without a declaration of war, which the Constitution says is required for such activities, anywhere in sight.
Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler told it like it is 90 years ago. We mopes are the individual cells in the battery that powers this whole syndicate operation. Creating the “full faith and credit” that makes the MMT structure possible.
How to “defund the self-appointed protection racket that claims to be the world’s policeman? How to step off the carousel? Other than via Rule #2?
https://youtu.be/VyXRdH0JTi0
I neglected to include this link in my previous comment. Judah Friedlander’s comedy special on netflix combines deadpan delivery, quirky observations and a definite world view.
It would surprise me if he hadn’t read S Butler.’s War Is A Racket…
Lily Tomlin, who is supposed to have said “No matter how cynical you become it’s never enough…”
Cynicism: Great start => Read The Devil’s Dictionary.
Also, never forget “If you don’t read the news you are uninformed. If you read the news you are misinformed.”
Important truths like this have held true for generations.
The original cynic: Diogenes “I have come to debase the coinage” of Sinope.
Hedges bleat from this morning:
“We cannot dismiss and demonize rural white Americans. The class war waged by corporations and the ruling oligarchs has devastated their lives and communities. They have every right to be angry…but they are not the enemy.”
As long as they shut up and allow people like me to speak, and choose who they vote for, Pals!
What??
Speaking of honing your cynical edge (see ambrit’s above), from program Reveal:
It’s Not Easy Going Green: There’s a way to “fight” climate change that’s cheap, popular and completely ineffective.
About renewable energy certificates.
Good news!
My application to be a regional ‘Mitch Strong’ spokesperson has been accepted.
Planet of the Apes, the more recent reboots…”Apes Together Strong…” The latest entry was a few years back. Will the next entry be, “War to Put Apes into Retirement Before Death” ? \ sarc
As Verne would put it; “The Further Adventures of Mitch Stronganoff!”
Do let us know if you receive any “insider information,” strictly for academic purposes of course!
The Barbie movie is the most important movie of the decade.
Greta Gerwig, the director and screenwriter, threw caution to the wind and lifted the veil on today’s feminism. All men who watched the film are shocked and appalled. All women under the age of forty-five years old love the film and are shocked and appalled that men are shocked and appalled.
Warner Brothers Marketing Department kept it a close secret that movie was actually a feminist screed instead of a candy-coated feel-good summer musical.
Last week men scoffed at talk of Barbie making $1 billion.
Now that the cat is out of the bag, men are waiting for ticket sales to fall off of a cliff for the second and third weekends.
But, no. Barbie is well on its way to making $1 billion. Barbie is conquering the world.
The Barbie movie is the most divisive movie of the decade.
Not what was needed right now…
“$1 billion”… kinda like when McDonalds says “99 billion served”…?
Also: Warner apparently spent $145 million on the film, and according to Variety, $150 billion on publicity. I.e., more was spent marketing the film than actually producing it.
Amongst others, Steven Soderbergh has an interesting take on the economics of publicity budgets for Hollywood films (e.g., see his “State of Cinema” address at the San Francisco International Film Festival).
Kunstler has thoughts
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/blobulation/
I believe The Blob was a Steve McQueen film that probably was a lot more fun the first time. My brother is the expert on fifties scifi.
And apparently Devon did show for hearing
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/devon-archer-interview-very-productive-in-biden-family-probe-jordan-says/ar-AA1eBeuz
To quote Joe Friday show also in ’50s: dum da dum dum
“dum da dum dum” LOL!!!!
“dum da dum dum DUM!”
I thought we were already staggering around in circles.
Or, to update Efrem Zimbalist Jr’s weekly pronouncement at start of each show
“Because of the nature of the crime, the FBI was implicated.”
Just the facts, ma’am.
…or, another 1950’s movie that is applicable to our situation would be Forbidden Planet, as we are slowly being killed by our own id monster like in the movie…in our case it is one born out of platitudes about American exceptionalism and neoliberalism that snuffs out the aspirations of any politician who’s policies deviate too far from the Washington consensus.
And for any politician whose aspirations are not snuffed out, there are other ways to snuff out that politician. Ask Bernie Sanders.
Ask the Dead Kennedies. ask Dr. King. Oh wait, we can’t ask them, they’re dead.
“The story you are about to hear is true. Only the story is changed, to protect the innocent.”
In need of a distraction, and given the forum is more or less open for discussion what about this subject. Best song for the summer season?!? I humbly submit a short list (no particular order) of memories of my youth circa middle 1980s more or less. Memory may be off but these tunes conjure open windows & just maybe your older siblings permit (put up with) you sitting in their Dodge Dart.
Bryan Adams, Summer of ’69
The Cars, Magic
Tears for Fears, Everybody Wants to Rule the World
Scandal featuring Patty Smyth, The Warrior
I am not a fan of the song or the band but it’s hard to resist, apropos to your request:
School’s out for Summer – Alice Cooper
more to my taste:
Stoned Soul Picnic – Laura Nyro
California – Joni Mitchell
Woodstock – Joni Mitchell
Suite: Judy Blue Eyes – CSN
Gotta agree with Judy Blue Eyes!
Nothing to Fear, Oingo Boingo
Son of Orange County – More Trouble Every Day Frank Zappa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa1JR-TgPfU
“Son Of Orange County” is directed towards our 37th President of the U.S., Richard M. Nixon. He was born and lived in Orange County, CA., thus, Son of Orange County. Nixon thought he could save the world from communism and tyranny, yet he was corrupt, and uttered the infamous line, “I am not a crook”. Obviously, Zappa repeated that and labeled him “a fool”. Rightly so.
-some guy on reddit
Just finished a bicycle ride around and through Monongahela National Forest, lots of long climbs. One day heavier traffic, relatively speaking, used a Bluetooth speaker some Dobie Gray, early Dylan, Bill Withers, all of Marvin Gays ‘What’s Going On’. Fits the cadence. And of course I’m old so Little Feet Old folks boogie.
Lots of warblers, chanterelles are out. A respite.
Summertime – Miles Davis
Summertime – Sublime
Summertime – Ella and Satchmo
Summertime – Billie Holiday
Summertime – Del Vikings
and of course, the original written by Mr George Gershwin as performed in Porgy & Bess
Summertime Blues – Eddie Cochran
Motor City Is Burning – MC-5
I remember a neighbour of ours in Hialeah, Florida back in the sixties used to play old time country music in the afternoon.
Ernest Tubb
Hank Williams
Tammy Wynette
Bob Wills
Later some of my dorm mates in college played later Country and Western in the heat of the afternoon.
Asleep At The Wheel
Jerry Jeff Walker
Waylon Jennings etc.
It eventually evolved into the likes of,
The Flying Burrito Brothers
Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen
Kinky Friedman
David Bromberg etc.
So, in general, Summer has always had a Country and Western soundtrack for me. (And I’m the type who drove a few miles out of my way to go see Tangerine Dream.)
What ever happened to affordable live shows? I’m not paying a hundred dollars and up for regular seats in an auditorium.
California Girls. – Beach Boys
Summertime Blues – the Who
Summer in the City – Loving Spoonful
Hot Fun in the Summertime – Sly and the Family Stone
Dancing in the Streets – Martha Raye and the Vandellas (rumored to be really about rioting)
Also, for guys just graduated from high school:
I’m 18. – Alice Cooper
Long Gone Long – The Rainmakers
All good, but especially Hot Fun on the Summertime!
“Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty”
Can’t believe no one got Mungo Jerry yet!
In the Summertime
Good one that. Then again “Grazin in the Grass” Hugh Mesekela.
Wow, nice pick! I haven’t heard that one in a looong time. It surely rings a bell (cowbell that is.)
And one more, from the summer of 71 and incredibly appropriate to our times, from Covid dain bramage road rage and chaotic violent weather, to actors out on –strike.
Riders on the Storm – The Doors
Tangerine Dream – Mojave Plan (originally recorded in 1981)
https://www.youtube.com/embed/R3RoDTfCTw0
Tangerine Dream – Thermal Inversion (1982)
https://www.youtube.com/embed/3o3T8neCBLk
I associate 1980’s-era Tangerine Dream with summer. I was born in 1984, and from what I remember of the last three years of the 1980’s, the era was a special time for me and I always liked the New Wave music of the era with and its futuristic aesthetic which I believe the young-uns now call “synthwave”.
I wish I could be an adult during the 1980’s for a few days just to see what it was like in detail.
If you want to go back a little in the TD catalog, check out In Search of Hades 1973-1979, being a recent-ish set of a bunch of unreleased tracks from the Virgin years.
Some of the big COVID news today. Jha is at it again with a post at Boston Globe lying about the Pandemic being over: With a few basic steps, most of us can finally ignore COVID
In the UK, you can no longer donate blood if you have long COVID: https://twitter.com/EvonneTCurran/status/1686049427667009550
No explanation as to how this determination was reached, but it begs the question, what do they know about the blood of people with long COVID?
And “Paxlovid” is trending on Twitter. I refuse to call it X.
Also: Merck, Ridgeback withdraw COVID drug application in EU (Molnupiravir)
Some google queries people are running:
Stay safe out there.
I have been wondering about the U. S. blood supply. They were (and are) extremely cautious to try to prevent the HIV virus from getting into the supply, but they seem to be doing nothing to prevent or even monitor the covid virus getting into it. So what happens if you receive blood with the Covid virus in it?
They don’t seem to ask if you have had covid, from what I could see on the Red Cross site. Just wait two weeks after a vaccine, and don’t come if if you feel ill from any cause. I know there have been one or two documented cases of transplants causing covid in the recipient, even though the recipients are required in most centers to be vaccinated, and those donors I assume are screened.
I did see that in the UK, they are not accepting blood from Long Covid people….why not if it’s all in their head??!!
So f’n stupid. Why would they accept blood from a person with Covid but not long Covid? When is it long? 2 weeks, 3 weeks, 4 weeks, 4 weeks and one day, two days. Oh my
Because of course covid-blood and long-covid-blood are different in kind!! After three months, covid blood magically turns into long covid blood, which you wouldn’t want to use. You can see the little markers on the blood globules; they turn color at the 90 day mark.
(not serious; this is insane)
When they say the pandemic is over, they are being too-cute-by-half in their razor-sharp hair-splitting of words and language so that they can say they are oh-so-exquisitely not lying.
When they say “pandemic”, they mean “pandemic” as in the phase before “endemic”. They are oh-so-technically saying that covid has spread into all the territories that existed for it to spread into, and now that it is in all those territories, it is now “endemic”, as in “permanent”. And it can’t be pandemic anymore if its endemic now, right?
They cleverly don’t say that covid-the-disease is over, merely that the “pandemic” is over. The silent part is that the endemic is now here. That is the silent part they are careful to not say out loud because they can always point to some obscure paper somewhere speaking of ” entering the endemic phase” if only a PR-briefing paper from WHO. That allows them to say that it is the public’s fault if the public understands them to be saying that covid itself is over. They oh-so-technically never said that.
Thus do they hope to escape legal liability for encouraging everyone who hears or reads their words to decide that covid is over and we can all come out and play in stuffy unventilated rooms.
I just saw this on #Twitter myself, and while it is not at all surprising, I’m still gobsmacked …
TomDispatch: Will Oppenheimer bring back the anti nuke movement?
https://original.antiwar.com/william-d-hartung/2023/07/30/oppenheimer-and-the-birth-of-the-nuclear-industrial-complex/
Have never recommended a TV show before (I’ve watched only a handful in this century) but just finished streaming Boots Riley’s weird and wonderful I’m A Virgo and it was extremely enjoyable and ideologically very much to my taste. Anyone who enjoyed 2018’s anti-capitalist Sorry to Bother You should check it out! At only 3.5 hours total it spread out easily over two days.
We didn’t have to give Jeff Bezos any $, just signed up for a free 30-day trial of Amazon Prime.
RIP PeeWee Herman — come to think of it, his insane kids show had a similarly playful and anarchistic vibe. The fact that I’m a Virgo largely eschews CGI (instead the 13-foot-tall main character is artfully shot with forced perspective and practical effects) underlines the visual similarities.
One of the conditions he had for the show was the activities could be done with items around most homes, so any kid could do them instead of requiring purchases.
Pee Wee’s Big Adventure was the first full length film directed by Tim Burton.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv08vnIlnIw
We didn’t have to give Jeff Bezos any $, just signed up for a free 30-day trial of Amazon Prime.
That’s because APTV has completed the crappification process. It is now a handful of woke Amazon productions and non-stop adverts for more channel and movie subscriptions. Netflix is lagging behind but trying hard to get there as well.
‘Home of the X-rated pancake.’ New business in Fresno’s Tower District sells erotic eats (Fresno Bee)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You don’t want to know what goes in the syrup…
My Kevin’s (since ’07) Congressional district encompasses both Bakersfield right on up to the outskirts of Fresno, Kev being smart enough not to lay claim to the 5th biggest city in the state.
His district has been so gerrymandered as to resemble a toilet, and technically i’d be in the upper tank section, responsible for the flushing mechanism.
Have a look-see
https://www.congress.gov/member/district/kevin-mccarthy/M001165
Better than the original Gerrymander. Looking with my eyes crossed, I see My Kevin (since’07) enthroned.
So I didn’t link to the actual paper last time, but this is really gold and covers manipulations and “dark patterns” used in fundraising emails:
Manipulative tactics are the norm in political emails: Evidence from 300K emails from the 2020 US election cycle
This looks to be a well constructed paper with a good effort put into it.
And:
Keep your email safe out there!
No sweat. I have marketing allergies and no SPF 100+ Preparation H.
It’s like having special sunglasses now.
Vipin M. Vashishtha posts a lot of stuff I don’t understand. But this, he makes pretty clear. I am typing in what he tweeted (very slightly abbreviated), plus linking to the nitter thread:
July 30th
Whether antibodies capable of anti-body mediated enhancement of infection (#ADE) emerge after SARS-CoV02 infection or vaccination? And whether such antibodies facilitate pathogenesis of covid 19?
In a new study, the first monoclonal antibody (mAb) that causes ADE in a SARS in vivo model is identified!
This mAb is known as #RS2 against the SARS Spike-protein. mAb RS2 demonstrated affinity and ability to neutralize SARS2 infection in vitro . . .
In an animal model of SARS-cov-2 infection, the dose-dependent protective efficacy of mAb RS2 was revealed. However, in post-exposure prophylaxis, the administration of mAb RS2 led to an increase in the viral load in the respiratory tract of animals.
It was demonstrated that antibodies competing with mAb RS2 were significantly more often recorded in sera from volunteers with severe COVID
These results demonstrated for the first time that in animals, SARS-Covid-2 can induce antibody/antibodies that can elicit ADE.
(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10341398/)
https://nitter.moomoo.me/vipintukur/status/1685644880100696064#m
Blinken repeats the mantra that Assange committed serious crimes and is so charged by the US. If publishing classified information is a crime why is it that leaks of said classified information are not serious crimes when put out there by “authorized leakers” or “leakers whose heart is in the right place” or “persons so highly placed as to be untouchable.” What it comes down to is that Assange was neither “authorized”, nor was his “heart in the right place”, nor was he “untouchable.” He was none of those at least not according to those who find freedom of the press inconvenient, who take offense when dirty secrets are made public, who think only “enemies” can be guilty of war crimes. The absence of voices raised in his defense, of voices raised in protest indicts the government for hypocrisy.
Anyone know where Gonzalo Lira is? I have seen no references to his being ‘disappeared’ in weeks.
From Hungary. Just posted.
https://twitter.com/GonzaloLira1968/status/1686140626348257280
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW274f8s-ws
Check his twitter @gonzalolira1968 and he just posted some videos on the tubes. He’s out on bail but indicted for speech crimes and looking at 5-8 years in a labor camp.
Five to eight for “speech crimes” — because Ukraine is all about “fighting for freedom” ya know.
Hope his trail gets delayed
And five years from now, Ukraine as it’s known today could be very much history.
he’s on parole and apparently escaping prosecution “about to cross the border” It’s a bizarre tale he tells about how he arrived in this situation legally, suggesting that despite certain conviction and restrictions on his movement, it seems TPTB are looking the other way. After giving up his passports, he got them back when he was released. He says they essentially want him to escape in his latest video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW274f8s-ws
caveat: the video ends abruptly, mid sentence, so who knows…
He’s an odd duck and I do not agree with most of his politics but his videos about the war were informed. Yves has frequently referenced his work, with insights from being a filmmaker, which revealed staged scenes…
A link won’t work but this is from rt
Gonzalo Lira has reappeared three months after his arrest by the SBU
Chilean-American blogger Gonzalo Lira, arrested by the Ukrainian intelligence in May on charges of pro-Russian sympathies, reappeared online on Monday and told a sordid tale of beatings and extortion while awaiting a show trial.
“I was tortured in two of the four cells I was in—by the other prisoners,” Lira posted in a 25-tweet thread on Monday evening, noting that all the torture in the pre-trial detention center (SIZO) was outsourced to the inmates.
“I got a cracked rib in my first cell, but it wasn’t too bad. The worst stretch was in my fourth cell. From 1pm on June 21 until 7pm the next day—30 hours” two inmates tortured him and at one point “used a toothpick to scratch the whites of my left eye, while asking me if I could still read if I had just one,” Lira wrote.
One of the torturers was allegedly reprimanded for bruising the 55-year-old blogger’s chest, because the instructions were to leave no marks.
Right now, I’m about to try to get out of Ukraine, and seek political asylum in Hungary.
Either I’ll cross the border and make it to safety, or I’ll be disappeared by the Kiev regime.
This is what’s happened to me over the past three months.
1/25
— Gonzalo Lira (@GonzaloLira1968) July 31, 2023
Lira posted photographs of the documents laying out the charges against him, suggesting that he was being imprisoned over social media posts and YouTube videos. He said the one video in particular that got the authorities’ attention was “Ukraine: A Primer,” his explanation of the background of the current conflict with Russia, which blamed Kiev for provoking it.
Woof. That’s intense. I don’t think Mr. Lira is exaggerating about any of that. I also think everyone on the Ukrainian and State Dept. side hopes that he slides off the map and stays quiet for a long time. It would certainly be easier that way.
Hey, WOW! Gonzalo Lira!
I’m About To Cross The Border 1/3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW274f8s-ws
And getting out of Ukraine. Good news.
Regarding the ongoing discussion of the “AI-pocalypse”, I found the Cory Robin article — “How ChatGPT changed my plans for the fall” — posted in the Links to be short and worth reading. The comments, also, include some additional, meaty reflection on the whole issue. No clear solutions to this.
Here, again, I will mention Ari Folman’s film The Congress, evidently inspired by a Stanisław Lem novel (2013 film, but still very germane, especially w.r.t. the current strike in Hollywood, ominous job-replacement prognosis for generative “AI”, etc.).
The Congress, with Robin Wright as protagonist, playing herself as an actress. The conceit: a big film studio wants to scan Wright’s image, henceforth use the scan for an eternally-young digital actress, and that will be the programmed end of her career. (I.e., kind of an updated version of Crichton’s Looker (1981), though more fantastic and injected with a heavy dose of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas). Harvey Keitel plays Wright’s agent. Danny Huston as “the producer” and Paul (“Sideways”) Giamatti as the family doctor.
The story considers the consequences of Wright’s decision, projecting into the future. Lem’s “benignimizers” drug in the water supply attack becomes a consensual mass hallucination. In place of a party congress, we explore a cult mecca big media theme park. It’s half live-action, half animated, with shout-outs to Kubrick, Roger Vadim, animation with 1930s “rubber hose” style artwork (à la Les Triplettes de Belleville) gone psychedelic and filtered through some Belgian and German studios (an animated version of Berlin Templehof makes an appearance, replete with Zeppelins), but don’t be deterred. It’s a serious film and very prescient w.r.t. the current
meltdownanxiety over the incursion of “AI” into the film/media industries.Worth tracking down and watching.
some people don’t like jimmy dore. fair enough, but after being intrigued, at least, by RFK JR, the latter thoroughly embarrasses himself with his mendacious rhetoric about Israel on the former’s show today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RW8V6vNa1iE
Did we ever find out why hospital IC flipped from you can’t see your dying family member because COVID to let’s give everyone COVID?
These people are sick.
(Almost) Daily Derailment(s)
Two-fer for Texas:
DPS identify man killed in train crash, derailment outside Amherst Monday morning
One person is dead after a semi-trailer crashed into a train Monday morning near Amherst.
…
As a result of the crash, the five-car train was derailed did lose some fertilizer and carbon dioxide; however, DPS said that the fertilizer was in pellet form and poses no risk to the public’s safety.
https://www.lubbockonline.com/story/news/local/2023/07/31/one-injured-train-derailed-after-vehicle-crash-outside-of-amherst/70500831007/
Union Pacific train derails in Bryan
BRYAN, Texas — A train has been reported to have derailed in Bryan along Finfeather Road near West Villa Maria Road.
No injuries have been reported, nor have any hazardous materials been spilled.
According to Union Pacific, the incident occurred around 2:30 p.m., and the cause is still under investigation.
https://www.kagstv.com/article/news/local/bryan-train-derailment-july-31-2023/499-d1d4cabd-988e-42fb-b694-a00cd378c48b