By Lambert Strether of Corrente
Bird Song of the Day
Blue Mockingbird, Presa Gutiérrez, Etla, Oaxaca, Mexico. Lots of summery insects, too.
In Case You Might Miss…
(1) Kamala’s idpol keeps rolling.
(3) Covid and class.
(2) Call any vegetable….
Politics
“So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles
2024
Less than one hundred days to go!
Friday’s RCP Poll Averages:
First poll with Harris at the top of the Democrat ticket; Trump’s position deteriorates (and any advantage he gained from the assassination attempt has been wiped away. Nevertheless, he still leads, albeit within the margin of error. NOTE RCP used to have two pages of swing states; I always used the first one. Now there is only one, which I take as an indicator that Harris v. Trump polling is not all that widespread.
Vibe shift:
Unbelievable vibe shift in the US with Kamala Harris https://t.co/LAZoglUMHW pic.twitter.com/rrMisGHLbu
— Albert Pinto (@70sBachchan) July 26, 2024
We’ll see what the averages say Friday, but:
Harris has wiped out Trump's lead across seven swing states in the latest round of the Bloomberg News / Morning Consult poll. The poll found a big Dem lead in Michigan, a more modest Trump lead in Pennsylvania and close contests everywhere else. Dead heat.https://t.co/UzzZaknhD2 pic.twitter.com/xxJN94TFec
— Josh Wingrove (@josh_wingrove) July 30, 2024
Lots of Brownian motion here, still. More noteworthy is that Trump got no visible bounce from the assassination.
* * * Kamala (D): “Kamala Harris Is Bringing Blue-State Politics to the Campaign Trail” [The Nation]. “[T]he central virtue of the newly launched Harris campaign [is] its straightforward, combative approach to defeating Trump and his decade-long takeover of right-wing politics. Harris’s brash (if not, strictly speaking, brat) offensive against the GOP is rooted in something broader and deeper than her own character, or her popcult appeal; It is, in large part, traceable to the California political scene that launched her career.” • California is, however, a one-party state; that’s not transferable to the country as a whole (and were the parties reversed, Kamala’s “dominance politics” would be instantly characterized by a million liberal pundits as “bullying” (or, for those who want the seventy-five cent word, “microaggression”).
Kamala (D): “Why Harris and Democrats keep calling Trump and Vance ‘weird'” [Associated Press]. “Democrats are applying the label with gusto in interviews and online, notably to Vance’s comments on abortion and his previous suggestion that political leaders who didn’t have biological children “don’t really have a direct stake” in the country. The ‘weird’ message appears to have given Democrats a narrative advantage that they rarely had when President Joe Biden was still running for reelection. Trump’s campaign, which so often shapes political discussions with the former president’s pronouncements, has spent days trying to flip the script by highlighting things about Democrats it says are weird. ‘I don’t know who came up with the message, but I salute them,’ said David Karpf, a strategic communication professor at George Washington University. Karpf said labeling Republican comments as ‘weird’ is the sort of concise take that resonates quickly with Harris supporters. Plus, Karpf noted, ‘it frustrates opponents, leading them to further amplify it through off-balance responses.'” • Yes, “weird” take me back to High School bullying, so maybe the Harris campaign has perfect pitch, I don’t know. Clinton 2.0’s “weird” is certainly an upgrade over Clinton 1.0’s “deplorable.” And Professor Karpf is correct that Democrats love it — being, in so many, many ways, totally not weird themselves — but that’s irrelevant; they’d be falling over themselves for “peculiar.” Or “eldritch.” As for Democrat “opponents” being thrown “off-balance,” I haven’t seen any examples, and I do try to keep track. Finally, if Karpf is correctly summarized as saying that “weird” is directed at “Republican comments,” he’s wrong. It’s directed at Republicans, personally. Are ad hominem attacks not part of strategic communications. Perhaps “weird” will persuade those not yet persuaded, or those especially impressionable (TikTok youth?). We shall see.
Kamala (D): “Harris was expected to have fundraising trouble. Here’s why big donors are actually lining up in droves” [Politico]. “‘I’ve talked to more people who have been just in a general sense more reserved about President Biden, who are now very enthusiastic,’ said Mozelle Thompson, a former Federal Trade Commission commissioner and Democratic donor. ‘The enthusiasm gap, the excitement gap, has been erased. It’s still early days, but so far the stream of money has been so strong that one donor adviser has even cautioned some donors to slow down until the dynamics of the race make it clearer where money is most needed.” • This is all vibes. I wouldn’t, after the Scranton Joe’s Brain Reveal, trust the Democrats not to lie about whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted (they are, after all, fighting for “our democracy”). So on dollar figures, I’ll wait for reports. That said, I’m sure the Democrats got a cash injection of some sort. It will be interesting to see what Democrats buy, instead of speculating on how much they have. Same with volunteers. Are they opening new offices? And so forth.
Kamala (D): Yesterday, I noted the pecking order for Kamala’s idpol rollouts, which was: “First, Black Women. Second, White Women. Third, White Men. Fourth, Latino Men” and remarked ” I suppose the Asian verticals are yet come.” Here they are:
AAHNPI Men Assemble pic.twitter.com/UO8L38uPaL
— Wesley Yang (@wesyang) July 31, 2024
Next, LGBTQIA+? (I love AAHNPI food. Don’t you?)
Syndemics
“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison
Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).
Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!
Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (dashboard); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).
Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).
Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).
Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, KF, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).
Stay safe out there!
Transmission: H5N1
USDA statement:
So, Eric Deeble, who is out of the Congressional Liaison Office of the USDA, finished his "reassuring" #H5N1 statement in the most recent meeting by saying this,
"You know, we’re not seeing reservoir populations of wildlife that may contribute to harbor for this disease."
— Lazarus Long (@LazarusLong13) July 31, 2024
“Not seeing.” Are you looking?
Skunks, racoons, foxes, cats, house mice… I can't even remember them all, all over the country?
Wild birds? How this all started?
It gets worse. Right before that, he wants us to disbelieve our eyes, what we have witnessed.
That there is no respiratory transmission. pic.twitter.com/IPJ95VEkoB
— Lazarus Long (@LazarusLong13) July 31, 2024
It tires you out, the lying and the ignorance. As it is designed to do, I suppose.
Vaccines
“Long Island hospital 1 of 3 in U.S. running nasal COVID vaccine trials” [Newsday]. “‘We get infected with COVID through our respiratory system,’ said Dr. Martín Bäcker, associate director of the vaccine center at NYU Langone Hospital-Long Island. ‘Having our immune system activated at the site of infection might lead to more sterilizing immunity, which might help prevent milder infections or [prevent] transmissions better than the currently available vaccines.'” Meanwhile, NIH rushes to protect Pfizer’s existing market: “‘While first-generation COVID-19 vaccines continue to be effective at preventing severe illness, hospitalizations, and death, they are less successful at preventing infection and milder forms of disease,’ Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, director of the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a statement. ‘With the continual emergence of new virus variants, there is a critical need to develop next-generation COVID-19 vaccines, including nasal vaccines that could reduce SARS-CoV-2 infections and transmission.'” And: “About 60 people across all three sites will be enrolled in the study. The other locations are Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and The Hope Clinic of Emory University in Georgia. In order to be eligible, people need to have received at least three prior doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.” • Hmm.
Sequelae: Covid
Brain fog is brain damage, an anecdote:
Quality of Life Research]. “Higher symptom burden was associated with reporting more comorbidities; being unmarried, difficulty paying bills, being disabled from work, not having a college degree, younger age, higher body mass index, having had COVID multiple times, worse reported QOL, greater reported financial hardship and worry; maladaptive coping, and worse healthcare disruption, health/healthcare stress, racial-inequity stress, family-relationship problems, and social support…. Long-COVID symptom burden is associated with substantial, modifiable social and behavioral factors. Most notably, financial hardship was associated with more than three times the risk of high versus low Long-COVID symptom burden.” • A population cull of the working class, then?
Social Norming
“Grandiose narcissism, unfounded beliefs, and behavioral reactions during the COVID-19 pandemic” [Nature]. From the Abstract: “A theoretical perspective on grandiose narcissism suggests four forms of it (sanctity, admiration, heroism, rivalry) and states that these forms conduce to different ways of thinking and acting. Guided by this perspective, we examined in a multinational and multicultural study (61 countries; N = 15,039) how narcissism forms are linked to cognitions and behaviors prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic.” From the Discussion: “[N]arcissists will not always act and think in an antisocial manner. Instead, narcissism can be a double-edged sword: sometimes it is linked to anti-social thoughts and actions, whereas other times it is linked to prosocial thoughts and actions. Whether the consequence is anti-social or pro-social depends on the joint action of the domain in which the narcissism exists (agentic vs. communal), the motives that underlie it (self-enhancement vs. self-protection), and the criterion variable that is being predicted by any of the four grandiose narcissism forms.” • Hmm.
Lambert here: New York hospitalization leveling out, and now WalGreens positivity down for two weeks, are the first positive signs I’ve seen in a long time. Wastewater still going strong, though!
TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts
| Wastewater | ||
| This week[1] CDC July 22: | Last Week[2] CDC July 8 (until next week): | |
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| |
| Variants [3] CDC July 20 | Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC July 20 | |
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|
|
| Hospitalization | ||
| ★ New York[5] New York State, data July 30: | National [6] CDC July 6: | |
|
|
|
|
| Positivity | ||
| National[7] Walgreens July 29: | Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic July 20: | |
|
 |
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| Travelers Data | ||
| Positivity[9] CDC July 8: | Variants[10] CDC July 8: | |
|
 |
|
| Deaths | ||
| Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11]CDC July 13: | Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12]CDC July 13: | |
|
 |
LEGEND
1) ★ for charts new today; all others are not updated.
2) For a full-size/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and “open image in new tab.”
NOTES
[1] (CDC) This week’s wastewater map, with hot spots annotated. Keeps spreading.
[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.
[3] (CDC Variants) KP.* very popular.
[4] (ER) Worth noting Emergency Department use is now on a par with the first wave, in 2020.
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Leveling off. Doesn’t need to be a permanent thing, of course. (The New York city area has form; in 2020, as the home of two international airports (JFK and EWR) it was an important entry point for the virus into the country (and from thence up the Hudson River valley, as the rich sought to escape, and then around the country through air travel.)
[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). The visualization suppresses what is, in percentage terms, a significant increase.
[7] (Walgreens) An optimist would see a peak.
[8] (Cleveland) Slowing. Comment on the Cleveland Clinic:
Why is the Cleveland Clinic building a new facility for a professional basketball team? These hospitals are not 'nonprofits' they are ridiculously profitable monopolies with an endless cash gusher to point at whatever they want. https://t.co/1REM2LMLjd
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) July 29, 2024
Ka-ching.
[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Up. Those sh*theads at CDC have changed the chart so that it doesn’t even run back to 1/21/23, as it used to, but now starts 1/1/24. There’s also no way to adjust the time rasnge. CDC really doesn’t want you to be able to take a historical view of the pandemic, or compare one surge to another. In an any case, that’s why the shape of the curve has changed.
[10] (Travelers: Variants) Same deal. Those sh*theads.
[11] Deaths low, but positivity up.
[12] Deaths low, ED up.
Stats Watch
Employment Situation: “United States ADP Employment Change” [Trading Economics]. “Private businesses in the US added 122K workers to their payrolls in July 2024, the least in six months, following an upwardly revised 155K in June and compared to forecasts of 150K. The figures showed job creation edged down as pay gains continued to slow.”
Manufacturing: “United States Chicago PMI” [Trading Economics]. “The Chicago Business Barometer, also known as the Chicago PMI, fell to 45.3 in July 2024 from a seven-month high of 47.4 in June, though slightly above market forecasts of 45. The latest reading still indicated a substantial contraction in Chicago’s economic activity for the eighth consecutive month.”
Antitrust: “CrowdSuck” [Maureen Tkacik, The American Prospect]. The first two paragraphs provide a lot of food for thought, before we even get to antitrust: “On the ‘perfect phone call,’ then-President Donald Trump famously asked newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to look into a Republican conspiracy theory about the California cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. The Democratic National Committee had hired CrowdStrike to respond to a security breach on its servers, but according to Trump, the company was secretly owned by a Ukrainian oligarch who had instructed his employees to fabricate evidence that the intrusion was carried out by Russian government–linked hackers, to conceal the fact that the emails had been leaked by a low-level DNC voter outreach data manager named Seth Rich, who’d been mysteriously murdered two months after the breach. There was, as is often the case, a kernel of plausibility to one part of the theory. While no evidence surfaced to link Rich to the leaked emails, and Fox News had to pay a seven-figure settlement to Rich’s family for spreading the erroneous claim, CrowdStrike co-founder Dimitri Alperovitch would soon retire from the software industry to become a full-time professional neo–Cold Warrior, founding a think tank that predicted Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and writing a book about the coming world war over Taiwan. But cybersecurity tends to attract the geopolitically paranoid, and CrowdStrike, whose seed funding had come from private equity firm Warburg Pincus and Google, had just gone public on the NASDAQ stock exchange and its ownership was public: Its largest single shareholder was the money management empire BlackRock.” • So that’s alright then. Anyhow, Tkacik is always worth a read.
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 41 Fear (previous close: 45 Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 54 (Neutral). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Jul 30 at 12:48:21 PM ET
Permaculture
“Wash those vegetables!” [Indignity]. “If I wanted to get my hands dirty, I would go live somewhere where I have to grow my own food. Or at least I would sign up for the community garden. When I’m in the galley kitchen of my Manhattan apartment, what I’m looking for from my vegetables is to get them cooked for dinner. Quickly… Organic produce is meant to appeal to people who don’t want the specter of the unnatural hanging over their food. I personally prefer not to eat pesticides, if I can help it, and I grew up seeing the Chesapeake Bay ravaged by nitrogen runoff from the overuse of synthetic fertilizer. As long as it’s not too bug-eaten or wildly overpriced, I’ll usually choose organic over conventional produce. And then I’ll find myself up to my forearms in grimy water in the sink, rubbing clinging dirt off a lettuce leaf that would have been pristine if it were conventionally produced, and I’ll wonder why I bothered. The thought of bug-killer on the produce may be upsetting, but dirt is dirt and time is money, on top of the money that was money that I already paid for organic vegetables. Nothing in organic certification says they can’t wash the vegetables better! It’s not industrial or artificial to get the dirt out of there.”
The Gallery
“Dutch Chemists Finally Work Out How Rembrandt Achieved the Golden Lustre in His ‘The Night Watch’ Painting” [ARTnews]. “Chemists from Holland’s University of Amsterdam (UvA) have finally worked out how Rembrandt managed to embellish his The Night Watch (1642) painting with striking golden detail. They used high-tech spectroscopic techniques to identify the presence of pararealgar [yellow] and semi-amorphous pararealgar [orange/red] pigments in minute detail in the famous artwork. The research team concluded that the Dutch artist intentionally mixed these particular arsenic sulfide pigments with other pigments to create the golden sheen.” • Arsenic!
Zeitgeist Watch
“It’s not just us: Other animals change their social habits in old age” [Knowable]. “A recent study by Albery and colleagues in Nature Ecology & Evolution found that older deer reduce their contacts more than you’d expect if their shrinking range was the only cause. That suggests the behavior may have evolved for a reason — one that Albery prosaically summarizes as, ‘Deer shit where they eat.’ Gastrointestinal worms are rampant on the island. And though the deer do not get infected through direct contact with others, being at the same place at the same time probably does increase their risk of ingesting eggs or larvae in the still-warm droppings of one of their associates. ‘Younger animals need to put themselves out there to make friends, but perhaps when you’re older and you already have some, the risk of disease just isn’t worth it,’ says study coauthor Josh Firth, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Oxford.” • And so with Covid?
News of the Wired
“Creativity Fundamentally Comes From Memorization” [Ashwin Mathews]. “By definition, you can’t even be certain of novelty without familiarity of existing works. Creativity comes to those who have internalized the patterns of their art — they can see the connection or novelty because it’s all in their head. Therefore autonomy enables creativity, and a system helps achieve autonomy quicker.” • Hmm.
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Whatever happened to…
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/washington-university-scientists-develop-covid-19-breath-test-that-shows-results-in-less-than-1-minute/ar-AA1eDspT
Washington University scientists develop COVID-19 breath test that shows results in less than 1 minute
Not trusting polls at all from here on out. Too much at stake, Democrats simply have to win and one obvious path is to cook the polls and keep cooking them, suggesting a close race so that when Trump has a landslide it will be called proof that he cheated. Chutzpah x 100, I know, but it’s almost certainly been gamed out.
Othering Republicans by calling them “weird” is an own goal. Did some digging and ‘weird’ is in fact something Walz does say and in pretty much that context. DNC should have vetoed this one because right now an image search for political weirdos isn’t good for Democrats. Yes, you’ll still see the ridiculous Tea party gear but after Drag Queen Story Hour? Blue Dionysius? The tea bagging jokes write themselves.
Democrats are playing to their base. Not how you win in November, at least not at the ballot box.
I’m being over cynical but once she picks her veep, Harris is going to need to worry about her Secret Service protection every bit as much as Trump and for the same reasons. Just a rumor, it’s been said that Seth Rich was murdered by Ukrainians ‘trying to be helpful.’
The PTB have just tried that out with the exit polling in Venezuela. Only in that case it was a huge lead for the opposition so that anything resembling a close poll is to be discounted. Call it a test run.
Thank you. I don’t believe any of the polls either. Too much jump from most-disliked VP in history to yay-she’s-gonna-save-the-Dems and much too quickly to be real. However, speculating freely, it’s much easier to steal an election if the polls are reported as close making it look like it-coulda-gone-either-way to the public. A few points here, a few points there. / ;)
Noting: I’m not putting on my foil bonnet for this comment – something I would have done a year ago. / ;)
The “weird” label reminds me of a slogan on a pro-Israel poster I walk past every day: “Don’t you feel a little awkward chanting the same words as terrorists?” Even as a non-chanter, this sort of juvenile tarring ticks me off, so I can well imagine how Republicans feel about “weird.”
Count me amongst the non-believers. Who’s going to vote for the musical? Narrative to build enthusiasm to fundraise off.
The Fed punted this meeting and held the rates unchanged. NVDA is up about 12% as I type this, after a bout with it’s 200 dma, so the Ponzi is still in good shape for the 1%.
Weird is going to be the word of the month. My PMC friends are in love with it. Kamala is the greatest thing since sliced bread, as well as her VP pick whoever it may be. Trump has dementia and can’t speak clearly, unfit for office. JD Vance is weird squared. With the new younger more vibrant Kamala, the election is in the bag. Democrats are pure genius with this move, so they say.
I don’t know if I buy the second paragraph, but my PMC friends sure do.
By the way, where is Joe? I might have missed it, but has he made a public speaking appearance since he contacted COVID? I don’t recall one, but I may have missed it.
Biden was in Austin yesterday.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/live-president-joe-biden-visits-lbj-library-in-austin-to-commemorate-civil-rights-act/ar-BB1qP3Gd
Replay: President Joe Biden visits LBJ Library in Austin to commemorate Civil Rights Act
I missed that, thank you.
Keep Austin Weird?
Austin lost its weirdness in 1971 with the opening of that library. The local police busted heads left and right prompting many to leave town and in many cases the state.
That was a local Business initiative, would be funny if keeping Austin weird turned it red!
How tall was that particular “Joe”?
Heh heh, one does wonder…..
Anybody know how to start a “Deplorables for Kamala” drive? I think I have something to contribute. I’d think Deploramala has a nice ring.
Good to know the MSM is helping the Dems run on ad hominem instead of policy. / ;)
Calling Republicans weird
“So far, at least, Trump-Vance has been incapable of finding an effective response,” Karpf said.
Best defense is a good offense:
Multi image panels of Kamala dancing with a giant cross dresser in the white house, Sam Brinkman in high heels, lipstick and a red dresses,
topless transgenders on the white house lawn,
an obese Rachel Levine in Navy uniform lecturing on obesity and mental health etc.
Hard to unsee them. They are all over X and have been viewed collectivley millions of times.
> Trump got no visible bounce from the assassination [attempt].
I think it didn’t help that he “reverted to type” so quickly after his “near death experience”.
Re Why Harris and Democrats keep calling Trump and Vance ‘weird’
Her campaign seems to have a lot of California/Hollywood input and H’wood’s all purpose metaphor for society is high school. Plus it allows studios to give employment to attractive young thespians and while Harris isn’t young, she’s reasonably good looking and going to give it a shot with all that TikTok. At an Atlanta rally this week she drew a large crowd with the help of a rapper named Meagan Thee Stallion.
Given that the alternative is Trump one might ask why one should care what happens in November and one might be right. But going by the Hollywood script the alpha females get their comeuppance by the third act so the vapid Harris is hardly a lock. Older people vote a lot more reliably than the young. And the country has bigger problems than who ends up with a football star Mr. Right.
I don’t think they planned it this way, but calling Vance “weird” is also a way to troll Trump. Calling someone weird seems like the kind of nickname Trump would give someone (e.g. Crazy Bernie), and so if their call his guy weird, he’s going to notice that.
I think you and Lambert are correct that this “weird” stuff is an attempt to attract the TikTok crowd. My teenager uses “weird” as a synonym for “something I haven’t personally encountered on TikTok before and therefore is of dubious provenance”, for example “What’s that weird thing you’re eating?” or “What’s that weird show you’re watching?”.
I like that usage about as much as I like Megan using an archaic pronoun in place of the definite article in her name and pretending it’s somehow grammatically correct.
I am now off to shake my fist at some clouds.
thanks for joining me.
ive been shaking my fists and even yelling(and laughing) at clouds…what few there are, atm…since around 10am.
day before payday..so i’m rollin cigs, robbin the roach graveyard for othersmoke, and…having done away with the last 3 beers, and whatever pseudosangria was left…i’m endeavoring to clear the bar fridge of all these apparently gross likker concoctions…..”key lime rum cream” is like a really thick and artificially coconutty concoction…15% alc….need a chaser of cold water with it,lol….like our new nominee, it turns out!
a vodka and vanilla thing…blood red(30%)…havent gotten into that, yet…
and so on.
i would never spend my money on any of these things,lol…they even sound gross.
i would never spend my money on any of these things,lol… heh heh, one wonders where they came from. The lads I’m guessing. I know that road well and will be traveling it again no doubt.
so Kamalalamadingdong texted me…or her Machinery did…asking for $40…!…which is a whole lot more than genocide joe ever asked for,lol…
so i reply, and i will transcribe, so bear with, bots and mods:
“sorry, hon.
i’ll do a bonghit with you any ol time….but i’m on a tiny pension…and havent believed that the democratic party represented my interests since at least clintontimes.
in fact, i remain unrepresented.
Prove me wrong!…come on out, sans cameras, to my farm.
Have a beer.
Detail can have a beer, too….since i am by far the most dangerous animal in these hills…they can relax, and simply watch me.
know that i am not, however, a threat to you…merely a heterodox and feral philosopher guy in the wilderness.
You might even be interested in what my finger tells me, being that its palpating the pulse of feedstore america.”
i expect a response,lol…whether its FBI or her machinery is yet to be determined.
and to think!…i came out here, near 30 years ago…to disappear,lol…and am instead on a no fly list.
(or at least was…i have no idea…and theres no one to ask…so its a lot like east germany, it turns out(!!))
To put it another way, for four years the Democratic apparatus screeched about “not normalizing Trump,” and someone finally pointed out that was too highbrow a complaint for the public. They clearly shopped terms to focus groups until weird got shaken out of the tree. The problem being that people like weird, so this is likely going to backfire in the “Keep Portland Weird” sense.
From what I heard a good portion of the crowd bailed after the concert…
I suspect they were less there for Harris and more for Stallion.
I had also heard that she suddenly developed a Southern accent. Seems like that was done already by Hillary, and it didn’t play well with the electorate.
So, just wondering–weird HOW?
Hats off to Lambert for mentioning all the images calling someone “weird” conjures up–high school, bullying, deplorable, personal, ad hominem (Thomas Matthew Crooks???)…just what you’d expect from democrats in general and kamala in particular.
On the bright side, “weird” doesn’t exactly fit into the “i” before “e” except after “c”…”neighbor” and “weigh” paradigm, so maybe you credit the dems for advancing the education of america’s seriously deficient spellers? It’ll be on the test…
Almost forgot this one–sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me.
OMG. kamala is really bringing out the “best” in “us.” Presidential.
I guess I don’t see why Democratic insults of Republicans are worse than Republican insults of Democrats. Trump does a lot of insulting, most of it childish, and it appeals to his crowd. Which side’s insults will win? I have no idea.
But if we are going for insults on both sides, I agree with Corey Robin. This “weird” approach seems more appealing than claiming Trump will destroy democracy. I don’t know if Trump will destroy democracy—maybe he will—but he does seem weird, or would, if we weren’t all used to him by now.
https://jacobin.com/2024/07/trump-threat-republicans-weird-election
I would be thrilled if both sides argued exclusively about policy choices and ideology, but they don’t.
Going by the recent wisdom that every accusation is a confession (used to be called projection), they must be saying Trump is weird because Kamala is weird.
Well, have you seen her?
hence my inviting her to the Wilderness Bar for a bonghit, a beer and some philosophical banter….
hell…with some forethought on their part, i’ll cook like a house on fire for her and her detail.
if that comes to pass(believe me,lol, stranger things have happened to me), i will report on it exclusively right here.
i’ll have my fanger/red right hand(Clan Lamont,lol) on the volume knob…maybe i can drown out the incessant cackling episodes with Mingus….
Ummmm, policy. Unless it is impossible and the only promise they can make is to fight for it, Dems don’t do policy.
I will give the Harris campaign credit for noticing that people need multiple jobs to survive but similar to protecting children versus Israel’s right to starve and kill the nits, I fully expect the” fight” for one job being enough to die quickly when it interferes with the desires of corporations owned by major donors to move jobs outside of America or hire immigrants at a far cheaper rate
I think it’s less that Dems afe insulting Trump and Vance as much as that the insult is “weird.” It just seems so, well, weird that, I can’t figure out what it’s getting for the Dems, with whom.
It means people who like Trump are not among the Kool Kids like Harris and Obama. Vance even calls himself a hillbilly. She’s trying to do Obama vs McCain redux.
In fact the Dems have been running this same campaign since the Clintons v Bush sr. This time instead of Fleetwood Mac it will be Beyonce and Megan. Blair did it too with his Cool Britannia. None of these previous examples inspire confidence.
aye.
it aint gonna work like they think it will…because they do not truly understand the cultural spaces they are thus appropriating.
like all the stallion persons fans walking out after she was done with her bit…they werent there to see Kamala,lol…but do the Kamala people see that?
somehow i doubt that they do.
its more cult than party, these days.
and working class have been left beside the road, for the gop/trumpers to pick up…like a birdsnest on the ground.
(still strange to me that the internal gop machinery is far more democratic than the democratic party’s is,lol)
If, after 8 years, your best messaging is “he’s weird,” that’s an indication that more substantive critiques have failed.
I mean, what else is she gonna run on? Increased illegal immigration and fighting WW3 with Russia?
They can’t convincingly argue about policy choices and ideology, because they are virtually identical.
No more waste water testing in Ontario as of today: https://www.cp24.com/mobile/news/incredibly-disappointing-ontario-halts-wastewater-testing-for-covid-other-viruses-1.6983933
Ashwin Matthews appears to have figured out how most professional creatives do their work. I can find no fault in his reasoning or his system other than to say they remind me of Lakoff. And maybe to point out that the mechanization aspect is something usually tackled in middle school by writing endless parodies of the classics. If you’ve never rewritten The Charge of the Light Brigade satirically, maybe you should have been an accountant.
Even creative arts require discipline and non-creatives mistakenly think that mastering the basics means they have attained mastery. Not even close. Matthews’ system and Lakoff’s analyses are the basics. If you pay someone to do creative work, you’re entitled to assume they know and understand at least this much.
The next step is much harder because you can’t copy/steal from others (the basis for most creative works). True creativity requires original thought. Little kids can and do randomly produce great original thoughts but doing that reliably as an adult? That’s the mark of a master and good luck finding one in a system designed to identify and root out true creatives.
Hope this doesn’t sound too weird.
In the original sense of the word, it sounds quite wyrd when applied to the culture.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyrd
George Lakeoff. a partial anser to Frank Luntz…..Thank for the intro to this man.
https://www.nonviolenceny.org/post/introduction-to-the-work-and-ideas-of-george-lakoff
RE: Wash those vegetables
If a quick rinse is too much effort, perhaps the author can just take a page out of the Reagan playbook, scarf some ketchup, and call it good.
Also, time does not equal money. Time is time.
That whole thing reminds me of an article Gregory Bateson wrote about growing tomatoes. He found the time he invested cost him something like $42 each. He also thought that time was money but at the end of the article decided that they were worth it.
Ludicrously expensively home grown tomatoes have the inimitable sunk cost flavor, with that investment, you can’t resist it.
You can save time, and you can save money. But it’s usually difficult, and rare, to save both simultaneously.
Like the old construction joke: “Fast, good, cheap. You can have two only.” [I have worked for people who believed that they could have all three. As can be expected, it did not end well.]
Stay home on your next vacation.
I sometimes ponder how much money was made or lost since the advent of the Universe …. /S …
Maybe Hillary Clinton amd Joe Biden were such ridiculously horrific candidates that they made Trump look like god’s gift by comparison, and the myth took hold? I would find this very easy to believe.
I know Obama was panicking that Sanders might win the primary unless drastic measures to give Joe the advantage. A decent Dem candidate in 2016 and 2020 might have turned Trump into a historical footnote instead of the electoral collosus he has been.
I have always believed H lost 2016 a lot more than T won it
I agree, it took that special magic only Hillary had to lose to Trump.
As awful as Joe was, he just wasn’t up to the task four years ago.
He had to grow into it.
https://aurelien2022.substack.com/p/no-left-turn
hope i did that right.
Our own David/Aurelien’s best yet, in my opinion.
getting towards a workable framework that is beyond the now moribund L x R, in all its current manifestations/infestations.
even now…3 decades and change later…i cant get over how the Demparty has managed to remain…in Minds, where it matters….the party of the working class.
even though i watched it happen…and was engaged enough for most of that time to yell at people in power that it was happening…and needed to be stopped in its tracks…
still rather mystifying.
and Dems are still referred to as “Far Left” by the mainstream Right, both pre and post trumpians.
and i saw just this morning that JD Vance is referring to Kamela’s agenda(theres an agenda?!)as “Socialist”….
“Dems are still referred to as “Far Left” by the mainstream Right, both pre and post trumpians.”
That has always mystified me as well. Back before FB tossed me off the island at the start of the Russia conflict I had a lot of fun trolling people like that on my congressman’s page. Pointing out that calling “The Senator From MBNA” and Obama, who gave them the Heritage Foundation’s Republican health care plan, communists only served to make them look…er…intellectually challenged (not actually the words I used, but they are a less discriminating bunch than is found here).
That they had found out how to get onto the internet but had yet to look up even the most basic definitions of words was a pretty constant refrain, along the lines of “is our kids learning?….apparently not”. But, on the other hand, they were always given participation prizes just prior to their retreat into protective snowflake suits. So there was that. They don’t like being called stupid, but they like it even less when you can prove it.
JD Vance could use the reminder that Kamala saved Trump’s last, and potentially next, Treasury Secretary from the pokey.
“I love AANHPI food”. Very funny. I was pondering that ridiculous grouping. And of course AA includes Indian, Pakistani, etc, as the tweet makes clear. Ridiculous
and Weird….
damn, man…thats my frelling word…for 40 years, ive worn it as a badge of honor.
like the rednecks that use to pummel me adopting long hair and unkempt beards…thats mine, dammit!
https://wapo.st/4d9t9SL
Donald not doing well with Black constituents. Headline:
Trump says Harris ‘became a Black person’ as NABJ event turns hostile, chaotic
lol. If Trump said the same exact comments to the Orlando chapel of the Black American UFC Fan Club, he would have gotten a round of standing ovation.
But of course, Trump being Trump, said it to the NABJ. lol
Again, in Kamala’s first campaign brochure (which I wish some kind soul could dig up for me) she identifies as Indian (i.e., from India, not a Native American). Not as Black, not as Black + Indian. Indian.
Could this be the type of thing you are looking for?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz7rNOAFkgE
I’m getting the suspicion that since getting his ear nicked Trump may want out.
It’s an understandable sentiment, particularly if he really was the dog who caught the car in 2016 and never really took it seriously until it was too late. And things are chaotic right now in our new Hunger Game of Thrones universe, it’s all fun and games until your helix gets blasted!
Kamacalypse, Trumpocalypse or AIPACalypse, it’s all the same to me.
> I’m getting the suspicion that since getting his ear nicked Trump may want out.
I think nearly getting whacked would throw anybody off their stride. And there’s a real fog around the incredibly lax security story plus a lot of gaslighting and stonewalling, that I would find quite worrisome (LIHOP…). Given what the intelligence community has already done to him.
NOTE I don’t like the “ear nicked” framing, common among Democrats. The point is that some dude with a rifle tried to kill him, and nearly did. “Nicked” is just grotesquely minimizing.
I agree with all you say here, but I’m a hunter and getting nicked is a serious business. I see your point, however, about popular usage. Poor word choice on my part.
Trump loves his greatest best hugest life, and that’s been the most entertaining thing about watching him while loathing so much of what he actually does.
I’ve assumed he had his own security also as he did when he ran 8 years ago, but apparently he’d been inured to trusting the SS. Those days are certainly over. I guess the nimbus of Armageddon rising east of the Mediterranean and over the Black Sea gave me a flippancy you;ve humanely called out.
thanks for the intro to Lakoff. He makes many observations
https://www.nonviolenceny.org/post/introduction-to-the-work-and-ideas-of-george-lakoff
I forgot, once again, to say I added orts and and scraps. Lots of new Kamala materal. I wonder if somebody will think to ask Shapiro, assuming he gets the nod, whether he agrees with the Zionist faction that thinks the world’s most moral Army raping Palestinian prisoners is Biblically sancioned. Fat chance!