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2:00PM Water Cooler 9/12/2024

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Bird Song of the Day

Gray Catbird, Visitor’s Center, Becker, Minnesota, United States. “Perhaps a different male Gray Catbird singing at dawn along Bruce Blvd.”

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In Case You Might Miss…

  1. Trump the heel, full of grievances.
  2. Counting electoral votes now a National Special Security Event.
  3. Boeing strike — today?

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Look for the Helpers

The John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge used to be a railroad bridge. It’s iconic in Nashville, and so often appears in music videos:

Also, history rhymes.

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My email address is down by the plant; please send examples of there (“Helpers” in the subject line). In our increasingly desperate and fragile neoliberal society, everyday normal incidents and stories of “the communism of everyday life” are what I am looking for (and not, say, the Red Cross in Hawaii, or even the UNWRA in Gaza).

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

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2024

Less than one hundred days to go!

Friday’s RCP Poll Averages:

I would say the bloom is off the rose for Harris, except for an upward blip in Georgia. Looks like the enormous liberalgasm afte the Convention was confined to party loyalists. The Kamala campaign must be sore as boils Trump is within striking distance, let alone tied with them. What could account for it? Perhaps that’s why the pivot to RussiaGate. Remember, however, that all the fluctuations — in fact, all the leads, top to bottom — are within the margin of error.

* * *

The debates:

Patient readers, I must hustle along and write a post, so I will not be able to aggregate nearly as many of the hot takes on the Kamala vs. Trump debate as I would like. However, I have not seen official opinion, across the spectrum, as loudly united on one view (“Harris won, it’s over for Trump”) since, well, Iraqi WMDs, or that Clinton would win in 2016, or RussiaGate.

“Harris, Trump target swing states after fierce debate” [Agence France Presse]. “[I]t remains unclear whether Harris’s punchy performance, seen by 67 million viewers across the United States, will move the dial in a race that is still neck-and-neck with less than two months to go… ‘Ultimately this debate probably strengthened each candidate with their base voters,’ said Wendy Schiller, a political science professor at Brown University. ‘But I give the edge to Harris in taking the opportunity to appeal to independent voters and also showcase Trump’s vulnerabilities.'”

Kamala (D): There is this:

I’d need to check the transcript to see how many times Kamala denied it; three?

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Kamala (D): “Taylor Swift Endorses Kamala Harris” [New York Times]. “In a brief post on her Instagram account in 2023, Ms. Swift encouraged her 272 million supporters at the time to vote and included a link to the website Vote.org. The site later reported 35,252 new registrations that day, a significant jump compared with the previous year, and an especially significant spike in a nonelection year…. Polls show that Ms. Harris is doing much better with younger voters than Mr. Biden was, a crucial part of a resurgence in her polls that has allowed her to draw even with Mr. Trump. Ms. Swift’s backing of her campaign is a reflection of that appeal.”

Kamala (D): “Harris trolls Trump by posting most of debate as ‘new ad'” [The Hill]. “Vice President Harris’s campaign posted most of Tuesday’s debate on the social platform X, referring to it as a new ad. ‘Our newest ad just dropped,’ the campaign captioned its Wednesday video post. After Harris’s closing statement in the debate hosted by ABC News, the video is cut off to omit Trump’s closing statement, and a photo of the vice president pops up featuring a voiceover in which she says, ‘I approve this message.'” • I would need to check that only the closing statement was cut. And now I have to read the closing statement again [sigh].

Trump (R): “Behind the Curtain: Trump’s big, unfixable, glaring glitch” [Axios]. “Here’s what troubles former President Trump’s advisers most: He knew that with precision and preparation, Vice President Harris would bait him on things like crowd size, and buck discussion about her power today and liberalism in the past. He knew exactly how to try to turn each moment against her. But he blew it badly … repeatedly … predictably. He simply cannot help himself, Trump insiders begrudgingly admit. No practice, pleas or sage advice keep Trump from being Trump. It’s a feature — not a correctable bug. There is a straight, illuminating through-line from Trump’s post-assassination-attempt convention speech and his debate performance Tuesday night. Go back in time. Go back to the seconds after he was shot at in Pennsylvania. The moment Trump rose, ear bloodied, fist held high, American flag flying behind, and mouthed: ‘Fight!’ It was an iconic moment, an unforgettable image, a political memory money can’t buy. And, Trump’s team believed, a sure-bet ticket to winning in November.” • That’s what I thought; an opportutniy for Trump to turn into a Face after being a Heel. More: “All he had to do, they told him, was use the moment to say he took a bullet for America, and felt like a changed man ready to pull the nation together. For a few days, he did … until 28 minutes into his prime-time convention speech on July 18. Trump knew — and was told — he could walk off the convention stage up double digits in the polls if he exploited the assassination attempt and cut the grievance crap. But just like Tuesday’s debate, he simply couldn’t help himself. He went on for 60 more rambling minutes in that convention speech, rehashing his greatest grievance hits.” • I think this is psychologically acute. At the 30,000-foot level, the tendency of our ruling class to psychologize everything drives me nuts; they do that with everything (like Zelensky’s chillingly stupid invasion of Kursk, justified because it humiliated Putin). It’s as vicious and petty as a battle of high school cliques. Pragmatically, does this matter? Trump is, after all, a known quantity. His voters, for example, might have grievances too; like their personal economies being better off under Trump than Biden. So perhaps they identify with him. So does this matter? We’ll get at least an inkling soon…

Trump (R): “Jack Smith Should Move Now to Make Trump Give Up Passport: Ex-Prosecutor” [Newsweek]. “Former President Donald Trump should be forced to give up his passport to stop him from fleeing the country and avoiding prosecution if he loses the presidential election, according to ex-federal prosecutor Randall Eliason….. ‘If something happens with this election, which would be a horror show, we’ll meet the next time in Venezuela, because it’ll be a far safer place to meet than our country,” Trump told Musk. ‘OK, so we’ll go. You and I will go, and we’ll have a meeting and dinner in Venezuela.'” • Ha ha! Time for muuy favorite clip of all time!

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Stein (G):

Of course, the Greens were stupid to trust the Democrats to give them the right forms, but really: Proper election materials shouldn’t be a matter of caveat emptor. “Dirty Dems” is exactly right.

Our Famously Free Press

“The night Donald Trump choked like a dog (Kamala’s version)” [Will Bunch, Philadelphia Inquirer]. • Holy moley, what happened to this dude? No hate there!

Realignment and Legitimacy

“Election officials warn that widespread problems with the US mail system could disrupt voting” [Associated Press]. “In an alarming letter, the officials said that over the past year, including the just-concluded primary season, mailed ballots that were postmarked on time were received by local election offices days after the deadline to be counted. They also noted that properly addressed election mail was being returned to them as undeliverable, a problem that could automatically send voters to inactive status through no fault of their own, potentially creating chaos when those voters show up to cast a ballot. The officials also said that repeated outreach to the Postal Service to resolve the issues had failed and that the widespread nature of the problems made it clear these were ‘not one-off mistakes or a problem with specific facilities. Instead, it demonstrates a pervasive lack of understanding and enforcement of USPS policies among its employees.’ The letter to U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy came from two groups that represent top election administrators in all 50 states. They told DeJoy, “We have not seen improvement or concerted efforts to remediate our concerns.'” • [sigh].

“2025 Counting and Certification of Electoral Votes Designated a National Special Security Event” [United States Secret Service]. “The 2025 Counting and Certification of Electoral Votes in Washington, DC on Jan. 6, 2025, has been designated a National Special Security Event by the Secretary of Homeland Security. This marks the first time a National Special Security Event designation has been granted for a Certification of Electoral Votes and follows a request made by the DC Mayor to designate this event a National Special Security Event. Various reports including from the House Select January 6 Committee and the Government Accountability Office also called for the DHS Secretary to consider a National Special Security Event designation for future Certification of Electoral Votes. ‘National Special Security Events are events of the highest national significance,’ said Eric Ranaghan, the Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Secret Service’s Dignitary Protective Division. ‘The U.S. Secret Service, in collaboration with our federal, state, and local partners are committed to developing and implementing a comprehensive and integrated security plan to ensure the safety and security of this event and its participants.’ The formal planning process is underway with the formation of an Executive Steering Committee. The Executive Steering Committee is made up of senior representatives from federal, state and local law enforcement and public safety partners and will begin convening in the coming weeks.” • And—

“DHS designates Electoral College vote count as special national security event” [Washington Times]. “The vote counting joins other major events such as the national nominating conventions, presidential inaugurations and the president’s annual State of the Union address. But this is the first time the Electoral College counting and certification has been designated. The move is largely of bureaucratic significance, putting one federal agency in charge of forging and carrying out a security plan that’s followed by other federal, state and local agencies.” • I’ve been muttering about the spooks taking on the task of legitimating — or delegitimating — Presidential elections since 2016, and that’s the context I put this in. Project the trend out a bit: What happens when anonymous “intelligence officials” leak that the electors in a swing district in a swing state are suspect because that district was the target of a disinformation campaign by “malevolent actors”?

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

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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!

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Airborne Transmission

Immune Dysregulation

“Analysis reveals global post-covid surge in infectious diseases” [BMJ]. “A large post-covid global surge in common communicable diseases including influenza, measles, tuberculosis, and whooping cough has been identified in a new analysis of data from 60 organisations and public health agencies. Since the beginning of 2022, 44 countries have experienced a 10-fold increase in the incidence of at least one of 13 infectious diseases compared with a pre-pandemic baseline, according to the analysis1 by the UK based disease forecasting firm Airfinity and the US news website Bloomberg. Experts said that with no historical precedent, they can’t fully explain the resurgence in infectious diseases.” • ‘Tis a mystery!

Sequelae: Covid

“Many kids are still missing class after COVID reshaped how parents view school” [Colorado Sun]. And the deck: “With school attendance rates still lower than before the pandemic, state and district officials say it’s taking time for families to “renorm” their attendance track record.” • The UK is having the same panic, but worse. But just maybe — follow me closely, here, school adminsitrators — poor attendance is happening, for the great majority, because kids are constantly getting infected, and for the minority, because they know poorly ventilated schools are death traps.

“Evolution of SARS-CoV-2 in the murine central nervous system drives viral diversification” (excerpt) [Nature]. “Higher levels of viral divergence were observed in the [Central Nervous System (CNS)] than the lung after intranasal challenge with a high frequency of mutations in the spike furin cleavage site (FCS).”

“COVID-19 lockdown effects on adolescent brain structure suggest accelerated maturation that is more pronounced in females than in males” [PNAS]. • Lots of well-deserved derision for this Bezos-funded dreck:

Elite Maleficence

It’s as if the world world is one giant challenge experiment:

Social Norming

“Be a Thermostat, Not a Thermometer” “[Lara Hogan]. “As I’ve learned more about how humans interact with one another at work, I’ve been repeatedly reminded that we are very easily influenced by the mood of those around us…. Humans, like most other mammals, mirror each other. When I change my tone or my body language, there’s some likelihood that your tone and body language will change in response. So now we’ve got a compounding situation—I’m having a bad day, so I’m giving off strange vibes, then you’re giving off strange vibes because you’re picking up on my bad day. We leave the one-on-one and go meet with other people, and now they’re picking up on our strange vibes…. I like to use the metaphor of a thermometer and a thermostat for this idea. If you’re looking for signals about how someone is feeling, it’s kind of like you’re trying to take their emotional temperature. You’re being a thermometer…. Rather than let that cycle play out subconsciously, you have an opportunity to become the thermostat as soon as you notice that another person’s temperature has changed. You get to set the new temperature of the room, in a positive and healthy way…. Since humans tend to mirror each other, you can intentionally change the energy in the room, setting the thermostat to a more comfortable temperature.” • Hmm.

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TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts

Wastewater
This week[1] CDC August 27 Last Week[2] CDC (until next week):

Variants [3] CDC August 31 Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC August 31

Hospitalization
★ New York[5] New York State, data September 10: National [6] CDC August 17:

Positivity
National[7] Walgreens September 9: Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic August 24:

Travelers Data
Positivity[9] CDC August 19: Variants[10] CDC August 19:

Deaths
Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11]CDC August 31: Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12]CDC August 31:

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. NOTE The date seems to be wrong, but the number of sites has changed so this is new.

[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.

[3] (CDC Variants) KP.* very popular. XDV.1 flat.

[4] (ED) Down, but worth noting that Emergency Department use is now on a par with the first wave, in 2020.

[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Definitely down.

[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). The visualization suppresses what is, in percentage terms, a significant increase.

[7] (Walgreens) Big drop continues!

[8] (Cleveland) Dropping.

[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Down. 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 range. 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) What the heck is LB.1?

[11] Deaths low, but positivity up.

[12] Deaths low, ED up.

Stats Watch

Employment Situation: “United States Initial Jobless Claims” [Trading Economics]. “The number of people claiming unemployment benefits in the US rose by 2,000 from the previous week to 230,000 on the period ending September 7th, in line with market expectations. The figure remained well above the averages seen earlier this year, reflecting the continued trend of a softening labor market, further emphasized by the weak August payrolls data.”

“United States Producer Price Inflation MoM” [Trading Economics]. “Factory gate prices in the US increased 0.2% mom in August 2024, following a downwardly revised flat reading in July and above forecasts of 0.1%. Prices of services increased 0.4%, after a 0.3% drop in July, led by a 4.8% rise in guestroom rental.”

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Manufacturing: “Boeing’s CEO is begging his machinists not to strike” [Quartz]. “‘I know the reaction to our tentative agreement with the IAM has been passionate,’ he reportedly told the workers. ‘I understand and respect that passion, but I ask you not to sacrifice the opportunity to secure our future together, because of the frustrations of the past.'” IOW, “What can be, unburdened by what has been.” More: “Should they do a work stoppage, there would be precedent: That last contract was not ratified before the union walked off the job. In July, the union said they’d be willing to do it again, with 99.9% voting in favor of the tactic. Boeing needs these workers to put together its key 737 Max jetliners, which IAM [local] 751 manufactures in Washington. Though the Federal Aviation Administration has capped the number of the planes that Boeing can build after a door plug blowout earlier this year exposed quality control problems, the planemaker still needs to crank out every unit that it can.”

Manufacturing: “Boeing 737 deliveries to China reach highest monthly rate since 2019” [Flight Global]. “Boeing in August delivered its highest monthly total of 737 Max jets to China since the Covid-19 pandemic overturned the airline industry. The airframer said on 10 September that it handed over nine 737s to Chinese customers last month, the most since December 2019, when Boeing delivered 15 737s to China. The ramp-up follows a two-month delivery pause earlier this summer, prompted by Chinese aviation regulators’ concerns about the use of lithium batteries in cockpit-voice recorders. In total, Boeing shipped 40 aircraft in August, compared with figures of 43 in July and 44 in June. The relatively steady period follows a first half of 2024 marred by a nearly catastrophic incident involving a 737 Max 9 operated by Alaska Airlines, a dramatic production slowdown and turnover among the company’s senior leadership. ”

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Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 43 Fear (previous close: 43 Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 47 (Neutral). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Sep 12 at 1:20:16 PM ET.

Health

“Metformin decelerates aging clock in male monkeys” (excerpt) [Cell]. “Metformin prevents brain atrophy, elevating cognitive function in aged male primates. Metformin slows the pace of aging across diverse male primate tissues. Metformin counterparts neuronal aging, delivering geroprotection via Nrf2 in male primates. Our research pioneers the systemic reduction of multi-dimensional biological age in primates through metformin, paving the way for advancing pharmaceutical strategies against human aging.” • Why, I’m a male primate! Since this is only an excerpt, I can’t say why female primates were not included.

Book Nook

Little Women is indeed great:

Gallery

And now for something completely different:

Public Health

“Embodiment: reading Krieger through Merleau-Ponty” [Closed Form]. “Though this isn’t its most vernacular meaning, ‘embodiment‘ has a second life as a term of art in a marginal subdiscipline of epidemiology, so-called ‘social’ epidemiology. Depending on the day and my mood, I could articulate social epidemiology as the heir to some kind of real public health, before molecular medicine got in the way, or as the part of epidemiology that traffics the most cynically and shamefully in trauma questionnaires and DEI ambulance-chasing.” And after prolonged albeit entertaining meandering: “[One of] my objections to social epidemiology as such right now [is] that there’s not really much ‘there’ there. True that everything is connected to everything else. True that we are not isolated laboratory subjects. So what? What are we supposed to do with this information?” And: “Put another way, you literally are your body. I’m most interested in the crude distinction between the ‘objective’ and ‘lived’ body. The lived body is the body of experience (how I experience a piece of art or music) or the body of habit (the body that knows how to do all the operations to make a cup of coffee without thinking too much about it). The objective body is the biometric body of statistics and public health: my height, weight, blood pressure, eye color, and so on.” • It seems to me that Bourdieu is laboring in the same vineyard with “habitus” and “field,” and with the same amount of satisfaction, at least to his readers.

Zeitgeist Watch

From the Tufte franchise:

“Tech billionaire pulls off first private spacewalk high above Earth” [Associated Press]. • Bringing to mind:

News of the Wired

“The Cell Phone and Its Double” [The Anarchist Library]. “The idea is to have two phones, a civilian phone or “civ phone”, that uses only Wi-Fi, and is limited in use to specific times and places away from the individual’s place where they typically sleep (their dwelling) and any other digital signatures, including their other burner phone and phones of friends.” • Hmm.

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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, lichen, 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 MB:

MB writes: “Christmas fern, maple, and moss. Piedmont, North Carolina.”

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About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

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18 comments

    1. flora

      And about Alphabet, parent company of the Goog:

      Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL), the parent company of Google, owns several other companies in addition to the search engine giant. Seven major companies owned by Alphabet are YouTube, Waze, DoubleClick, Nest, Looker, Fitbit, and Mandiant.

      Reply ↓
  4. RookieEMT

    Kamala happily accepting and promoting her Republican endorsements is perfect. It’s not just Dick, she’s highlighting her endorsements from Bush and McCain staffers. I love this timeline. Let them bathe in the insanity and not hide it. It will just speed up the disillusion and collapse.

    Reply ↓
  6. Carolinian

    Re Kamala hosannas–if Will Bunch says it it must be true. Since I didn’t watch I can’t speak to her awesomeness but proving that an intensively rehearsed candidate can talk in coherent sentences only solves the PR problem, not the is she qualified to be leader of the free world problem. Not that Trump is particularly qualified but at least he has some on the job experience. Meanwhile what has KH been doing for the past four years other than plotting for this very moment?

    You could say it doesn’t matter which figurehead sits in the oval but the Ukraine mess and threat to world peace say that it does. The only real issue in this election is can we get rid of the war mongering Dems or not? On the domestic front nothing will fundamentally change unless the stock market takes a huge dive. That’s all the plutocrats care about.

    Reply ↓
  7. lyman alpha blob

    Thanks for today’s gallery artwork – I love that style. I thought I’d never heard of Alma-Tadema before, but it turns out he also painted one of my favorites, The Roses of Heliogabalus.

    Not that the classification matters much, but when I just checked him out, he doesn’t seem to be considered one of the pre-Raphaelites although his style and subject matter are very similar. I wonder why?

    Reply ↓
    1. Lambert Strether Post author

      I’m not sure, but I would imagine the reason is the same reason I published Water Cooler early today: Yves has a lot on her plate (and we don’t generally publish two fundraising posts so close to each other in time, lending credence to my theory).

      Reply ↓

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