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2:00PM Water Cooler 12/27/2024

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By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Bird Song of the Day

Northern Mockingbird, Marin, California, United States. “This bird was languidly singing from an unseen location within an oak tree uphill from the first steep part of the fire road immediately above the end of San Andreas Drive. Mimicked birds include Steller’s Jay (0:12), Northern Flicker (0:16), European Starling (0:31) and American Robin (0:44).” This is yesterday’s bird song, which I accidentally deleted in a post-prandial haze.

* * *

In Case You Might Miss…

  1. MAGA eviscerates the Tech Bros on immigration.
  2. Mangione family investments in health care (not pretty).
  3. New Covid charts.

* * *

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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Trump Assassination Attempts (Plural)

“Trial of man accused in Trump assassination attempt in Florida pushed back to September” [Associated Press]. “Ryan Routh’s trial will begin Sept. 8 instead of the previously scheduled Feb. 10, 2025 start date, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon said in an order released on Monday…. Routh’s attorneys had asked the judge to delay the trial until no earlier than next December, saying they needed more time to review the evidence against him and decide whether to mount an insanity defense. Routh owned 17 cellphones and numerous other electronic devices, and there are hundreds of hours of police body camera and surveillance videos that have been provided to the defense, Routh’s attorneys argued during a hearing two weeks ago in Fort Pierce, Florida. In her order, Cannon said she wanted to err on the side of providing more time given the seriousness of the allegations, but that starting the trial no earlier than December would be an excessive amount. A September trial date didn’t amount to an ‘unreasonable delay,’ she said…. The judge said that any insanity defense or any request related to Routh’s mental competency must be made by early February. Any visit to the scene of the assassination attempt must be made by the end of February.”

Biden Administration

“A Reflective Biden Harbors Some Regrets as His Term Winds Down” [New York Times]. “Despite being described by his allies as in a pensive, sometimes angry, mood as the end of his term approaches, the president has not made himself available to answer many questions about his recent actions.” How often is “sometimes”? More: “Aside from joking about his wealth, Mr. Biden has openly stewed over one of Mr. Trump’s flashier — and apparently effective — stunts as president. During the same speech at Brookings, Mr. Biden said he had been “stupid” not to sign his name to Covid stimulus checks that were distributed to Americans early in his term. Mr. Trump emblazoned his signature on checks distributed after a relief bill was passed in the spring of 2020. Mr. Biden and his advisers learned a little something from Mr. Trump’s tendency to scrawl his name on things. By 2023, signs touting infrastructure projects “funded by President Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law” began popping up around the country. But those had little political impact compared with a signed check.” • Bush the Younger signed his checks in the 2000s. Obama, in his miserably inadequate stimulus package, put up no signs, which gave rise to comment. Trump signed his checks. And only in 2023 does Biden’s name go up on signs. Slow learners, or what?

Trump Transition

It was an absolutely wild day on the Twitter today, as MAGA and the Tech Bros tangled on immigration (and (an Ozempic-addled?) Musk destroyed his reputation as a free speech advocate in the soace of a few hours). I can’t cover it all, but here are some of the highlights (and more with orts ands scraps:

DOGE personality Vivek Ramaswamy fired the opening gun:

One quick reaction:

And a second:

So, so close!

And a third:

Hi Vivek [waves]!

And a fourth:

Hi Elon [waves]!

* * *

Noah Smith weighed in; I can’t bear to quote him, but include this screen shot to show the scale of the controversy, since this is only a fraction of the responses, and Smith was by no means the only combatant with a following:

* * *

“Elon Musk’s Critics Stripped of Verification Badge After Publicly Challenging Billionaire: ‘The Beginning Stages of Censorship’ [Mediaite]. “Several conservative critics of billionaire Trump surrogate Elon Musk were stripped of their verification badges on X after publicly challenging Musk’s stance on immigration. Trump ally Laura Loomer, New York Young Republican Club president Gavin Wax, InfoWars host Owen Shroyer, and the pro-Trump ConservativePAC were all stripped of their verification badges after criticizing Musk’s controversial remarks about American workers and foreign H-1B visa holders. ‘[Musk] has removed my blue check mark on X because I dared to question his support for H1B visas, the replacement of American tech workers by Indian immigrants, and I questioned his relationship with China,’ wrote Loomer in a post on Musk’s social network X, formerly known as Twitter.'” • Oopsie!

* * *

Meanwhile, Trump in 2016:

And Trump in 2024:

This shows, I would speculate, Trump sitting in the catbird seat, and very much aware of it, as Musk and Vivek both take themselves out of the running without Trump needing to lift a finger: Mush for co-Presidency today, Vivek for 2028 (and leaving intelligently silent Vance as the anointed, albeit very early favorite. Great photo, too, I love the painterliness).

Lambert with some hasty comments: The tech bros make a dishonest argument. They call for bringing in the best of the best from all over the world, to keep American competitive, and justify the H1B visa program on those grounds. The difficulty is that there is a visa program for the best of the best, and it’s not the H1B; it’s the O-1. The H1B is being used bring in thousands of (necessarily docile) codes, accountants, etc., with (it is asserted) a median wage of ~$70K. In short form, H1B is for labor arbitrage:

And more on labor arbitrage:

Fascinatintly, the MAGA types know this stuff cold — through “lived experience,” as we say, and are eviscerating the tech bros with pleasing efficiency. Reminds me of the blogosphere c. 2003 – 2006, with everybody jumping in. Very impressive, and just imagine if the so-called left were doing this to the Democrats. (Hilariously, some of the Tech Bro defenders are using Democrat loyalist lines like “Now is not the time!”). I find the whole controversy terrific, and just imagine! A serious argument about policy taking place in public! Merry Christmas.

Realignment and Legitimacy

“‘Didn’t Expect This Twist’: Mangione Family Business In The Spotlight After New Info Is Revealed” [Bored Panda]. Summarizing a TikTok video: “[Patriarch Nicholas Mangione] also founded Lorien Health Services, a nursing home at which his grandson, now behind bars, volunteered in 2014…. Taking to her TikTok page on Tuesday (December 10), social media content creator Tiffany Cianci further exposed where Mangione’s rumored wealth came from…. The Mangione family owns Lorien Health Services, a network of privately held nursing care facilities in Maryland, as well as the Turf Valley Golf Resort, used for events and networking with healthcare and pharmaceutical representatives, Cianci explained…. Public records revealed the facilities and resort are owned by the ten adult children of Nicholas and Mary Mangione, each holding a 10% stake, with Luigi Mangione’s father, Louis Mangione, identified as president of the development company for these properties…. American government ratings revealed low-quality conditions, with one facility receiving just two stars and 24 health demerits this year—well above the national average. Disturbingly, 83% of low-risk residents reportedly lose control of their bowels or bladder due to inadequate care, far exceeding the national average of 48%. Mangione, who volunteered at these facilities, allegedly expressed disdain for such systems in a manifesto found during his arrest.”

“Most Americans Blame Insurance Profits and Denials Alongside Killer in UHC CEO Death, Poll Finds” [Time]. “About 7 in 10 adults say that denials for health care coverage by insurance companies, or the profits made by health insurance companies, also bear at least “a moderate amount” of responsibility for Thompson’s death. Younger Americans are particularly likely to see the murder as the result of a confluence of forces rather than just one person’s action.” • Hmm.

* * *

“Will the jury let Luigi Mangione get away with murder?” [The Hill]. “Featured centrally in the criminal defense lawyer’s toolbox is a determination to find the most effective method of prying open the deepest thoughts of jurors, particularly the elusive nullifier — those jurors whose most intimate views motivate them to work to acquit a trial defendant regardless of the facts, even in the face of strong evidence of guilt. Of course, it is the prosecutor’s duty to exclude them. My heresy notwithstanding, it is indeed the defense lawyer’s righteous obligation to identify those nullifiers and try to seat them. ” And: “And prosecutors here are not without fault in providing would-be nullifiers with grist for the mill. They share some responsibility for the spike in public sentiment for Mangione by charging terrorism and raising the offense level to Murder 1 in one jurisdiction, threatening a possible death penalty in another jurisdiction, and participating in a food fight over who takes him to trial first. The piling on, the escorts with body armor and rifles, the perp walking and the overcharging intensify his folk-hero standing and add fuel to a potential nullification fire that is already burning bright.”

“Insanity Defense Is Luigi Mangione’s Only Option: Attorney” [Newsweek]. “Greg Germain, an attorney with over 30 years of experience, said that he doesn’t believe it will be a case of jury nullification, in which a jury acquits the accused out of sympathy for them or their cause. Germain, who teaches law at Syracuse University in New York, said that, given the weight of evidence, insanity is likely the only defense that will work. “It’s hard for me to imagine jury nullification. People may not like their health insurance companies, but I don’t think they will condone murdering insurance executives in the street,” [Germain] said. ‘The only possible defense I could imagine is insanity, which is very hard to establish in a planned case like this,’ he said.”

* * *

“Nordstrom, Maison Margiela Latest Brands Caught Up in Public’s Fascination With Luigi Mangione” [Women’s Wear Daily]. “Levi’s, Peak Design, Tommy Hilfiger and Monopoly were previously referenced in news stories and social media posts about the [Mangione] case, with Peak Design’s CEO Peter Dering facing social media backlash and threats after he informed The New York Times that he had contacted the New York Police Department’s tip line. Dering got involved with the case after several people had texted him that the shooter appeared to be wearing a Peak Design backpack in surveillance images. ‘What we see with Mangione is he has quickly become a folk hero and a fashion folk hero. It’s almost like the movie ‘The Joker,’ where people dressed like him,’ Diana Rickard, a criminal justice professor at the City University of New York, previously told WWD about Mangione’s online popularity.” • So if you want to serve on the jury, don’t wear the sweater….

“Letters to the Editor: Enough with the constant media coverage of Luigi Mangione” [Los Angeles Times]. “Enough of repeatedly seeing Mangione’s smugly defiant image on TV news and in newspaper photos. Same goes for any pre-trial publicity of his skewed ideological conceits. Let criminal proceedings take their course. Once Mangione has been tried, ample pertinent evidence will be available for the public to cast judgment on him.”

“Bets on CEO Murder Suspect’s Fate Test Rules on Event Contracts” [Bloomberg]. “Contracts offered by Kalshi Inc., a New York-based exchange, allow retail traders to put money on the outcome of nearly anything. Kalshi listed wagers on Dec. 11 related to Thompson’s death that included whether the suspect, Luigi Mangione, would be extradited to New York from Pennsylvania, whether he acted alone and whether he’ll be convicted or plead guilty. Two days later, trading suddenly halted, with Kalshi telling customers it made the decision ‘after receiving notice from our regulators,’ according to messages reviewed by Bloomberg News. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Kalshi declined to comment. The CFTC, which regulates Kalshi, bans futures trading linked to crimes including assassination, terrorism and war if the agency decides the so-called events contracts are against the public interest.”

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 (wastewater); 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, KidDoc, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, thump, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).

Stay safe out there!

Transmission: Covid

Happy anniversary:

* * *

Lambert here: The chart I find really weird is New York. It’s not really flat; what we see is a very gradual increase. I don’t know how to give an account for that. Note that New York State as a whole is up:

I can’t give an account for this either. (I track New York City because of its status as an international hub for air travel, and its history.)

TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts

Wastewater
This week[1] CDC December 16 Last week[2] CDC (until next week):

Variants [3] CDC December 21 ★ Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC December 21

Hospitalization
★New York[5] New York State, data December 24: ★ National [6] CDC December 26:

Positivity
National[7] Walgreens December 23: Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic December 14:

Travelers Data
★ Positivity[9] CDC December 9: ★ Variants[10] CDC December 9

Deaths
Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11] CDC November 20: Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12] CDC November 20:

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) Seeing more red and more orange, but nothing new at major hubs.

[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.

[3] (CDC Variants) XEC takes over. That WHO label, “Ommicron,” has done a great job normalizing successive waves of infection.

[4] (ED) A little uptick.

[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Slow and small but steady increase.

[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). Leveling out.

[7] (Walgreens) Leveling out.

[8] (Cleveland) Continued upward trend since, well, Thanksgiving.

[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Leveling out.

[10] (Travelers: Variants). Positivity is new, but variants have not yet been released.

[11] Deaths low, positivity leveling out.

[12] Deaths low, ED leveling out.

Stats Watch

There are no offical statistics of interest today.

* * *

Real Estate: “Boom in US retail real estate defies prediction of ecommerce apocalypse” [Financial Times]. “Vacancies at open-air shopping centres in the US have dropped to historically low levels, defying forecasts of a retail apocalypse caused by the rise of ecommerce. Landlords of complexes anchored by big-box chains, discount merchants and supermarkets have gained power to raise rents as leases expire. New construction has been stymied by higher interest rates and soaring building costs. Only 6.2 per cent of outdoor shopping centre space is currently available for rent, according to property data company CoStar, the lowest since it began tracking availability in 2006. The trend stands in contrast with enclosed shopping malls, where vacancies are rising.” • Hmm. Must be something about outdoor air….

Manufacturing: “Boeing’s space business could experience liftoff in 2025” [Quartz]. “The Motley Fool reports that there’s significant investor intrigue surrounding the company’s space program after its rough 2024…. The key to those efforts could be Boeing’s Vulcan rockets, which Amazon will be using for a number of space launches next year. Additionally, the company is anticipating an approval to run national security missions for the U.S. government. A brighter 2025 would mark a needed turnaround for Boeing. Some observers feared that Vulcan’s national security approval might be in danger after a rocket booster fell off during an October launch.” • Oh noes:

Manufacturing: “Boeing battles brain drain as engineers chase the allure of space” [Financial Times]. “Boeing is cutting jobs by 10 per cent across the company, and this month a second round of lay-offs brought the total of union-represented engineers leaving to 400. The blow to morale comes as engineers — freed from the ‘velvet handcuffs’ of long-term benefits — are contrasting Boeing’s turmoil with the allure of space companies staking out exciting goals. The average tenure of a Boeing engineer has fallen over the past decade from 16.4 years to 12.6 years, according to data from the union representing 12,000 Boeing engineers, the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace. Tenure shortened in almost every age bracket, with employees in their 20s and 30s averaging fewer years, as well as those in their late 40s through 65. The risk of this ‘brain drain’, as analysts, recruiters and union officials have described it, is that it drags on current operations and could make it harder for Boeing to launch its next new plane. ‘All of this experience is gone,’ said Matt Kempf, SPEEA’s senior director for compensation and retirement. That raises concerns because ‘aerospace engineers aren’t made, they’re grown.'”

Tech: “Microsoft and OpenAI have a financial definition of AGI: Report” [TechCrunch]. “Microsoft and OpenAI have a very specific, internal definition of artificial general intelligence (AGI) based on the startup’s profits, according to a new report from The Information. And by this definition, OpenAI is many years away from reaching it. The two companies reportedly signed an agreement last year stating OpenAI has only achieved AGI when it develops AI systems that can generate at least $100 billion in profits. That’s far from the rigorous technical and philosophical definition of AGI many expect.” • So, the definition of AGI is how big the bezzle gets? Novel! Still, serious money. For those who understand the stakes–

Tech: “Parents of OpenAI Whistleblower Don’t Believe He Died By Suicide, Order Second Autopsy” [SFist]. “The parents have hired an attorney, Phil Kearney, and they have commissioned a second, independent autopsy.” • Hmm.

Shipping: A thread on ship-breaking with wonderful photos:

We did some coverage on the Gadani shipbreaking disaster in Pakistan, back in the day.

* * *

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 33 Fear (previous close: 35 Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 28 (Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Dec 27 at 1:02:05 PM ET.

Gallery

Catching up on my reading:

Vanessa Bell:

Fairfield Porter:

Twitter search comes up big time:

And for the Alma-Tadema stans, of whom we have at least one:

Food

This is America too:

Guillotine Watch

“Mark Zuckerberg denies building 5K-square-foot ‘Doomsday bunker’ under $270M Hawaii compound, saying it’s ‘like a basement'” [New York Post]. “Mark Zuckerberg dismissed reports that he is building a 5,000-square-foot ‘Doomsday bunker’ underneath a $270 million compound in Hawaii — insisting instead that it’s just a ‘little shelter.’ The 40-year-old tech tycoon was asked during a Dec. 19 interview with Bloomberg about rumors that he is constructing an underground facility beneath his 1,400-acre home on the island of Kauai, one of the most northern islands in the Northern Pacific archipelago. ‘No, I think [you think??] that’s just like a little shelter. It’s like a basement,’ Zuckerberg, the third wealthiest person in the world behind Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, told Bloomberg’s Emily Chang. Mark Zuckerberg in a blue shirt discussing life and tech during an interview at his Lake Tahoe retreat. Several wealthy individuals have been rumored to have constructed vast tunnels and underground networks in preparation for potential disaster, including PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Tesla CEO Musk and disgraced rapper Kanye ‘Ye’ West. Zuckerberg, who as of Thursday boasted a net worth valued by Bloomberg Billionaires Index at $215 billion, has insisted that the aim of the ranch is to raise “world-class” cattle on beer and macadamia nuts in order to ‘create some of the highest quality beef in the world.'” • Nuttier than a fruitcake.

News of the Wired

“Batteries” [Hans Summers]. “All over the place on the internet, you can read about the classic school science project, sticking two dissimilar metals into a lemon and generating some small amount of power. Sometimes potatoes. You can even buy “kits” to do this in toystores. What seems to be generally lacking is any measurements on such batteries. How much power can they supply? And for how long? And what factors are involved to determine these parameters? Sure, you can power an LCD clock, until the lemon dries out. But they consume a miniscule current anyway. I found some websites which claimed that a single lemon will produce 0.5V and 1mA of current. They didn’t say how long for. Several lemons in series are supposedly enough to light an LED.” • Useful post-Jackpot?

* * *

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 AF:

AF writes: “My winter project right now is trying to improve the soil quality in the raised beds I built earlier this year. I had to use poor quality soil to keep costs down so I’ve taken inspiration from hugelkultur and permaculture to improve the soil. I started with a layer of small logs topped with crushed leaves and other yard debris. I used cheap organic raised bed mix with a middle layer of crushed egg shells and some more crushed leaves. Topped everything off with grass clippings and currently adding a final layer of crushed leaves. I can’t make compost on this property so I’m taking the rest of the crushed leaves and making leaf mold but I don’t think it will be ready for a couple years. It was probably a mistake to do 17″ tall beds but at least my arms are noticeably bigger!” My goodness, what a glorious setting! Can readers comment on the technique? I had good luck with hugelkultur and tomatoes, but it’s hard to have bad luck with tomatoes….

* * *

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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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86 comments

  1. doug

    Beautiful site and nice work on the beds. It will be easy to spend time there. We have similar beds and enjoy them. The only thing I wish I had done differently is to place woven ground cloth down first. 3 years later, our beds are populated with the roots of nearby trees.

    Reply ↓
    1. Stephen V

      SAME HERE! What a misery. Took an entire day to replace with beefier fabric and air gap so the roots can’t get in. That’s just one bed. Onward!

      Reply ↓
    2. lyman alpha blob

      I did put down landscape cloth under my raised beds. I shouldn’t have bothered. The fairly distant Norway maples sent their roots out and tore right through them. Those trees are anathema. Worst plant ever and should never be included in any NC plantidote. Kill with fire.

      The cloth may do the trick for less aggressive trees though.

      Reply ↓
      1. Lambert Strether Post author

        > Norway maples

        Norway maples are evil. They poison the ground around them. Getting rid of mine was one of the best things I ever did. I replaced them with small nut trees. (New gardeners, if you are just planting a starter vegetable like tomatos, start thinking three-dimensionally now (canopy) and plant some fruit or nut trees now. They’ll be bearing in five years, but that’s much better than growing vegetables for five years, and then waiting another five years for trees.)

        Reply ↓
  2. antidlc

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/other/gypsy-cancels-friday-night-show-as-illness-continues-to-impact-broadway-company/ar-AA1wAyeo
    ‘Gypsy’ cancels Friday night show as illness continues to impact Broadway company

    The show has now canceled the following performances:

    12/23 evening performance
    12/25 evening performance
    12/26 matinee performance
    12/26 evening performance
    12/27 evening performance

    It opened on Dec. 19. Someone is losing a LOT of money.

    Reply ↓
    2. Pat

      Not just Gypsy. Can’t remember the details but at least one other show cancelled performance(s) according to a news report I heard earlier today.

      Reply ↓
  3. ACF

    I think the NY Covid hospitalization data simply reflects Thanksgiving gatherings followed by holiday shopping. Thanksgiving was late this year, and peak low was right around Thanksgiving; takes awhile for people to end up in the hospital. Also, after Thanksgiving was peak gift shopping, which isn’t all on line by any means, and can result in crowded stores too. NYC’s flatness for so long was weird; Long Island and the rest of the state didn’t flatten out.

    Reply ↓
  4. Afro

    Re: Vivek,

    It’s been my experience that many native-born North Americans do have the aptitude and drive do well in more technical areas such as software development, engineering, and the life sciences. I know and have known many of them. But it’s also the case that there isn’t much of an incentive to pursue these careers.

    For those who are exceptionally talented, there is typically much more financial reward to go into finance for example. I know that hedge funds (for example) target people who do well on mathematics competitions such as the Putnam, and in general it’s clearly the case that a lot of money is to be made in finance. That’s a choice we make as a society, whereby there’s greater rewards in writing code for options and futures on GM/Ford stock than in working at GM/Ford to design cars. What I recall was that starting wages for engineers at those firms were in the neighbourhood of 65K, and are much more likely to require moving, that’s just not appealing. And aside from the low pay, thats a job that comes with no long-term security, and I suspect you don’t even get to design/engineer that much.

    I assume that getting an engineering job at Boeing to work on the 737 MAX fresh out of undergrad would be a miserable experience. Here’s 65k/year with bad benefits and no security to spend your time working on garbage. What Kamala might refer to as “joy”.

    I do know of some people who have ended up at Google, I can’t tell what exactly they do.

    As for “culture”, I don’t know why Vivek quoted a bunch of shows from the 1990s. I guess that’s probably what he knows from when he was a kid. But kids today do see geeks in properties, for example Peter Parker and Tony Stark in the Marvel Universe. Either way, as an experienced educator at now multiple good American universities, I can attest that there are plenty of bright and hardworking American students. But if they want a viable economic future, they’re more likely to opt for medicine, academia, finance, etc than they are to opt for engineering.

    Reply ↓
    1. fjallstrom

      I think I know why Vivek is citing 90ies television.

      I have been reading some of the bay area “thought leaders” since learning about the “Effective Altruism” that Sam Bankman-Fried espoused. They are influential on the tech bro set – the whole “existential risk of AI” – comes from those corners. They are also really hung up about high school. Being put down for being a nerd, not being cool, etc.

      So Vivek is probably articulating an idea that is floating around in tech bro world. They are still hurting about not being cool in high school, which for them was in the 90ies. Of course that must be a social problem caused by TV, that in turn causes a lack of engineers, forcing poor tech bros to hire guest workers.

      That is just common sense, until it gets published on a platform with people who aren’t in bay area tech bro culture.

      Reply ↓
      1. Afro

        I don’t know if guys like SBF were losers in high school, as they come from money which is usually an advantage. Then again maybe they simply resent not being number 1 with the ladies.

        Reply ↓
      2. Lambert Strether Post author

        > They are also really hung up about high school

        So they should fit right into DC, which is also just like high school (I can barely remember high school. Certainly it was no more important than any other part of my life, so I don’t see why people get hung up on it).

        Reply ↓
    2. Swamp Yankee

      Afro, you make a really good point about incentivization to finance among smart quantitatively talented students. It’s a real thing, and very different from the Sputnik era, when our best mathematical-scientific minds went into physics, engineering, etc. (I do think, in my experience, that Vivek — whom I really dislike — has a point about the culture of Prom Queens/Jocks vs. Nerds; but I don’t know that it’s the point he goes on to make — after all, even by High School, many of the more interesting students have figured out that it’s the hierarchy that’s the problem, rather than which group is on top; and as we experience now with the tech lords, a malevolent nerd — and I am pretty nerdy! — can be just as bad as a malevolent jock.)

      And a relatively minor point to satisfy my own curiosity — what fields in academia do you mean in terms of doing well economically? Your average History/English/Philosophy/Sociology etc. professor does not do well at all; quite the contrary. Perhaps some disciplines in the hard sciences and business schools do well right now, but West Virginia is starting to cut Mathematics from the State University, so I’m not sure that STEM is immune from the anti-intellectual tendency in contemporary US life. But I could be wrong or not seeing the whole picture.

      In any case, I think your larger point is inarguably true and important — we incentivize smart young quantitative types to go into finance and related fields in North America. I personally don’t think it’s a particularly wise allocation of our society’s collective talents.

      Reply ↓
      1. Another Scott

        I think the emphasis on STEM is part of the anti-intellectual tendency in the US as the emphasis has been that such subjects are “useful” in comparison to the humanities. The politicians and businesspeople aren’t encouraging people to study biology or chemistry out of interest in pure science or learning more about the universe and our planet, rather they want students to study them because such subjects will be important for future job prospects, not to mention the possibility that by increasing the number of people who study these subjects, there will be more competition for people seeking jobs in such fields.

        Reply ↓
      2. Afro

        If you can be a professor at a top-100 university, you’re looking at a salary in the lower six figures with great job benefits: security, health dental and retirement, getting to work on interesting things with interesting people. It’s a fairly hard job to get, but it’s visible to most students since they meet 10-20 professors a year.

        As an example (not mine), the average 9-month salary for an associate professor at the University of Alabama in the social sciences is $87,000/year. That is not great but also not bad. If they can line up summer salary that works out to $116,000/year.
        https://oira.ua.edu/factbooklegacy/reports/faculty-and-staff/average-salaries-for-full-time-instructional-faculty-by-college-school-and-rank/

        Reply ↓
        1. Swamp Yankee

          Yes, that can be true regarding being a top 100 university professor, that can provide a good salary and benefits — and it’s certainly visible to students, and has an obvious appeal to hard-working and intellectually curious students in particular — but I think my larger point here is precisely that being a professor at a top 100 university is a quite particular subset of academia. In 2022-23, the most recent year I could find, there were, per the National Center for Education Statistics, 3,896 degree-granting institutions in the US; of these, 2,628 are four-year institutions. (https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d23/tables/dt23_317.10.asp)

          So while it is true that many (obviously, not all) professors at top 100 institutions have a good situation, there are thousands of other institutions with faculties which should also be considered.

          Reply ↓
    3. Jason Boxman

      At least in tech you can get a appreciable sum but you gotta make it into a FAANG company. 250-500 or better is possible from what I’ve seen. Granted SoCal and NYC and PNW are expensive to live in.

      Reply ↓
    4. The Rev Kev

      Vivek is just trying to justify the flim-flam methods that the tech bros use about recruiting. The US could have invested in their own youth to give them good-paying tech jobs with solid career paths so that all those skills would stay in-country. Instead they went with cheap overseas workers. The first thought was using cheap Chinese workers who carried those skills back home to China to China’s benefit. Well now they are out because they got too good with what they learned. So now it is Indian workers where no doubt those skills will flow back to India which means that the US is relying on a foreign country for it’s needed tech skills. And when your business relies on somebody else’s platform, errr, workers….

      Reply ↓
    5. SocalJimObjects

      Who created Silicon Valley in the first place? Almost all of them were native-born North Americans, so it’s obvious aptitude is never an issue.

      Reply ↓
    6. Lambert Strether Post author

      > For those who are exceptionally talented, there is typically much more financial reward to go into financ

      Which would be why we have to import the brain genuises. But if the elite said that, they’d be telling on themselves.

      Reply ↓
  5. kareninca

    I am getting skeptical about the present wastewater readings. Supposedly they are fairly low (but they haven’t been updated since Dec. 17th, so that may be why). But my mother just went to a Christmas day party in the suburbs of Boston, and the hostess just called to tell her that she tested positive for covid. And my mom’s 88 y.o. boyfriend, whose family it is, is now sick. My mom has no symptoms yet (she used Xlear and claritin, but not her AirTamer and not her nasal neosporin). Her boyfriend has no interest in Paxlovid; his daughter is pushing it; I don’t know if I should.

    Flu A is off the charts, literally, in the SF peninsula area. And H5 (bird flu) appears like a big fat band, there every day.

    Reply ↓
    1. jhallc

      Some Covid, post Holiday experience here in the Boston area. My daughter (a teacher) thinks she was exposed at school just before the Christmas break (20th). She started to show symptoms on Christmas day. Myself, my ex, and our Son in Law all spent Christmas Eve together with her and we all came down with symptoms testing positive for Covid today. My daughter is just starting the second trimester of pregnancy and my 2 year old grandson appears to have symptoms as well. None of these cases will be counted anywhere as they are home tests. This is my second go round with Covid, the first being the omicron wave in January 2022. I mask and use a nasal spray (Covixyl) but, didn’t during our small gathering this time.

      Reply ↓
      2. Karen P

        Got word today that 14 patients in my mom’s nursing home in Rye, NH have Covid. There are maybe 100-120 patients there. My mom is one of them. This is their 4th wave this year.

        Reply ↓
        1. flora

          There was serious wondering about the c19 jab and if it could produce an original antigenic sin situation. (The questioning, perfectly rational to me, was rather quickly shut down by the official narrative and is now never mention in polite society.)

          Reply ↓
          1. kareninca

            flora, have you read this?
            https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/urgent-yale-researchers-have-found

            It is early days for this research, but the scientists are at Yale, so there is some quality control. I wonder if this could be even worse than original antigenic sin. I disagree with Berenson about some issues but he isn’t stupid.

            “Yale University scientists have found Covid spike protein in the blood of people who received Covid mRNA shots – up to two years after they received the jabs.

            The people were never infected with Covid, antibody tests show, and our immune systems rapidly destroy newly produced spike proteins. The finding suggests some people who took the shots may be making the proteins on their own.”

            (What I don’t understand is how they can know that the subjects were never infected with covid, since antibodies do fade after all).

            Reply ↓
            2. Cancyn

              From your link, this explains how they can tell whether or not people have had COVID: “ Crucially, these people showed no evidence of natural infection by the coronavirus. Scientists can distinguish between people who have been vaccinated and those who have been naturally infected.

              The reason is that people who have been given mRNA shots produce immune antibodies to only one part of the coronavirus, the spike protein. But nearly all of those who have been infected and recovered also have antibodies to another part, called the nucleocapsid. Some participants in LISTEN have no anti-nucleocapsid antibodies but do continue to produce spike protein.”

              Reply ↓
              1. kareninca

                Thanks, yes, I know that stuff. But the anti-nucleocapsid antibodies fade (as do spike proteins, typically). If a person has been vaccinated and also has caught covid, they should produce both types of antibodies. After a while both types of antibodies will fade away. A person in that situation who is producing spike, might have at some point been infected and that is why they are still producing spike (even though no longer producing nucleocapsid proteins). Why would it be impossible for a natural infection to cause the continuation of spike antibodies, but not the continuation of anti-nucleocapsid antibodies?

                Reply ↓
    2. Lambert Strether Post author

      > I am getting skeptical about the present wastewater readings

      That’s why I include other metrics, as a check (under the assumption that under Federalism they can’t all be gamed).

      I’m seeing small increases in positivity and hospitalization, but nothing like past surges. (I do wonder what would happen if some fresh variant were coming in at the airports, and not XEC). Nor am I seeing an enormous upsurge of Tweets (and I don’t think all the Covid conscious have left for Bluesky).

      Which isn’t to say Covid hasn’t gone away, it hasn’t. It’s bad, don’t catch it (or give it).

      Reply ↓
  6. Lambert Strether Post author

    > What Kamala might refer to as “joy”.

    Kamala, bless her heart, kept repeating “hard work is good work.” No it very isn’t. Sometimes it’s just hard work that sucks (especiallly prevalant among the working class, which she would have known if she spent any time with them).

    Reply ↓
    1. Swamp Yankee

      Yeah, exactly this. Hard work often is really, really unpleasant — thus hard! Weeding for money isn’t fun, e.g.

      The local Dems here are so cluelessly classist that I — who am very active in local politics, arguing what I call a Commonwealth position (this is the ideology underlying, e.g., the Mass. Constitution — that the body politic is a covenant between each citizen and the whole, and is devoted to the common good) — find it very difficult to work with them.

      And the local GOP are just Visigoths. Drunk on Facebook memes, various forms of bigotry, and crazed, genuinely unhinged red-baiting.

      So, the independent, Commonwealth left it is. Fortunately, our Town Meeting system is not partisan and admits of wide differences in viewpoint; but like an 18th c. British parliament, there are groupings or factions. Even if I vote with one of these on a particular question, that doesn’t mean I’m in it or agree with its worldview (Town Meeting votes are legislative votes, Yes or No; you can vote yes or no for different reasons, e.g., you can think a proposed bylaw is a really bad idea; or that it’s not a terrible idea but the drafting of it in legal terms is terrible. That kind of thing.)

      Reply ↓
    1. skippy

      Firstly the term immigration is never defined until antagonists from all corners start picking it apart. Sadly for the unwashed mopes of Team A or B and then divisions thereof between them most just think the term in the broader sense – full stop/ban.

      I think the knee jerk by Elon is applicable here Lambert. Claims of he bought Twitter to save Freedom[tm] of Speech, yet when he cops a large amount of blow back, from his stated position on immigration, which IMO clashes with team Trumps narrative, he starts penalizing them on the platform of Freedom and Liberties. One would think as a result of how it would effect his Businesses balance sheet flows … lmmao …

      I let him have it over the omission that basically hes was saying American academy is failing to provide the necessary cogs and widgets for the market place. Which has slowly occurred over decades after they were turned into for profit/IP/PE mills from the stand point of share holder value – own goal.

      What happens when an immigrant from a wealthy family with a history makes packet via Fintech, leverages that payday to do stock takeovers of others businesses [Entrepreneurs], builds businesses based from day one of sucking up environmental tax credits whilst abusing labour laws and treats customers as crash test dummies ….. and for all their blovations is really at the end of the day just another Anarcho-capitalism sort.

      Reply ↓
      1. Lambert Strether Post author

        > What happens when an immigrant from a wealthy family with a history makes packet via Fintech,

        Elon’s meltdown today:

        Er, actually, IIRC Elon is not here because of H1B but because he overstayed his student visa (though he was never apprehended).

        Reply ↓
  8. AG

    On the sinking of RU “Ursa Major”

    Medvedev:

    “The Norwegian-flagged Oslo Carrier 3 refused to take on board the Russian sailors from the Ursa Major who were drowning in the Mediterranean Sea. Do you need any more explanations? This cannot be forgiven! Let us act, for it is said: “The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked””

    Whilst Helmer points out Medvedev is hardly present in RU media.

    Reply ↓
    1. The Rev Kev

      They let them tie up to their ship but refused to take them aboard. The Norwegians reckon they were doing so under orders of the Spanish rescue authorities but this is really a very bad look for Norwegians. Those sailors were hardly poor refugees trying to make their way to Europe on a rickety boat but survivors of a major shipwreck which involved fatalities. Norway’s reputation in Russia just became trash.

      Reply ↓
      1. AG

        uh, thanks.
        I figured something was missing in this. They’re not gonna just let them drown.
        Which as you say doesn’t help the image in RU. But still it is a different crime entirely.

        p.s. I do wonder about racism in RU. I had a colleague in the early 2000s from Ulaanbaatar. He had to travel via Moscow and customs were not nice to him. He was cursing every single time returning from visits…

        Reply ↓
  9. ChrisFromGA

    The truth is starting to seep out:

    Israeli and U.S. officials involved in the negotiations for a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal tell Axios they are concerned that the odds of an agreement before President Trump takes office are slim.

    https://www.axios.com/2024/12/27/gaza-hostage-ceasefire-talks-trump-netanyahu

    Well, now, they lied for so many months, now that the number of days left for Blinken and Sullivan is down to 24, and some of those days are needed for moving boxes out of the WH and resume polishing, it looks like there is no need to keep up the lie anymore.

    Politico, however, is going down with the ship:

    WH still “optimistic” about Gaza ceasefire as talks stall.

    Such good Biden loyalists!

    Reply ↓
  10. matt

    ‘wow elon musk is taking away our blue checkmarks and therefore our freedom’ girl welcome to the internet. all good sites die because of bad moderators. the favored forum of my childhood shut down to a moderator scandal. one of my favorite discord servers shut down because a mod was found to be in a secret groupchat where they shittalked people. this is not new. this is how privately owned websites work. lol.

    Reply ↓
    1. Ben Panga

      Elon fooled people with the Twitter Files. They didn’t realise that the transparency only applied to looking at the previous ownership era.

      Similarly, until now, people didn’t realise the tech-right’s opposition to censorship only means government censorship. They are 100% ok with censorship by private companies (particularly their own).

      Reply ↓
  11. Tom67

    Fascinating reading about Vivek and MAGA. Don´t usually read watercooler as I am German but this opened something new for me. Am pleased to read there ‘s fightback against Vivek and the like. Who knows … after Trump seems to have successfully challenged woke race madness maybe the unintended consequence will be opening up thinking about where the REAL dividing lines in society are.

    Reply ↓
    1. Lambert Strether Post author

      > Fascinating reading about Vivek and MAGA

      Musk and company have now retreated to “mend it don’t end it” after MAGA beat them like gongs on the merits (funny to watch Republican elites act just like Democrat elites when confronted with the great unwashed).

      The difficulty is that labor arbitrage is labor arbitrage, and workers with visas are always vulnerable in a way that citizen workers are not and hence employers will always prefer them. None of the “reform” proposals address this….

      Reply ↓
      1. ChrisPacific

        It could be easily fixed by making it an immigration visa and not a temporary one, and granting holders the same labor rights as citizens. Residence visas work much like this in other countries.

        If they are really the top 0.1% of talent as Musk claims (ridiculous for a number of reasons, but let’s table that for now) then there would surely be no downside to America from this. Unless, of course, the labor arbitrage is a feature and not a bug.

        I say this as an actual former H-1B visa holder, not a pretend one like Musk. I’m grateful for having had the opportunity to work in America, but I’m not grateful that the H-1B was the mechanism by which it was offered to me.

        Reply ↓
  12. steppenwolf fetchit

    The H-1B visa program is inherently abusive. Its mere existence is abusive. It can’t be reformed. It can’t be ” down-abusivized” . It can only either be submitted to ( as now) or abolished entirely ( which Trump won’t do).

    It should be abolished entirely.

    I suppose TrumpenVance could ask Congress to pass a law for Trump to sign saying that no company is allowed to have contracts or any business relationship with the Federal Government unless it can prove that it employs zero non-residents and does zero-subcontracting with companies which do hire so much as a single non-resident.

    He could frame such a law as ” not using taxpayer money to disemploy Americans and other Legal Residents anymore.”

    Reply ↓
    1. Stephen V

      I say Tax the Tech companies who are demonstrably “saving money on labor” through foreign hires. If that had to pay U.ncle S.ugar for the difference between an American living wage (Not ! “What the market will bear”) and what they are paying foreigners– there might be different decision-making.

      Reply ↓
      1. steppenwolf fetchit

        They would simply move their operations to where the H-1B visa people come from now. They would use their billion-dollar teams of shyster-lawyers to bend any law till it cracks without quite breaking.

        Nooo . . . the H-1B visa should be abolished. And kept abolished. And made shyster-proof.

        Reply ↓
    2. Ann Uumelmahaye

      Economic warfare. Will America simply stage a quiet genocide? Blaming the victim is par here.

      They shipped manufacturing overseas, and now Americans have to compete with prison labor, machine labor, and immigrant labor. Meanwhile, housing and land all get gobbled up by the marketarians as the states make homelessness illegal, to say nothing of the other million horrors.

      And I’m not so certain most capitalists really hate ‘big government’ as much as they say they do.

      Reply ↓
  13. Carolinian

    re

    “Hmm. Must be something about outdoor air….”

    One of our closed grocery stores finally re-emerged as a Crunch Fitness and every time I drive by there the shopping strip parking lot is completely full. And across town our original Home Depot moved to a larger building and that too partly turned into an indoor gym.

    So maybe fitness mania is sweeping the land and saving commercial real estate.

    Of course at some of our other large shopping centers–often featuring a Walmart–the customers are less than svelte. A mixed picture?

    Reply ↓
  14. CA

    The matter is simple, there have been all sorts of potentially fine workers through the country and we need not look to, say, Ghana or Sri Lanka for workers. Simply apprentice and pay workers properly:

    https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1CtXR

    January 15, 2018

    Real Average Hourly Earnings of Private and Manufacturing Production & Nonsupervisory Employees, 1973-2024

    (Indexed to 1973)

    Reply ↓
  15. CA

    Please notice that from the winding down of the Vietnam War to the present real earnings for general and manufacturing workers have scarcely changed. That is 50 years of virtually no change in real earnings of nonsupervisory private manufacturing sector workers. Workers from abroad are fine, but America can easily produce enough workers.

    Reply ↓
  16. Wukchumni

    We got so much cool stuff out of King Tut’s bunker, but what are historians gonna find when Zuckerberg’s tomb is opened in 4051?

    A bunch of MRE’s?

    Reply ↓
      1. Wukchumni

        As far as personal eating habits, when I was seated 8 feet away from Zuckerberg here in Tiny Town, he appeared to be dining on an Alta Peak club sandwich, and unless he supplies Sysco with fresh kills, it wasn’t his doing.

        Reply ↓
    1. CA

      What a rotter:

      https://xcancel.com/VivekGRamaswamy/status/1872312139945234507

      Vivek Ramaswamy @VivekGRamaswamy

      The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over “native” Americans isn’t because of an innate American IQ deficit (a lazy & wrong explanation). A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture.

      Tough questions demand tough answers & if we’re really serious about fixing the problem, we have to confront the TRUTH: Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG…

      Dec 26, 2024

      Reply ↓
  18. i just don't like the gravy

    Lambert: I’ve had success with hugelkultur. It just takes time. Best to do with decomposing woody material you already have available. My basil, kale and hot peppers all seem to enjoy it. I think the primary benefit is as a “sponge” during peak summer, since the decaying wood absorbs and holds moisture well, plus providing habitat for soil critters.

    Also, anyone following the Afghanistan/Pakistan kerfuffle? Saw news of it a couple days ago but haven’t been able to find follow-up reporting or the current status.

    Reply ↓
    1. Steve H.

      Love my beds, they’ve been productive for years, but last year (five years) was when the large logs suddenly mulched. I use the sponge effect for the south part of our lot, where the runoff from the rest of the block goes, to protect the north beds from contaminants. Nom nom ‘maters.

      Reply ↓
    2. johnnyme

      I haven’t been following it but I did see this article from yesterday so I’m not sure if this helps:

      Kabul claims Pak airstrikes killed 46 civilians in Afghanistan

      46 civilians, mostly women and children, are reported killed in airstrikes by Pakistani jets in Afghanistan’s Paktika province. The strikes targeted alleged TTP camps, with Kabul condemning them as barbaric aggression. Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan are likely to worsen following the incident.

      Reply ↓
    3. Bsn

      We did hugelkultur too, many years ago. Had some trees taken out to expand the garden. People suggested go buy fresh compost/soil. Me, being a cheapskate thought, why take the tree limbs to the dump and then have to buy the compost that they made from someone else’s trees? So, dug some trenches, filled them with mostly limb wood and even scrub. While the trenches were open, I also put in some perforated pipe with both ends curved up to the surface. Plats grow like weeds in those beds. Put the hose in one end, blast the water for apx 30 seconds, then don’t have to water again for a week or so. We are in a very dry area with clay soil. The H’kulture breaks up the clay and the buried pipe saves lots of water. Plus, the roots go deep to find the water – deep roots, better plants. It’s a good combo – try it if you have a garden.

      Reply ↓
  19. CA

    https://xcancel.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1872672262928933312

    Arnaud Bertrand@RnaudBertrand

    The irony of Vivek’s post is that his wrong analysis of how American culture is broken illustrates in itself how American culture is broken.

    I mean, how out-of-touch must one be to think people will embrace a vision where childhood must be optimized for corporate success, with less sleepovers, hanging out and fun (what he calls “mediocrity”) in favor of shareholder-value-maximizing “excellence”?

    Especially when addressing Americans who have seen their lives destroyed en-masse by the same corporate priorities that produced this vision of “excellence”. The average American family isn’t choosing between math tutoring and sleepovers – they’re choosing between paying for basic necessities while both parents work multiple jobs.

    His examples unwittingly prove the opposite of his point: shows that he describes as corrupting American culture (Friends, Boy Meets World, Family Matters, etc.) celebrate friendship, family, and community values – exactly what the US has lost in their rush to optimize everything for economic output and create an hyper-individualistic and consumerist society. That’s probably why they’re popular: they reflect a lost world that people aspire to go back to.

    He mentions China as the motivating factor here, because apparently the solution to avoid having their “asses handed to us by China” is more capitalism, treating people even more like cogs who must compete in “the global market for technical talent.”

    That doesn’t only betray a misunderstanding of what Americans want but also of China. China themselves largely hate the extreme competitiveness of their system: the people hate it and the government hates it, they all want to move away from it (hence the government banning the tutoring industry). And in any case this isn’t what made China rise – China rose with a largely uneducated population, as mass university-level education is a very recent phenomenon there.

    No, I’m convinced that China, at a very fundamental level, rose so unprecedentedly fast for the very reason that it is one of the very few countries in the world which culture wasn’t completely denaturalized by the sort of neoliberal dystopia that Vivek seems to idealize. In China’s socialist system the market doesn’t trump all, individualism doesn’t reign supreme and, at a broader level, they still stay faithful to many of the ancestral values that have sustained their civilization for thousands of years. That’s the culture that underpins it all and makes it work, not the fact that Chinese kids do too much homework.

    All in all, this is what makes this debate so revealing: Vivek, in trying to diagnose America’s problems, has instead unwittingly illustrated them. The belief that every human activity must be justified by its contribution to GDP, that collective bonds are mere distractions from the pursuit of “excellence,” and that the solution to the problems created by predatory capitalism is, somehow, more predatory capitalism.

    Dec 27, 2024

    Reply ↓
      1. CA

        Thank you for the post, which I assume you are labelling “nonsense.” I agree, the post is absurd but I am unsure whether the post is related to the words of Vivek or what Arnaud Bertrand wrote about Vivek’s words.

        So, I am a little lost. Possibly your post is meant to show just how absurd Vivek’s complaint about American culture is.

        I was thinking just a little while ago that Vivek’s was like looking at Americans as “Dalits.” There was a problem in California with Indian immigrant workers being treated as Dalits, that I recalled. Vivek’s post has that flavor, calling Americans Dalits.

        Reply ↓
      2. CA

        https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/08/us/california-caste-discrimination.html

        September 8, 2023

        California Could Become the First State to Ban Caste Bias as Prejudices Linger
        The bill, which was passed by the State Legislature this week, has led to intense debate among South Asian immigrants.
        By Amy Qin

        Ramesh Suman, a real estate agent in Antioch, Calif., remembers the client who refused to see a house after saying that it looked like it belonged to members of the Dalit community, a historically oppressed group of people relegated below even the lowest rung of the caste hierarchy once predominant in South Asia.

        Bhim Narayan Bishwakarma recalled how a landlord accepted his deposit but later reneged on a rental after learning his surname, which is common among Nepalese Dalit families.

        And Dr. Promila Dhanuka said that once word got around more than 15 years ago in Redding, Calif., that she had Dalit roots, some Indian American doctors stopped referring patients to her oncology practice.

        While many South Asian immigrants face discrimination in the United States, those with Dalit ancestry — once deemed to be “untouchable” from birth — say they must also overcome being ostracized by fellow South Asian immigrants who cling to a social stratification that dates back millenniums. That has occurred even though untouchability and caste-based discrimination have been outlawed in India and Nepal for decades.

        Nowhere in the United States has the subject been as prominent — or as divisive — as in California. Three years ago, the state’s Civil Rights Department accused two engineers of caste discrimination at Cisco Systems in a landmark lawsuit. This week, the State Legislature sent a bill to Gov. Gavin Newsom that could make California the first state to expressly prohibit such bias.

        In more than a dozen interviews, people who identify as Dalits described various encounters with caste-based bigotry in the United States, in the form of wage theft, housing discrimination, mistreatment in the workplace and social exclusion.

        They spoke of the shame and anger they felt hearing slurs used in reference to Dalits. Many said that they felt pressure to hide their identity and that they lived in constant fear of being “outed,” despite being in a country they saw as a haven free of the caste vestiges of their homelands.

        “I really thought I had left untouchability or caste-based discrimination back in Nepal,” said Mr. Bishwakarma, who works at a convenience store in El Cerrito, Calif. “I never thought that one day I would be discriminated against just on the basis of caste in a country like the U.S.” …

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    2. Lambert Strether Post author

      If you are quoting, please put the quote inside a quote tag (see the toolbar at top when entering the comment), so readers can tell where the quote ends and your commentary, if any, begins.

      Reply ↓
  21. lyman alpha blob

    Thanks for more Alma-Tadema from another stan! I’d seen one or two of his paintings before without knowing who the artist was, and he’s now becoming a favorite. I’m not sure if he qualifies as a pre-Raphaelite, for those who like to classify things, but I really enjoy that style.

    Reply ↓
    1. Lambert Strether Post author

      > I’m not sure if he qualifies as a pre-Raphaelite,

      I don’t think so. Different themes. I think the ultra-, almost photo-realistic style is different too, though it would take a real art maven to explain why.

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  22. Jason Boxman

    This is a weird timeline. I never thought growing up a Democrat that I’d basically be a Republican these days. Or at least agree with them more. I still prefer Sanders adjacent social Democracy.

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  23. Ben Panga

    Hi Lambert,

    A couple of Thielverse articles for you. [Feel free to offer replacements for “Thielverse”]

    1. Mapping Trump’s connections to tech’s right-wing brotherhood (NBC).

    I particularly like the map-graphic. Notice Thiel has a fatter map imprint than Musk. Note also his possession Vance.

    2. The Black Box of Peter Thiel’s Beliefs (Politico back in 2021)

    “If there is a Trumpism after Trump, it might look a bit like Thielism”

    A personal observation: I think the strongly anti-diversity Thiel, who’s father managed a Uranium mine in South Africa, has views on immigration/race that are closer to the MAGA side than the Vivek/Musk side. Wisely though, he seems to be keeping well out of that mudfight.

    3. Forbes real-time ranking of those around Trump https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2024/12/16/trumpiverse-ranking-trumps-inner-circle/

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  26. The Rev Kev

    “Will the jury let Luigi Mangione get away with murder? ”

    Jury selection is going to be a hoot and a half. I can see it now-

    Lawyer: ‘Candidate 678. Have you ever had a medical claim refused by your healthcare corporation?’

    Candidate 678: ‘Why, yes.’

    Lawyer: ‘Disqualified! Next.’

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    1. johnnyme

      Later that month:

      Lawyer: ‘Candidate 5,872. Have you ever had a medical claim refused by your healthcare corporation?’

      Candidate 5,872: ‘No.’

      Lawyer: ‘Have any of your family members ever had a medical claim refused by their healthcare corporation?’

      Candidate 5,872: ‘Why, yes.’

      Lawyer: ‘Disqualified! Next.’

      They’re going to have to find the 12 healthiest 19 year olds in the country who come from incredibly small extended families and whose grandparents all died before they were born in order to find jurors who haven’t been impacted. Either that, or 12 of the healthiest 19 year old orphans who grew up in orphanages in the country.

      And then even if they do, I wouldn’t at all be surprised to see a repeat of the jury’s decision in the Lester Zygmanik case. From When jurors’ moral judgments result in jury nullification: moral outrage at the law as a mediator of euthanasia attitudes on verdicts:

      In 1973, 23-year-old Lester Zygmanik stood trial for first-degree murder after shooting his paraplegic brother. George, Lester’s 26-year-old brother, had suffered a motorcycle accident that led to a fractured neck and damaged spinal cord, leaving him paralyzed from the neck down. George begged his brother Lester to kill him, arguing that he would have killed himself if he could. Lester complied and shot his brother in the head with a sawn-off shotgun, then turned himself in and confessed to killing his brother with premeditation. He had even packed the bullets with wax to ensure their effect would be deadly (Cook, 1976; Kassin & Wrightsman, 1988). Despite the indubitable legal guilt, the jury acquitted Lester Zygmanik after only three hours of deliberation. The 12 jurors decided that Lester had been legally insane at the time of the shooting, but they also found that he had regained his sanity and should be set free (Maguire, 1974). In other words, the jurors cleverly circumscribed the letter of the law to reach a not-guilty verdict reflecting their personal sense of justice – a phenomenon known as jury nullification. What determines jurors to nullify the law and to acquit defendants when guilt is established beyond a reasonable doubt?

      Should be interesting…

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  27. SocalJimObjects

    Several wealthy individuals have been rumored to have constructed vast tunnels and underground networks in preparation for potential disaster, including PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Tesla CEO Musk and disgraced rapper Kanye ‘Ye’ West.

    Where did the rumors come from? Does this mean that the contractors will need to be killed sometime down the line since they are aware of the existence of said tunnels and networks? What happens if after some big disaster, one of the contractors were to tweet about the location of one of those secret compounds?

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    1. ambrit

      Rest assured, those “contractors” have already been “taken care of.”
      Just ask Amfortas about the mid to low level Wealthy and their “Country Estates,” at the least in central Texas.
      Noticing all of the Apocalyptic shows and films presented over the last few years, I am wondering if the American public is being conditioned to accept a real decline in the average standard of living going forward.
      Substitute Undocumented Immigrants for Zombies, and you should get the idea.

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      1. Lambert Strether Post author

        > Just ask Amfortas about the mid to low level Wealthy and their “Country Estates,” at the least in central Texas.

        Amfortas, did the contractors meet with any unfortunate accidents?

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      2. Acacia

        Re: conditioning, it is perhaps worth noting that zombie apocalypse films are not a recent phenom. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead came out in 1978, and there are earlier non-zombie films that hinted at a future in which ordinary USian consumers would not be safe.

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  28. The Rev Kev

    ‘WikiVictorian
    @wikivictorian
    Maid Reading in a Library, by Swiss painter Edouard John Mentha (1915). In private collection.’

    A rather charming painting. The question poses itself of what is that maid reading in the office of a taxidermist that she had to get a step ladder to reach up and get it.

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  29. Jeremy

    I just want to note one quibble with that article about jury nullification

    … jurors whose most intimate views motivate them to work to acquit a trial defendant regardless of the facts, even in the face of strong evidence of guilt.

    He’s wrong here. 99% of jury nullifications are better described as acquittal “regardless of the law”. The jury is disagreeing about how the law should be applied; punishment in light of the agreed facts would not accord with the jurors’ sense of justice. With all due respect to lawyers, they tend to delude themselves into believing there’s no normative debate happening in the jury room- people are just applying the law to the facts. But people aren’t that dumb!

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  30. earthling1

    Wouldn’t hurt to throw a # or so of bonemeal in there and work it into the soil, give you some natural phosphates. And I didn’t see any potash (potassium) in there, something banana peels will supply.
    And while is to late now, some biochar down by the roots would work wonders for soil organisms.
    Happy gardening!

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