Scientists find whale song, human language share same structure CGTN
Climate
Carbon dioxide reaches record high Arctic News
Inside the CIA’s Decades-Long Climate “Spy” Campaign 3 Quarks Daily
Syndemics
USDA Summary Of Nevada’s H5N1 Genotype D1.1 Spillover Into Cattle Avian Flu Diary
Flu season in the US is the most intense it’s been in at least 15 years AP. We learn nothing:
In @abcnews: according to @CDCgov, flu is spread mainly by tiny droplets made when people cough, sneeze, or talk. They can land in the mouths or noses.
Not in @abcnews: flu is also spread by airborne particles that remain in the air and are breathed in.https://t.co/cngCHvYHqk https://t.co/R5rjkAXLhx
— LET'S AIR (@nousaerons) February 9, 2025
China?
China faces uphill battle to boost demand despite consumer price recovery in January South China Morning Post. Commentary:
Nezha 2 just became the first film in history to gross $1 billion in a single market—China—in just 11 days. It is also the first ever non-Hollywood movie to achieve the $1 billion mark.
Which means that a) China is now obviously able to produce blockbusters on par with Hollywood… pic.twitter.com/VG1yXN6Kh7
— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) February 9, 2025
‘What’s high tech about clothing?’ Life on the margins of China’s economic reboot FT
The US relies on China for key medicines. They won’t be spared from tariffs The Hill
India
Modi’s BJP wins big in high-stakes Delhi election BBC
Syraqistan
Israeli Sources Believe Netanyahu Intends to Derail Gaza Cease-fire as Delegation Heads to Doha Haaretz
How to Measure Famine London Review of Books. The deck: “Alex de Waal on the classification of catastrophe in Gaza.”
It is time to move the UN and international law out of the West Al Jazeera
European Disunion
Paris prosecutors open probe into Musk’s X over alleged algorithmic distortions France24
Economy, migration, defence loom large in German election: A turning point for Europe? France24
New Not-So-Cold War
As Ukraine struggles to field soldiers, recruitment centers are attacked WaPo
Ukraine Inches Closer to Final Call-Up Simplicius, Simplicius the Thinker
* * * Trump confirms call with Putin, says Russian leader wants Ukraine war to end: Report Anadolu Agency
Sharp Turns and Continuity in Donald Trump’s Policy Valdai Discussion Club
* * * Russia Assembles Flotilla of LNG Carriers in Arctic Waters Ahead of EU Transshipment Ban gCaptain
America’s Economic Warfare Is Sowing Its Own Demise Foreign Policy
Trump Administration
What has Donald Trump not done yet? Here are some policy areas where he might act next AP. Note the lacunae:
Would be extremely funny if Steve Bannon became the first right populist ever to do a left populist turn. https://t.co/0we9ZmDKSA
— Briahna Joy Gray (@briebriejoy) February 8, 2025
Spending bill talks bog down after Trump’s efforts to slash government AP
* * * Trump’s Executive Order to Rename Debt and Deficits Stephanie Kelton, The Lens
Directive From New Interior Secretary Weakens Public Land Protections to Push Fossil Fuels Inside Climate News
* * * Russ Vought, tapped as CFPB’s acting director, directs bureau to issue no new rules, stop new investigations FOX. Commentary:
I believe this actually shows that Vought was outwitted. CFPB leadership drew what they needed for the entire fiscal year before he ever got his hands on the agency. https://t.co/lmG4fN8zfp
— David Dayen (@ddayen) February 9, 2025
Why Trump’s in-your-face campaign will never end Axios. New spokeshole:
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says @DOGE is "one of the most important audits of government" in his lifetime.
"These are highly trained professionals. This is not some roving band going around doing things. This is methodical and it is going to yield big savings." pic.twitter.com/pBEvFEuJ8f
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 8, 2025
There’s no reason to believe what Bessent is saying after the “access” imbroglio, especially since there’s no way to independently check it (see below). In addition:
NEW: Government worker says 19-year-old DOGE employees are having 15 minute interviews with federal employees to “justify their existence” before determining if they should be fired.
Lmao, good.
An unnamed federal worker spoke out at a town hall event in Virginia.
“I just… pic.twitter.com/ZcEwsxEzcn
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) February 8, 2025
“Highly trained”?
US welcomes ‘persecuted South African’ refugees: State Department Anadolu Agency. Commentary:
The idea of Afrikaaners willingly leaving their estates and holiday homes where they have cleaners and gardeners and get to chill by the beach to go be cashiers at Walmart and live in a shitty state apartment in the US is actually so funny 😭 someone needs to make a show
— Uppity African 🍉 (@naledimashishi) February 8, 2025
DOGE
Musk says Treasury, DOGE instituting reporting changes to all government payments Politico:
The government payments will now have a ‘payment categorization code’ for auditing purposes, he wrote in a post on X, the social media site he owns.
Musk also said payments must provide a rationale in a comment field, adding they are ‘not yet applying ANY judgment to this rationale’ but that all payments must have one.
“Yet” is doing a lot of work, there, no? Essentially, Elon wants the memo field on government checks filled out. There is no reason for this, either for the code or the rationale, if you believe (modulo cases of fraud) that all that is required to issue a check is Congressional appropriation (i.e., a statute) or agency approval, as has hitherto been the case. The obvious reason for this architectural change to Treasury’s outputs is to bolt or kludge a second processor onto the existing back-end of the payments system, which would serve as a filter. This second processor would take existing outputs as input, but the “reporting changes” would enable the Executive to filter for checks based on the category or the rationale (or, for that matter, on the SSN; why not?), and then impound (not output) them. A less obvious reason is for future integration into “the blockchain,” perhaps “a bad idea whose time has come.” An even less obvious reason is to alter the checks: If you want to reduce Federal Spending by 20%, have the filter reduce the amount of every check by 20%. Not the Pentagon, of course. Or the spooks.
* * * Musk’s DOGE Blocked From Treasury Data in State AGs Lawsuit Bloomberg
Inside the ‘lawfare’ plot to sabotage DOGE Daily Mail
Elon Musk’s Demolition Crew ProPublica.
Can anyone stop Elon Musk’s hostile takeover of the US government? FT
* * * Trump Vs. Education Department: Musk’s DOGE Reportedly Using AI To Look For Cuts—Here’s What We Know Forbes
Elon Musk’s DOGE Is Expected to Examine Another Treasury System Next Week ProPublica
Democrats en déshabillé
How Democrats lost the DEI war Politico
Hakeem Jeffries met privately with Silicon Valley donors in bid to ‘mend fences.’ Politico
The Bezzle
US endowments join crypto rush by building bitcoin portfolios FT
As One State Gets Closer on a Crypto Reserve, Others Jump Into the Fray CoinDesk
Digital Watch
When it comes to AI ROI, IT decision-makers not convinced The Register
Zeitgeist Watch
Should People Be Fired for Social Media Posts? What JD Vance Gets Right and Wrong. Zaid Jailani, The American Saga
Kids in New York keep dying while ‘subway surfing’ on top of trains. Can they be stopped? AP
Arrests in luxury home burglaries targeting NFL, NBA players are the ‘tip of the iceberg’ AP
Realignment and Legitimacy
The doomed politics of MAGA Romantics Unherd. The deck: “Why do they hero-worship a huckster?”
Red states create their own DOGE efforts to cut state government Kansas Reflector
Class Warfare
Workers’ rights caught in collision of Trump’s priorities Axios
Good news:
So, one of my foresters found an American chestnut which showed signs of blight damage but also vigorous resistance, growth, and reproduction. We are in touch with the American Chestnut Foundation and USDA Forest Service geneticists. Real heads know. pic.twitter.com/gLRdyxW0qa
— falling man (@p_feif80) February 7, 2025
On the American Chestnut, see NC here.
Antidote du jour (Cody Pope):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
‘Arnaud Bertrand
@RnaudBertrand
Nezha 2 just became the first film in history to gross $1 billion in a single market—China—in just 11 days. It is also the first ever non-Hollywood movie to achieve the $1 billion mark.’
For those interested, here is a trailer for that film. It’s an acquired taste-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhAkJw6VqUY (1:30 mins)
So what is Hollywood doing? Was reading the other day, and if memory serves me right, that they are in rapture about a French film about a Mexican drug lord that becomes trans and is also a musical with crappy songs. The French hate it, the Mexicans hate it and the Trans people hate it too but Hollywood has given it 13 Oscar nominations which puts it up there with films like ‘Gone With The Wind’, ‘Forrest Gump’, ‘Mary Poppins’ and ‘The Lord of the Rings.’-
https://awardsdatabase.oscars.org/Help/Statistics?file=Gen-Films10noms.pdf
It would be hard for this movie to find an audience outside China, but it’s based on this, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nezha, one of the folk stories that a child growing up in China would be exposed to sometime around kindergarten (perhaps before then) or secondary school. China certainly has no need for Disney characters since they have plenty of stories they can make adaptations of if they really want to, except the studios over there, just like Hollywood, often choose to take the safe path, just witness the Legend of Condor Heroes 2025, which must be at least the 100th adaptation of Jin Yong’s work.
I’m not so sure of that. Black Myth Wukong, based on another Chinese myth, just made hundreds of millions of dollars internationally on a tiny budget. The Chinese have been on a roll lately, showing that innovative products can yield better results at a fraction of the cost.
https://english.news.cn/20241008/497f6fbe296243238b9acedfe9d7bae8/c.html
October 8, 2024
Following in the Monkey King’s magical footsteps
By Bai Xu
TAIYUAN — My journey to Shanxi on Oct. 1, the first day of the week-long National Day holiday, started in the early hours because the train tickets with more convenient departure times had already sold out.
Located in northern China, Shanxi Province is renowned for its ancient architecture and is home to over 28,000 ancient structures. Its popularity has been boosted recently by the phenomenal video game “Black Myth: Wukong,” which is based on the Chinese classic novel “Journey to the West.”
It was 1:30 a.m. and there were perhaps even more people at the Beijing Fengtai Railway Station than during daytime on normal days. Some of them were returning home, while others were hoping to follow in the footsteps of the Monkey King…
One successful game does not make a trend. The Chinese are still FAR behind the South Koreans when it comes to soft power appeal. AMC Theatres started showing Chinese movies at least a decade ago after it was acquired by Wanda Entertainment, a Chinese company. None of them ever made a splash and the audience was mostly local Chinese population.
https://www.nytimes.com/1983/03/06/books/the-complete-monkey.html
March 6, 1983
The Complete ‘Monkey’
By DAVID LATTIMORE
THE JOURNEY TO THE WEST
Translated and Edited by Anthony C. Yu
IN 1942 Arthur Waley, the foremost British translator of Chinese and Japanese literature, published in England a book called ”Monkey,” an adventurous fantasy paraphrased from certain chapters of an old novel, known in its 16th-century Chinese original as ”Xiyou ji” (”The Journey to the West”). In 1943 – just 40 years ago – there followed an American edition of the Waley book. I turned 12 that year and got a copy for my birthday. I read and reread it; I drew illustrations for it; and for weeks or months I tagged along, in imagination, with its impudent and valiant hero, the Monkey King, as he established his reign over the Cave of the Water Curtain, learned martial and magic arts, extorted a wonder-working cudgel from the Dragon of the Eastern Sea, raided Hell and Heaven, stole Laozi’s elixir, was punished by Buddha and redeemed himself as the faithful (although not very well-behaved) disciple of an absurdly incompetent saint, Tripitaka, with whom he trudged westward to the Vulture Peak in search of holy sutras and shastras – fighting demons all the way, of course. For a boy of 12 it was a delectable introduction to Chinese literature. ”Monkey” is still a minor landmark of 20th-century English translation. Edith Sitwell judged shrewdly its fit of style to matter, praising its ”absence of shadow, like the clearance and directness of Monkey’s mind”; she called it ”a masterpiece of right sound.” …
David Lattimore teaches Chinese at Brown University.
I caught some coverage of the star of that new film…an otherwise lesser known acting professional gets thrust into the spotlight in a whirlwind performance. I forget some details but there were ancient tweeted snippets unearthed that have proven to be…less than ideal to downright spiteful. Hollywood wants authenticity but you can’t be a bigot and share those opinions!
I have little interest in watching the movie Emilia Perez,to be honest. I’ve read a commentary about it and it sounds like something…out of left field. Kind of get the same, or comparable vibes when reading in 2024 about the sudden darling of last season awards , Poor Things.
My own theory is that after the shock of the elections results, that this is Hollywood telling off Trump, the Republicans and everybody else that voted for them and saying what they think of them – which is not much. Hollywood will stick to their “values”, even if fewer and fewer people even want to see the movies that they churn out. And how many people are even bothered watching the Oscars these days anyway?
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/13/movies/emilia-perez-review.html
November 13, 2024
‘Emilia Pérez’ Review: A Crime Boss Who Can Sing and Dance
The star of Jacques Audiard’s showy new musical about a trans Mexican drug lord, Karla Sofía Gascón, adds soul to the melodrama. Zoe Saldaña also shines.
By Manohla Dargis
When you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.
In the floridly off-kilter “Emilia Pérez,” the director Jacques Audiard throws so much at you — gory crime-scene photos, a menacing cartel boss, a singing-and-dancing Zoe Saldaña — that you don’t dare blink, almost. Set largely in present-day Mexico City, the fast-track story follows a beleaguered lawyer, Rita (a very good Saldaña), who’s hired by a powerful drug lord, Manitas (a wonderful Karla Sofía Gascón), for an unusual job. Manitas, who presents as a man but identifies as a woman, wants help with clandestinely obtaining gender-affirming surgery and with tidying up some of the complications that come from a violent enterprise.
Audiard, a French filmmaker and critical favorite with a string of impressive credits, likes changing it up. He’s partial to people and stories on the margins, though is especially drawn to crime stories; much of one of his finest films, “A Prophet,” takes place in prison. He also likes dipping in and out of genres while playing with and, at times, undermining their conventions, embracing an unorthodoxy that can extend to his characters. The protagonist in “The Beat That My Heart Skipped,” for one, is an outright thug but also a would-be concert pianist who, at one point, shows up at a recital bloodied after nearly beating another man to death.
The complications in “Emilia Pérez” emerge in quick succession. After the brisk, eventful opener — featuring a murder trial, an unjust verdict and two musical numbers — Rita is being driven to a secret location by armed strangers, her head shrouded. Before long, she is seated in a truck, face to face with Manitas, a jefe with facial tattoos, a stringy curtain of hair and an ominously threatening whisper. Manitas delivers a staccato, tuneless rap that promises Rita “considerable sums of money” in exchange for her help. “I want to be a woman,” Manitas reveals sotto voce through soft lips and a mouthful of golden teeth…
That is the NYT review.
Now I will share the review from my wife and me. Two people who spent so much of our lives in indie movie screenings that it is hard to fathom now…….
This film was on Netflix. We tried. We got about 10-15 minutes into it and just turned it off. It is just like the rest of the trash that has come out in the “indie” name in the past 5-10 years. There are occasional watchable films that would have been “lesser lights” in the 1990s – but for the most part, these films are just simply unwatchable.
Hollywood is now doing one of two things – 1) Hugely expensive superhero movies that are not addressed to the correct audience. My boys would LOVE a good superhero movie – but this genre is now filled with all kinds of DEI, racial and gender grievance, etc. They are not fun. They are sermons and at times they are downright mean to the core audience. Almost all of my kids best friends are Hispanic – they and their parents are even more scathing than I. 2). Art and indie films that are just unwatchable. They are no longer romantic tales or beautiful getaways into another time and culture – no, again for the most part it is one sermonizing scene after the other. After a few films, viewers have heard all the sermons – and at some point you just get tired of it.
That seems to be extent of what Hollywood is producing recently. But I may not be the best to judge that – we have completely stopped looking into anything new that they are producing for about the past 5 years or so.
Thank goodness, we have almost a century of amazing films and movies for both the kids and me and the wife. To be honest, we do not even pay one bit of attention to the new stuff at the theaters. It is just not watchable – it is not worth the money – and to be frank – it is very depressing to go to a film and only have 5 or so in the audience.
We have spent so much more time in the past several years in the live theaters. I understand from directors like Quentin Tarantino – many auteurs like him have just about given up on cinema too – he is turning his attention to live theater for his next project or two.
And what Hollywood has done in the past 10 years or so to some of our most storied franchises – Star Trek, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, on and on – is almost criminal.
It is obvious that my family is not alone. Just look at the fall off in revenues.
My question is – “Is Hollywood even salvageable at this time?” Those in charge seem to be impervious to the impending implosion and bankruptcy……It is all about the sermon for them.
Not to go too far off tangent, but since you mentioned Star Trek and Quentin Tarantino, in case you never heard about this, a few years ago Tarantino was in talks to develop the next installment in the Star Trek franchise which ultimately never came to life.
Having lost interest in the Star Trek franchise (and movie theaters in general) a long time ago, this was the first thing to come around in a long time that made me hopeful. But, were are living in one of the worst timelines…
What’s the difference between QT directing a Trek film and that stupid JJ Abrams disaster? Turning it over to directors like this is why I stopped paying attention in the first place I don’t give a rat about Tarantino’s vision for Star Trek; the damn show isn’t supposed to be a dystopia.
There is something peculiar about Star Trek: the Federation is basically the PMC utopia. It’s always been that way since Gene Roddenberry’s time and it is always the biggest character in everything Star Trek lurking behind the plot. (Ironically, why “alien” civilizations, generally reduced to some caricature of some human foibles, wind up looking more “human” than alleged humans in Star Trek.) The thing is you can’t have a Star Trek without the Federation and probably not one where the Federation itself (not rogue elements betraying its ideals, but the Federation, its core ideas, and their internal contradictions) is openly challenged. So the entire franchise is hamstrung by its premise.
I sat through three and a half hours of The Brutalist and can say that it is equally bad. It checks all the politically correct boxes to appeal to the Oscar jurors. It is larded with cringeworthy speeches that must have made the actors who delivered them want to hide their heads in shame. The art direction is awful. The story is just not believable. It is the most pretentious pile of warmed over platitudes I have seen in some time. Did I mention that it is three ahd a half hours long?
As with the music industry and the rest of the art world, the goal is not to make a good product and get rich as a side benefit with the understanding that a good product is what the customer wants and even needs; instead they keep crappifying the product to make as much money now instead of for the long term. Aside from pillaging from the past and steal from the future to make money, they also assume that they can make whatever their preferred propaganda is indefinitely and get their customers to pay for it.
I guess I should be happy that the current propagandists decided not to copy the techniques of Birth of a Nation by D. W. Griffith or Leni Riefenstahl‘s Triumph of the Will. Scarily good storytelling in the portrayal of evil as good. There are ways to brainwash people without insulting their intelligence and inflicting awful storytelling. This is another example of just how ignorant and incompetent most of our elites including in business are.
Emilia Pérez is not out of Hollywood, even though it has two major US stars. It’s from France.
And that is why Oscar voters ate it up. France + acclaimed director + supposedly positive depiction of trans and Mexican people (don’t bother talking with actual trans and Mexican people who can explain in detail why the film is offensive especially by glossing over mass murder).
I have only seen bits and pieces but they gave me such extreme cringe I couldn’t bear it. The Spanish is just plain weird. Imagine Mexican and British actors playing Americans in a script by a French person set in the NYC underworld. They say things no one would ever say (my buttery or lardy ass was the no. 1, which sounds as weird in Spanish as in English). It’s like 2005 Google Translate from French.
Anyway, US independent cinema has been amazing for the past few years except for the politics which has to be bad or the movie won’t get made.
Doc, Star Wars and Inanity Jones are part of the problematic idea-void which has led to this endless series of stodge-filled, neolib sequels. For a good night’s viewing try a double bill of Treasure of Sierra Madre and The Wages of Fear (both available for free via archive.org). I would love to read your review!
Kind of like Amazon’s LotR prequel series, where the first thing I noticed is how multicultural it is, or Last of Us, where they have two one hour episodes basically devoted to gay and lesbian relationships out of an 8? episode season. Maybe it was 10.
It gets to the point where you just can’t watch stuff anymore. It is just so excessive anymore.
It’s impossible to keep up with everything getting published in fiction markets, but my perception, from reading the blurbs for the fiction books that get the most publicity, is that the sermonizing is widespread in novels and short stories now. Presumably because that’s what the publishers are looking for. Of course there is a niche market for every kind of countercultural fiction–in this case meaning fiction that pushes values contrary to the mainstream PMC culture, not fiction related to the 1960s counterculture in whatever diminished and attenuated form that might still exist. But this is not what gets an advertising budget and publicity. The PMC favored morality tales are the beneficiaries of those.
I will pick on “The New Yorker”. It is celebrating 100 years very soon.
For years of my life, I read their fiction pieces every week. I also read most of their long form journalism. And the truly wondrous part of that magazine was the cover every week – at times really made you think about what was going on in the world. They were opinion pieces done by very clever artists to really make the viewer ponder difficult issues.
In the past 5-10 years or so, the magazine has basically fallen apart at the seams. The fiction pieces are largely unreadable – not because I do not like to be challenged, I do, it is just completely unreadable. There are either “pronoun” issues – in fiction they/them can be very very confusing – or the pieces suffer from what I call “emoji capture” using jargon that not only I do not know – but certainly readers 50 years from now would never recognize thus making the work instantly dated and very likely to be completely forgotten over time. Both the fiction and the long form articles are now suffused with sermonizing. This has all been done by the DEI pronoun crowd – and this will not age well. And it is very sad to readers who knew what The New Yorker once was.
One of my prized professions is a DVD set that The New Yorker put out circa 2000 AD – to celebrate the turn of the century – with every single issue. I pore over these alot nowadays – I print them out – reading fiction from their stable of truly incredible writers. Or long form journalism about things that happened then that still resonate today. Just yesterday, I read a long piece about The Dead Sea Scrolls from the 1950s. And their writing actually meant something unlike now. And the covers are just spectacular – along with the truly clever cartoons spread all around. The Addams Family, anyone? I look over these issues – and remember good times as a young person talking about Woody Allen, Cheever, and Updike with my dad. I would be embarrassed to even discuss one paragraph of this modern fiction with my own sons today. It is truly a shame what the woke pronoun crowd has done to our culture. It really is. I often wonder what the Cheevers, Vidals, Updikes, Vonneguts would make of this whole mess.
>>>I often wonder what the Cheevers, Vidals, Updikes, Vonneguts would make of this whole mess.
It’s likely that those writers would question if modern writing is storytelling at all or at least if it was done by adults who have had the experiences, a life, needed to be able to be a good writer. If nothing else, the ability to put yourself in the place of another person, place, or time, is necessary for the best writing, but if all you do is lecture others and think yourself wonderful, eschewing everything excepting your post-post modern, neoliberal, superficial, cultural mush, it is hard to write good stories. Or to understand other people who are not just like you. This does explain why I feel stupider after watching or reading the latest hot whatever.
I often wonder what the Cheevers, Vidals, Updikes, Vonneguts would make of this whole mess.
Cheever didn’t even like what the America of the 1950s had become. He wrote once: –
“The decade began for me with more promise than I can remember from my earliest youth. The war was over. Most of its reverberations were (for me) ended … I could work in peace. However, halfway through the decade, something went terribly wrong.
‘The most useful image I have today is of a man in a quagmire, looking into a tear in the sky. I am not speaking here of despair, but of confusion. I fully expected the trout streams of my youth to fill up with beer cans and the meadows to be covered with houses; I may even have expected to be separated from most of my moral and ethical heritage; but the forceful absurdities of life today find me unprepared. Something has gone very wrong, and I do not have the language, the imagery, or the concepts to describe my apprehensions.
‘I come back again to the quagmire, the torn sky’.
Come to think of it, Vidal and Vonnegut had a hard time liking it, too.
In any case, as far as current New Yorker fiction, what’s bad about a lot of it seems to me to be the dull-mindedness and ineptitude — and in the last one I read the pointlessness — of it, not so much the ‘woke pronoun’ thing.
Also: yes, it was a lot better back in the day, but the cliche about the ‘typical New Yorker’ short story often being a East Coast slice-of-nothing was not without basis. The Golden Ages of our youth were never as golden as we older folks like to imagine them now
IM Doc: One of my prized professions is a DVD set that The New Yorker put out circa 2000 AD – to celebrate the turn of the century – with every single issue.
I have that very same DVD. Though it’s in storage in California as I’ve based myself in London for the last three years.
In any case, I now feel a little unfair for picking only on the New Yorker’s tendency towards Updike and sub-Updike stuff. It also printed two of the most powerful, harrowing short stories I ever read, both by the now-passed Robert Stone, a great American writer who’s insufficiently remembered, I suspect.
The Robert Stone stories are ‘Miserere’ and ‘Helping.’
Also, the New Yorker published all the prime short stories of Denis Johnson — also passed — such as those that went into Jesus’s Son, in their time. So credit where credit is due.
Though also, yes, the New Yorker now sure ain’t publishing anything that comes within a light year of such stuff.
>>>But the cliche about the ‘typical New Yorker’ short story often being an East Coast slice-of-nothing was not without basis.
Well, I am willing to give them that, it is called “The New Yorker” after all.
My mom subscribed to MAD magazine and the New Yorker back in the 60’s, both with cartoons in common, although it took me longer to appreciate the latter’s efforts.
I let my New Yorker subscription lapse about 7 years ago after maybe 40 years, truth be said I don’t think I ever read an entire issue ever except when taking a copy on a backpack trip, but there was always something of interest every week, and then something changed, the slant towards the Donkey Show et al turned me off, and nominally i’m a Democrat, albeit a lapsed one.
The overwhelming impression I get is that to the younger PMC types (and wannabes), history is irrelevant, because the values of those born since the mid-1970s, and especially since the mid-1990s, are the universal, true values that everyone throughout time and across geography has always secretly acknowledged but were too oppressed in the past to be able to express. And any instances of people in the past, especially writers, expressing “problematic” opinions means those people were evil and should be either forgotten completely or only remembered as bad examples.
The idea that people had different values at one time, for reasons that were valid to them, though they may be difficult to understand now, is very threatening, because it implies that people may again have different values in the future. The PMC really wants that End of History narrative to be true, where we have reached the perfect state of enlightenment all previous generations have aspired to. The past is the present is the future. It’s even apparent in little things, like younger readers not being able to tolerate older novels where everyone doesn’t have an iPhone. That would be like me saying Thomas Hardy or Herman Melville were no good because their characters didn’t have televisions in their homes.
Re Hollywood movies: I enjoy watching junkie movies in cinemas because I like eating popcorn while watching a film on the big screen. I get the largest bag possible and sit down to enjoy the corn/movie combo. My 12, 13, 14, now 15 year old great nephew and I go to the current blockbusters every summer (The Flash, Latest Raiders of the Lost Ark product, various Marvels, one with Emily Blunt and Ryan something about a stuntman, others I forget). Also saw Gladiator 2 in November (massive quantity of popcorn at that one-yum!) and a remake of Dracula last Christmas. Unfortunately they were all outright bad: bad acting, bad script, special effects were good though. It wasn’t even due to irritating PMC scolding because I don’t recall any. Even my 14 year old great nephew found them bad last year. Can’t say I know why this has happened.
Despite this, I would recommend Hitman. I did enjoy it – great twist at the end.
re: EMILIA PEREZ / movie industry
I had initially a longer comment but cut that for now. Instead here further reading:
HARPERS 2024 on Hollywood´s crisis
The Life and Death of Hollywood
Film and television writers face an existential threat
https://archive.is/aLTta
VARIETY 2023 with a short excerpt from paywall:
How Austerity Is Shaping the New Streaming Content Strategy
https://archive.is/rus9x
VARIETY 2024 on Paramount´s failure:
What Went Wrong: Inside Paramount’s Failed Merger Talks and the Battle to Salvage the Company
https://archive.is/Om6wT
VARIETY 2024 on plummeting DVD-sales (of course for 2 decades they made insane profits with the format)
The DVD Biz Has Circled the Drain for Years. In 2024, It Goes Down the Tubes
https://archive.is/vVocq
THE NATION 2024 on the demise of MARVEL movies
The Rise and Fall of the Marvel Cinematic Universe
https://archive.is/4zGt6
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 2024 about the satire “THE FRANCHISE” which addresses the demise of superhero movies
How Superhero Franchise Movies Lost Their Way: “It’s Actual Chaos”
https://archive.is/3LPdc
Example of how an indie company can grow with investors´money via Thrive Capital, the company of Josh Kushner , brother of Jared Kushner. A 24 is the company that made „Civil War“ and „Zone of Interest“ e.g.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A24
Money doesn´t stink.
See film historian Kristin Thompson on A24 in 2024
A24: A company of interest
https://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2024/10/16/a24-a-company-of-interest/
Her site is highly recommended to all those who want to learn more about film. May be similarly important as NC in its own field. However sadly one of the couple doing it died last year, seminal film historian David Bordwell.
Or this on the general cultural divisions in the film industry as seen by academic insiders
Where the movie lovers are: A guest post by Matt St. John and Zachary Zahos
https://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2024/09/16/where-the-movie-lovers-are-a-guest-post-by-matt-st-john-and-zachary-zahos/
What’s hollywood doing?
Judging by my periodic assessment of my wife’s netflix viewing habits…there’s a wave of intel agency-glorifying crappy spy action series hitting the streaming world.
Intel agency glorifying is not something I can write or suggest, for a recently produced mini series I have started on Paramount streaming app. The series, “Waco” was produced for their television channel and it released in 2018. For those unfamiliar with David Koresh and the events that occurred in spring of 1993, well a show of force and will from a then early 1st term Clinton administration caused a lot big national headlines.
And as for what is Hollywood doing, well look here there is Yet Another MCU movie being released this coming weekend…ugh, make it stop but they won’t. I do suppose the film Wicked was an entertaining film but I don’t think such films are, generally, gonna get my interest.
On Netflix, I suggest “Wormwood”, an Errol Morris docudrama about the ‘suicide’ (possibly murder) of a scientist who was working with the CIA. An unflattering portrait of the CIA, military, and the U.S. government generally.
The Best Picture Oscars are voted on by all members and thus become a kind of opinion poll of the film industry. They should not therefore be taken very seriously as a measure of merit and that reaches back to the beginning. Which is not to say that sometimes the best film really does win.
Nikki Finke of Deadline used to say that everyone in Hollywood really hates the show and the competitive stresses that go with it but it is considered necessary promotion for careers and the industry. Meanwhile even the trade magazine house organs like Variety have been noting how this promotional purpose has lost the thread and how film production itself is deserting Los Angeles. The world moves on.
«Which is not to say that sometimes the best film really does win.»
My thought exactly.
Notice how little sway actors and actresses have these days when yapping about national matters, etc.?
As a medium, it had its heyday in the 20th century. The LA Infernos were a sad exclamation point in that regard.
One of my favorite Donald Fagen songs, Century’s End
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlu9Ho-Wiw0
pure sarcasm from Steely Dan – I.G.Y. – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ueivjr3f8xg&t=4s
Maybe the demographic on this blog isn’t exactly the target audience for a film like Emilia Perez. Maybe nobody is lol. I thought it was pretty clever and the songs okay… but not an Oscar sweep. I watch a _lot_ of contemporary indie movies and enjoy maybe one of ten. The A24 movies are some of my favorites. Last year I was really into “I Saw the TV Glow”, which sort of had a queer theme but was also a throwback to the handmade, cheap esthetic of 80s-90s gay indies, which I thought it did really well. I liked “The Substance” too but it took me a while to appreciate it. It’s actually kind of Lovecraftian, and the make up effects are way over the top, which is pretty far out for a mainstream indie, with big star talent. Margaret Qually is sure to make a best actress level film very soon. She’s awesome.
I like Qualley too. She’s the daughter of Andie MacDowell who grew up (Andie not Qualley) in nearby Gaffney, SC. For those want to know more
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Qualley
Gaffney is known for its giant peach water tower which may or may not look like a butt and as the home of the fictional Frank Underwood in House of Cards.
my note is late and will most likely not rise to the surface of anyone’s attention – but I’ll agree with you Bugs, it was entertaining. I liked it – but then I watch a lot of opera and it was the first time I’ve seen anyone crash an opera and a movie together
I watched as if Rita, the attorney, was “one of us” and bewildered by Manitas. As operas go, find the allegory. I watched as if Manitas was the United States – violent and insane, trapped by his own history – and any attempt at reconciliation/repentance leaves one dead in the trunk of an exploding car.
And let’s not surf the comments of people that weren’t asked to participate – it’s a movie.
The music is superb as are most of the visuals. To each his own
The 1979 version is better, in my opinion.
I haven´t seen Perez, but in arts – if Oscars qualify as that I leave aside for now – none of the points above
“a French film about a Mexican drug lord that becomes trans and is also a musical with crappy songs. The French hate it, the Mexicans hate it and the Trans people hate it too but Hollywood has given it 13 Oscar nominations which puts it up there with films like ‘Gone With The Wind’, ‘Forrest Gump’, ‘Mary Poppins’ and ‘The Lord of the Rings.’-
are an argument for or against “da movie”.
Jacques Audiard is an old horse of French film industry (*1952). He has been a screenwriter like his Dad for many decades before he directed rather later in life. His 2021 “Les Olympiades, Paris 13e” was among his best films since „De battre mon coeur s’est arrêté“ (2005) which made a first big international splash and among the best works of the admittedly difficult Covid era.
You could argue he tries to connect shady working/lower class realities („Un prophète“ (2009) or „De rouille et d’os“ (2012), ” Dheepan” (2015) with a surreal moment. Combining contradictory genres and tonalities – something btw that was done in old Hollywood on a regular basis, well before New Hollywod´s real-life doctrine eclipsed all this.
The clips that are available are not a good sign. But I can´t contradict nor agree with the negative assessments here so far.
Thank you, Lambert.
Readers in the UK may be enjoying Starmer’s latest headache, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14377427/Labour-pressure-sack-SECOND-MP-Labour-vile-WhatsApp-Andrew-Gwynne.html?ito=native_share_article-nativemenubutton.
One suggestion is that Gwynne was traded to protect the dear leader from a second allegation of philandering, this time with a voice coach, with a covid lockdown violation and hypocrisy for good measure. This is like Rory Calhoun being sold to protect Rock Hudson.
Jamais deux sans trois…
The reference to Rayner is encouragement for the tabloids to investigate her, ahem, colourful private life. Starmer is the creature of the Blair machine. His office is dominated by Mandelson and Blair placemen and women. He has no organisation and support base of his own, which he recognises, and fears the ambitious Streeting, a Mandelson creation, and Rayner, hence the reliance on Reeves. She has her own team.
‘One suggestion is that Gwynne was traded to protect the dear leader from a second allegation of philandering, this time with a voice coach’
Thank you, Colonel. Security protection services often used code names for who they are protecting and here are some for former US Presidents-
https://www.britannica.com/list/secret-service-code-names-of-11-us-presidents
I could suggest a code name for that “voice coach” but it would probably get me a strike here. :)
Thank you, Rev.
It feels terminal in Blighty, hence arranging to jump ship and go to the land of my ancestors.
For the Colonel, a highly promising new home. Political leaders in Mauritius understand the need for productive investment, while UK political leaders evidently have no such understanding:
https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/weo-database/2024/October/weo-report?c=684,&s=NGDP_RPCH,PPPGDP,PPPPC,NID_NGDP,NGSD_NGDP,PCPIPCH,GGXWDG_NGDP,BCA_NGDPD,&sy=2017&ey=2024&ssm=0&scsm=1&scc=0&ssd=1&ssc=0&sic=0&sort=country&ds=.&br=1
October 15, 2024
Mauritius, 2017-2024
Real GDP, percent change
GDP, purchasing power parity *
GDP per capita, ppp
Investment, percent of GDP
Savings, percent of GDP
Inflation rate, percent change
General government gross debt, percent of GDP
Current account balance, percent of GDP
* Billions of ppp dollars
Thank you, CA.
We should meet when I get there.
It is Super Bowl Sunday in America. Make your spread and place your bets, we still have bread and circuses to distract us from any or much of the world’s real concerns or questions… Don’t Stop Believing…hold onto that feeling….
“Capitalism and materialism for the W tonight, Jim! Make that guacamole, plan to travel, buy that Ford and consume much beers and liquors…”
Prepare your finest meats and cheeses. Will the mystery illness sweeping the Eagles collect this year’s MVP trophy. What of Deadly ‘super fog’ threatens Super Bowl Sunday in New Orleans, Daily Mail? Fog Bowl II? That would seem to favor the running game.
Hmmm…. A Super Fog in an inside stadium. Have they waived the anti-smoking rules this year?
Fog? Fog did you say? Did you ever hear of the soccer match played in England back in 1937. After the game kicked of, heavy fog rolled in reducing visibility to zip. One goalkeeper kept staring into the heavy fog in case the opponents got to his end so he could defend his goal but then-
‘The game went unusually silent but Sam remained at his post, peering into the thickening fog from the edge of the penalty area. And he wondered why the play was not coming his way.
“After a long time,” he wrote, ‘a figure loomed out of the curtain of fog in front of me. It was a policeman, and he gaped at me incredulously. “What on earth are you doing here?” he gasped. “The game was stopped a quarter of an hour ago. The field’s completely empty’. And when I groped my way to the dressing-room, the rest of the Charlton team, already out of the bath and in their civvies, were convulsed with laughter.”‘
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Bartram
Lol, correct you are of course. The roof coming down is probably a greater threat to the circus.
Got me thinking that maybe DOGE will be bring back indoor smoking.
And let us not get into exactly what is being smoked. N’Awleenz has a long, storied history of “alternative smoking substances” usage.
My belief: Chiefs by 2, after being behind 10.
I’ve always liked the long-odds but plausible prop bets:
What odds can I get on Donny T being droned by Vance’s owners, sorry I meant by evil Chinese, in a dramatic event to kickstart the next war?
I wouldn’t want to be travelling to the Big Easy over this weekend, to be fair. A super duper event like this football game and combine it with many of the celebrities across sports, across entertainment, and then throw into that mix a very highly polarizing political figure who happens to be our 47th President. Sorry to say this… Eagles by 100. Go away at last ( ha ha ) sorta joking and sorta not joking
Even Gerard Butler* could not do a screenwriting for that fictional scenario…I checked on the average ticket price which rings at $5,658….can I pay for them tickets in Bitcoin? \sarc
*Olympus has fallen, etc..
My folks lived in New Orleans East before Katrina. There’s a lakefront airport there by Lake Pontchartrain. For super bowl the Gulfstreams would be parked wing-tip to wing-tip. I much preferred Sugar Bowl. For that you got the waves of RVs coming in (“How ’bout them dawgs!”). The college fans were much more fun down in the quarter.
For the foily out there, NFL is rigged. Officiating favors Cheeves with video to prove it. Today’s script says Travis proposes to Taylor after Cheeves’ victory. This used to be America’s religion per Howard Cassell. Now it’s just bu$iness as usual. Seems the Gambling tail is wagging the NFL dog.
Professional football in America has gone to NFHELL.
With so much gambling on sports now, I’ve always wondered how much it would take to fix the Super Bowl (or the Grey Cup, for that matter). Professional sports seems to have forgotten the Black Sox scandal of 1919.
Super Bowl Sunday? Now that’s a major soccer game, isn’t it?
It is really an excuse to throw an all day party. Our neighbour is down in Mobile for the day helping his employer throw a Super Bowl Party for about thirty or so guests. He asks us to “keep an eye” on his place whenever he will be staying away from home base. He did so Friday afternoon, with the annual Super Bowl Party as the explanation for the request.
“I’ll be back Monday evening after work.”
Stay safe.
My prediction for the game is: Madison Avenue +$200,000,000 – The Public -$2,000,000,000.
I fully realize chances of a blimp attacking the Superbowl are small on account of it being held in a domed stadium, but on any given Sunday…
Black Sunday (8/8) Movie CLIP – Crashing the Super Bowl (1977) HD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xknWZIAzBCc
Here in the Aloha state the game comes on at 1:30. I much prefer that start time and don’t have to worry about drunks out on the highway. My tradition has been to do a one hour bike ride before sunset after the game. Usually pretty quiet.
It was a good first quarter for team D.O.G.E., as they pounded the ball down the throats of team Donkey, taking an early 21-0 lead.
In the second quarter, the Donkeys adjusted somewhat to the “flood-the-zone” offense by switching from a prevent defense to a judicial blitz, with mixed results. Judge Engelmayer notched a sack of QB Elon Musk, but other attempts to slow down the D.O.G.E. onslaught failed in the courts.
Halftime entertainment awaits, with rapper “Flo rida” performing along with a twerking Lizzo.
“Low by Flo Rida”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlJSHtdxRG4
“Truth Hurts” Lizzo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JQq74aWCBA
The game’s outcome could come down to an obscure third-string long snapper: Mike Johnson. Johnson has to execute the difficult “Swamp maneuver” by ripping the ball away from the D.O.G.E. Field Goal kicker as he attempts to put the game away with a short FG. Although Johnson wears the same uniform as team D.O.G.E., many commentators and NFL analysts suspect that he is really playing for Team Donkey.
The long-term outlook? If Mahomes continues to win Super Bowls at the rate he has in his first six years as a starter, he would win 10 Super Bowls if he played as long as Brady. Now such projections can evaporate for a variety of reasons–consider Tiger Woods–but his career has been remarkable so far.
Its gonna be one of those awfully boring Superbowls, KC 34 Philly 6.
When it was 21-0 in the first quarter, Chiefs players started hugging one another in wild celebration, bring on the ring!
The TV commercials pretty much suck too, from what i’ve read.
In a surprise move, Taylor sings a song during the halftime show, and then plays a down versus the Eagles on the field in the 3rd quarter, runs for a couple with Travis blocking in front of her.
I almost had that right, except for the Eagles in a blowout.
I can’t wait for puppy bowl, i’ll be watching that for about an hour. Other than that, let the sportsball people watch sportsball.
The ten minute high light videos on you tube are watchable. In the AFC championship Kelce did not score and so there was no Swift in the high light.
We may get treated to the super billionaire spewing his propaganda.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/sports/nfl/news/reports-suggest-elon-musk-might-spend-40m-on-super-bowl-ads-targeting-government-waste/articleshow/118089210.cms
Drinking game possibilities?
How many times cameras pan to Trump.
How many times cameras pan to Swift.
How many times cameras pan to Kelce
If Philly wins, will Trump get camera time to claim the game was rigged?
From The Hill:
DOGE officials home in on Medicare, Medicaid offices
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/5129158-elon-musk-cms-access/
“Just tell us where the ketamine is stored dammit”
Lol, “Home in”, from the video embedded in Collin Rugg’s tweet above, from the 0:55 mark, “One of Musk’s top Lieutenants and his wife and young child have shacked up on the sixth floor of our agency and are living there”.
Maybe that is the solution to America’s homeless problem, appoint them to DOGE.
Why AI Is A Philosophical Rupture
Ah, but can you build an AI that is unburdened by what has been?
I’d love to see that, as that would kill AI. What has been is the entire training set, unburden that and AI is nothing.
” Trump confirms call with Putin, says Russian leader wants Ukraine war to end: Report”
So Putin wants the war to end to stop the killing while Trump wants the war to stop so he can get ahold of the Ukraine’s rare earths – or so he says. Trump has been throwing some really wild figures out about this war which he is probably getting from Mike Waltz and ex-general Kellog, both of whom seems to be getting their info from the Ukrainians. But if Trump goes into a negotiation with the Russians using that bogus info, he is really going to undermine his position.
Biden left Trump $5 billion in the kitty to pay for the war in the Ukraine which Trump seems to be spending. But when that money runs out, is he really going to go to Congress and ask for billions more which would really put him off-side with his MAGA base? Or will he walk away and say ‘Not my war’ and let the Europeans deal with that mess. Does he even realize what a tar baby the Ukraine actually is?
This sounds exactly like something Putin would say. He would also add that Trump’s super-hypersonic technology trumps Putin’s vanilla-hypersonic one, and that he envies Trump’s hairline.
“two million”
So he’s still pretending the Russians have lost a million?
The other day he said 700,000 + 800,000, so he must have recieved freshly updated numbers (and maybe added in the Middle East too).
The Russians should say – right now if not years ago – that return of its seized assets plus interest plus penalties for the illegal act, plus written formal acknowledgement that these seizures were illegal, and 100% termination of all sanctions are required before any negotiations. And then, a 6 year waiting period starting when these demands are fully implemented by all western nations. 6 yrs to insure some new and different US President decides to reverse any of the required conditions. In the meantime, Putin really does need to let the Russian military like, you know, actually WIN the war.
I like this plan. The West can continue negotiating with itself and stuff.
You forgot the acknowledgement of the American guilt for Nordstream and the public prosecution of the perpetrators from top to bottom in Germany (that is, to be shown to the German and other European public).
The call did not happen.
See TASS. Peskov going through hoops not to say Trump is lying or nuts. https://tass.com/politics/1910515
No Kremlin readout. No White House readout.
In keeping, no Anglosphere outlet like NYT, WaPo, FT, WSJ, has re-reported the NY Post when they normally would.
NY Post does not have that “exclusive” on its landing page, as one would expect.
Or this tweet:
So I am beginning to think Trump really has lost his mind. It’s hard to come up with any other explanation. You don’t make yourself look so absolutely bonkers in front of Putin and official Russia just for (say) domestic Big Man posturing and/or messing with Zelensky’s head.
Update 11:50 AM: The Hill just now reported on the call, many hours after the Post published, but only as the Post saying Trump said they spoke.
The only alternative I can come up with is they had a chat on the basis that the fact of the call would be confidential, and then Trump broke the deal. That would be consistent with Peskov squirming.
And even though the odds of negotiations getting beyond an initial tea and cookies session is about zero, this sort of stunt would confirm that Americans are top to bottom liars.
The Ukrainian right apparently puts great stock in the ‘fact’ that Trump spoke with Putin before Zelensky, and prior to Vance’s visit. They are viewing it as a very bad sign for Z and their reign. That might be the purpose, or a benefit that dissuaded either side from correcting the story.
Right. As I said, the only semi-sensible explanation is Trump mades this up to mess with Zelensky. But that corners the Kremlin into not denying it because pressuring Zelensky advances their aims, but they still must be furious that Trump would pull this stunt without their consent. I wonder if Peskov tap dancing was due to Putin saying the Russian equivalent of: “I gave you this big job to sort out hairballs like this, don’t ask me what to do.”
Aren’t there a couple of wise guys that call up world leaders and pretend they’re somebody important? And get their victims to say embarrassing stuff? I seem to remember reading a story about that a few months back. Maybe they called Trump and pretended to be Putin. I mean, so much of everything else going on in the Empire is fake, why not?
‘The only alternative I can come up with is they had a chat on the basis that the fact of the call would be confidential, and then Trump broke the deal.’
Macron did that with Putin and even had French reporters listening in to the call because that is what international leaders do. After that Putin wrote Macron off.
It’s okay if Trump gets Article 25’d. Vance’s pair of strong hands is right there waiting to pick up the Presidency and run with it.
I imagine the entire Trump crew would want to make Trump last out the first 2 years and a day, so that Vance can be President for Trump’s last 2 years minus a day, and then 2 more 4-year terms after that. Maybe that’s what Kamalabama Harris was hoping for herself, in her own sad loser way. But Vance is made of sterner stuff, and it could happen for him.
The Europeans are going to end up holding the worse than empty bag which is the Ukrainian fiasco.
A brief history of the rise and fall of oligarchy, once called plutocracy, in America.
The Rise and Fall of Oligarchies in American History
https://essayx.substack.com/p/the-rise-and-fall-of-oligarchies
An interesting and rather brief article, worth scanning through…I am likely repeating but I have shared previously about an excellent book discussing that supposed gilded era of the most famous robber barons that were named…the book titled “The Tycoons” gets into some interesting history on the trends for industry and the rise of American might in manufacturing.
For our more modern times….I just wonder out loud where or when historians would mark the beginning of our current period that sees the rising of these modern capitalists and super wealthy elite…it’s more than Musk or Bezos. There is the family behind the LVMH retailing empire, the Walton family, private hedge funders like Ken Griffin or Steve Cohen….the listing goes on, and on.
When we find ourselves as a society now, where laws have changed, and goal posts frequently updated for what can be marked as “private enrichment and personal gains” by many in our national seats of power ( Nancy, Mitch, the recently departed Diane Feinstein )…What comes next just shouldn’t become so shocking I suppose but my views are nuanced. In hindsight, the Bushes were always going to have theirs regardless and the Obama’s were able to get their just reward once the second term was completed. A presidential library is funded and built!
At the ripe age of 52, I realize I just didn’t do capitalism right, though I tried hard ! \sarc
I’d suggest that the election of Ronald Reagan marked the start of the age of the super-rich. That’s when huge tax cuts took place. Rules were changed to support the vulture capitalists. Reagan talked nice to the unions then fired them and worked against the unions. The public was fed a line of BS about trickle down economics while the tax code was changed to favor the rich.
Re Super Bowl, it is maybe the last annual event that we mostly share as a nation here in the US. Outside of the fans the game itself isn’t that important, but lots of other people tune in for the commercials, for the half-time show, or attend parties for the food and drink and company. Come Monday most people will know who won, what was the funniest commercial, maybe something about the halftime show.
I’d accept that….a mere quibble is that regulated industry was starting to be “looser” as the Carter administration was ending. I do think the effort to beat inflation by Volcker was a requirement, which on hindsight did wreck what remained a fragile auto dealership my father ran ( fwiw it had to close ). So….thats a lasting memory from the 1st term under RR. Hey the mid to late 80s might have been a boom but I could not with certainty that was real or true, growing up in rural eastern NC.
I’d put it more with the passing of NAFTA, the liberal interpretation of option valuations that really began in earnest under the 8 years of a Clinton administration.
Interesting article but I was a bit disappointed, upon reflection regarding how much was glossed over.
The article implies that the FDR period was the only time of significant reforms, yet what about earlier essential fights against oligarchs? Sherman Anti-Trust Act for example. As I learn more I have recognized that there has always been periods of turmoil in American history, much of which has been whitewashed from history.
Jackson vs Second (?) Bank of United States?
Civil Service reforms during the Arthur administration?
The Civil War? 13-15th amendments?
From AP on flu season, Advice (?)
“To avoid seasonal viruses, doctors say you should avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth because germs can spread that way. You should also wash your hands with soap and water, clean frequently touched surfaces and avoid close contact with people who are sick.”
Bangs head on desk, for Lambert and Yves
Well everybody knows that when you have the flu making the annual rounds, that the very first thing that you should do is to wash your hands more often.
But to quote somebody from the internet, ‘They told me to follow the Science but when I did, I found nothing. But when I followed the money, that is when I found the Science.’
Why am I not shocked about what ‘doctors’ say?
If I was a Federal employee being grilled by barely 20 year olds in the Dorkuemada, I just might lose composure during the inquisition.
…does Dork-a-MAGA sound more apt?
A 20 year old-can really get high on a combination of hubris and unqualified power over people’s lives. I mentioned the other day that this also happened in Victoria in Oz about 30 years ago when a hard-right government came to power there. Only difference is that the people doing the questioning back then were not recent high school graduates.
I certainly knew more about everything than anybody else when I was 20…
Adlai Stevenson
Thanks for that.
A long time ago, the quote used to be this. (attributed to Mark Twain)
Clearly, yetsterday’s 14 is today’s 20. Yesterday’s 21 is now 40? 50?
Not sure that applies to coders. There are numerous fields in which most people’s best work comes before they’re thirty. Not just heavy mental lifting like mathematics or coding; I’ve noticed that 20 year-old ditchdiggers are remarkably more productive than their 50-year-old coworkers despite the experience gap.
Part of me thinks okay it’s readily believable but also it does sound a bit too…. farcical. My leading doubt is, this is by one unnamed supervisor at what looks like an auditorium where such an event might be staged. Why bother at all and just, instead submit another mass email to request their mass departure? It’s pretty clear there isn’t much about to write home about the alleged “human” in human resources anymore…
As a former employee of two private employers that at separate intervals, politely but firmly advised that I was to be let go well I knew the rules of the place when I started. It ain’t fun at all, losing a job but it is decidedly better fun to leave one job, start at a new employer and see your annual salary go up and rightward.
“Part of me thinks okay it’s readily believable but also it does sound a bit too…. farcical.”
LOL. Famous last words.
I remember this from TCM a long time ago. Can check it out here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fozufGZubYc&ab_channel=Teddysk89/
Wild in the Streets / 1968
Enjoy for free:
Shelly Winters – having a good ole time
Christopher Jones – doing his best James Dean
Hal Holbrook – trying to bring some gravitas
Richard Pryor – small supporting role, but I think a movie debut
Swap Ketamine for LSD and have a wild ride of a remake.
But most of all…check out the Democrat vs Republican dynamic and how the band does their takeover.
Famous last words…There is or could be a homemade list*, by Presidents and elected leaders…I may indeed eat my words and I don’t follow anyone on the X platform as it is. I figure Rugg might be a bloviating mouth piece but I can’t say for certain. Maybe someone aspiring to perhaps fill Joe Rogan’s position someday if ever? IDK.
Mission Accomplished.
The Pandemic is Ended.
It’ll be a magnificent wall, and Mexico will pay for it.
We must pass the bill first, and then find out what’s in it.
If you like your doctor or provider, you get to keep them.
Read my lips, no new taxes
It depends on what the meaning of the word “is”…is.
It has been noted in the past the hostility that Republicans have for government specialist witnesses such as meteorologists, even when there is no need for it. And this goes back years. When the Republicans were recruiting people for jobs with the new Coalition Provisional Authority after Iraq was invaded, if you could speak the language or knew the history of the region, you were straight out the door. But those Bush-era recruiters would often ask those recruits how they felt about Roe-Wade because they would totally need to know this while running Iraq. You had one kid fresh out of college that was given the job of setting up the Iraq stock exchange but in a digital form. This was of course when electricity supplies were dodgy because the Coalition could never get it working, no matter how many billions they threw at the problem. With Trump in power again and him having DOGE, this is the prefect opportunity for the Republicans to get rid of all those government specialists they hate so much.
This is a great point, worth underlining. Philip Mirowski’s work, thinking of Hell is Truth Seen Too Late in particular here, which talks in part about Hayek’s Mont Pelerin Society, and their child, modern libertarianism, does a great job of arguing that this kind of conservatism is anti-specialist. The thread basically goes that the market, the great information processor, is smarter than any expert therefore individual expertise should be shunned from the decision making process and stripped of power.
It just so happens that it also works to their advantage that they get to claim the mandate of heaven, “we speak for the market,” and no one can claim to contradict them, as the market is claimed smarter than any individual.
It also buttresses the claim that in their world, freedom is the freedom to participate in the market, no more, no less.
From my point of view as a retired career bureaucrat who had policy-level authority, I would have welcomed any opportunity to respond to any official auditor (whether 20 years old or 60) asking me to explain and justify the work I had been doing.
The caveat here is that the auditor’s report must faithfully convey what I explained to a top-level decider. A 20-year-old can’t be the decider.
I was trained that if you couldn’t explain something within a clear two-page memo, most likely no one above you would read it. Thus, you’d fail to convince the people above you who needed to understand it.
So, fifteen minutes would have offered safely enough time for me to explain, justify and convince someone about the net value of what I was doing. If I couldn’t do that, then I’d think that either the job wasn’t worth doing, I should be doing something else, or that I was an incompetent explainer. I felt that I always had to be ready to explain what I was doing at a Joe Sixpack level of clarity.
The loss of that ability and its replacement by “trust me, I have credentials. (and if you don’t trust me, there’s something wrong with you)” mentality probably lies at the root of many of our troubles in the current age.
WWLD
And they’d have their security guards ready to escort you out of the room and off the premises. Followed by a quick termination from employment.
I wonder who those security guards work for. I wonder who they think they work for. If they think they work for ” the President”, then ” the President wants you gone right now” will be enough for them.
So I’ve laid out here before how I’ve been a Chiefs fan since I was a ten year-old farmboy growing up 30 miles north of K.C., and how I suffered through 50 years with one divisional playoff win. With that history, today is rather surreal to think about the Chiefs accomplishing a Threepeat, reaching five franchise championships, tying them with the legendary 49ers and Cowboys, but on the other hand, K.C. being in the Super Bowl has become almost routine.
To those rooting against the Chiefs, don’t get too excited if the Eagles get a 10-point lead on the Chiefs. The boys in red have fallen behind by 10 points in every recent Super Bowl win, including the one against the Eagles two years ago. Mahomes’s three comebacks from a double digit Super Bowl deficit tops Brady’s two such wins. Brees and Doug Williams are the only two quarterbacks to have done it otherwise. There’s one way to beat the Chiefs and their collection of playmakers: build up a 3-score lead by the 4th quarter.
It should be a fun game with lots of amazing plays by both teams and plenty of interesting chess moves and adjustments between the coaches. I’ll be watching it with my spouse, two of our kids and three grandkids, and this time, no one will be rooting for the Chiefs’ opponent like the two years when my son was cheering for the 49ers who have been his team since he became a fan playing Steve Young and Jerry Rice is Tecmo Bowl as a child.
I’ll be thinking back to January 15, 1967 when I hosted what I claim is one of the first Super Bowl parties. My 8th grade buddies and I were limited to pop and chips, the game went sideways in the second half, and Vince Lombardi was an a-hole in the post-game press conference, but it was still amazing to see a K.C. team in a big game that drew national attention–and three years later, they’d come back and teach the old NFL a lesson.
One thing that concerns me is if the Chiefs win, what next? Will Mahomes and Kelce pipe up like they did last year and announce that a Fourpeat is the next goal? A lot of the nation may let out a collective groan if that happens.
Like much of the country, I switched allegiance from MLB to the NFL at some point… everybody I knew played little league, but hardly knew anybody who was in Pop Warner football.
What turned us from the cerebral sport to the brutal sport where I cringe about 16.4x a game on particularly hard hits and or crashes on the gridiron? (pro tip, always have smelling salts on hand)
I’m only 34 years into my very own Bills saga, the hope is to win a Superbowl before climate change really kicks in.
Go KC!
Enjoy the game, HMP. Go Chiefs!
I’m here in KC, and I’ve been doubting the Chiefs all year, but they continue to prove me wrong. But today, I think Saquon and Jalen are going to be too much for KC to handle, so the back-to-back dynasties of Packers, Dolphins, Steelers (2), Niners, Cowboys, and Patriots are likely to remain at the top, jostling with the Chiefs for Super Bowl dynasty supremacy.
But yeah, Go Chiefs!
Growing up in Milwaukee, the Pack had two three-peats so not that impressed by KC.
What is a superbowl? :-/
This, I think?
It’s an eating challenge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4lYviqrgMk
I’m rooting with you. A three-peat this soon after the Patriots’ dynasty ended will throw more dirt on the grave of that memory of that era and franchise, making it the funniest outcome. I like to root for funny outcomes.
Tucker Carlson and Mike Benz. utube, ~2 hr, 11+ minutes.
Mike Benz Takes Us Down the USAID Rabbit Hole (It’s Worse Than You Think)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZtXQNDJJm4
But, but…the 20 year olds. One gets that a lot of people hate Musk but that doesn’t provide justification to his opponents who have lots of real crimes and chaos to their credit and not just the pre-crime speculation. Re the big debate that went on here yesterday, I think Yves is right that Trump is not to be trusted but that doesn’t mean those who are still going on about “fascism” are to be trusted either. To some of us out in flyover it simply looks like a fight for the spoils among the oligarchs.
I’m too seemingly so very far away from goings on in the night of the long knives taking out not for long knaves, but you get the idea that something is horribly wrong-not that you can place it.
Coup places it perfectly. Plus personal vengeance on everybody who got in the way of the last coup attempt.
Reform = get rid of the old hogs feeding at the pig trough and get some new ones.
Or maybe he just wants to make the trough smaller to lower his taxes. That’s the usual obsession of Republicans.
As several have pointed out the real waste, fraud and abuse is at the Pentagon which has never passed an audit.
Trump’s main job was to rid us of Biden. As for his many other jobs we all hope he doesn’t make things worse. In the ME he’s looking iffy indeed even if it’s all a tactic.
I am reminded that many of those who supported Yeltsin in the late 80s/early 90s thought his main job was to get rid of the party bosses. A lot of those people also thought he couldn’t possibly do worse than Gorbachev and his predecessors, so were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on everything else… for a time.
Walter Kirn, citing an acquaintance in the intel community who worked in Russia during the Yeltsin era, thought that today’s US looks disturbingly like Russia in 1990s.
Since 2008 at least, it’s been hard not to note the increasing resemblances of the situation in the US to that of the failing USSR if you know anything about both places.
Frankly, it’s why I left.
If I have it right, the audits haven’t been completed because the books are so screwed up. Probably a feature, not a bug.
To some of us out on a different continent, it always looked like that.
Indeed.
For this old cynic, the 20 year-olds is a bit refreshing. My analytical background tells me it’s always a good idea to have a fresh set of eyes look at a problem. In my estimation, these yout’s are less burdened by the agendas (and kompromat) of those inside the system, and so are in a better position to draw attention to the emperor having no clothes.
It’s one thing to be an idealist with fresh eyes. It’s another to be a fully indoctrinated Red Guard, hungering for advancement in the New Regime.
Wild conspiracies first. Show trials within a year.
> In my estimation, these yout’s are less burdened by the agendas (and kompromat) of those inside the system,
That may be true in the general case. It is unlikely to be true for Peter Thiel’s blood bags (or candidates for that position).
Ahh, to be 20 years old . . .
“the sun on the meadow is summery warm . . .”
This is where I am, I don’t trust Trump and Musk, except perhaps to expose the graft and crimes of their opponents. But where I might differ is that I am sick and tired of the Democrats after voting for them for about 25 years, I am tired of the PMC, and am glad to see wokeness being shown the door.
In fact, in purely self-interested terms, Trump has done more for me in the past 2 weeks by dismantling DEI than the Democrats have done in a while. This is more indication that I need to rethink the Republicans as a viable option. Right now, I am seeing two major parties that I mostly disagree with, but the one that has been “the other side” for me delivers on the few positions on which I agree with them while the Democrats deliver on nothing I care about.
I am conflicted
hear absolutely hear
On the scale of good versus evil, how will this turn out?
To reference the fabled Chou En-lai reply to war criminal Kissinger’s question, “What do you think of the French Revolution?”: “It’s too early to tell”.*
*Whether the question applied to 1789 or 1968 is debatable.
How indeed?
The wikipedia entry is showing its Western bias:
The interpretation is that every silver cloud has a dark lining as well as the “silver lining.” The free horse cost the old man’s son his leg, for example. Without the pessimistic side, the parable is useless.
Agreed! It struck me as peculiar that this part of it is so often overlooked in various comments I’ve seen, since it is the very point.
Chou En-lai studied in France in the early 1920s, and joined the Communist Party of China while there.
Mao was in a program in Beijing, “work-study movement in France “ as well. He did not get to France. He told Edgar Snow years later he didn’t go because he needed to learn more about his country. In the book, Mao: “The Real Story” by Alexander Panstsov, the real reason was him not being able to master enough of the French language to meet the requirements. Interesting that the book points out that anarchism was more popular for the Chinese before communism moved to the forefront.
“Mao was in a program in Beijing…”
Helpful to think about, but remember these were engineers and not philosophers. President Xi is an engineer as well. The political thought they were approaching was socialism but with Chinese characteristics or the historical China they had a vision of as youngsters.
They have described their thinking by story-telling, traditional story-telling. I get it because the stories are mine, but self-described philosophers most often think a Xi has no depth. China is generally dismissed as socialist by philosophers or even sociologists.
I am going to think this carefully through again.
Mao was actually a philosopher, or, at leadt, that’s the closest thing you could describe his studies in his youth before he became a professional revolutionist.
I don’t think most of the other first generation revolutionists were engineers either.
Thank you. Specifically, Mao went to a teacher training or normal college… The legacy I was trying so crudely to describe:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0262407907628619
November 7, 2007
China: a nation ruled by engineers
By Richard P. Suttmeier
China is a nation led by technocrats. The current generation of leaders is made up mostly of graduates from some of China’s leading universities, typically trained in science and engineering. Until this year’s 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, which closed on 22 October, every member of the central bastion of power – the Standing Committee of the Politburo – was an engineer by training.
Xi has no “depth” because Dengism is capitalism dressed up in socialist costume. The CPC demonstrates that the Leninist party system is a generally excellent organizational tool, as suitable to capitalism as to socialism. Xi is an able administrator of capitalism through this Leninist party structure, which is perhaps showing itself superior to “liberal democracy,” as the authority dividing aspects of the modern Republic makes it incapable of governing in a crisis (the Republic, like its Roman counterpart in the election of dictator, has to abolish itself to do so).
Maoism was decisively defeated when Mao died and the Gang of Four was put on trial. Dengism is the “capitalist road” that Mao did not want China to follow and tried to prevent with the Cultural Revolution. That does not at all denigrate the advances China’s made since Deng took over, but those advances, in my opinion, drew down the socialist treasury built up under Mao–who greatly improved the material and mental wellbeing of the people –turning what was to be a great socialist society into another repository of surplus value for capitalists to exploit.
I cannot judge, only know from friends who studied and thus lived in Beijing that they would not want to return due to the changes you mention.
Absolutely fellow Chris.
The Democrats fight to restrict who you can vote for, while the Republicans fight to restrict who can vote. The Democrats create false reasons for why you’re not more successful, the Republicans pretend that if government is removed you’ll have no excuse for not being successful. And so it goes.
Trump says awful things. Insane things. Yet his administration is the reason why Palestinian and Israeli hostages are being released. If he makes it 4 years without starting another war I’ll be thrilled.
Lambert, in WC, 1/12/25: “History should teach us to be very leery of extra-Constitutional entities, parallel to existing institutions, and driven by the charismatic authority of a single individual. That’s dangerously close to fuhrerprinzip, and even if Trump straightens out Elon’s DOGE mess with one of the the 100+ executive orders he’s going to roll out on his first day in office, DOGE as it is today has already set a terrible, terrible precedent.”
Trump turned an existing entity into DOGE, so it may have legal structure but transparency?The point stands.
I guess we will find out if Musk is in fact a criminal as the Senate will shortly be launching an investigation of his activities:
“U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), today demanded that six companies owned and controlled by unelected billionaire Elon Musk preserve all documents and answer questions on their role in Musk’s potential violations of ethics requirements and federal law.”
https://www.blumenthal.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/musks-illegal-power-grab-blumenthal-demands-answers-from-billionaires-companies-on-glaring-conflicts-of-interest-and-data-heist
Stop with the “but the 20-year olds” already. / ;)
They are apparently young AI programming experts. AI is math, a very specialized branch of math. It’s long been known that advanced math breakthroughs are a young man’s or woman’s game. There are all kinds of articles asking if anyone over the age of 35 can create new math breakthroughs, articles touting that even people 50 years old can create new math breakthroughs. Some speculate the age thing involves the high energy mental requirements plus the brain plasticity of youth to see math questions in a new way. idk. You get the idea.
So, I don’t know what the short interviews involve. Are they asking how such and such programs in an area work, what the interviewees know about the data flow, how interviewees are involved in data flow? What the interviewees actually do? Are they simply trying to put together a map of the bureaucracy? idk. At this point none of us know what the interviews involve except what we’ve been told by others who may want to put as bad a light as possible on what’s happening. / my 2 cents
Adding, said 20-year-olds may make recommendations, but they won’t be deciding the big questions. I’d bank on it. (pun intended) / ;)
adding: The Dems were fine with offshoring manufacturing, destroying us blue collar jobs. “Learn to code”, they said.
Now the coders are coming as the Taylor time-and-motion men looking into bureaucratic employments. zomg! Save The Bureaucracy! There’s a teeny bit of schadenfreude here. / ;)
The teeny bit of schadenfreude will wear off as the amount of cancer juice in your water, cancer gas in your air and cancer dust all over your food go up and up and up.
“Just you wait, ‘enry ‘iggens, just you wait!” / ;)
Yet to be in evidence. You may be right. You may not. That possible evil is in the future. I’m looking at the evil being uncovered now.
Yes, we ought to lower the minimum age to be President to 20!
No, no, no. That is not what I said at all. No more than I would say because young 20-year-olds are at the peak of their physical sports performance, therefore a 20-year-old should be able to run for pres. Of course you know that. Strawmen are fun. / ;)
We ought to lower the minimum age to buy a beer to 20!
It’s 18 here in Oz – officially.
Old enough to vote, old enough to drive, old enough to join the army, old enough to marry so yeah, old enough to drink.
I don’t know either but I’m skeptical they’re just trying to learn, in a respectful way, from people who know more than them about how govt works so they can improve govt. Said improvement would likely mean recommending firing as many people as they can to implement AI. Elon loves to downsize.
Problem is we may never know what all they’re doing, transparency hasn’t exactly been a thing so far. Probably going in with an anti-govt mindset so that should facilitate their interactions with federal employees. As far as a map of the bureaucracy, there are organizational charts.
That one should be easy to answer, because there aren’t many people that rejected the prize of one million dollars, or were offered it in the first place.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Perelman
Born 13 June 1966.
In 2002 and 2003, he developed new techniques in the analysis of Ricci flow, and proved the Poincaré conjecture and Thurston’s geometrization conjecture, the former of which had been a famous open problem in mathematics for the past century.
P.S. As far as the interviews go,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4OvQIGDg4I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psNuJuaYqVU
The comments about the DOGE bois age are ridiculous. Not sure if they’ve re-run these studies recently, but back in 2022 the average age of a Capitol Hill staffer was under 35. From acquaintances and observation, I’d say most are 25ish.
All of this is an example of Chomsky’s theories in the obvious. It’s not that 20 year old whiz kids are in the room doing this. It’s that the WRONG 20 year old whiz kids are in the room. These kids will ask the questions and have the opinions that make them unemployable to the genteel elite of the DC PMC.
For those who might still not have made peace with Tucker, here is a shorter interview of Benz by Glenn Greenwald.
https://youtu.be/wtgT_u2rWs0?si=4Y7bsbi8JvjCShKp
Much hyperventilating on the Sunday morning shows over this issue.
Turns out, whoever decided to abbreviate “agency for international development” as “aid” was a PR genius. (And just by the way, the words “agency for international development” were nowhere to be found in this morning’s authoritative “discussions.”)
From the commentary you’d think the activity of this agency has made the u.s. absolutely beloved across the globe for its generous, benevolent treatment of all manner of diseases, including, fortuitously, “AIDS”, its alleviation of hunger with endless sacks of rice, and its relentless pursuit of every kind of “justice” for the billions of beleaguered “women and girls” including, apparently, in afghanistan where the taliban also benefitted from usaid’s largesse, a “fact” conveniently omitted.
Unbeknownst to me, mass SUFFERING and DEATH will immediately ensue if even one penny is cut from the budget of this labor of collective financial american global love. And even examining where the money’s going is illegal too!
Have mercy. Give us all a well-deserved break.
You mean it’s not the Peace Corps? / ;)
Just rename The Debt of USA to The Debt of Mexico. Make the Mexicans pay for The Wall, and everything else.
‘falling man
@p_feif80
Feb 7
So, one of my foresters found an American chestnut which showed signs of blight damage but also vigorous resistance, growth, and reproduction. We are in touch with the American Chestnut Foundation and USDA Forest Service geneticists. Real heads know.’
This could be really big news if it pans out. You only need one tree that is resistant to help make a comeback if properly done. How many people are out there that would like to buy and plant a blight-resistant chestnut sapling. The history of chestnut trees is interesting too-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chestnut#History
I’m guessing that being interviewed by a 19 year old DOGE employee is similar to being interviewed by a 23 year old member of Booz Allen or other consulting firm, for similar purposes.
No, it’s much worse.
The 23 year old has an interview guide prepared by grownups who understand the business to a good degree and your operation at least somewhat. The 23 year old will be trying really hard to come off like older than he is and will be nervous that he might not know enough. So he’s aware you have the knowledge advantage and will be worried that he might bump up against it.
The DOGE twerps will be arrogant and bullying.
I was thinking more the Gang of Four supported youth cadre – with Elon playing the lovely Madame Mao
the change will do you good,…, (musical interlude)
I thought you linked this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ikjmz_SlGhg
I remember this tune, never seen the video, thx.
There is another video that’s the main one, but it distracts from the song (it has other sounds mixed in).
It’s bizarre that our constitutional government is in practice revealed to be so pathetically fragile, that Musk and a couple of kids are running roughshod over it all, seemingly without consequence. And Democrats can only write letters and make pathetic attempts to gain access to public buildings and be turned away. I guess we’ll get to see if court injunctions mean anything in practice.
If not, this has all really been one big house of cards.
Play that Swampy Music
Melody
Hey! Do it, now!
Yeah
Once there was a choirboy singer
Playin’ in a elephant band
You just might have a problem
Picking him out of a police lineup, man
When everything around me, (yeah)got to start to feelin’ so low
Then I decided quickly, to disco-down and checkout the DOGE-show
Well there was firing, no hiring, and movin’ boxes to the U-haul,
And just then, it hit me, somebody turned around and shouted:
Play that swampy music, white boy
Play that swampy music, Mike!
Play that swampy music, white boy
Lay down for donkeys and play that swampy music ’til you die!
(Til DOGE dies! Yeah yeah)
I tried to understand this
I thought they were outta their minds
How could I be so foolish?
To not see that Musk was one step behind
So, still I kept on fightin’
Losin’ every step of the way
I said I must go back there
To check if swamp-town’s still just the same
Well there was firing, no hiring, and movin’ boxes to the U-haul,
And just then, it hit me, somebody turned around and shouted:
Play that swampy music, white boy
Play that swampy music, Mike!
Play that swampy music, white boy
Lay down for donkeys and play that swampy music ’til you die!
’til you die, ’til you die, come on, play some swampified music, Speaker!
[Electric guitar]
Now first it wasn’t easy
Feedin’ from the trough like swine
Things were gettin’ shaky
I thought I’d have to leave graft behind
But now its so much better
I’m swamping out in every way!
But I’ll never lose that feelin’ (no)
Of how I learned my lesson that day!
When there was firing, no hiring, and movin’ boxes to U-Hauls,
And just then, it hit me, somebody turned around and shouted:
Play that swampy music, white boy
Play that swampy music, Mike!
Play that swampy music, white boy
Lay down for donkeys and play that swampy music ’til we die!
(‘Til DOGE dies)
They shouted
Play that swampy music!
Play that swampy music!
Well played…
I wonder about Mike Ev, on one hand he’s one of them there over the top fervid evangs and that dogma will hunt, but he’s about useless as tits on a bull with a scant majority.
Maybe after politics he can do Superman 6.66?
Mike Ev … I see what you did, there.
I see a bright future for Mike Ev as Mussel Shoal’s swamp rock revivalist frontman and czar of reversible outerwear.
turn it up
Wait, you aren’t saying he’s not Huey Long for the world?
In a job sense-not a bang bang shoot shoot sentence.
For those who might still not have made peace with Tucker, here is a shorter interview of Benz by Glenn Greenwald.
https://youtu.be/wtgT_u2rWs0?si=4Y7bsbi8JvjCShKp
Speaking of Chesnuts, we have our own in podunk, also being brought back:
https://ozarkchinquapinmembership.org/about-the-tree/
Kelton’s summary of Tett’s speculation on assets is hilarious. They’re going to ‘melt’ all the USA’s gold together to make an $800 billion dollar coin/s! Lol. Where have I heard something like this before?
You don’t need to travel far !
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/10/joe-firestone-the-platinum-coin-returns.html
https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/07/be-ready-to-mint-that-coin/
January 7, 2013
Be Ready To Mint That Coin
By Paul Krugman
Should President Obama be willing to print a $1 trillion platinum coin if Republicans try to force America into default? Yes, absolutely. He will, after all, be faced with a choice between two alternatives: one that’s silly but benign, the other that’s equally silly but both vile and disastrous. The decision should be obvious.
For those new to this, here’s the story. First of all, we have the weird and destructive institution of the debt ceiling; this lets Congress approve tax and spending bills that imply a large budget deficit — tax and spending bills the president is legally required to implement — and then lets Congress refuse to grant the president authority to borrow, preventing him from carrying out his legal duties and provoking a possibly catastrophic default.
And Republicans are openly threatening to use that potential for catastrophe to blackmail the president into implementing policies they can’t pass through normal constitutional processes.
Enter the platinum coin. There’s a legal loophole * allowing the Treasury to mint platinum coins in any denomination the secretary chooses. Yes, it was intended to allow commemorative collector’s items — but that’s not what the letter of the law says. And by minting a $1 trillion coin, then depositing it at the Federal Reserve, the Treasury could acquire enough cash to sidestep the debt ceiling — while doing no economic harm at all. **
So why not? …
* http://www.pragcap.com/lets-end-this-debt-ceiling-debate-with-a-1-oz-1t-coin/
** https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/02/debt-in-a-time-of-zero/
Critiques of #MintTheCoin always conflate the value of the coin with the physical composition of the coin.
You’d think “making change” would be their issue. “Can you break a trillion?” I’m guessing that’s probably a feature.
Re: ”…@DOGE is one of the most important audits of government…:
It is not an audit at all, and Scott Bessent shows that he is absolutely unqualified for his position if he’s going to use the term to define what DOGE is doing. An audit is performed with a defined scope, defined working methods and protocols (including systems access and the handling of data) and follows established professional standards, none of which appear to be in evidence thus far. As an auditor for 25+ years (specializing in technology and securities regulation) every single sentence I have read about DOGE just makes my blood boil.
Maybe he’s using the term more in the vein of college kids “auditing” a class.
Had to talk an NPS employee friend off the ledge yesterday, and yeah its only a wee step down from my deck, but still-they are in a sense of shock in a nobody knows nothin’ scenario, where many feel this means privatization of their jobs somehow (40% of permanent NPS jobs here were unfilled prior to Trump V2.0) and most importantly time is ticking away on hiring seasonal NPS employees, who do the lions share of the work in the busy summer months.
No seasonals means no National Parks or National Monuments open this summer, and 325 million people visited the NP’s last year, to give you an idea of the impact of them being closed would be.
https://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/2025/02/national-park-friends-groups-concerned-about-park-operations
That’s a helpful update on the situation at NPS. I’m gonna broadcast the article to friend and family, and maybe even find agreement on this topic which would accomplish a net positive.
I do think tourism and our national parks should be more celebrated. Even the lesser known locations, thinking of the varied spots visited back in 2023 in South Dakota. Incredible, scenic and one instance we got close enough but not too close to a few buffalo at Wind Cave I think it was.
On one hand i’ll be sort of glad to see the short term rental market (1/3rd of all homes) get its comeuppance, but not at the expense of long time permanent employees who really care for the park, being shown the door.
And as mentioned, it wasn’t as if they were beating the doors down to work here before this came about, who are they going to find to take their place, do Elon’s daring young men in their late teens and early 20’s move west?
I have actually been on the Board of a Friends Group for several years, a smaller group, and I can confirm that during the last five years things have just become increasingly tight and dire as regards funding, staffing, and operation. I am old enough to remember James Watt, remember him? He was Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of the Interior in the early 80s and he was all about privatizing Federal Land and the Park Service. I am beyond certain that the “answer” to the current issues in the NPS is to PRIVATIZE all, find a way to let the private sector run nearly everything, paying for all of this with six story hotels perched on the outskirts and even inside each Park, all run efficiently bu\y our noble oligarchs….
Great times….
Yeah, I remember reading about James Watt and he was a real piece of work. Ended up as a convicted criminal and only died a year or two ago-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_G._Watt
He also tried to stop the Vietnam memorial wall from being built as well.
I gave up my life in London to become a goat living in the Swiss mountains: Brit created prosthetic legs, ate grass, became accepted by the herd… and says they make ‘better people than we do’ Daily Mail
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I was really hoping to see John Cleese in the 4 legs good scenario, but it was a transgoatual.
..a favorite
Monty Python’s Flying Circus – Climbing the North Face of the Uxbridge Road – 1972
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aqa1l_q7QbA
I couldn’t believe it so I looked up more details and yes, Wolfenschiessen in Switzerland is a real place and it is sublime.
This is actually my project of a decade or so ago (I’ve been reading Naked Capitalism for years and am thrilled to see my work picked up here)!! I can’t really bear to read the Daily Mail article, and obviously my project is absurd, but there’s a bit of underlying seriousness to it too, (honest!)… Aside from the basic questions of physiology, anatomy and neuroscience (it was a delight engaging scientists in these fields in discussions and ‘experiments’ in how best to become a goat!), a talk with a shamen about anthropological research into animism got to the core of the project: its an attempt (failed obviously!) to see the world through fundamentally different eyes… Anyway, the project at root was about poking some fun at ‘de-anthropocentric design’, understanding the human need for a meaningful story and that ultimate story of civilisational progress: do you feel part of the techno-optimist journey from the cave to the stars, or better to aim at life like that of a goat… live and die an unremarkable life on a hillside somewhere. I’m currently working on making a Harmless Car ;)
Did you aquire some nice bacteria to help digest the grass and ensure you get enogh energy to sustain life?
Good on you! The idea reminds me of one of Clifford Simak’s stories that make up his book “City.” The sub-story is called “Desertion,” from 1944 AD.
“City”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_(novel)
Build a harmless car and you will deserve the Nobel Prize you receive for it.
Aaaaaarghhh! I just got it!
(Did Barth sue?)
Stay safe as houses.
I’m thinking of the early opening scenes to a classic mid 1980’s film romp, The Lost Boys. The mom and two boys are driving up the coast… And the Doors track is playing…”when you’re strange”..
People are strange…And that researcher just seems outlandish. That story is like something from the hey day of National Lampoon, which predates me by like a decade of so.
Re: resurgent tuberculosis
Has anyone considered getting the TB vaccine (assuming you never got it)?
From the cdc:
Sounds like a gates foundation operation. dog only knows what problems there are to keep a “vaccine” off the schedule for american babies.
Hmm…. where have I heard of that kind of a “vaccine” before?
I would get that all day if I could. It’s a live vaccine. Strengthens your immune system generally. I just got the dengue vaccine (there really is not much here but still gives me an excuse) and will soon get Varivax (the childhood chickenpox vaccine, as opposed to Shingrix) for that reason. I will take all the live vaccines available to me.
There is a theory that the lower rates of Covid in Africa is due to widespread administration of the BCG vaccine.
Having said that, BCG is administered to babies and kids under 15. Reported to be less effective for adults. However it is still recommended for health care workers going to areas with high levels of tuberculosis, so the efficacy can’t be terrible, just less good.
The BCG vaccine was first imagined then developed at the turn of the 20th Century in France. It was made mandatory for every baby in 1950; but since 2007 it’s status changed to recommended (no idea why). So everybody over 18 in France has had it, me included.
Is it absolutely 100% perfect? Of course not, no vaccine is. The French health ministry puts the success rate at between 75% and 85%, but since it’s the only vaccine against tuberculosis…
Can there be any side effects? Yes of course, as with any vaccine, depending on the additives used to manufacture it, your physiology, the way it’s given. But there have never been any widespread problems, ever, in 67 years of compulsory vaccination.
This is a traditional vaccine, it has absolutely nothing whatsoever in common with the latest covid fiasco.
The suggestion is starting to make the rounds that in the face of official suppression of public health measures for ideological reasons it is reasonable to re-do your MMR and polio vaccines regardless of age right now in the US. Whether you should check your titers first is the question, I remember getting a whooping cough booster when the great-grandchildren were born here in Australia.
The atomisation of human civilisation in the name of greed proceeds apace.
“It is time to move the UN and international law out of the West”
::applause::
I’ve been saying this for years. The UN is largely useless because it feigns international benevolence as a means to effectively mask US/Western hegemony and unilateralism.
It will happen. I think of BRICS as a trial balloon now. Float it up there to see how the US/West reacts. The next iteration of a non-Western block will learn from reactionary Western actions, and build a more solid and shielded foundation to counter the global theft and warmongering.
If I were a wagering man, I’d put money on South Africa hosting the new body’s HQ.
#Inshallah
My first thought was Singapore.
> My first thought was Singapore
Probably still too “western aligned” for me though … :) But not a bad idea.
I’d prefer Vietnam if a country in that region won out.
During the Iraq invasion I advocated moved the UN o Bagdad. It would force other nations to send troops, and more importantly get the scofflaws out of Manhattan, where they are just a general nuisance.
> It would force other nations to send troops …
Yeah, but then those nations would want some (control over) Iraqi oil too LOL
Can’t have that, Mike! :)
Cuba!
¡Desde Tus Labios a Diós! :)
Nope. UN should be left there to die.
Clarification:
I’m not suggesting that the UN move to ZA, rather that a new global-south alternative be headquartered there … :)
But yes, if the UN stays in NYC and ends up folding there, that would be fitting.
I’d prefer the UN headquarters move from NYC to Jerusalem. Park them in the middle of their own mess.
::UNIXstringSubstitution:: :)
s/Jerusalem/TelAviv/
👍
It crossed my mind this morning that Bernie could at least partially redeem his reputation if he borrowed a pair from a Gerbil and introduced a bill to impeach Trump for his complicity in Genocide.
If he didn’t do that under Biden why would he do it under Trump?
Of course they won’t impeach Trump over Genocide, because donors.
Which demonstrates how depraved and corrupt America’s Government has become.
But it was depraved and corrupt under Bernie’s friend Biden. So to repeat the question….
Better late than never.
I think on a more practical level he could introduce a bill banning US troops from ever entering Gaza, or funding for such a mission.
He’s likely pick up a few GOP co-sponsors.
However, such an act would be actually trying to solve a problem, and unlikely therefore to ever occur.
Or a lot of Gop support. From The American Conservative
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/trumps-apparent-gaza-scheme-endangers-his-entire-legacy/
Interesting tidbit in that article:
If that holds up (it still needs to pass the Virginia Senate and get signed by the Governor, who seems to support it) that could spell BIG trouble for our corrupt Congress stooges … power wrested away from them. I can see this catching on in other states. I may write my Georgia State representative to ask them to introduce a similar bill here (not that they’ll listen to my demands.)
I’d argue they deserve it … failure to act within the scope of your powers is to relinquish those powers.
Redeem by whom? Bernie moving to impeach a just over a month in office Trump over genocide when he had nothing more than a tut tut for four years of Biden would be seen as the performative partisan BS it would be. Sanders clearly doesn’t care about his rep nor does he have it in him to do something meaningful at this point.
Americans don’t do History.
In 1968 I was attending Piedmont HS, one of the highest rated school systems in California at that time.
American History was one of the required subjects and the final exam that spring asked “What was the decisive battle of WW2?”.
I made the mistake of writing a short essay starting with “There was no single decisive Battle of WW2” and recieved a “D”.
The “Correct” answer was Guadalcanal.
Thought it was Midway for US, Stalingrad in general. But your answer works.
Midway WAS the turning point, Guadalcanal landing by US troops happened 3 months later.
I’d have guessed Pearl Harbor–certainly, that’s what Winston Churchill thought. (I seem to recall that his reaction to hearing about Pearl Harbor and US entry into the war was, “So we have won this war after all,” or something like that.)
Early example of Dancing Israelis, eh?!
Charles Lindbergh probably would have thought so–if he knew what “dancing Israelis” will mean 60 years later.)
Lindbergh, by Woody Guthrie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzLOTHciIKI
I once attended a lecture given by Helen Caldicott, a co-founder of Physicians For Social Responsibility, an anti-nuclear-war pro-nuclear-freeze movement started during the Reagan 80s.
She began by telling a little bit of relevant detail about her Australian childhood. Japan had been conquering tropical Pacific territory and getting ever closer to Australia. Then Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Helen Caldicott said her father was delighted and relieved that happened, ” because now America would enter the war and help us save ourselves from Japan”. I don’t remember if she said that the Australians in general felt that way.
So there you have it. Helen Caldicott’s father was also an early Dancing Israeli.
Fully agree. Midway for the Pacific, Stalingrad for Europe. But the biggest battle was that of industrial production in the US.
https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-plot-against-america
Interesting article about the Dark Enlightenment and technofeudalism.
On the Al Jazeera article about moving the UN out of the West I have long thought, as probably others have, that China along with its cohorts should start up a New World Organization and accept those who want to join, (excluding the Western world) and let the rest stay with the UN. Let the “NWO” develop its own rules which will probably be very similar to the UN but create administrative agencies that develop co-operative plans that develops each country. It should also be free from any corporate influences whatsoever. It wouldn’t be run by China or anyone else although the larger countries would still have influence to persuade the discussion but it would still be one country one vote. Better than the UN with the US forcing a “(US) Rules Based Order” that guarantees a favorable outcome for the US while ignoring, hence negating, the real rules based order of the UN. Because of the US the UN is a joke. It’s time for the non-western world to leave the western world behind. The western world’s ancient views of military backed authoritarian, greedy, psychopathic agendas (the Golden Calf ideology) seeks only the extraction of money from everyone while maintaining control. That worldview is as dead as the parrot on Monty Python’s shoulder. It is baked in the genetics of Capitalism that the US will never ever ever bring humanity to its rightful destiny which is the complete fruition of all of humanity. I believe that only China and its allies are capable of doing that.
Comment above on where you think this NWO should be HQ’d! :)
Briahna Joy Gray
Well, funny or not, getting a completed audit of the MIICC would be a major event. Then start cutting.
…getting a completed audit of the MIICC would be a major event. Then start cutting.
From your lips to Trump’s ears —
Trump vows to cut billions of dollars from US defence spending
President says ‘fraud and abuse’ at the Pentagon will be the next target of cost-cutting by Elon Musk
Financial Times original –
https://www.ft.com/content/5800607b-f1fd-48a6-b90c-c79b25552e75
Archived-
https://archive.ph/sHRrG
https://archive.ph/sHRrG
From The US relies on China for key medicines. They won’t be spared from tariffs
I think this person sounds stupid?
(bold mine)
Paging Kamala, someone appropriated your word salad? I bet she gets a sweet sweet six figure salary to say unintelligible things.
I hope not. The quality control is horrific, and no one is ever held to account. Just what we need, more pharmaceuticals from India! Anyone that needs to take drugs in America, best wishes, what a risk. Between the drugs themselves being garbage, to the manufacturing being garbage, to the dispensation being garbage due to overworked understaffed pharmacies.
America is going great!
I have such mixed thoughts on the 20 year olds in DOGE because on one hand: elon hire me. Im a 20 year old engineering student. Let me in the databases. On the other hand: this is just like the puppies in animal farm raised to work for the machine.
I think 20 year olds are cool and can actually be very good at jobs. I think all jobs should have age diversity because different ages contribute different things to the workplace. But uh 20 year old solidarity; i am so biased. Also 20 year olds are a lot easier to exploit because they tend not to have dependents to worry about.
Ive had classes with a bunch of guys who think musk is great. One time I was privy to a discussion about space exploration where a female premed classmate was anti space explorations because the environment and a male computer engineering classmate was pro space engineering because it’s the next great frontier. It was a bit of a religious zeal for scientific advancement. There’s a lot of merit to scientific advancement but there are so many issues with inplementation. Ideally doge would be about fixing those issues with implementation. Unfortunately it will probably just end up giving more money to musk and his friends. It seems like a very consulting method of improving efficiency with more tracking and data science methods instead of improving infrastructure. Insert Foucault reference here.
Nathan Tankus, in one of his recent notes on the Crises, stated that “The Bureau of the Fiscal Service’s job is to keep the payment system functioning and they follow what agencies tell them to do within the scope of the law as they understand it. If someone commits fraud, its law enforcement or the agencies themselves job to catch it before or after a payment is made.”
It would seem that the supposed agreement on Sunday Feb 9th between DODGE and the Treasury Dept. to change reporting requirements for outgoing payments, with those Gov. payments to now have a payment categorization code for auditing purposes is a really excellent idea–taken what Tankus states was and perhaps still is the current largely unregulated payment system reality at Treasury.
A member of my extended family had major surgery Friday ( A 5 Hour s
urgery) to “Clean things up” 12 Months after her first cancer surgery.
They sent her home that same day because they did not have an available bed due to all the respiratory disease patients they had.
This is in Solano County CA.
She is doing well, for which I am grateful…
However this is another reminder that America’s health care system is on the verge of collapse.
Sympathies, and well wishes. Glad she is doing well.
More proof that we are led by the worst. Hospitals refuse to enforce (proper) masking for an airborne BSL3 pathogen. Every few months, there are press reports (via NY Post) for hospitals reinstating masking when staff start getting sick only to drop them shortly thereafter.
#WashRinseRepeat #EinsteinInsanity
It is Reddit, nonetheless
https://www.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/comments/1ikb6jx/just_giving_yall_a_heads_up_hospital/?rdt=52599
Politco and USaid.
Jimmy Dore, utube, ~9+ minutes.
DOGE Exposes USAID’s Left Wing Media Payoffs!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP2PX1pg9n0
I am reminded that it is US A.I.D. – Agency for International Development – the acronym is quite a play, since International Development can be NEWSPEAK. Like the Ministry of Truth.
Point taken.
Many examples. The “affordable care act”, “inflation reduction act.” This is usually the first clue they are BSing us.
which was my point a few days ago – I couldn´t express that adequately as you have here
thanks
I’m a bit of a manna detective and you got to follow the money to solve the case, and have been on the trail since the Lydians came up with the idea of lucre as we know it.
The Kipper & Wipper period is relatively unknown to most, and a fascinating period right near the start of the 30 Years War. It’s oddly similar to the 1923 German hyperinflation, but based on coins-not paper money, and laid waste to economies in a wide swath of Europe. It was all centered upon cheating.
Sound familiar?
“Through this beast all vanishes one-two-three
Like a fire, it burns all things away
There’s naught that can its hunger sate,
In short, it is ill-gotten gain,
Born straight from out of the brood of greed.
For it has this special quality,
It gobbles gold, wealth, strength gradually.
Where ill-gotten gain has taken root,
Good fortune there cannot remain.”
“Who will indeed this hunger still?
Who can this wolfish belly fill?
What would suffice for a people and town,
This beast, by itself, can swallow it down,
Forever crying out for fodder,
Whatever it gets, it still wants more.
It’s like the great mouth of the sea,
A gluttonous snake, a devouring dragon.
Whoever wants riches without disgrace,
Let him drive ill-gotten gain away from the land.”
From contemporary German broadsheets, 1622.
Here’s an article titled ” More Than 800K Have Lost $2B on Trump’s Meme Coin ” Here is the link.
https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1ilnxqo/more_than_800k_have_lost_2b_on_trumps_meme_coin/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx9kaa7IsBg
Now, if the Winklevoss Twins can lose every penny they have in Bitcoin, things will be even better.
Oh no. The poor guy-
‘Gunther Eagleman™
@GuntherEagleman
Feb 8
BREAKING: Trump just BANNED former Secretary of State Antony Blinken from ALL federal buildings!
OUTSTANDING!’
https://xcancel.com/GuntherEagleman/status/1888357526124536018#m
At least he will be always welcome at the Ukraine and Israeli Embassies.
2x JACOBIN
1) The Case for Social Drinking
By Ryan Zickgraf
Americans are trading bar culture for wellness apps and mocktails. But despite alcohol’s many shortcomings, our national sobering up is not a simple cause for celebration. We’re also losing social spaces and traditions in an increasingly alienated society.
https://jacobin.com/2025/02/alcohol-bars-loneliness-covid-health
final phrase:
“Frank Sinatra said it best: “Alcohol may be man’s worst enemy, but the Bible says love your enemy.”
So cheers.
2) The Left Needs Its “Schools of Enlightenment and Revolution”
By Steve Fraser
Nelson Lichtenstein
Throughout the entire history of left-wing and working-class organizing in the United States, the participation in and building of institutions of political education has been key.
https://jacobin.com/2025/02/socialist-education-jefferson-school-dsa
Occupy Wall Street had a mothership school of that sort in Zucotti Park. I hoped the dispersed Wall Street Occupationists would try and set up a whole network of Occupy Reading Rooms and such all over America, for the multi-decades education-knowledge recovery and restoration process which would be necessary.
I’ve got a bottle in front of me!
:-/
The unnamed fed worker at the town hall had me until he said that “queer and trans” employees were suffering.
How about the women who for years have said no to men in women’s spaces and sports—how about the numerous times when they’ve been hounded out of jobs (Kathleen Stock) or hounded for speaking, such as former ACLU attorney Kara Dansky and other women in December’s 2022 who dared to protest convicted killer David Warfield, aka “Dana Rivers,” for being housed in a women’s prison? Warfield/Rivers brutally murdered a lesbian couple and their son, yet this man, who pretends to be a woman, is in a women’s prison. What about all the incarcerated women who must endure this?
Everything else the federal worker describes is terrifying, but it’s past time to reject all the homophobic, woman-hating, childhood-stealing gender worship.
Just commented about gender worship being painted as the social-justice issue of our time, instead of the homophobic, woman-hating movement it is.
I should also have said: no one should be doxxed or harassed.