Open Thread October 20 2024

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Oct 202024
 

Yesterday, the radio opera was “Samson” by Jean Philippe Rameau, a composer of the baroque era. I Have see/heard one complete opera by Rameau – a comic one – “Platée” – which is a very funny comedy. I’m not sure I can really honestly say I have heard “Samson” now – the libretto (by Voltaire) is intact (all the versions), but the music has been lost and not yet found (and may never be), so this score was reconstructed from drafts, and from later operas Rameau may have recycled music from this one into. The opera was not heard in Rameau’s lifetime, and in fact has never been performed until this production. The censors of that time would not allow an opera on a “religious” subject and the wealth of non-Bibilical stuff Voltaire concocted would not budge them an inch. And, of course, it was Voltaire, whose opposition to the church was notorious. (now, next wek, the opera will be “The Shining” from the Lyric Opera of Kansas City. Who knew?)  Off to see Virgil now – will check in on return.

https://www.wonkette.com/p/judge-chutkans-got-your-weekend-reading
Wonkette shares links to all four volumes (totalling 1889 pages) of the appendices released Friday. They are redacted but mostly the redactions are names. Many are identifiable.

https://19thnews.org/2024/10/latinx-artists-storytellers-border-narratives/
Last Tuesday was the last day of Hispanic Heritage Month – but this story from the 19th wasn’t available until Wednesday so I just held it till now. You know, all these people coming from countries south of us are doing so because our politics, our CIA, enabled terrible leaders to become strong in their own countries and by so doing made life hell for them. Now we are still making life hell for them by keeping them out. I’m sure there is a bad parenting analogy like this – something like bringing a child up to despise him or herself and then as adults locking the child up to prevent him or her from seeking psychiatric care. If you can imagine and phrase it better, please do. At least there are now creative artists doing their best to bring healing and we can be grateful for that.

‘New York Times’ To Cease Publication


This from The Onion is perfect for a Sunday.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-election-chaos-detroit-misinformation-rcna174091
This was referred by Talking Points Memo, which also vouches for the quality of the journalism of the two co-authors. i guess I hope it scares you enough but not too much.

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Open Thread October 18 2024

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Oct 182024
 

Yesterday, I learned (and I may be late to the party, but I think not, since this is so damning) that Sheldon White house (God bless him) has released a report that during the Kavanaugh confirmation, the FBI didn’t even see the content the thousands of tips called in, because all calls were redirected to the White House. Meanwhile, Axios reports that Democrats have initiateed a llawsuit against the FEC for allowing the GOP to put out ads which are not just morally but also legally questionable. Also, for a while now Steve Schmidt has been sounding increasingly nervous because Kamala Harris has not been as forceful as he would like to see. But her interview with Bret Baier on Fox appears to have satisfied him. Finally, I think this is the first time I have seen Belle pissed off. Personally I found it both amusing and inspiring. See what you think.

I have been aware for some time that Rolling Stone, though not the first name most people thing of when the phrase “news outlet” comes up, does do journalism, much of it on subjects other news media won’t touch,some of it outstanding. I just never went there till now. Maybe I thought I’d be paywalled, and maybe if I go to the well too often I will be. But i was able to see this story. You know, back in ancient Greece and Rome, and even up into the Middle Ages, European rulers literally did kill the messenger who brought bad news. I thought humanity had grown beyond that by now – I suppose the pandenic should have given me a clue.

This is perhaps an extreme example, but it is an example of what Republican policies of starving the government so they can drown it in a bathtub will always lead to. But you knew that. Although you may not have expected to see quite so blatantly it in real time.

OK, I realize this post is getting crowded, but trust me, you do not want to miss the letter which former Governor of Georgia (who is now a lawyer representing Fani Willis personally and professionally) wrote to Jim Jordan. Joyce Vance publishes a photo and describes it as “civil discourse with a little twist of bless your heart attached.” (I magnified it to 500% just to see what it looked like and it’s still very legible, just a bit blurred.)

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Open Thread September 23 2024

 Posted by at 5:52 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 232024
 

Yesterday, I went to see Virgil. Going down there were a few scattered showers – not enough to keep the wipers going – and it also stayed overcast enough I didn’t need to wear sunglasses. Again, we played cribbage in our way – had quite a variety of good hands, middlind hands, and awful hands,more or less evenly divided between us. I can’t be sure, since we do’t keep running totals, but it felt prettty equal no me. Coming back, the sun was out, and I needed to shield the driver’s side window, and that worked. I nuked a leftoer meat from a crockpot made a while ago and the leftovers frozen. I’m calling it Chicken Marengo – although there is in fact no standard recipe forChicken Marengo, and its legen id fake, asthechefwho is supposed to have rsustled it up was not present at the battle. (The fact that there’s so much fake history floating around really makes me appreciate people like Heather Cox Richardson who set things straight.)

And speaking of fake history – though I nonlonger subscribe to Mother Jones, one of my other sources recommended this article, and when I read it, I kind of said “Wow!” Getting to the truth is much harder when people who are actively pushing a myth are fighting you every step of the way – and having found truth, getting it out so everyone knows is even harder.

The line TPM cites in its headline is not the only line they are intentionally blurring. They are also blurring the one between citizenship and the lack of citizenship. Y’know, Paul (in the Bible) was a Roman citizen. He mentions this in one of the Epistles, and basically says anyone who has enough money can buy (Roman) citizenship (“At a great price I obtained this freedom.”) Is this what we are coming to if Trump** and MAGAts win, not just the Presidency, but majorities in Congress?

We all know, or I hope we do, that the stock market and the economy are two different things – two very different things. But you wouldn’t know that by talking with investors – or with Republicans. But the person who can explain it best may well be Robert Reich. And that may well be because he looks at the economy as it pertains to reality, including real people, specifically real workers, as opposed to looking at the economy as pieces of paper with numbers on them

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Open Thread August 15 2024

 Posted by at 6:03 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 152024
 

Yesterday, I learned there’s a new Randy Rainbow out. I also learned Randy has a sponsor now. I have doctored the URL to omit it – but I might point out that it is “Ground News,” which Trae Crowder has also accepted as a sponsor, so you know it’s going to be a reliable source. If you want the coupon, you can start it at the beginning. The parody is of “The farmer and the cowman should be friends,” from “Pklahoma,”which also is about division, so very appropriate. Here’s the link. With that accomplished, I also requested to schedule a donation pickup – and got today for a date. Well, I was ready; all I needed to do was move the chair I want to keep away from the boxes, and put out a note. Since I was going out to the porch anyway, I replaced my “No solicitation” sign, which was getting pretty worn, and put up a new one (if you are on our Mitch’s email list you probably saw it) “Warning! Retired person on premises. Knows everything and has plenty of time to tell it.”

Brooke Binkowski is new at Wonkette. She is a “counterdisinformationist*. In this article she addresses what counterdisinformation is and why it differs from fact-checking and debunking (both of which are also in her CV.) Even though she writes with Wonkette’s trademark irreverence (Rebecca appears to have a knack for hiring people who take to irreverence like ducks to water) some of her suggestions are quite doable. Of course, the more successful one is at it, the more likely one is to start receiving death threats, so take that into consideration too.

There’s a great deal wrong with people who to remove from society those wom they believe to be the “underclass.” But the one thing that may make them the most likely to rethink this is to point out that, without the “underclass,” they would have to clean their own toilets, scrub their own floors, at the very least harvest, and possibly also grow, their own food – and on and on. No, he’s not running for PResident – yet – but as an adviser th JD Vance, if Republicans win, he could still see the inside of the White House.

Belle Ukraine

Dog

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Open Thread September 22, 2023

 Posted by at 6:06 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 222023
 

Yesterday, I learned, because Talking Points Memo had an opinion I felt was both too accurate and too scary not to share, that TPM is also on Substack – along with Heather Cox Richardson, Joyce Vance, Robert Reich, Robert Hubbell, Mary Trump, Margaret Atwood, and Wonkette, to name only a few.  I predict that more and more of our best minds will be migrating to Substack, and this is why: “Since we transferred our shit over to substack, we’ve had a twenty-percent increase in paid subscribers. I haven’t cried about payroll ONCE, particularly since three (? math!) months later, I still have two months worth of payroll in the bank. When’s the last time I had two months of payroll in the bank? Oh, it’s been a long, long time.” That’s from one of Wonkette’s latest newsletters. I realize that scrolling and clicking to continue can be annoying. But I don’t want to quit sharing what I consider to be the best. So first, I promise you, I will never use paywalled content from Substack – I can’t see any of that myself, not being a paying subscriber to any of those I subscribe to. And second, if anyone really has difficulty accessing Substack artcles, let me know – with an email address. There are ways I can send Substack articles to you directly.

Cartoon – 22 block

Short Takes –

Crooks and Liars – It’s Time For A ‘Rural New Deal’
Quote – While “gerrymandering is a huge problem,” polarization is also an issue, as “rural voters are increasingly trending more to the right, and urban voters more to the left,” the Fix Our House report says. Members of Congress elected in uncompetitive districts fear primaries, so they focus on their voting base and refrain from working with “the enemy.” RUBI director Anthony Flaccavento said Tuesday that “the extreme political divide in our country robs rural communities of the resources and opportunities they need, while making it nearly impossible to address the biggest problems we face as a nation.”
Click through for article. Remember the New Deal? Remember the CCC? Maybe not from experience, but possibly from history, including oral history from parents. But thePeace Corps? That you may remember. The RND is being proposed at the same time as Joe’s and Kamala’s ACC (American Climate Corps). I think both are needed. Because it’s not just the economy which needs to be rebuilt from the bottom up and the middle out. Faith in Democracy needs the same makeover.

Talking Points Memo – House GOP Launders Disinformation Through Its Public Hearings – No Good Solutions To This Problem
Quote – Instead, the committee hearings give members the chance to inject the worst of the conspiracizing and crazy talk directly into the public record and into widespread media coverage – and the media still acts as if its powerless to stop participating in it. I could share with you the inane questions that Garland faced, where his face would contort with confusion over what whack-a-doodle premise was framing the question. Or Buttigieg’s exasperation with having to unpack all the lies and presumptions built into the questions he faced about EVs or his personal travel. But to do so would be to further mainline the disinformation. You get it.
Click through for full explanation of the problem (TPM is on Substack.) This is a big reason we need both of the programs in the first short take – and more. What these – people – are doing is poisoning the well. It reminds me of the incident in Willa Cather’s “Song of the Lark” – a tramp infected with typhoid is forced to leave town. He does – by jumping into the town well. He drowns, of course, but his act avenges his own death many times over. Many people wiser than I are saying the GOP is committing suicide with its irrational ideas and behavior. But if it is, it is also taking much of the nation down with it. Somehow we must address that.

Food For Thought

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Open Thread for October 9, 2021

 Posted by at 6:35 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Oct 092021
 

Yesterday, I realized I am starting to run ahead on news stories. I’ve had times when I was running ahead on videos (and I am that too now, but only a little bit), but haven’t seen this may good stories all at once since I started. And I hate to cut most of them out. So I hope you’ll be tolerant of the stories getting posted a bit late, and if there’s breaking news that you think we shouldn’t have to wait for, please feel free to put it in a comment.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Wonkette – Please Watch Frances Haugen’s ‘60 Minutes’ Interview Before Logging Onto Facebook Again
Quote – Facebook recruited Haugen in 2019 and she agreed to join only if she could work against disinformation because she’d watched a friend get trapped in the alternate reality of online conspiracy theories. She was assigned to Civic Integrity, a showy bit of PR sleight of hand intended to show that Facebook cared about disinformation during the 2020 election. However, the company pulled the plug once the election was over, which is true in only in the most literal sense. Practically speaking, the Big Lie is actively gaining ground, arguably thanks to Facebook.
Click through. I am putting this here and not in the Video Thread, partly because it’s a little long (at 13:36), but partly so that more people will see it. I know Nameless watched it when it aired, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Colleen also did. But I didn’t, and everyone should.

Center for Media and Democracy – ALEC Leaders Boast About Anti-Abortion, Anti-Trans Bills
Quote – At the 40th anniversary meeting of the Council for National Policy (CNP) in May, ALEC leaders boasted about their extensive efforts to advance state legislation to severely restrict access to abortion and limit the rights of trans students, as well as voter suppression bills. CNP is a secretive network of far-right Christian political figures and donors that works behind the scenes to influence Washington.
Click through for the status of the investigation. It just never ends!

Mother Jones – This Is the Newest Front in Anti-Vaxxers’ War on Instagram Misinfo Controls
Quote – Janny Organically is a person. Or maybe she’s a few people—it’s hard to tell. At any rate, Janny Organically is an Instagram account, and, with 104,000 followers, a decently popular one at that. Fans enjoy stylishly composed memes in fonts and hues that look like they might belong on a tea towel in a hipster souvenir shop, with lightly anti-authoritarian yet vague messaging. Janny Organically might be urging you to try a new yoga class, or fomenting a revolution, it’s not entirely clear. “Be careful not to confuse cowardice with morality,” reads one post in a script that evokes a 1970s romance novel, in front of some softly blurred flowers. Another one is less subtle: against a sepia-filtered photo of a desert road, are the words, “Open war is upon you, whether you would risk it or not.”
Click through for story. This is the nightmare of what happens when people with actual brains and skills get involved in right wing disinformation. It is horrifying.

Food for Thought –

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