Heh. At ten-to-one or thereabouts, they comfortably outnumber their intended victim, a lone driver they presumably plan to menace and dominate, and when he takes exception to their delinquent provocation and responds accordingly, and effectively, they squeal for back-up. Like the nasty little bitches they are.
But it does, I think, capture a defining dynamic, a rather telling one - and the extent to which the phenomenon could be seen as a middle-class parenting failure. I mean, the juvenile psychology, the uncorrected narcissism, is hard to miss.
But it does, I think, capture a defining dynamic, a rather telling one ...
If you were trying to write a novel or screenplay based on these events, it would be quite hard to imagine coming up with a scene that more perfectly encapsulated why no one with even a trace of sense could come to see Antifa as anything other than malevolence made flesh.
I think they backed off the driver because they realized he was of a royal caste. If he wasn't his impertinence would have been punished by a beatdown.
randian
I take the royal caste point; but I also think that the fact that one or two of them might have got HURT had they tried might have influenced them somewhat.
This paper finds that women who don't believe in gender discrimination are happier, but the authors report that it's really in the best interests of gender equality for them to be unhappy.
Pathologizing. Happy. Women.
It’s certainly been my experience that leftist women tend to be discernibly less happy and much more neurotic, regardless of actual circumstance, so far as I could determine it. And as we’ve seen many times, the mental landscape of many leftist women doesn’t exactly lend itself to happiness. Or self-possession. Or coherence, or realism.
One might reasonably infer, then, that the problem isn’t so much the world as the bong rip of leftism.
The signature dynamic of being woke – the habitual displacement of responsibility and the hostility to even the idea of self-possession, along with endless, often bewildering mental contortion – is unlikely to result in lasting contentedness, or even adult functionality.
It’s a recipe for woe, and for being insufferable.
The number of people on that thread insisting that the problem is false consciousness ignore another possible reason for the study result: people who believe Satan is lurking in their sock drawer are likely to be less happy than people who don't.
They've done a hundred studies and written ten thousand magazine articles documenting that contemporary 21st Century gender roles are making women miserable, as they stretch themselves to be white-collar professionals and mothers and wives and household managers and community organizers and a hundred other roles simultaneously.
They've done three studies showing that women who embrace more traditional gender roles seem to be happier.
Now they're going to twist themselves into knots trying to find a way of explaining that these findings are contradictory. Because they HAVE to be, you see.
David, in this interview Somali-born immigrant Ayaan Hirsi Ali has a few things to say about the left's attacks on Western civilization.
The Case against Revolution with Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Jun 30, 2020
Hoover Institution
Recorded on June 25, 2020
As the United States and the world embark on fraught conversations about race, history, law enforcement, and the underpinnings of our very civilization, Ayaan Hirsi Ali joins Peter Robinson for an enlightening conversation. A refugee from Africa, Hirsi Ali fled to Europe to escape an arranged marriage, becoming an activist, (now former) member of the Dutch Parliament, and now a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. With a different set of life experiences and perspectives from American-born Blacks, Hirsi Ali discusses how, as a Somalian, she views America as the best place on earth for minorities to grow up and achieve their potential. While acknowledging the hardships and miseries that American Blacks have endured and that racism still exists in many quarters of American society, Hirsi Ali emphatically believes that America is more than capable of solving racial inequalities, provided it preserves the institutions that ultimately ended slavery and empowered the protest movements of the 1960s that birthed the Civil Rights Movement. As she wrote in a recent column for the Wall Street Journal, an opinion she reiterates on this show, “There will be no resolution of America’s . . . problems if free thought and free speech are no longer upheld as sacrosanct. . . . Without them, honest deliberation, mutual learning, and the American ethic of problem-solving are dead.”
But the lessons that ought to have followed the election—lessons about the importance of understanding other Americans, the necessity of resisting tribalism, and the centrality of the free exchange of ideas to a democratic society—have not been learned. Instead, a new consensus has emerged in the press, but perhaps especially at this paper: that truth isn’t a process of collective discovery, but an orthodoxy already known to an enlightened few whose job is to inform everyone else.
Twitter is not on the masthead of The New York Times. But Twitter has become its ultimate editor. As the ethics and mores of that platform have become those of the paper, the paper itself has increasingly become a kind of performance space.
I dunno - I think that may be a bit harsh. I thought the admission that there is a dwindling remnant of writers worth reading was a classy way of saying that the enterprise wasn't entirely without value. I read it as a thinly-veiled reference to the fact that they can fall yet lower, as they have no succession plan in place for the few decent writers who will soon age out of their positions (if they're not forced out sooner). But maybe that's just because the heir apparent is tweeting about cake.
Honestly, I thought the whole thing had a nice more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger tone to it, and was just condescending enough to 1) establish who was the grownup and B) really piss off some people who can't bear to be disrespected.
I'm rather looking forward to the employment lawsuit to come. Should be some interesting discovery, and all sorts of reputational damage all around.
This chap has had to resign as curator for the dreadful crime of saying he would still collect work from ‘white people’, and for saying that not to do so would constitute ‘reverse racism’.
As it happens I disagree with him - to have a ‘don’t collect art from white peoples’ policy would simply be racism (also: stupid!). But it does rather seem, does it not, that the leftist capacity for outrage has moved on from being against perceived injustice; this guy lost his job not for being unjust, but for expressing himself in terms not favoured by leftist ideology. Like the ‘black lives matter/all lives matter’ troll.
I have little sympathy for someone who swam in (and I suspect, encouraged) that fetid PoMo, CM swamp, but leave that to one side. Would it not have been just as easy (or even easier) to offer the employees who signed the petition the immediate opportunity to work in a more congenial environment somewhere else?
Our chap, Mr Garrels, arranged the sale of a Rothko in order to "use the proceeds to fill gaps in its collection, with a particular focus on work by women and artists of color, areas in which it currently lags behind many of its peers." It's a beautiful work too, well worth the $50 million someone paid for it. Not.
In doing so Garrels was competing with say the Baltimore Museum of Art who said it would sell seven works by Andy Warhol, Franz Kline, Robert Rauschenberg and other white male artists to enable the purchase of contemporary art by women and artists of color.
The whole scene is utterly and irretrievably corrupt. No-one is looking to buy and display beauty or works that mean anything of themselves. The curators are using other people's money to show how woke they are. They can all go f**k themselves, as far as I am concerned.
I now refuse, on principle, to look at any museum art after 1945. There might be some good ones, but I've seen far too much dreck to be worth my time. Some stuff sold in art galleries is still nice -- but then, they have to actually attract someone to pay for it.
As Mr Felder says in the videos, the restaurant was filled with people of all races having a good time and then the so-called ‘protestors’ arrived, for no discernible reason, and decided to disrupt that good time with a fit of narcissism and malice. Because when restaurant patrons are getting along and enjoying themselves, it has to be punished, apparently. And so, profanities were screamed in front of frightened children, and customers were assaulted, and windows smashed.
Again, what you’re seeing isn’t political. It’s recreational. The ‘activists’ target and bully, harass and vandalise - seemingly at random - because they enjoy it. It makes them feel important and powerful. And it appears that they can imagine power only in terms of power over others – the power to spoil – to frighten and destroy. Needless to say, these are not the kinds of people to whom one should defer, about anything, ever.
The article about the curator has helped my understanding of the word “tenure”. For a white male it means he’s been around for too long and has to go. For a black female it means she can do or say whatever she likes without fear of retribution.
Well, it’s no surprise that overindulged narcissists will behave obnoxiously. What’s remarkable, to me at least, is the widespread accommodation of such behaviour, and the fact that many people will see scenes like those above and not register, or not admit to registering, the obvious motivation. As if they were determined to contrive some kind of excuse for overindulged narcissists behaving in this way. As if it somehow wasn’t gratuitous, an attempt at domination.
Dutch tulip bulbs and money laundering. The quality of the art is irrelevant, so there is no reason for them not to chase identity (con)artists.
This.
Modern seems mostly to be a money-laundering scam perpetrated by 'artists', critics and dealers that, in it's entirety, has produced nothing of value to Western Civilisation but has lined the pockets of those involved in the scheme. Indeed its aim seems to be to undermine Western standards of beauty and replace them with ugliness and then call that great art. It is, like PoMo culture in general, the product of people who feel inadequate when faced with the glories of the West and want to to tear it all down like the Barbarians when they conquered Rome.
If you don't believe in the genius of Mark Rothko, try to visit the Rothko Room at the Tate Modern, where several of his Seagram murals are hung. (Difficult for Chester to get to London, I know!)
Hope it's quiet; sit down; and just look intently at the paintings. Despite the muted colour schemes and the deliberately low level of light in the room, they just GLOW; they become three-dimensional, pathways into another world. Just breathtaking.
What’s remarkable, to me at least, is the widespread accommodation of such behaviour, and the fact that many people will see scenes like those above and not register, or not admit to registering, the obvious motivation.
If you criticise such behaviour, you leave yourself open to accusations of callousness, racism, white-supremacism, insert-here-phobery. You know the kind of thing: do you really consider a few broken windows, smears of graffiti or black eyes too high a price to pay when insert-here-victims have been savagely oppressed for a thousand years?
Of course, such arguments can’t withstand a moment’s scrutiny, but then they never receive a moment’s scrutiny with today’s rules of argument: shout “racist” and retreat to your group of friends and stand jeering and nose-thumbing until your interlocutor retires, frustrated.
On the other hand, if you express approval of such behaviour you can present yourself as progressive, intellectual and deeply, deeply caring. Only the most sophisticated can see past the oafishness and squalor to what it truly is: a gesture of sacrifice and magnanimity.
The desire to approve of, and celebrate, overindulged narcissism is, in itself, a form of narcissism.
Oh, I've seen Rothkos in London. Tate Modern wasn't around then though. It was an special loan of some of his last works.
My friends and I were young at the time and didn't know who he was. We were indeed taken by their power. We started to speculate about the mental state of someone who could produce those paintings until the guard told us to stop, given his suicide.
$50 million to buy the works of any genius is mental enough. To pay that to buy a disturbed man's output is, disturbing. You're not putting such a painting on the wall because you like it, but because you want to buy the story.
I could have a Pollack or Warhol or Lichtenstein on my wall. They're mostly pretty, if largely meaningless. Rothko is just depressing.
If you subscribe to his power, why would you sell his works? What Chicago have done, then, is get rid of genius to buy trendy tat. That's not making it better as a decision.
(Note Rothko is mostly pre-1945. He went a bit later, but his good stuff not much more. It's still a convenient cut-off for me.)
Now for something completely different. I have started watching "War of the Worlds" - 2019 Fox/Canal production, set in contemporary France. Two episodes in, so far so good.
So, rationality and industriousness, along with an appreciation of personal property and individual autonomy, are things that The Dark Folk Who Live In The Forest™ can’t quite get the hang of…?
The irony being that if we were all “actively anti-racist,” as these peddlers of woke hokum insist, they would be the ones being horsewhipped through the streets and chased out of town by parents armed with nail guns.
Is it as good as "Lawrence of Arabia" set in contemporary Leamington Spa? Or "Zulu" set in contemporary Brixton? Oh, wait, that might actually be quite good.
So if one were to move to Asia or Africa to pursue a life based on self-reliance, industry, delayed gratification, rational thinking, punctuality and hard work, would one wind up destitute and homeless because one was out of step with the predominant culture in these non-white regions of the world?
If one taught these values to one's 2.3 children, would the neighbors call the authorities to remove the children from such an abusive environment?
So that Bari Weiss who joined the New York Circus Times "...to invite intelligent discussion from all shades of opinion” and has now left because they failed to learn "lessons about the importance of understanding other Americans...", and unlike her they still do not understand "..the necessity of resisting tribalism...".
Weiss: "[Tulsi Gabbard] is an Assad Toadie"
Rogan: "What does that mean"
Weiss: "I think that I used that word correctly. Can you check what toadie means?"
Weiss: "I think she's like the mother lode of bad ideas" ...
Weiss: "I'm pretty positive about that."
Weiss: "But maybe I'm wrong."
That Bari Weiss?
That's some quality journalisming right there. Such a terrible loss for the Toilet Paper of Record!
I work with a lot of school districts, and they're chattering about a recent Axios-Ipsos poll of parents and their worries about sending their kids back to school in the fall. Apparently, they're all scared shitless that little Jayden and Madison are going to get the Covids and die.
So I wander over to the CDC data portal and pull up COVID deaths by age. If I'm reading the tables correctly, total deaths by COVID for children up to 14 years of age is 30. That's thirty. Three-zero. Across all 50 states. Since February.
By comparison, deaths of adults 55 and older comes in at 106,088. By further comparison, deaths of children 14 and under from non-COVID causes is 10,574.
Now, if I'm a 70-year-old obese diabetic cancer survivor raising my great-grandkids, I suppose I'd be worried about them bringing home a bug that could kill me. But the kids themselves? They're way more likely to fall off a ledge or drown or get hit by a car than they are to catch the COVID cooties. If humans had any capacity for risk analysis, or if America had a news media worth a damn, then maybe people would understand that their kids are worlds safer in school than they are running around the neighborhood. Alas, that's not the world we live in.
So now I have to find a way to tell a bunch of school board members to remove their heads from their nether regions, and then help a bunch of superintendents come up with ways to get the parents in their communities to do the same. So far, my leading slogan is, "Jesus H Christ, could you cretins pretend to have a brain for ten fucking seconds?!" (It may need some workshopping.)
Season One, though slow moving, was intriguing and drew me in.
Season Two, started to become a bit of a jumble, but it looked like it was headed somewhere.
Season Three, mid-season and I'm praying for the Apocalypse.
Not only are there a dozen or more characters to keep track of, but by season three there are three or four versions of each character, sometimes played by different actors, who may come from a different time, a different world or both.
...total deaths by COVID for children up to 14 years of age is 30. That's thirty. Three-zero. Across all 50 states. Since February.
I sincerely doubt that's correct. The accountancy around COVID "deaths" in the U.S. is now a completely political partisan shit show. That number has probably been multi-counted at least 3 times and assigned to any dead child they could prise a covid reading from. I'd guess the correct figure is closer to 3.
There is nothing wrong with that--and in fact we should remember that although Wells' story covers events in England it nonetheless mentions Martian landings in other parts of the world. Various authors have written their own War of the Worlds stories set in locations of their choosing--I vaguely recall one short story by Howard Waldrop set in Texas with snipers picking off Martians from 1000 yards away. I believe he envisioned the lead character as being played by Slim Pickins.
Honestly, I thought the whole thing had a nice more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger tone to it, and was just condescending enough to 1) establish who was the grownup and B) really piss off some people who can't bear to be disrespected.
There's everything wrong with that.
The French can have their Jules Verne - let them set "Vingt mille lieues sous les mers" in the contemporary Seine. They should bloody well leave H.G. alone.
So all the writers who were inspired by Fred Saberhagen's Berserker stories should not have written their takes on that idea? And then there are all the stories inspired by Shelly's Frankenstein, Stoker's Dracula, and so on. Come to think of it, your objection would rule out pretty much every play Shakespeare wrote. Seems to me the only immutable rule is that the writer should do something interesting and entertaining with an idea.
I vaguely recall one short story by Howard Waldrop set in Texas with snipers picking off Martians from 1000 yards away. I believe he envisioned the lead character as being played by Slim Pickins.
Not to mention Orson Well’s radio show that (supposedly) had people freaking out believing it was real.
Though thinking about it, I do understand the concern. Having the French as the front line of defense has not worked out well for civilization in the last 100 year (more?) or so.
Please tell me that the Martians' undoing comes when they wander into the no-go zones in the banlieues. That would be so much more entertaining than Deus Ex Cholera.
I've always found the British hate for the French so charming. It's communicated very casually, like an old inside joke but with just enough vitriol to reassure the listener you're only half kidding. I mean, even we Americans hate on the French all day and we owe our entire Republic to them. Oh well, I understand why furriners despise us and I certainly don't need to an explanation for France's rep.
That’s the big problem with the story for a modern reader, or modern adaptation. For Wells and his readers, the Martians’ nemesis, their undoing, would presumably have been a plausible novelty, a poetic twist. A century and more later, it’s much harder to accept that a space-faring alien intelligence “vast and cool and unsympathetic,” one that’s been scrutinising the Earth for decades, or centuries, would somehow have no inkling of bacteria.
. I mean, even we Americans hate on the French all day and we owe our entire Republic to them.
When people question why we Americans celebrate Cinco de Mayo while to Mexicans it's kinda...Meh.,. I like to point out that it we tend to view it as French defeat that didn't cost us anything. Thus worthy of a few Margaritas and Dos Equiis.
Some 14 year old Twitter sage opined that a social worker could just as well be trained to do infant CPR, and anyway “copaganda” and likely staged for the camera. Oh yeah, and why can’t cops be so nice when dealing with unruly drunks?
An alternative explanation might be that this young cop has been well-trained and is in full command of himself under extreme pressure.
The unfortunate and unstated reality of school reopening is that if even one child contracts COVID, or heaven forfend, dies, the school system will be sued and shut down. At a minimum, the superintendent and school principal will be fired. No one is willing to take that risk. Would you?
Ja, sicher! I’m a big fan. Look, the ending was disappointing because it became evident the makers weren’t going to be able to resolve all the plot twists, but it’s certainly been put together with ingenuity and the core concept is excellent. I hope you were watching it auf Deutsch!
Deus ex Cholera
Still holds up, IMO - there are billions of bacteria on earth and no matter how intelligent our Martians are, there’s no way they’ll be able to predict which ones - from a literally alien ecosystem - will do them harm. Not to mention the poetic aptness of this plot resolution: the gigantic aliens brought down by the literally microscopic world.
I could have a Pollack or Warhol or Lichtenstein on my wall. They're mostly pretty, if largely meaningless. Rothko is just depressing.
I’m more of a Kandinsky sort of guy. Genuinely playful and imaginative and and funny and thoughtful modernism from a foundational figure of the movement.
Maybe in a few centuries most of these names will be forgotten but I do find the heroic aims of modernism very interesting - discard all representation, take the viewer to a world of pure geometric figures, etc. For a few artists - Malevich, I suppose - it came from a genuine, earnest spiritual desire. It did lead to a lot of frauds and mountebanks taking up the profession, though - pity.
The unfortunate and unstated reality of school reopening is that if even one child contracts COVID, or heaven forfend, dies, the school system will be sued and shut down. At a minimum, the superintendent and school principal will be fired. No one is willing to take that risk. Would you?
Whether or not this is true is one thing, but the idea that has taken over the so-called thinking in our society That we must all live in fear of what a lawyer might say months, years down the road, with 100% 20/20 hindsight is far more dangerous. To answer the question, first of all (thank God) it is virtually impossible to say where someone, especially ONE individual got COVID, or most anything similar for that matter. It is simply not provable. But secondly, I can confidently say yes, I have to a similar circumstance. We must not be collective little chickenshits and cave in to these people. These bastards, actually.
A century and more later, it’s much harder to accept that a space-faring alien intelligence “vast and cool and unsympathetic,” one that’s been scrutinising the Earth for decades, or centuries, would somehow have no inkling of bacteria.
If they didn't have bacteria equivalents, then it would be hard to explain their importance.
My concern is that the Martians are smart enough to arrive, yet military numpties. Why land in the middle of the most industrialised military nation on earth at the time (except maybe Germany)? That's just asking to be defeated.
You attack at a point of weakness where there are no issues with your rear. The tip of Spain in HG Wells's time, say.
Why land in the middle of the most industrialised military nation on earth at the time (except maybe Germany)?
It's a kind of blitzkrieg. Overwhelm your enemy in his heartland before he has time to mobilize which destroys his will to fight.
You attack at a point of weakness where there are no issues with your rear. The tip of Spain in HG Wells's time, say.
Landing at the tip of Spain would have brought the British Navy's Mediterranean Fleet into play. So the Martians wouldn't have necessarily had no rear guard issues. In the 1890s the British Navy would have been a more formidable force than the British Army. Still, it's pretty clear Earth's military forces were no match for the Martians.
Some 14 year old Twitter sage opined that a social worker could just as well be trained to do infant CPR
*I*m trained to do CPR but I'm not riding around in a patrol car for someone to flag down. Or are we going to have CPR patrols each night in their own cars with special lights??
If I remember correctly these types weren't too crazy about Curtis Sliwa and The Guardian Angels patrolling New York City. They definitely won't like the fact that Repubican Sliwa plans on running for Mayor in 2021.
I can see it now. Opposing vigilante forces and EMS services asking for political affiliations before they step in.
. . . .stretch themselves to be white-collar professionals and mothers and wives and household managers and community organizers and a hundred other roles simultaneously.
They've done three studies showing that women who embrace more traditional gender roles seem to be happier.
And a newspaper article posted in early July telling of a Marine lieutenant colonel who's been running an engineering battalion, with a comment of a civilian wife definitely giving support . . . .
no matter how intelligent our Martians are, there’s no way they’ll be able to predict which ones - from a literally alien ecosystem - will do them harm.
Well, I’m talking about bacteria as a concept, and contagion generally - as categories of risk, something to anticipate. Consuming humans, or parts thereof, and then getting sick, for instance. The Martians’ disregard for such things now jars in much the same way as the film Alien: Covenant, in which characters wander about without even rudimentary protection, and immediately become infected with alien spores. It’s as if they’re all idiots and have never seen an Alien film, which rather undermines the intended effect.
Much as I like the poetic aspect of the Martians’ undoing, hubris and nemesis, the awesome conquering force felled by tiny things, it’s an oversight that’s harder to rationalise now.
In other news, tomorrow’s Ephemera has been compiled and should materialise just after midnight. UK time, obviously. Not whatever heathen time some of you may be burdened by.
I’m now feeling an urge to dig out Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds album, which wee seedling me received as a Christmas present. I must’ve spent ages marvelling at the book of paintings that came with the gatefold album. And the creepy bassline that accompanies the unscrewing of the Martian cylinder is still a win for me.
The circumstances just haven't worked out well for the French . . .
No the dead Americans, Brits, and Canadians on Omaha Beach, etc.
I've dealt with Europeans all my life. I know all about us parvenus from the States who come over here and race around your old cathedral towns with our cameras and Coca-Cola bottles... Brawl in your pubs, paw at your women, and act like we own the world. We overtip, we talk too loud, we think we can buy anything with a Hershey bar. I've had Germans and Italians tell me how politically ingenuous we are, and perhaps so. But we haven't managed a Hitler or a Mussolini yet. I've had Frenchmen call me a savage because I only took half an hour for lunch. Hell, Ms. Barham, the only reason the French take two hours for lunch is because the service in their restaurants is lousy. The most tedious lot are you British. We crass Americans didn't introduce war into your little island. This war, Ms. Barham to which we Americans are so insensitive, is the result of 2,000 years of European greed, barbarism, superstition, and stupidity. Don't blame it on our Coca-Cola bottles. Europe was a going brothel long before we came to town.
--Paddy Chayefsky, as spoken by James Garner, The Americanization of Emily
This... 'Antifa. Basically chihuahuas displaying nervous aggression'
Posted by: svh | July 14, 2020 at 07:14
Basically chihuahuas displaying nervous aggression
Heh. At ten-to-one or thereabouts, they comfortably outnumber their intended victim, a lone driver they presumably plan to menace and dominate, and when he takes exception to their delinquent provocation and responds accordingly, and effectively, they squeal for back-up. Like the nasty little bitches they are.
But it does, I think, capture a defining dynamic, a rather telling one - and the extent to which the phenomenon could be seen as a middle-class parenting failure. I mean, the juvenile psychology, the uncorrected narcissism, is hard to miss.
Posted by: David | July 14, 2020 at 07:30
Guy's had training.
Posted by: Mike | July 14, 2020 at 08:24
More of that please.
Posted by: Jen | July 14, 2020 at 09:33
But it does, I think, capture a defining dynamic, a rather telling one ...
If you were trying to write a novel or screenplay based on these events, it would be quite hard to imagine coming up with a scene that more perfectly encapsulated why no one with even a trace of sense could come to see Antifa as anything other than malevolence made flesh.
Posted by: Nikw211 | July 14, 2020 at 09:34
Karens in balaclavas.
Posted by: Rafi | July 14, 2020 at 09:36
Karens in balaclavas.
Heh. I may have to swipe that one. It’s the unhappy combination of thug and whiny prodnose. It’s very now.
Posted by: David | July 14, 2020 at 09:39
Like the nasty little bitches they are.
Reminder that it's exactly these same nasty little bitches that want to defund professionals of this calibre.
Posted by: Nikw211 | July 14, 2020 at 09:39
I think they backed off the driver because they realized he was of a royal caste. If he wasn't his impertinence would have been punished by a beatdown.
Posted by: randian | July 14, 2020 at 09:48
randian
I take the royal caste point; but I also think that the fact that one or two of them might have got HURT had they tried might have influenced them somewhat.
Posted by: PaulF | July 14, 2020 at 10:40
I do not think there is a timeline anywhere in the Antifa Expanded Universe where they came out ahead from that encounter.
Posted by: Squires | July 14, 2020 at 10:47
the Antifa Expanded Universe
[ Muffled chortling. ]
Posted by: David | July 14, 2020 at 11:03
Thought this was a good article contrasting the French and American revolutions...
https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/07/14/why-some-revolutions-fail/
Posted by: WTP | July 14, 2020 at 14:12
Also, if I vote for this Chinaman in my GOP primary, does this make me more or less racist? Or more pro- or anti-American?
https://yukongzhaoforcongress.com/
Posted by: WTP | July 14, 2020 at 14:17
This paper finds that women who don't believe in gender discrimination are happier, but the authors report that it's really in the best interests of gender equality for them to be unhappy. Pathologizing. Happy. Women.
Diana S. Fleischman here.
Posted by: Nikw211 | July 14, 2020 at 14:27
Pathologizing. Happy. Women.
It’s certainly been my experience that leftist women tend to be discernibly less happy and much more neurotic, regardless of actual circumstance, so far as I could determine it. And as we’ve seen many times, the mental landscape of many leftist women doesn’t exactly lend itself to happiness. Or self-possession. Or coherence, or realism.
One might reasonably infer, then, that the problem isn’t so much the world as the bong rip of leftism.
Posted by: David | July 14, 2020 at 14:50
Pathologizing. Happy. Women.
The signature dynamic of being woke – the habitual displacement of responsibility and the hostility to even the idea of self-possession, along with endless, often bewildering mental contortion – is unlikely to result in lasting contentedness, or even adult functionality.
It’s a recipe for woe, and for being insufferable.
Posted by: David | July 14, 2020 at 15:02
The number of people on that thread insisting that the problem is false consciousness ignore another possible reason for the study result: people who believe Satan is lurking in their sock drawer are likely to be less happy than people who don't.
Posted by: Daniel Ream | July 14, 2020 at 15:11
You can't spell woke without woe.
Posted by: PiperPaul | July 14, 2020 at 15:12
They've done a hundred studies and written ten thousand magazine articles documenting that contemporary 21st Century gender roles are making women miserable, as they stretch themselves to be white-collar professionals and mothers and wives and household managers and community organizers and a hundred other roles simultaneously.
They've done three studies showing that women who embrace more traditional gender roles seem to be happier.
Now they're going to twist themselves into knots trying to find a way of explaining that these findings are contradictory. Because they HAVE to be, you see.
Posted by: Governor Squid | July 14, 2020 at 15:33
Pathologizing. Happy. Women.
Women who are happy and who deny "systemic gender discrimination" are just exhibiting their Gender Fragility.
Have I got that new Kafkatrap right?
Posted by: Darleen | July 14, 2020 at 15:49
As the scurrying mob stays 20 feet away, the stillness that surrounded one lone voice echoing through the suddenly silent streets was overwhelming.
One man, angry enough to show it, and all the silliness melted away instantaneously.
We are losing against the weakest human beings in our species' history.
[ finishes whiskey bottle, opens another ]
Posted by: Sam | July 14, 2020 at 16:11
Karens in balaclavas.
A 1930's Busby Berkely spectacular. The synchronized swimming scene is breathtaking.
Posted by: Steve E | July 14, 2020 at 16:12
David, in this interview Somali-born immigrant Ayaan Hirsi Ali has a few things to say about the left's attacks on Western civilization.
The Case against Revolution with Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Jun 30, 2020
Hoover Institution
Recorded on June 25, 2020
Posted by: pst314 | July 14, 2020 at 16:23
SE Cupp runneth over with wisdom. At least she's letting everyone see the authoritarian fist gloved in velvet good intentions.
Posted by: Sam | July 14, 2020 at 16:34
The gibsmedat projection is strong with Nerd Jesus.
Posted by: Sam | July 14, 2020 at 16:37
Want freedom again? Wear a mask.
The masks that don't stop coronavirus...?
https://twitter.com/OilPaul/status/1282997199593447425
Posted by: sk60 | July 14, 2020 at 16:42
What nice people.
Here, too.
Posted by: Darleen | July 14, 2020 at 18:02
In Portland, a gentleman grows weary of the round-the-clock Antifa LARPing.
Ah yes, there was that ephemera posting some bit back that was quite similar, had the same results . . .
Posted by: Hal | July 14, 2020 at 18:24
More.
Posted by: Darleen | July 14, 2020 at 18:45
More.
Sounds about right.
Posted by: David | July 14, 2020 at 19:29
So, as ever and despite the lesson taught by a strict taskmaster, nothing will be learned.
Posted by: Sam | July 14, 2020 at 20:08
nothing will be learned.
Vanity is a powerful drug. Also, class-status anxiety.
Posted by: David | July 14, 2020 at 20:15
. . . . nothing will be learned.
Ehn, if he was being a dedicated reader of, oh, The Colonial Chronicle, then he hadn't been learning . . . .
Posted by: Hal | July 14, 2020 at 21:00
Looks like Andrew has had enough, too.
Posted by: Darleen | July 14, 2020 at 21:00
Re: Bari Weiss
Posted by: Darleen Click | July 14, 2020 at 21:35
...nothing will be learned.
I dunno - I think that may be a bit harsh. I thought the admission that there is a dwindling remnant of writers worth reading was a classy way of saying that the enterprise wasn't entirely without value. I read it as a thinly-veiled reference to the fact that they can fall yet lower, as they have no succession plan in place for the few decent writers who will soon age out of their positions (if they're not forced out sooner). But maybe that's just because the heir apparent is tweeting about cake.
Honestly, I thought the whole thing had a nice more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger tone to it, and was just condescending enough to 1) establish who was the grownup and B) really piss off some people who can't bear to be disrespected.
I'm rather looking forward to the employment lawsuit to come. Should be some interesting discovery, and all sorts of reputational damage all around.
Posted by: Governor Squid | July 14, 2020 at 22:14
and all sorts of reputational damage all around
To whom, gov? One must first hold that disgusting rag in esteem and the only ones who do are not physically capable of shame.
Posted by: Sam | July 14, 2020 at 22:47
This chap has had to resign as curator for the dreadful crime of saying he would still collect work from ‘white people’, and for saying that not to do so would constitute ‘reverse racism’.
https://reason.com/2020/07/14/gary-garrels-san-francisco-museum-modern-art-racism/
As it happens I disagree with him - to have a ‘don’t collect art from white peoples’ policy would simply be racism (also: stupid!). But it does rather seem, does it not, that the leftist capacity for outrage has moved on from being against perceived injustice; this guy lost his job not for being unjust, but for expressing himself in terms not favoured by leftist ideology. Like the ‘black lives matter/all lives matter’ troll.
Posted by: TimT | July 14, 2020 at 23:27
This chap has had to resign as curator...
I have little sympathy for someone who swam in (and I suspect, encouraged) that fetid PoMo, CM swamp, but leave that to one side. Would it not have been just as easy (or even easier) to offer the employees who signed the petition the immediate opportunity to work in a more congenial environment somewhere else?
Posted by: dcardno | July 15, 2020 at 04:42
Our chap, Mr Garrels, arranged the sale of a Rothko in order to "use the proceeds to fill gaps in its collection, with a particular focus on work by women and artists of color, areas in which it currently lags behind many of its peers." It's a beautiful work too, well worth the $50 million someone paid for it. Not.
In doing so Garrels was competing with say the Baltimore Museum of Art who said it would sell seven works by Andy Warhol, Franz Kline, Robert Rauschenberg and other white male artists to enable the purchase of contemporary art by women and artists of color.
The whole scene is utterly and irretrievably corrupt. No-one is looking to buy and display beauty or works that mean anything of themselves. The curators are using other people's money to show how woke they are. They can all go f**k themselves, as far as I am concerned.
I now refuse, on principle, to look at any museum art after 1945. There might be some good ones, but I've seen far too much dreck to be worth my time. Some stuff sold in art galleries is still nice -- but then, they have to actually attract someone to pay for it.
Posted by: Chester Draws | July 15, 2020 at 05:47
Dutch tulip bulbs and money laundering. The quality of the art is irrelevant, so there is no reason for them not to chase identity (con)artists.
Posted by: Squires | July 15, 2020 at 06:00
the Antifa Expanded Universe
And somewhat related.
“These people can’t behave.”
[ Added: ]
As Mr Felder says in the videos, the restaurant was filled with people of all races having a good time and then the so-called ‘protestors’ arrived, for no discernible reason, and decided to disrupt that good time with a fit of narcissism and malice. Because when restaurant patrons are getting along and enjoying themselves, it has to be punished, apparently. And so, profanities were screamed in front of frightened children, and customers were assaulted, and windows smashed.
Again, what you’re seeing isn’t political. It’s recreational. The ‘activists’ target and bully, harass and vandalise - seemingly at random - because they enjoy it. It makes them feel important and powerful. And it appears that they can imagine power only in terms of power over others – the power to spoil – to frighten and destroy. Needless to say, these are not the kinds of people to whom one should defer, about anything, ever.
Posted by: David | July 15, 2020 at 06:52
The article about the curator has helped my understanding of the word “tenure”. For a white male it means he’s been around for too long and has to go. For a black female it means she can do or say whatever she likes without fear of retribution.
Posted by: John | July 15, 2020 at 07:14
It’s certainly been my experience that leftist women tend to be discernibly less happy and much more neurotic...
And single.
Posted by: Horace Dunn | July 15, 2020 at 08:30
the power to spoil
That.
Posted by: H | July 15, 2020 at 08:37
That.
Well, it’s no surprise that overindulged narcissists will behave obnoxiously. What’s remarkable, to me at least, is the widespread accommodation of such behaviour, and the fact that many people will see scenes like those above and not register, or not admit to registering, the obvious motivation. As if they were determined to contrive some kind of excuse for overindulged narcissists behaving in this way. As if it somehow wasn’t gratuitous, an attempt at domination.
Posted by: David | July 15, 2020 at 08:54
Dutch tulip bulbs and money laundering. The quality of the art is irrelevant, so there is no reason for them not to chase identity (con)artists.
This.
Modern seems mostly to be a money-laundering scam perpetrated by 'artists', critics and dealers that, in it's entirety, has produced nothing of value to Western Civilisation but has lined the pockets of those involved in the scheme. Indeed its aim seems to be to undermine Western standards of beauty and replace them with ugliness and then call that great art. It is, like PoMo culture in general, the product of people who feel inadequate when faced with the glories of the West and want to to tear it all down like the Barbarians when they conquered Rome.
Posted by: Jonathan | July 15, 2020 at 09:43
If you don't believe in the genius of Mark Rothko, try to visit the Rothko Room at the Tate Modern, where several of his Seagram murals are hung. (Difficult for Chester to get to London, I know!)
Hope it's quiet; sit down; and just look intently at the paintings. Despite the muted colour schemes and the deliberately low level of light in the room, they just GLOW; they become three-dimensional, pathways into another world. Just breathtaking.
Pretentious? Moi?
Posted by: PaulF | July 15, 2020 at 10:15
What’s remarkable, to me at least, is the widespread accommodation of such behaviour, and the fact that many people will see scenes like those above and not register, or not admit to registering, the obvious motivation.
If you criticise such behaviour, you leave yourself open to accusations of callousness, racism, white-supremacism, insert-here-phobery. You know the kind of thing: do you really consider a few broken windows, smears of graffiti or black eyes too high a price to pay when insert-here-victims have been savagely oppressed for a thousand years?
Of course, such arguments can’t withstand a moment’s scrutiny, but then they never receive a moment’s scrutiny with today’s rules of argument: shout “racist” and retreat to your group of friends and stand jeering and nose-thumbing until your interlocutor retires, frustrated.
On the other hand, if you express approval of such behaviour you can present yourself as progressive, intellectual and deeply, deeply caring. Only the most sophisticated can see past the oafishness and squalor to what it truly is: a gesture of sacrifice and magnanimity.
The desire to approve of, and celebrate, overindulged narcissism is, in itself, a form of narcissism.
Posted by: Horace Dunn | July 15, 2020 at 10:58
The desire to approve of, and celebrate, overindulged narcissism is, in itself, a form of narcissism.
Quite so.
Posted by: Fen Tiger | July 15, 2020 at 11:27
"If you weren't Andy, you wouldn't be antagonizing"
"They all look alike to me", antifa style...
Posted by: Farnsworth M Muldoon | July 15, 2020 at 11:32
Titania McGrath brings us more rational political discussion. (NSFW at zir link)
Posted by: Farnsworth M Muldoon | July 15, 2020 at 11:37
Oh, I've seen Rothkos in London. Tate Modern wasn't around then though. It was an special loan of some of his last works.
My friends and I were young at the time and didn't know who he was. We were indeed taken by their power. We started to speculate about the mental state of someone who could produce those paintings until the guard told us to stop, given his suicide.
$50 million to buy the works of any genius is mental enough. To pay that to buy a disturbed man's output is, disturbing. You're not putting such a painting on the wall because you like it, but because you want to buy the story.
I could have a Pollack or Warhol or Lichtenstein on my wall. They're mostly pretty, if largely meaningless. Rothko is just depressing.
If you subscribe to his power, why would you sell his works? What Chicago have done, then, is get rid of genius to buy trendy tat. That's not making it better as a decision.
(Note Rothko is mostly pre-1945. He went a bit later, but his good stuff not much more. It's still a convenient cut-off for me.)
Posted by: Chester Draws | July 15, 2020 at 11:40
Now for something completely different. I have started watching "War of the Worlds" - 2019 Fox/Canal production, set in contemporary France. Two episodes in, so far so good.
Posted by: Felicity | July 15, 2020 at 13:45
Two episodes in, so far so good.
I wasn’t even aware of it. The BBC’s aggravating bore-fest of last year rather put me off modern adaptations.
Posted by: David | July 15, 2020 at 14:17
War of the Worlds set in today’s France? Forgive me but this is much too subtle. Out with it: What is the point?
Posted by: Adam | July 15, 2020 at 15:20
Matt Christiansen on Portland, where Antifa, the left’s screeching id, roams uninhibited.
Posted by: David | July 15, 2020 at 15:22
Well, this is great use of American tax dollars.
Posted by: Darleen | July 15, 2020 at 16:01
Well, this is great use of American tax dollars.
So, rationality and industriousness, along with an appreciation of personal property and individual autonomy, are things that The Dark Folk Who Live In The Forest™ can’t quite get the hang of…?
The irony being that if we were all “actively anti-racist,” as these peddlers of woke hokum insist, they would be the ones being horsewhipped through the streets and chased out of town by parents armed with nail guns.
Posted by: David | July 15, 2020 at 16:17
"War of the Worlds" - set in contemporary France
Da Fuck?
Is it as good as "Lawrence of Arabia" set in contemporary Leamington Spa? Or "Zulu" set in contemporary Brixton? Oh, wait, that might actually be quite good.
Posted by: Karl | July 15, 2020 at 16:34
So if one were to move to Asia or Africa to pursue a life based on self-reliance, industry, delayed gratification, rational thinking, punctuality and hard work, would one wind up destitute and homeless because one was out of step with the predominant culture in these non-white regions of the world?
If one taught these values to one's 2.3 children, would the neighbors call the authorities to remove the children from such an abusive environment?
Posted by: Governor Squid | July 15, 2020 at 16:39
So that Bari Weiss who joined the New York Circus Times "...to invite intelligent discussion from all shades of opinion” and has now left because they failed to learn "lessons about the importance of understanding other Americans...", and unlike her they still do not understand "..the necessity of resisting tribalism...".
Is that this Bari Weiss?
Weiss: "[Tulsi Gabbard] is an Assad Toadie"
Rogan: "What does that mean"
Weiss: "I think that I used that word correctly. Can you check what toadie means?"
Weiss: "I think she's like the mother lode of bad ideas" ...
Weiss: "I'm pretty positive about that."
Weiss: "But maybe I'm wrong."
That Bari Weiss?
That's some quality journalisming right there. Such a terrible loss for the Toilet Paper of Record!
Posted by: Karl | July 15, 2020 at 16:57
I work with a lot of school districts, and they're chattering about a recent Axios-Ipsos poll of parents and their worries about sending their kids back to school in the fall. Apparently, they're all scared shitless that little Jayden and Madison are going to get the Covids and die.
So I wander over to the CDC data portal and pull up COVID deaths by age. If I'm reading the tables correctly, total deaths by COVID for children up to 14 years of age is 30. That's thirty. Three-zero. Across all 50 states. Since February.
By comparison, deaths of adults 55 and older comes in at 106,088. By further comparison, deaths of children 14 and under from non-COVID causes is 10,574.
Now, if I'm a 70-year-old obese diabetic cancer survivor raising my great-grandkids, I suppose I'd be worried about them bringing home a bug that could kill me. But the kids themselves? They're way more likely to fall off a ledge or drown or get hit by a car than they are to catch the COVID cooties. If humans had any capacity for risk analysis, or if America had a news media worth a damn, then maybe people would understand that their kids are worlds safer in school than they are running around the neighborhood. Alas, that's not the world we live in.
So now I have to find a way to tell a bunch of school board members to remove their heads from their nether regions, and then help a bunch of superintendents come up with ways to get the parents in their communities to do the same. So far, my leading slogan is, "Jesus H Christ, could you cretins pretend to have a brain for ten fucking seconds?!" (It may need some workshopping.)
Posted by: Governor Squid | July 15, 2020 at 17:06
Has anyone else watched Dark on Netflix?
Season One, though slow moving, was intriguing and drew me in.
Season Two, started to become a bit of a jumble, but it looked like it was headed somewhere.
Season Three, mid-season and I'm praying for the Apocalypse.
Not only are there a dozen or more characters to keep track of, but by season three there are three or four versions of each character, sometimes played by different actors, who may come from a different time, a different world or both.
I know, just stop watching.
Posted by: Steve E | July 15, 2020 at 17:09
Reuters, you say?
Posted by: David | July 15, 2020 at 17:15
...total deaths by COVID for children up to 14 years of age is 30. That's thirty. Three-zero. Across all 50 states. Since February.
I sincerely doubt that's correct. The accountancy around COVID "deaths" in the U.S. is now a completely political partisan shit show. That number has probably been multi-counted at least 3 times and assigned to any dead child they could prise a covid reading from. I'd guess the correct figure is closer to 3.
Posted by: Karl | July 15, 2020 at 17:22
"War of the Worlds" - set in contemporary France
There is nothing wrong with that--and in fact we should remember that although Wells' story covers events in England it nonetheless mentions Martian landings in other parts of the world. Various authors have written their own War of the Worlds stories set in locations of their choosing--I vaguely recall one short story by Howard Waldrop set in Texas with snipers picking off Martians from 1000 yards away. I believe he envisioned the lead character as being played by Slim Pickins.
Posted by: pst314 | July 15, 2020 at 17:42
Honestly, I thought the whole thing had a nice more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger tone to it, and was just condescending enough to 1) establish who was the grownup and B) really piss off some people who can't bear to be disrespected.
It was a scolding like Joni Mitchell gave the Isle of Wight crowd in 1970 - "you're acting like tourists man".
... the necessity of resisting tribalism ... I have learned to brush off comments about how I’m “writing about the Jews again.” ...
This was always going to be a source of problems, especially with colleagues who can't be manipulated through white guilt.
Posted by: Hammond Song | July 15, 2020 at 17:51
There is nothing wrong with that
There's everything wrong with that.
The French can have their Jules Verne - let them set "Vingt mille lieues sous les mers" in the contemporary Seine. They should bloody well leave H.G. alone.
Posted by: Karl | July 15, 2020 at 18:01
They should bloody well leave H.G. alone.
So all the writers who were inspired by Fred Saberhagen's Berserker stories should not have written their takes on that idea? And then there are all the stories inspired by Shelly's Frankenstein, Stoker's Dracula, and so on. Come to think of it, your objection would rule out pretty much every play Shakespeare wrote. Seems to me the only immutable rule is that the writer should do something interesting and entertaining with an idea.
Posted by: pst314 | July 15, 2020 at 20:27
I vaguely recall one short story by Howard Waldrop set in Texas with snipers picking off Martians from 1000 yards away. I believe he envisioned the lead character as being played by Slim Pickins.
Not to mention Orson Well’s radio show that (supposedly) had people freaking out believing it was real.
Posted by: WTP | July 15, 2020 at 20:43
Though thinking about it, I do understand the concern. Having the French as the front line of defense has not worked out well for civilization in the last 100 year (more?) or so.
Posted by: WTP | July 15, 2020 at 21:06
Having the French as the front line of defense has not worked out well for civilization in the last 100 year (more?) or so.
Oh, I dunno . . . Civilization seems to be doing fine. The circumstances just haven't worked out well for the French . . .
---Since that straight line was just hanging there . . . . !
Posted by: Hal | July 15, 2020 at 21:17
Please tell me that the Martians' undoing comes when they wander into the no-go zones in the banlieues. That would be so much more entertaining than Deus Ex Cholera.
Posted by: Governor Squid | July 15, 2020 at 21:18
Seven ships ablaze in latest Iran mystery fires.
Wasp
Posted by: Hal | July 15, 2020 at 21:19
They should bloody well leave H.G. alone.
I've always found the British hate for the French so charming. It's communicated very casually, like an old inside joke but with just enough vitriol to reassure the listener you're only half kidding. I mean, even we Americans hate on the French all day and we owe our entire Republic to them. Oh well, I understand why furriners despise us and I certainly don't need to an explanation for France's rep.
Posted by: Sam | July 15, 2020 at 21:31
I’ve always found the British hate for the French so charming.
[ Glares across Channel, shakes fist. ]
Posted by: David | July 15, 2020 at 21:40
Deus Ex Cholera.
That’s the big problem with the story for a modern reader, or modern adaptation. For Wells and his readers, the Martians’ nemesis, their undoing, would presumably have been a plausible novelty, a poetic twist. A century and more later, it’s much harder to accept that a space-faring alien intelligence “vast and cool and unsympathetic,” one that’s been scrutinising the Earth for decades, or centuries, would somehow have no inkling of bacteria.
Posted by: David | July 15, 2020 at 22:01
I’ve always found the British hate for the French so charming.
See Death to the French by C. S. Forester.
Posted by: pst314 | July 15, 2020 at 22:17
[...]would somehow have no inkling of bacteria.
In the age of COVID 19, I'm not sure that criticism stands up.
[...] a space-faring alien intelligence “vast and cool and unsympathetic,”[...]
Sort of like how are betters picture themselves, I imagine.
Posted by: Steve E | July 15, 2020 at 22:36
. I mean, even we Americans hate on the French all day and we owe our entire Republic to them.
When people question why we Americans celebrate Cinco de Mayo while to Mexicans it's kinda...Meh.,. I like to point out that it we tend to view it as French defeat that didn't cost us anything. Thus worthy of a few Margaritas and Dos Equiis.
Posted by: WTP | July 15, 2020 at 22:44
*our* not *are*
Posted by: Steve E | July 15, 2020 at 22:59
Some 14 year old Twitter sage opined that a social worker could just as well be trained to do infant CPR, and anyway “copaganda” and likely staged for the camera. Oh yeah, and why can’t cops be so nice when dealing with unruly drunks?
An alternative explanation might be that this young cop has been well-trained and is in full command of himself under extreme pressure.
It’s just a theory.
Posted by: Adam | July 15, 2020 at 23:35
The circumstances just haven't worked out well for the French . . .
No the dead Americans, Brits, and Canadians on Omaha Beach, etc.
Posted by: WTP | July 15, 2020 at 23:41
The unfortunate and unstated reality of school reopening is that if even one child contracts COVID, or heaven forfend, dies, the school system will be sued and shut down. At a minimum, the superintendent and school principal will be fired. No one is willing to take that risk. Would you?
Posted by: Adam | July 15, 2020 at 23:42
Has anyone else watched Dark on Netflix?
Ja, sicher! I’m a big fan. Look, the ending was disappointing because it became evident the makers weren’t going to be able to resolve all the plot twists, but it’s certainly been put together with ingenuity and the core concept is excellent. I hope you were watching it auf Deutsch!
Deus ex Cholera
Still holds up, IMO - there are billions of bacteria on earth and no matter how intelligent our Martians are, there’s no way they’ll be able to predict which ones - from a literally alien ecosystem - will do them harm. Not to mention the poetic aptness of this plot resolution: the gigantic aliens brought down by the literally microscopic world.
Posted by: TimT | July 15, 2020 at 23:50
I could have a Pollack or Warhol or Lichtenstein on my wall. They're mostly pretty, if largely meaningless. Rothko is just depressing.
I’m more of a Kandinsky sort of guy. Genuinely playful and imaginative and and funny and thoughtful modernism from a foundational figure of the movement.
Maybe in a few centuries most of these names will be forgotten but I do find the heroic aims of modernism very interesting - discard all representation, take the viewer to a world of pure geometric figures, etc. For a few artists - Malevich, I suppose - it came from a genuine, earnest spiritual desire. It did lead to a lot of frauds and mountebanks taking up the profession, though - pity.
Posted by: TimT | July 16, 2020 at 00:04
The unfortunate and unstated reality of school reopening is that if even one child contracts COVID, or heaven forfend, dies, the school system will be sued and shut down. At a minimum, the superintendent and school principal will be fired. No one is willing to take that risk. Would you?
Whether or not this is true is one thing, but the idea that has taken over the so-called thinking in our society That we must all live in fear of what a lawyer might say months, years down the road, with 100% 20/20 hindsight is far more dangerous. To answer the question, first of all (thank God) it is virtually impossible to say where someone, especially ONE individual got COVID, or most anything similar for that matter. It is simply not provable. But secondly, I can confidently say yes, I have to a similar circumstance. We must not be collective little chickenshits and cave in to these people. These bastards, actually.
Posted by: WTP | July 16, 2020 at 00:28
A century and more later, it’s much harder to accept that a space-faring alien intelligence “vast and cool and unsympathetic,” one that’s been scrutinising the Earth for decades, or centuries, would somehow have no inkling of bacteria.
If they didn't have bacteria equivalents, then it would be hard to explain their importance.
My concern is that the Martians are smart enough to arrive, yet military numpties. Why land in the middle of the most industrialised military nation on earth at the time (except maybe Germany)? That's just asking to be defeated.
You attack at a point of weakness where there are no issues with your rear. The tip of Spain in HG Wells's time, say.
Posted by: Chester Draws | July 16, 2020 at 00:54
Why land in the middle of the most industrialised military nation on earth at the time (except maybe Germany)?
It's a kind of blitzkrieg. Overwhelm your enemy in his heartland before he has time to mobilize which destroys his will to fight.
You attack at a point of weakness where there are no issues with your rear. The tip of Spain in HG Wells's time, say.
Landing at the tip of Spain would have brought the British Navy's Mediterranean Fleet into play. So the Martians wouldn't have necessarily had no rear guard issues. In the 1890s the British Navy would have been a more formidable force than the British Army. Still, it's pretty clear Earth's military forces were no match for the Martians.
Posted by: Steve E | July 16, 2020 at 01:30
Some 14 year old Twitter sage opined that a social worker could just as well be trained to do infant CPR
*I*m trained to do CPR but I'm not riding around in a patrol car for someone to flag down. Or are we going to have CPR patrols each night in their own cars with special lights??
good lord this bovine excrement is tiring.
Posted by: Darleen | July 16, 2020 at 01:41
good lord this bovine excrement is tiring.
If I remember correctly these types weren't too crazy about Curtis Sliwa and The Guardian Angels patrolling New York City. They definitely won't like the fact that Repubican Sliwa plans on running for Mayor in 2021.
I can see it now. Opposing vigilante forces and EMS services asking for political affiliations before they step in.
Posted by: Steve E | July 16, 2020 at 02:26
The punchlines, they write themselves . . . .
Man's Body Wrapped in Plastic Found on McDonald's Roof in New York
. . . patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun.
The article doesn't say what rating was given by Michelin as a result.
Or by C.M.O.T. Dibbler . . . .
Posted by: Hal | July 16, 2020 at 04:18
The circumstances just haven't worked out well for the French . . .
No the dead Americans, Brits, and Canadians on Omaha Beach, etc.
Yes, but we were going over the French vs Civilization . . . .
Posted by: Hal | July 16, 2020 at 04:55
. . . .stretch themselves to be white-collar professionals and mothers and wives and household managers and community organizers and a hundred other roles simultaneously.
They've done three studies showing that women who embrace more traditional gender roles seem to be happier.
And a newspaper article posted in early July telling of a Marine lieutenant colonel who's been running an engineering battalion, with a comment of a civilian wife definitely giving support . . . .
Posted by: Hal | July 16, 2020 at 05:10
no matter how intelligent our Martians are, there’s no way they’ll be able to predict which ones - from a literally alien ecosystem - will do them harm.
Well, I’m talking about bacteria as a concept, and contagion generally - as categories of risk, something to anticipate. Consuming humans, or parts thereof, and then getting sick, for instance. The Martians’ disregard for such things now jars in much the same way as the film Alien: Covenant, in which characters wander about without even rudimentary protection, and immediately become infected with alien spores. It’s as if they’re all idiots and have never seen an Alien film, which rather undermines the intended effect.
Much as I like the poetic aspect of the Martians’ undoing, hubris and nemesis, the awesome conquering force felled by tiny things, it’s an oversight that’s harder to rationalise now.
Posted by: David | July 16, 2020 at 07:33
In other news, tomorrow’s Ephemera has been compiled and should materialise just after midnight. UK time, obviously. Not whatever heathen time some of you may be burdened by.
Posted by: David | July 16, 2020 at 08:02
I’m now feeling an urge to dig out Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds album, which wee seedling me received as a Christmas present. I must’ve spent ages marvelling at the book of paintings that came with the gatefold album. And the creepy bassline that accompanies the unscrewing of the Martian cylinder is still a win for me.
Posted by: David | July 16, 2020 at 09:01
The circumstances just haven't worked out well for the French . . .
No the dead Americans, Brits, and Canadians on Omaha Beach, etc.
I've dealt with Europeans all my life. I know all about us parvenus from the States who come over here and race around your old cathedral towns with our cameras and Coca-Cola bottles... Brawl in your pubs, paw at your women, and act like we own the world. We overtip, we talk too loud, we think we can buy anything with a Hershey bar. I've had Germans and Italians tell me how politically ingenuous we are, and perhaps so. But we haven't managed a Hitler or a Mussolini yet. I've had Frenchmen call me a savage because I only took half an hour for lunch. Hell, Ms. Barham, the only reason the French take two hours for lunch is because the service in their restaurants is lousy. The most tedious lot are you British. We crass Americans didn't introduce war into your little island. This war, Ms. Barham to which we Americans are so insensitive, is the result of 2,000 years of European greed, barbarism, superstition, and stupidity. Don't blame it on our Coca-Cola bottles. Europe was a going brothel long before we came to town.
--Paddy Chayefsky, as spoken by James Garner, The Americanization of Emily
Posted by: Ted S, Catskill Mtns, NY, USA | July 16, 2020 at 09:55