When I rant that the mainstream media are literally harmful to nation (world too, I suppose), well, Baker’s shit is just one of the latest examples in an endless, nigh-infinite series.
As I also rant, reality has finally caught up to the Comintern’s ancient riff that the west is decadent. Now I’m thinking they’re somewhere between dead on and too accurate.
Then again, it’s the old line; if you let them, they will. We did then they did.
Least I can do is end with a laugh so this, wait, I think it’s funny, maybe not?
That Adam Tooze post is great, but watch out for the comments, some jerk named Steve, his regular stomping-grounds being temporarily closed, couldn't STFU.
"But that force is there, a blunt, crude, simple force of body on body. It is there in reserve."
That's fascism. That's straight up good ol' homestyle fascism. The State wielding the threat of violence they're solely entitled to. (Well, not "solely", exactly, as I recall the vicious assault on protesters by the chuds as the police watched... then arrested the protesters.)
The thing that pissed me off was the jerk NYPD higher-up holding up a chain. "They brought chains! Proof of evil commie intent!". It's a bike chain, shitferbrains.
Hard to believe even Peggy Noonan would pull a real life Hello Fellow Kids.
The follow up to the Peter Baker brou-ha-ha is his son Theo, a student, sent an incredibly disrespectful email to a Black Stanford professor, Hakeem Jefferson, who had criticized his dad. That exchange then went viral. Young Baker told the prof he was “better than this.” Is there a more condescending phrase in existence? It not only criticizes the position taken by the person you are addressing, it presumes you understand that person better than they know themselves.
So now Baker pere et fils are both getting dragged online. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving family.
One of the most disturbing American cultural trends of the last 35 years is the penchant to build family dynasties in which the offspring inherit the parent's job. The results are predictable as the offspring assume the position with a sense of entitlement and having done none of the legwork that got the parent where he or she was. Luke Russert being implanted in his daddy's role simply because Tim was his daddy, or George W. Bush becoming president because his daddy was before him. Catastrophe is inevitable, on scales both large and small. But we're loving us some royalty these days, and we're apparently willing to give up everything just to get some.
Hell, the hellishness small towns may descend into is exactly because those of modest wealth and power hold onto their positions and economic niches like pit bulls. The lie that you will automatically socially advance because of your hard work is disproven by local dynasties.
For that pederast Horatio Alger's Ragged Dick and his clones to advance, they had to meet cute a rich patron.
Thus, JD Vance: whom, by the way, someone, perhaps the sassy gay friend that Wonderful Mr.Thiel is not, should tell to use less eyeliner.
In other news today, yet another Boeing Eyeliner came within an eyelash of disaster. Boeing's continued troubles are raising eyebrows as regulators turn a critical eye into the company's operations.
Now dammit, we have regular ol' eyes, is this slander necessary? It's rat eyes, boss. Them pizza thieving bastards have tiny eyes, not our full, long eyelashed peepers.
My little town manages to mostly avoid the local family dynasty thing by having a constant influx of people from New York and New Jersey who move here to become Big Fish in our Little Pond. When I ran the radio station here, I watched a constant parade of these knuckleheads who would come in and think they absolutely knew better than the local rubes when it came to, well, anything and everything.
When I left the station after dragging it out of debt and into the black for the first time in 20 years, two of these morons took over because they KNEW I wasn't doing it right. In less than 6 months it was back in heavy debt and losing $2000 a month.
We saw the same thing, except it was folks from Florida, convinced they were smarter than hillbillies: the Bush boom brought an exceptional wave of the arrogant: the Crash of '08 damped the inmigration down, a bit: and Covid has fueled a real estate boom that must surely crash...at least, I always assumed...
We may be forgiven for referring to 'em as "Floridiots"...
"Hell, the hellishness small towns may descend into is exactly because those of modest wealth and power hold onto their positions and economic niches like pit bulls. The lie that you will automatically socially advance because of your hard work is disproven by local dynasties."
And the offspring were fucking hideous. One landed in the governor's office and proceeded to shit all over his father's legacy. The other landed on CNN simply by virtue of his brother being governor. And both got turfed out because neither could manage to steer clear of their own douchebaggery.
I think one of the big intra-group wars on the Right is the "populists" versus the kingmakers who've been insisting CEOs be allowed to do whatever they want for the last 40 years.
"Rabble" is the perfect word. The kid's arrogance was astronomical, and I doubt he would have addressed a white male professor with the same tone.
The sheer horror others who had come up through the academic system were expressing at the level of condescension required for a student to address a professor by his first name was something to behold.
In a previous life as a magazine editor, I would occasionally buy photos for the magazine cover or to fill in where authors had been unable to supply any. This naturally led to all kinds of professional photographers wanting to be in my Rolodex, including one guy who was famous for putting dead fish on coat hangers to "pose" them in the middle of heroic leaps as they fought an out-of-focus angler in the background.
One afternoon, he called the offices to complain that I hadn't bought any of his pictures. He got my art director on the phone and started whining to her about the situation. She was on the other side of the room from me with PhotoDude on speaker, doing her best to kindly fend him off. He finally blurts out "Don't you know who I am!?!?!"
To which she responded "I think that question answers itself." And then she hung up on him.
It's only older students (40-50) who ever call me by my first name. I never say anything about how I prefer to be addressed, that just seems to be how it works.
His arrogance is damn high, and I suspect some of that comes via his splash into the public eye via him questioning the now-former Stanford president Marc Tessier-Lavigne's Alzheimer research. He was briefly all over the news, as a freshman. That kind of thing could put your head in the clouds. No two ways about it, that exchange with Prof. Jefferson was quite abysmal.
Since I don’t tweet or xeet or whatever it’s called now, I rely on Roy’s reputation for accuracy to accept that Xitter has some good uses, along with the fascist propaganda. This is the country that has accepted the Supreme Court’s decision that money equals speech, so I guess we’re lucky Musk hasn’t yet figured out how to charge users by the word.
". . . I guess we’re lucky Musk hasn’t yet figured out how to charge users by the word."
Yet. His latest atrocity is making sure that people who you've blocked can see your Xits anyway. I know he did this because too many people were blocking *him*. Only a matter of time before he boils a bunny.
"Bunny boiler" is a great phrase that deserves wider use, I'll apply it right now to the Governor of South Dakota: "That Kristi, she's a real bunny-boiler."
Not hard to understand why college students would disdain the author of encomiums to Ronald Reagan, who has been dead longer than some of them have been alive.
We grew up with his album Pure Delight, which included a version of that song slightly different from (and, IMHO, better than) the one in that clip. ("I'm Anatole of Paris/My small frou-frous/Make heavy news/ From Fifth Avenue casements/to Orbach's basements").
Oh little bunny Jebus, have I been waiting for to return from your vacay (welcome back, btw!) -- it was the week that the US Zio's lost all credibility & Biden may have lost the fucking election by alienating every one of the 18–35 year-olds who vote Dem. It's tough to sell people on "We're Not the F-word" when you're enabling said Fascism twice as hard & twice as fast, with a much bigger budget.
I guess we still have enough primaries yet to come for voters to vote "uncommitted" or for whatever micro-Dem candidates are still on their state's ballots to let the DNC know they're headed for disaster if the course remains unchecked.
[Yes, you can all yell at me now. It is my & only my fault disaster is imminent...]
I thought maybe one throwaway line, like, "Look, I know it's hard seeing kids killed, and you want it to stop, but.." (don't ask me how to finish that sentence, please, genocide-justifying isn't in my skill set). But no, nothing. Not even the tiniest olive branch offered, which I understand is a metaphor that comes straight outta Palestine.
Meh, taking any position on the Israeli Intifada would lose the election. Attempting to mold the bowl of jellyfish that is the voters who see an election as a special episode of The Masked Singer into a "winning coalition" is a fool's errand. Rather than make demands that will be ignored and worry about "complicity" at this point in our history, Biden is trying to mitigate damage. Look, we all have to grapple with the chance that American democracy, like a turkey staring at the sky in the rain, may be too stupid to live.
It was just needlessly insulting. This shouldn't have been that hard to do. Acknowledge that we all feel horror at what we're seeing transpire in Gaza, acknowledge that among the protesters there are many who mean well, say you're working hard to bring about peace, sign the fuck off. There's probably a standard speech in the White House library, the patronizing one that elder politicians ALWAYS direct at young activists. Nobody's expecting him to sign on to "Divest Now!" but he also didn't need to ratify every lying Republican talking point, as if that ever does anything except help the Goddamn Republicans.
Also totally agree about "too stupid to live", should be printed on the fucking flag.
And the fact that it was so maladroit tells me this is Biden speaking from the heart, it's not the product of wordsmithing by the political consultants. He really does just hate student protesters, in fact that's what he said back when he was in college himself, he called them "assholes" then and it's clear he still believes this.
I have no Idea which maladroit statement Biden made, but what I scraped together shows no olive branches, just affirming a right to protest and condemning violence. The bare minimum. He will lose some votes over this, but he'd lose a lot more going into the weeds of who shoved who first. If you think he's still that asshole from Scranton he probably is, but he might be a bit more. There is no way to address the demonstrations that doesn't lose votes. He's likely making a cold calculation, along with how much shit from Israel he's willing to eat for a cease fire that may not come until Bibi is satisfied with the body count.
Look at the statements Biden and other Democrats made in the midst of the George Floyd protests (which also featured some property destruction.) There, they were able to thread the needle. Here, he didn't even try, maybe because of long-standing attitudes he has about college protesters, specifically.
Keep in mind that because of J6, he can't say anything that sounds even a little bit like "it's okay to take over buildings." I suspect he said what 20,000 voters in Michigan and Pennsylvania needed to hear. Maybe with an eye toward not knocking over whatever intricate balance he's trying to get in Israel-Hamas negotiations. Plus what he said... really wasn't so bad. If I were 20, I'd still vote for him.
I don't think he was obligated to take a position on that question at all. As I said above, "We're all horrified by what we're seeing in Gaza, my administration is working hard for peace, I support peaceful protest as long as it stays peaceful, thank you and good night." But he went so much farther than that. And I don't think that's a calculation about votes, I think it's just how he feels. Take over a campus building and you're an asshole, and by extension the entire political movement with which you identify is hereby delegitimized. Now, burn down an auto parts store and we're willing to make some distinctions then, to separate one violent act from the overall movement. But he's doing THESE protesters zero favors, because he disagrees with their goals and just plain doesn't like them.
We’ll be fucked for a long time, probably beyond my time in the world. It’s definitely an ill wind.
I appreciate the linguistic discussion at the top of this REBID and the link to the Guardian article about “begs the question”. I first heard that quote from my dad paraphrased as “an ill wind nobody blows good,” in reference to the oboe, his instrument. He followed up with the original quote, somewhat garbled. I thought the original quote was a description of a particular thing or state of affairs; now I know it’s a proverb or adage, a warning to beware of pestilent breezes.
And I first heard “begs the question” in logic class in my freshman year of college (sooo long ago). When the phrase started popping up in journalistic media a couple or three decades ago, I immediately thought “these people don’t know what it means.” My theory is that they heard a really smart person use correctly but misunderstood the meaning and context, but they wanted to sound smart because this smart person said it. A lot of the “prestige pressies” (thanks Roy, am stealing) are that stupid about the actual raw material of their craft.
My question, which I'll beg right now, is what expression SHOULD we have for that? Because it's a common thing people do, to push the question off by saying something that just raises further, obvious questions they're not answering. Maybe "begs the question" got repurposed because we needed a name for that thing, and it was handy.
Yeah, I play woodwinds—sax, clarinet and flute — but oboe was a bridge tt far for me. I did try, so I know about the instrument’s persnickety personality.
All the double reeds are way beyond me. I wanted to play the bassoon, but I couldn't make the damn thing work. It appears my mouth was only built for the tuba ("Queen of the brasses, you know" as Dr. Anders used to say, to make me feel better)
Dame Peggington Noonington III's inability to "grok"--to use the student's quaint parlance--their "beefs" with Dean Wormser, ultimately spells trouble for one man. Five dollars if you can guess that man's name (Biden). Incivility, the left's reluctance to lay down and let Trump do what he wants to the body politic--these are the real issues.
(In this column she doesn’t even engage the genocide the kids are protesting. It’s quite beside the point, which is how young people today have gotten above themselves.)
Feature, not bug, amirite? It's an acknowledgement by Israel's apologists* that Israel's actions in Gaza are, in fact, indefensible.
*I won't call them "Israel's defenders" because they never mount any defense.
How the Prestige Press treats lefty protest movements, Part 1: Never, and I mean NEVER, interview the leaders of such movements. You might think it's the logical thing to do, go to the person or people chosen by the students themselves to be a spokesperson, they're likely to have a concise statement of the goals of the movement. Aha, but you're not going to let yourself be MANIPULATED like that, a savvy journalist like you? Of course not! Pick a random protester, cut out a 3-word clip like "War is bad", then go back to your office to castigate the protesters, whose ideas lack depth.
This from the same people who - as soon as a political debate concludes - head to a special roped-off area called "Spin Alley."
Or go looking for the most unhinged person you can find, or the Nazi who snuck in to try to recruit, or the MAGA ratfucker who also snuck in, and base your entire thesis on the actions of bad-faith individuals.
It's a sign of real savvy, the thing journalists admire the most, when practiced by politicians. A screaming klaxon WARNING ATTEMPTED PRESS-MANIPULATION AHEAD when mere citizens try it.
She does, and practiced it wonderfully in her column: Nameless, give the most negative interpretation of your target's behavior, even if that behavior is neutral, and then sell it to chucklefucks predisposed to believe it.
Yeah, that was my little joke. Peg came up in a Republican generation that owned message discipline. Like HST said about Johnny Unitas' flattop, she had a powerpoint deck you could set your watch to.
When GHWB worried that he lacked "the vision thing" -- what did the press even *mean* by asking about his vision for the country? -- she solved it by writing the tin poetic gibberish that was his "thousand points of light" speech.
In other words: Literally she launched her career by politely refusing to answer a question. So she's got some nerve/irony/memory loss to feel bothered that these kids should etc etc.
Also, cuz I just can't shut up, apparently, I wonder how many times folks like Peter Baker have been told to fuck off by Trump rally participants? (That's when their polite questions aren't answered by "Somebody fetch a rope!") Is this an indication that the MAGA movement "is not about actually explaining your case or trying to engage journalists who are there to listen"? No, not at all, just a healthy demonstration of The Common People's understandable contempt for Coastal Elites! Makes us want 'em all the harder! Please, sir, can I buy you breakfast at the diner of your choice?
Yeah, that's the punchline: If the prestige press get Trump elected, the MAGA goons will just hate them more, because every victory further convinces them of the truth of every rightwing fairy-tale they've every been told, including the ones about "the liberal media."
I look forward to punching Peter Baker in the nose once we all go to the camps. But I'll have to wait in a long, long line. "Democracy dies....thanks to us!"
Every young person at that protest got a year's worth of media training, just from watching how the media covered the Black Lives Matter protests. Mostly, what they learned was that these people aren't to be trusted, and you just just fend them off to the group's designated spokesperson.
Sure, they should have a good media strategy for speaking with the press, including Noonan. Maybe nothing more than repeating over and over that criticizing Israel for the mass murder of children isn’t anti Semetic any more than criticizing the Nazis for their genocide was anti-German. How hard would that be?
I think what these students wanted to do is to promote the voices of Palestinian and Jewish students involved in the protest, because those students can speak to the issue with greater credibility. And my guess is if you checked who the students had chosen for their spokespeople, that's who you'd find. And I think we both know why Noonan would want to avoid speaking to those particular students. She's a dishonest hack who wants to claim the protests are antisemitic, having to speak to a Jewish student spokesperson screws that up.
Like, for example, if I was at a BLM protest, I'd be reluctant, as a White man, to speak to reporters because I think the voices of people of color who are most affected should be put front and center, and my only small way of effectuating that is to decline interviews myself.
They should, but I suspect the organizing of these things make Occupy look like a well-oiled machine. The moral outrage is their fuel, and being young and idealistic think it's a winning message. so they're gonna lean into that. Plus, protests these days arent about convincing anyone of anything. Does Rules for Radicals say anything about K.I.S.S.?
I don't know if Peg identified herself to the kids, but they should be savvy enough to stay far away from the Times, based on their coverage.
The thing that set off Noonan was specifically an example of the protests being well-organized, wanting to maintain some message discipline by denying the press interviews with anyone who's not a chosen spokesperson.
"...criticizing Israel for the mass murder of children isn’t anti Semetic any more than criticizing the Nazis for their genocide was anti-German. How hard would that be?"
"Antisemitic student protester compares Jews to Nazis" reads the headline on Peggy Noonan's column the very next day. Oh, you didn't actually say that? Maybe you should have chosen your words more carefully. But never mind, we'll let you write a letter to the editor. No, we won't print it, but you can certainly write it.
It seems their basic points are getting hijacked by the overall media narrative, which is heavily influenced by AIPAC and other right wing groups that do have effective media strategies.
Only if you don't go to TikTok -- the protestors know that talk or not, they'll be painted as slavering, rabid, antisemitic, violent, & entitled — and most Boomers & older Gen Xers will believe the NYT/CNN bullshit bc they're comfortable not seeing Palestinians as human & so therefore not worth worrying about.
So I guess it seems like a you problem, to cop the Gen Z phrase.
Right, everyone should just give up because the stuff they are doing isn’t working. Come up with a better strategy? Why bother? It’s all for naught, a lost cause, a fool’s errand, tilting at windmills. Just quit and be done with it. Then make a video of yourself licking your bitter tears, or letting them drip onto a red rose, then upload it to TikTok as proof of all the hopelessness and despair.
"Everyone" meaning you, dude. Nobody else has given up. You have, & many other spineless liberals. Thanks for the world, dad -- we'll unfuck it for you all.
Right, when I say they shouldn’t give up, I really mean they should. And when you say they should give up, you really mean they shouldn’t. It’s opposite world, man. Groovy.
It sounds like you think their goal is to convince someone of something. A spontaneous demonstration based on moral outrage is not gonna be the Second Coming of the Civil Rights movement, for better or worse. It's pure emotion with a dollop of now what are we gonna do on top.
They'll do the ever popular "these kids are just yelling" thing that has been done since 1968. Funny how folks going to college can assemble, analyze, and act on things unrelated to what they're ostensibly learning.
How do u know they don't? Because the major news media —just like during BLM & Occupy— concatenates the soundbite "The protestors don't seem to know what they're protesting hyuck hyuck" & the Doofi Liberalis inevitably believe it because the media must be telling the truth _this_ time.
Also, there's no debate here about "having an effective communication strategy." That's exactly what drove Noonan nuts (well, nuttier) that they weren't just wingin' it. I'm a reporter who's done a thousand interviews, you're a college student who's never done one, I like them odds! Denying Noonan an interview with anyone who isn't a chosen spokesperson is a way of leveling the playing field, now she's dealing with someone who has some experience. Of course she'd hate that, but it's not an indication that the students haven't thought this thing through. Let's allow that they may have even given this question more thought than you have.
Well, it’s something I’ve been studying for over 40 years now and have put my thoughts in practice on a few occasions, so I’m not quite ready to allow that. But even if that’s not the case, well meaning people should be able to disagree? No? Or do I think I’m the evil arbiter of what well meaning people should do, so you should get angry and heap scorn upon me for my narcissistic impertinence? Probably the latter, eh.
A point I often try to make with the defeatists is that we now live in a world where Nazi's and religious extremists effectively control the Republican Party, and no one believed that could happen twenty or thirty years ago. Then you look at how that happened and find that right wing think tanks planned and executed a long term strategy that got us to this point.
If they can do it for evil, why can't we do it for good? So I think it's important that we understand their tactics and turn them around on them where possible. In this case, I think if the students draped themselves in American Flags, shouted that they were protesting for anti-American War Crimes and the attacks on American independence while holding up graphic pictures of dead Palestinian children, that they would have more success.
It's unfortunate, but large swathes of the population aren't going to be much bothered by police attacking protestors wearing Muslim headgear and waving foreign flags, but get some images of them attacking people waving American flags and you've got a media relations victory.
I used to get advice like this back when I was organizing protests against the Iraq war. Thing is, nobody's paid to come to these things, we're not putting on a stage play where the actors all dutifully recite their lines, people come and they want to be who they are, and to say the things they truly believe. If you don't think that's effective, I will note that every protest movement since the later 1950's has eventually won the American people over, simply through the sincere expression of its beliefs. So something we're doing must be working, and no, nothing works over the short term.
Looks like your R&R did you a world of good, Roy. Bravo!
Thanks. I could use another!
Consider it authorized.
The Workers Coordinating Committee has met and approved leave whenever he needs it for Comrade Edroso.
Somehow, I've always felt like I needed another vacation after my vacation...
Mandatory chaser to Noonan’s toxins:
https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-280-the-state-as-blunt
When I rant that the mainstream media are literally harmful to nation (world too, I suppose), well, Baker’s shit is just one of the latest examples in an endless, nigh-infinite series.
As I also rant, reality has finally caught up to the Comintern’s ancient riff that the west is decadent. Now I’m thinking they’re somewhere between dead on and too accurate.
Then again, it’s the old line; if you let them, they will. We did then they did.
Least I can do is end with a laugh so this, wait, I think it’s funny, maybe not?
https://whowhatwhy.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/image1-copy-18.jpg
That Adam Tooze post is great, but watch out for the comments, some jerk named Steve, his regular stomping-grounds being temporarily closed, couldn't STFU.
Mom told me to ignore him so I try to oh my god I just fucked up replying to this!!
Is that Steve from Wisconsin?
That's where Steve B from, yeah...
Longtime listener, first-time commenter!
I always hear that with a Lon Guyland accent...brain..can't..hear..it in Wisconsinese......Norman, coordinate!
I'm callin' in ta talk about DA BEARS.
Ahhh, thank you! Voice reference established!
"But that force is there, a blunt, crude, simple force of body on body. It is there in reserve."
That's fascism. That's straight up good ol' homestyle fascism. The State wielding the threat of violence they're solely entitled to. (Well, not "solely", exactly, as I recall the vicious assault on protesters by the chuds as the police watched... then arrested the protesters.)
Tooze’s hands are slightly tied in view of the employer for his day job.
OTOH, his uncle was literally a commie spy so, you know, he has huge compliance issues.
But the contrast with what Noonan pulled out of her ass…
Oh, and reminder that the Columbia situation cascaded from Ilhan Omar's daughter being arrested and expelled from Barnard for protesting: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68851168
The thing that pissed me off was the jerk NYPD higher-up holding up a chain. "They brought chains! Proof of evil commie intent!". It's a bike chain, shitferbrains.
Yeah, a bike chain and lock you can evidently purchase FROM THE COLLEGE ITSELF on its website.
AHA! The Commies are IN THE BUILDING!
Hard to believe even Peggy Noonan would pull a real life Hello Fellow Kids.
The follow up to the Peter Baker brou-ha-ha is his son Theo, a student, sent an incredibly disrespectful email to a Black Stanford professor, Hakeem Jefferson, who had criticized his dad. That exchange then went viral. Young Baker told the prof he was “better than this.” Is there a more condescending phrase in existence? It not only criticizes the position taken by the person you are addressing, it presumes you understand that person better than they know themselves.
So now Baker pere et fils are both getting dragged online. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving family.
One of the most disturbing American cultural trends of the last 35 years is the penchant to build family dynasties in which the offspring inherit the parent's job. The results are predictable as the offspring assume the position with a sense of entitlement and having done none of the legwork that got the parent where he or she was. Luke Russert being implanted in his daddy's role simply because Tim was his daddy, or George W. Bush becoming president because his daddy was before him. Catastrophe is inevitable, on scales both large and small. But we're loving us some royalty these days, and we're apparently willing to give up everything just to get some.
Absolutely accurate. Great wealth and power are self-perpetuating.
Hell, the hellishness small towns may descend into is exactly because those of modest wealth and power hold onto their positions and economic niches like pit bulls. The lie that you will automatically socially advance because of your hard work is disproven by local dynasties.
For that pederast Horatio Alger's Ragged Dick and his clones to advance, they had to meet cute a rich patron.
Thus, JD Vance: whom, by the way, someone, perhaps the sassy gay friend that Wonderful Mr.Thiel is not, should tell to use less eyeliner.
But he has little tiny pig eyes -- how else is he going to make them pop?
Does anyone else see “eyeliner” and think “just another Boeing travesty”?
In other news today, yet another Boeing Eyeliner came within an eyelash of disaster. Boeing's continued troubles are raising eyebrows as regulators turn a critical eye into the company's operations.
Well, meth is one rural method..
Keeps the dentists in business, helps the local economy.
Now dammit, we have regular ol' eyes, is this slander necessary? It's rat eyes, boss. Them pizza thieving bastards have tiny eyes, not our full, long eyelashed peepers.
My little town manages to mostly avoid the local family dynasty thing by having a constant influx of people from New York and New Jersey who move here to become Big Fish in our Little Pond. When I ran the radio station here, I watched a constant parade of these knuckleheads who would come in and think they absolutely knew better than the local rubes when it came to, well, anything and everything.
When I left the station after dragging it out of debt and into the black for the first time in 20 years, two of these morons took over because they KNEW I wasn't doing it right. In less than 6 months it was back in heavy debt and losing $2000 a month.
We saw the same thing, except it was folks from Florida, convinced they were smarter than hillbillies: the Bush boom brought an exceptional wave of the arrogant: the Crash of '08 damped the inmigration down, a bit: and Covid has fueled a real estate boom that must surely crash...at least, I always assumed...
We may be forgiven for referring to 'em as "Floridiots"...
We called them "meth-addled asshats", so that's not so bad.
"Hell, the hellishness small towns may descend into is exactly because those of modest wealth and power hold onto their positions and economic niches like pit bulls. The lie that you will automatically socially advance because of your hard work is disproven by local dynasties."
We call this "South Carolina."
"too small for a republic, too large for an insane asylum"
Ken Burns represent!
Some Cuomos come (cuome?) to mind.
And the offspring were fucking hideous. One landed in the governor's office and proceeded to shit all over his father's legacy. The other landed on CNN simply by virtue of his brother being governor. And both got turfed out because neither could manage to steer clear of their own douchebaggery.
Written like a native New Yorker
Coupla Jabronis, they were.
I think one of the big intra-group wars on the Right is the "populists" versus the kingmakers who've been insisting CEOs be allowed to do whatever they want for the last 40 years.
Right? How is newspaper reporter an inherited position? Baby Baker should try branching out before riding Daddy's coattails.
That kid is a pip.
How nice the old man is training him in contempt for the rabble.
"Rabble" is the perfect word. The kid's arrogance was astronomical, and I doubt he would have addressed a white male professor with the same tone.
The sheer horror others who had come up through the academic system were expressing at the level of condescension required for a student to address a professor by his first name was something to behold.
DON'T YOU KNOW WHO MY FATHER IS
If we didn't before, we do now lol.
In a previous life as a magazine editor, I would occasionally buy photos for the magazine cover or to fill in where authors had been unable to supply any. This naturally led to all kinds of professional photographers wanting to be in my Rolodex, including one guy who was famous for putting dead fish on coat hangers to "pose" them in the middle of heroic leaps as they fought an out-of-focus angler in the background.
One afternoon, he called the offices to complain that I hadn't bought any of his pictures. He got my art director on the phone and started whining to her about the situation. She was on the other side of the room from me with PhotoDude on speaker, doing her best to kindly fend him off. He finally blurts out "Don't you know who I am!?!?!"
To which she responded "I think that question answers itself." And then she hung up on him.
It was glorious.
You're that guy from Adam Tooze's substack
Please, no autographs.
You looked great in that tux at the Met Gala.
At my school the students usually just use the Professors last name sometimes with a Mr.
It's only older students (40-50) who ever call me by my first name. I never say anything about how I prefer to be addressed, that just seems to be how it works.
His arrogance is damn high, and I suspect some of that comes via his splash into the public eye via him questioning the now-former Stanford president Marc Tessier-Lavigne's Alzheimer research. He was briefly all over the news, as a freshman. That kind of thing could put your head in the clouds. No two ways about it, that exchange with Prof. Jefferson was quite abysmal.
(Edited for punctuation! Proofread first...)
Whoops, I some how posted the same thing twice, and it wasn't a good enough comment for that
Well there are
Bless your heart and you do you
"bless your heart"? "BLESS YOUR HEART"??? That's cultural appropriation!!
Well there are
Bless your heart and you do you
This is great, Roy . They used to call these "think pieces'.
I think.
I thought that " Ill Wind" thing was follow up to an evening of Street Tacos and cheap beer. I like your definition too!
Glad you're back! Evidently, it's best I have somewhere to go vent in the morning. That's what the staff is saying.
"They used to call these "think pieces'." Those were the days, eh?
"Think pieces... I resemble that remoick"
These days, my thinking mostly comes in pieces, like a sofa from Ikea.
I got the Ikea chiropractor's table kit but it was so confusing to assemble that I wrenched my back.
You must have used the wrong wrench — didn't one of those little crankie dealies come with the set?
It came with an Allen wrench, but his name is Bern not Allen so he couldn't use it
It's no wonder they've fallen out of fashion-
Thinking used to be more popular.
"Salivate when they ring the bell" is quicker, and in today's fast-moving attention-based economy, quickness is everything.
And you knew who you were then / goils were goils and men were men....
Must have been a good vacation. That was a good one!
Thanks and yes.
Since I don’t tweet or xeet or whatever it’s called now, I rely on Roy’s reputation for accuracy to accept that Xitter has some good uses, along with the fascist propaganda. This is the country that has accepted the Supreme Court’s decision that money equals speech, so I guess we’re lucky Musk hasn’t yet figured out how to charge users by the word.
". . . I guess we’re lucky Musk hasn’t yet figured out how to charge users by the word."
Yet. His latest atrocity is making sure that people who you've blocked can see your Xits anyway. I know he did this because too many people were blocking *him*. Only a matter of time before he boils a bunny.
"Bunny boiler" is a great phrase that deserves wider use, I'll apply it right now to the Governor of South Dakota: "That Kristi, she's a real bunny-boiler."
You can take the boy out of South Africa, but ya can't take the South Africa....
Musk IS a big talker, QED.
I'd advise abandoning Xitter now, as I understand Enlo is going to reinstate Nick Fuentes' account. Hilarity will not ensue.
When I see "Ill Wind" this comes to mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlLnzXeiRCs
Not hard to understand why college students would disdain the author of encomiums to Ronald Reagan, who has been dead longer than some of them have been alive.
They all watched Noonan's biopic -- it's called "The Walking Dead." Surprisingly popular, it was.
nice tune.
Great minds think differently, because Danny Kaye is what I think of:
https://youtu.be/uJ9bnC1v1xc
We grew up with his album Pure Delight, which included a version of that song slightly different from (and, IMHO, better than) the one in that clip. ("I'm Anatole of Paris/My small frou-frous/Make heavy news/ From Fifth Avenue casements/to Orbach's basements").
Just looked up Sylvia Fine -- what a treat!
Oh little bunny Jebus, have I been waiting for to return from your vacay (welcome back, btw!) -- it was the week that the US Zio's lost all credibility & Biden may have lost the fucking election by alienating every one of the 18–35 year-olds who vote Dem. It's tough to sell people on "We're Not the F-word" when you're enabling said Fascism twice as hard & twice as fast, with a much bigger budget.
I guess we still have enough primaries yet to come for voters to vote "uncommitted" or for whatever micro-Dem candidates are still on their state's ballots to let the DNC know they're headed for disaster if the course remains unchecked.
[Yes, you can all yell at me now. It is my & only my fault disaster is imminent...]
I thought maybe one throwaway line, like, "Look, I know it's hard seeing kids killed, and you want it to stop, but.." (don't ask me how to finish that sentence, please, genocide-justifying isn't in my skill set). But no, nothing. Not even the tiniest olive branch offered, which I understand is a metaphor that comes straight outta Palestine.
Meh, taking any position on the Israeli Intifada would lose the election. Attempting to mold the bowl of jellyfish that is the voters who see an election as a special episode of The Masked Singer into a "winning coalition" is a fool's errand. Rather than make demands that will be ignored and worry about "complicity" at this point in our history, Biden is trying to mitigate damage. Look, we all have to grapple with the chance that American democracy, like a turkey staring at the sky in the rain, may be too stupid to live.
It was just needlessly insulting. This shouldn't have been that hard to do. Acknowledge that we all feel horror at what we're seeing transpire in Gaza, acknowledge that among the protesters there are many who mean well, say you're working hard to bring about peace, sign the fuck off. There's probably a standard speech in the White House library, the patronizing one that elder politicians ALWAYS direct at young activists. Nobody's expecting him to sign on to "Divest Now!" but he also didn't need to ratify every lying Republican talking point, as if that ever does anything except help the Goddamn Republicans.
Also totally agree about "too stupid to live", should be printed on the fucking flag.
And the fact that it was so maladroit tells me this is Biden speaking from the heart, it's not the product of wordsmithing by the political consultants. He really does just hate student protesters, in fact that's what he said back when he was in college himself, he called them "assholes" then and it's clear he still believes this.
I have no Idea which maladroit statement Biden made, but what I scraped together shows no olive branches, just affirming a right to protest and condemning violence. The bare minimum. He will lose some votes over this, but he'd lose a lot more going into the weeds of who shoved who first. If you think he's still that asshole from Scranton he probably is, but he might be a bit more. There is no way to address the demonstrations that doesn't lose votes. He's likely making a cold calculation, along with how much shit from Israel he's willing to eat for a cease fire that may not come until Bibi is satisfied with the body count.
Look at the statements Biden and other Democrats made in the midst of the George Floyd protests (which also featured some property destruction.) There, they were able to thread the needle. Here, he didn't even try, maybe because of long-standing attitudes he has about college protesters, specifically.
Keep in mind that because of J6, he can't say anything that sounds even a little bit like "it's okay to take over buildings." I suspect he said what 20,000 voters in Michigan and Pennsylvania needed to hear. Maybe with an eye toward not knocking over whatever intricate balance he's trying to get in Israel-Hamas negotiations. Plus what he said... really wasn't so bad. If I were 20, I'd still vote for him.
I don't think he was obligated to take a position on that question at all. As I said above, "We're all horrified by what we're seeing in Gaza, my administration is working hard for peace, I support peaceful protest as long as it stays peaceful, thank you and good night." But he went so much farther than that. And I don't think that's a calculation about votes, I think it's just how he feels. Take over a campus building and you're an asshole, and by extension the entire political movement with which you identify is hereby delegitimized. Now, burn down an auto parts store and we're willing to make some distinctions then, to separate one violent act from the overall movement. But he's doing THESE protesters zero favors, because he disagrees with their goals and just plain doesn't like them.
We’ll be fucked for a long time, probably beyond my time in the world. It’s definitely an ill wind.
I appreciate the linguistic discussion at the top of this REBID and the link to the Guardian article about “begs the question”. I first heard that quote from my dad paraphrased as “an ill wind nobody blows good,” in reference to the oboe, his instrument. He followed up with the original quote, somewhat garbled. I thought the original quote was a description of a particular thing or state of affairs; now I know it’s a proverb or adage, a warning to beware of pestilent breezes.
And I first heard “begs the question” in logic class in my freshman year of college (sooo long ago). When the phrase started popping up in journalistic media a couple or three decades ago, I immediately thought “these people don’t know what it means.” My theory is that they heard a really smart person use correctly but misunderstood the meaning and context, but they wanted to sound smart because this smart person said it. A lot of the “prestige pressies” (thanks Roy, am stealing) are that stupid about the actual raw material of their craft.
"I immediately thought 'these people don’t know what it means'" yeah, that's the curse of actually knowing things.
My question, which I'll beg right now, is what expression SHOULD we have for that? Because it's a common thing people do, to push the question off by saying something that just raises further, obvious questions they're not answering. Maybe "begs the question" got repurposed because we needed a name for that thing, and it was handy.
>>what expression SHOULD we have for that? Because it's a common thing people do, to push the question off<<
How about "avoids the question"?
The oboe is a difficult instrument to play well
But if you're doing Peter and the Wolf, you just gotta have it.
What did the oboeless orchestra say? We don't give a duck.
Yeah, I play woodwinds—sax, clarinet and flute — but oboe was a bridge tt far for me. I did try, so I know about the instrument’s persnickety personality.
All the double reeds are way beyond me. I wanted to play the bassoon, but I couldn't make the damn thing work. It appears my mouth was only built for the tuba ("Queen of the brasses, you know" as Dr. Anders used to say, to make me feel better)
Well said. Welcome back.
Dame Peggington Noonington III's inability to "grok"--to use the student's quaint parlance--their "beefs" with Dean Wormser, ultimately spells trouble for one man. Five dollars if you can guess that man's name (Biden). Incivility, the left's reluctance to lay down and let Trump do what he wants to the body politic--these are the real issues.
In Trump's mind, the body politic = E. Jean Carroll. And welcome back, Roy! Like everyone here, I missed you too.
Now, now, grok is a perfectly cromulent word.
The Old Man wrote Stranger In A Strange Land in 1961. I've been using the word all my life. Its appearance in popular culture gives me great joy.
Ahhh, sarcasm. My apologies.
I'm still in the 'brain-dead megaphone triumphant' camp, but I won't deny someone else any half-decent excuse not to feel bad.
(In this column she doesn’t even engage the genocide the kids are protesting. It’s quite beside the point, which is how young people today have gotten above themselves.)
Feature, not bug, amirite? It's an acknowledgement by Israel's apologists* that Israel's actions in Gaza are, in fact, indefensible.
*I won't call them "Israel's defenders" because they never mount any defense.
How the Prestige Press treats lefty protest movements, Part 1: Never, and I mean NEVER, interview the leaders of such movements. You might think it's the logical thing to do, go to the person or people chosen by the students themselves to be a spokesperson, they're likely to have a concise statement of the goals of the movement. Aha, but you're not going to let yourself be MANIPULATED like that, a savvy journalist like you? Of course not! Pick a random protester, cut out a 3-word clip like "War is bad", then go back to your office to castigate the protesters, whose ideas lack depth.
This from the same people who - as soon as a political debate concludes - head to a special roped-off area called "Spin Alley."
Or go looking for the most unhinged person you can find, or the Nazi who snuck in to try to recruit, or the MAGA ratfucker who also snuck in, and base your entire thesis on the actions of bad-faith individuals.
You would think a former speechwriter would understand the concept of message discipline.
It's a sign of real savvy, the thing journalists admire the most, when practiced by politicians. A screaming klaxon WARNING ATTEMPTED PRESS-MANIPULATION AHEAD when mere citizens try it.
She does, and practiced it wonderfully in her column: Nameless, give the most negative interpretation of your target's behavior, even if that behavior is neutral, and then sell it to chucklefucks predisposed to believe it.
Yeah, that was my little joke. Peg came up in a Republican generation that owned message discipline. Like HST said about Johnny Unitas' flattop, she had a powerpoint deck you could set your watch to.
When GHWB worried that he lacked "the vision thing" -- what did the press even *mean* by asking about his vision for the country? -- she solved it by writing the tin poetic gibberish that was his "thousand points of light" speech.
In other words: Literally she launched her career by politely refusing to answer a question. So she's got some nerve/irony/memory loss to feel bothered that these kids should etc etc.
She knows her audience. You know, assholes.
Speechwriting for that mealy mouthed piece of shit is a really, really low bar.
Also, cuz I just can't shut up, apparently, I wonder how many times folks like Peter Baker have been told to fuck off by Trump rally participants? (That's when their polite questions aren't answered by "Somebody fetch a rope!") Is this an indication that the MAGA movement "is not about actually explaining your case or trying to engage journalists who are there to listen"? No, not at all, just a healthy demonstration of The Common People's understandable contempt for Coastal Elites! Makes us want 'em all the harder! Please, sir, can I buy you breakfast at the diner of your choice?
I seem to recall King Toad reminding his fanbase recently that the news media is "an enemy of the people", like he did eight years ago.
Oh, do you mean "Trump Voices Antipathy Towards News Media"? (A headline I totally made up based on years of experience reading the New York Times.)
Aunt Tipathy is my least favorite.
Sounds lace-curtain Irish to me.
She is a harridan
Yeah, that's the punchline: If the prestige press get Trump elected, the MAGA goons will just hate them more, because every victory further convinces them of the truth of every rightwing fairy-tale they've every been told, including the ones about "the liberal media."
I look forward to punching Peter Baker in the nose once we all go to the camps. But I'll have to wait in a long, long line. "Democracy dies....thanks to us!"
I guess they are wise to have media training, but from what I'm gathering, they are doing a really poor job of it.
Every young person at that protest got a year's worth of media training, just from watching how the media covered the Black Lives Matter protests. Mostly, what they learned was that these people aren't to be trusted, and you just just fend them off to the group's designated spokesperson.
Wrong lessons.
Tell me about the upside of talking to Peggy Noonan.
Sure, they should have a good media strategy for speaking with the press, including Noonan. Maybe nothing more than repeating over and over that criticizing Israel for the mass murder of children isn’t anti Semetic any more than criticizing the Nazis for their genocide was anti-German. How hard would that be?
I think what these students wanted to do is to promote the voices of Palestinian and Jewish students involved in the protest, because those students can speak to the issue with greater credibility. And my guess is if you checked who the students had chosen for their spokespeople, that's who you'd find. And I think we both know why Noonan would want to avoid speaking to those particular students. She's a dishonest hack who wants to claim the protests are antisemitic, having to speak to a Jewish student spokesperson screws that up.
Odd that so many of the protesters ARE Jewish, but blah blah something self-hating, of course. Right up there with "who's paying then to do this?".
Do you not understand hippie kids are always protesting wrong
Like, for example, if I was at a BLM protest, I'd be reluctant, as a White man, to speak to reporters because I think the voices of people of color who are most affected should be put front and center, and my only small way of effectuating that is to decline interviews myself.
They should, but I suspect the organizing of these things make Occupy look like a well-oiled machine. The moral outrage is their fuel, and being young and idealistic think it's a winning message. so they're gonna lean into that. Plus, protests these days arent about convincing anyone of anything. Does Rules for Radicals say anything about K.I.S.S.?
I don't know if Peg identified herself to the kids, but they should be savvy enough to stay far away from the Times, based on their coverage.
The thing that set off Noonan was specifically an example of the protests being well-organized, wanting to maintain some message discipline by denying the press interviews with anyone who's not a chosen spokesperson.
"...criticizing Israel for the mass murder of children isn’t anti Semetic any more than criticizing the Nazis for their genocide was anti-German. How hard would that be?"
"Antisemitic student protester compares Jews to Nazis" reads the headline on Peggy Noonan's column the very next day. Oh, you didn't actually say that? Maybe you should have chosen your words more carefully. But never mind, we'll let you write a letter to the editor. No, we won't print it, but you can certainly write it.
She's a right-wing columnist for the most right-wing national newspaper in the country. No actual journalism was attempted, or intended.
Yeah, Our Lady of The Dolphins is not going to let your *actual* story get through.
DID SOMEONE BURN A FLAG?????
How so?
It seems their basic points are getting hijacked by the overall media narrative, which is heavily influenced by AIPAC and other right wing groups that do have effective media strategies.
Only if you don't go to TikTok -- the protestors know that talk or not, they'll be painted as slavering, rabid, antisemitic, violent, & entitled — and most Boomers & older Gen Xers will believe the NYT/CNN bullshit bc they're comfortable not seeing Palestinians as human & so therefore not worth worrying about.
So I guess it seems like a you problem, to cop the Gen Z phrase.
Right, everyone should just give up because the stuff they are doing isn’t working. Come up with a better strategy? Why bother? It’s all for naught, a lost cause, a fool’s errand, tilting at windmills. Just quit and be done with it. Then make a video of yourself licking your bitter tears, or letting them drip onto a red rose, then upload it to TikTok as proof of all the hopelessness and despair.
"Everyone" meaning you, dude. Nobody else has given up. You have, & many other spineless liberals. Thanks for the world, dad -- we'll unfuck it for you all.
Right, when I say they shouldn’t give up, I really mean they should. And when you say they should give up, you really mean they shouldn’t. It’s opposite world, man. Groovy.
It sounds like you think their goal is to convince someone of something. A spontaneous demonstration based on moral outrage is not gonna be the Second Coming of the Civil Rights movement, for better or worse. It's pure emotion with a dollop of now what are we gonna do on top.
I think their goal is to stop the slaughter.
They'll do the ever popular "these kids are just yelling" thing that has been done since 1968. Funny how folks going to college can assemble, analyze, and act on things unrelated to what they're ostensibly learning.
You wouldn't have these problems if you only taught welding.
"MIG, TIG, even plasma welding!"
How would talking to Peggy Noonan have made a difference to this?
Why is the idea of having an effective communication strategy so controversial?
How do u know they don't? Because the major news media —just like during BLM & Occupy— concatenates the soundbite "The protestors don't seem to know what they're protesting hyuck hyuck" & the Doofi Liberalis inevitably believe it because the media must be telling the truth _this_ time.
Have another go at the football, Charlie Brown...
I think the controversy might be coming from how you seem to have appointed yourself the arbiter of what's effective.
Also, there's no debate here about "having an effective communication strategy." That's exactly what drove Noonan nuts (well, nuttier) that they weren't just wingin' it. I'm a reporter who's done a thousand interviews, you're a college student who's never done one, I like them odds! Denying Noonan an interview with anyone who isn't a chosen spokesperson is a way of leveling the playing field, now she's dealing with someone who has some experience. Of course she'd hate that, but it's not an indication that the students haven't thought this thing through. Let's allow that they may have even given this question more thought than you have.
Well, it’s something I’ve been studying for over 40 years now and have put my thoughts in practice on a few occasions, so I’m not quite ready to allow that. But even if that’s not the case, well meaning people should be able to disagree? No? Or do I think I’m the evil arbiter of what well meaning people should do, so you should get angry and heap scorn upon me for my narcissistic impertinence? Probably the latter, eh.
Because there are no more honest brokers.
Wait, the difference between AIPAC and the students is that AIPAC "has an effective media strategy" and the students don't?
What would you do in their place?
A point I often try to make with the defeatists is that we now live in a world where Nazi's and religious extremists effectively control the Republican Party, and no one believed that could happen twenty or thirty years ago. Then you look at how that happened and find that right wing think tanks planned and executed a long term strategy that got us to this point.
If they can do it for evil, why can't we do it for good? So I think it's important that we understand their tactics and turn them around on them where possible. In this case, I think if the students draped themselves in American Flags, shouted that they were protesting for anti-American War Crimes and the attacks on American independence while holding up graphic pictures of dead Palestinian children, that they would have more success.
It's unfortunate, but large swathes of the population aren't going to be much bothered by police attacking protestors wearing Muslim headgear and waving foreign flags, but get some images of them attacking people waving American flags and you've got a media relations victory.
I used to get advice like this back when I was organizing protests against the Iraq war. Thing is, nobody's paid to come to these things, we're not putting on a stage play where the actors all dutifully recite their lines, people come and they want to be who they are, and to say the things they truly believe. If you don't think that's effective, I will note that every protest movement since the later 1950's has eventually won the American people over, simply through the sincere expression of its beliefs. So something we're doing must be working, and no, nothing works over the short term.
and then when the NYT does not report this what is your strategy?
Set the flags on fire? Oh, that brings the reporters to the yard.