Open Mic for the week of 8/14/2023
There’s a phenomenon where someone writes an essay about this or that but someone else wants to discuss something that has not yet made it to the front page.
This is unfair to everybody involved. It’s unfair to the guy who wrote the original essay because, presumably, he wants to talk about his original essay. It’s unfair to the guy who wants to talk about his link because it looks like he’s trying to change the subject. It’s unfair to the people who go to the comments to read up on the thoughts of the commentariat for the original essay and now we’re talking about some other guy’s links.
So!
The intention is to have a new one of these every week. If you want to talk about a link, post it here! Or, heck, use it as an open thread.
And, if it rolls off, we’ll make a new one. With a preamble just like this one.
On this day in 1985, Michael Jackson took control of the Beatles’ publishing rights.
If you’ve never seen Nike’s “Revolution” ad, enjoy:
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There are three problems with this story – the exclusion of the press from a local political event, the refusal of the excluder to accept responsibility for follow-on events precipitated by that, and the use of state sanctioned violence to silence the press. Right here in the freedom loving good old USofA.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/13/us/kansas-marion-county-newspaper-police-raid/index.htmlReport
Nick Grossman writes at the Bulwark on how the media does not get Biden voters: https://plus.thebulwark.com/p/media-still-doesnt-get-biden-voters
“And don’t forget that there are more working-class Americans in, say, Queens, New York than in entire red states. Treating elite and lives in a major metropolitan area as interchangeable synonyms is absurd.
The only definition of “elites” that includes most Biden voters is the postmodern one popular with today’s right-wing culture warriors: “agrees with me on social issues.” But virtually no one outside the culture war right thinks a millionaire who owns car dealerships but didn’t go to college, or a tech-industry venture capitalist who complains about the “woke mob,” are working class, while a middle-school teacher with a college degree or a coffee barista who puts they/them pronouns on a nametag are elites.
To Biden-voting workers, boorishness and bigotry are not inherently “working-class values.” They know there are people who are formal and informal, polite and rude, racist and non-racist in every societal class, and recognize that sexual harassment often comes from bosses. And since Biden beat Trump among people of color, women, and LGBT voters, it’s safe to say most do not think that changes in norms regarding race and gender have been, on balance, bad.”Report
240 million Americans live within 100 miles of the Coast. 40% of Americans live within 50 miles of the coast. Both of those statistics take in a LOT of people. Most are not economically “elite” and never were.Report
“To Biden-voting workers, boorishness and bigotry are not inherently “working-class values.””
That’s because they think sticking with Your Own Kind is neither boorishness nor bigotry. Racism is something white people do; marrying a nice girl from the neighborhood and having friends who look like you and do the same things you do is only natural, it’s just what makes sense, and who would think it was bad?Report
Long interview with MLK and Obama biographer David Garrow. Well worth reading. The anecdote about Obama and Judaism should get our OT crowd talking, and the anecdote about Obama fantasizing about sex with men has gotten some attention, but it’s a very thought-provoking read overall:
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/david-garrow-interview-obamaReport
Eh, I’ve seen interpretations of Obama’s “fantasies” as him just trying to get into the pants of various chicks and the old “SNAG Gambit” was what he saw as the best play.Report
I found that interesting only as an example of how the press covers either Obama or gayness, although I’m not sure which. The part about Obama’s artificial personality was more interesting to me, as it confirmed some of my priors but in an unexpected way. I’ve always seen his detachment as a trait he learned from an anthropologist mother. But when your biographer calls your memoir a work of fiction, there’s a different kind of detachment at play.Report
I just read this and found it bizarre and overly focused on Samuels’ obsessions. I mean, the focus on Syria is just kind of nuts, and even moreso the failure to consider that the American public has never supported a military intervention in Syria nor has anyone ever been able to articulate a convincing reason, particularly in light of Iraq, that it should. Like is Obama following the popular will really some scandal? I also want to be sensitive about how I say this, but for how touchy the guy is about Israel and anti-Semitism he also seems obsessed with a hypothetical conflict (i.e. between America and Iran/Syria) for whom the only obvious beneficiaries would be the Israelis.
Really this seems like an odd, missed opportunity. I certainly don’t think Obama or any other politician is above reproach or reassessment but it’s just drowning in so much projection and self contradiction that it’s hard to know what to make of it.Report
It’s more of a conversation between two like-minded authors than an interview, that’s for sure. You can feel them resonating. Their take on Obama’s foreign policy was interesting to me because I’ve never seen it argued before. I wouldn’t automatically agree with it or reject it. It’s refreshing to hear opinions that are different. Like, I’ve never heard anyone comment on Obama’s residence in Washington. I don’t know if they’re right, but it seems possible. It’s just another thing that dumb Washington journalists haven’t pursued. On the other hand, I’ve never found Obama’s celebrity fascination to be out of character, so that part was a swing-and-a-miss to me.Report
I found that to be the least interesting.
The way they dismiss the ACA also strikes me as a miss, when it’s among the more important pieces of legislation in the last 20 years in terms of actual impact. I do think there may be something to be explored of Obama the Man, and what his legacy actually will be. That said while I guess I can’t technically rule out the possibility that he is shadow running the Biden administration from his basement, that possibility strikes me as… unlikely.Report
One of these things is still not like the others:
https://www.npr.org/2023/08/12/1193463117/violent-threats-against-public-officials-are-rising-heres-whyReport
The New Republic tries to defend climate protestors who glue themselves to art and commit other “annoying” actions: https://newrepublic.com/post/174939/climate-protest-tactics-debateReport
I don’t really see it as helpful, especially when the inflation reduction act just made the biggest investment in clean energy in the history of the country. The reality is that emissions are in slow but steady decline in the West and how bad it gets is mostly in China and India’s court. We have also had some less well publicized incidents in terms of shock value but equally annoying in the DC area where the beltway has been shut down by people physically blocking it with their bodies. One went viral due to some guy going off at them for making him late to his probation officer. This does not make anyone more sympathetic to their cause.Report
These types of protest politics are basically engaging in psychological rituals that make themselves feel good but don’t do much. There was a good article about this from the Hoover Institute of all places called the Fantasy Politics of Al-Qaeda which argued that 9/11 was more for internal consumption in Muslim areas than scarring the West or anything. The actual solution to climate change is going to messy, come from a lot of competing sources, and will be good enough rather than perfect. This is true for nearly other problem.Report
Heh, I’ll be thinking about that not scarring the West every time I take my shoes off and get a full body x-ray in an airport security line.Report
Barbie continues to double Oppenheimer every week. It has a decent chance of overtaking The Super Mario Brothers Movie for #1 for the year. Sound of Freedom edges past Indy 5’s total. Blue Beetle is in a strange place – it’s expected to lose at least $100 million, but if it can find even anything like an audience it’ll be considered a sleeper hit. Otherwise, that’s it for the summer movies.Report
“Why Polly Pocket didn’t make a billion dollars and why that’s a problem”Report
I saw Oppenheimer last night. It was very good, but releasing it in the summer was an odd choice, I think. Summer is reserved for comic book movies and other froth, like Barbie, for instanceReport
Inception and Dunkirk were released in summer. Then again, so was Tenet. I think Nolan movies are unique in their being both tentpole and award-worthy, so Hollywood might not know what to do with them. Then again, his movies get enough buzz that maybe it doesn’t matter when they’re released?Report
Tenet was such an odd duck of a flick. I couldn’t stand it- found it entirely incoherent. But I adored Dunkirk and Inception.Report
90% of the Tenet reviews I saw said something to the effect of “I AM SO CONFUSED!”
The best reviews of the film I saw said something to the effect of “Nolan is brilliant and I think I see what he was going for”.
Which ain’t a great indicator.Report
It wasn’t no Inception, for sure.Report
Tenent is what happens when you try to write a sci-fi film on ‘shrooms.Report
I think most everyone had the same reaction to Tenet previews as I did. “Nolan is an excellent director, and if we collectively shut down his most self-indulgent tendencies right now, we can get several more masterpieces out of him.”
I was about to add that we’re in an era without a lot of great directors, but…I’m not sure. You’ve got some old masters still making movies, and some oddballs working outside the mainstream, and a few greats like Nolan. I think it’s just an era where the studios don’t have any interest in good directors. The model of 15 years ago was to find a smart young director and give him a big project. But the studio system has gotten so risk-averse that they’re bringing in new talent and railroading them. “We need a new vision and we think you’re great. Here’s a script with a meta reference or cameo every 2 minutes. None of the actors will be on set. Whatever you give us, we’ll edit into six different stories and see which one test-markets best.”Report
I like your analysis on Nolan. I earnestly hope we get several more masterpieces out of him and would happily leave the Tenet films on the cutting room floor to pay for it.
The studio system is imploding and I have no fishin clue what is going to come next. Somehow money will go from interested audiences to the manufacturers of content but whether the paid for content will continue to be a couple of hours of digestible material or something else is unknowable. Likewise how the money will get from us proles to the proles making the entertainment material is unknowable beyond some general capitalist mechanism.Report
I guessed the twist ending of Tenet in about the first five minutes, but that’s probably because I’ve read a number of time-travel-causality-loop stories and so I had an idea of where it was going.
But maybe that’s just me. I remember a lot of people writing about how complicated and inscrutable The Matrix was, and I never had any trouble with that either.Report
I’m with you, I found the Matrix’ story quite approachable and enormously fun. Unlike you, however, I had no fishin clue what was happening in Tenet beyond time travel assassins.Report
There were people who found The Matrix befuddling? It’s pretty straightforward, with a bit of metaphysical nonsense thrown in.Report
Yea I’d call the sequels a bit convoluted but not beffudling. First was really good though.Report
That’s a good point. I forgot who the director was. Also, Truman was a surprise. He looked so familiar, but we had to look it up when we got home.Report
It is almost like there is a lot of evidence that Trump is a massively corrupt wanna be gangster/tinpot dictator: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/08/14/us/trump-indictment-georgia-electionReport
Georgia has always struck me as the most likely to result in a conviction.Report
One from which he can’t pardon himself if he is reelected we might add.Report
Trump indictment curtesy of pwnallthethings on the bluesky social media app.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23909543-23sc188947-criminal-indictmentReport
Okay. After the WWE/Endeavor merger, HHH will no longer be on the board of directors. Merely the head of Creative and CCO (Chief Commercial Officer? Chief Communications Officer?) and now I find myself in awe of Vince once again.
HHH and Steph came in and tried to kick him out of the company with the whole #MeToo thing and the news coming out about all the hush payments he made. They figured they’d get the company.
They didn’t take into account the fact that Vince is pure-blooded Roma and he has more guile in his little finger than Steph has in her whole body and he was able to leverage the fact that Steph has more shame in her little finger than Vince has accumulated over the course of his nigh-78 years on the planet.
He took the knife out of his own back and stabbed his daughter and son-in-law in the face one by one.
Dang.Report
When a giant in the domestic banking industry touts your success with economic investments, you should be leery. That said there are some very interesting statistics in here, looking back at the first year of the IRA.
https://business.bofa.com/content/dam/flagship/bank-of-america-institute/sustainability/IRA-ripple-effect.pdfReport
Paging Matt Taibbi:
Elon Musk’s X is throttling traffic to websites he dislikes
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/08/15/twitter-x-links-delayed/
Wow, if only we could get the chat logs from a free speech absolutist.Report
Color me completely unsurprised. But hey, at least its not the government telling him to throttle it.Report
Er, unless it is China or Turkey or some other dictatorship.Report
There is no such thing as a “Well Regarded Conservative University” exhibit the umpteenth:
New College students take transfer deal from Massachusetts liberal arts school
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careers/new-college-students-take-transfer-deal-from-massachusetts-liberal-arts-school/ar-AA1fijJO?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=e8e5b762095a4fad885b2bd227c0f818&ei=599
Pursley’s departure underscores how much the school takeover has upended the lives of students and faculty members, muddying New College’s reputation as a top public liberal arts college.
Meanwhile, a push by the college to recruit student-athletes yielded a record-breaking incoming class but at an academic cost, according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. The average test scores and GPA were lower than the fall 2022 class.
Plus: New College professors have also shifted their plans, with Provost Brad Thiessen telling board members at a meeting last month that faculty turnover was “ridiculously high.”
I have this mental image of East Germans frantically scrambling over coils of barbed wire in the streets, before The Wall went up.Report
Speaking of New College, Chris Rufo and DeSantis are championing the classical liberal arts by increasing the number of athletes at New College (despite the fact that New College is not in the NCAA) and having its pres discuss introduce majors in finance, communications, and sports psychology: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/14/opinion/columnists/gender-studies-ron-desantis-florida.htmlReport
The Gerrymandered GOP supermajority in North Carolina has gone all in on disgusting, active bigotry against transgendered Americans:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/16/politics/north-carolina-gop-governor-veto-override-transgender-bills/index.htmlReport
If you wanted to generate a conspiracy theory about the fires in Hawaii, you’d have the basic building blocks at your disposal:
Stuff for eagle-eyed people to look for:
Whether the people who lived there last month will be living there in a year.Report
The governor says they will.Report
“Water Equity”
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This can’t possibly be real.Report
Welcome, my friend, to the wonderful wacky world of western water customs and law. Hawaii has their own wrinkles, but this is probably not the strangest thing that has come into play in the last several years.Report
Hawaii isn’t really a Western state in the way that California, Colorado, and Arizona are. This also sounds more like woo than anything else.Report
But their water laws are familiar in spirit, if not specific details, to any western state water lawyer. Water usage rights are property that can be bought and sold. There are use-it-or-lose-it rules. The most interesting wrinkle (IMO) is that the state constitution provides for (generally) superior rights based on the Native Hawaiian cultural and religious treatment of water as it existed prior to 1848.Report
The Guardian has a good write up describing the complexity of their water laws, which match your description of how twisted and complex Western systems are.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/17/hawaii-fires-maui-water-rights-disaster-capitalism
CNN has another one, and both articles describe a water system where there is often a wild disparity in access to water and water is controlled by a patchwork of entities.
In other words- Its complicated.Report
Link to the CNN article:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/hawaii-delayed-diverting-water-that-could-have-helped-maui-wildfires-letters-obtained-by-cnn-allege/ar-AA1fsQ9w
In an email to CNN, Tremble said his company asked permission to fill their reservoirs before the fire swept into Lahaina, though he said his company’s systems are not connected to the county’s systems that supply fire hydrants.
Maui’s fire department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The chairperson for the Commission on Water Resource Management responded to Tremble’s letter the same day, stating that her agency would largely grant his requests related to filling reservoirs and loosening regulations for fire emergencies in the area. In a follow-up letter, Tremble thanked the chairperson for the prompt response.
Asked about reports that firefighters didn’t have enough water to tackle the fire, Gov. Josh Green told reporters in a news conference Monday: “One thing that people need to understand, especially from far away, is there’s been a great deal of water conflict on Maui for many years.”Report
Yet we have video of it, curious?Report
Defund the Hawaiian Studies Department.
Also whatever department is teaching people to talk like every statement is a question.Report
A good start, but also: sometimes policy decisions are prosecutable crimes.Report
My brother posted this on the other blog but there is an upcoming book about vegetarian and vegan diets:
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23834556/alicia-kennedy-no-meat-required-vegan-vegetarian-food-systems-alternative-meats-plant-based
This gets into some of our shared crankiness with certain types of liberal and left thinking like if the goal is to get 8 billions of people to eat less meat or no meat, is it really important to remember the “forgotten”, narrator it isn’t forgotten, radical history of Western vegetarianism. There seems to be certain very romantic people who believe that if people truly remember the radical history of Western vegetarianism than we would have a see change in how humans think and utopia can be achieved. It is basically religious thinking but with vegetarianism rather than Jesus or Mohammed. There is no evidence that you can really get billions of messy humans with their own ideas on everything to think in one correct orthodoxy. Lots of people have attempted this and it never works.Report
Interesting read. https://boltsmag.org/direct-democracy-roundtable-ohio-arkansas-idaho/
It appears the OH legislature is not along in disdaining its citizenry.
Money quote: “Luke mentioned ALEC, and when you look at a bill that lands on a committee here in Arkansas, that has the same language that it has in Ohio and Idaho, we know that there’s something going on that’s producing all of this legislation.”Report
These people do not care about America, the Constitution or you and me. All they care about is power – why else would you place yourself in a space where violence you advocated for:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/18/politics/kfile-kenneth-chesebro-followed-alex-jones-capitol-riot-jan-6/index.htmlReport
A fun sanctuary thread:
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