Since the President of the United States saying stupid shit is news, just as his walking the streets of D.C. in his underwear and talking to himself would be, you can't not cover it. But what I'd like to see is a daily front-page sidebar entitled: "S**t The President Says," which would simply print the damn things, with, at most, basic fact-checking, and not cover them as real news unless something comes of them.
I haven't seen any lately, but there used to be "sleeping lawyer" cases in which the defendant claimed that his lawyer was incompetent because he slept through significant portions of the trial. The appeals courts tended to say that the occasional nod was OK, but that sleeping through significant parts of the trial was potentially problematic. But they usually tied themselves up in knots to find harmless error. I've always thought they were afraid to say candidly that if the lawyer had been awake during the same parts of the trial and done exactly as little as the sleeping lawyer did, they would not have found ineffective assistance, so whether he was awake or asleep was immaterial. That would have been an embarrassing thing to admit.
That's true, and I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. (Though This Side of Paradise was nothing special. A precocious adolescent first novel hinting at better to come.) You can be both accessible to a mass audience and good, and it's a neat trick if you can pull it off, as Fitzgerald did. And an even neater one if you avoid blowing your money, as Fitzgerald didn't. I just don't see any pretentious wannabe pretending to like Fitzgerald and expecting any cultural cred for it.
Fitzgerald? F. Scott Fitzgerald? A lot of regular people liked him fine when he was active and publishing heavily in middlebrow magazines. If readers don't like him now, it's probably because his milieu has become dated without having passed into historical, more like John O'Hara than Dickens or Austen. Fitzgerald isn't a high-brow taste and nobody gets any pretension points for liking him.
I suspect that when Dylan scorned Mr. Jones for having "read all of F. Scott Fitzgerald's books," it was a shout-out to a fellow Minnesotan.
I've often thought there could be an interesting alternative history novel based on the premise that the New World didn't exist and Columbus and his crew starved to death somewhere near where Omaha would be today. How would the world have been different if you just couldn't get there from here?
Nobody generally agrees with the ideas of federalism and states' rights. Any such invocation, by anyone of any political stripe, is purely opportunistic.
OK, "nobody" is a slight exaggeration. There is a small number of principled federalists -- by my count 37 of them. For everyone else, I stand by the original statement.
What is it you were "snort"ing? Draw a trend line from Obama through Trump for just about any important economic variable you want. (And by important, I don't mean the budget of a small, new government agency that has had little time and power to do anything good or bad, or small sops to dying industries.)
Trump is also very good at boosting the US economy. Obama was horrible at it.
This is a curious thing to say because until a month ago, Trump hadn't gotten anything he wanted in the way of actual policy done and we were (and to a considerable extent still are) in the Obama economy. The stock market has been rising for seven years at about its current rate consistently. Back when that was a problem for Trump, he said we were in a bubble. Now he says different. Given current P/E ratios, I fear he may have been right the first time, in which case he'll be looking bad pretty soon, and so, I fear, will my retirement funds. Employment, both the headline rate and the other measures -- which he decried as fake when he was a candidate, but embraces now -- has been moving on the same steady path for about the last seven years. Inflation has been quiet for so long, people are actually asking for it now. Basically, nothing much has changed until very recently, and there is much more downside risk than upside potential. If things go sour, you can be sure that the Trump fans will make the valid point that Presidents get too much credit and blame for the state of the economy -- but they won't make that valid point until their Dear Leader starts taking heat.
If our current understanding of physics, astronomy, and biology is anywhere close to correct, then the universe might be infested with intelligent life. It might not, but nothing says it couldn't be. But on the same proviso, it is next to impossible that any intelligent aliens have come to visit us. They would be too far away and couldn't travel fast enough.
So what is a more depressing thought: that we're alone in the universe, or that we're not but we'll never be able to meet or talk to our neighbors?
Isn't there anyone here old enough to remember when the gas station attendant came to your car, you rolled down the window, told the attendant how much gas you wanted, and paid when he -- it was always a he -- finished? (Of course, if you're that old, you remember when "Two dollars worth of regular" was a common order.)
The pharmacy across the street from my house accepts UPS packages that the driver won't, for whatever reason, leave at the customer's door. We get a notice and go pick it up.
Flying is a miracle, but the experience pretty uniformly sucks across airlines. I expect next to nothing, and if the plane leaves the ground roughly when it is supposed to and doesn't hit the ground before it is supposed to, or noticeably faster than it is supposed to, and my baggage arrives on the same flight, I am, if not happy, content.
What women have easier than men is the ability to have meaningless, commitment-free sex of uncertain quality. If that's what they want. Generally, it isn't. Men are more likely to find it acceptable, if not optimal, so they think women have it easier.
We must always remember that We Don't Know These People. We may admire their artistic or athletic or other talents, which sometimes showcase desirable human qualities other than their raw talents, but did what did we really know about Bill Cosby or Kobe Bryant, or [fill in the blank]? Some of them, maybe many, will turn out to be awful human beings in a variety of ways, including sexual predation.
Sticking with Cosby for a moment, it would have been jaw-droppingly dumb if any of the 30-odd women he drugged and abused didn't think going in that Cos might want to have sex with them -- not because they had reason to suspect what Cosby was, but simply because he is a man. I'd be willing to bet that some of them, had Cos let nature take its course, would have had sex willingly. Most men aren't predators, and most will take no -- all right, maybe you have to say it twice -- for an answer. Women should be able to rely on that.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Morning Ed: Media {2018.02.07.W}”
Since the President of the United States saying stupid shit is news, just as his walking the streets of D.C. in his underwear and talking to himself would be, you can't not cover it. But what I'd like to see is a daily front-page sidebar entitled: "S**t The President Says," which would simply print the damn things, with, at most, basic fact-checking, and not cover them as real news unless something comes of them.
On “Whose Side Is A Lawyer On?”
I haven't seen any lately, but there used to be "sleeping lawyer" cases in which the defendant claimed that his lawyer was incompetent because he slept through significant portions of the trial. The appeals courts tended to say that the occasional nod was OK, but that sleeping through significant parts of the trial was potentially problematic. But they usually tied themselves up in knots to find harmless error. I've always thought they were afraid to say candidly that if the lawyer had been awake during the same parts of the trial and done exactly as little as the sleeping lawyer did, they would not have found ineffective assistance, so whether he was awake or asleep was immaterial. That would have been an embarrassing thing to admit.
On “The Evangelicals are Hypocritical and They Don’t Care”
I've never seen such a thing. Do any undergraduates have to do their own work and thinking anymore?
On “Putting on Airs?”
Why is that any stranger than going to a museum looking at art that isn't for sale at all?
"
That's true, and I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. (Though This Side of Paradise was nothing special. A precocious adolescent first novel hinting at better to come.) You can be both accessible to a mass audience and good, and it's a neat trick if you can pull it off, as Fitzgerald did. And an even neater one if you avoid blowing your money, as Fitzgerald didn't. I just don't see any pretentious wannabe pretending to like Fitzgerald and expecting any cultural cred for it.
"
Fitzgerald? F. Scott Fitzgerald? A lot of regular people liked him fine when he was active and publishing heavily in middlebrow magazines. If readers don't like him now, it's probably because his milieu has become dated without having passed into historical, more like John O'Hara than Dickens or Austen. Fitzgerald isn't a high-brow taste and nobody gets any pretension points for liking him.
I suspect that when Dylan scorned Mr. Jones for having "read all of F. Scott Fitzgerald's books," it was a shout-out to a fellow Minnesotan.
On “Reflections on a windfall”
Lots of people get stupid when they get windfalls. You didn't; that's over half the battle. I expect you will work things out.
On “Linky Friday: Gods and Robots”
I've often thought there could be an interesting alternative history novel based on the premise that the New World didn't exist and Columbus and his crew starved to death somewhere near where Omaha would be today. How would the world have been different if you just couldn't get there from here?
On “When Democrats Go States’ Rights”
But maybe I know you.:-)
"
Maybe you're one of the 37; I left my list at home.
"
Nobody generally agrees with the ideas of federalism and states' rights. Any such invocation, by anyone of any political stripe, is purely opportunistic.
OK, "nobody" is a slight exaggeration. There is a small number of principled federalists -- by my count 37 of them. For everyone else, I stand by the original statement.
On “The MacGuffin White House”
What is it you were "snort"ing? Draw a trend line from Obama through Trump for just about any important economic variable you want. (And by important, I don't mean the budget of a small, new government agency that has had little time and power to do anything good or bad, or small sops to dying industries.)
"
Trump is also very good at boosting the US economy. Obama was horrible at it.
This is a curious thing to say because until a month ago, Trump hadn't gotten anything he wanted in the way of actual policy done and we were (and to a considerable extent still are) in the Obama economy. The stock market has been rising for seven years at about its current rate consistently. Back when that was a problem for Trump, he said we were in a bubble. Now he says different. Given current P/E ratios, I fear he may have been right the first time, in which case he'll be looking bad pretty soon, and so, I fear, will my retirement funds. Employment, both the headline rate and the other measures -- which he decried as fake when he was a candidate, but embraces now -- has been moving on the same steady path for about the last seven years. Inflation has been quiet for so long, people are actually asking for it now. Basically, nothing much has changed until very recently, and there is much more downside risk than upside potential. If things go sour, you can be sure that the Trump fans will make the valid point that Presidents get too much credit and blame for the state of the economy -- but they won't make that valid point until their Dear Leader starts taking heat.
On “An Economist Nitpicks Sci-Fi: Foundation and Chaos”
What chills me to the bone is the thought that so much depends on the good sense and restraint of Kim Jong Un.
On “God, Aliens and Evidence”
As opposed to "if our current understanding . . . is anywhere close to correct"?
"
If our current understanding of physics, astronomy, and biology is anywhere close to correct, then the universe might be infested with intelligent life. It might not, but nothing says it couldn't be. But on the same proviso, it is next to impossible that any intelligent aliens have come to visit us. They would be too far away and couldn't travel fast enough.
So what is a more depressing thought: that we're alone in the universe, or that we're not but we'll never be able to meet or talk to our neighbors?
On “My Dinner With Ravi: An Atheist meets the “Great Apologist of our Time.””
I never doubted what I had been raised to believe until an authority figure told me he could prove it and laid out his case.
On “Rethinking Distribution, Disinviting Theft”
He had a shirt with his name on it and everything
Did he have a cap and a little bow tie?.
"
Isn't there anyone here old enough to remember when the gas station attendant came to your car, you rolled down the window, told the attendant how much gas you wanted, and paid when he -- it was always a he -- finished? (Of course, if you're that old, you remember when "Two dollars worth of regular" was a common order.)
The pharmacy across the street from my house accepts UPS packages that the driver won't, for whatever reason, leave at the customer's door. We get a notice and go pick it up.
On “Losing Eastern Airlines All Over Again”
Flying is a miracle, but the experience pretty uniformly sucks across airlines. I expect next to nothing, and if the plane leaves the ground roughly when it is supposed to and doesn't hit the ground before it is supposed to, or noticeably faster than it is supposed to, and my baggage arrives on the same flight, I am, if not happy, content.
On “Linky Tuesday: Love & Politics”
Maybe Sean Spicer should get a recurring role on Saturday Night Live as Sarah Huckabee.
"
What women have easier than men is the ability to have meaningless, commitment-free sex of uncertain quality. If that's what they want. Generally, it isn't. Men are more likely to find it acceptable, if not optimal, so they think women have it easier.
"
I think that it is possible for a spouse to withhold consent for sex, even while still married.
Possible? Hell, I thought it was mandatory.
On “I’m sad about Bill Cosby.”
My parents subtly discouraged my interest in becoming an altar boy. It was only many years later that the reasons became apparent.
"
We must always remember that We Don't Know These People. We may admire their artistic or athletic or other talents, which sometimes showcase desirable human qualities other than their raw talents, but did what did we really know about Bill Cosby or Kobe Bryant, or [fill in the blank]? Some of them, maybe many, will turn out to be awful human beings in a variety of ways, including sexual predation.
Sticking with Cosby for a moment, it would have been jaw-droppingly dumb if any of the 30-odd women he drugged and abused didn't think going in that Cos might want to have sex with them -- not because they had reason to suspect what Cosby was, but simply because he is a man. I'd be willing to bet that some of them, had Cos let nature take its course, would have had sex willingly. Most men aren't predators, and most will take no -- all right, maybe you have to say it twice -- for an answer. Women should be able to rely on that.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.