Monday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Monday, August 19, 2024
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46 comments
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About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a retired Professor of Political Science and former College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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‘The land is becoming desert’: drought pushes Sicily’s farming heritage to the brink
While tourists flock to the Italian island in greater numbers, a water crisis is intensifying for its rural population
Where is everyone today?
@CSK: In Chicago?
@CSK:
Luddite reporting for duty, sah!
“I endorse Donald Trump. MAGA! I’m Taylor Swift and I approve this message,” Taylor Swift said artificially.
@Kylopod: ?
@OzarkHillbilly:
Maybe.
@Flat Earth Luddite:
That would be “ma’am.”
@MarkedMan:
@OzarkHillbilly: Hmm. This could be a big mistake on Trump’s part. It seems Swift does not want to get political. Calling out a campaign for illegally using her image, even suing them, gives her the ability to go anti-Trump without actually endorsing Harris
@MarkedMan: And she’s got the bucks to make a suit stick hard and hurt like a MF’er.
And today’s winner in the Octopus slapping contest is….
OTB migration update: I’ve updated our whitelists so… fingers crossed… folks who always go to moderation should hopefully have that taken care of (feel free to test).
Still working on the edit button situation…. grrr…
@OzarkHillbilly:
From that thread:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XuL_NeDb78
Phil Donahue, 88, has died.
@CSK:
Pondering how to begin the last scene in a story, and not to rush it.
@Kathy:
Well, the gang seems to be gathering now.
@OzarkHillbilly: there was an article I read about similar problems in Corsica, except in that case they were pointing the finger of blame at the aging and unprepared water infrastructure.
(“Unprepared” -> “unrepaired”)
Grr. I hate you autocorrect.
Wait — what? WTAF???
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4798492-bill-barr-biden-supreme-court-reform/
There was an emoji in @OzarkHillbilly’s comment, so I tried to post an emoji in celebration of emojis and got this:
(My celebratory emoji was a skunk, farting)
@OzarkHillbilly:
Indeed. She should find out the current campaign coffer balance and sue for three times the amount. That would fix their little red wagon.
@DeD: So, Bill Barr says court reforms will “destroy” the independence of the judiciary. As if that hasn’t happened already. Also, the cute reference to a “handful” of cases.
Meanwhile, tons of legal scholars, both liberal and conservative, are saying, “originalism is dead”.
But really, did you expect better from Bill Barr?
@CSK:
I watched Donahue a few times. He did serious shows (Like having the authors of the Brethren on) sometimes with the usual host show topics of his time- Interracial marriages, biracial children, kids suffering from progeria. That was before the days of
Husbands whose wives beat them. I lose everytime my wife and I play scrabble. Does that count?
Who’s the Daddy?
Or am I am not joking these two programs were on at the same time according to TV Guide-
Women whose husbands leave them for other men and Men who wives leave them for other women.
I’d watch Gilligan’s Island all day before turning any of that stuff on. RIP Phil Donahue.
@DeD:
Barr is a religious zealot; what do you expect? These people choose what they want out of the Constitution, ignoring the rest. If the language is clear, they find a way to muddy it; if the language is muddy, they argue it is clear and obvious.
They lead with their preference, choosing principle vs. outcome depending on what they want.
For instance, Barr’s defense of the death penalty is based on crime reduction–not whether it is cruel and unusual or whether the death of a wrongfully convicted person is anathema to the Constitution, founding principles, or ‘small government’.
There is a tell here: he thinks death row inmates should not be able to drag out the appeals process for years.
He is odious. He is not a conservative by any definition of the term. He, like Alito, has more in common with religious heads of state found in medieval Europe than the Founders or Enlightenment philosophers.
@Bill Jempty: Phil Donahue did serious news and interviews for as long as audiences wanted to watch serious content. Can’t blame business enterprises for producing the products people want to buy just because people prefer crap.
@Jay L Gischer:
@Kurtz:
Oh, no; I don’t expect anything less from Barr or any of those Trump sycophants. I was surprised he voiced the obvious with zero awareness of what he said.
One of the more frustrating articles about Trump’s security. Trump and his team complaining a LOT about how they weren’t getting enough secret service protection. Now that they are, anyone want to take a guess at what the frustrations are?
Well, okay…he’s got the extra security but mad about it. Also, IIRC, the mayor is arguing that Mar-A-Lago should remain closed until after the election because all of this extra security is effing up traffic.
snip
Surely, though, the Trump team now understands the importance of being smart about things, right? Well…
But surely Trump understands the problems with having randos wandering around his club?
@Jen:
The king wants the adulation of his subjects to be up close and personal.
Democrat election trivia
“Tim Walz is the first person on either the top or bottom half of a Democratic presidential ticket since 1980 who didn’t attend law school. That is 20 individuals across 10 elections over 40 years who pursued a JD or LLB.”
@JKB: What’s an LLB and who pursued one?
@JKB:
does that matter to you?
@Joe:
An LL.B is a bachelor of laws, but they don’t grant them in the U.S.
Meanwhile in Russia:
Ukraine has taken down all the three major bridges over the River Seim to the west of their salient, protecting their flank and making the position of the Russian forces there (not that there appear to be that many) a bit precarious.
Though Russia seems to have set up a couple of pontoon bridges.
Russia has to choose between trying to reinforce, at very high risk, or ceding this area.
If Ukraine can secure it, it helps set up a fairly solid basis for a defensive line about ten miles deep and some seventy long within Russia.
@Kurtz:
Perceptive analysis.
The current political thought of a significant strand of the Republican right appears to echo the 19th/early 20th century Catholic reactionary thinkers like de Maistre, or later Barres and Maurras.
And the Evangelicals appear to be adopting this, amusingly enough.
Perhaps also channeling the spirit of Calvin’s Geneva?
The reactionary vs conservative fight on the right was a major element in European politics from the French revolution until the Second World War and the debacle of Vichy etc.
The “right republicans” in France, and the “nationalist monarchists” in Italy vs the Catholic/dynastic diehards.
The “republican right” and “christian democrats” eventually won out; but arguably only because of the catastrophe of reaction in its alliance with fascism.
Interestingly, in Britain, reaction was never as powerful a trend, because the conservative gentry had no intention of, or interest in, handing power to a monarchic/clerical system, but preferred to assimilate to the rising capitalist and upper middle class “liberals”.
Germany is another case again.
The essential difference of “enlightened conservatism” and reaction seems to be the latter view society as unavoidably hierarchical, and market systems and the “lawful state” as delusions. They end up, ironically, with Lenin: “the question is who, whom”.
It may be a stretch, but perhaps the legacy of thought-patterns of slave society may be at work?
That the “Old South” was attracted to reactionary concepts seems obvious from e.g. George Fitzhugh.
Though it was never really worked out, and tended to just default to custom and interest having a bit of post hoc justification.
The ironic point is that, ultimately. populism and reaction may be equally un-enlightened, but are fundamentally incompatible.
Something most unusual took place in NY today: George Santos told the truth.
By which I mean he pleaded guilty.
See, this explains everything. When he lies he gets to enjoy the high life and gets elected to Congress. When he tells the truth, he goes to jail.
@CSK:..Phil Donahue
Some time in the ’80s I saw a Phil Donahue show when the guests were two Protestant Ministers and their wives. Apparently somebody had written a book about Christian marital sex as that was the subject of the show. Somehow the subject of oral sex came up. One of the ministers objected and questioned that they should be even talking about it. I clearly remember the other minister saying “Why not? You haven’t lived!…”
Wasn’t long until a housewife from Gooberville called in and asked “What do they mean when they are talking about oral sex?”
All Phil could say was “I was afraid of this. You are going to have to ask your husband about that.”
@CSK:
Of course it was. And is. Apologies ma’am, only excuse was an excess of blood in my caffeine stream.
I’d promise not to do that again, but I am but a simple minded addled Luddite.
@Flat Earth Luddite:
You’re not simple-minded at all. You are a very smart Luddite.
These will be as rare as the 49 Star Flag!
US Army Quartermaster Museum
Where is Everett Dirksen when we need him?
I know this is a month too late but I heard about this in the past and only found verification of it tonight.
There is video of this astounding rebuke here starting at 17:40.
Everett Dirksen was a Senator from Illinois. He died in office in 1969, the year I turned 21 and became eligible to vote so I never saw his name on a ballot.
(No. There is no one in today’s Republican Party that would dare call out convicted felon, private citizen Donald Trump like that.)
EDIT:
Keep watching the above mentioned video for Republican fisticuffs on the convention floor at 20:10.
EDIT:
It gets better. Someone is removed on a stretcher!
And there it is. Been re-watching GOT to see when, and why, I realized it was going off the rails. Season 5, episode 3. I’d worried at the final ep of season 4. Season 5, eps 1 and 2, were okay. But then the lack of direction started to become undeniable. Characters were wandering without momentum. Been there. I used to call it voguing. When you don’t quite have a grip on the story so you just keep writing til you find it. But then, you’re supposed to fucking find it, and they didn’t. (If your answer is to inject some sexual abuse not in the books, you have not found the answer, that’s desperation.) The seeds of the utter collapse in seasons 7 & 8 was sewn earlier.
The adaptation from the books didn’t quite work, too many changes and conflations. A machine with as many moving parts as Martin’s books will keep running minus a few parts, but you need to repair the damage or eventually the engine starts knocking.
Interesting – I just checked and it was season 5 when GRRM distanced himself from the show.
GRRM knew. He’s a very smart writer, obviously smarter than the showrunners.
@Michael Reynolds: For me it was when that guy got ate by his own dogs. He deserved it, but the storyline kinda went south. Nothing really made sense after that.
I am going to post again about this tomorrow, I promise because I’m working through how to say it. I think it’s kinda important.
I read the dumbest article about The Sopranos. It involves a Gen Z author being offended that the New Jersey mob guys were racist and sexist. Titled “The Sopranos Did Not Age Well”.
That was the point – society had passed them by. They were relics of a bygone era lost in their modern day. The creeping and then sudden irrelevance of mafia values was the fucking point. You missed the point of the show!
Tony was meant to be transitional. He was meant to be an asshole, a racist, a sexist.
People today should have better media literacy than me, just by exposure. The thin-skinned nature of not being able to engage with media that precedes you and does not explicitly endorse your world view now and it expands to all media made before you were born is problematic. Such a system of thought and judgement is broken. It does not acknowledge what life was like prior to your experience.
You, too, will be judged by future generations and be found lacking.
The Sopranos whole point was highlighting how Tony could not cope with modernity. He was anxious. He had panic attacks. It was impacting his day-to-day.
The “This did not age well” content was intended, you media illiterate.
I love Noir movies from the 40’s. I understood that my values from the early 70’s, when I first saw them, didn’t apply. I understood that it was of its time, and I appreciated the insight.
I fear for media literacy amongst Gen Z and Alpha.
@de stijl:
I read that article, too. All of it was bad.