Tuesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Tuesday, June 18, 2024
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59 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).
Follow Steven on
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BlueSky.
Insomnia is nowhere near as interesting as it’s cracked up to be.
@Kathy: I blame the midnight-barfing dog.
@Kathy: @Tony W: I woke up at 1 AM. Finally managed to fall back asleep around 3:30. Got up at my usual 4:30.
I’ve been doing this with a little variation every now and again for over a decade. It’s gotten old.
@Kathy: if you do something creative, writing songs or poetry or drawing, etc, the middle of the night is prime time to tap the magical parts of your mind without using drugs. The next day you’ll look at your work and think, “wait, *I* came up with this?”
The difficulty, of course, is convincing yourself to get your butt out of bed and do it.
From Oklahoma law to allow resentencing for incarcerated domestic violence survivors, came this little tidbit I was unaware of:
I’ve done that. My inevitable next thought was, “Where are the matches?”
I never give money to the homeless since I don’t want to encourage them. The other day I walked out of a store with $5.50 in change to my surprise since I do very little cash business. A scruffy 30+ year old guy was standing at an exit ramp across the street from me holding a sign. On impulse I yelled at him and handed him the cash. I said, “Good luck” as well. When I spoke he looked at me with genuine emotion and thanked me expressing gratitude. It struck me that he was a real human being, maybe crazy, maybe a doper, but a real person. I am not going to give money to anyone again.
‘This country gave me a lot’: the Vietnamese people staying in Ukraine
@Slugger: I always give money to homeless, keep cash in my pocket for that specific reason. Why? Because I remember how it felt to be at the end of the world with no friends, no family and on the precipice of no hope.
I don’t worry about how they got to where they are, if they are alcoholics, drug addicts, liars, thieves, or just unlucky. I don’t think about whether the money will go in their veins or their belly. I like to think that at least on this day, they will eat. But it matters not, what they do with the money is between them and their god.
What I do is between me and my god.
ftr, I’m an atheist.
@Franklin:
Well, I spent a lot of time last night trying to figure out some means for falling asleep.
It didn’t go well.
If I gave money to all the people here in town soliciting on the public way it would only be a matter of days before I would be broke and out on the street corner myself with a cardboard sign and my hand out.
A few years ago the Mayor of Sleepytown did an informal survey of panhandlers and reported that many were not homeless.
I do make donations to local food banks and shelters when I can.
@Slugger: Wait… the perception of a street person as a real human being is going to cause you to not give money to anyone again? I hope I’m misunderstanding.
From LGM, this depressing little tidbit:
@Tony W:
@OzarkHillbilly:
I was very clearly falling asleep at around 10:15 pm, then woke up suddenly for no clear reason I remember, then couldn’t fall asleep again until around 2:30 am.
I usually get to sleep between 10 and 10:30, and wake up some time before the alarm goes off at 6 am. Sometimes at 5:30, sometimes at 5:50. My problem is on weekends, I tend to get up at 4:30 am, no matter when I go to bed.
I wind up napping late in the morning, or after lunch.
@Slugger: I never give money to the homeless for essentially the same reasons you listed. I do look them in the eye, nod and give them a “how ya doing?” which often results in a startled look, but I think for the most part they appreciate it. I do volunteer at a local mens shelter, and my wife keeps a supply of toiletry kits in her car (Toothpaste, toothbrush, floss, wipes, etc) to hand out. When my wife worked at a woman’s shelter, I did a lot of volunteer maintenance work there.
I almost always give money to street artists, street musicians, etc. even when they are terrible.
One frustration I have is the squeegee kids (who are not, for the most part, homeless). If they set up in a place where I could pull off, and if they really cleaned my windshield I would be happy to use their services once or twice a week. But I won’t just throw the money at them and drive off, and I don’t want to be “that guy”, i.e. the one that blocks traffic after the light has changed.
@Mikey:
You know this will make absolutely no difference to Trump’s fans.
@CSK: Yeah, I know. For them, “truth” is whatever spills out of Trump’s festering gob on any given day.
@Mikey:
Even if it contradicts what he said the day before. Or even ten minutes ago.
Gavin Newsom wants a constitutional amendment, and by means of a constitutional convention no less.
This would be far too easy to mock, to bring up unicorns, cheesecake that causes weight loss, Theranos, etc. but I actually approve. Much in the same way I approve of Boom Supersonic or the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. They will most likely fail, but they will surely fail if they don’t even try.
In this specific case, Newsom’s efforts may succeed in changing the law, the culture, or both, even if the amendment never materializes.
I’m reminded of the Gracchi brothers in the end stages of the Roman Republic. They wanted to redistribute land to the middle class*, who’d been largely dispossessed as a result of long military campaigns. They were murdered for their trouble, and never achieved what they wanted. But the situation festered for the next few decades, until some measure of land redistribution eventually took place.
I’d like to say Newsom won’t risk murder, but I think we all know better by now.
Oh, the Gracchi were also accused of having ulterior political motives, or of serving those who did. And perhaps that was true. But the redistribution they advocated for would have helped the economic situation of lots of people regardless.
*Social classes are problematic to define even now, never mind in ancient times. To me, it’s clear that family farmers and independent professionals (scribes, carpenters, artisans, etc.) came close to a middle economic ground between rich and poor.
@Mikey:
@CSK:
Big Brother’s Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia, even when it was always at war with Eurasia.
In der Kleineorangefuhrer’s version, Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia, and Malaysia, and Eurasia, even if it was allied with Oceania against Persia.
Clear?
Kevin Drum has a pretty good round up of the lessons we learned from COVID. My one caveat is that I don’t think he dwells enough on how these lessons might very well not apply to the next outbreak. He does mention it, but I don’t think he gives it the emphasis it deserves. For instance, COVID had a pretty unique profile in that it affected the oldest population the most and then dropped off exponentially until you had infants who seemingly could get it with zero ill effects (with a small number of exceptions). That is not typical. As I understand it, infants are often hard hit because of their underdeveloped immune system, and the distribution amongst halthy people from 15-55 is pretty uniform. What do you think would have happened in the US if we had to bury a couple of hundred thousands of infants along with the millions of elderly? This isn’t 1917, when people expected to lose a lot of infants.
Or the fact that COVID breaks down very, very quickly upon leaving the body, so we didn’t have to worry too much about transmissions via doorknob. Or that we were able to create a very effective vaccine for the first variant in record time.
The next outbreak could end up disproportionately affecting children and infants, especially if it survives long on shared surfaces like toys and playground equipment.
Trump lied that his threats to hang NATO allies out to dry if they were invaded got them to “pay up.” Of course that was bullshit, but it’s Trump, so what else should we expect?
Yesterday, though, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told President Biden that 23 members will meet the 2% of GDP defense spending target.
When Biden took office in 2021, the number of member nations meeting that target was…six.
Trump whined and bullshitted about it, Biden actually got it done.
@Franklin:
There’s an old story about the writer who had a brilliant idea in the night, wrote it down on his notepad, and woke up the next morning to discover that his brilliant idea was, ‘Boy meets girl.’
@OzarkHillbilly:
I keep a wad of fives in the door pocket of my cars. The lunacy of giving cash to a person who will use that cash essentially to commit suicide does bother me. But I think you and I have both been desperate at times, and at least in my case, it was entirely due to my own bad behavior. So, you know, casting stones and all that.
@Michael Reynolds:
There was a Seinfeld ep with a bit like that in it. The problem was Jerry couldn’t read his half-asleep handwriting.
In the end, it turned out the moron had written down some bad dialogue from an old B movie he’d been watching before going to bed.
What does happen to me a lot, is I get a thought or idea as I’m falling asleep, then it vanishes as I try to examine it further or think more about it. Sometimes I do manage to hold on to it, and it’s never been anything brilliant, crucial, or important. most plain make no sense.
Asimov used this phenomena in his third robot novel, The Robots of Dawn. Only it wasn’t an idea, but a memory. Saying more about it would be a spoiler for a novel over 40 years old.
@Mikey: I definitely encourage Democrats and the media to frame this not as “Trump is a liar” (yawn) but as “Trump is clearly senile — he can’t even remember what he said yesterday.”
@MarkedMan:
I will give money to almost any unamplified street musician — including bagpipes or trumpet* — but to no amplified street musician.
*But not accordion. I have to draw the line somewhere.
@DrDaveT:
That’s because you have never encountered a kilt-wearing accordion and bagpipe busker band in Edinburgh playing the Tetris music. Also: Weird Al?
@Michael Reynolds: Sorry, no. To date, the only accordion I can stomach has occurred in Billy Joel songs. I fully endorse Gary Larson’s “Far Side” characterization.
@Michael Reynolds: For what it’s worth, Keith Richards says he came up with the chords to “Satisfaction” in a dream, quickly recorded it and went back to sleep, then didn’t remember it the next day but had the recording.
MAGA has decided that the new anti-Christ is…Dolly Parton.
http://www.salon.com/2024/06/11/false-gospel-the-new-on-dolly-parton-is-a-tactic-borrowed-from-the-christian-right/
@CSK: Those people are broken. I like to think they are fixable but I doubt it.
On ideas from dreams, the benzene molecule gave headaches to chemists in the XIX Century, who thought they were getting a handle on organic chemistry. Benzene simply had too few hydrogen atoms to be as stable as it was.
One of the chemists who figured it had a ring structure, August Kekule, claimed the idea came to him while half asleep or daydreaming one day. As I recall, he said he imagined chains of hydrocarbons moving around, and one formed a ring.
Bottom line, someone needs to start dreaming about dark matter.
@CSK: I’m surprised that it took them this long to start going after her. She was an investor with Moderna, she’s a woman, she was in a movie that was against male bosses sexually harassing women, she’s a gay icon by virtue of basically being a drag queen despite being a woman, if she has a bigoted bone in her body she has the good nature to keep it to herself*, and she makes good country music…
All things Republicans hate.
——
*: Is she the one who lives without sin? Probably not.
Another day another snake in the house.
Walked in to the bathroom and there it was slithering out from under the cabinet below the sink. Snakey the snake reversed course as soon as it felt the vibration of my footsteps and went back under the cabinet. By the time I rounded up my combination back scratcher/snake prod I can only assume that it went outside the same way it came in. The hole in the floor occupied by the fresh water plumbing and the waste plumbing for the sink. I have repeatedly tried to block the opening to keep the mice out in the winter and snakes out in the spring but eventually my Maginot line fails and the critters take over. When I finally opened the cabinet door looking for Snake sure enough there was a shed snakeskin at least 4 feet long tangled up in the plumbing. One time I came home and found a very long shed snakeskin caught up in the faucet valves for the kitchen sink. No telling where that snake went. One time I tried to corral a snake out of the house and it went behind the stove. I wasn’t about to move the stove just to have it hide behind the refrigerator. Screw it I said to myself. He found his way in he can find his way out. I left to go watch the Cubs game.
I find shed snakeskin in the lattice under the ceiling of the front porch and other places outside. Why the reptiles have to come inside to change clothes is beyond me.
@CSK: I’m guessing that Ericka Anderson, the author of the hit piece on Parton, considers herself to be a Christian. If she supports Trump then she is a textbook example of a false Christian. But somehow she can rationalize her support, maybe falling back on the “we are all sinners” nonsense that allows her to disregard the totality of evil that Trump’s life work has embodied.
@Mikey:
Because no one in NATO took Trump’s whining and bullshitting seriously. They knew he was a buffoon trying to be presidential.
@SenyorDave:
Come now. If you don’t sin, then Jesús died for nothing. Whereas someone like der Kleineorangefuhrer gives the Nazarene much, much, more bang for their sacrifice.
@Gustopher: @SenyorDave:
Yes to you both.
@CSK: the pushback on Dolly haters has been fast and furious. Dolly is beloved by multitudes and does actual good works. Another is Garth Brooks, who also is known for his kindness and inclusion.
The professional Christians are just envious that the most successful creative artists tend to be lefty. Trump’s obsession with Taylor Swift is outright pathetic.
Kid Rock and Vanilla Ice are the best Magaland can do .
Sad.
@MarkedMan:
Different pathogens have different effects, but there are limits to these differences.
For instance, the H1N1 flu of 1918-1920 affected younger adults worse than other groups. The repeat performance in 2009 as swine flu affected older people worse.
Children and infants are a mixed bag. For instance, children resist measles much better than adults. At the same time, they are more likely to catch it.
The BIG problem is that it takes time after a new pathogen shows up to determine all sorts of useful information about it. How it spreads, how it affects different people, how best to treat it, etc. In the meantime, it makes sense to assume the worst case scenario and protect for that.
The problem with this approach, is that the public needs to be made aware that the initial guidelines and recommendations are subject to change as better data becomes available. This is anathema to a great part of the public, who tend to adopt an all or nothing mentality, and expect the right guidance at the start. It’s also fertile ground for all kinds of misinformation.
As for things like contact tracing, they are very effective when done well. South Korea used it to very good effect, for instance. The fact that it won’t work in the US does not mean it’s not a good measure, or that there shouldn’t be any measures to improve it.
TL;DR, humanity needs a keeper.
@Gustopher:
This is what I meant when I was saying I would have loved having you in one of my composition classes.
@SenyorDave: Why guess? Highlight her name, ask your web browser’s side bar to look her up, and see for yourself:
As to why she supports Trump, evangelicals have become practiced at separating their political views and desires from what they might learn if their familiarity with The Bible extended beyond what their pastors tell them to believe. An article I skimmed a while back was noting that there is a significant cohort in the evangelical community that specifically rejects certain teaching of Jesus. One follower was quoted as saying that he was done with that “turning the other cheek stuff.”
I think they might consider reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X but draw the line as suggesting it, just in case.
Usually I decide what I’ll cook on the weekend on Wednesdays, but this time I got an idea early.
The basic notion is to roast two whole chicken breasts, then finish them by crisping the skin in the air fryer. Next I’ll make some air fryer fries. Last, use the roasted chicken pan drippings to make gravy for the fries.
Yes, I know that’s called Poutine. I’m not calling it that because it seems to require cheese curds and I’ve none on hand (and can’t find any at local stores). So it will be plain just cheese.
@becca: Don’t forget Ted Nugent.
@Kathy: Now you’ve reminded me I need a whole-ass fried chicken or three in my life, with mashed taters and corn on the cob. 🙂
@Jax:
I do hope you don’t plan on consuming all three chickens at one sitting. 🙂
@OzarkHillbilly: As a Michigan resident, I apologize for both Ted Nugent and Kid Rock. The former is reasonably skilled at a musical instrument, but I can’t think of another good attribute between the two of them.
Ok. I don’t get it.
My understanding is that Apple makes a boatload of money from app store commissions, and that iphone users tend to pay more, and more often, for apps and in-app purchases than Android users.
If so (big if), why would Apple copy successful apps and offer them free?
It seems this would lose them some revenue, plus the cost of developing their own app. I must be missing something.
@Jax:..or three…
You can do it!
Encore: Think!
Baseball’s absolute legend Willie Mays has died, age 93.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
They have every right to do so*, as long as they don’t continue to claim to be “Christians”.
*Although, of course, there’s that pesky question of WHY you reject those. If you have a more authoritative source than Jesus, what is it? The Old Testament? Then your religion is “Jewish”. Your own opinions? Then nobody cares what you believe. You can’t have the Bible be the authoritative word of God except for the parts that aren’t, at least not if you don’t want to be snickered at…
@Jax:
Mrs. Murphy : We got two honkies out there dressed like Hasidic diamond merchants.
Matt Murphy : Say what?
Mrs. Murphy : They look like they’re from the CIA, or somethin’.
Matt Murphy : What they want to eat?
Mrs. Murphy : The tall one wants white bread, toasted, dry, with nothin’ on it.
Matt Murphy : Elwood.
Mrs. Murphy : And the other one wants four whole fried chickens and a Coke.
Matt Murphy : And Jake. Shit, the Blues Brothers!
I think about that scene all the time. It’s damn near perfect.
@Mikey: All time WAR leaders:
Rank Player (yrs) Wins Above Replacement
1. Babe Ruth+ (22) 182.6
2. Walter Johnson+ (21) 166.9
3. Cy Young+ (22) 163.6
4. Barry Bonds (22) 162.8
5. Willie Mays+ (23) 156.2
6. Ty Cobb+ (24) 151.5
7. Henry Aaron+ (23) 143.1
8. Roger Clemens (24) 139.2 R
9. Tris Speaker+ (22) 134.9
10. Honus Wagner+ (21) 131.0
So, the 5th-most valuable player ever, and 3rd-most valuable non-pitcher. Say hey.
@Mister Bluster:
Lol, I knew I should have scrolled down. Great minds and all that.
@Franklin:
I saw Kid Rock open for Fishbone at the House of Blues in Chicago. This was riiiiiight before he blew up. Google tells me it was 1998.
I had no idea who he was and was kinda annoyed at the time that it wasn’t a ska act that night. I was however, somewhat impressed by his, I guess general schtick. Music was kinda meh, but it was obvious he was gonna be huge. I remember he did this thing at one point where he ran around and played every instrument during a song. That was kinda impressive.
@CSK: Snarfle…..I have teenagers. Even though they’re girls, they’re eating me out of house and home. 3 chickens won’t last long!
@Beth:..Great minds indeed…
You can use any combination of these excuses that you see fit.
They always work for me!
@becca: “the pushback on Dolly haters has been fast and furious.”
This could work out for me. This October we are going to fulfill my wife’s lifelong dream of visiting Dollywood (while we’re checking out Asheville). If a boycott takes hold, maybe there won’t be any lines! Or at least any Trumpies…
@OzarkHillbilly:
@Michael Reynolds:
I’ve worked in San Francisco, in the part of the Tenderloin just a couple of blocks up from City Hall. Goes without saying that I was a approached many many times by homeless or other very poor people. When there was a single person I often gave a something, few dollars, whatever, but when there was a group I walked on by.
One time, a person a regular near my workplace, staggered across the street to me, I stopped and listened to him for a few minutes and when I told him I had to go now, he thanked me for listening. Telling you I choked up. I gave him a ten, he thanked me again and disappeared into the corner grocery up the street.
It is difficult all the way around, and I do understand why many people do not give to the homeless. I suppose that I give periodically because I feel that just maybe I’m not all that far from being on the street too. I’m fortunate that I have a family and means and will very likely NOT find myself homeless, but …