Wednesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Wednesday, May 29, 2024
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58 comments
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About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a 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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Nerve conduction study today, to see if there’s anything the neurosurgeon can do to fix the annoying foot drop issue. Although the carbon fiber/titanium brace helps, I’ll be the first to admit that the 10 minute evolution of getting my socks and shoes on is … annoying.
And I’m fascinated by the fact that this routine, painless in-patient procedure is apparently the cause of overactive Luddite brain being up all night. Ugh
Off to Gettysburg for an overnighter this afternoon, so no posting from me tomorrow morning.
@James Joyner: Enjoy.
I’d commit suicide. Right now, I am so dawgdamned tired of all the things I can’t do or now take forever to accomplish that I used to do lickkety split, it’s making me mental.
Every time I see that #, you know what I think of. Or should I say, who.
eta: Turd wars: North Korea accused of sending balloons carrying excrement into the South
Did not have that headline on my 2024 Headline Bingo card.
Sorry to post a downer first thing on hump day, but this NYTimes article (no subscription needed) is a tragically perfect encapsulation of the effects of letting the man-boy gun fetishists decide gun policy in the United States:
But to all the heroes-in-their-own-heads, this is just another weird anomaly, and they will remain convinced that grabbing a gun in a confusing situation will save their and their families lives, and they will never be drunk or enraged or wake up confused, or get old and incompetent and kill teenagers turning around in their driveway, or let their kids see what the combination to their gun safe is, or have someone in their house so despondent they turn the gun on themselves.
@OzarkHillbilly:
I don’t. A murderous piano player?
@MarkedMan: Heh, for some reason or other the 88 keys on a piano never occurred to me. Might have something to do with the fact that I don’t play the piano.
Near my youngest son’s house house in NOLA, there is a strip mall with “88” in big red #s on the center gable. Kinda jarring considering it is a majority black neighborhood.
@OzarkHillbilly: I must be running on half cylinders this morning because I’m still not getting who the “88” in your comment referred to!
@MarkedMan: What’s the eighth letter of the alphabet?
@MarkedMan:
Think of a slogan and the eighth letter of the alphabet.
@MarkedMan: My bad, Heil Hitler. “H” is the eighth letter of the alphabet and the fascists use 88 as shorthand for it.
@MarkedMan: An out of fashion greeting for a certain former German leader.
Whocouldaknowed?
@OzarkHillbilly: I guess I should be grateful that I don’t come into contact with enough fascists to have had any idea that was a thing. In KC, if you see 88 you automatically think Tony Gonzalez. I like that association better.
@OzarkHillbilly: Ah! I had heard that before but it didn’t stick with me. Probably because in this way Fascists, White Supremicists and Nazis are like little children playing in a blanket fort – they are constantly making up “clever” secret signs and codes. There are just so many of them.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Physically, I’m certainly paying the price for stupid s*** I did as a younger Luddite. And the long term side effects from my cancer treatments compounds that.
But so far, I resist the siren call to leave the party early. Luddite has places to go, things to see, and people to annoy. As Pinky used to say, “Snarf!”
@Flat Earth Luddite: Sometimes hanging in there is the better part of valor.
Vivek Ramaswamy is going to save BuzzFeed by signing up the likes Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens. That’s some real star power there.
Florida teachers are now trained in Christian Nationalism. Also, the anti-communist curriculum equates cancel culture with Stalinism.
https://popular.info/p/exclusive-florida-educators-trained
https://popular.info/p/florida-civics-training-links-cancel
@Kingdaddy:
Oh for flying fawks sake. This joke wasn’t funny the first time I heard it.
I finished watching Dune part deux yesterday.
I seriously fail to see the attraction. Yes, there’s oodles of world building, but the characters and story are, well, nothing special. And at heart it’s a white savior story.
There are too many bad guys as well. It’s the Baron! No, it’s Raban! No, it’s the guy Sting played in the other Dune movie! No, it’s the emperor! That’s a lot of peeple for one hero to kill in the compressed climax/denoument; no wonder Paul needed some help from the guy Patrick Stewart played in the other Dune movie.
Having rewatched the Lynch movie for some reason not too long ago, I thought Villeneuve’s part one was very much like Lynch’s story. Part two struck me as completely different. Same ending and all, but done in an entirely different way.
Last, the languages. It’s fine to have people of different planets speak different languages, but it loses something if they can switch from one to the other easily. So you want the cue balls to speak cue ball? Fine, but most of them should only speak cue ball, especially among themselves. I never knew when I could look away for two seconds to check the time or get a sip of soda, without missing some subtitled dialogue.
Star Wars does this much better. Jabba only speaks Gibberish, not English. And this goes for most characters, including droids.
@Flat Earth Luddite: If only it were a joke.
@Kingdaddy:
That’s what I was afraid of. I don’t know what they’re smoking, but bogart that joint, ’cause I don’t want me none of it.
Two ultra-low cost airlines in the US, Spirit and Frontier, have entirely or mostly eliminated change fees. All the mainline carriers have as well, and Southwest, as I recall, never had them.
This confirms my hunch that changing a flight date, route, etc., was never any kind of major issue or expense for any airline, and the outrageous change fees were just a means of extracting money from customers.
On the other hand, many airlines elsewhere still charge them.
Frontier’s been changing how it presents fares, too. But that requires a longer post.
@Kathy: I enjoyed both Dune movies, but Part 2 was…I don’t know, it’s like the old cliche’ about Chinese food, you eat a big meal and half an hour later you’re hungry again. Like, the movie didn’t “stick.” It was beautiful and fun and the action scenes were epic, but I was left feeling a bit empty about the whole thing.
Maybe I should watch it again, maybe there’s more to catch that would come through more powerfully on a re-watch, I don’t know.
@Mikey:
I found one bit hilarious.
Minor spoilers ahead
Stilgar claims the chosen one would be too modest to declare himself the messiah when Paul denies being the messiah. So his denial is confirmation.
It reminded me of the part in 3 Body Problem when the physicist denies being a wallfacer.
IMO, Villeneuve would do well to cut all his movies in half. Too many slow, long scenes mostly of visuals just taking up time.
Louisiana just placed major restrictions on the use of mifepristone and misoprostol. It is going to be treated as a control drug requiring a special medication license and special storage. The odd part is that they way the law is written and the way people currently obtain the drug it will have only a small effect on the number of abortions. However, the drugs have other uses including treating miscarriages and postpartum bleeding so what the law will mostly accomplish is making it harder to use for those problems. The legislators get to declare a victory against abortion but mostly they are just hurting people who need acute medical care.
As an aside they are going to require doctors to get a special license to prescribe the drug. I would refuse to do that if I was still in practice.
Steve
@steve:
This isn’t about saving “precious little lives.” It’s about controlling women. So they die if untreated? So what? They’re easily replaceable. Right?
@MarkedMan:
@OzarkHillbilly:
I recognised it from some unpleasant encounters with Action 88 skinheads back in the late 70s/early 80’s.
Nazis: as persistent as cockroaches, and even less fun to have around.
@OzarkHillbilly:
That’s gotta be a shytty job…
Dennis Quaid told Piers Morgan that he’s going to vote for Trump.
“People might call him an asshole,” Quaid explained, “but he’s my asshole.”
Should anyone be interested, Mexico will be holding its presidential election on June 2nd, meaning this Sunday.
The one certain result is that a woman will win. The one near certain result is that it will be Claudia Sheinbaum. I don’t know much about her, past that she did no more than a passable job as mayor of Mexico City between 2018 and when she launched her candidacy for the presidency. And that she’s a close collaborator and major supporter of his royal high majesty Manuel Andres the Zero. She’ll probably won’t be as bad. She lacks the temperament to constantly fight everyone else and promote herself relentlessly, but who knows. the Sulla principle says those who follow the one who showed the way, often follow all their example.
So I’m voting for Xochitl Galvez, running of behalf of three major parties. I also don’t know much about her, but she seems to favor a better environmental policy.
One thing I still can’t get about his majesty, is that eh killed a lot of renewable energy projects, and went to favor coal fired plants. He’s supposed to be on the left. Oil, I’d ave understood. Pemex being the government’s cash cow and all. But not coal.
Social policy both are pretty much the same. We’ve yet to import the culture war from the US.
@CSK:
If he wants to replace a colostomy bag with Orangefuhrer, I’m afraid medical science isn’t quite there yet.
@CSK: Is Dennis the crazy brother? Or is that Randy?
@CSK: It’s funny, but I suspect Trump could say the same ting about Quaid.
@steve:
I don’t think it’s going to matter because I’m pretty sure that SCOTUS is going to ban mifepristone and reinvigorate Comstock. I’d be shocked if that opinion wasn’t just Alito and Thomas calling women stupid whores.
Backing up my suspicion are two headlines I saw today, one about Alito refusing to recuse himself from Jan 6 cases and one about Coney-Barrett’s husband doing what looks like no work jobs for rightwing assholes. I’d be shocked if the right on SCOTUS didn’t decide that this was their time to grab the brass ring and really stick it to everyone. Realistically (for them) why wait a year for a potential, but uncertain, Trump victory, when you can just smash and grab without consequence to you.
The other thing that amuses me, isn’t misoprostol used to treat rheumatoid arthritis? I’m pretty sure I know someone that votes Republican because she likes low taxes and something something liberals. It’ll be interesting when she loses her meds. Lol, or old white men in LA losing their shit when their drs refuse (or can’t) prescribe their meds.
@Kathy:
That’s a scene from Monty Python’s Life of Brian
@steve: Here’s the Guardian’s take on that.
@MarkedMan:
Randy’s the kook. Although now I’m not too sure about Dennis, either.
@SenyorDave:
I’m wondering how Trump will react.
@Beth:
According to some hasty web searches, it’s used as an adjunct in treatment to prevent gastrointestinal ulcers from the use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, which are prescribed to patients with rheumatoid arthritis to manage pain and inflammation.
So, their arthritis would still get treated, but now they may get ulcers to go with their lower taxes and prejudices. Can’t have everything.
On the bright side, the Democrats are proving much more resistant to left-wing anti-trans ideology than the Labor Party:
Anti-Trans Dem Loses Primary To Lauren Ashley Simmons, Queer Woman, In Texas
@MarkedMan: Dennis is the one Meg Ryan ran screaming away from when he discovered cocaine was his one true love.
Well, cocaine and infidelity. And the crazy may well run in the family. Wikipedia tells us about his big brother that
The jury did not reach a verdict today and will resume deliberations tomorrow.
Rick Perlstein has a piece this morning.
But he says it’s become soul destroying. He quotes a reader,
He quotes conservatives saying our civilization will be destroyed by:
– Women voting, 1879
-Social Security, 1935
-Medicare. 1961
But as civilization continues apace conservative ideological entrepreneurs find new existential threats and the old ones are forgotten. Always more, always worse, never new.
@gVOR10: I certainly will agree with the “always more, always worse, never new” configuration Perlstein’s reader suggested. And the whole “prelapsarian” component is new for me (I’ve never lived among people who believed we could return to an age of innocence) and interesting for it’s novelty. What I find most interesting is the question of how to sell the prelapsarian model to basically secular people within conservatism. I can see how it sells (though it shouldn’t–see parenthetical above) to evangelicals; it reveals itself in the whole “take over the nation for Jesus” (and trust me, Jesus doesn’t want the nation). But how does that dream translate into something that secular, most-people-are-basically-good types are clamoring to embrace. Is conservatism truly limited to evangelicals and greedheads who think their taxes are too high and that regulations stifle their ability to grow richer? Doesn’t seem like a big enough pool of true believers to me. Hmmmm…
@Kathy:
I suspect the reason Dune II came out on MAX immediately reflects an awareness they had a mediocre (at best) movie on their hands. Ultimately a shoddy plot with a lot of two-dimensional characters spouting nonsense, I guess. Somethings there is no CGI solution for.
Not that immediately. It came out early in march in theaters, and ended its main run in late March. It took about 2 months to get to streaming.
There was much less buzz about part two than part one, though. And looking back on it, I think I also lost the thread of the Lynch movie once Paul and Jessica seek asylum with the Fremen.
One thing that piqued my curiosity concerns the infamous prophecy (or prophecies; it’s not clear). Was it a “real” prophecy, like Valen would return or the walls of Troy would never be breached by an enemy, or was it devised by the Church of The Veiled Ladies for purposes of their own (ie galactic domination by proxy).
The movie’s ambiguous. The Veiled people kind of imply it was their doing, but then Paul kept meeting milestones in the prophecy. So which is it?
Part two was rather successful at the box office (no use comparing it to part one, which released during the pandemic and did go to streaming at the same time), so we can expect at least one more sequel to follow. And there’s a prequel TV series or limited series as well, which should be in post production by now.
@Kathy:
Ah, I missed the theater release. Nobody I know had mentioned it, which I suspect is because none of them either saw it or cared to talk about seeing it, and in that I suspect the latter as there was much discussion about Part 1.
The Bene Gesserate(sp?). I’d like to know if Herbert was put through a Catholic school as a kid. It’s as if some nuns did a real number on his noodle somewhere along the line. Probably that they could see right through him and it made him feel utterly at their mercy…but he was unsure if they were trying to help him or simply control him. Hence the ambiguity, which many have suffered…
@Kathy:
Combined both films cost about $375M, and have grossed over $1.2B, so yes, there will be more. Both films are definitely hits, making so much money that the studios wont’ be able to steal from the profit participants.
@dazedandconfused:
I take it that means that you aren’t on a lot of Trans discords. Lol.
As a slight aside, I very frequently feel a bit of impostor syndrome about my queerness. A lot of it comes from coming out late and being fairly well off, but most of it is age. Like there was just a maaaaasive bloom of queer culture (high and low) from about 2005ish to about the pandemic when the groomer shit came back.
Anyway, I was at Target a couple days ago and stopped dead in the main entrance isle and thought to myself, “why does that bag of dog treats say ‘bussy’ on it?” I stared in confusion while people walked around me angrily. It didn’t say bussy, it said Busy. I was like, “welp, I guess I am a brain-rotted queer.”
Then I saw this:
https://target-birds.fandom.com/wiki/Pride_2024_Unnamed_Movie_Star_Bird
and squealed. I made my partner go back to three different Targets to buy me one.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Blood and soil populism is an easy sell to a lot of people, and the greedheads have spent billions selling it.
@dazedandconfused:
Yeah, me too. After I saw Arrival in a theater, I knew I would be seeing any other Villeneuve movies strictly on video. And Arrival wasn’t as slow or stretched out as both Dunes or the Blade Runner sequel (maybe because it involved no deserts).
@EddieInCA:
There have been announcements of a third movie, Dune Messiah, based on Herbert’s sequel novel. But, as per Asimov’s First Law of Hollywood*, it may take a while, or not get done, or not by Villeneuve. And you surely know more about this business than I even imagine. For now, he may take a detour adapting a nonfiction book, Nuclear War: A Scenario, before even shooting a frame of the sequel.
*”Whatever happens, nothing happens.”
@Flat Earth Luddite:
Note to self. Not painful? Pfah!
Kind of like being the frog in biology class that you hit with the electrodes. Or a sharp cattle prod. Or repeatedly whizzing on the electric fence (neighbor, not me).
But at least now the neurosurgeon gets to talk about if/when/where he cuts, which is something.
I forgot to bring up something about Mexico’s election.
The polls have Sheinbaum leading with over 50% of the vote. Galvez has around 35-40%, and the guy whose name I can’t be bothered to remember is at around 15-17%. The polls vary a lot, but they all show Sheinbaum on top by a substantial margin.
Still, who knows. The polls may be way off (not likely).
In the event Galvez wins (very unlikely), his majesty may try to steal the election (very likely, if the very unlikely happens). Crying fraud is like his hobby and favorite drug.
For a wonder, it’s not something he copied from Orangefuhrer, but his trademark for the 18 years when he ran for the presidency.
BTW, the candidate with the most votes wins, even if they don’t get a majority. There have been plurality wins with as little as 36% of the vote. No run-off vote, no electoral college nonsense, no ranked choice voting.
@Kathy:
How do you think that would play out among average people?
The more I think about, it’s kinda insane/stupid/racist that I know next to nothing about Mexican politics. I guess it’s a real good way to exploit Mexicans if most Americans don’t know what it’s really like down there. It’s freaking absurd since that should be one of the U.S.’s most important relationships.
Edited to fix the quotes
@Beth:
Well, he already tried in 2006, after losing to Calderon (that’s why he trash talks a term that ended in 2012, rather than the one just before his). At the time, though, he had no control over the army or the federal police. My guess is he’d involve the army and warn everyone else to stay out of the way.
I honestly can’t say how people would take it.
@Beth:
Yup. I live in a nearly completely cis world. Nobody talks much about that stuff. Have a few gay co-workers and acquaintances but nobody gives them any crap for it and they are invited to all the shindigs like everybody else so it’s seems an accepted condition…Within this one, anyway. I would like to thank you for your narratives on the subject. You’ve edificated me enormously.
On good news/bad news front, the creator of the cancelled series Final Space, Olan Rogers, will finish telling his story in a “graphic novel” (ie comic book).
The bad news is there will be a limited number of copies, and each will sell for $125.
granted it’s a monstrously large comic book, over 400 pages of it, but I’m not curious enough about how the story ends to spend that much on it.
On the good news front, season two of My Adventures with Superman is out.
It hasn’t been that long since season 1 aired, but I still want to stream the last few eps before diving into season 2.
@dazedandconfused: “I suspect the reason Dune II came out on MAX immediately reflects an awareness they had a mediocre (at best) movie on their hands.”
No, that’s just the current business model of the film industry. They get a handful of weeks in theaters — barring some outrageous success like Barbie — then a few week for sale or rent digitally (usually overlapping with the tail end of the theatrical run) and then on to their Tier 1 streamer…