Archive for 2020
April 29, 2020
OPEN THREAD: Act natural, like you don’t care.
DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Alaskan School Board Removes Five Supposed ‘Controversial’ Books From Curriculum.
The Matanuska-Susitna Education Association targeted these classics:
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou
- Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
- The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien
- The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison
* * * * * * * *
I cannot believe they didn’t include The Catcher in the Rye, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Ulysses, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Scarlet Letter. The board probably already tossed these titles.
Well, yeah: Mockingbird is the story of literature’s most celebrated rape apologist, and J. D. Salinger had his Posthumous #MeToo-ing last year, despite it being the 100th birthday of its author. Those books don’t burn themselves, you know.
DAMN SKIPPY: Is space-time smooth or chunky?
THE OLDEST ROCKERS IN TOWN: The original generation of rock ‘n’ rollers remain more interesting than modern stars.
There are many reasons why musicians continue to make music, both live and in the studio, right up until the end. In some cases it is out of financial necessity, and in other instances it is because of an addiction to the adrenaline rush of mass adulation, an experience rather harder to reproduce in the lavish surroundings of an exclusive retirement community. Even as we might good-naturedly mock and wince at what we see as the more absurd aspects of their careers, there is an enormous affection that exists between audience and act, especially if their fans have grown up with their favourites. It is extremely rare to go to a gig by a “heritage act” and not see hordes of septuagenarians wearing leather jackets and band T-shirts that would have been cutting-edge forty years ago, and which now represent a living form of social history before us.
Yet the final reason why we will never tire of the original rock ‘n’ rollers is that they remain infinitely more interesting figures than the anodyne and unmemorable vast majority of younger artists, never afraid to innovate when it suits them. Bob Dylan, of all people, has recently had a number one single with the 17-minute long “Murder Most Foul,” about the Kennedy assassination.
Whatever the song’s intrinsic merits, its success is at least partially down to the enormous affection that Dylan is held in by millions, engendered by a 60-year career. Thus, when he said in a message to his admirers to “stay safe, stay observant and may God be with you,” his words were treated with the reverence of Moses coming down from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments. This is unlikely to be the case for, say, Ed Sheeran.
The young pretenders may have vigour, social media savvy and energy on their side, but their forbears, like the devil, will always have the best tunes.
Read the whole thing. As the author notes, “If Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey, both now in their mid-seventies, have ever found anything amusing about singing the ‘Hope I die before I get old’ refrain in ‘My Generation,’ the joke might have worn very thin by now.” In more ways than one: having caught The Who in Philadelphia during their “‘first’ farewell tour” in 1983, I had hoped to see them again last year, before that tour had dates postponed because Daltrey came down with a case of bronchitis. The 2020 replacement shows have been indefinitely postponed thanks to our friends in Wuhan and Bejiing, bringing new meaning to a Tommy Song Townshend wrote over 50 years ago: “Got a feeling ’21 is gonna be a good year.”
SHOCKER: Flashback: Does ‘Impeach Trump’ Amash Have Financial Interests in China?
UPDATE: From the open thread:
Michigan is the definitive swing state. One of Trump’s narrowest victories in 2016. Elected a Democrat Governor and re-elected a Democrat Senator in 2018.
We have, in Dearborn, one of America’s largest Muslim communities, which is a critical Democrat voting bloc.
If only some hero would arise to siphon those votes and make the state safe for Trump! But who?
What we need is a first generation Palestinian immigrant with a congressional voting record against Israel’s best interests.
Never fear. My own congressman, Justin Amash, is running for President.
And to think, just last week I was holding him in contempt.
Heh.
EVERGREEN HEADLINE: Blame Bill de Blasio.
New York City’s population density is off the charts compared with the rest of the U.S., as is its usage of mass transit. A map of COVID-19’s lethality maps fairly neatly onto the subway map, with infections increasing for the lengthiest commutes. The metropolis is especially vulnerable to infectious disease, as its epidemiologists are well aware.
Yet on March 2, de Blasio urged New Yorkers in a tweet to go out on the town. On March 10, de Blasio said on MSNBC, “If you’re under 50 and you’re healthy, which is most New Yorkers, there’s very little threat here. This disease, even if you were to get it, basically acts like a common cold or flu. And transmission is not that easy.” On March 11, the day Seattle closed its schools, de Blasio said in a press conference, “If you are not sick, if you are not in the vulnerable category, you should be going about your life.” De Blasio didn’t acknowledge until April 3 that asymptomatic transmission was taking place, claiming he had learned this in the last two days. It had been 63 days since Anthony Fauci declared that asymptomatic transmission was certainly happening. Meanwhile, governor Andrew Cuomo, who often makes a point of publicly opposing de Blasio, this time joined the mayor in lethal obliviousness. “We should relax, because that is what is dictated by the reality of the situation,” Cuomo said on March 2, promising that most of the afflicted would recover easily and that “we don’t even think it’s going to be as bad as it was in other countries.”
This was mayor-from-Jaws-level happy talk, times a thousand. The two leaders’ science experts were horrified by what de Blasio and Cuomo were saying, according to the New Yorker piece. A former head of the city’s Department of Health told the magazine that there’s always a divide between political appointees and public-health professionals, “who sometimes have to make unpopular recommendations. But, with the de Blasio people, that antagonism is ten times worse. They are so much more impossible to work with than other administrations.”
Read the whole thing.
Of course, there’s plenty of blame to go around: Cuomo orders NYC subway trains sanitized every night.
That’s a headline The Hill ran today; not a month ago. It comes in the wake of Cuomo’s presser on Tuesday: NY Gov. Cuomo Calls Homeless Situation In Subways ‘Disgusting.’ Imagine If A Republican Said That.
At his daily coronavirus briefing, Cuomo was discussing the homeless people in the subways and brandishing a copy of the New York Daily News that showed pictures of the homeless, then stated, “That is disgusting, what is happening on those subway cars. It’s disrespectful to the essential workers who need to ride the subway system,” as The Gothamist reported.
Cuomo added, “We have to do better than that, and we will.”
The Gothamist noted that Transport Workers Union Local 100 President Tony Utano stated, “Mayor de Blasio has to direct the police to escort the mentally ill and the homeless out of the system. This is a life-and-death situation, not a quality of life issue.”
And then there’s Fredo: CNN host Chris Cuomo’s coronavirus quarantine timeline scrutinized.
The “Cuomo Prime Time” namesake said he was “past quarantine” on April 12, the day of the encounter with the bicyclist, but that same day his wife had blogged that he had a “100 fever in afternoon and evening.” The encounter also occurred at an unfinished construction site that Cuomo owns, miles from his posh Hamptons residence where he was quarantined.
Cuomo even told CNN viewers on April 13 that he couldn’t shake his fever.
Unfortunately, other members of Cuomo’s immediate family have said they tested positive for coronavirus following the April 12 incident.
Meanwhile, Cuomo now claims he was “past quarantine” on April 12, but over one week later he staged a dramatic “official reentry” into society after recovering from coronavirus. The video was labeled his “Brian Williams Iraq moment” after critics claimed he wasn’t being truthful because he had already admitted that the Easter Sunday altercation took place outside his second property.
Cuomo’s so-called “emergence” was extensively mocked on social media and continued to raise eyebrows when his colleague, CNN’s in-house media critic Brian Stelter, included the controversial video in his nightly media industry newsletter.
Exit question: “So when you ‘left your basement for the first time’ CNN was lying?”
Perhaps this article in Hollywood Reporter headlined “‘It’s Good TV:’ CNN’s High-Drama Coverage of the Pandemic Hits Close to Home” provides the answer: “But another current CNN employee who spoke with THR criticized Cuomo’s appearances, particularly the dramatic moment last Monday when he was filmed leaving the basement where he was quarantined to reunite with his family, as ‘reality TV.’ ‘Him coming out of the quarantine with the cameras there, that’s all Jeff Zucker reality TV, and that screams Zucker,’ the person says, referring to the network president who brought The Apprentice to NBC and helped make Trump a star.”
MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE SWAMP: Explosive New Flynn Documents Show FBI Goal Was To ‘Get Him Fired.’
NO POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE: You Thought You Were Free, but History Found You. The 2020 commencement speech you’ll never hear, from Caitlin Flanagan.
I’M EXPECTING AN EARTH-SHATTERING KABOOM: First Shots: Springfield Armory Saint Victor Pistol in .308 Win.
AT AMAZON: save in Arts Crafts and Sewing.
Plus, deals on Generators and Portable Power.
ZOOM IS JUST THE BEGINNING: Silicon vs. Viruses. Ever since a NASA engineer coined the term “telecommute” in the 1970s, tech prophets have consistently overestimated how many people would choose to work remotely. But this pandemic could be a tipping point — and encourage a host of technologies that will make us a lot better prepared for the next pandemic.
ROD DREHER ON GRABBY JOE BIDEN’S ACHILLES HAND:
[Damon Linker of The Week] mentions Tara Reade’s mother calling Larry King, and he mentions her friend (a self-described “strong Democrat”) going public to say that Tara told her about Biden’s alleged sexual assault at the time. I had heard about those, but until seeing Linker’s column, I had not heard about the 2008 Alexander Cockburn column in the left-wing web journal CounterPunch mentioning Biden’s reputation. Cockburn wrote:
Biden is a notorious flapjaw. His vanity deludes him into believing that every word that drops from his mouth is minted in the golden currency of Pericles. Vanity is the most conspicuous characteristic of US Senators en bloc , nourished by deferential acolytes and often expressed in loutish sexual advances to staffers, interns and the like. On more than one occasion CounterPunch’s editors have listened to vivid accounts by the recipient of just such advances, this staffer of another senator being accosted by Biden in the well of the senate in the week immediately following his first wife’s fatal car accident.
I think Linker has it exactly right. If you have forgotten about how enraged the Right was over the way the Democrats and their media allies treated Brett Kavanaugh, you may be certain that conservatives haven’t. (I wrote about it a lot back then — see here, for example — and I made it clear that I did not know whether or not Kavanaugh assaulted Ford on that night over thirty years ago; what I objected to was the kangaroo court assault on Kavanaugh by tribal ideologues of the Left. This stuff is primal with us conservatives. We saw the way the Democrats and the media treated Kavanaugh, and we saw that they could and would do that to any one of us.
If I were a Republican operative, I would start making the Biden-centered ads now about the #MeToo hypocrites in the Democratic Party. As Linker says, this is not a matter of pointing out that Biden is less of a sexual creep than Trump. That’s not what’s at stake here.
So, let me throw it to the room: if Biden is persuaded to step down before the Democratic convention, who should replace him? Who will replace him?
Read on for Dreher’s take, but feel free to speculate in our own comments section.
It’s not a good sign for the longevity of Biden’s campaign when he’s earning the wrath of DNC house organ the New York Times:
● New York Times disputes Biden camp claim that paper exonerated him.
● Oh my: NYT reports Dem, activist rebellion budding over Reade allegation.
In contrast:
Today is a red-letter day for the New York Times. For the first time, the paper has reported in its news section that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright once uttered the phrase “God damn America.” Wright’s comments were widely reported and widely discussed beginning with an ABC News report six months ago. Barack Obama even had to give a much-publicized speech because of those words, and others. But the newspaper of record has never seen fit to publish Wright’s quote in its news pages. Until today.
— Byron York, National Review Online, September 24th, 2008.
UPDATE: Biden Hires Harvey Weinstein ‘Damage Control’ Adviser Anita Dunn.
Like Weinstein before him — and Biden supporter Alyssa Milano, as well — Biden may soon have plenty of free time to go after the NRA.
THE FDA STRIKES AGAIN: My Brother’s Life-saving Discovery. John Stossel’s brother, the late Dr. Thomas Stossel of Harvard, found a protein in the blood that reduces inflammation and could potentially be a breakthrough in treating many diseases, including Covid-19. A biotech company has spent $50 million to develop a treatment and has demonstrated its safety in humans. But the treatment is still years — and hundreds of millions of dollars — away from receiving FDA approval for patients to try. The company is hoping the pandemic will prompt the FDA to speed up the process.
NOT A GOOD SIGN FOR THE NEAR-TERM RETURN OF LIVE MUSIC: Ticketmaster North America Furloughs a Quarter of Company’s Employees.
Related: Gloomy summer looms as pandemic cancels US festivals, trips.
ANOTHER GOP CASTOFF LIKE WILLIAM WELD OR GARY JOHNSON, IN SEARCH OF ONE LAST MOMENT OF VAGUE SIGNIFICANCE: Palestinian-American Justin Amash considers 2020 run for Libertarian nomination. Some of my libertarian friends are big fans, but he’s always seemed more like a media suckup than a man of principle to me.
UPDATE: Police say death of Arizona man is not being investigated as a homicide.
More to come? Stay tuned…
I’LL TAKE A… PASS: Camel Urine: Islam’s ‘Best Cure’ for Coronavirus?
HERE’S CORONAVIRUS SITUATION FOR EACH OF THE 50 STATES: What’s closed, what’s open, what’s coming, and much more.
IF TRUMP MENTIONS THIS, THE PRESS WILL REPORT TRUMP SUGGESTS JUMPING INTO VOLCANA AS CURE FOR COVID-19! Can Lava Kill The Coronavirus? An Investigation.
TALKING POINTS ISSUED: The Atlantic Mocks Georgia Governor Reopening State: An ‘Experiment In Human Sacrifice.’
And as James Lileks spotted yesterday, the Washington Post went with a similar “Georgia leads the race to Become America’s No. 1 Death Destination” headline.
As Stacey Lennox mentioned last week: Media Criticism of Governor Kemp for Reopening Georgia Is Dishonest and Hypocritical. “It is even more outrageous to watch the press completely disregard the specific guidance in Kemp’s order. Then you can add blatant hypocrisy of the coverage when you review the announcement from Colorado’s Democrat governor, Jared Polis. It is infuriating. According to the Denver Post, Governor Polis has given his plan a catchy name, Safer at Home. Maybe that is the difference. However, the fundamentals are pretty similar, right down to tattoo parlors. ‘Personal service providers and elective medical providers, including hair salons, dental offices and tattoo shops, will be able to reopen with some precautions on April 27, such as hair stylists wearing masks. One-on-one real estate showings — though not open houses — and childcare can restart then, too,’ Polis said.”
THAT WAS FAST: The inevitable Bill de Blasio as Hitler melting down in Downfall video is now online. Click here to watch on Twitter:
