Archive for 2022
May 25, 2022
I’VE SEEN THE LOCKDOWNS AND THE DAMAGE DONE: More teens in mental crisis boarded in hospital ERs during pandemic.
GRANNY-KILLER CUOMO: Hochul Pledges New Investigation of COVID-19 Nursing Home Deaths. “Since assuming power on 24 August 2021, replacement NY Governor Kathy Hochul has done very little to address Andrew M. Cuomo’s COVID nursing home deaths scandals. This report, dated exactly nine months later, indicates Hochul is finally taking her first serious steps toward investigating the systemic and leadership failures that led to the excess COVID deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of New York nursing home residents during the period Cuomo’s deadly 25 March 2020 directive was in effect.”
Well, good — but the cynic in me says Hochul’s investigation is more about kneecapping rival Cuomo’s attempted political rehabilitation than it is about justice.
GOOD LUCK: Boeing’s Starliner capsule will return to Earth today. Here’s how to watch live. It’s sked for 2:36 ET.
ROGER KIMBALL: Woke is truly going broke.
The Chinese have come up with one of the most penetrating epithets to describe this sickness. In 2010, some clever Chinese coined the term baizuo, which literally means “white left” but really means “sanctimonious liberal dysphoria.” It’s a menu-driven pathology in which, in the words of the political scientist Chenchen Zhang, “hypocritical humanitarians… advocate political correctness just to satisfy their own sense of moral superiority.” A rancid pity is the motor of this enterprise — pity, and an unearned sense of forever unexpiated guilt. “Culpability suits us,” the French philosopher Pascal Bruckner observes, “it provides an alibi for our abdication.”
It’s not all bad news, however. What Elon Musk memorably described as the “mind virus” of wokeness is undeniably a potent and widespread pathogen. But reality counts for something, both the psychological reality that requires periodic respite from fanaticism and the economic reality that, increasingly, collides with the somnolent wokeness of nonstop racial obsessiveness.
The cultural landscape is full of husks — the dead and empty husks of hectoring racialism that, just yesterday, embarrassed the self-appointed commissars of culture but now embarrasses only itself. The streaming service Netflix is one of the latest casualties of the get-woke-go-broke dialectic. Serving up a smorgasbord of politically correct entertainments like Dear White People, it has seen its viewers, and its stock price, disappear.
On the other hand, with its back against the wall, Netflix may have grown a pair: Ricky Gervais Crosses the Line?
First it was Bill Maher, as noted here, thumbing his nose at the wokerati on the issue of transgenderism in his most recent HBO show.
Now it is Ricky Gervais’s turn. He has a new comedy special coming out soon on Netflix, and move over Dave Chappelle! Take in this one-minute excerpt (STRONG language warning, but this has news value):
Notice that the audience loves it. Interesting that the show is called “SuperNature.” Probably just a coincidence.
Recently Netflix sent out a memo to employees whose subtext was clear: if you’re a wokester, you should consider finding employment elsewhere. I wonder if this was sent out anticipating an internal backlash from Netflix employees, as happened with the last Chappelle special. I wonder if there will be a Netflix employee protest outside company HQ?
Keep in mind that Gervais is in every other way a leftist. So when you’re losing Gervais, Maher, etc. . .
So what happens next with Netflix and the streaming industry in general? As Rob Long writes: It’s Going to Be a Messy Year.
ROGER SIMON: To Change the Left, Be Their Psychiatrist.
If you think of these people as victims of that mass formation psychosis, you will realize they aren’t in their right minds. The word psychosis is there for a reason.
I hate to say this, because, as noted above, family and friends are often involved, but think of these people, bluntly, as mental patients.
If you wish to have any success at all in changing them, treat them that way. I know it sounds mean, but there really is no other way.
That means no arguments. Instead, ask them questions kindly about their views. Let them explain them as long as they wish. Don’t interrupt. Let them finish and then ask another question—gently. Don’t go too far. You are the psychoanalyst, ironically, in an era when the field of psychiatry has been almost entirely taken over by the left.
Nevertheless, you can do it. You don’t need a credential. As with many things, that’s meaningless. Be patient. Keep asking those questions. Never argue, just ask. (Do this subtly, of course, so you won’t seem condescending. And resist the temptation—it will be there for sure—to prove you are right.) Let them lead themselves to whatever conclusions they make.
Ultimately, those conclusions may surprise you. After all, the reality of life is largely conservative. It’s mostly common sense. Beneath their years of indoctrination, these are still human beings, dealing with the same daily issues we all do. They have to take out the garbage and drive their kids to school. When they are more comfortable with you, change will … very slowly … begin. Don’t rush!
In some cases, they may even be grateful to you because most liberals and progressives, in my estimation, are depressed. They will welcome the opportunity to talk without judgment.
And remember, people change without us anyway. Joe Biden came into office one of the most popular of all presidents and is already, in about a year and a half, close to the least popular of all time and headed downwards. Few of us—not even pundits (ahem!)—had anything to do with that.
He did it all by himself because, whatever his mental level, he has no common sense.
So gently and kindly ask those questions. It will seem slow but things will move faster because of them. Do it.
As has been said, “You can’t get there by trying, but you won’t get there if you don’t try.”
(No, don’t ask me to explain that. It’s a Zen koan!)
Related: My Biden-Voting Friend Had ‘No Idea’ Things Could Get This Bad. Buckle Up, Buddy, We’re Just Getting Started. “‘How can the most experienced politician in Washington f*** up this badly?’ he asked. That’s when I guffawed. ‘This isn’t a mistake,’ I told him. ‘This is intentional.’”
I’D LIKE TO HAVE THE MURDER HORNETS BACK, PLEASE: Jumping worms, the evil twin of earthworms, showing up in California. “Gardners beware — the invasive Amynthas agrestis, also known as the Asian jumping worm, could be wiggling around a garden near you. These worms are known for their insatiable appetite and ability to jump a foot in the air.”
DEAL OF THE DAY: WORKPRO 8-piece Flex-Head Ratcheting Combination Wrench Set. #CommissionEarned
Fortunately, few are dying as the follow-on variants increase their transmissibility but decrease their lethality.
SYSTEMIC RACISM: Black male alumni upset that college hired white woman.
ENDANGERED SPECIES: The Last Stand of the Last Pro-Life Democrat in the House.
LOOK, UP IN THE SKY! Walmart to begin America’s first large-scale drone operation in 6 states.
WELL, WHEN YOU’RE A MORON THAT’S A LEGIT QUESTION: Biden admin: How could we possibly have known how badly the Afghan withdrawal would go?
NEW MEANING FOR A FAMILIAR CLICHE: You know, the one about politics makes strange bedfellows. Well, the Washington Free Beacon’s Alana Goodman offers a new twist: Aaron Boonshoft, the Democratic donor who is spending millions to legalize sex work in Oregon. He also spent $400K in Nevada brothels between 2017 and 2019.
SELF-AWARENESS IS NOT GENERALLY A FEATURE OF WOKENESS: Black Commentator Barred From Becoming a Priest Because He Doesn’t Think the Church of England Is Racist.
THAT’S ABOUT RIGHT: “Deified by the Usual Loudmouths”: Kellyanne Conway on Christine Blasey Ford.
DEAL OF THE DAY: GOOLOO Jump Starter 1200A Peak Car Starter. #CommissionEarned
WEIRD, IT’S USUALLY THE OTHER WAY AROUND: China Is Doing Biden’s Work for Him.
If President Joe Biden’s trip to Asia—marked as it was by his comments on the defense of Taiwan, announcements on a proposed new regional trade pact, and meetings with leaders who exhibit similar levels of concern about a rising China—has shown the persistence of American global power, it has also revealed something of equal importance: Beijing’s failure to translate economic might into political dominance, even in its own backyard.
Biden today concluded a summit of the leaders of the Quad—a security partnership including Australia, India, Japan, and the United States—who issued a joint statement chockablock with references to promoting democracy, a rules-based global order, and peaceful resolution of disputes. That came a day after Biden announced the formation of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, a partnership with 13 countries as diverse as South Korea, Vietnam, and New Zealand. Notably absent from all of this was China. Biden’s trip exhibited Washington’s continued ability to rally other nations behind its standard, and in initiatives overtly targeted against the region’s supposedly rising superpower.
The script wasn’t meant to read this way. As China grew in economic importance, its smaller neighbors would, the thinking went, inevitably and inexorably be drawn into its orbit, while U.S. power would correspondingly fade, ushered along by its own political divisions and percolating isolationism.
That’s Michael Schuman writing for The Atlantic, where bad ideas often go to achieve immortality.
Most sensible people watching Communist China’s rise predicted that its smaller neighbors — from whom China historically expected tribute and vassalage — would be drawn to the US as a counterbalance. More importantly, a counterbalance with no territorial ambitions or desire for tribute.
It took a concerted effort on the part of Barack Obama and his Administration to throw a monkey wrench into that process, and a brief show of American resolve from Donald Trump to get it underway again.
Joe Biden has yet to screw it up again, but don’t underestimate his ability to do so.
SETH BARRETT TILLMAN: A Short Note on Cawthorn v. Amalfi. “Why is this apparently minor error in Cawthorn important? In 1869, in Griffin’s Case, Chief Justice Chase explained that Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment was not self-executing. . . . To put it another way, if Griffin’s Case was correctly decided, then state and federal executive branch officers (and other applicants in ballot contests) cannot rely on Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to disqualify an alleged insurrectionist candidate from the ballot for a federal position[3] absent federal statutory authorization. Apparently, no such federal statutory authorization (now) exists. Likewise, if an alleged insurrectionist already holds a federal office, then federal executive branch officers cannot remove the person from office (e.g., in quo warranto proceedings) based on Section 3 absent federal statutory authorization to do so.”
Then, of course, there’s the absence of any actual insurrection.