The concept of Free Speech constrains the Government from arresting or otherwise silencing a person for saying what is on their mind, and in a place where others might hear it. This is different from handing the microphone to a raving lunatic. With amplification comes at least a modicum of responsibility – for example, to say who you are and where you’re from, as at a town meeting. Anonymity is a problem if there is no curator of the forum.
Tomorrow our leader will visit Mount Rushmore, which I’m sure he believes was carved on July 4, 1776 and is therefore why we celebrate the date – just as he is sure something happened at Pearl Harbor and thinks historians should look into it.
In fact, we celebrate the Fourth because it was the day, in 1863, when the Vicksburg Garrison surrendered to General Grant, dooming the Confederacy.
Today is Pickett’s Charge Day. On the afternoon of July 3, 1863 the high tide of the Confederacy splashed briefly over a low stone wall in Pennsylvania only to be sent reeling back down toward Virginia with its tail between its legs, the result of 50% casualties. Pickett’s post battle report was apparently so bitter that it was ordered destroyed (it was really Lee’s charge, and more like a slow stroll into the maw of Death).
On the Third of July we celebrate what a weird country we have.
Among those gunned down at the Angle was Confederate General Lewis Armistead. Per Armistead’s wishes, his Bible and personal effects were sent by his commanding officer, General Longstreet, to Union General Winfield Hancock’s wife. These had been Armistead’s wishes because Hancock was his best friend from school days The men who shot Armistead down were under Hancock’s command.
Yipes! Think about that. I’m sure neither general would fit into easy classification by today’s standards as liberal or conservative. These two were, no doubt, very much alike.
I can think of no other time or place in human history where sides lined up and mowed each other down with such determined ferocity over organizing principles and the rights of a third party. All sides need to remember this. Sweating the details of law (even in the most gawdawful way, such as at the Angle on that hot, humid day) is what makes our country great – not statues. May that law always be one that puts genuine good and human principles into action. May those laws always be for the greatest good of the most people.
“In a new book, John R. Bolton portrays Donald Trump as a president who sees his office as an instrument to advance his own personal and political interests over those of the nation.” NYT June 19, 2020
What, may I ask, did anyone expect – given the Donald’s long record of public service?
The photo of Donald Trump with a book, of all things, in front of a church, of all things, was eerily reminiscent of something or other. I just couldn’t place it.
At first it reminded me of how people who don’t really like to fish hold a fish. Away from their body. And it was not held as high as the Statue of Liberty holds her torch, which would be an absurd image for the Donald. Even he would probably see the irony.
It just came to me – Neville Chamberlain waving his appeasement doc after meeting with Hitler.
“While the department respects every American’s right to protest peacefully, violence and civil unrest will not be tolerated. We will control the situation and protect the American people and the homeland at any cost.” Chad Wolf – acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security
How, exactly, does Chad plan to distinguish between “protest” (every American’s right) and “civil unrest” (which will not be tolerated)? Would “peacefully” mean something like “restrained” – as in a man lying on his stomach with his hands cuffed behind his back? Or would more paralysis be required of the citizenry? And would “at any cost” include the extinguishment of the Republic as a democracy?
Love the invocation of “homeland.” Again, Chad, would that be “homeland” as in the “Vaterland” of 1930’s Germany, or more like the “Motherland” of Russia circa 1917? It’s important for would-be dictators to keep their genders straight.
The above quote comes from a New York Times article this morning. The article concerns deployment of all sorts of police, from different federal agencies, in cities around the nation but especially in the capital.
As noted in a post last year, this has a special nuance, or lack thereof, when it comes to Washington, D.C.
This is because Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution gives governance of the District to Congress – pointedly not to the Executive branch. Law and order within its borders would therefore seem to be the purvue of Congress unless they say otherwise. And this means the Metro Police.
The Founding Fathers wrote the document the way they did because they were familiar with Roman history. Trump is effectively trying to bring his legions into Rome – a bad thing.
In this time of extreme chauvinism, embodied and stoked by the MAGA president, I don’t suppose it’s lost on everybody that Derek Chauvin would have made Nicolas Chauvin proud.
OK. So today I broke my rule (again) and commented in the New York Times. This time it was in response to an article about the problems of eating meat, written by Jonathan Foer. But, in my anger, I went farther – equating Covid-19 to the demise of the dinosaurs and claiming, without evidence (which is wrong if you’re not President), that a virus killed off the big guys too.
So here is my reasoning, such as it is, line by line:
It appears there was a major asteroid impact around the time the dinosaurs disappeared.
This in itself is circumstantial until proven otherwise. The asteroid didn’t hit each and every dinosaur. So a mechanism to relate the impact to their demise is required.
Because it happened so long ago, it seems to me that more may be learned from those it didn’t terminate than those it did.
Turtles made it through. Snakes made it through. Crocodiles made it through. Birds (who are dinsosaurs for crying out loud) made it through, largely unchanged. Sharks made it through, largely unchanged. Fish in general seem to have made it through, including one, the coelacanth, which seems to be in its original, prehistoric form. Mammals made it through. Fish don’t come up for air. The ancestors of whales – also mammals – dove into the sea to replace the air breathing dino-types that died off.
But, except for birds, dinosaurs didn’t make it through. The time it took for that to happen is hard to estimate and estimates therefore vary. At the upper end of estimates, the period may have been many times the length of modern human history.
Dinosaurs were very successful. They occupied every niche, on land and sea (counting air breathing dinosaur-like critters that also disappeared). But the thing, whatever it was, that got them got them all, in time, exept birds. Climate change isn’t enough to explain it. The dino’s saw plenty of that during their reign. And they adapted. Nuclear winter didn’t kill the crocs.
So, ask yourself, what can come through your house and kill the dog but not you? Kill you but not the cat? Hint: not an asteroid and not a change in the weather. Only microbes, be they viruses, bacteria, funguses, molds or any of the such-like, can assassinate with such surgical precision.
We know that the blood of crocs and turtles is antiseptic. This is because they often live in swampy, septic environments. Did this help? Do crocs get the flu? If so, how do they handle it? Dunno. But somebody knows.
Birds get the flu. But like us, it doesn’t always get them all. Is their response – raise their body temperature – like ours.? Dunno. We have a bird, but Goldie’s not talking and never seems to get as sick as the rest of us.
Birds also can fly. So they can form isolated populations better than most. That may have been of use. Feathers are also great insulation, useful in hot and cold niches. But that seems to have been a long-standing dino-thing well before the die-off. Crocs, turtles and snakes don’t have feathers. Mammals have fur and some fly, but not like the dinos did, and still do.
Anyway, the bird-mammal-flu merry-go-round would seem of some probative value and maybe more fruitful in figuring out what killed the dinosaurs that simply saying there was an asteroid hit around the time they died and then walking away from the question as if that settled it.
Last year, here in PA, a thing called EHD (for Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease) came through the farm and killed all the deer. I mean all. Some just dropped in their tracks by the stream or pond. The summer was made memorable by the smell of hundreds, maybe thousands, of pounds of rotting meat coming from the woods. Yesterday I read that a similar hemorrhagic (this word means something like “turns you inside out” and is incompatible with living much longer) disease was killing rabbits. Australians opined that they hate the buggas anyway, so good riddence. They have their reasons, but still. Our dear little Bun?
The word of the day is “zoonotic.” Look it up. Mother Nature is angry and this country has elected a science-denying fool and his moronic clan to lead it.
Way back during the 2016 Presidential campaign, I think it was, I received a solicitation for money for HRC by way of Joe Biden. It included the phrase “Here is my ask:” I took this to mean “Here is my request.” Still, ask is a verb, not a noun, and this left an impression on me. The impression was that maybe Joe wasn’t so bright.
Neal Katyal and Joshua Geltzer recently wrote an opinion piece in the NYT (“The Appalling Damage of Dropping the Michael Flynn Case.” 5/8/20). In it, they use “tell” as a noun, twice. Here is the tell…. And there’s a second tell. Two Georgetown Law professors, for crying out loud.
I first thought, from context, that they meant here is the point or here’s the takeaway and had somehow become law professors without realizing that tell is a verb. That seems entirely plausible these days. However, it appears that, after some investigation, Here’s the tell means something more like Here’s their giveaway. It’s a term found in poker.
Yes I know there is no Academie anglaise, and useage is king in English. But come on guys. I haven’t heard tell used this way anywhere else. I don’t play poker and, well, it turns out Joe doesn’t have three Nobels after all.
The current situation with the corona virus lockdown brings clarity.
The economy starts from the bottom up. It consists of millions of people getting up in the morning, knowing where to go, what’s expected of them, and getting paid for their time and effort.
The economy is not something the government, businesses, or wealthy individuals provide for the rest of the population. The economy is not Le Patron, his bank account or his stock portfolio. It is the butler and the maid and that person at the door. Who knew?