In Memoriam

NYTimes obituaries.

• Sandy Pearlman, producer, manager, and lyricist (Blue Öyster Cult) and critic
• James Nederlander, theater owner

Lynx in "The Chain"

So yesterday was interesting; I met a nice couple at the street fair and we fell to talking about cars and the local economy and politics and music and religion and stuff.  They were kind enough to buy me a humongous glass of wine and we toasted in several languages, and then talked more politics and religion and life in general.  The fun of holding a conversation in a bar is that you cannot hear it.  (You can, actually, but you lose a lot of the fine points.)

So, Justin and Sarah, we shall see.

I was reminded of Cosby's "200 MPH" routine, which was the source of several family in-jokes back in the day...I could probably look it up, as I did in, er, 2006 or so.  But I won't.  It'd be itchy.

On the way home (I was not nearly as loaded as I thought I was, and I could still feel my face), I got to be Professor Rox, the Rock 'n' Roll Historian in a game of "Who's Dead?"  Apparently there was some kind of rumor that Little Richard had died, but the article is on a hoax site.  Otherwise, I was able to update the database of a total stranger except for not remembering Otis [goes to Wikipedia] Williams' last name.

• No surprise here (although "sexually explicit video" could be anything).
• Next level of the coming election and a call-back to the Brexit vote (Daisydeadhead's tumblr).

  If you have no trouble seeing through the Big-Daddy-Bossman-Emperor-come-to-save-us-from-ourselves archetype, you should have no trouble seeing through Lady Macbeth either. Stop collaborating with it. If you disagree with HRC, as I often do, say why. But painting her as some horrible witch lurking in the West Wing, trying to drink the blood of infants? Lighten up.
  
  I mean it isn’t like she started a fake university to squeeze money out of illiterate poor widows or anything like that.

  [Emphasis in original.]
  
• Combat vet schools conservative commentator.  The ACLU is making available the pocket constitutions that Khizr Khan brandished at the Democratic convention (Crooks and Liars). Trump is not covering himself with glory here.  Ghazal Khan weighs in (and she called Trump ignorant.  Fainting couch, stat!).  Background.
• Jesse Curtis examines an article by Wayne Grudem.  (Referenced article linked in first paragraph.)

  I would like to see an intellectually honest defense of Donald Trump from an evangelical Christian. I imagine it would go something like this: "I'm voting for the dangerous racist because he might appoint justices who might reduce abortions." Or, "I'm risking war and global turmoil in hopes that Trump will make the abortion rate, which has trended down during Obama's presidency, go down faster." As much as I would disagree with that choice, it has a coherent internal logic and accords with reality. It's a plausible scenario. And if that's where you're at, I haven't thought of a good argument to convince you otherwise. But I've yet to hear anyone make that argument. And I think that's telling. Grudem was either unwilling or unable to make an honest defense of voting for Trump. Why?

  Strong language without profanity or obscenity.
• The Terrible Sacrifices *choke* of Donald Trump.  (Slideshow, and if someone's storified it let me know!)
• Bad ideas that refuse to die, via skippy.

I think that's enough for one day. (I came close to having coherent essay material! Where are my pearls?)

Game of Throwns

• Mike Lux (Crooks & Liars) on the Hillary he knows.
• North Carolina Voter Suppression law overturned by Federal court. (Daily Kos, via AlterNet.)  It seems that

  Crucially, the appeals court found that the legislation, which created a strict voter ID requirement, ended same-day registration, out-of-precinct voting, and pre-registration, was “passed with racially discriminatory intent.” And unlike recent rulings against new voter ID law in Texas and Wisconsin, which only ameliorated the impact of those laws, this decision blocks North Carolina’s entire voter ID measure.

  Emphasis mine, added. 
• Zandar has more to say about this ruling.

  the 4th Circuit found that this was deliberate racism on the part of North Carolina Republicans, designed specifically to limit black turnout. Practices like analyzing voter data to see that black voters took advantage of the first week of early voting in the state, and then Republicans specifically eliminating the first week of early voting. This isn't something that was being done in the state's dark past or during Jim Crow, this happened two years ago after Republicans took over the state in 2010 in the backlash against a black president winning the state in 2008.

• Sometimes the good guys win.

Don't Mess With Me; I Haven't Had My Coffee Yet.

The major parties' conventions are almost over (if you wonder why this allegedly political blog has not covered the conventions gavel-to-gavel, it has to do with the fact that the interesting stuff is surrounded by acres of soporific chatter that puts me to sleep.  Also, all the interesting stuff is reported the following day, just like the Academy Awards.  So I know who the candidates are and what they espouse and what they look like and who is more likely to screw up my life), so have some distilled glimpses:

• The Rude Pundit:

  Here is what former president Bill Clinton did last night. Without even saying his name, he shrunk Donald Trump to a size where he could be drowned in a tub. By both humanizing and superhumanizing Hillary Clinton, he wanted the nation to ask, simply, "What the fuck has the other guy done? Financed a few buildings and hosted a game show and said stupid shit?"
  
  You can pretty much bet that Trump couldn't find Dothan, Alabama on a map with a giant arrow pointing at it and some assistant saying, "Sir, that's it, right there, where the arrow is pointing." But Hillary Clinton went there in the early 1970s, to one of the most racist places in the country, and went undercover to discover if schools were still segregated. People got killed for that kind of shit. Bill could have started his speech by saying, "Donald Trump isn't fit to clean the toilet the Secret Service uses at the White House."

  Usual warning for comparatively mild language.
• Zandar Versus the Stupid to a conservative pundit in the wake of the Republican convention:

  There's a lot of that going around these days, and I'll say what I always say to Republicans looking for absolution: you will never find it from me. You created this monster and did everything you could to empower it with the ability to destroy this country and 99% of the people in it, including yourselves.
  
  You lost control of the Rough Beast and once again you are looking to the rest of us to clean up the mess it made. I'm wholly uninterested in your confessions, Mr. Roy, or your apologies. What I want you to do is to have the good grace to shut the hell up and sit the hell down while the rest of us fix this country, and then the wisdom to stay silent while we make your miserable failures into a country worth being proud of.
  
  Most of all, you preyed on this country and gave voice to the hatred, the bigotry, the divisive rancor and the outright racism that fed and watered an electorate that gave rise to Trump. You made them powerful. We have to deal with that now because of people like you.

• The Hunting of the Snark, disassembling the bleating of Megan McArdle:

  The Republicans did this to themselves, which McArdle will never admit. They whipped up anger and resentment against the liberals to get conservatives to the voting booth and they destroyed respect for authority to undermine liberal leaders and policies. They have had a clown's car full of candidates for years but only this year do they have Trump. The right voted for the lesser of two evils for years, and now they are voting for pure evil, in the political sense. Eventually, that's always what happens when you vote for the lesser of two evils.

• And how could I forget Margaret and Helen?

  Salty language and a strong opinion don’t bother me. Saying what’s on your mind is usually a good thing. Usually. But what’s on Trumps mind isn’t fit for human consumption. It’s just hatred, fear and plain old racism. He put together a carnival in Cleveland to make the case that America has become a horrible place that no longer has time for political correctness. But I am here to tell you that speaking your mind and being politically correct are not mutually exclusive. Political correctness is having the emotional intelligence and decency not to use language, evoke images or take actions that marginalize, offend or otherwise insult people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against. Kind of sounds like something Jesus would support if you ask me.

There have been screams about Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Democratic party officials being "in the bag" for Hillary Clinton. This is only an issue because she won the nomination. The Republican National Committee has been half-heartedly "in the bag" for Jeb Bush for years, but until this last primary season, he had the good sense not to run.  This is not an issue because he, um, lost.

I don't mind reading dystopian fiction.  I resent the idea that I should live in dystopian fiction, though.

In Memoriam

• James Alan McPherson, Pulitzer Prize winning writer
• NYTimes obit for Jack Davis.

In Memoriam

 Jack Davis, cartoonist/caricaturist.

Well? Is It?

Down With Tyranny has one answer.  (The question is whether it is fair to label Trump a racist.)

In Memoriam

• Marni Nixon, singer and "ghost voice"
• Melvin Durslag, sportswriter

Foreground Reading

• Mr. Scalzi.
• ThinkProgress, via Skippy:  Not bothering with statistics, just lies and damn lies.
• Driftglass uses a video to comment. (PS: The scene is from The Best Man; get over any "old movie" prejudice you may have and see it.)
• AlterNet's Adele M. Stans summarizes Trump's speech, and Robert Reich really disliked it.
• Echidne of the Snakes.
• Southern Beale.
• Susie Bright turns it into a stage play.
• Trump reviews Fitzgerald (actually Yastreblyansky in the Sherman Oaks review of Books, but who's counting?).
• Terrance Heath reviews the entire convention.
• Zandar Versus The Stupid.
• ETA:  Chauncey DeVega (Indomitable) likens Trump to Emperor Palpatine (see also his more analytic article at Salon).

But the good news is that apparently the Republicans watched a lot of porn.  (Via Crooks and Liars.)

I Blame Driftglass

In the last week, Drifty linked (by way of commenting on Ted Cruz's speech at the Republican National Convention) to the Purple Wedding scene from Game of Thrones, which ultimately led me to a page of videos on YouTube with all the various murders, slayings, executions, and the rare natural deaths.  Good grief!  Grand Guignol to the max.

To take the taste (eewwwwwwwwww) out of my mouth:  Via News From ME, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, together again.

Still to come: Reviews and analyses of Trump's speech, because I avoided it live.

Distractions

• Via Zandar Versus The Stupid, the news that the 2017 NBA All-Star Game will not take place in Charlotte, NC.  

  The issue is centered on North Carolina’s House Bill 2, a law that mandates transgender people use public restrooms corresponding to the sex listed on their birth certificates. The law also omits LGBT people from North Carolina’s anti-discrimination protections, forbids local governments from widening LGBT protections and excludes all forms of workplace discrimination lawsuits from North Carolina state courts.
  
  “While we recognize that the NBA cannot choose the law in every city, state, and country in which we do business, we do not believe we can successfully host our All-Star festivities in Charlotte in the climate created by HB2,” the league said.

• Two items from Sardonicky, who is on Driftglass's blogroll:
  
  • "Kindergarten Fascists of the GOP," which contains prime snark:

    They're obviously thinking back fondly to the only school setting in which many of them excelled: Recess.

    and then it gets mean.
  • "Kleveland Klux Konvention," which is examples of Republicans displaying their backsides, one of whom squats in his own poo.
• "Black People Are Ordinary People," which everyone needs to read.
• Because this stuff happens, and even though it was non-fatal, it shouldn't have happened at all.  I mean, if we're dealing with Star Trek alien energy vampires, we should start laughing now, yes?  Because if not, we're in trouble.

Two Things

• Sadly, No! has tasty linkspam with Shorter X right-wing pundits being stupid.  And by "tasty," I mean emetic.
• Video of Lewis Black Stand-up Comedy in 2014 at the National Press Club.  Just short of an hour long.

(No, I refuse to experience the Republican convention first-hand. My stomach is not what it was.)

More Music, More Music, More Music...

The New Yorker has noticed that rock artists don't like their music being used by Republicans.

There are many things to find befuddling about the internal mechanics of the Republican Party, but its insistence on deploying countercultural rock anthems to soundtrack its rallies—even now, after so many lawsuits—is especially flummoxing. But I suppose therein lies a truth: in this particular context, it doesn’t matter if there’s a staggering fissure between what a thing really means and what someone else wants it to mean. All that matters is that it sounds cool.

My own suspicion is that the assumption made by Republicans is that people absorb the choruses of songs and don't take the trouble to hear or know the lyrics.  But don't quote me.  Quote Bruce Springsteen on "Born in the U.S.A." instead.

And Once Again

Oh yes he did.

Included is a bonus link to fivethirtyeight.com, with the history of Don't Play My Music (as of 2015).  Note the total number of Democrats on the list.  It's not a Both Sides thing.

In Memoriam

Nate Thurmond, basketball player.

Regular snarking blogging will resume once the world settles down.

Bastille Day

Or "La Fête Nationale," which is the official name.

I'm going some place with food to celebrate this year.  You?

I need to go dig up something I saw in A Distant Mirror, which is on the opposite coast at the moment.  Sorry.  I'm thinking of medieval parallels.

A Brief Hello

to the 6 AM (EDT; 3 AM PDT) readers.  Do please have a cup of coffee, cocoa, or tea and a croissant or biscuit and charge it to my account.

Oh, right, I don't have an account.

Um.  Wave to the others, then.  We're a secret club, we are.

"[Television advertising] Shows It to You. And It Shows It to You, and Shows It to You, and Shows..."

Shelley Berman on television advertising, 50 years ago.  I wouldn't expect anyone younger to get the gags.

Zandar Versus The Stupid's Sunday Long Read (misspelled in the title, and I so itched to correct it) excerpts the article by Rebecca Traister in New York Magazine on Hillary Clinton's campaign.  (Read the whole article, by the way; it's full of interesting detail.)  Zandar's conclusion:

[...]Clinton looks like a terrible, weak candidate on TV, when in person she's not. What bothers me is that Democrats have been running folks like that for years: Dukakis, Bentsen, John Kerry, Walter Mondale[;] the two guys who were different, Obama and Bill Clinton, won because they looked good on TV as well.

Trump is the opposite: if you see the guy at a rally he looks like a lunatic (and is) but on TV the guy comes across as less insane, if not "exciting" compared to "dull" Hillary Clinton (and to an extent, Sanders is the same way.)

How Clinton can start coming across as the reasonable choice in this media environment that constantly rewards Donald Trump and makes excuses for him daily because he's good ratings?

Yes, my mind floated directly to "The Girl Who Was Plugged In," why do you ask?

There is what's telegenic, or what looks good on TV, and some things that look good on TV are off-putting in real life.


[ETA:  Wrote this back at the beginning of June and either forgot about it or needed another piece of research.  Who knows?]

And Again

Yes, I know; it's been used.

When I heard about the case of Alton Sterling this morning, my first thought was to wonder whether Louisiana was a concealed carry state (it is, but one needs a permit).  That was probably because the fact that the body cams of the officers in question apparently "fell off" sounded too much like pre-meditated murder.  (The convenience store's video has already been impounded, and the owner didn't view it.)

The owner of the convenience store where Sterling was killed said he's sure the shooting was caught on his store's surveillance cameras, though he hasn't seen it. Police took the video later Tuesday, he told CNN.

What about body cameras?

State Rep. C. Denise Marcelle, who said the police chief briefed her, told CNN affiliate WAFB-TV that the officers were wearing body cameras, but the cameras fell off during the struggle and did not capture the shooting.

Um.

Y'know, I read "The Jigsaw Man" forty years ago, in which the death penalty had been extended to traffic violations so organs could be harvested.  This guy seems to have been executed (yes.  I went there) because he was black, selling CDs in public, and possibly defending himself, if the call to the police dispatcher is accurately reported.  This, and Ferguson, and Staten Island, and Chicago, and Oakland, is forcing me to consider that the only people allowed to be cops should be Buddhist monks.  (Which probably will get me in trouble with Buddhists; they get angry and frightened and adrenaline-rushy just like everyone else.)

God is merciful.  We fall short of that.

[ETA:  Zandar Versus The Stupid has better sources and a better essay conclusion:

What I know is that I'm bone weary of this happening, and that there's little I can do in order to try to stop it.]

In Memoriam

• Alvin Toffler, Future Shock
• Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and writer
• ETA:  Caroline Aherne, actress
• Michael Cimino, director (The Deer Hunter)