“I never gave anyone hell. I just told the truth and people thought it was hell.”--Harry Truman
There is a lot of criticism toward a voting public that would elect Trump. In a famous poem, written in East Germany in 1953, Brecht quotes a contemporary as saying that the people have lost the trust of the government. Would it not therefore be easier, Brecht slyly asks, to dissolve the people and have the government elect another one?
"Much of our common response to liberalism’s triumph today is a celebration of our completed liberty, but it takes the form of discussions and debates over the ways in which we can lessen the unease accompanying our powerlessness and dislocation as we submit terms of surrender to ungovernable forces in politics and economics. ....Liberalism is failing not because it fell short but because it was true to itself. Liberalism is failing because liberalism succeeded."
This is from a very confident review of liberalism and its guises, classical and progressive. But this appears to be a slight of hand to me. The argument seems to be that they are similar because they end at the same point of discontent but classical liberalism, as Tocqueville predicted, creates the problem. Once liberated, the individual no longer has reliable personal networks and instead looks for the assistance of the state, which grows further to meet these insistent demands. Progressive liberalism comes later, disguised as a solution with little in common with classical liberalism's origins. Or am I wrong here?
According to the teachers' federation in Quebec, 1/2 of students identify to some extent as LGBT. "to some extent."
Who is...Laurel Hubbard?
Taiyesha Baker, a nurse, allegedly posted a tweet Friday under the account "Night Nurse," saying that white women are raising sons who are "rapists," "racists" and "killers."
This is becoming wearying.
At the G-20, Obama said he spoke to Putin about cyberwarfare, amid revelations that Russian hackers have been interfering in our political campaigns. "We are more technologically advanced, both offensively and defensively, in this arena than any of our adversaries," said Obama, "but we really don’t want another Cold War–style arms race. Instead, we must all adhere to norms of international behavior." "Putin and the norms of international behavior."
Hubbard, 39, will be the first transgender sportsperson to represent New Zealand.
After being cleared by the International Olympic Committee and Olympic Weightlifting New Zealand (OWNZ) last week, it was confirmed that she would be one of 12 athletes in the Kiwi home state’s weightlifting team on the Gold Coast.
Hubbard will compete in the women’s +90kg category, introduced by the International Weightlifting Federation at the start of the year.
Bad news for the Pirates:
Jung Ho Kang wanted to use a stint in the Dominican Winter League to get back into playing shape. Aguilas Cibaenas wanted an impact player.
Kang did not deliver, so on Monday he was booted from the Aguilas roster.
Kang batted just .143 in 24 games with Aguilas Cibaenas. He hit one home run, collected 10 RBIs, led the team with 31 strikeouts and made four errors at third base.
Golden oldie:
steeleydock.blogspot.com
The second book on Climate Change is "Global Crisis: War, Climate Change; Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century," by Geoffrey Parker, whi...
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Yahoo headline: Celebrity elephant kills owner in Thailand
Celebrity elephant.
A 2009 Pew poll suggests that academics overwhelmingly self-define as "liberals", with barely 2% of them self-defining as "conservatives". The survey of scientists was conducted with a sample of members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
There is a debate over who should replace Lauer; presumably an affable, conversant pre-pubertal kid. Or a woman.
What exactly is Ivanka doing?
Scruton offers as an example of what he calls fake culture, the American composer John Cage. Cage was at Wesleyan when I was there and handled with reverence by all. "With a singular skill for self-promotion, yet no prior evidence of musical competence, Cage made his reputation with his celebrated piece 4’33” (1952) — a happening in which a pianist in concert dress sits silently at the piano for exactly four minutes and 33 seconds. On the strength of this and a few similar pranks, Cage presented himself as an original composer, ‘putting in question’ the entire tradition of Western concert music. Critics hastened to endorse his high self-opinion, hoping to share in the glory of discovering a new and original genius. The Cage phenomenon quickly became established as part of the culture, able to call upon subventions from the cultural institutions, and recruiting a raft of imitators for whom, however, it was too late to cause a stir as Cage had done, by doing nothing." Interestingly, he says that fake culture is like a good joke, it can not be easily repeated, so each foray into the entrepreneurial field requires an original deviation from the true artistic foundation.
Major insurer Nationwide, one of the biggest covering sexual harassment settlements and legal costs, reports a 15% surge in policy sales in the last year. Nearly half of employers with over 1,000 workers now carry such coverage.
The practice of stashing profits in places like the Cayman Islands has become so absurd that one single, five-story office building there is now the official legal “home” to more than 18,000 corporations. (From a Bernie Sanders letter)
The Bitcoin is a phenomenon. A market is emerging with futures contracts available. One guy commented he would not form an opinion on any asset until he could short it.
President Trump retweeted videos posted online by a British far-right nationalist that purport to show violent acts carried out by Muslim men, drawing rebukes from the U.K. prime minister, the Netherlands and U.S. civil-rights advocates.(wsj) Is this because there is a dearth of available anti-ISIS material? What's wrong with this guy?
A classmate of mine has died. This is part of his obit: "Kirt graduated from The Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania in 1961 and from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut in 1965. He was a Fulbright scholar in Freiberg, Germany, in 1965-1966. He received a master’s degree in Physics from Stanford University in 1967, and a PhD in Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1973. He was devoted to the life of the mind and read voraciously in three languages."
No other occupation is noted.
AAAAAaaaaannnnnnndddddd.....An interesting chart:
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