By Lambert Strether of Corrente
Chicken Music of the Day
Chestnut-eared Bunting, Buryatia, Russia. “A number of cuts from a male fowl, largely perched on wire fences on the fringe of grassy pastures and steppe not removed from a marsh.” Actually pretty. And 4 minutes lengthy!
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Politics
“However what’s authorities itself, however the best of all reflections on human nature?” –James Madison, Federalist 51
“Right here’s meals for thought, had Ahab time to assume; however Ahab by no means thinks; he solely feels, feels, feels” –Herman Melville, Moby Dick
“So most of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are the truth is a rational administration of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles
Capitol Seizure
“Home January 6 committee has determined to make legal referrals, chairman says” [CNN]. Good. Let’s have it out. Besides: “The Home choose committee investigating the January 6, 2021, assault on the US Capitol has determined to make legal referrals to the Division of Justice, the panel’s chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, instructed reporters Tuesday.Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, mentioned the committee has not narrowed down the universe of people who could also be referred.” Oh for pity’s sake. Cease teasing. Extra: “Nonetheless, the concept of a legal referral of Trump, even when completely symbolic in nature, has hung like a shadow over the panel because it was first shaped, and lots of members felt it was a crucial measure with a purpose to full its work.” • If the partitions are closing in, cost Trump. In the event that they’re not, don’t. This isn’t laborious!
Biden Administration
“REAL ID enforcement is delayed once more to 2025” [NPR]. • That’s a rattling disgrace.
“Unique: Musk’s Neuralink faces federal probe, worker backlash over animal exams” [Reuters]. • Horrid mission, curious timing.
“Greater than 70% of voters in ballot need Biden to launch secret JFK assassination data” [NBC]. “Greater than 7 in 10 voters need President Joe Biden to honor a dedication he made final yr and launch the ultimate trove of JFK assassination data on Dec. 15, in accordance with a ballot launched Tuesday in coordination with a analysis group that sued the administration to power extra doc disclosure.” • Wait. You’re telling me Biden didn’t honor a dedication?
“Pelosi, Democrats search string of victories in remaining days” [The Hill]. “Maybe probably the most outstanding proposal on the docket is the Respect for Marriage Act, which would supply federal protections for same-sex marriage nationwide. These rights have been explicitly denied by the 1996 Protection of Marriage Act, which Pelosi had fiercely opposed, breaking on the time along with her White Home ally in President Clinton.” • Lol, what about codifying abortion?
2022
I don’t learn about pack journalism, however primarily based on these headlines, “pack editorship” is a factor.
GA: “5 issues to look at within the Georgia Senate runoff” [The Hill]. Can Election Day turnout save Walker? Are the polls fallacious, once more? How does Trump react? Has Walker misplaced the center? Does Warnock thank Biden? • Warnock owes me 600 bucks.
GA: “Georgia Senate race between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker: 5 issues to look at” [Los Angeles Times]. How lengthy will voters have to attend in line? Will early turnout in Democratic strongholds push Warnock over the road? Or will the GOP base pack the polls on election day? Will Trump’s affect make a distinction both approach? Will swing voters present up for Warnock?
GA: “5 issues to look at as Georgia decides Warnock vs. Walker Senate runoff” [CNN]. Turnout growth or bust? Democrats search a real majority. Trump’s final shot at a Senate win. Kemp appears to one-up Trump yet another time. Georgia, a swing state? We’ll see.
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AZ: “Arizona certifies 2022 election outcomes amid risk of extra GOP challenges” [The Hill]. “Arizona officers licensed the state’s vote canvass on Monday, formally declaring winners within the high-profile gubernatorial and Senate races, amongst different contests, as GOP figures vow to combat the election ends in court docket. The as soon as low-profile certification course of become a fierce battle between election officers, Republican candidates and a few county boards because the GOP seized on printer malfunctions within the state’s most populous county, partially main Arizona to turn out to be an epicenter for voter disenfranchisement allegations. Election officers have acknowledged mishaps however insist no voter was disenfranchised. Some GOP figures and their supporters claimed officers have been mendacity, unsuccessfully calling on county boards to not certify their canvasses in current days earlier than turning their ire to Monday’s state-level certification. However Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D), who’s now governor-elect, Gov. Doug Ducey (R), state Legal professional Basic Mark Brnovich (R) and Arizona Supreme Court docket Chief Justice Robert Brutinel nonetheless met to canvass final month’s election on Monday, a timeline mandated by state legislation.”
2024
“EXCLUSIVE: Biden’s married, non-binary nuclear waste guru who stole lady’s $2,325 bag from airport hosted SPANKING seminar at kink convention simply weeks later – below ‘NuclearNerd’ nickname that’s nonetheless in use on fetish hookup web site” [Daily Mail]. • 2024 goes to be so ugly.
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SC: “Biden Is Placing South Carolina First. I Gained’t Vote for That.” [Faiz Shakir, New York Times]. “The 2020 caucuses in Iowa — the state that has been first on the calendar for many years — have been a catastrophe.” No, it wasn’t. It was theft, for which, paradoxically, Iowa Democrats weren’t rewarded. Extra: “Everyone knows why South Carolina obtained the nod. President Biden, Consultant Jim Clyburn and lots of of his high supporters have been buoyed by their marketing campaign’s comeback in February 2020 when the state delivered Mr. Biden his first victory of the season — and an enormous one at that…. South Carolina is just not a battleground state: Mr. Trump carried it by double digits in 2020. It’s far more ideologically and culturally conservative than our celebration and our nation. And the state is just not trending in any approach towards the Democratic Occasion.” • Shakir does perceive that making SC first is a payoff to Clyburn. Shakir both doesn’t perceive or can not say that (a) the Black Misleadership Class, as embodied by Clyburn and the Congressional Black Caucus, is deeply corrupt and reactionary, (b) that Biden is rigging the first for Harris, and (c) that Biden, and liberal Democrats on the whole, are ensuring that one other Sanders doesn’t emerge, ever once more. (A distant chance, however… the precautionary precept.) Have the cries of “racism” already begun? Why sure, sure they’ve!
SC: “Biden and Sanders worlds are once more at loggerheads over South Carolina” [Politico]. ““Zero tolerance — ZERO for any disrespect or dismissal of Black voters,” Democratic Nationwide Committee Chairman JAIME HARRISON wrote on Twitter whereas retweeting an identical critique. PATRICK DILLON, a Democratic strategist whose spouse, JEN O’MALLEY DILLON, is Biden’s deputy chief of employees, tweeted Shakir’s piece with this remark: ‘Needed to learn this twice simply to substantiate that it doesn’t point out Black voters even as soon as.’ Shakir, in our interview, was unmoved by his critics. ‘It’s a really insulting strategy to counsel that in some way we don’t care about Black voters as a result of we predict South Carolina shouldn’t go first. Come on. Get actual.’ He added that he’d assist Georgia going first, stating that it’s extra various and has the next proportion of Black voters than South Carolina. He mentioned he would fairly see Nevada on the head of the pack however would favor any of the opposite first 5 in Biden’s plan — which additionally consists of New Hampshire, Michigan, and Georgia — to go first over South Carolina.” Loads of Black voters in Michigan and Georgia. However Biden must repay Clyburn. ““And ensuring that the Democratic celebration’s most loyal voters — Black voters — are on the entrance of the road and never behind the bus looks like one thing nobody must be arguing about.” • The Democrats aren’t placing Black voters “on the entrance of the road,” which they might do with Georgia, a swing state, simply as nicely. They’re placing Clyburn within the driver’s seat of the bus, and his reactionary and corrupt political machine within the driver’s seat for the forseeable future. It’s a payoff and a solution to cripple the left, to the extent there’s a left. So naturally the liberals get all huffy and begin preening.
Democrats en Déshabillé
Affected person readers, plainly individuals are truly studying the back-dated submit! However I’ve not up to date it, and there are various updates. So I should do this. –lambert
I’ve moved my standing remarks on the Democrat Occasion (“the Democrat Occasion is a rotting corpse that may’t bury itself”) to a separate, back-dated submit, to which I’ll periodically add materials, summarizing the addition right here in a “stay” Water Cooler. (Hopefully, some Bourdieu.) It seems that defining the Democrat Occasion is, the truth is, a tough downside. I do assume the paragraph that follows is on level all the best way again to 2016, if not earlier than:
The Democrat Occasion is the political expression of the category energy of PMC, their base (lucidly defined by Thomas Frank in Pay attention, Liberal!). It follows that the Democrat Occasion is as “unreformable” because the PMC is unreformable; if the Democrat Occasion didn’t exist, the PMC must invent it. If the Democrat Occasion fails to manipulate, that’s as a result of the PMC lacks the potential to manipulate. (“PMC” modulo “class expatriates,” after all.) Second, all of the working elements of the Occasion reinforce one another. Go away apart characterizing the relationships between parts of the Occasion (ka-ching, however not completely) these parts comprise a community — a Flex Web? An iron octagon? — of funders, distributors, apparatchiks, electeds, NGOs, and miscellaneous mercenaries, with property within the press and the intelligence neighborhood.
Notice, after all, that the category energy of the PMC each expresses and is proscribed by different courses; oligarchs and American gentry (see ‘industrial mannequin’ of Ferguson, Jorgensen, and Jie) and the working class spring to thoughts. Suck up, kick down.
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Talking of election denial:
pic.twitter.com/W2TCgXaZsr
— Defiant L’s (@DefiantLs) December 2, 2022
Realignment and Legitimacy
‘Tis a thriller!
The central thriller of Bankman-Fried’s political giving is whether or not the crypto government had an ulterior motive in backing congressional candidates.https://t.co/Rd7wgo40ty
— Los Angeles Instances (@latimes) December 6, 2022
“America’s Poll-Harvesting Capital Is in Suburban Philly” [RealClearPolitics]. “Many neighborhoods in Delaware County could be sparsely inhabited through the summer time, with trip locations of the Jersey Shore or Poconos only a brief automotive drive away. That didn’t matter to Delaware County’s Democratic organizers, who continued working right here. Delaware County’s Democratic candidates relentlessly knocked on doorways all through the summer time, carrying mail-in poll purposes for voters. The candidates’ volunteers and paid canvassers did the identical, realizing that 85% of those that apply will forged a poll. These votes have been within the financial institution earlier than Labor Day.” • Completely, 100% fallacious fallacious fallacious. What this prolonged article reveals is that objective of early voting/vote by mail/poll harvesting is tribal loyalty, pure and easy. That is completely undemocratic (see right here and right here). Why don’t we simply neglect about ballots completely? Individuals can simply put on the suitable T-shirt and we’ll depend them by drone or safety digital camera.
#COVID19
Lambert right here: Eric Topol has known as a winter surge (or “wave”) of Covid. I’m however a humble tapewatcher, however I’m reluctant to take action. (Partly as a result of I do know my temperament, and I’ve robust priors. So “I gained’t as a result of all of me desires to,” as Sam Spade says.) Topol’s view is the institution view: Hospital-centric. Mine is infection-centric. I don’t see the acceleration or doubling in instances that I’d anticipate to see primarily based on previous surges. Granted, Boston (wastewater) and New York (hospitalization) are each accelerating, they’re good information, they usually could possibly be main indicators (which is why I selected them). They is also flashes within the pan. (Maybe I have to take a rigorous have a look at wastewater, as for instance in San Francisco (charts take endlessly to load).) So we’ll see. Let’s wait and see what the rest of the vacation season brings. Reader dialogue on this essential level is welcome. Nonetheless–
Keep protected on the market: Excessive transmission (CDC), the elevation of positivity (Walgreens), the regular takeover of BQ.1* (CDC; Walgreens), together with elevated hospitalization in BQ.1* hotbed New York, plus a wastewater surge in Boston are all greater than slightly unsettling (as is the obvious proliferation of variants). As one would possibly anticipate initially of a vacation surge, wastewater in Queens County, NY (JFK/LGA), Prepare dinner County, IL (ORD), and Los Angeles County (LAX) continues to be elevated. In case you are planning to journey on Xmas, do think about your plans fastidiously.
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If, over the vacations, you propose to remain in a lodge, from an HVAC engineer:
Confirm the air flow is working
The usual approach air flow techniques work in motels and house buildings is out of doors air is provided to the hallway, flows below the door and is exhausted by way of the washroom. This is learn how to examine the air flow:
2/8 pic.twitter.com/IGcV80sXiQ
— Joey Fox (@joeyfox85) June 8, 2022
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• Maskravaganza: “CDC encourages folks to put on masks to assist forestall unfold of Covid, flu and RSV over the vacations” [CNBC]. Walenksy is so, so unhealthy:
“We additionally encourage you to put on a high-quality, well-fitting masks to stop the unfold of respiratory sicknesses,” mentioned Walensky, including that folks dwelling in areas with excessive ranges of Covid transmission ought to particularly think about masking.
“Encourage.” “Take into account.” That’s an actual profile in braveness. And the burden is all on “you,” the person. Absolutely Walensky is aware of that workplaces will solely act primarily based on steering? I really like additionally that Walensky recommends monitoring transmission when CDC buries the transmission map. Keep in mind the lady who known as CDC to seek out it, and the great woman on the opposite finish of the road tried for half an hour and failed?
The CDC director mentioned the company is contemplating increasing its system of Covid neighborhood ranges to take note of different respiratory viruses such because the flu. The system is the premise for when CDC advises the general public to put on masks. However Walensky inspired folks to take proactive motion.
Expensive gawd. Walensky is doubling down on “neighborhood ranges” [bangs head on desk]. On the intense aspect, she waited till nicely after the midterms.
“One needn’t wait on CDC motion with a purpose to put a masks on,” Walensky mentioned. “We’d encourage all of these preventive measures — hand washing, staying residence if you’re sick, masking, elevated air flow — throughout respiratory virus season, however particularly in areas of excessive Covid-19 neighborhood ranges.”
A-a-a-n-d Walensky doubles down on the horrid “neighborhood ranges” metric as soon as extra. And “one needn’t.” Who does Walensky assume she is? The Queen of England?
• Anyhow, why would anyone imagine Walensky about something?
Somebody retweeted this and I… https://t.co/ZBwKfOJr7A
— I Brake 4 Ants (@ibrake4ants) December 6, 2022
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• Mastravaganza: A maskless convention of immunologists:
IMMUNOLOGISTS, my buddies! Even the immunologists are holding crowded unmasked indoor superspreading dance events in my honor! Is it nice to be me or WHAT? 🦠 ❤️ #asi2022mel pic.twitter.com/1CfaaOxPAD
— Covid19 (@friendlycovid19) December 2, 2022
You’ll by no means guess what occurred!
The unmasked Immunology Convention in Melbourne has turned out to be a superspreader occasion…. 🤦♀️ @friendlycovid19 @ImTheN95Parody @YouAreLobbyLud @DavidJoffe64 pic.twitter.com/fvy31XC9FF
— Put a Masks on it (@patientadvAU) December 4, 2022
• Maskstravaganza: One other maskless convention, this time at WHO:
As a result of nothing says “Affected person security” like a maskless convention in a pandemic. https://t.co/MUGMwEtMgg
— Dr David Berger, aBsuRdiSTe cROnickLeR (@YouAreLobbyLud) December 5, 2022
And talking of WHO:
• WHO nonetheless rejects airborne transmission of Covid:
At yesterday’s Unbiased SAGE briefing @davidnabarro you mentioned “Covid-19 is primarily, primarily, a droplet-borne an infection, it could be airborne in sure circumstances, we nonetheless in WHO contexts nonetheless say its primarily droplet-borne”. Please are you able to level to the proof
— docjon 💙 (@docjon55) December 3, 2022
The Hague for these folks. I’m not kidding. (Navarro’s bio: “Particular Envoy of @WHO DG on #COVID19, Co-Director of @Imperial_IGHI & Strategic Director of @4SD_info – Abilities, Programs & Synergies for Sustainable Improvement.” Deeply, deeply embedded within the community of globalist NGOs, unsurprisingly.)
• “Research Evaluating Surgical and N95 Masks Sparks Concern” [MedScape]. Here’s a politely phrased takedown of the examine from CIDRAP. From reminiscence: Conly is an Infectious Illness specialist (unhealthy) from Alberta (worse), a droplet goon (even worse), and is a gatekeeper at WHO towards each masks and airborne transmission. He’s the dunce who saved yammering about the necessity to weigh the harms of masks towards the advantages, and when pressed on the harms, got here up with… pimples. Versus vascular and neurological injury. The Hague for Conly too.
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• A greater world is feasible:
That is solely doable due to air flow, filtration and masks. In any other case, likelihood is that your complete kitchen employees and extra can be off sick now and the restaurant can be closed for the subsequent week or extra. pic.twitter.com/t41dnzqB8e
— Apricot Tree Cafe (@ApricotTreeCaf1) December 4, 2022
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• Inhaled Chinese language vaccines:
Good to see however we’ll want a greater translation than “The Seed Recipient”😬 https://t.co/MTi68FlSWt
— Naomi Wu 机械妖姬 (@RealSexyCyborg) December 6, 2022
Notice the label: Adenovirus.
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Circumstances
Only for one other angle, I went again, briefly, to the case information (which I do know severely underestimates precise instances by an order of magnitude, since folks check at residence). Right here is the yearly information:
And right here is the information for the final 4 weeks:
No matter the place the baseline is, I anticipate doubling conduct in a surge, and I’m not seeing it right here. This information looks like a protracted, grinding slog. “A pandemic we are able to’t shake,” because it have been.
Transmission
Right here is CDC’s interactive map by county set to neighborhood transmission (the “purple map”). (That is the map CDC desires solely hospitals to have a look at, not you.)
Lambert right here: The powers-that-be don’t even see transmission as an issue, clearly. However you would possibly!
Positivity
From the Walgreen’s check positivity tracker, revealed December 3:
2.3%. Yesterday was 4.1% (4.3%). A slight slackening.
Wastewater
Wastewater information (CDC), December 1:
JFK/LGA, Queens County continues to be purple; ORD, Prepare dinner County is orange; LAX, Los Angeles County is orange. I’d wager that speckling of purple in Utah is sky nation. Keep protected when travelling.
November 28:
And MWRA information, December 1:
Lambert right here: I hesitate to say “going vertical.” Seems to be vertical to me.
Variants
Lambert right here: It’s past irritating how sluggish the variant information is. Does no one within the public well being institution get a promotion for monitoring variants? Are there no grants? Is there a single lab that does this work, and everyone will get the outcomes from them? [grinds teeth, bangs head on desk]. UPDATE Sure. See NC right here on Pango. Each Friday, a stately, tutorial tempo completely incompatible with defending your self towards a variant exhibiting doubling conduct.
UPDATED Variant information, nationwide (Walgreens), November 19:
Lambert right here: BQ.1* dominating. XBB arising on the skin.
NOT UPDATED Variant information, nationwide (CDC), November 12 (Nowcast off):
BQ.1* shifting alongside fairly briskly. Notice the looks of XBB, and see the highlighted word: Like BQ.1*, XBB seems all of the sudden when CDC decides to disaggregate the information. Precisely as with CDC’s notorious “inexperienced map,” a lag is launched, this time by CDC’s decision-making course of; Walgreens had XBB final week, however CDC has it solely this week. I don’t see what objective the aggregation serves. If the problem is a jillion low-circulation variants would make the desk impossibly lengthy and complicated for customers, that’s a UI/UX difficulty; deal with it with software program. Have a slider/filter that aggregates variants below 1%, say. Permit scrolling the outcomes. No matter. However cease concealing information!
New York/New Jersey (Area 2) numbers are increased. BQ.1.* is dominating:
• As a examine, since New York is a BQ.1* hotbed, New York hospitalization, up to date December 3:
Lambert right here: I see improve, however not acceleration.
Deaths
Loss of life fee (Our World in Knowledge):
Complete: 1,106,990 – 1,106,378 = 612 (612 * 365 = 223,380 deaths per yr, at present’s YouGenicist™ quantity for “dwelling with” Covid (fairly a bit increased than the minimizers would love, although they will speak themselves into something. If the YouGenicist™ metric retains chugging alongside like this, I could must determine that is what the powers-that-be think about “mission achieved” for this specific tranche of loss of life and illness). NOTE Not fairly honest, since I missed Monday.
It’s good that for deaths I’ve a easy, every day chart that simply retains chugging alongside, in contrast to every part else CDC and the White Home are screwing up or letting go darkish, good job.
Stats Watch
Provide Chain: “United States LMI Logistics Managers Index Present” [Trading Economics]. “The Logistics Supervisor’s Index within the US fell for a second month to 53.6 in November 2022 from 57.5 in October. It’s the second lowest studying ever, solely surpassing 51.3 in April 2020 on the top of COVID-19 lockdowns. The slowdown in logistics progress was largely as a result of long-anticipated wind down in Stock Ranges (54.8), prompted by the motion of products downstream in the direction of retailers and the sale of these items as vacation spending picks up.”
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The Bezzle: “Uber Eats and Chicago Attain $10 Million Settlement Over Misleading Practices” [Eater]. “Within the settlement, town contends that Uber ‘listed unaffiliated Retailers on its Platforms with out consent’ and ‘deceptively marketed that Eats Cross and Postmates Limitless subscribers would obtain ‘free supply’ or ‘$0 Supply Charges.’” • What, I believed Uber was speculated to be clear after Kalanick left?
Tech: An extended thread on Google’s crapification:
lemme clarify that final bit. PageRank is the OG Google algorithm – mainly, determine what pages are price displaying not by wanting on the web page, however by taking a look at what pages are linking to it.
— v buckenham (@v21) September 7, 2021
Goodhart’s legislation: “Any noticed statistical regularity will are inclined to collapse as soon as stress is positioned upon it for management functions,” or simplified: “each measure which turns into a goal turns into a nasty measure.” For instance, Google pagerank.
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In the present day’s Concern & Greed Index: 61 Greed (earlier shut: 65 Greed) [CNN]. One week in the past: 63 (Greed). (0 is Excessive Concern; 100 is Excessive Greed). Final up to date Dec 6 at 1:54 PM EST.
Rapture Index: Closes down one on Oil Provide/Worth. “Oil has declined to $80 per barrel” [Rapture Ready]. File Excessive, October 10, 2016: 189. Present: 186. (Do not forget that bringing on the Rapture is nice.)
E-book Nook
The creator:
I’ve not had the guts to submit this, however I really feel that it’s time. Professor Lance DeHaven-Smith died of most cancers final month. A pricey pal and a mentor to me, he was a real iconoclast–one of the vital essential social scientists within the US for the reason that finish of World Warfare II.
— American Exception (@Aaron_Good_) December 3, 2022
His “radical flip”:
His radical flip started when, as *the* authority on Florida state politics, he noticed a number of felonies dedicated by the state’s governor through the 2000 presidential election.
— American Exception (@Aaron_Good_) December 3, 2022
His ebook:
Within the prime of his mental life, he all of the sudden got here down with an uncommonly aggressive case of Parkinson’s illness. He managed to complete his 14th ebook—the basic ‘Conspiracy Principle in America’—in 2013, however he didn’t have a lot time to take pleasure in it or to proceed his scholarship.
— American Exception (@Aaron_Good_) December 3, 2022
Conspiracy Principle in America looks as if a subject it will be helpful to have scholarly, and trendy, perspective on. Does anybody know the place I can discover a PDF? I’ve appeared, with out success.
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“Panorama, Change, and the Lengthy Highway Forward” [Orion]. “Le Guin’s ‘The Left Hand of Darkness’ is a basic for its portrayal of gender, however is it additionally typically, for the trendy reader, a local weather change parable?…. Local weather disaster is about extremes, and in The Left Hand of Darkness cultures are formed by an immeasurably hostile bodily atmosphere. The coldness of the place, which forces adaptation to its situations and discourages sure sorts of danger. The very fact the nations of Winter don’t interact in conflict constitutes one distinctive manifestation of this adaptation to an excessive atmosphere. Full-scale battle, versus minor sorties, skirmishes, particular person feuds, merely appears alien to the nations of Winter. …. Right here on Earth, we’re blessed, or have been blessed, with dwelling on a planet with a variety of climates, lots of which have been gentle or pretty straightforward to adapt to. This isn’t to say that there haven’t been horrible intervals of famine and privation even earlier than the local weather disaster, however we’ve additionally been allowed the luxurious of a variety of acts of the creativeness not out there to the planet Winter. We’ve, for instance, in actually horrible methods, been allowed the “luxurious” of conflict. Even when restoration from this luxurious has diversified relying on circumstances of assets and panorama as nicely.” • I’m unsure I agree with this studying. But it surely’s a delicate studying nonetheless.
The Gallery
“Pitiless misogynist?” [Times Literary Supplement (AL)]. “[Lucien Freud’s] biographer William Feaver says that Freud’s portrait of the Queen, on present right here, “wasn’t so completely different from the 1952 head of Francis Bacon”. Each are small. Each are painted near. Bacon and Freud sat with their knees virtually touching – not the case with Her Majesty. Each required many sittings. The royal portrait took a yr, the Bacon two or three months. The Queen was captured on canvas, Bacon on a copper plate. And there’s something copperplate in regards to the Bacon portrait – meticulous, managed, uniform, classical, an excellent train in Ingres element and end. A part of the portrait’s energy is the best way it fills the area precisely, so the impression of mass is created, although the portray is small, cognate, you would possibly say, with an Elizabethan miniature, a Nicholas Hilliard or an Isaac Oliver. The end is quasi-enamel. It resists revealing its course of. The portrait of the Queen is all course of and brushstrokes. You see the Queen and also you see the painter at work. The Bacon was painted in 1952, the Queen in 2001. In some unspecified time in the future within the center Fifties, below the affect of Bacon – whose portrait heads are wipes, approximate, assured swipes, gestural and kinetic, heads in movement – Freud modified his brushes from superb sable to coarse hog’s hair Filbert brushes. Which is why the 2 portraits are completely completely different from one another. Feaver experiences that when Richard Hamilton instructed Freud that his portray was not tenable – “You may’t work in your fashion these days” – Freud replied that it was ‘the one approach he may work’. Which means realism.”
Freud (1):
Lucien #Freud – #KHM Exhibitions ” “Francis Bacon” (1952) #artwork #vienna #twitart #iloveart #wien #artwit #austria pic.twitter.com/jZQVldGJOG
— Frederic Hutter (@hutterdesign) January 11, 2014
Freud (2):
👑
Lucien Freud: “Queen Elisabeth II” pic.twitter.com/dwYtzGjj0N
— Alexander Verbeek 🌍 (@Alex_Verbeek) September 8, 2022
Bacon:
Portrait of Lucien Freud by Francis Bacon (1965) pic.twitter.com/fKHjG1I2H2
— Like Mike (@likeabletoo) July 2, 2022
Bacon’s work all the time remind me of…. bacon (solely visually). Am I the one one?
Class Warfare
“Lengthy Social Distancing” [NBER]. “Greater than ten p.c of Individuals with current work expertise say they’ll proceed social distancing after the COVID-19 pandemic ends, and one other 45 p.c will accomplish that in restricted methods. We uncover this Lengthy Social Distancing phenomenon in our month-to-month Survey of Working Preparations and Attitudes. It’s extra widespread amongst older individuals, ladies, the much less educated, those that earn much less, and in occupations and industries that require many face-to-face encounters. Individuals who intend to proceed social distancing have decrease labor power participation – unconditionally, and conditional on demographics and different controls…. Financial reasoning and proof counsel that Lengthy Social Distancing and its results will persist for a lot of months or years.” • That’s an amazingly excessive variety of smart folks, given the depth of the propaganda and the forces arrayed towards them. Possibly the Fed must crack the whip more durable?
Silicon Valley’s labor aristocrats have been using for a fall:
Humorous how the disappearance of limitless fairness funding no matter danger forces companies to behave like, nicely, companies. 🤨 https://t.co/cVptBSggLj
— Semi-Official TED (@EpicureanDeal) December 6, 2022
Seems that as an alternative of scarfing down the free lunches and massages + combating about idpol, they need to have been organizing unions. Ah nicely, however.
Information of the Wired
Information you should utilize (besides within the snowbound areas of the nation, after all):
Okay so this is the reason you all the time flip off your gasoline on the valve. Some little asshole chewed by way of my BBQ’s pure gasoline line. Fortunately it was off. pic.twitter.com/ufUQsEiPoH
— SwiftOnSecurity (@SwiftOnSecurity) December 2, 2022
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Contact data for crops: Readers, be at liberty to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) learn how to ship me a examine in case you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to learn how to ship me photographs of crops. Greens are superb! Fungi and coral are deemed to be honorary crops! If you need your deal with to look as a credit score, please place it in the beginning of your mail in parentheses: (thus). In any other case, I’ll anonymize through the use of your initials. See the earlier Water Cooler (with plant) right here. From wol:
wol writes: “Marsh grass, Bald Head Island, NC.”
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Readers: Water Cooler is a standalone entity not lined by the annual NC fundraiser. So for those who see a hyperlink you particularly like, or an merchandise you wouldn’t see anyplace else, please don’t hesitate to specific your appreciation in tangible type. Keep in mind, a tip jar is for tipping! Common constructive suggestions each makes me really feel good and lets me know I’m heading in the right direction with protection. Once I get no donations for 5 or ten days I get frightened. Extra tangibly, a continuing trickle of donations helps me with bills, and I think about that trickle when setting fundraising objectives:
Right here is the display screen that can seem, which I’ve helpfully annotated:
When you hate PayPal, you may electronic mail me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, and I will provide you with instructions on learn how to ship a examine. Thanks!
