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No, anonymous Trump official, you're a coward...
If you are defrauding the American people by disguising your own orders as the President's you are a criminal! If you want to be part of the 'resistance' stand and be counted like a man!
The piece suggests America is currently under a "two-track presidency." If President Trump wants to do something the people in his administration think is good, they go along with it. If he wants to do something they think is bad, they find ways around it. This is in keeping with what the Bob Woodward book excerpt revealed: Senior officials are taking things off Trump's desk to keep him from seeing them.
Nobody who’s part of the real resistance should be celebrating this. If you work in this administration and carry out any part of Trump's agenda, you are enabling him, not undermining him. If we have a president so incompetent that his most trusted advisors have to play peekaboo to preserve national security, then those people should be working to get him out of office, not just spare us from his cruelest impulses.
...
If they really believe there's a need to subvert the president to protect the country, they should be getting this person out of the White House. But they're too cowardly and afraid of the possible implications.
No, anonymous Trump official, you're not 'part of the resistance.' You're a coward
Another quick thought on left and right
I think it's important that we realize that both of these ideas have both positive and negative aspects. It's important that we do NOT harden these tendencies into tribal division as we are doing now - it's important that each side recognize the positive aspects of the opposition - and the negative aspects of their own side.
So what are they? Off the cuff, the left is, at it's best, the champion of the oppressed, the vanguard of positive change, the people that are making the world better. But it's also envy. It's refusing to believe that anyone could be richer than me without doing something wrong. It's creating the oppressed so that you can be their champion, it can tend too easily not just to tribalism, but to a particularly virulent and harmful form of tribalism - the assumption of moral superiority which so easily escalates to dehumanization and thence to mass murder. Look at the Soviet Union after the fall. It's change for the sake of change, it's that idea that somehow burning down the system that keeps food in the mouth and roof over the head of so many of your fellow humans is actually going to improve their lot. It won't.
And the right? At it's best, it is indeed the champions of civilization, the willingness to stand up and strap on your gear and go face the barbarian at the gate. But it's also greed. It's taking the easy choice of acceding to tradition, as if you were helpless before it - but only when doing so benefits you financially. At it's worst, it too veers into tribalism, to nationalism and racism and every form of jingoism - and with those things the same tendency to dehumanize, to excuse murder, war, genocide.
When we divide into right and left, we lose. We need to do the opposite. We need a middle ground, not in terms of a compromise, but of selecting the best qualities of each.
Another rant on clothes
Aaaaaargh. This is going to be news to precisely no one who knows a woman or is one, but I'm gonna say it again anyway: womens' clothing SUCKS.
First, and biggest problem: they all assume that if you're a given size in one measurement, the rest of you matches up too. This couldn't be further from the truth. According to a standard size chart, I have the waist of a 12, the hips of a 14 or 16, and the bust of a 16. This makes finding anything with a proper fit basically impossible. You *have* to go with the larger measurements, which means 1) high-rise and mid-rise jeans are too big around the middle and 2) there is simply no way I can wear a dress or other one-piece clothing item without alterations.
Second: why the bloody hell do sizes *differ* from manufacturer to manufacturer?! In some brands I'm a 12 waist, in some a 10, in one a 14 (wtf), and of course everything else varies as well. This varies brand by brand, even if you're shopping in the same store. If you wonder why we take eleventy hojillion items to the dressing room and spend so much time trying stuff on, THIS is why.
Third: pockets. Full stop. Yes, this is getting better, but it's hard to find pants that have the number and size pockets mens' pants do. I know, I know, we're supposed to splash out several hundred dollars on some ruinously expensive branded handbag. Screw that. I don't have the money, and even if I did it wouldn't be spent on a handbag. And good grief are they ugly, with their diamond patterns or repeated monograms or whatever. No, my messenger bag does fine for all my carry-stuff-around needs, and you can't fit a laptop in a $400 Gucci handbag. I may be femme but I'm not stupid, or lipstick for that matter.
In my opinion, the lack of pockets is something more cynical and sinister than just a ploy to get women to buy handbags: it's a deliberate removal of our agency. And false pockets, the ones that are just sewn-on seams with no actual depth, can DIAF.
Fourth: Quality and price. Mens' clothing seems a lot more substantial and I wear what pieces of it I can for that reason. It's also cheaper, aside from suits and formalwear. I can get a men's size L t-shirt (flaps on me like a tent but the M won't fit my chest...) for something like $5 at Shopko. I have *never* seen a womens' shirt for that price outside a very low-end thrift store, and the equivalents are smaller, thinner, made of less-durable materials, and MORE expensive.
Fifth: too much of our clothing is basically candy wrappers. What I mean by this is it exists mostly to imply what's under it, either by showing a lot of skin or, less greasily, indicating by color or pattern that "the person wearing this is demure, defenseless, meek, quiet, and perfectly happy to be basically an object." I really think sometimes that all the pink and floral pattern stuff is some sort of salve to mens' fragile egos, or at the very least a way of firmly separating the two sexes by clothing and letting all concerned know who stands where in the power dynamic.
Now yes, I'm aware 2/3 of the time men are not looking at our clothes specifically. And yes, I am very much aware most of this stuff is done to compete with *other women,* which is another game I flat-out refuse to play. It still pisses me off, and many a time I've been standing in the changing room thinking to myself "Madokami have mercy, WHAT does a girl need to do to get something functional, well-fitting, and decently-priced that *doesn't* tell the world I'm a simpering moron with no aims in life other than to lasso a guy?!"
There's way too much politics surrounding clothing, is what this boils down to. Politics, and something a level or two under it, also. I'm very aware that by not "playing the game" I'm shut out of many social interactions, and for interviews I do the "pretend to be perfectly normal" game with light makeup and the "appropriate" clothes, but what a crock. Do men worry about this stuff? It doesn't seem like it.
Down With the Reduplicative Copula!
The thing is is that...
No! The thing is not is that! What the thing is is that the thing is that!
Sorry. It really gets my goat. It's used by those who should know better.
The other idiom I can't stand is:
Have you got a pen?
No I don't.
Right, you don't have got a pen!
I don't expect everyone to have perfect grammar but I do expect those who work in the media, politics and other high profile roles with an emphasis on formal communication to at least use logical forms of accepted modern English.
Let the flaming commence!
This week in Trump's crime syndicate: Immunity Deals
Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer for the Trump Organization, was one of the executives who helped arrange $420,000 in payments to longtime Trump attorney Michael Cohen to help reimburse him for hush money he paid an adult-film star.
Weisslberg was granted immunity by federal investigators in New York in exchange for his truthful testimony about his role in the payments, according to people familiar with the discussions.
Weisselberg is the person identified in court filings as “Executive-1,” who prosecutors said helped authorize $420,000 in payments to Cohen, one person said. He testified before a grand jury investigating Cohen last month
Federal prosecutors reached an immunity deal with the tabloid executive David J. Pecker, a key witness in their monthslong investigation into payments during the 2016 campaign to two women who said they had affairs with Donald J. Trump, according to two people familiar with the investigation.
Mr. Pecker is the chairman of American Media Inc., the nation’s biggest tabloid news publisher, which was involved in the payments, which prosecutors have identified as illegal contributions made in violation of campaign finance law.
David Pecker, Chief of National Enquirer’s Publisher, Is Said to Get Immunity in Trump Inquiry
Zombie Conservatives
The Guardian and the BBC report that last year the Conservative Party in the UK received twice as much money in donations from dead people than from living members. The Labour Party received almost £10M more in donations, mostly from living members. The Conservative Party had a membership of 124 000 (living) and Labour 564 443.
Trump Admin Corruption: Manafort guilty, Cohen guilty
A jury has found former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort guilty after a three-week trial on tax and bank fraud charges — a major if not complete victory for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III as he continues to investigate the president’s associates.
The jury convicted Manafort on eight of the 18 counts against him. The jury said it was deadlocked on the other 10. U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis declared a mistrial on those other charges.
Manafort was convicted on five counts of filing false tax returns, one count of not filing a required IRS form, and two bank fraud counts.
Manafort convicted of 8 counts, judge will declare mistrial in 10 others
President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen has surrendered to the FBI in New York as he prepares to plead guilty Tuesday afternoon in an investigation into his activities and business dealings, according to people familiar with the matter.
Cohen is expected to plead guilty to charges related to bank fraud, tax fraud and a campaign finance violation, according to two people with knowledge of the situation. Cohen agreed to the deal after prosecutors claimed he risked more than a dozen years in prison, one person said.
A hearing in the case is scheduled for 4 p.m. Tuesday at a federal courthouse in Manhattan. Afterward, Deputy U.S. Attorney Robert Khuzami, who has been overseeing the probe, is scheduled to make public remarks.
The plea discussions follow a months-long grand-jury investigation into Cohen’s activities, including his taxi business, as well as a hush-money payment that Cohen arranged to an adult-film actress, Stormy Daniels, who claimed to have had a tryst with Trump years ago.
Left and right is wrong, but why is that important?
There are decent arguments in both directions. Left and right, imperfect and imprecise as they are, are not complete nonsense. Realizing that is relatively new for me, and you could say that's the reason for the entry itself. For decades, I thought "this is complete nonsense" and I was mystified that it got traction. Just goes to prove how powerful control of the media/education/military/industrial/government complex is... well no. Not entirely.
There's something deeper here. As inaccurate as left and right are, they are accurate at a level, a particular level that is, shall we say, very close to the gut?
But it's not really an ideological or political divide this corresponds to, it's a *psychological* divide. The left is more psychologically open, to both good and bad influences, the right more suspicious of both sorts of outside influence.
So there is some truth to it, and some rational reason for people to cling to it.
But it's still, essentially, nuts. You need a minimum of two dimensions to make the slightest sense of politics *qua politics*. Right and left, as commonly presented here in the USA, conflates separate poles that have nothing to do with each other. Left is "liberal" but liberal has been a dirty word since they crucified Carter (pbuphn.) And the actual left has virtually no one left that's actually noticeably liberal in any way. Right is 'conservative' but conservative is not the opposite of liberal; and the right-wing party hasn't been noticeably more conservative than the left-wing party in decades anyway.
So let's set 2 dimensions, that means 4 poles. Liberal is the opposite of authoritarian, conservative is the opposite of radical. I know, not a new thought, Nolan will sue me, but at least my labels are correct. What we actually have is two extremely authoritarian parties, one slightly radical and the other extremely radical. There are no liberals, nor conservatives, allowed space on the field at all.
Trump is currently the closest thing that is permitted to exist, per the mainstream media. And they're outraged that he exists. He's not very liberal at all, but there's only maybe 3 or 4 congresscritters to his 'left' in the classical sense in all of Washington!
He's not very conservative either, though I'd think about twice that many congresscritters could flank him there.
As there are ~550 congresscritters, this is a very depressing statistic for a conservative, or a liberal, let alone someone like myself who is tending towards both positions.
And why is this all important? Because as long as they can focus on this artificial division, between ostensibly 'liberal' progressives (whose actual positions range from radical liberal to radical authoritarian, with a heavy bias towards the latter) and ostensibly 'conservative' fascists (whose actual position, in my terms, would range from conservative liberal to conservative authoritarian, with a heavy bias towards the latter *in leadership* but not necessarily in the rank and file) the authentic liberal positions are systematically marginalized and made invisible.
The game is to keep the liberals split, with conservative liberals in one party and radical liberals in the other party - while both parties remain safely under control of authoritarians.
And this is why it's important. Because if there is any alternative to dystopia, it must be for the conservative liberals and the radical liberals to unite and overthrow our common oppressors - the authoritarians, the authoritarian mind, and all that resembles it.
We can't do that while we're busy dividing up into right-tribe and left-tribe. We can't do that while we're smacking each other in the head with bike-locks to impress our particular oppressors and curry favor with our tribe.
We can't be human beings while we are slaves to these distorted images of tribes that never really existed to begin with.
Tikkum Olam ("Mend the world"), all of you.
Especially you, Ethanol ;)
-Arik Yehuda (the Lion of Judah.)
In our America love wins
Mrs Turgid and I went for a holiday in the USA this year. I've never been before, but she has, since she has an aunt who lives in Portland, Oregon.
Since we were going to the USA, I decided that we really must visit the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on the way, so we flew from London to Orlando via Dublin. The most stressful part of the trip was Dublin airport. You have to collect your boarding pass for the second leg of the flight in the airport and they're pretty laid back at the desk in spite of schedules and deadlines. Then you have to go through US immigration. That wouldn't be so bad if you hadn't waited an age to get your boarding pass.
I was lucky and got selected for extra security. Oh boy, did I get security. Luckily the fellow doing it was very jolly and Mrs Turgid remarked that he was now on more intimate terms with me than she was.
The immigration officer was very efficient and being an idiot and tired and flustered I forgot what day I was leaving the USA which did not impress him very much. When going to the USA the immigration officers are mostly interested in how and when you will be leaving the USA. Remember that to make your immigration experience as painless and quick as possible.
On the flight, as we landed I got an interesting earworm, "Living With a Hernia" by Weird Al. The first song on the radio in the taxi on the way from the airport to the hotel in Orlando was "Living In America!" Spooky?
The Kennedy Space Center was the coolest thing I have ever seen and I saw two alligators. We had lunch with an astronaut! That was a very pleasant surprise that Mrs Turgid had arranged. We saw space shuttle Atlantis and we did weep. We also had a long bus tour of the site, including many launch pads. We saw the VAB and pads 39A and 39B. I also noticed a building which said on the side "Home of the X37-B." The tour guide didn't mention that.
After the tours we wandered round until we saw the Saturn V. Now I can die a happy man.
After three nights in Orlando (which was very hot and humid, but with plentiful and cheap food) we went via Atlanta to Portland, Oregon to stay with auntie and her husband. Oregon, and the Pacific Northwest, is beautiful. On the plane we saw Mount Hood, Mt Ranier and Mt St Helens.
Portland is a lovely place, and Oregon is full of Pentiums such as Willamette, Yamhill, Deschutes, you name it. They also make lots of very excellent wine and beer. There are lagers, wheat beers, amber ales, stouts, porters... and they all taste of something good. The food's great too. I made the mistake of ordering side orders in the pub. There was enough to feed a family of four.
We went to the beach at Lincoln City for a few nights. I put my feet in the Pacific Ocean and it was cold (Scotland cold).
On the way back from Lincoln City we stopped at the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum where I saw the Spruce Goose, an SR-71B, X-15, Mercury, Gemini, Apollo 16, V1, V2, Goddard's rocket, all kinds of weird helicopters...
We drove along the Columbia river, went to Timberline Lodge on Mt Hood, went to Multnomah Falls, went into Washington State etc.
Mrs Turgid and I also went to Seattle by train for a couple of nights. I know people like to berate American trains, but by modern British standards they are sheer luxury.
Seattle is pretty cool. We stayed in a hotel near the Space Needle and very close by was a pub called the Teku Tavern which had hundreds of kinds of excellent beers and ciders. We went on a tour about the old town called Beneath the Streets. We also found a really cool shop called Utilikilts which is a gentlemen's outfitters specialising in kilts for the physically active and strident working man. Unfortunately I did not have enough money left to buy a Utilikilt, having just bought a laptop. They don't seem to have invented the Buiness Kilt yet. I think I might send them an email.
We didn't go up the Space Needle, but we went up the Smith Tower, which made me seasick and I had to take a pint of ale to steady my nerves.
There was also a long-haired dude wearing a bandana driving a Pontiac Firebird with the roof off, with tiger skin seat covers and loud music.
Conclusion: American beer is good, American food is not too bad if you choose wisely, the weather's hot, sometimes hot and humid, and no one tried to shoot me. And they went to the Moon, in peace, for all mankind.
As they say in Portland, Oregon, "In our America love wins."
TIME TO MAKE ZE DONUTS^W BAGELS!
This has been...a busy week. I've been transferred to the Madison branch of that bakery I started working for, and have spent the last couple of days preparing; I'm now staying in the absolute cheapest hotel I could find whose reviews contained zero instances of the word "bedbug."
A good friend I've mentioned before, Matt, lives in Madison and has been helping me find a place on short notice here. I haven't seen much of the city but I really, really like it compared to Milwaukee. The public transit is even better if you can believe that, people seem much more laid back, and there's lots of early 20th-century buildings near the Capitol that just exude history. It feels almost nostalgic, like a much smaller, nicer NYC in some ways. It's kind of appropriate we'd end up in the same city again considering we went to college together and, i found out then, grew up within a mile of one another.
Not for the first time I find myself thinking "if I were straight, or even the least little bit bisexual, we'd be married." Alas.
Anyway...what got me here? Bagels.
Now, as a born New Yorker, it makes sense I'd have a sort of innate affinity for bagel dough. The stuff just seems to like me, insofar as something that (I truly hope...) isn't sentient or alive in any way save for a bit of yeast can. First attempt at the dough came out feeling just perfect, and my particular method of putting holes in them--take dowel, punch hole in center of 5 oz. dough round, and more or less goatse it apart to around 2 inches, sorry for the mental image--works better than the "roll out a dough snake and pinch the ends" method.
In particular, the Capitol Square holds a farmer's market every Saturday, and people come from miles around and wait hours for specific products. I am told that my bagels have the potential to be one of them, along with a few of the other products the bakery makes. Despite there being at least 3 or 4 hipster-infested coffee shops within 2 blocks of the Capitol building, one of which has the word "bagels" in the name, apparently no one's thought of selling them at the Farmer's Market, which deserves both those capital letters.
Madison seems waaaaay more health-conscious than Milwaukee, so I'm going to try to get permission to make a whole-wheat version (with a pinch of vital gluten) and maybe some vegan bran muffins. Ground flaxseed and water in 1:3 ratio can replace eggs, 4 Tbsp. mix per egg, if you put a tiny bit more baking powder in. Autumn is coming too, which if this place is as hipsterish as I suspect it is, means we can do pumpkin-spice everything and make a killing.
As much fun as all this is, I'd really rather be doing pharmacology, and will see if I can get floated a loan to go through the UW Madison training program (I, along with 4 of every 5 other contenders, did not get in last time through the employment application process). But for a little while this may be fun, in a hardworking, busy, up at 5:30 AM every day kind of way.
