November 29, 2021
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
Vice President Aaron Burr fatally shoots former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton.
Marie: Maybe Joe Biden is showing his age, after all. Several times this afternoon, CNN posted a chyron -- actually, two different chryons -- that announced "Breaking News: Biden Addresses Duel Problems." In fact, watching Biden's press conference early this afternoon on the new coronavirus variant was comforting; it was as if a kindly elder statesman was explaining a serious problem to the kids. No suggestions about bleaching the virus; no telling reporters they were "a disgrace," or were asking stupid questions; no asking a Black reporter if she could set up a meeting between him & her friends in the Congressional Black Caucus, no lies for the sake of lying & rants for the sake of ranting. ~~~
~~~ Disappointing, though, that the backdrop for the presser was not the red plastic tinsel I had hoped for:
~~~ The White House published some photos of the decorated rooms here. Near the bottom of the page is a link to a downloadable pdf that elaborates on the meanings of the decor & includes instructions for making an ornament.
Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol moved on Monday to begin contempt of Congress proceedings against Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official involved in ... Donald J. Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, setting a vote this week on recommending criminal charges for his refusal to cooperate with a subpoena from the panel.... At the same time, the committee is considering what to do about ... Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump's former chief of staff, who has also refused to comply with a subpoena. The committee said that Mr. Meadows had refused to answer even basic questions, such as whether he was using a private cellphone to communicate on Jan. 6 and the location of his text messages from that day."
Kate Conger & Lauren Hirsch of the New York Times: "Jack Dorsey is stepping down as chief executive of Twitter, the social media site he co-founded in 2006 and guided through the tumultuous years of the Trump administration. Twitter announced Mr. Dorsey's departure on Monday. He is being replaced by Parag Agrawal, the company's current chief technology officer. Mr. Dorsey's plans were first reported by CNBC."
Brian Schwartz of CNBC: "CNN host Chris Cuomo used his sources in the media world to seek information on women who accused his brother Andrew Cuomo, then the governor of New York, of sexual harassment, according to documents released Monday by the New York Attorney General's Office. While Chris Cuomo has previously acknowledged advising his brother and his team on the response to the scandals, the records show that his role in helping the then-governor was much larger and more intimate than previously known. Chris Cuomo was actively in touch with Melissa DeRosa, who was the then-governor's top aide, about incoming media reports that detailed alleged sexual harassment by Andrew Cuomo, according to exhibits from the Attorney General's probe and a transcript of his interview with the state's investigators. He also lobbied to help the governor's office as it sought to weather the storm of accusations, and he dictated statements for the then-governor to use.... CNN issued a comment hours after the publication of this article, saying the news organization would be reviewing the documents."
Barbados. Ross Urken of the Washington Post: "In Barbados, it's out with the queen, in with a president as the Caribbean island nation becomes the first Commonwealth realm in nearly three decades to declare itself a republic. The move, debated for years, gained momentum amid the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States and growing demands for reparations for slavery on the island. Prime Minister Mia Mottley announced last year that the nation of 300,000 would become a republic by Tuesday, the 55th anniversary of its independence. That means removing Queen Elizabeth II as head of state, a break with nearly four centuries of history in the former British colony. Prince Charles, who has long used the island dubbed 'Little England' as his polo playground, plans to join the celebrations in Bridgetown. The heir to the British throne will be the next head of the Commonwealth, the association made up almost entirely of former territories of the British Empire. Barbados, the easternmost island of the Caribbean, known for cricket, rum and the international pop star Rihanna, plans to remain a member of the group."
New Zealand. Gina Harkins of the Washington Post: "Julie Anne Genter planned on getting to the hospital by bike ahead of her daughter's birth, but she didn't know she would be the one pedaling. The member of the New Zealand Parliament was already having contractions when preparing to bike to the hospital early Sunday morning. Genter, an avid cyclist and member of New Zealand's Green Party, planned to make the 10-minute trek riding in the front of a cargo bike driven by her partner, Peter Nunns. When they realized it would be too much weight with her hospital bag, she told the New Zealand news outlet Stuff she 'just got out and rode.' It's not immediately clear what kind of bicycle she took to the hospital, though she has talked about owning an electric cargo bike. Less than an hour after arriving at the hospital, the 41-year-old Genter gave birth to a baby girl."
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Jasmine Wright of CNN: "Doug Emhoff, husband to Vice President Kamala Harris, spoke at the National Menorah lighting ceremony on Sunday for the first night of Hanukkah. The first Jewish spouse of a president or a vice president, Emhoff has publicly highlighted various tenets of his faith while his wife is in office. 'On this first night of Hanukkah, Jews all around the world are going to light their menorahs in the windows of their homes -- just like the vice president and I are going to do later tonight at our home here in DC,' Emhoff said during the ceremony. 'As we light this menorah on this lawn of the free, let us rededicate ourselves to doing everything we can to shine a light on hate, so we can put an end to hate....Let us remember always that Jewish history is American history; our values, American values,' he continued."
Allie Bice of Politico: "Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, on Sunday said Sen. Ted Cruz's call to prosecute him smacked of bias against science.... '... they're really criticizing science because I represent science. That's dangerous,' he said.... 'I'm just going to do my job and I'm going to be saving lives and they're going to be lying,' he added.... When asked if the recent accusations [coming from Cruz, Rand Paul & Tom Cotton] are a way for Republican lawmakers to use him as a scapegoat to deflect criticism from ... Donald Trump, Fauci said, 'You have to be asleep not to figure that one out.'"
Clarence & Amy & Bart, et al., Will Be up Your Womb Today. Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "In 1973, in Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court drew a line. The Constitution, it said, did not allow states to ban abortions before the fetus could survive outside the womb. On Wednesday, when the court hears the most important abortion case in a generation, a central question will be whether the court's conservative majority is prepared to erase that line. The case concerns a Mississippi law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks, long before fetal viability." An AP story is here. ~~~
~~~ "Her Heart Was Beating, Too." Sarah Wildman of the New York Times on women around the world whose deaths have sparked movements to end or change draconian anti-abortion laws. ~~~
~~~ Shame, Shame. Marie: A main goal of anti-abortion crusaders, of course, is to shame women for having sex when their purpose was not procreation. However, there's a secondary shame element, too: women who are too poor or otherwise cannot travel to obtain abortions are shamed for not having the wherewithal to terminate their pregnancies.
Pentagon Thwarts Money-making Scheme of Man Who Sold His Soul to Trump. Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Former Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper on Sunday sued the agency he once led, accusing officials at the Pentagon of improperly blocking significant portions of an upcoming memoir about his tumultuous tenure under ... Donald J. Trump. The allegations by Mr. Esper, whom Mr. Trump fired shortly after losing his re-election bid last November, are laid out in a lawsuit filed in Federal District Court in Washington, D.C.... John F. Kirby, the Pentagon's chief spokesman, said the agency was aware of Mr. Esper's concerns...." The Guardian's story is here.
The Pandemic, Ctd.
The Washington Post's live updates of Covid-19 developments Monday are here. The New York Times' live Covid-19 updates for Monday are here.
Marie Cheng of the AP on what is known about the omicron variant of the coronavirus so far.
Leanne Italie of the AP: "With an expanded definition to reflect the times, Merriam-Webster has declared an omnipresent truth as its 2021 word of the year: vaccine. 'This was a word that was extremely high in our data every single day in 2021,' Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster's editor-at-large, told The Associated Press ahead of Monday's announcement. 'It really represents two different stories. One is the science story, which is this remarkable speed with which the vaccines were developed. But there's also the debates regarding policy, politics and political affiliation. It's one word that carries these two huge stories,' he said."
Beyond the Beltway
Ohio. Eduardo Medina of the New York Times: "Dayton's zoning appeals board on Tuesday approved the city's request to demolish the building where the state legends Wilbur and Orville Wright opened their first successful bicycle business. City officials plan to review developers' proposals for the space and then decide who should be awarded the property. The building, all parties agree, is dilapidated. But its potential demolition is pitting some officials, who say the building is dangerous and a nuisance to neighbors, against preservationists, who contend that it holds historical importance and, if redeveloped, could qualify for tax credits."
Texas. Raja Razek of CNN: "Actor Matthew McConaughey announced Sunday in a video message on Twitter that a future in political leadership is not in the cards -- right now. After acknowledging that he had taken time exploring politics and considered a run for the governor of Texas, McConaughey said he's decided to focus his efforts in the private sector." MB: Too bad, because if had planned to run as a Republican, he could have messed up Greg Abbott quite a bit.
Way Beyond
France. Arno Pedram & Sylvie Corbet of the AP: "France is inducting Josephine Baker -- Missouri-born cabaret dancer, French World War II spy and civil rights activist -- into its Pantheon, the first Black woman honored in the final resting place of France's most revered luminaries. On Tuesday, a coffin carrying soils from the U.S., France and Monaco -- places where Baker made her mark -- will be deposited inside the domed Pantheon monument overlooking the Left Bank of Paris. Her body will stay in Monaco, at the request of her family. French President Emmanuel Macron decided on her entry into the Pantheon, responding to a petition. In addition to honoring an exceptional figure in French history, the move is meant to send a message against racism and celebrate U.S.-French connections. 'She embodies, before anything, women's freedom,' Laurent Kupferman, the author of the petition for the move, told The Associated Press."
France. Roger Cohen & Léontine Gallois of the New York Times: "Perhaps France was always going to have a hard time with nonbinary pronouns. Its language is intensely gender-specific and fiercely protected by august authorities. Still, the furor provoked by a prominent dictionary's inclusion of the pronoun 'iel' has been remarkably virulent. Le Petit Robert, rivaled only by the Larousse in linguistic authority, chose to add 'iel' -- a gender-neutral merging of the masculine 'il' (he) and the feminine 'elle' (she) -- to its latest online edition. Jean-Michel Blanquer, the education minister, was not amused. 'You must not manipulate the French language, whatever the cause,' he said, expressing support for the view that 'iel' was an expression of 'wokisme.'... Neologisms like 'antivax' and 'passe sanitaire' (health pass) do enter the lexicon with some regularity, but the Académie française, founded in 1634 to protect the French language, remains a vigilant guardian of linguistic purity against what one member called 'brainless Globish' a couple of years ago." ~~~
~~~ Marie: I don't know that "iel" is any worse than "they," which has now become an acceptable substitute for "he" and "she" in American English, as in "Tony went to Stop 'n Shop where they bought a Kosher chicken." Aargh!
Honduras. Christopher Sherman of the AP: "Leftist opposition candidate Xiomara Castro held a commanding lead early Monday as Hondurans appeared poised to remove the conservative National Party from power after 12 years of continuous rule. Castro declared herself the winner despite orders from the National Electoral Council to political parties to await official results. 'We win! We win!' Castro, Honduras' former first lady who is making her third presidential run, told cheering Liberty and Re-foundation party supporters when only a fraction of the ballots had been tallied. 'Today the people have obtained justice. We have reversed authoritarianism.' The National Party also quickly declared victory for its candidate, Tegucigalpa Mayor Nasry Asfura, but the early returns were not promising."
News Lede
New York Times: "Arlene Dahl, who parlayed success as a movie actress in the 1940s and '50s into an even more successful career as an author, beauty expert, astrologist, and fashion and cosmetics entrepreneur, died on Monday at her home in Manhattan. She was 96."
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Reader Comments (14)
Attaboy!
Well, we all knew this was coming. That is, those of us not perpetually dim and dunced by misinformation, lies, and careening, caterwauling hatred and doltishness.
A new covid variant.
Nature proceeds apace and doesn’t give a second hand black hole whether TuKKKer KKKarlson or Crazy Eyed Margie, or the Fat Fascist believe it or not. They’re all too busy demanding that their sycophants and fellow travelers in the benighted regions attack and/or ignore nature cuz nature is trying to steal their freeeedoms. Waaaah!
The effects and consequences of global warming, of viral variants, of decimating forests, of polluting oceans and rivers, of burning through limited natural resources, and of attacking those who study these things cannot be evaporated or dismissed because some Fox millionaire liar says so.
It gives me no end of agita to listen to ignoramuses and blockheads announcing that science doesn’t know what it’s talking about but that the Pillow Guy does. Idiots who claim that nature is wrong, but Trump (fill in the blank—and blank is the word—with your own confederate pinhead) is right.
Nature finds a way. Viruses and bacteria existed billions of years before humans (or Republicans—a warped strain of humanity) were crapping their animal skin undies. They are perhaps the most successful things on the planet and they ain’t going away. Ever.
Prior to—wait for it—SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION—viruses and bacteria caused dreadful problems for humans (with additional crapping of undies).
The development of vaccinations remains one of the stellar achievements of science. Viruses replicate. Replication means evolution. Evolution means change. Change means more crapping of undies and burying of crappy undy wearers.
Hmmm…what to do? Well, science teaches us that viruses need hosts to replicate. Deny the virus a host, and it’s got nowhere to go. How do you deny host bodies? Herd immunity is one way, but that is achieved only after millions of deaths (see influenza, Spanish). A far better way is through VACCINATION, you stupid motherfuckers!
But nooooo…wearing a mask and getting a shot is an attack on freeeedom.
The freedom to die stupidly and to infect others.
But flag draped caskets and a big postmortem “attaboy” from some anti-vax jamoke are always nice, amirite?
Nature doesn’t care one way or the other if you die hooked up to a ventilator or get a shot and live to teach the grandkids how to bake a proper pie crust.
Maybe we should.
Happy pre-pre-Christmas, all. I must confess I have bought a few things, but not many. December is all about birthdays, too, so I am concentrating on that first...
Our town's menorah was vandalized on the public square. Not sure which blockheads did that, but I'm sure it was trumpies, who wrecked an expensive piece of art before it was even dedicated. The world is full of said blockheads.
I also have a friend who wants to have breakfast with me in the small town near her retirement community. I am going to have to tell her I won't come breakfasting in that small town, due to the probability of anti-vax morons there. Our lives change in spite of ourselves... I heard some of Dr. Fauci yesterday-- he is so intrepid. I really think he is brave, like election officials and other public figures targeting by these fraud frauds...And yes, someone is going to shoot someone who is heroic that way. We are safe nowhere now.
I have another friend whose daughter is good/close friends with a transgender youth. She has gotten quite comfortable using "they." I still remain quite confused thinking about a "they" being a singular person...I doubt if that will change.
I have no problem using "they," as well as "their," "them," etc. as singular pronouns. Language evolves, as it always has.
Yes Jeanne, I too saw the Fauci story. I liked the word intrepid - google says "not alarmed". His intrepid statements about anti-science dolts like Cruz (really Princeton, was he that deserving of a seat at the table of your plethora of educational resources?) show that Fauci has no fear of reining back like he did during Orange Turd's interregnum. Fauci is inspiring in terms of how older people (he's about 80) can speak truth to power instead of ticking boxes of simple longevity. Dr. Fauci's interpretation of 'meaningful existence' versus please-insult-my-wife Cruz is profound.
40 years ago as an exchange student at 'Berkeley East' the English Comp buzz was to use "s/he" and "hir" as gender-neutral terms. "They"? A priori, how would a stranger know to use that term with a stranger? And France, well....The dominant culture usually wins. Both the US and France will probably soon be saying "ni hao".
I'm waiting to see how gender neutral plays out in languages where gender is not reserved for biological sex such as German. I have had a lot of fun with die, der, and das over the years.
For me, the whole pronoun thing (most of it anyway) is equivalent to trying to solve one of those crossword puzzles whose many clues refer to contemporary television, music or movie names and personalities or to a recently contrived internet "language," most of which derive from a culture I have never experienced.
I just can't do it. And as the years pass, I have less and less interest in doing so.
Guess that's what it's like to be old.
The world keeps changing, while I stand still.
"The House Oversight Committee recently launched an investigation into the giant consulting firm McKinsey, and its role in inflating drug prices as well as pushing opioids at every opportunity.
“Over the last decade, McKinsey & Company—one of the largest consulting companies in the world and a major U.S. government contractor—has engaged in a pattern of conduct that raises serious concerns about its business practices, conflicts of interest, and management standards,” wrote Chairwoman Maloney. “The company’s support for drug companies pushing addictive opioid painkillers and raising prices for life-saving medications, even as McKinsey also advised the federal agency regulating their conduct, may have had a significant negative impact on Americans’ health. McKinsey’s investments through an internal hedge fund—including in companies benefiting from opioid sales—also raise significant concerns about conflicts of interest.”
documents show deliberate planning by McKinsey to make sure that AbbVie drugs more or less bankrupt those who take them -- often by blatantly abusing the patent system."
Bobby Lee,
In addition to der, das, und die, don’t forget doh! Popularized by Homer Simpschmidt.
Why fix summit that ain't broken? Clear communication is already hard enough. The problem with "they" is that it introduces ambiguity into a sentence. If you gotta do it, the proposed French solution suggests "hesh" or "sheh" as an alternative.
او = sounds like "oo"; he, she, it in Persian.
so the simplest thing to handle the gender issues is to learn to speak Persian, amiright?
The best and the brightest at work?
https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/29/politics/biden-cms-mandate-missouri-order/index.html
At least it tells us which states to avoid if we're feeling poorly...
@KW: I'm right there with you on the crossword puzzles. I've never been a TV watcher or movie goer so asking who played who is sure to stump me.
@AK: As the post to KW shows, "d'oh" is one of my most used words.
But I keep thinking we're all over thinking the problem. Trying to impose order on an evolving solution seems futile.
Let me make myself more clear. I am perfectly happy to introduce a gender-nonspecific pronoun (but not "it," please!). Such a pronoun would come in handy in a number of applications, not just those that refer to a person who does not identify by one gender or the other.
However, "they" and "them" are plural pronouns, and I think they should be allowed to stay as such. I don't have any good suggestions for substitutes for "he/him" and "she/her," but I'll entertain anything sensible. Allowing the King's English to devolve into incomprehensible pronouns, where the antecedent is puzzling, does not seem to be a good plan.
Or maybe just adopt iel. English already has plenty of loanwords from French.