Friday’s Forum
Better late than never.
Steven L. Taylor
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Friday, April 21, 2023
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29 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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CSK and I were just bad mouthing you and James in the Blogging Break thread. 🙂 Now we’ll just badmouth James.
@OzarkHillbilly:..Now we’ll just badmouth James.
Doesn’t he get enough of that already?
@Mister Bluster:
Ooooh, from beyond the blue line…he shoots, he scores!
Copied over from “Blogging Break”.
I’ve been engaged in digging into family history. Right now, I’ve been exploring my family in post Civil War small town Ohio. Our public library has online access to Newspaper Archive which has scanned newspapers from all the country. It’s been invaluable in finding little details about ancestors. Small town newspapers were incredibly gossipy so even little things like one sister traveling to see her sister in another town is documented along with death notices and funerals.
To make this story short, on a page that mentioned a great-great Aunt, there was this piece of gossip that made me laugh.
From the Wellington Enterprise, July 3, 1879:
There is a lot of insight into small town life in a different century that could be made in this short little piece.
His Majesty Manuel Andres 0 finally managed to unload the erstwhile presidential plane, for the munificent sum of 49% of what was paid to obtain it.
That’s not terrible, but also not good. IMO, the value of operating the plane for its intended use would be higher than the sale price. But His Majesty has to make a show of austerity, even as he wastes billions in white elephant airport projects.
@OzarkHillbilly: Luckily I remembered at least my minimal responsibilities.
@Mister Bluster: I doubt it.
@Steven L. Taylor: And we thank you for it.
@Scott: I love it.
@Mister Bluster:
I have never badmouthed James.
Yesterday, Betty Cracker posted a bit about an NYT article on the hell the forensic investigators at Sandy Hook school went thru. It is a long and very difficult read, got quite dusty in here on multiple occasions. I can’t imagine doing that job, I doubt very much I’d be strong enough.
Anyway, for those interested in reading it, Betty supplied a gift link in her post. Well worth the investment of time to read it.
Politico has a long magazine piece entitled: The Threat of Civil Breakdown is Real: National security officials are still not prepared for a far-right revolt.
The authors go on about the dangers but by the end of the article, they talk themselves out of it.
I found the article frustrating, particularly due to the fact that not once did they mention a huge source of far right violence: Christian nationalism. I still believe that mainstream politicians and media are still cowed and afraid of confronting this historic and continual danger to the country.
@Scott: The MSM have for years avoided talking about Dominionism and Catholic Integralism. There’s a longstanding norm that religious views should be treated as a private matter (except for JFK’s Catholicism). That’s normally fine, but when a politician’s policy preferences are driven by their religion, I would think that should be discussed.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Do you still read the Gmail account listed for you on the contact page? I tried emailing there and never got a response
I’m not entirely surprised a Russian plane dropped a Russian bomb on a Russian city.
I am very surprised they admitted it.
Right wing cannabalism:
Texas Secessionists Rail Against Censorship. Now One Is Suing a Republican Lawmaker for Calling Her Treasonous.
Now for some laughs:
Marco Rubio Roasted For Complaining About Unfixed Issue In State He’s A Senator Of
@CSK: I take it upon myself to make up for your generosity of spirit toward Dr. Joyner. It’s the least (literally) that I can do.
I’m slogging through book two of Brin’s Uplift series.
The idea of Uplift is that a sentient species takes a pre-sentient one, and through genetic manipulation and selective breeding, bring them to full sentience and civilization.
That’s the kind of killer big idea that appeals to me.
However, while it is an important part of the story, details and consequences are sparse.
Aside from that, there’s too much description, too much delving into mental states, too many attempts at Haiku, and too little action. On top of the last, what action there is tends to happen without clear motivation or explanation.
If I were reading a print book rather than an audiobook, I’ve a feeling I’d have stopped reading long ago.
Tigerbeat on the Potomac and the press is noticing Ron DeFascist has a likeability problem: he’s weird, awkward, unlikeable, has negative charisma, and the more people see of him the less they like him.
OVER
RATED
Florida ain’t the USA.
@DK: Florida doesn’t need to be the USA for DeSantis to get elected President. DeSantis only needs to be Red State-y enough to command enough EC votes to outperform Joe Biden. I don’t know that he can pull that off, but it’s hardly an impossible bar to clear. Conceivably, he can even attain the GQP nomination even if voters in his own state don’t want to vote for him, but that may be an impossible bar even if theoretically possible.
@just nutha: Well, sure, it’s possible for everyone running to win, including Biden and the GOP afterthoughts not named Donald and Ron. Lots of things in life are “not impossible:” strange things do happen and possibilities are endless. In the 1968 cycle, who could predicted LBJ declining to run again + RFK’s and MLK’s assassination + the Democratic convention riots + Nixon’s resurrection from the political dead after losing both the 1960 presidential race and the 1962 California gubernatorial election? No one can predict the future; lots of crazy s*** could go down between now and November 2024 that could alter history.
That said, DeFascist is still overrated and unlikeable. And Florida ain’t Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Nevada either.
DeSantis loves to say he is the guy that gets things done.
Attempting to deal with an influx of refugees along the FL Keys…
The dummy didn’t arrange a place to dock the damn boat!!!
Rudy became famous for being the guy who said in every speech, a noun a verb and 9/11.
DeSantis has become the guy who says a noun a verb and “woke.”
@Scott: To some degree, your observation goes with Tony W’s from yesterday when he asked [regarding Clarence Thomas]
“The law only applies to the extent that the society (or the prosecutor or SCOTUS) agrees” on what “application of the law” means does strike me as part of Critical Legal Theory or Deconstruction Theory or postmodernism or any combination of them. As do “Given recent trends, it is reasonable to hope that moderates and independents will have had enough in November 2024. A clear rejection of Trumpism might then deflate…” and Thomas’ “I’ve always preferred the simple things” BS.
Reality will become whatever we tell it to be in much the same way that I used to tell my students that the novel or poem would when we were using Reader Response Theory to do our interpretations. Politico hasn’t dropped the ball or talked themselves out of recognizing the dangers and/or blaming Christian Nationalism as they have decided “what we are looking at is only part of the story.” After November 2024 and January 2025, they’ll reconstruct “reality” again. And “reality” will agree to be whatever whoever wants it to be. “Reality” is very agreeable that way.
@just nutha:
If I remember back to my Philosophy of Law course, the view described here is Legal Realism, not Critical Legal Studies
@DK: I don’t disagree with your assertions to any particular degree. I just wonder how relevant they are. Reality will still agree with you. And with me. It’s the miracle of the age in which we live. We can both be completely right and completely wrong (or irrelevant)–or both at the same time even.
@Stormy Dragon: I no longer know. My connection to these ideas is founded in materials that I read ascribing (loosely at best) the basic ideas to critical legal theory even before I understood what one of my grad school teachers meant when she wrote that one of my essays was very innovative in my approach to Deconstructive Theory and how I addressed the topic.
TL/DR: You’re probably right. (To the extent that it matters. For me, it’s all a blur now,)
@Scott:
License to Kill
WRITTEN BY: BOB DYLAN
Man thinks ’cause he rules the earth he can do with it as he please
And if things don’t change soon, he will
Oh, man has invented his doom
First step was touching the moon
Now, there’s a woman on my block
She just sit there as the night grows still
She say who gonna take away his license to kill?
Now, they take him and they teach him and they groom him for life
And they set him on a path where he’s bound to get ill
Then they bury him with stars
Sell his body like they do used cars
Now, there’s a woman on my block
She just sit there facin’ the hill
She say who gonna take away his license to kill?
Now, he’s hell-bent for destruction, he’s afraid and confused
And his brain has been mismanaged with great skill
All he believes are his eyes
And his eyes, they just tell him lies
But there’s a woman on my block
Sitting there in a cold chill
She say who gonna take away his license to kill?
Ya may be a noisemaker, spirit maker
Heartbreaker, backbreaker
Leave no stone unturned
May be an actor in a plot
That might be all that you got
’Til your error you clearly learn
Now he worships at an altar of a stagnant pool
And when he sees his reflection, he’s fulfilled
Oh, man is opposed to fair play
He wants it all and he wants it his way
Now, there’s a woman on my block
She just sit there as the night grows still
She say who gonna take away his license to kill?
Friday night dance party:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCrA63WDG8I
Melodic techno brought to you by the Turkish tourism board.