Groundhog Day Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Tuesday, February 2, 2021
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74 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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Repeating this because it’s about the only thing that’s made me cry in a year.
Economics’ failure over destruction of nature presents ‘extreme risks’
Not blockquoted for emphasis:
“Nature is our home. Good economics demands we manage it better,” said Dasgupta. “Truly sustainable economic growth and development means recognising that our long-term prosperity relies on rebalancing our demand of nature’s goods and services with its capacity to supply them. It also means accounting fully for the impact of our interactions with nature. Covid-19 has shown us what can happen when we don’t do this.”
@Teve: In her own words.
Brave brave Sir Robin:
“Somebody who’s suggested that perhaps no airplane hit the Pentagon on 9/11, that horrifying school shootings were pre-staged, and that the Clintons crashed JFK Jr’s airplane is not living in reality,”
-Mitch McConnell
@OzarkHillbilly:
That Moscow Mitch spoke out so stridently regarding Greene is unusual. He must be disgusted with McCarthy and pressuring him to grow a pair and deal with her before the Dems do. Dithering Kevin won’t, he’s the Susan Collins of the House. Supposedly McCarthy is meeting with Greene today and we can expect a statement of concern from his office and that Greene has learned a lesson.
This sounds like the final scene of Marat-Sade.
Regardless of how much the Congressional Republicans want to deflect and forget, this is still out there:
The Boogaloo Bois Have Guns, Criminal Records and Military Training. Now They Want to Overthrow the Government.
@OzarkHillbilly: I could only listen to a couple of minutes of that.
@Teve: Yep, especially when the asshole is just a few feet away and screaming, “Where is she?”
Here’s the dumbest nothingburger of the year so far:
Ex-colleague of Hunter Biden’s lawyer gets top DOJ post
Seriously, if there were any more nothing in that burger it would become a giant sucking void and swallow the entire solar system.
Here in Makanda Township, Illinois we have our own groundhog. Boskydell Butch.
Legend has it that he hitched a ride on the Chicago bound City of New Orleans years ago and jumped off the train as is passed through the ‘dell.
The sky is overcast this morning so if he does leave his hole there won’t be a shadow for him to see.
I won’t see mine either as I’m not gonna’ stand by a hole in the ground to see what pops out.
The Spring equinox is March 20th this year. 6 weeks and a few days into the future.
Butch can’t change that and neither can I.
Give ’em a break @Mikey, they have to get upset about something.
Good news for a change, the Russian Sputnik V vaccine appears to be effective.
Take it with a grain of salt, of course, but consider the results were published in The Lancet.
Earlier this year, His Lowness Emperor God King Manuel Andres the Last of Mexico begged his Superior, Vlad The Impaler of the Soviet Union Light, for doses of said vaccine. So it’s one I might get.
It works with a virus vector, same as the Oxford/AsttraZeneca vaccine, except it uses two different human adenoviruses, one per dose, rather than a single simian adenovirus. So ti looks like immunity to the vector does hamper the immune response to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. Another trial is underway using the Oxford shot for the first dose, and the second Sputnik shot for the second.
On to irrelevancies, between not going to work on Friday due to the PET CT, and the Constitution day holiday Monday, I had a 4 day weekend.
I proceeded to waste it by bingeing Discovery Season 3, running a few eps of The Good Place (I want to do a re-watch knowing what will happen), and bingeing Part 3 of Disenchantment.
I also watched the first ep of Dirk gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. I recall I read the eponymous novel decades ago, and remember very little of it (I recall the Electric Monk). being from Douglas Adams, it was definitely weird. The TV show seems downright bizarre, and too violent for my taste. I may watch a second ep.
Disenchantment is way better than I thought it would be. Sure, there’s plenty of vulgar jokes, and substance abuse jokes in terrible taste (this being a chronic issue in Groening’s work), but the story keeps being interesting, and the central characters are very well done.
Studies are showing that increasing the minimum wage would reduce the deficit:
That’s great because Republicans want to reduce the deficit! So they’ll totally support this!
@Kathy:
I have never been as disappointed in a television adaptation of a book series as I was with this one. The only thing that travesty has in common with Adams’ wonderful books is the name.
@Kathy:
As a Hitchhiker’s fan, I read this book but was not overall that impressed, but I do remember the opening description of the Electric Monk. The key fact – rendered so much funnier by Adams – was that the Monk was wired around a video recorder which was set to record everything. The unfortunate intersection was that, as a monk, he was also programmed to believe everything.
@Joe:
I recall that part rather well. First the VCR was invented to watch TV so people wouldn’t have to, then the Electric Monk was developed to believe things people didn’t want to bother with. Or something like that.
I forget what was wrong with the specific Monk in the novel.
@Mikey: 30 years ago i loved Douglas Adams like my friends loved Lord of the Rings. But that Dirk Gently show was very disappointing.
@Teve: @Mikey: @Kathy:
I enjoyed Dirk, but Ive never read any of the books. I’ve been disappointed in every* Douglass or Pratchett adaptation, if I’ve read the books. The humor on the page just doesn’t translate well to the screen, and they do such a wonderful job of creating whole characters, seeing them played out on screen guarantees to disappoint.
So perhaps only seeing adaptations of the books you haven’t read is the key to enjoying them.
While I thought I was sick of all things Superheroes, I did start watching Doom Patrol this weekend on HBO Max, and that show is just delightful.
I was iffy until they introduced the celery-handed half man, half dinosaur, “Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man.” I was sold after that.
*Good Omens was almost the exception. If it werent for the fact that Ive re-read that book a dozen times, I probably would have had a less critical rye towards the mini series. Tennant and Sheen were just about perfect.
FBI agents injured in shootout in Sunrise, Florida
Light on details, but I know what my first thought was.
@Neil Hudelson:
Have you seen The Watch (Sunday nights on BBC America)? Adapted from the Discworld story arc of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch. It’s one of those where people who’ve read the books seem less happy than those who haven’t. (Too “cyberpunk,” apparently, or something.)
I haven’t, and I like it better than any of the other Pratchett adaptations I’ve seen.
@Joe:
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency stands out in my memory as the book that improved the most between the first time I read it and the second time I read it. I remember being blown away, over and over, by all of the little bits of foreshadowing and setup and embellishment that were going on and that I had totally missed the first time through. So, if you’ve only ever read it once, you might want to give it another go now that you know how it ends.
(In films, I had a similar experience with The Sixth Sense…)
…and now I’m musing about which book was the opposite, in which my opinion went down markedly on the second reading. I’ll have to think about that one.
The House impeachment managers have just put up their opening brief for the Senate trial.
https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/HOUSE-TRIAL-BRIEF-FINAL.pdf
It opens thusly:
Senate hearing for Merrick Garland’s nomination denied:
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/536874-graham-shoots-down-request-for-feb-8-merrick-garland-hearing
Groundhog Day is here. Again.
@OzarkHillbilly:
What was your first thought?
This is good: http://www.thebulwark.com/dare-trump-to-testify/
@sam:
I wonder what Trump did when he wandered off into the other room?
@Mikey:
I haven’t tried it. I adore the disc world series, and especially the Watch story line. The disc world world is quasi-Roman, quasi-Rennaissance. So when I read that the show was steampunkish, I noped out. I’m sure I’ll try it eventually but I don’t have high hopes.
Well, Ted Cruz is in deep, deep trouble with the MAGAnoids. He called Trump “reckless and irresponsible.”
From what I am reading now, my first thought was wrong. 😉
There’s been a lot of photons spilled to the fact we live in a golden age of TV, mostly due to the many, many, many offerings now available, and largely accessible, via the many, many, many streaming services.
This is true, but there’s a bigger factor at work: episodic television.
By this I mean many of the new streaming shows pretty much tell a single story during the season, rather than showing multiple stories as used to be the case. This leads to shorter seasons of 10-12 eps rather than 25-30 as in the old days. Some shows tell one story for the whole run of the series.
Fewer eps are both a function of the episodic nature, and partly due to the end of seasonality. Before streaming, a show had to cover the time between Fall and Summer (with a few breaks in between). That’s not relevant to streaming, which can be viewed any time.
A story per season is both more engaging, and more conductive to binge watching. It’s common to want more of a show when an episode ends, but you want it even more if you also want to see what happens next in the story.
I wonder how this would lend itself to faithful adaptations of novels. One drawback of adapting a novel into a two-hour movie, is that a lot of detail, character development, etc. has to be trimmed away. If you had between 7 and 8 hours to tell the novel, you’d be able to do better.
Apple is working on an adaptation of Asimov’s Foundation. I plan to see it as I’m able to.
it bears mentioning there were a few episodic shows prior to streaming, like Babylon 5 back in the mid to late 90s, but these were few.
@DrDaveT:
I have almost never read a book twice, with one major exception. I have read J.M. Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians at least 3 times. (I have not seen the recent movie, though I am curious.) The book, which is not overly long, imparts ideas and issues in a manner that is more experiential than explanatory. So, while I have trouble articulating what the book is really about – besides the plot line – I experience it again each time I read it.
@Kathy:
B5 is currently streaming on HBO Max (also available for download from Amazon and iTunes). The original negatives were scanned in 4K then downscaled to HD, while the original CGI was upscaled to HD (not fully re-done, just improved). Also it’s being streamed in 4:3 aspect ratio rather than the widescreen treatment it got on DVD that kinda sucked.
We’ve been watching it and it’s really cool to see so much detail in sets, makeup, and costumes that we just didn’t pick up in the original TV broadcast.
@Neil Hudelson: I’ll second the recommendation for the Doom Patrol TV series. It reproduced the combination of thoughtful and gonzo elements that made the comic book a hoot.
Back when I collected comics, the Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man issue of the original Doom Patrol was the first of that title I bought. How can you resist a cover like this? Again, totally gonzo, cool and silly at the same time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal-Vegetable-Mineral_Man?wprov=sfti1
@Kathy:
I think it MUCH improves it. Outlander, A Discovery of Witches, The White Queen/The White Princess/The Spanish Princess, American Gods, The Magicians, etc.*–all of these are based on novels that could never have been made into movies because you’d have to cut too much out. They are, however, just about perfect for series television.
Some things still need to change because visual is simply a different medium than print.
* I’ve left out Game of Thrones because although I read several of the books, I never watched the series, and The Expanse because although I’ve watched the series I never read the books. I have no idea how successfully those were adapted.
@Joe:
Wow, you have read the book 3 times…regardless of its relatively short length it is not light reading. I believe I read the novel for class at UC Santa Cruz when I was a student back in 1999/2000 and it is profoundly disquieting.
@Joe:
I finished a book last night (Hyperion) and had no clue what my next book should be. Just borrowed Waiting for the Barbarians on kindle and I’m excited to jump into it with no idea of what awaits me.
@Mikey:
I may get to it someday. I’d read about it, but didn’t know how it was upgreaded.
I do have the DVDs, and finished a rewatch only a few years ago. That goes a long way.
@Jen:
The expanse is one of the best adaptations I’ve seen. Both the tv and book series are equally enjoyable. The first season of the tv show starts a bit slowly, but hits its stride about midway.
@CSK:
Being his private dining room, he probably had a cheeseburger.
@Neil Hudelson:
Hyperion (I assume you mean the Dan Simmons novel?) has been waiting on my shelf for a decade. I have no idea why I never actually seem to be in the mood to start it. I have the same problem with The Dragon Never Sleeps. Even weirder, I have that problem with Record of a Spaceborn Few, even though I loved the first two books in that series.
@sam:
Make that a hamberder.
FBI Director Wray has identified the two agents killed in a shootout in Sunrise, FL this morning as SA Daniel Alfin and SA Laura Schwartzenberger. They were executing a search warrant on a child pornography suspect when they and three other agents were shot by that suspect. According to reports, the suspect then shot himself and is dead (may he rot in hell).
RIP to these brave agents and deepest sympathies to their families.
This feels like a throwback to last month. Trump really wants to go there.
Per the Guardian:
Is there a penalty for suborning perjury in a Senate Impeachment Trial? Because not only is there NO evidence at all for any kind of organized fraud that would change electoral results in five states, but there is overwhelming evidence of a fairly conducted election throughout.
The claim above could be amended to: “..upon which an irrational jurist inhabiting a paranoid fantasy land of conspiracies and lies..”
@Mikey:
I’m waiting for Marjorie Taylor Greene to label it a false flag operation to take away our guns. Some of the MAGAnoids at Lucianne.com have already done so.
@Kathy: B5 had a tightrope to walk. Since Most people at the time only watched a show when it aired and picked up missing episodes on reruns and therefore out of sequence, they had to make each episode incredibly strong has a stand-alone, but still meaningfully develop the overall arc. And do so in the kid friendly world of family hour broadcast. It was tough, but I think they pulled it off amazingly well.
Josh Marshall has a column on TPM where he expresses surprise at how quiet Trump has been the last few weeks. (Behind the paywall, so I won’t link.) I’m not at all surprised and in fact some of you may remember me describing the typical Trump fiasco. There are a few steps leading up to the inevitable ending: he storms off and disappears for some amount of time (depending on the humiliation) until he is ready for his next cockamamy scheme. In fact, I often remarked on how dangerous it was that he didn’t have that option as President, given he held the launch codes.
Sexy for MTG? (sfw)
@MarkedMan:
You know, the best move for Trump, first Impeachment and all, would have been not to run for reelection, claiming he didn’t have to because he accomplished so much in one term.
He’d have left with throngs of cultists begging him not to go, and he could have let some generic Republican lose to Biden.
Or maybe let some generic Republican beat Biden.
@Sleeping Dog: As I noted yesterday, I think Mitch is just making sure that he stays enough one of the “not bad/crazy ones” that Schumer doesn’t tell him to STFU every time he opens his mouth. He’s fine using MTGs political capital on entertaining the brutes so that he doesn’t have to.
@Kathy:
I was one of those who believed/hoped that Trump would resign out of boredom, frustration, and sheer laziness sometime toward the end of 2017. I didn’t grasp that he’d spend most of the day in bed eating hamberders, rage-tweeting, and watching tv. Sweet gig.
@Kathy:
You’re right, but you may as well say that a dog would be better off not going for the pile of ground beef dropped on the floor. It’s simply not in their nature to resist. Trump has never, ever, in his entire history of grandiose schemes ever quit while he was ahead. Would he have been better off if he had ended The Apprentice before it dropped to 118 in the ratings? Sure. But it was not in his nature. Would he have been better off if he had dropped his second casino rather than continue to have his properties compete against each other in a declining market? Sure, but that would have required at least a tacit admission that he was somehow wrong. Couldn’t happen. You could go on and on with the same type of logic through every fiasco he had. It’s about to happen again with the Trump hotel in DC. Would he have been better off selling it the day he became President? Absolutely. Is it about to go bankrupt? Without a doubt.
@MarkedMan:
Oh, I totally agree. If Trump did, even on occasion, that which was good for him, he wouldn’t need to fall upwards so much.
But it’s not just his inability to admit error. there’s also his inability to admit he lost, or that he didn’t or couldn’t win. I can’t think who was the last president who decided to quit after one term. Plenty have lost, Kennedy didn’t get the chance to run for reelection, and Johnson declined to seek his own second term. In the latter case, it was after serving the remainder of JFK’s term and one he won on his own, so it’s very different. Everyone else who did not die in office, at least attempted reelection. IN trump’s view, even “losers” like Ford, Carter, and Bush the elder.
@CSK:
“It’s good to be the King.”
@Kathy:
He saw himself as a king. Note all the references to “my generals,” “my secretary,” my this, my that. Everyone was his subject. Remember when he went around the room and forced all his cabinet to say how grateful they were to be working for him?
@CSK: He still sees himself as a king in regards to the mob who stormed the Capitol, I think. Essentially a Ramsey Bolton with a pack of vicious dogs under his control.
@CSK:
I’d say he saw himself as that kind of king, not just a king.
One peeve I had over the West Wing, is that Bartlett would often refer to “my state department,” or “my ships,” in a way that implied ownership rather than responsibility.
@Kathy:
Ownership rather than responsibility is the essence of Trump. He even told us so: “I take no responsibility.”
On other news today, Gamestop’s stock crashed, as did SpaceX’s latest Starship prototype. And Jeff Bezos announced he’ll step down as CEO of Amazon.
My students have decided that since there are no groundhogs here that it is Mongoose Day in Hawai’i and if the mongoose sees its shadow… six more weeks of rain.
@Jax:
I’ve no qualms at all in proclaiming the Orange Ass to be Donald King of the Covidiots and Emperor of the Maskholes, even if that discomfits Dom Jair or Manuel Andres. The latter were mere imitators of terrible and lazy policies, not the daring originators.
@Kathy: I don’t know if he ever watched Game of Thrones, but you can bet your ass Ramsey Bolton is exactly the kind of person he would’ve admired.
@Jax: Even though he’s far more like Joffrey (something GRRM has pointed out).
@Kylopod: I still have that episode saved for when I’m super-angry about politics. I binge-watched the entire series from New Year’s til about the 12th, I forgot how much stuff had happened! Also the scene from when Khal Drogo poured molten gold over Viserys’s face. If there was ever a Trump, Viserys was one of them. And when Ramsey got eaten by his dogs. And Little Finger’s death scene (totally Jared Kushner).
They did “a fitting death” right, I’ll give them that, even if they skated on the last season. 😉
@Jax:
One of my favorite deaths was Olenna Tyrell…”Tell Cersei. I want her to know it was me.” Even though she was the one about to die, she still won.
And Ramsey getting done in by his own dogs was the most poetic of justice.
@Mikey: Olenna’s who I want to be when I grow up.
@Mikey: I would absolutely be down for a whole ‘nother series based on Arya and “What’s West of Westeros?”
@Jax:
Such a great character and Diana Rigg (RIP) played her wonderfully.
We’re watching All Creatures Great and Small on PBS and she has a recurring role as a ridiculously wealthy woman with a too-plump little mop of a dog named Tricky-Woo.
TBH I’m kind of surprised that hasn’t already been announced.
@Mikey: COVID, I suspect. And not everybody’s willing to be a hard ass like our buddy EddieInCA. Maybe next year!
I’m in my late 50s and I wanna be Arya when I grow up.
Per the post pic, Stephen Tobolowsky (Ned) is a great character actor.
@Kathy: I’m old enough to remember when a miniseries was the new and preferred way to get a novel onto the screen – Roots, all those Richard Chamberlain vehicles (he was actually Jason Bourne FFS), etc.