Sunday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Sunday, August 23, 2020
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81 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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The headline of the day-
Oh, great: NASA says an asteroid is headed our way right before Election Day
@Bill:
Info on it is scarce, but it seems to be too small, about 2 meters, to worry about.
@Bill: @Kathy:
The chance it will strike anywhere on earth appears to be quite small.
@CSK: @Kathy: Damn. Here I was hoping for Mar-a-Lago.
@OzarkHillbilly:
It’s truly amazing how often that locale and the White House have been suggested. I’d add the Trump National Golf Club in Virginia. He seems to spend most of his days there.
@OzarkHillbilly:
If it was, President Trump would want to fire a nuke or two off in order to destroy it.
Like in this film.
It appears Trump didn’t feed his guests after his brother’s White House funeral. One of them punched a waiter in the nose at the Fig and Olive restaurant in D.C. after being politely informed that the place could not seat a party of twelve.
The Florida headline of the day-
A Florida landlord got a big PPP loan. Tenants get rats, mold and evictions.
Last week, our Air conditioning began to act up. I had to call the realtor (His name is Alex) who represents the owner of our condo. Two hours later I got a surprise phone call. Alex was downstairs in the lobby and wanted to come in. No problem.
At the place we lived at from 2015-2019, the property manager had a habit of letting herself in unannounced. She did that one time to us while I was barely dressed. The property manager said our door was dirty*. What a crock of shit.
*- Not too long before we moved out, I heard a similar exchange between the property manager and one of our neighbors. If she was caught by a tenant, the property manager uses this excuse for her entry.
@CSK: I like the White House, it’s the current resident I can’t stand. Even if he wasn’t at M-a-L, the destruction of his pride and joy would please me to no end.
@Bill: Yep.
@Bill: That’s called “breaking and entering”.
@OzarkHillbilly:
I know. Landlords aren’t just allowed to walk in without notice.
Our financial condition was terrible (Me unable to work, Lots of medical bills) in the middle of the last decade. I was struggling with my cancer too. Our mortgage lender began foreclosure proceedings in 2009 but due to the bungling of multiple attorneys and a little bit of clever pro se work by me, it took almost 6 years for us to lose in court. We got a LITC apartment not far from where we previously lived and even closer to the wife’s work. The residents were ok, but I hardly got to know most of them. The Landlady was a piece of work. Loud, vulgar, and with a Napoleonic complex.
I complained about some issues in the summer of 2018. Next thing I know, I get a letter from her prohibiting me and my wife (Who was totally uninvolved with me complaining) from ever coming in the office again. When our lease was next up for renewal, they gave us the boot.
To make a long story short( I could go on for a long time about the property manager) we moved out in late March 2019. To our condo where the rent is almost $150 less a month and we get free television. So we’re saving $250 a month here. That pain in the ass landlady did us a favor.
@Bill:
All things being equal, I’d prefer an asteroid to the Former Reality Show Hosts reelection.
@Bill: Here’s to being in a better place.
This is kickass.
Sadly, this looks to become a regular thing: in winter, our guys go to Oz, and in summer, their guys come here.
Portland police stand by as Proud Boys and far-right militias flash guns and brawl with antifa counterprotesters
“Some of those who work forces
Are the same that burn crosses”
–Rage Against the Machine, “Killing in the Name”
World class leadership.
ETA: “The Americans were actually being over the top in their ridiculousness,” one diplomat said.
“The underlying point here is that most countries on the security council basically agree with the US that Iran is not a nice country and it having nuclear weapons and more arms is not a good thing,” the diplomat said. “But the Americans misplayed their hand so often, so aggressively, that they isolated themselves from people not on policy, but on just being unpleasant.”
@sam: Damn.
@Mikey: And people wonder why some are crying to defund the police.
@OzarkHillbilly:
The odds just suck. The Earth’s surface of about 500 million square kilometres. As big as a golf field is, you’re still talking one in hundred’s of millions. Still better odds than hitting the lottery, but lousy odds just the same.
FY everybody’s I, that is a Canadian plane and crew. Apparently, those guys are world-renowned for this kind of flying. In fact, I just learned that an Italian word for that kind of plane/crew is Canadair: Saranno tre i Canadair operativi in Sardegna Art.
@Kathy: If it doesn’t get wiped out by a hurricane first, I’ll just have to wait for the rising oceans to swallow it then.
Back from a week at the lake with no phone service and very sketchy internet available only at the main building, so basically no politics. It was wonderful.
During the very long drive back I started thinking about ultimate jams. In this definition, they have to be from a band known predominantly for set pieces rather than jams, so my 15 or so live versions of The Grateful Dead’s “Franklin’s Tower” don’t count. It has to be live. It has to be long, say 8 minutes plus. And it has to hold the musical thread the whole way, meaning it can’t be just displays of technical wizardry by the performers. So far I have two: “Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue” by the Duke Ellington Orchestra at the Newport Jazz Festival, and “Mountain Jam” by the Allman Brothers from “Eat a Peach”.
I’m going to re-listen to the last disc of Harrison’s triple album “All Things Must Pass”, now that I’ve figured out that “Apple Jams” is the name of disk and not the name of any of the jams found on it. (I wisely decided against doing internet searches while driving through the mountains of central PA.) If I remember my four decades ago headphone listening sessions, at least one might qualify.
Any other suggestions? Especially newer stuff or pieces from non-rock groups?
According to HuffPost, Trump Told Homeland Security To Take Its Orders From Lou Dobbs
@MarkedMan: I was going to suggest something from the Allman Brothers but you already got there. I probably would have gone with “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” from the Fillmore East album, tho really the whole album is so damn good any of the jams would rank.
@OzarkHillbilly: I think I’d go with “You Don’t Love Me/Soul Serenade” from that same album. Great jam, and anything that involves King Curtis (even tangentially) is a good thing.
@Jon: You could play ‘Pin the Tail on the Donkey’ with that album and never miss.
@OzarkHillbilly: Touché 🙂
Also, too short but the version of “I’m Going Home” by Ten Years After on the woodstock album is pretty great. And “Dear Mr. Fantasy” on ‘Welcome to the Canteen’ by Traffic. Guess I’m about to lose some time this morning to nostalgia. Better than worrying about two hurricanes I reckon.
@Jon: Oh yes… I remember those and I’ll give them a listen. Thanks.
There’s a great article in the WaPo by Michael Kranish entitled “In Secretly Recorded Audio, President’s Sister Says He Has ‘No Principles’ and ‘You Can’t Trust Him.'”
Apparently Mary Trump secretly recorded Mary Anne Trump Barry (the judge) saying some very unpleasant things about her younger bro.
There are numerous other versions of this article elsewhere. It’s a good read. I predict another rift in the Trump family.
@MarkedMan: I was thinking I would have to exclude Hendrix’s “Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)” from Electric Ladyland because it wasn’t live, but just read it was recorded “live” when some TV crew asked the Experience to “act like they were playing music” so they could get footage.
Here’s what the master of “make every note count” says about it:
@MarkedMan: Well, what about ‘Machine Gun’ from Band of Gypsys? It’s for sure live, and Hendrix at some of his best.
And of course for super tight jams there is always Vulfpeck, especially that Madison Square Garden show.
And for jazzier stuff (of a more modern bent) you can look on youtube for any of the man live sets involving Henrik Linder and Federico Malaman, but a lot of those don’t meet the 8 minute minimum. Still, two crazy great bassists blowing it up, even if Henrik is an odd looking dude.
@DrDaveT:
According to the conversation Mary Trump secretly recorded having with Judge Mary Anne Trump Barry, Trump expressed amazement that Barry didn’t watch Fox and that she read (gasp) books.
@Jon: Heh, ‘man live’ should ready ‘many live’. At least I hope that’s what I meant.
@MarkedMan: If you’ve never listened to that Newport Jazz version of the Ellington piece mentioned above, I highly recommend grabbing a cup of coffee and sitting someplace quiet and giving it a whirl. The background, as I understand it, was that Ellington’s career was flagging as he transitioned into an “old master”, someone to be respected but not necessarily worth seeing over the new crowd. He had a reputation for incredibly orchestrated and tightly performed pieces but Jazz was evolving differently. The first few minutes of the piece starts out according to this reputation, something to be admired but not raved about. But after the first chorus of the sax solo, something happens. Ellington waves Gonzalez on and he ramps up the tempo. Ellington waves him on again ( I think I figured out the musical cue he uses), and again. After a half dozen choruses of the solo, you can hear the crowd shift, as they seemingly realize they were no longer simply enjoying an old master but had become part of an event. Gonzalez did 27 choruses in all. From Wikipedia:
@CSK:
Here’s the link to the WP piece.
I’m not responsible if there’s a paywall.
@Kathy:
Thanks very much. I don’t think there is a paywall, but if there is, you can get around it by clearing your cookies.
@sam:
This is not as unusual as you think. I was in Switzerland, doing some snowboarding and met a couple that were ski instructors.
As I was a ski/snowboard instructor in my spare time, I asked about how they deal with seasonality. Their response was that it was a nearly all year job.
Switzerland winter — two weeks in Bora Boa — Winter in New Zealand – Two weeks in Bora Bora. Repeat.
It was then I realized that my life sucked. 🙂
The Hu – Reynolds turned me on to them – have been a daily rotation thing since almost a year now. Mongolian throat singing metal. It is mental and bonkers awesome.
I can now do throat singing pretty easily, although it takes a second to kick in because you are trained not to do that.
You have relax your center while pushing with your diaphram. It’s not hard to do once you figure out what bits to relax and which to flex. It does take practice.
I am now hooked on Mongolian throat singing.
Now Kurtz turned me on to reaction videos.
I found on my own dime vocal coach react videos.
Vocal coach reacts to The Hu’s Wolf Totem made my weekend.
@OzarkHillbilly: If she uses a key, it’s only illegal entry as she doesn’t have to “break” anything. Just as illegal, but avoids the dismissal for an improper accusation.
If she uses a key but kicks open the door out of spite to damage it, that would be vandalism, I think.
@de stijl: How’d your tree cleanup go?
If you like big band jazz, you could check out Randy Sandke on Youtube. There are numerous links; if I post them I’ll get put in the moderation corner.
@MarkedMan: The first thing that came to mind for me was “Compared to What.” The original song is, apparently by Eddie Harris and Les McCann, but I used to listen to a version by Bryan Auger.
But it’s been a long time since I did music seriously, so I don’t know whether these meet your definition.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: That was amazing! Looks like I’ll be going down a McCann / Harris rabbit hole. Thanks!
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Something interesting happened two or three Saturdays before we moved out. Dear Wife went to the store and I thought about going too but stayed home. It is good I did.
I was seated at our dining table using my laptop when I heard noise coming from the front door. So I went to check. One of the maintenance men was trying to open the door.
The maintenance man apologized and left. He came to building 2 by mistake rather than 1 or 3 (I forget which).
What are the problems with this
1- The maintenance men don’t work on the weekends.
2- How can you mistake building 2 for building 1 or 3? The buildings are distinct.
3- A gay couple had moved out a couple of weeks earlier. Like us, their lease hadn’t been renewed and they had issues with the Property Manager. One of them was a Filipina like my wife. They told dear wife somebody had come into their apartment just recently and trashed it when they were out working and their child was in school.
A couple of quickies about this property manager.
1- In August 2018 I came to the office to drop off the rent check. She gave me a hard time. What for? I paid by check. Just like every month since we moved there.
2- She never gives a copy of the lease unless it is asked for.
3- In a community bulletin she says rent is late if not paid as soon as the 2nd of the month. The lease says rent isn’t overdue till the 6th.
4- After we moved out, she returned part of our deposit minus a $300 pet charge. We had our cat when moving in and paid a pet deposit upfront. It took a certified letter with multiple threats to get the $300 back.
The woman is a fraudster too.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
“Compared to What” was written by Gene McDaniels, I think. Robert Flack had an excellent version that I can only describe as “brooding.”
@CSK: She does do “brooding” vocals well, doesn’t she?
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
I do think she does (actually, she does any vocal well). “Brooding” might seem like a peculiar word choice, but it was the best descriptor for her version of this song, it seemed to me. Perhaps “bitter’ as well.
@Bill:
Since I am motivated entirely be spite, I would have been paying my rent on the 5th.
I’ve been pretty lucky to not have a landlord like that since college.
I’ve also tried to screen for them. While chatting during the initial look at the place, ask about neighbors and mention a bad neighbor you had at one place — every landlord has a bad tenant story, and will start telling it, and you can really tell a lot from their tone if they’re awful, aggrieved, entitled people.
@OzarkHillbilly:..If it doesn’t get wiped out by a hurricane first, I’ll just have to wait for the rising oceans to swallow it then.
Don’t forget Vlad.
@Jax:
Slow and expensive as fu… heck!
Crikey, that was thousands of dollars I did not expect to spend two weeks ago.
It did get me thinking that I could just eliminate those trees and add a new section with a breezeway. Ups the resale value.
When a derecho decimates your yard, make lemonade.
@Mister Bluster:
Speaking of Vlad, do you know what night he’ll be speaking at the R’s convention? I’m sure he wants to endorse Donnie.
Compared to What from the album Swiss Movement recorded live in 1969 at the Montreux Jazz Festival is one of my all time favorites.
Les McCann
Donald Dean
Leroy Vinnegar
Benny Bailey
Eddie Harris
Church on Sunday, sleep and nod
Tryin’ to duck the wrath of God
Preacher’s fillin’ us with fright
They all tryin’ to teach us what they think is right
They really got to be some kind of nut (I can’t use it!)
Tryin’ to make it real, compared to what?
I don’t know whether the Covington Kid and the Fat Lawyers Pointing Guns At Protestors are going to make the Republican Convention more of a shit show or less of a shit show than all the other speakers.
I thought the point of people like Matt Gates and Jim Jordan was that you take a thirty second clip broadcast it far and wide, but never let anyone see them for more than three minutes. And why are they snubbing Louie Gohmert?
@Sleeping Dog:..what night?..
@MarkedMan:
Well, this certainly isn’t new, and it’s probably rock (although very Latin influenced), but it’s an absolutely incredible jam my late father introduced me to in my teens, so it’s dear to me.
Santana – Soul Sacrifice, Woodstock 1969
Given that Maryanne Trump Barry’s revelations about her revolting brother is one of the top stories everywhere today, I thought I’d check what Cult45 was saying about it over at Lucianne.com. Nothing. It’s as if the story doesn’t exist. I suppose they figure if they ignore it, it’ll go away. Some sites, like Hot Air, they deal with any criticism of Trump not by refuting it (they can’t) but by screaming gross insults at the critic.
Interesting way of dealing, or not dealing, with the issue.
This is worse than humping naked bears:
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
@MarkedMan: On John Fogarty’s “Centerfield” album, he has a number called “Zanz Can’t Dance.” It’s about a con man who attracts a crowd, then distracts them while his trained pig (Zanz) proceeds to steal purses. It seems curiously apropos for 2020.
19-year-old progressive candidate for the Kansas legislature Aaron Coleman has dropped out of the race after it came to light that he had bullied and sexually assaulted several female classmates.
Writes Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns & Money:
Link. And hat tip to Gustopher, who made some very similar observations about this yesterday.
ETA: Oh snap! One commenter at LGM writes: “it isn’t too late for Aaron Coleman to get an invite to speak at the Republican National Convention, is it?”
@Just nutha ignint cracker: Tomato, tomahto, IANAL but I know that if one enters somebody else’s home w/o permission, a law has been broken.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Unlawful entry can be either a misdemeanor or a felony, depending on the circumstances. If I were a landlord or property manager, I would be sure to make myself familiar with ever aspect of the law. I’d do that if I were a renter.
@CSK: If I was a landlord I’d make myself familiar with how trigger happy my tenants were.
@CSK:
I barely mentioned him earlier but our current landlord Alex is almost the complete reverse of our old one. Until last week, I hadn’t seen Alex since the first week we were moved in here or over 16 months ago. We email or talk on the phone very infrequently. Alex has a very upbeat attitude. He uses the word ‘awesome’ regularly and doesn’t come off as insincere.
The owners, their last name is Vargas, we have never met or ever had any contact with. Before us, this condo was almost like a BNB*. The homeowner’s association was happy to have regular tenants instead of people coming and going.
We still get mail for one of the prior tenants. He has problems. Namely unpaid fines and auto insurance getting canceled. They never put in a forwarding order for their mail.
I’ve told Alex if the Vargas put the condo up for sale, to contact us. We could buy it with a help of a loan but in a couple of years (Five years at worst and if my health don’t crash) I will have the money* to buy it out right.
*- Before agreeing to rent, we asked all the locks be changed. They were.
**- I’m hoarding my ebook money and the sale of the film rights to one book has caused a very nice uptick in my royalties despite the pandemic.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Yes, that would be wise.
@Bill:
I’m very glad to hear of your income uptick, especially given what you’ve been through.
@Bill: “The Condo That Dung Beetles Bought” has a nice ring to it.
@Mikey: oh yeah, that definitely goes on the list. I disqualified the “Dawn/Go Within” jam from a few years later as being too short.
@Mister Bluster:
Leroy Vinnegar is one bad-ass name.
@Bill: Before agreeing to rent, we asked all the locks be changed.
Always ALWAYS change the locks. Keys float.
@Jon: “Band of Gypsies” was a revelation for me in my teenage years. I think even then it made me realize Hendrix was like no other. There are great musicians who were influenced by him (Robin Trower and Stevie Ray Vaughan) but Hendrix’s genius is not translatable. Like Monk or the Dead or Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli, he just heard things in a different way and immediately translated that to his fingers.
Off the top of my head I can think of four albums where someone played with musicians from another genre and really made something unique: “Band of Gypsy’s” – Hendrix and jazz; “Astral Weeks”; Van Morrison and Jazz,;”Try!”, John Mayer and blues, and “Rock Swings”, Paul Anka and rock. That last one is a bit more of a mixed bag, but I prefer his (very different) versions of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and “Wonderwall” to the originals, and I consider the originals classics.
@Jon: Oh my god, how did I not know about Vulfpeck?! They are completely my jam!! And expressly not from my early years. Thanks!
I don’t know if you know Doc Watson but he was a hill country musical genius with the guitar, an absolute legend. Not just musically but humanly, his kindness and humility showed thru in everything he did. I don’t know how many times I saw him play, at least 6, maybe a dozen times. (I never got to Merle Fest, so much my loss) and he put on the best show I ever saw.
It was in a rundown small town theater on the banks of the Missouri river and he had Doctor John as his opening act. Doctor John put on his usual excellent New Orleans style blues/jazz/rock show, as one would expect. After that Doc came on stage and did that which only he could do.
And then…. Pure musical magic happened. Doc called the Doctor on stage and the 2 of them played together… I’m really not sure how to describe what transpired on that stage except to say I had never heard anything quite like it before nor since. It was like they were speaking to each other in a language only they knew but all could hear.
I was truly blessed that night.
@Gustopher:
Really is the StL get off my lawn lawyer guy gonna be a speaker?
I am not much to criticize clothing choices and this was in his mind a needs must thing and rushed outside, but a pink polo shirt undercuts authority.
The unnerving bit was wife pointing her pistol directly at people. Girl needs training.
If that is who they are bringing to the RNC, good luck on convincing independents.
If reactionary obvious assholes are your featured speakers, good fucking luck guys!
Whiny snowflakes.
One of those “so called judges” appointed by Trump:
One of the first things that Obama did was in service to amity and concordance is we are going to ignore and move past Bush era malfeasance.
At the time I thought it the prudent move (although it annoys me those folks can function and fund raise as if they are not branded as war criminals).
In retrospect, perhaps we needed a truth commission and doled punishment where deserved. Stamp it out.
In the post-Trump world I know I want a thorough cleansing and reckoning for those that monkeyed with the Russians for electoral advantage.
That has to be addressed and corrected at a minimum.
And USPS monkey shines designed to tilt an election. That is criminal. And extraordinarily unfair and un-American.
That shit is spooky and scary. We gotta nip this down.
As to the stupid ass Q and blatant racism authoritarianism trends, those folks have to deal with their own shit. If you want to shoot yourself in the foot, I’m not gonna stop you. Fire away, fire away.
If you want to self-destrust, good riddance to bad rubbish.
She ran out of lies to tell.
Kellyanne Conway leaving White House
When I was 20 I would not predicted that I could be such a Sia stan.
Nor that “stan” was a noun.
I was such an idiot. Ignoring important things – actively avoiding them, and hyperfocused on things that were ephemeral and I kinda sucked at.
The most punk rock thing I ever did was to acquire enough capital to have “Fuck you” money. I had to eat shit for years to get there. Not eating that shit would have meant I was powerless and had no right to determine how I spent my days.
Scrubbing toilets for grocery money was a path I could have chosen and just screamed at the world. It is not a bad path, but it does mean you always have a boss.
Nah, man. Gotta pass on that gig. Not my speed and vibe. Ask me next time, though.
Do not want the big house. Do not want the big yard. Or the infinity pool.
Big stuff means you have to interact with strangers just to maintain your shit.
Nah, man.
The New Yorker writes with a “Dems are too prepared/Dems in Array!” article,
Did the Democratic National Convention Go Too Smoothly?
The thing that gets me about this article are staatements like this one:
The implication that inviting Republican speakers in, or a holding a smooth convention, means that Democrats don’t know what we value or will fight for is nonsense. One of the things that impressed me most about the convention was that even while they had Republican speakers sharing why they were going to support Biden/Harris, the Democrats made clear their positions and didn’t compromise. We support universal healthcare; affordable childcare and higher education; renewable energy and fighting climate change; unions and living wage jobs; welcoming immigrants; gun control; following science and respecting the expertise of scientists; embracing diversity and Black Lives Matter. And even though this didn’t get a major segment, several speakers mentioned support for a woman’s right to choose and Planned Parenthood. Not once did I hear the Democrats say they would support any typical Republican policies, apart from “support our allies and stand up to dictators” (which has long been the policy of both parties, but not Trumpers).
Rick Astley does a sick version of Titanium.
I know Rick Astley! But. I am not rollin’ you.
No way that voice comes outta that man’s body, but it does.
Apparently I look like him. Multiple people have said so.
Chandelier is a very honest reckoning of how alcohol can seduce an introvert into reckless behavior. Subvert anxiety temporarily. Just for tonight.
How intoxication can mimic extroversion and “normality”.
How it can make you do great and stupid things.
I have lived that experience.
Fake it until you make it has some appliance, but for anxiety prone folks it often leads to dependence or flat out alcoholism.
You try to be the person you want to be. You use alcohol to lower your inhibitions and fit in.
Just for tonight.
We want to be normal. I do not want to be like this.
Just for tonight.
Why has everybody forgot Jimmy Eat World?
They’re fucking awesome.
Sweetness is kick ass.
They cover GBV.
Y’all are slacking.
I have been plugging “Hey, Ya” as song of the century so far.
But.
The Hives, man. Hate To Say I Told You So is fucking great.
I might reconsider.