I’m interested in Neo’s opinion of Liz Truss, the UK’s new PM, because she appears to have a change story similar to Neo’s: Truss, who was born in Oxford and lived in Scotland in her early years, is the daughter of a left-wing math professor and a nurse. Her parents would take her on anti-Thatcher protests when she was a child where she remembers screaming: “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie — out, out, out!” Truss revealed in a 2018 speech that she started developing her own conservative political views early on and would often argue “against my socialist parents in our left-wing household.” Her family moved to Leeds in northern England, where she attended a public high school, and she then studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University. She joined the Conservative Party after graduating, which she later recalled as being “distinctly unfashionable” at the time.
The outrageously biased and incompetent John Harwood finally gets some accountability. I’d like to share a Harwood family story.
In 1993, I happened to be watching C-Span’s panel discussion on a remarkably silly opinion piece by long time purveyor of Beltway liberal conventional wisdom, David Broder. Despite lots and lots of former Dem operatives who were employed at the time by network news, he was very concerned that former Republican aides were being hired by the growing number of cable news and discussion shows (to balance against Democrats). He was very concerned that viewers might be confused into thinking that the GOP opinions were factual news.
The panel included Hodding Carter (Miss. journalist who worked as Carter Admin State Dept spokesman during Iran Hostage crisis). Also either Mona Charen or Linda Chavez (my best guess is Chavez). Perhaps Tony Snow (I just can’t remember. He’d have been perfect given his role in Bush admin as a speechwriter and his background in newspapers, but maybe my friendship has affected my memory). Six panelists in total I think.
All the panelists from both sides dismissed Broder’s concerns and assured viewers that they were convinced these people would behave professionally. The last one to speak was John Harwood’s father, William, who was soon to retire from his post as ombudsman/editor (or whatever they call it at the WaPo) and he veered wildly off the narrative.
Right from the start he said something to the effect that news media had always been biased and partisan throughout his career. He went to Vandy and his first job was with the Tennessean in Nashville. He said his very first assignment was to write a political speech for a Democrat candidate for legislature named Branstetter. [This really got my attention because I had a Vandy Law classmate with that last name whose father was a senior partner in a Nashville law firm.] His second assignment was to cover the speech and write the news account for the paper. He humorously remarked that he thought it was the best political speech he’d ever heard. His third assignment as a journalist was to write the endorsement editorial for Branstetter. Of course, zero transparency from the paper about the involvement on behalf of the candidate.
He then characterized news coverage throughout his career as being similarly partisan. IIRC, the broadcast quickly wrapped up with the rest of the panel appearing stunned that he’d pulled back the curtain.
BTW — Long time readers of that paper wouldn’t be surprised. The paper has been involved in some really outrageous partisanship. The editor, John Seigenthaler, was an RFK aide at Justice. He was so loyal to the Kennedys that he hosted a fundraiser for Teddy immediately after he announced his prez candidacy in 1980. And when the Feds raided the corrupt local sheriff, he took the call from Fed Appeals Judge Merritt with the heads up to call the sheriff to warn him. Seigenthaler made the warning call and the sheriff was busy destroying evidence when the FBI agents showed up. Pretty much what we expect of Democrats — a federal judge and newspaper editor/publisher obstructing justice for the team. The morality and ethics of all actions are determined by Lenin’s metric of whether they help the revolution.
Imagine if you could instantly generate a piece of art by simply typing out a description. There’s been some fairly significant advances in image generation from text using AI. The basic idea is that a system is “trained” with thousands of images. So for example if you wanted to generate a picture of a labrador retriever, you could feed the system all sorts of images of labradors. With that information it could generate a completely novel image.
Immediately this new tech used to generate porn… because of course.
Please do not watch Ken Burn’s latest documentary-like, TV-miniseries- “The U.S. and The Holocaust”.
In the mini series, Burns seems to compare [Trump’s immigration policies and tight borders polices, when Trump was President], to the restrictive…US Government polices, during the WW2 period.
This is unfair.
I dislike saying it but, from what I’ve learned- 1) most countries around the world cared mostly for themselves and not others, and protecting themselves, until people starting being concerned for foreign countries, around the 1920s,
and-
2) most countries around the world cared mostly for themselves and not others, and protecting themselves, until people started to try and- learn about other countries, + started to listen about other countries’ problems, and started to try and help other countries with their problems, [in the 1960s, and after].
In my view- yes, it is hard to realize, and absorb that people from the past, including past-people from our nations, did not do things as “perfectly” as we would want them to do them today.
This mini series is, in my view, created and written out of muddled hindsight.
“People could have done more for European immigrants + European-Jewish immigrants, in WW2”.
Sure thing, most people look at their past, occaisionally, and wish that they’d done more positive things.
And to follow that idea- and if I had gotten more into lifting weights when I was 14, maybe I’d have stronger biceps, than I do now. I can’t change the past, nor do I blame myself for my failings in the past.
We can’t go back into the past, and re-do it, into a better thing.
Rather than trying to blame people or nations for not doing- some “what-might-have-beens”, that “could have made things better”, I’d rather help European-Jewish people NOW…as best I can, and help ALL people NOW…as best I can, rather than trying to point fingers of blame, at the people in the past.
Yesterday is over. Please focus on building good things for today, and for the future.
TR:
It is indeed a bad analogy. People fleeing what Trump called “shithole” countries are not analogous to people fleeing certain death from the Holocaust. What’s more, the former group have the world to choose from, whereas the latter group were barred from going anywhere.
Ridiculous analogy, actually, but a common one from liberals and the left.
Kevin Burns a “historian,” much like that woman who made films in 1930’s Germany is an artist. Some people consider her work significant cinematography and artful, if only she had made some documentaries about the camps, they wouldn’t have such a bad rap, eh, Kevin?
And heeeere we go:
“New Mexico judge removes Cowboys for Trump founder from elected office over role in Jan. 6;
“The ruling states the county commissioner will in the future not be unable to hold any elected state or federal positions.”— https://justthenews.com/government/local/new-mexico-judge-removes-cowboys-trump-founder-elected-office-over-role-jan-6
Opening grafs:
‘ANew Mexico judge on Tuesday removed Cowboys for Trump founder Couy Griffin from his elected position as county commissioner over his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
‘Griffin, who was convicted of trespassing in connection with the 2021 riot was removed as a result of a lawsuit that claimed he violated the Constitution by participating in an “insurrection.”…’
Might that be the “Insurrection” that the FBI claimed showed no signs of being an insurrection….?
(Heh, good thing that Ray Epps—Mr. Who? Moi?—and his pals removed all those barriers from around the Capitol so that those poor soon-to-be-framed political prisoners could just wander in quietly with a welcome from the Capitol Police, isn’t it….?!)
Ann Althouse has a glorious “OK-so-what-if-I’m-naive?!” moment.
‘…“I wish President Biden would support investigating the security of the mechanisms of American elections instead of demonizing the millions of people who feel skeptical….” https://instapundit.com/541105/
Well…good for her!
(Of course it could be that she’s just being a bit ironic…)
So the word is that Nancy Pelosi is hoping to be ambassador to Italy once she loses the speakership in November. She can go to Rome and pretend to be Catholic all day long.
I’d recommend she go to Mt. Etna, the higher the better.
(Of course it could be that [Althouse’s] just being a bit ironic…)
Barry Meislin:
I read Althouse for a while, but I never got her irony calibrated. Nor how she sorted her politics.
She taught law at UW-Madison. She voted for Obama. She was doctrinaire second-wave feminist. But she also pricked liberal/progressive bubbles routinely.
Perhaps most tellingly, she wound up with a mostly conservative comment section.
How does that all add up?
huxley:
Here’s how I see Althouse’s appeal. She like to surprise people; keep them on their toes, say the unexpected in an unexpected way. She also doesn’t tend to say things in a straightforward way but rather a somewhat playful way so that people are never quite sure where she stands. That can be entertaining. She has eclectic interests. And as you say, she’s not afraid to step outside the liberal box, either, so she’s hardly woke or PC. Conservatives are the ones most likely to appreciate her particular quirks and strengths.
Re: Colour Word Origins
I’ve been in a Chicago state of mind lately.
I can’t read that title without flashing back to Chicago’s song, “Colour My World,” on their second album:
I’m enough of a maniac to want to know why the Brit spelling, “Colour.”
James Pankow, the songwriter, a trombone player and founding member of the band, was an American from St. Louis. Maybe James was spelling-challenged.
Weirdly, I saw the name Pankow and thought of Ira, actor Paul Reiser’s brother in the “Mad About You” sitcom.
Son of a gun, James Pankow is the older brother of John Pankow who played Ira in “Mad About You.”
You’ve now learned something you had no need of knowing.
Did not know that , its got a different tempo to other chicago signs i vaguely remember the original ones that leonid and friends cover but the cetera ones stick out more
neo:
Sounds reasonable.
I suspect Althouse may be more in the game for attention than pursuing truth or partisan gain. She’s killed off her comment section a couple of times now, only to bring it back.
That’s OK.
Every little star must shine.
It’s the French spelling (as are most if not all of those “_ou_” words (e.g., dolour, succour, rumour, etc.) and “_re” endings (e.g., centre). You’ll also find these spellings in Canada, Australia, NZ and other Commonwealth (or former Commonwealth) countries.
(I guess one could blame, you know, William the Conqueror…or maybe King Harold…or both(?))
huxley,
I knew the Pankow’s were brothers, but how and why I cannot relate, lest the real Rufus behind my nom de plume (nom de la machine à écrire?) is revealed*.
*I don’t want to oversell it. I have never met either brother, but I have a close friend who has a very tangible tie to their upbringing. (And, although I am a big fan of Chicago’s early stuff, and trombone is one of the instruments I play, I loathe “Colour my World.”)
Miguel cervantes,
Not only is the tempo painstakingly slow, it’s such a bleeding simple song! What a 1st year, 11 year old piano student would come up with after studying arpeggios for a week. Sometimes simple can be great (“Fur Elise”), but sometimes simple is just rudimentary and immature. Even the lyrics. Junior High stuff.
And it’s so out of place from a rock band that did such complex (for rock) arrangements. But then Peter Cetera joined the band and it became painfully obvious that the group was fully capable of embracing Junior High chords, melodies and lyrics.
I haven’t read a lot of Ann Althouse’s stuff, but Glenn Reynolds famously link(ed) to her very frequently, especially in his early days. Often a quote or headline at Instapundit would convince me to “read the whole thing,” as Glenn often suggests. When I would click over to her site and read her full posts I was almost always disappointed.
I don’t know much about her, but she struck me as someone who (unlike neo) did not have the courage of her convictions. So much so that she wouldn’t even draw her own convictions to their obvious conclusions.
Rufus T. Firefly:
One more impression I have of Ann Althouse. I don’t know her personally, so it’s just a sense I get from her writing. I think that, if you’re ever read Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, her writing conjures up his idea of lightness as opposed to heaviness.
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I’m interested in Neo’s opinion of Liz Truss, the UK’s new PM, because she appears to have a change story similar to Neo’s: Truss, who was born in Oxford and lived in Scotland in her early years, is the daughter of a left-wing math professor and a nurse. Her parents would take her on anti-Thatcher protests when she was a child where she remembers screaming: “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie — out, out, out!” Truss revealed in a 2018 speech that she started developing her own conservative political views early on and would often argue “against my socialist parents in our left-wing household.” Her family moved to Leeds in northern England, where she attended a public high school, and she then studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University. She joined the Conservative Party after graduating, which she later recalled as being “distinctly unfashionable” at the time.
https://nypost.com/2022/09/05/who-is-britains-new-prime-minister-liz-truss/
She is the first PM with the same first name as the reigning monarch since George Canning during the reign of George IV.
Big woop
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2022/09/06/for-first-time-ever-no-top-uk-government-posts-will-be-held-by-white-men-says-forecast/
The outrageously biased and incompetent John Harwood finally gets some accountability. I’d like to share a Harwood family story.
In 1993, I happened to be watching C-Span’s panel discussion on a remarkably silly opinion piece by long time purveyor of Beltway liberal conventional wisdom, David Broder. Despite lots and lots of former Dem operatives who were employed at the time by network news, he was very concerned that former Republican aides were being hired by the growing number of cable news and discussion shows (to balance against Democrats). He was very concerned that viewers might be confused into thinking that the GOP opinions were factual news.
The panel included Hodding Carter (Miss. journalist who worked as Carter Admin State Dept spokesman during Iran Hostage crisis). Also either Mona Charen or Linda Chavez (my best guess is Chavez). Perhaps Tony Snow (I just can’t remember. He’d have been perfect given his role in Bush admin as a speechwriter and his background in newspapers, but maybe my friendship has affected my memory). Six panelists in total I think.
All the panelists from both sides dismissed Broder’s concerns and assured viewers that they were convinced these people would behave professionally. The last one to speak was John Harwood’s father, William, who was soon to retire from his post as ombudsman/editor (or whatever they call it at the WaPo) and he veered wildly off the narrative.
Right from the start he said something to the effect that news media had always been biased and partisan throughout his career. He went to Vandy and his first job was with the Tennessean in Nashville. He said his very first assignment was to write a political speech for a Democrat candidate for legislature named Branstetter. [This really got my attention because I had a Vandy Law classmate with that last name whose father was a senior partner in a Nashville law firm.] His second assignment was to cover the speech and write the news account for the paper. He humorously remarked that he thought it was the best political speech he’d ever heard. His third assignment as a journalist was to write the endorsement editorial for Branstetter. Of course, zero transparency from the paper about the involvement on behalf of the candidate.
He then characterized news coverage throughout his career as being similarly partisan. IIRC, the broadcast quickly wrapped up with the rest of the panel appearing stunned that he’d pulled back the curtain.
BTW — Long time readers of that paper wouldn’t be surprised. The paper has been involved in some really outrageous partisanship. The editor, John Seigenthaler, was an RFK aide at Justice. He was so loyal to the Kennedys that he hosted a fundraiser for Teddy immediately after he announced his prez candidacy in 1980. And when the Feds raided the corrupt local sheriff, he took the call from Fed Appeals Judge Merritt with the heads up to call the sheriff to warn him. Seigenthaler made the warning call and the sheriff was busy destroying evidence when the FBI agents showed up. Pretty much what we expect of Democrats — a federal judge and newspaper editor/publisher obstructing justice for the team. The morality and ethics of all actions are determined by Lenin’s metric of whether they help the revolution.
Imagine if you could instantly generate a piece of art by simply typing out a description. There’s been some fairly significant advances in image generation from text using AI. The basic idea is that a system is “trained” with thousands of images. So for example if you wanted to generate a picture of a labrador retriever, you could feed the system all sorts of images of labradors. With that information it could generate a completely novel image.
Immediately this new tech used to generate porn… because of course.
Please do not watch Ken Burn’s latest documentary-like, TV-miniseries- “The U.S. and The Holocaust”.
In the mini series, Burns seems to compare [Trump’s immigration policies and tight borders polices, when Trump was President], to the restrictive…US Government polices, during the WW2 period.
This is unfair.
I dislike saying it but, from what I’ve learned- 1) most countries around the world cared mostly for themselves and not others, and protecting themselves, until people starting being concerned for foreign countries, around the 1920s,
and-
2) most countries around the world cared mostly for themselves and not others, and protecting themselves, until people started to try and- learn about other countries, + started to listen about other countries’ problems, and started to try and help other countries with their problems, [in the 1960s, and after].
In my view- yes, it is hard to realize, and absorb that people from the past, including past-people from our nations, did not do things as “perfectly” as we would want them to do them today.
This mini series is, in my view, created and written out of muddled hindsight.
“People could have done more for European immigrants + European-Jewish immigrants, in WW2”.
Sure thing, most people look at their past, occaisionally, and wish that they’d done more positive things.
And to follow that idea- and if I had gotten more into lifting weights when I was 14, maybe I’d have stronger biceps, than I do now. I can’t change the past, nor do I blame myself for my failings in the past.
We can’t go back into the past, and re-do it, into a better thing.
Rather than trying to blame people or nations for not doing- some “what-might-have-beens”, that “could have made things better”, I’d rather help European-Jewish people NOW…as best I can, and help ALL people NOW…as best I can, rather than trying to point fingers of blame, at the people in the past.
Yesterday is over. Please focus on building good things for today, and for the future.
TR:
It is indeed a bad analogy. People fleeing what Trump called “shithole” countries are not analogous to people fleeing certain death from the Holocaust. What’s more, the former group have the world to choose from, whereas the latter group were barred from going anywhere.
Ridiculous analogy, actually, but a common one from liberals and the left.
Kevin Burns a “historian,” much like that woman who made films in 1930’s Germany is an artist. Some people consider her work significant cinematography and artful, if only she had made some documentaries about the camps, they wouldn’t have such a bad rap, eh, Kevin?
And heeeere we go:
“New Mexico judge removes Cowboys for Trump founder from elected office over role in Jan. 6;
“The ruling states the county commissioner will in the future not be unable to hold any elected state or federal positions.”—
https://justthenews.com/government/local/new-mexico-judge-removes-cowboys-trump-founder-elected-office-over-role-jan-6
Opening grafs:
‘ANew Mexico judge on Tuesday removed Cowboys for Trump founder Couy Griffin from his elected position as county commissioner over his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
‘Griffin, who was convicted of trespassing in connection with the 2021 riot was removed as a result of a lawsuit that claimed he violated the Constitution by participating in an “insurrection.”…’
Might that be the “Insurrection” that the FBI claimed showed no signs of being an insurrection….?
(Heh, good thing that Ray Epps—Mr. Who? Moi?—and his pals removed all those barriers from around the Capitol so that those poor soon-to-be-framed political prisoners could just wander in quietly with a welcome from the Capitol Police, isn’t it….?!)
Ann Althouse has a glorious “OK-so-what-if-I’m-naive?!” moment.
‘…“I wish President Biden would support investigating the security of the mechanisms of American elections instead of demonizing the millions of people who feel skeptical….”
https://instapundit.com/541105/
Well…good for her!
(Of course it could be that she’s just being a bit ironic…)
So the word is that Nancy Pelosi is hoping to be ambassador to Italy once she loses the speakership in November. She can go to Rome and pretend to be Catholic all day long.
I’d recommend she go to Mt. Etna, the higher the better.
(Of course it could be that [Althouse’s] just being a bit ironic…)
Barry Meislin:
I read Althouse for a while, but I never got her irony calibrated. Nor how she sorted her politics.
She taught law at UW-Madison. She voted for Obama. She was doctrinaire second-wave feminist. But she also pricked liberal/progressive bubbles routinely.
Perhaps most tellingly, she wound up with a mostly conservative comment section.
How does that all add up?
huxley:
Here’s how I see Althouse’s appeal. She like to surprise people; keep them on their toes, say the unexpected in an unexpected way. She also doesn’t tend to say things in a straightforward way but rather a somewhat playful way so that people are never quite sure where she stands. That can be entertaining. She has eclectic interests. And as you say, she’s not afraid to step outside the liberal box, either, so she’s hardly woke or PC. Conservatives are the ones most likely to appreciate her particular quirks and strengths.
Re: Colour Word Origins
I’ve been in a Chicago state of mind lately.
I can’t read that title without flashing back to Chicago’s song, “Colour My World,” on their second album:
–Chicago II, “Colour My World” (1970)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWkXmx-0phc
I’m enough of a maniac to want to know why the Brit spelling, “Colour.”
James Pankow, the songwriter, a trombone player and founding member of the band, was an American from St. Louis. Maybe James was spelling-challenged.
Weirdly, I saw the name Pankow and thought of Ira, actor Paul Reiser’s brother in the “Mad About You” sitcom.
Son of a gun, James Pankow is the older brother of John Pankow who played Ira in “Mad About You.”
You’ve now learned something you had no need of knowing.
Did not know that , its got a different tempo to other chicago signs i vaguely remember the original ones that leonid and friends cover but the cetera ones stick out more
neo:
Sounds reasonable.
I suspect Althouse may be more in the game for attention than pursuing truth or partisan gain. She’s killed off her comment section a couple of times now, only to bring it back.
That’s OK.
Every little star must shine.
It’s the French spelling (as are most if not all of those “_ou_” words (e.g., dolour, succour, rumour, etc.) and “_re” endings (e.g., centre). You’ll also find these spellings in Canada, Australia, NZ and other Commonwealth (or former Commonwealth) countries.
(I guess one could blame, you know, William the Conqueror…or maybe King Harold…or both(?))
huxley,
I knew the Pankow’s were brothers, but how and why I cannot relate, lest the real Rufus behind my nom de plume (nom de la machine à écrire?) is revealed*.
*I don’t want to oversell it. I have never met either brother, but I have a close friend who has a very tangible tie to their upbringing. (And, although I am a big fan of Chicago’s early stuff, and trombone is one of the instruments I play, I loathe “Colour my World.”)
Miguel cervantes,
Not only is the tempo painstakingly slow, it’s such a bleeding simple song! What a 1st year, 11 year old piano student would come up with after studying arpeggios for a week. Sometimes simple can be great (“Fur Elise”), but sometimes simple is just rudimentary and immature. Even the lyrics. Junior High stuff.
And it’s so out of place from a rock band that did such complex (for rock) arrangements. But then Peter Cetera joined the band and it became painfully obvious that the group was fully capable of embracing Junior High chords, melodies and lyrics.
I haven’t read a lot of Ann Althouse’s stuff, but Glenn Reynolds famously link(ed) to her very frequently, especially in his early days. Often a quote or headline at Instapundit would convince me to “read the whole thing,” as Glenn often suggests. When I would click over to her site and read her full posts I was almost always disappointed.
I don’t know much about her, but she struck me as someone who (unlike neo) did not have the courage of her convictions. So much so that she wouldn’t even draw her own convictions to their obvious conclusions.
Rufus T. Firefly:
One more impression I have of Ann Althouse. I don’t know her personally, so it’s just a sense I get from her writing. I think that, if you’re ever read Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, her writing conjures up his idea of lightness as opposed to heaviness.