Open thread 8/28/21
I took this photo recently. The boat looked like it was on fire, but it was just the reflection of the setting sun. The picture doesn’t really do the moment justice; the fire illusion was much brighter in real life:
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
It probably shimmered somewhat. Had you taken a few seconds of video, you could probably demonstrate it; but I can well imagine what an orange shimmer would look like. It reminds me of the effect one sees when driving behind some of those semis with the annoying reflective attachments on their mudflaps at sunset, when the setting sun is behind one.
It is hard for the camera and most picture projection systems to really capture a spectacular scene. For one thing, reality is 3 D, especially if you have two eyes for stereo viewing.
If you have ever tried to capture a scene in the mountains, and you later look at the pics, you realize it is not the same as being there. Perhaps scale and immersion within the scene when you are actually there playing a role in the disappointment when you later view a 2 dimensional image.
I was once having coffee with a friend at a Sausalito cafe. It was late afternoon towards sunset. We were on the deck facing the Bay and could see a house in Tiburon with the sun hitting a window at such an angle that it looked like the house was on fire from the inside.
I had my camera with me and took some pictures.
Nada.
I wonder if 3D pictures on devices will ever become as common as 2D color pictures?
I mean, there was a time when most pics were black and white 2D. We have had color 2D for decades now. When , if ever, will Color 3D become ubiquitous?
The other night I was watching a movie, “The Affairs of Dobie Gillis” (1953). I thought it would be like the TV show, but instead of taking place in high school, it was in college and Dobie was a freshman, pursuing Pansy, played by Debbie Reynolds. No Maynard G. Krebs.
It’s an OK, though kinda lame, old-fashioned comedy, which I can enjoy as a relief from current times.
Then bam! They’re in the local restaurant and Dobie’s roommate starts up the jukebox and *explodes* into dance. I’m thinking, Who is that guy?!
Turns out it’s Bob Fosse in his film debut. Dobie, Debbie Reynolds and another woman join in, not bad, but it’s Bob Fosse all the way.
–“You Can’t Do Wrong, Doing Right”, “The Affairs of Dobie Gillis”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fLkjiLoxoQ
A few years ago on a boat trip up the Danube, one of my fellow passengers had an old stereo film camera of the sort they used to advertise in National Geographic. He admitted that it cost him a fortune in film, although he did the processing himself. It got him a lot of attention from the Central Europeans wherever we went.
My online buddy bc tracks Chicago shootings each weekend. This is going on every week. Dems won’t stop it.
Slow start to Chicago’s weekend: only 14 shot, 1 fatally in Chicago:
https://abc7chicago.com/chicago-shootings-gun-violence-police-weekend/10982799/
Have you seen the Green Flash ?
As a long-time fan of Charlie Watts, it’s been gratifying to read the comments written here after Watts’s recent death.
Today, Instapundit linked to an appreciation, published in “The Spectator,” and entitled “An ode to Charlie Watts, the politest man in rock music.” As I’ve said before, this death isn’t unexpected, but it’s one that’s hard to let go, because it reminds me so much of my youth. As they say, “the past is a foreign country,” but, until recently, I’ve never thought of my own past that way. I’m pretty sure that Charlie Watts would have squirmed at something so maudlin.
For those interested, I think that “The Spectator’s” obituary is worth reading. Link: https://tinyurl.com/2r2bhf6c
Commenter at Gab:
You know how morons put their pronouns in their bio and email signatures now? We should all start putting Bible verses in ours. In my case I use “Jesus is King.”
I’m not even Christian and I would do this just to show truculence
In my favorite band they brought on a second (younger) drummer when the main guy turned 65. After all, drum is not just rhythm it’s intensely physical.
Was Charlie Watts the mainline drummer up to the end?
JimNorCal on August 28, 2021 at 2:21 pm said:
… Was Charlie Watts the mainline drummer up to the end?
JimNorCal:
On August 5th, 2021, it was announced that Charlie Watts had undergone a medical procedure that forced him to withdraw from the band’s upcoming US tour. Watts was replaced by Steve Jordan.
August 2021. Truly amazing!
After all, drum is not just rhythm it’s intensely physical. –JimNorCal
Spencer Dryden was the original drummer for the Jefferson Airplane. As I recall, when the Airplane was reassembling into the Starship, they considered bringing Dryden back, but he was older, gentler and lacked the stamina they were looking for.
Fun Fact: Dryden was Charlie Chaplin’s nephew but concealed it until shortly before his death.
As to Watts — he had a relaxed jazz style of drumming which served him well for longevity.
Cornflour:
Thanks for the Spectator obit.
I’d love to read the Telegraph’s obit — the paper is famous for its obits — but it’s behind a paywall.
From True The Vote.
Glad to see our side dip a toe into data analysis. There was an image in the email but I don’t think I can copy it here.
Earlier this week, a document I’d written regarding one of our research projects made its way into an article published by Breitbart. It is about ballot trafficking. The report is accurate.
Ballot trafficking is one of three investigations undertaken by True the Vote in particular areas of interest. We have not spoken publicly of these investigations for various reasons, but primarily because the work is ongoing and time is short.
What follows is a brief statement about the ballot trafficking project, why we did what we did, what we are finding, and what comes next.
This is just the beginning.
___________________________________________
What We Did
In late 2020, True the Vote engaged a select team of contractors and set out to determine whether widespread ballot trafficking was occurring as part of an organized criminal enterprise.
We’d watched the mass mail out of paper ballots to highly inaccurate voter records, the harried installation of ballot dropboxes privately funded by billionaire tech magnates, and the hundreds of legislative changes, lawsuits, and consent decrees that fundamentally altered election processes. All of it came together in 2020, under the fog of COVID. It was planned. It was purposeful.
Having studied election process for decades, our team was well aware of the pitfalls associated with America’s uniquely insecure approach to elections. We knew that attempts to prove certain types of election malfeasance would fail, so we chose instead to focus on the grifts that would necessarily leave trackable, provable data trails.
To test our trafficking theory, we acquired over ten trillion location-based cell signals in major metropolitan areas across six states. Initially, we worked with whistleblowers and witnesses, but soon enough, the data alone told the tale. Using mobile and GPS data, we mapped the travel patterns of ballot traffickers to ballot dropboxes.
This tracking method is explained in great detail by The New York Times in a series they ran called The Privacy Project. They and others have published much about how mobile data was used to track President Trump and identify individuals at the January 6th event at the Capitol. Law enforcement uses this type of data routinely. So, lest anyone say we did anything untoward, let us be very clear, all of this data is regularly bought and sold, about all of us.
What We Found
Our findings reveal overwhelming evidence of ballot trafficking, some of which is highlighted in the article. We have much more.
All our research, including suspected locations where ballots were delivered, processed, and distributed, along with the individual devices associated, has been submitted in the form of a formal complaint, along with all data, to the FBI. Briefings have been provided to state law enforcement and political leadership in several states. These conversations will continue to broaden in the coming days.
We’ve also acquired over a petabyte of video surveillance data. The quality of this video is inferior overall; lighting is bad, cameras are poorly positioned, timestamps are manipulated, key timeframes are often missing. Nevertheless, we are working video by video, using proprietary AI-based code we’ve written to screen the over 100,000 clips in our possession. The result? We are successfully finding video evidence that corroborates the digital data and supports the need for full investigations by law enforcement.
Our novel approach offers never before seen insights into the exploitation of America’s elections.
Figure 1: 24-hour Route in Georgia
This person’s route included stops at 5 organizations and 27 individual ballot drop boxes, traveling across 6 counties. Red dots represent ballot drop boxes, blue house icons (circled) represent targeted organizations, blue line represents daily travel path
What Comes Next?
To date, law enforcement has not taken action.
Make no mistake, what we have found will be made known. If law enforcement doesn’t initiate investigations, we have plans to release all data, all video, publicly.
So, that’s where we are. This is a massive undertaking. And it continues. Once all six states are completed to the best of our ability, and if at that point law enforcement still has not acted, we will publicly release it all.
How long will that take? Hard to say. We could release what we have now. And we may. But if it serves the greater good to hold on a while longer, then that’s the option we will take.
One way or another ballot trafficking will soon be exposed on a massive scale.
The question is – what will Americans do about it? Many improvements must be made, but in the end, they all start with you – and with me – with each of us as citizens. Each of us must invest time and attention in elections. Where to begin? Well … we know that bloated, inaccurate voter rolls are the fuel used to fire criminal manipulations of process. So, you can start by helping your county clean up its voter rolls.
We’ve built an app to automate citizen-led voter roll clean-up efforts called IV3. The plan was to launch this week, but we’ve pushed it out a few more days to first share all of the above information with you. Next week, we’ll launch the app. It will be the first in a series of tools and supports to help citizens’ restore election integrity.
huxley @ 12:33,
Fun clip!
The scene reminds me of another University kids in a soda shop dance number, coincidentally by the second, Mrs. Bob Fosse, Joan McCracken. No offense, but I like her number much better: https://youtu.be/9_6CzxyWGj4
The movie is “Good News,” which I enjoy. It’s an entirely predictable plot but a lot of fun. Also features a young, Mel Torme singing a number and Peter Lawford as a football star. I think it’s been remade at least once. The 1947 version is the one I’ve seen, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039431/
JimNorCal,
Thank you for sharing that True the Vote piece. Very, very smart!
JimNorCal —
It pains me that I feel like I have to think this way, but:
I really hope they have a “deadman switch” operative to release the information if they are arrested, disappear, die, or their offices are raided by law enforcement. And that the information is backed up off-site and outside of the US.
Actually, multiple deadman switch operatives, in multiple countries, who don’t know about each other.
Heres a clip from the 1930 version of Good News. The singer is Penny Singleton, who went on to play Blondie in a lot of movies.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HuYK2f_qPPA
tcrosse,
That rubber legs guy was incredible! Saw some moondance steps in there also.
Here’s more Good News
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=znax6AqMJYw
Rufus T. Firefly:
I love the color in the “Good News” soda shop clip. (How did they do that? I guess using lots and lots of lights.)
It is a bigger, better dance number. The Dobie Gillis mention was my jaw dropping to see a very young Bob Fosse jump out of the screen when I least expected it.
According to wiki, Fosse’s ambition was to be the “new Astaire.” I guess he didn’t manage it — or Hollywood had no use for a new Astaire — but Fosse did make his mark as a choreographer.
Re: Fosse / color….
I saw Fosse’s sort of memoir film, “All That Jazz,” on VHS way back when. The colors were horribly muddy and the effect was ghastly. So much so, that’s all I remember about it.
I asked a friend who had been a DP, director of photography, on some indie films. He said that was a problem with 70s film stocks.
Maybe. Color quality is better since then, but there is something marvelous about those old 50s/60s color films like Hitchcock’s.
Rufus T. et al.– This is kinda sorta OT in the context of discussions of dance, movies, etc., but it doesn’t really fit any of Neo’s other posts, so here goes: Have any of you seen the clip of Comatose Joe falling asleep during a meeting with the Prime Minister of Israel? “As it dawns on him that Biden is asleep—and to his credit—Bennett turns to address his comments to the press.”
https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/08/biden-appears-to-doze-off-during-meeting-with-israeli-pm/
Biden sleeps more than my cats do, and if you know anything about cats’ normal sleep habits, that says a lot.
@ PA Cat – a commenter at LI, fscarn, posted a parody of a song we have heard recently at Neo’s Music Salon.
Wake up, Ole Joe, wake up
Wake up, Ole Joe, wake up
You’ve been sound asleep
Wake up Ole Joe and weep
The election’s over, it’s twelve o’clock
And you’re in trouble deep
Wake up, Ole Joe
Wake up, Ole Joe
Well, what are ya gonna tell Congress?
What are ya gonna tell your Doc Jilled?
What are ya gonna tell our allies
When they say, “You got Marines killed!”
Aesop Fan– Thanks for the parody– I needed a (rueful) laugh.
Meanwhile– I know today is Neo’s day off, but in light of her previous post about the hysteria Down Under, here’s a news item about the New South Wales Polizei arresting a “COVID fugitive.” “The video shows side by side Karam’s arrest with China taking away people last year. . . . Taking precautions is one thing, but hauling people off is another. From what we can see, there’s at least four people in protective suits, as well as at least eight police officers, some even carrying shields.”
The video at the link beggars belief: https://townhall.com/tipsheet/rebeccadowns/2021/08/29/they-caught-the-covid-positive-fugitive-in-australia-and-the-capture-is-something-else-n2594945
This is kinda sorta OT in the context of discussions of dance, movies, etc.,
PA+Cat:
Just to say, I don’t think there is OT in “Open Thread.” If there is, I’m in trouble.
Carry on.
For funsies and because on the web this is the story everyone loves to retell about the late, great Charlie Watts. So here you are, from the horse’s mouth, in this case Keith Richards in his memoir. I’ve thrown in some extra line breaks for online readablity.
___________________________________________
There was a rare moment, in late 1984, of Charlie throwing his drummer’s punch — a punch I’ve seen a couple of times and it’s lethal; it carries a lot of balance and timing. He has to be badly provoked. He threw this one at Mick.
We were in Amsterdam for a meeting. Mick and I weren’t on great terms at the time, but I said, c’mon, let’s go out. And I lent him the jacket I got married in. We got back to the hotel about five in the morning and Mick called up Charlie. I said, don’t call him, not at this hour. But he did, and said, “Where’s my drummer?”
No answer. He puts the phone down.
Mick and I were still sitting there, pretty pissed — give Mick a couple of glasses, he’s gone — when, about twenty minutes later, there was a knock at the door.
There was Charlie Watts, Savile Row suit, perfectly dressed, tie, shaved, the whole fucking bit. I could smell the cologne!
I opened the door and he didn’t even look at me, he walked straight past me, got hold of Mick and said, “Never call me your drummer again.”
Then he hauled him up by the lapels of my jacket and gave him a right hook. Mick fell back onto a silver platter of smoked salmon on the table and began to slide towards the open window and the canal below it.
And I was thinking, this is a good one, and then I realized it was my wedding jacket. And I grabbed hold of it and caught Mick just before he slid into the Amsterdam canal.
It took me twenty-four hours after that to talk Charlie down. I thought I’d done it when I took him up to his room, but twelve hours later, he was saying, “Fuck it, I’m gonna go down and do it again.” It takes a lot to wind that man up. “Why did you stop him?” My jacket, Charlie, that’s why!
–Keith Richards
___________________________________________
If one appreciates the Stones, Mick gets his share. But I don’t think anyone minds Jagger getting a bit of comeuppance.
The North Kimchipeople have apparently just restarted their Nyongbyon go boom stuff reactor kitchen. Doubtless Fat Kim felt a sudden need to whip up a fresh batch of Pyongyang Cold Noodles (highly recommended, BTW). Wonder what gave him that idea?
Ah, Zaphod…
I did a web trawl on Circling and it took me to several different groups. I thought, Someone Didn’t Nail Their IP Down.
_______________________________
It seems that the practice we now call “Circling” emerged and was discovered independently by at least 3 different groups, starting as early as 1995. Its precise origins are unknown. It does appear, however, that the first paid groups, and the first use of the “Circling” name, began in the year 1998 in the Bay Area. It was called the Arete Experience and was an intense all-immersive weekend which was led by Guy Sengstock and Jerry Candelaria.
Guy Sengstock was an artist, philosopher, personal trainer, bodybuilder and a massage therapist, while Jerry was at the time working to become a Landmark Forum leader. They had a powerful experience together at Burning Man, with a group that had moved from conflict into a kind of collective ecstasy, and had committed together to take the practice into the world. Besides the influence of Burning Man and Landmark Education, the early practice of Circling was inspired by modalities that include Gestalt, Rave culture and drugs, Carl Rogers encounter groups, man/woman ideas originating from Lafayette Morehouse, the Sterling Men’s course, David Deida, Holotropic breathwork, Ali Hameed Almaas’s Diamond Heart, the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, and more.
http://circlingguide.com/history-of-circling/
_______________________________
Quite the smorgasbord of influences. Note the reference to Heidegger!
Last year they got around to TM Circling, but that horse has left the barn. There’s an Art of Circling movement in the LA area, which is only for women.
@Huxley:
Always with the Heidegger! Now he was a Boozy Beggar:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtgKkifJ0Pw
Thanks for checking out Circling.
I got the impression from Yarvin’s two articles on Circling that it’s a more gentle version of the sometimes quite brutal Encounter Group, well, Encounters of the Seventies. Delicate sensitive flowers abounding today couldn’t handle the raw old time religion. Guy Sengstock is definitely the guy / fellow Yarvin is on about.
There’s much to be said for being able to take a step back, detach, and be in the moment and sometimes have some bolt of self-awareness sneak up on oneself… but as soon as there’s a group dynamic involved, I’m not so sure.
Circling for Women: The jokes almost write themselves. But who would laugh? Not Circlers for sure.
Zaphod:
Well, to be honest, Heidegger comes free with the Landmark Forum, but people feel smarter when they mention him separately. I know I do.
There’s actually a big thick book, “Speaking Being: Werner Erhard, Martin Heidegger, and a New Possibility for Being Human,” which is a beat-for-beat recreation of the Landmark Forum with passages from Heidegger on the wide inner margins of the pages.
Back in the 80s Erhard teamed up with this whiz kid from Chile, Fernando Flores, who had been Allende’s Finance Minister, then after Pinochet, Flores spent a few years in prison before making his way to the Bay Area to wow Erhard and the Stanford AI department.
Erhard and Flores lifted the old, lawsuit-prone, Scientology bits out of the est Training and replaced them with gleaming new impenetrable Heidegger bits to create the Landmark Forum. Yum!
It’s fair to say that today’s Landmark Forum is Applied Heideggeriansim.
@huxley:
I’m going to have to read up on the Landmark Forum. This is mostly terra incognita to me. (Ahah… quick scan –> Erhard.. I recall you brought him up on one of our thread digressions before.)
Flores / Finance / Allende… I wonder was he the guy who dreamed up the silly but cool-looking cybernetic (remember that word?) managed economy control room for Allende?
Let’s see if I can google it up:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn
Ah yes…. Flores wuz there. Beam me up, Scotty!
Thanks huxley, good story about Charlie Watts. Only enhances my opinion of him.
I happened to be listening to the Stones’ Aftermath album recently and was thinking that Brian Jones is almost forgotten now, but was a key Stone back in the day.
Zaphod:
Never looked into Cybersyn, but … yeah. Flores was there. He’s done some interesting stuff.
Flores got his Heidegger studying under Hubert Dreyfus at UC Berkeley. Dreyfus, from what I can tell, is The Heidegger Guy. (The wacky professor in Futurama is “Hubert Farnsworth” for Hubert Dreyfus and Philo Farnsworth.) I got derailed, but last year I was working my way through the Dreyfus lectures on Heidegger.
Landmark is something of a cult, however much they deny it, but it can pack quite a punch, which can be useful, as long as you don’t fall for the notion that you must therefore dedicate your life to Landmark.
Circling does sound like a kinder, gentler version of Encounter Groups and Fritz Perls’ Gestalt hot seat.
Wesson:
Thanks for your Stones link from the other day!
Brian Jones … he was something special. The real founder of the Stones as I recall. But he had his own demons and couldn’t survive in the brutal hothouse of the Stones.
Of course, Mick and Keith are remarkable talents too, but they also seem equally gifted with iron constitutions, physically and psychologically.
Mick Taylor, the guitarist who replaced Brian Jones, was an incredible guitar player — and earned Keith’s rivalry — but he couldn’t survive as a Stone either with all the drugs and craziness. He had to leave the band.
Charlie Watts acknowledges the strongest run of Stones albums was with Mick Taylor.
@ Mike K “Have you seen the Green Flash?”
Yes, On those absolutely calm days when underway and are lucky enough to be looking at the moment the sun disappears below the horizon. Amazing sight