Once, again, there’s just too much going on to do full justice to all of it. So here’s another roundup.
(1) Fani Willis, Trump’s Georgia nemesis, is in trouble herself for corruption of various kinds. Ace deals with some of it here in his usual – um – forthright way. See also this.
The court’s opinion also points out that there is “ample evidence” to support that DOE’s dishwasher standards actually accomplish the opposite of their intent, stating that “they make Americans use more energy and more water for the simple reason that purportedly ‘energy efficient’ appliances do not work.”
Here, here! Somewhere in the archives of this blog there’s a post I wrote about how low-flow toilets often make people flush at least twice, thus negating the devices’ stated intent of saving water.
So much was going on during the Floyd protests that was even worse than blocking traffic that I hadn’t even recalled that blocking transportation was a major part of those disruptive – but Democrat-approved – demonstrations. But it was, and it began even before the Floyd summer of 2020:
On the last day of January 2020, a self-styled anarchist movement called “Decolonize this Place” swarmed Manhattan’s Grand Central Terminal. The few hundred masked agitators wanted to “disrupt” commuting until New York met their demands, including free transit and eliminating all policing in the subway system.
“Decolonize” – sound familiar?
More [emphasis mine]:
Five months after the January 2020 attempted Grand Central shutdown, though, the massive George Floyd protests turned this method of protest into an ongoing tactic. Hundreds of thousands of people with no work or school to go to during Covid-19 lockdowns regularly took over New York’s public thoroughfares, stopping drivers in traffic and taking over public parks — typically with no consequences to the protesters. Though the most violent actors faced federal charges for endangering officers and destroying government property, people who broke lower-level laws were only given “violation” summonses for disorderly conduct, trespassing, or similarly low-level infractions—charges and summonses that local DAs mostly dropped.
No consequences means you get more of the same, and that it might even escalate. Here’s another reason it’s escalated in places such as New York – lawfare on behalf of the demonstrators:
To settle an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit brought against the NYPD over its 2020 enforcement actions, mild as they were, the Adams-era NYPD recently said that it won’t “kettle” marchers—that is, hindering their movement with metal gates to prevent them from moving, say, from a sidewalk to a street, or from a street to a major intersection. And to avoid the excessive-force charges that dogged them in 2020, police now refuse to stop people from blocking roadways, entrance ramps, and major transit centers, instead arresting them only after they’ve blocked a target, have finished with their planned action, and surrender themselves.
Is it any wonder the pro-Hamas group – often composed, I believe, by many of the same people as in the Floyd protests and funded by the same sources – uses the same tactics? The number of demonstrators is much smaller now, because apparently the Floyd cause attracted more dedication than Hamas, at least so far. But the havoc they have wreaked is great.
As the article goes on to describe, neither the NY mayor nor the DA seem to have any interest in cracking down more. Also, the state of New York passed discovery laws a few years ago that made it far more difficult to prosecute crimes and have led to a large increase in dropped cases by overburdened prosecutors. The article I just linked goes into the details, but that’s the gist of it: twisted leftist virtue-signaling gone mad.
Here’s a brief example of why I say that Baryshnikov just might have been the best male dancer ever. I saw him many times in person and I can attest to his greatness. He is a small guy – I stood next to him once in ballet shoes and he seemed around the same height as me, 5’4″, although the internet says he’s 5’5″ or 5’6.” I say that’s stretching it. But he’s a giant onstage, and no video can capture the explosive height of his jumps and their cleanness, cutting through the air like knives.
In this brief clip as the Prince in Giselle, he is being danced to death by the Wilis – although (SPOILER ALERT) Giselle’s love ends up saving him:
Here’s a highly informative video from The Jerusalem Center on the topic of Israel’s hunt for Hamas leaders, both in Gaza and elsewhere. It answered some of my questions about how they got Arouri and what that might mean. They also discuss the human shield/hostage question. Watch as little or as much of the video you want, but I found the entire thing fascinating (once again, if you would like it to go faster, just click on “settings” and adjust the speed). Below the video I’ll discuss many points related to it.
(1) I continue to be astounded at the ability of certain modern weapons to take out a single part of a building and leave the rest intact.
(2) I think it is correct to emphasize the importance of taking out the terrorist leaders, but the speakers are also correct that the rank-and-file jihadis must continue to be taken out as well. The leaders can be replaced, of course, although their expertise and experience cannot. The rank-and-file can be replaced as well, but meanwhile if there could be some sort of re-education program it might slow that replacement process down and make it more difficult.
A great many people used to think (or still think) that the Palestinian conflict is a territorial one for the Palestinians – and I suppose in a way it is, if you consider their “territorial” aspirations to be every speck of Israel as well as whatever is considered Palestine. But it has also become more and more clear that the Palestinian goal and the Iranian goal and the goal of Iranian proxies (Hezbollah, for example) is to kill the Jews – and not just those in Israel. And for a long time it’s been clear that they are proud of seeking martyrdom and death for their own people.
I can’t offhand think of another enemy like that. At the end of WWII, Hitler thought the German people hadn’t measured up to the glorious plans he’d had for them, and so he didn’t care if they died. And he himself committed suicide rather than fall into Allied hands. But neither suicide for the German people nor for himself were part of his original goals; they were late developments when all was lost and even he seemed to know it. As for the Japanese during World War II, their kamikaze forces were willing to die in the act of taking down Allied ships, but I don’t think the majority of the general Japanese population could compare to the jihadis in terms of willingness and even extreme eagerness to die. The fact that the Palestinians openly speak of it, and state their desire to have large numbers of children in order to martyr them, means that Israel and Israel’s supporters can’t make the usual calculations or rely on the usual assumptions made when fighting enemies with more conventional values about life and death.
(3) Before October 7 I was aware that Gaza and the West Bank and Hezbollah had networks of tunnels. But this war has revealed a tunnel network far larger and more sophisticated than I ever thought existed. Perhaps it’s larger and more sophisticated than even the Israelis had previously thought existed. The Gazans and the Arabs in the West Bank had long been the recipients of enormous amounts of money from the UN and other “humanitarian” agencies, with the idea that they would use the funds to help their population and also build infrastructure. The money went to build infrastructure all right – but not the kind most societies construct. Instead, it went to what amounts to vast underground cities. This underlines the fact that Palestinian society is utterly dedicated to war on Israel and its leaders care next to nothing about their own people except as potential victims to show the world in order to stoke even more hatred towards Israel and more sympathy for the Palestinian “resistance.” This is so depraved and perverse that, once again, I can’t think of another culture that’s done anything resembling that, certainly not on a large scale (however, in the Vietnam War the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese also used a large network of tunnels, but not as enormous, widespread, or sophisticated as those of the Palestinians; they also sacrificed their children at times, but to nowhere near the same extent).
This sacrificial Palestinian use of their own children is hardly new, and anyone paying attention should have noticed it long ago. I wrote this lengthy post about the phenomenon back in 2007, for example, and this one in 2006. The situation has only gotten worse since then. And yet so many people in the West seem either unaware of it and/or uncaring about what it means.
(4) The hostages represent a horrific dilemma for Israel. That’s exactly why the terrorists took them and have kept most of them alive so far (I assume most are still alive). They learned the enormous value of hostages years ago. It is ironic that this is so because as much as the Palestinians value death, the Israelis value life and in the past were willing to engage in exceedingly lopsided prisoner exchanges that only encouraged the taking of more hostages. Just as in the past, the families of the October 7 hostages are demonstrating and pressuring the Israeli government to do just about anything to get them back. The families are suffering intensely, and one can hardly blame them for their actions, but if the government submits the repercussions will be dire and even suicidal as far as Israel’s very survival goes.
The speakers in the video say that Sinwar and the other Gazan leaders are of course well aware of this dynamic and feel smugly safe from being killed because they are currently holed up in the tunnels surrounded by the remaining hostages. They are counting on Israel being unwilling to kill the hostages in order to get to the Hamas leaders. And those leaders may indeed be correct that the presence of the hostages does guarantee the safety of Sinwar and the others. I don’t know what is going on in the Israeli leaders’ minds concerning the hostages, but the situation is horrendous and there seems to be no good solution – unless the Israeli leaders have tricks up their sleeves that I can’t even imagine at this point. I certainly hope they do.
Though most Republicans don’t condone the actions of those who forced their way into the Capitol [on J6], the strength of their disapproval has waned over time. Half of Republicans strongly disapproved just after the attack, and now just a third do. Meanwhile, outright approval in the party has risen.
The way the question was worded was designed to get the most disapproval possible, because instead of asking whether the respondent approved of the Capitol demonstration, the query was whether the person approved of “the actions of those who forced their way into the Capitol.” As we know, many demonstrators were let in by obliging Capitol Police, as though they were taking a tour of the place. But the poll only asks about those who “forced their way,” and the implication is that they all did.
And then there’s the question about states taking Trump’s name off the ballot: 81% of Democrats pro, 90% of Republicans con, and 56% of Independents con.
I wonder if the answers by Democrats would be similar if there were a poll asking how many are in favor of executing Trump.
NOTE: Here’s something that appeared in an interview with Tucker Carlson:
Tucker Carlson did an interview with Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) over the weekend about Jan. 6 and he asked him about the question Higgins had pursued with FBI Director Christopher Wray in 2022: How many FBI agents/informants were involved on Jan. 6?:
Higgins said that they had compiled a lot of evidence. He spoke about the involvement of people “to set the stage for what happened” and that there was a “large web” of people involved to “entrap” people. He said there was “conspiratorial corruption at the highest levels of the FBI.”
Then he started dropping bombs. He said that the FBI had human assets dressed as Trump supporters inside the Capitol prior to the doors being opened and the masses being “allowed in.” He said he knew even when he asked Wray the question that the FBI was heavily involved because it had embedded itself with various groups and was testing the waters to see who they could influence and suggest going into the Capitol.
Higgins said he believed the “Trump supporters” (FBI assets/law enforcement assets) inside the Capitol then helped wave Trump supporters in and to various areas in the building.
Tucker asked him how many ‘”assets” he was talking about here.
Higgins’ estimate was that the number was over 200. It would be nice to find out some day.
He acknowledges their “passion,” which puts me in mind of this old essay of mine on romanticism and terrorism, which begins with this Isaiah Berlin quote:
[Romantics] believed in the necessity of fighting for your beliefs to the last breath in your body …they believed in the value of martyrdom as such, no matter what the martyrdom was for….
We on the right already know that Biden has been talking out of both sides of his mouth on the war in Gaza, based not on principles but on his pressing need to please both sides of his party – pro- and anti-Israel – prior to November 2024. It makes for a muddled and unreliable message to Israel and a weak and vulnerable one to the terrorists.
Nor does Biden explain how Israel can survive without staying in Gaza to do the task it set out for itself post-10/7. Nor does he explain why rewarding the terrorists with a pullout would be a good thing at this point. These are not his concerns. Trying to win an election in 2024 is his concern.
We then take the reader on an imaginary tour of academia from the point of view of an independent-minded highschooler and demonstrate how many conformity pressures he or she will face on their way to becoming a scientist. Layering the threats to free speech and conformity pressures on top of each other is key to really understanding how the Conformity Gauntlet works, because no single case really conveys how bad it’s gotten for freedom of inquiry and freedom of thought on campus on a systematic basis.
I’ve been musing on the word “conformity” lately. It was something I recall being much-discussed during the 50s and early 60s. The idea was that Americans, and young Americans in particular, were too timid to rebel against the prevailing social and intellectual mores. They were supposedly too worried about the opinions of others.
Well, the late 60s exploded all that – or did they? It superficially seemed that way, but nonconformity became all the rage, and many young people competed to see who could look and act most outrageous. It was mostly cosmetic, and became a type of conformity in and of itself.
By the 80s and 90s we saw a form of leftist mind control that began in the universities, grew more widespread there, and then in the first two decades of the 21st century spread out into America at large and particularly government, the press, entertainment, sports, and businesses. The demands for conformity became tighter than they ever were in the 50s – it was just conformity to a different standard.
Since I first arrived here as an undergraduate in 1973, I cannot recall a period of comparable tension on our campus and across our community. That tension has been exacerbated by concerns about how we address and combat antisemitism, Islamophobia, and other forms of bias; safeguard free expression; and foster a climate of mutual understanding. We have been subjected to an unrelenting focus on fault lines that divide us, which has tested the ties that bind us as a community devoted to learning from one another.
Note the balancing act that’s so prevalent on the left: one cannot mention antisemitism without immediately mentioning “Islamophobia.” We first heard about the latter, to the best of my recollection, right after 9/11. The terrorism attack supposedly spawned a wave of fear of Muslims and hate crimes against them, although in fact the reactions were surprisingly mild considering 3,000 innocent Americans had just been murdered by Islamicist jihadi fanatics.
Right now the Jews are the focus of the hatred, and Jew-hatred rather than “Islamophobia” is the problem on the Harvard campus.
Nor has Harvard been the least interested in “safeguarding free expression” in recent years, and Claudine Gay (whom the new president praises) has been instrumental in damping down the free expression of ideas if they are from the right – or if, for example, they include a black law professor being the defense attorney for Weinstein, a role for which Ron Sullivan lost his deanship.
And then there’s this: “We have been subjected to an unrelenting focus on fault lines that divide us…” . From whence does this focus come? Why would this focus be wrong (to me that’s what Garber’s words would seem to imply), if such fault lines do indeed exist and Harvard has many problems that need fixing? Why would Harvard be subject to that focus? Wouldn’t Harvard want to focus on such things and make them better? (Rhetorical questions, of course.)
(1) Regarding a discussion about AI in today’s Open Thread – any source of information, be it tedious old-fashioned library work, Google, or AI so far (and maybe into the future), is vulnerable to “garbage in, garbage out.” The human consumer always has to decide what’s true and what’s false, what’s real and what’s fake, what’s biased and what’s objective. With a book, we rely on the author’s judgment; with Google, it’s the programmers’ algorithms and judgment; and with AI it’s similar. The “information out” is only as good as the information on which AI has been trained – at least, that’s how I understand the workings of the system at present. In the end – concerning any information we get that’s second-hand – we have to rely for judgment on our own pre-existing knowledge base, which with so many people seems to be getting smaller and smaller. That’s a big problem.
(2) New England had its first significant snowfall over the weekend. It’s no fun to dig out, but fresh snow is certainly more beautiful than brown bare ground and brown bare trees, especially when it’s sunny, which it is today.
(3) The General Austin hospitalization-secrecy flap is both disturbing and strange. Why was it kept hidden, not only from the public but from the higher-ups? I can understand the former but not the latter. Was it just negligence, or something more? I don’t have an answer.
(5) The pro-Hamas demonstrators continue their disruptions that are designed to make everyone else angry (see this, this, and this). Their motives, IMHO, are to show off their leftist “virtue” to each other, and to give everybody else – especially the Jews – the finger. They don’t feel at all at risk from the authorities; they know they won’t be treated like the J6 demonstrators. I haven’t noticed the pro-Hamas crowd pulling their stunts in red areas; just blue ones. Have you?
Serenade is one of my favorite ballets. It was the first ballet Balanchine choreographed in the US – in 1934, ninety years ago, although it’s timeless – and one of his very greatest as well as one of the greatest ballets, period. Balanchine incorporaed serendipitous events into its structure: for example, one time a dancer was late to rehearsal and he used that in the ballet, when one dancer makes a late entrance and then finds her way into the pattern. Another dancer falls, as happened one day in rehearsal. Different numbers of dancers showed up on different days, and so he varied the number of dancers in different sections of the piece. He didn’t have too many male dancers, so he didn’t use very many.
The end result was a sublime creation.
And yet – like many ballets, but even more than some – Serenade is very difficult to photograph. For this post I watched many YouTube renditions, and none convey the beauty of this ballet in person. The following performance by the Sacramento Ballet is, strangely enough, the best-photographed one I’ve found; even though the company, while very very good, is not considered one of the very best companies in the US. But other video versions tend to cut back and forth between distant views and closeups in a really stupid way; this one does it in a smart way. However, there’s always a built-in conflict between wanting to get the entire pattern onto the screen, and wanting to be able to see more clearly what’s happening in terms of clarity of movement and individuals. Plus, all videos are two dimensions and therefore lack that exciting 3-D element of reality.
I think it’s still very much worth watching. The opening sequence is especially wonderful in this ballet but tends to photograph especially poorly, so after this video I’ll offer another video that shows the opening movements in more closeup:
Here are those opening moments again, from a different company (Pacific Northwest Ballet). Such beautiful Tchaikovsky music, too, although purists will notice that the order of the movements is different than in the original piece “Serenade for Strings“:
[NOTE: I’ve seen the Sacramento Ballet in person, and I recommend going if you’re anywhere nearby.]
