Iran continues…

The New Neo Posted on by

…to toy with Obama, prior to his State of the Union address this evening:

Iran was holding 10 U.S. Navy sailors and their two small boats that drifted into Iranian waters with mechanical problems. Iran accused the sailors of trespassing but American officials said Tehran has assured them that the crew and vessels would be returned safely and promptly…

U.S. officials said that the incident happened near Farsi Island in the middle of the Persian Gulf. They said some type of mechanical trouble with one of the boats caused them to run aground and they were picked up by Iran. The sailors were in Iranian custody on Farsi Island at least for some time, but it’s not certain where they are now.

The semi-official Iranian news agency, FARS, said the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s navy has detained 10 foreign forces, believed to be Americans, and said the sailors were trespassing in Iranian waters. FARS also reported that one of the 10 sailors was a woman.

Iran clearly has no fear whatsoever of Obama. And why on earth should they?

Obama is also not planning to address the subject in tonight’s SOTU speech.

Taharrush has come to the West

The New Neo Posted on by

I’d never heard the term till now, but I was aware of the phenomenon of “taharrush”. Anyone who read the story of what happened to Lara Logan in Egypt back in 2011 should have been well aware of the same phenomenon.

Now, however, we learn (as we did not then; at least, I don’t recall it) that it has a name in Arabic: taharrush gamea.

Definition:

The name of the practice translates to ‘collective harassment’ and is carried out by large groups of men who sexually assault lone women, either by groping, or in some instances, raping them.

The men first surround their victim in circles. Some then sexually assault her, while others not directly involved watch or divert outsiders’ attention to what is occurring.

Sometimes the terrified victim – in a state of shock and unable to respond – is also robbed during the ordeal.

And the attack usually goes unpunished because the large number of perpetrators and chaos of the attack means authorities are unable to identify those involved.

There remains debate about what defines ‘taharrush’ – some still insist it is a reference to flirting – though scholars argue its definition changed after the attacks seen in Egypt from 2011 onwards.

German authorities have stated this was the phenomenon seen in Cologne city centre on New Year, when hundreds of women reported they were sexually assaulted.

The practice is only carried out in public and almost always at demonstrations or large public gatherings where the attackers find safety in numbers and disorder.

The attack on Logan was reported as though it was an isolated incident, perhaps an anomaly. It was not:

Angie Abdelmonem, a doctoral candidate at Arizona State University, recently published a study into the instances of ‘taharrush’ seen during the Egyptian Revolution.

She said the ‘violent nature of sexual harassment and assault in Tahrir Square captured global attention’, but many locally initially believed the state was hiring thugs to harass women and stem public protest.

‘This [perception] shifted on February 11, the day Mubarak stepped down, with the mob assault and rape of CBS correspondent, Lara Logan,’ she wrote.

‘Between 2011 and 2013, sexual harassment became common at protests in Tahrir Square, exemplified by a number of highly publicized violent attacks that demonstrate how women’s bodies became objectified and dehumanized during the uprising.’

One seeming constant in this phenomenon is not only the practice itself, but the coverup by the press. When it was “only” occurring in foreign countries, that was easier to do. Now that it has come to Europe—along with the “refugees”—it has burst the bonds of the previous silence.

This is an interesting phenomenon for so many reasons, not the least of which is how it feeds into so-called “xenopobia.” But what if too many of the strangers who come to your shores really do have different—and dangerous and in fact reprehensible—customs? Is it not reasonable to be fearful, and how can that be called a phobia? If you can’t figure out who among the newcomers is going to do this sort of thing and who isn’t, what is the remedy? Bar the door? Or spend an inordinate amount of time and money finding the offenders and jailing them, after the fact? Is that even possible? Or do you sacrifice your women and your way of life and your safety, for the sake of hospitality?

I hate to put it in such stark terms, but that’s the very, very unfortunate reality of the choices the West faces.

[NOTE: I’ve already linked to one post I wrote about the attack on Logan, but here’s another, this one focusing on the reaction of the press. In my memory, I had thought that the press wrote about Logan’s attack because she was one of theirs and the attack shocked them. However, I had forgotten that I wrote this:

Why did CBS first try to suppress the story of the assault on Logan, only coming out with it after it realized it couldn’t be kept quiet because other media outlets were aware of it? The network says the motivation for the initial secrecy was to protect Logan’s privacy. But could it be that they were also trying to shape Western perceptions of the Egyptian street, and to keep them as positive as possible?

So there was an attempt at a press coverup there, too, by CBS.]

We are pleased to announce the engagement of…

The New Neo Posted on by

…Jerry Hall and Rupert Murdoch.

Yep, Jerry Hall and Rupert Murdoch. Thus proving Kissinger’s old adage that power (and let’s add money) is a great aphrodisiac—sometimes quoted as the “ultimate aphrodisiac.”

I want to pause for a moment and add that I’ve observed that to be true for women vis-a-vis men (that power tends to enhance the attractive power of a man) rather than men being sexually attracted to powerful women. For women, beauty, glamour, and youth tend to be attractive power in the sexual sense.

And I’ll add that these are generalizations. Let me just say that I’ve never been sexually attracted to really old guys with power, but then I’ve never hobnobbed with them in the first place; those aren’t the circles in which I move. I’ve sometimes been fascinated by them, and I value achievement and drive, but to be frank I don’t think I could marry Rupert Murdoch if he gave me all his money and then some.

Not that I think Murdoch is crying in his beer at the loss of me, cause he’s got Jerry:

hallmurdoch

Murdoch is estimated to be worth about $11 billion, while Jerry Hall (prior to this marriage) is worth about $15 million. Former Hall partner and father of her four children, Mick Jagger, is estimated to be worth about $305 million. Chump change.

[NOTE: I have written before about Murdoch’s marital history, here.]

Will the most telegenic candidate please stand up?

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “Rufus T. Firefly” makes this observation:

In a national campaign always bet on the most telegenic. Been that way since Kennedy-Nixon.

Here, he points out Hillary Clinton’s lack of that telegenic quality. Then he throws out a challenge: “name a Presidential election since Nixon-Kennedy where the most telegenic candidate lost.”

Okay, will do.

Nixon in 1968 versus Humphrey. Now, neither were what you would call “telegenic.” But Nixon was worse than Humphrey.

Nixon, 1972. McGovern was much more telegenic. I was there; I remember. Of course, most people on earth are more telegenic than Nixon was.

Carter, 1976. Carter won over Ford. Neither was particularly telegenic, but Carter was always a bit goofy-looking, and Ford looked like a regulation guy.

Bush, 2000. This one was somewhat of a tossup, but at the time Gore was quite good-looking, and I thought he was more telegenic (and articulate) than Bush. Of course, the election was very close.

Obama, 2012. Romney is one of the most handsome men on the planet, particularly for his age, and he cuts a fine figure, as well. I realize that many people find Obama telegenic, but I really don’t know why—particularly in 2012, when his every word should have rung bitingly false.

Now, you can define “telegenic” in a way so that none of the above fits your definition. But I submit that by the usual definition (looking good and/or appealing on TV), these are exceptions to that telegenic rule, so many exceptions that I don’t think it’s actually a rule.

In addition, I question the idea that Trump is more telegenic than Hillary. To her supporters, Hillary comes across as forceful, strong, articulate, and attractive for an older woman. Not so (at all!) to those who don’t like her. To his supporters, Trump comes across as funny, incisive, strong. He is no more physically attractive than she is; although both were good-looking when young, neither is young anymore. But to his detractors, Trump’s a comical figure, full of bluster and bombast and meandering in his words, as well as insulting and crass and juvenile.

Sometimes a candidate is clearly and indisputably telegenic, even to his/her detractors. Kennedy was one obvious example, and Reagan another—and to a somewhat lesser extent, Clinton. The rest of them may have been cases of “telegenic is in the eye of the beholder.” Trump definitely is a person who has been successful on television. Does that make him telegenic as a candidate and a presidential prospect? My answer is that it certainly seems to have done so for a certain group, but it does absolutely the opposite for the group that finds him unpleasant and untrustworthy, narcissistic and loud-mouthed—the rather large group responsible for his very high unfavorables.

In other words, it seems you either like him or hate him, and the real question is how many people are in each group.

Much the same is true for Hillary. She’s every bit as familiar a figure as Trump, although for different reasons. She’s been in the public eye nearly as long. People have mostly made their minds up about her. Her unfavorables are high, although not as high as his.

As with Trump, it seems you either love her or hate her, and the real question is how many people are in each group.

[NOTE: If it’s telegenics you’re after on the Republican side, I think Rubio’s your candidate. But of course, telegenics are not everything.]

No, Trump is not a liberal

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve written a lot about Donald Trump on this blog. And when I write, I try to be clear. So I figure that those of you who are regular readers ought to know pretty well what I think about him.

But as Karl Popper famously said, “It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood.” And if I ever needed further proof of that, this blog provides it.

Just as an example, I have never said that Trump is a liberal. Now, have I gone through everything I’ve ever written about the man in order to make sure I’ve never expressed that idea? No; it would probably take an inordinate amount of time to read every post and every comment I’ve ever made. I’ve gone through a great many of my major posts on Trump, though, and haven’t seen any statement like that. I can be fairly certain I’ve never said it, however, and the reason is because I’ve never thought it, and I try very hard to express what I think and to express it with some clarity.

Thus, this post of clarification, since several people in the comments section to this post seem to think I see him as a liberal.

In that post, I did write:

Trump is not a doctrinaire conservative, to say the least. One could even say he’s a RINO of sorts, albeit an idiosyncratic RINO who is very conservative on certain issues and somewhat of a liberal on others.

Note the relative emphasis there: very conservative on some issues and somewhat of a liberal on others. The link on “somewhat of a liberal” goes to an article with a quote of Trump’s where Trump says “I’m a conservative on most issues but a liberal on health.” That’s an example of what I mean, in Trump’s own words.

Now, it’s hardly being a liberal, but it’s exactly what I say it is: being somewhat of a liberal on some issues, while being conservative on others.

So to a commenter who writes: “come back and tell me [Trump] is a liberal in sheep’s clothing, that he has no policies and it’s all personality and no substance.”

I doubt I’d come back and say such a thing, because I haven’t been saying it in the first place.

What have I actually said? Here’s a sample, and I stand by it:

I have said Trump’s a “self-aggrandizing narcissist” who over the years has contributed to some liberals and supported some liberal causes.

I have said that Trump, like Obama, appeals to emotion in his supporters and does it very well, and that they fill in the blanks to make him what they want him to be and think he can somehow do what they want him to do.

I have used his own words to illustrate his vagueness about his policies or how he would actually accomplish things. I am aware that he has other people write policy papers that appear on his website, but he seems to have little interest in discussing them when asked, and in some cases has shown a lack of familiarity with them.

I have said that Trump’s record of attacking George W. Bush is abominable (saying Bush is “evil” and that he should have been impeached).

I have called him a battering ram.

I have pointed out some of his appeal but also his high unfavorable ratings.

I have called him a “happy warrior” and defined him politically as a populist.

I have pointed out the inconsistencies in the attitude of people like Mark Levin towards Trump a few years ago versus today, and I have also quoted Trump’s previous praise of Democrats and excoriation of George Bush.

I have pointed out that those conservatives who’ve been saying for years that they want a conservative candidate have one in Cruz and I would think they would support him if they meant what they said, because he is more conservative than Trump (which, by the way, does not make Trump a liberal).

I have also written many posts—so many I won’t bother to link to them—analyzing the polls, and Trump’s results in those polls.

I have pointed out Trump’s support of Kelo and an almost unlimited right of eminent domain for government, which is not a conservative position. I have also pointed out his lack of experience as a politician, which means that unlike the candidates who’ve been in Congress, he has no record of votes to pin him down and therefore can position himself as he wishes.

I have pointed out that Trump doesn’t talk about conservative principles, and also that:

I believe that Trump’s radical methods would include bypassing Congress and doing everything by executive order, much like Obama. I actually see him as very much resembling Obama in that and several other respects.

Trump is used to being the boss. He would consider himself the boss.

Conservatives have always considered methods and process to be as important as ends.

In other words, although Trump definitely espouses some conservative causes—prominent among them is cracking down on illegal immigration—he is not a conservative because not only does he espouse a few liberal causes (such as Kelo for example), but he is willing to use liberal methods.

In summary: he supports some conservative causes and some liberal causes, but he’s not a conservative in his methods. That does not make him a liberal. What is he? If I had to summarize (and a summary hardly does justice to him) I would call him a pragmatic populist who is exceedingly full of himself.

Some of his supporters find that appealing, of course; they want to fight fire with fire (there is an interesting discussion on that in the comments section to this post, which was entitled “What is a conservative?”). That is their prerogative. Many of them are the “let it burn” people. I happen to think such a burn would result in a conflagration that would not have a good end.

Europe’s borders: everything old is new again

The New Neo Posted on by

Europe had a dream of open borders.

It was a dream that depended on a certain comity/amity, but it turned into a nightmare when Europe tried to extend that dream to hosts of newcomers from the Middle East. Now, the border checks are being hastily re-assembled and re-instituted:

On Monday new travel restrictions imposed by Sweden to stem a record flow of migrants are transforming the bridge [to Denmark] into a striking example of how national boundaries are re-emerging. A year of clampdowns on migration and terrorism has all but killed the idea of a borderless Europe where you could drive or train-hop from Spain in the south to Norway in the north without ever having to show your passport.

“We’re turning back the clock,” said Andreas Onnerfors, who lives in Lund, on the Swedish side of the bridge.

“We’re going back to a time when the bridge didn’t exist,” he said, referring to the ID checkpoints being set up Monday on the Danish side for train passengers wishing to cross over to Sweden.

The move is meant to stop undocumented migrants from reaching Sweden, which abruptly reversed its open-door policy after receiving more than 160,000 asylum-seekers last year, mainly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

It follows the reintroduction of border checks in Germany, Austria, France, Belgium and other countries in what’s supposed to be a passport-free travel zone spanning 26 nations.

The moves are supposedly temporary, but are likely to be extended if Europe’s migrant crisis continues in 2016.

“It’s basically every country for itself now,” said Mark Rhinard, an expert on the European Union at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs.

The entire article is worth reading.

One can say many things about all of this, but one that comes to mind is: how very stupid they were. First, to think this open border policy would continue to work well no matter what the future held; and second, to not realize the effect the newcomers could and almost certainly would have on a Europe with such a policy. Europeans have been lulled into a false sense of optimism about what’s going on in the rest of the world and their own ability to handle things, because Europe has been so relatively peaceful for decades and the various countries of Europe were previously able to partially isolate and therefore partially ignore their own growing immigrant problems—lack of assimilation, and no way to effect the assimilation of a population in which many don’t even want to assimilate in the first place.

Ryan’s plans

The New Neo Posted on by

What is going to happen in the House in 2016? Well, this is what Ryan says, anyway:

That agenda, which Ryan has discussed at length since taking over as speaker in October, includes releasing a long-anticipated replacement plan for the health care law (“Just wait,” Ryan said when asked about that plan Wednesday); a tax reform proposal; welfare reform; and other major policy initiatives. The goal isn’t to pass legislation that, like health care repeal, would never be signed into law by Obama, but to set clear priorities ahead of this year’s election.

“The reason I took this job, and my colleagues know this, is we have to go on offense in 2016 and we have to offer a bold agenda,” Ryan said Tuesday night. “The people of this country who do not like the direction America is heading, which we don’t ”¦ we owe them an alternative.”

Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday it was “unfortunate” Republicans were beginning 2016 by voting on “messaging” bills rather than trying to find legislation that could have bipartisan support.

Two questions: will this actually happen?

And: do you think it’s too little, too late, and an insincere effort to woo Republicans prior to 2016, an effort that will turn out to be a false hope?

I plan to watch Ryan and the others and to evaluate all of that as it unfolds. As I’ve said before, I think conservatives should try to increase the number of conservatives in Congress, but otherwise the goal is to keep Congress in Republican hands and elect a Republican president. If that happens, there’s at least a chance of turning the ship around. Without it, I see no chance.

I am neither naive nor sanguine. But I retain some hope.

More about Trump and the Democrats

The New Neo Posted on by

Lately I’ve seen lots of articles and comments about Trump’s appeal to Democrats who might cross over to vote for him. It makes a certain amount of intuitive sense, actually. After all, Trump is not a doctrinaire conservative, to say the least. One could even say he’s a RINO of sorts, albeit an idiosyncratic RINO who is very conservative on certain issues and somewhat of a liberal on others.

Plus, the topic that seems to be firing people up about Trump is immigration, and although worries and concerns about immigration (illegal, legal, and refugee-esque) are more common among Republicans than Democrats, they are hardly limited to Republicans. So all in all, some Democratic support for Trump makes sense.

Democratic support alone wouldn’t automatically mean a victory over Hillary, strangely enough, either for Trump or for any other Republican candidate, unless that Democratic support is (to coin a phrase) absolutely HUGE. Short of that, for victory to occur, it would be necessary that Trump or any other candidate not lose Republican voters, as well. And of course we know that many Republican voters are not keen on Trump (same for Rubio, same for Christie, same for quite a few others).

Right now neither I nor anyone else can say what will happen in November of 2016. We’re limited to attempts to measure what’s going on in the here and now. Given that restriction, I must say that I’m skeptical about the those reports of widespread Democratic support for Trump—not because I don’t think it could be true, but because of the quality of the evidence. I already wrote about this a few weeks ago here, but since then a more recent poll on the subject has a lot of people buzzing.

There are lot of things about that newer poll that give me pause, however, even more than most polls. The first is that the pollsters showed respondents a Trump ad first, and were testing the results of the ad. That means that the ad was fresh in their minds, which certainly would be likely to create a positive bias in the questions that followed. The second is that there is no way to compare Trump’s crossover voters in the polls to the number of crossover voters other GOP contenders might get. More? Less? We don’t know; because the pollsters only asked about Democratic support for Trump (because they were actually testing the ad). The third is that this was an internet and partially app-based poll; they can sometimes be quite valid or sometimes very skewed, and I haven’t seen anything about how these particular subjects were selected in this particular poll.

The fourth is that there were 916 “likely voters” in the poll. I haven’t found any word on how that broke down in terms of number of Republican vs. Democrat respondents, but let’s just say that half were Democrats (458). Twenty percent of those said they would cross over for Trump, which means that about 91 of them said that. That’s a rather small “n” on which to pin an entire theory that Democrats are going for Trump. Plus, if Trump were to run against Hillary, 14% of Republicans in the poll said they would vote for Hillary, which would be 64. So the net difference among the entire voter pool of 916 between Democrats-for-Trump and Republicans-for-Hillary would be 27.

What’s more—and this is what especially gives me pause about current measurements of the “Democrats-for-Trump” phenomenon—as I wrote a while back, in more conventional polls with a more conventional design, in a posited race against Hillary no Democratic advantage for Trump over the other candidates appears. Nor, by the way, is there an advantage for Trump with black voters, another demographic that many people say goes for Trump more than for the other Republicans.

So far, I’ve not seen any conventionally-designed polls that find an advantage for Trump with such groups. In fact, the opposite appears to be true. For example, the very latest national poll from Fox, which I have already discussed here, had some details that I didn’t get into in that earlier post but which are relevant.

If you look closely at questions 22-25 in that poll, which was taken January 4-7 and involved a sample of 1006 respondents queried by telephone (cell and landline), you will see that Trump does slightly worse against Hillary among Democrats and among black voters than the other leading GOP candidates do. Take a look if you don’t believe me—and these are typical of results I’ve seen in earlier polls.

In a matchup against Hillary, Cruz gets 11% of those identifying as Democrats, whereas Hillary gets 6% of people who say they are Republicans. Rubio gets 12% of Democrats against Hillary’s 5% of Republicans, a trifle better. Bush (remember him?) gets 10% of Democrats to Hillary’s 7% of Republicans, a tiny bit worse. And Trump gets 9% of Democrats to Hillary’s 8% of Republicans, which is a bit worse, although they all cluster rather closely together and the differences are not so very significant.

Against Hillary, Cruz gets 5% of the black vote, but Rubio gets 9% of the black vote. Could be significant, I suppose. Bush gets 6% of the black vote against her. And Trump? 4% of the black vote. Again—except perhaps for Rubio—they all are very similar, but Trump does slightly worse.

You can say it’s all a bunch of garbage. You can say that things will change because there’s lots more time (and I’d agree with you there). You can say people are lying to the pollsters, but I think that’s just another way of saying “I’ll throw out what I don’t like and keep what I do like.” If people are lying, we’re all just guessing, so don’t cite statistics about 20% of Democrats supporting Trump from a different poll where they could just as easily be lying. And I can think of a very good reason why people would lie and say that—because they are Democrats who think Trump would be a weaker nominee for the GOP than the others would and therefore they want Trump to be nominated, so they want to encourage Republicans to think of him as a winner who will draw the Democratic vote and defeat Hillary.

Is my theory right? Haven’t a clue; it certainly could be wrong. But I’m airing it to show that there’s no problem thinking up ways to discredit polls if you’ve got a mind to. As for me, I tend to think that polls tell us something real, and that most people don’t lie to pollsters (and that only a very tiny minority do), but that the best way to evaluate a poll is to look at sample and methodology, and then look at average trends in many polls over time. The trends I see so far with Trump are that he doesn’t appeal to Democrats or black voters more than the other GOP candidates do, and perhaps even slightly less. That could change. I can certainly imagine why he might end up appealing more to those groups, but so far I just don’t see it.

[NOTE: People also often bring up crowd enthusiasm when speaking of Trump. In general, I don’t think crowd enthusiasm matters in terms of election results, for reasons I already stated back in 2012 and also here.]

RIP David Bowie

The New Neo Posted on by

Most people seem to be reacting to the news of the death of David Bowie at 69 with shock.

I had the same feeling, too. I think it was because he had just put out a new album to great acclaim, and none of the many articles about it referenced the fact that he was ill. His cancer seems to have been a closely-guarded secret.

Bowie was one of the most unusual people in rock, a field populated by many unusual people trying to outdo each other in their unusualness (or at least it used to be; not so much of that now). But few could compete with Bowie, who had a uniquely cool sleek look that was compelling, and who wasn’t afraid of costumes and various personae. That he played an alien in the movie “The Man Who Fell To Earth” was no surprise; he was a natural for the role, as it were.

I have to confess that although I’m familiar with some of Bowie’s most well-known work, I really don’t know much about his music and I didn’t really follow it. But you didn’t have to be a fan to know about him. I saw “The Man Who Fell to Earth” and thought he did an excellent job, although the film was cut so much when it was shown in the theaters (certainly not his fault nor his doing) that I could hardly make sense of it.

In 1992 Bowie married the model Iman, which made them a couple for the ages—impossibly tall, slim, ectomorphic, and beautiful, like two people from a far-off future. Iman has said this about their romance, which began with Bowie falling for her at first sight and her taking longer to reciprocate, but ultimately doing so:

“As I always said: I fell in love with David Jones,” she said. “I did not fall in love with David Bowie. Bowie is just a persona. He’s a singer, an entertainer. David Jones is a man I met.”

RIP David Bowie and David Jones, and thanks for all the music.

Actor Sean Penn takes on a new role: reporter

The New Neo Posted on by

I guess when you play tough guys long enough you start thinking you’re tough yourself, or yearning to be tough yourself. Or maybe your regular life—even though it involves living and working among glamorous people and being very very rich—isn’t quite exciting enough for you.

So you decide, if you’re Sean Penn, that it would be really neat to locate escaped Mexican drug lord El Chapo and interview him for Rolling Stone, that stellar publication that brought us Jackie of UVA.

Interesting that Penn could find El Chapo and the Mexican government couldn’t (or wouldn’t?). Interesting, also, that Penn’s interview appears to have “unwittingly” led to El Chapo’s (real name: Joaquin Guzman) capture by Mexican authorities, which means that Guzman’s own vanity was his undoing. Or maybe he was bored, too.

As Ann Althouse points out, most people will not be reading the Rolling Stone interview, which apparently is filled with self-indulgent rambles from Penn. I certainly won’t be reading it, anyway. I’ve got better things to do, although whether I’ll actually be doing them or not remains uncertain.

But from articles about Penn’s El Chapo interview, I’ve gleaned the following interesting tidbits about how the druglord sees his profession and his role in it:

El Chapo explains how he wound up joining the illegal drug trade.

‘Well from the age of 15 and on, where I’m from, which is the Municipality of Badiraguato, I was raised on a ranch called La Tuna in that area and up until today there are no job opportunities.

Well, its a reality that drugs destroy. Unfortunately, as I said, where I grew up there was no other way and there still isn’t a way to survive. No other way to work in our economy to be able to make a living.’

The cartel boss claims he is not to blame for people becoming addicted to drugs, saying people would continue to take narcotics if he died.

See, he had no choice. It was poverty that drove him inevitably to it. And he has no further responsibility, either, for the addiction and deaths of others, because—well, if he didn’t provide the service, someone else would have to. ¿Entiendes?

A Mexican actress was the go-between for the interview:

El Chapo was caught after contacting actors and directors about making a Narcos-style biopic about his life, Mexican officials said. It is not clear whether Penn was contacted about the movie.

The seeds for the bizarre meeting between Penn and El Chapo were sown back in 2012 after a representative for the Mexican gangster contacted [Mexican actress] del Castillo, who had posted tweets saying she had more trust in the cartel than the government…

Del Castillo later met a fixer called Espinoza – and both of them remained in contact with El Chapo’s people after his escape.

Penn later met Espinoza and suggested he meet the fugitive for a magazine article and, incredibly, the Sinaloa cartel agreed to it.

Del Castillo and Penn appear to be in some sort of trouble, but don’t sit on a hot stove waiting for them to suffer legal consequences.

I just found this extraordinary dancer: Evgenia Obraztsova

The New Neo Posted on by

I haven’t really kept up with the Bolshoi and other Russian dancers during the last decade or so, but YouTube has allowed me to start remedying that condition. In the past, I’ve often talked about how the quality of balletic artistry has degenerated at the same time that ballet has improved in the technical sense, so that many dancers today seem to me to be mere performers doing amazing tricks but without the emotional resonance of the older generations. The latter might have made some errors, and their legs might not have risen quite to the sky, but so many of the great ones of the past could muster up a feeling of sublimity and transcendence in their audiences. And that, I submit, is one of the main goals of art, or at least it used to be.

However, Russian dancer Evgenia Obraztsova, whom I’ve just discovered, comes awfully close to combining the height of the technical and the artistic. I’ll probably write more about her in the future, when I’ve watched more videos, but for now I’m just enjoying her youthful exuberance, her light and airy ballon, her soulful expressiveness, and her astounding technique.

Here’s the “youthful exuberance” part, in a role in “Don Quixote,” made popular by the astounding Plisetskaya (see her here; no one can compare to Plisetskaya, and I submit that no one ever will compare, but Evgenia Obraztsova gives it an awfully good effort):

In the following excerpt from the second act of “Giselle,” you need to know that this scene occurs after Giselle has died and become a Wili, a spirit condemned to haunt the forest and lure and dance young men to their deaths, because she has been betrayed in love. The clip begins as the wraithlike spirit of Giselle has been summoned from the grave under a spell cast by the queen of the Wilis, who commands her to dance:

If you like the ballet “Sleeping Beauty”—and I’ve never been all that keen on it, myself—here’s Obraztsova in an excellent rendition of the famous pas de deux, where she manages to combine the extraordinarily acrobatic extensions of what I’ve called “extreme ballet” with a delicacy and freshness and charm that makes it all work as a believable whole:

There are a wealth of other Obraztsova riches on YouTube. Happy watching!

In latest Fox poll, almost everyone beats Hillary

The New Neo Posted on by

For the moment, anyway.

Yes, yes, I know that polls at this point don’t matter much, if at all. But they still interest me, because they’re the best we’ve got. They can also tell us something about trends, and the trend for Hillary right now is down.

The newest national poll is from Fox, based on phone interviews that were conducted from Jan 4-7 and featuring 1006 registered voters, the vast majority of whom said they intend to vote. For Republicans and Republican-leaners, the margin of error is 5%, which is rather large. For the entire survey, the margin of error is 3%, which is more typical but still worthy of note.

It’s very interesting to see what’s happening with the projected head-to-head battles of some of the Republican leaders against Hillary Clinton. Mostly the results seem to preserve the patterns each candidate has already established for quite some time, with Rubio doing the best of all (a +9 lead—although he’s never seen anything like that large a lead before). Cruz is next with a +7 lead (also bigger than he had before), Trump has a +3 lead (as usual in national polls, Trump is doing worse against Hillary than the other two, but I believe this is the first time he’s ever led Hillary, so that’s a change for the better for Trump). Unfortunately the pollsters didn’t ask about Christie (although Christie has led Hillary in earlier national polls), nor did they ask about Carson (same). So, why was there a question about Bush? At any rate, Bush is doing the worst of those the pollsters did ask about: he’s tied with Hillary.

Does this poll represent a real improvement of the prospects of the Republican field vis a vis Hillary? I don’t know. It could be an outlier, or the phenomenon could be real. As I mentioned, the margin of error is big. I also noticed that the percentage of Republican respondents in the poll seemed higher than usual, with the parties roughly equal. That could account for the higher scores across the board versus Hillary. It will be very very interesting to see if these anti-Hillary trends persist over time, and if they grow.