…would be a formidable prospect, and is a very real possibility.
I have long wondered why Warren hasn’t started a run. But I think that a teamup as Biden’s VP would be (to coin a phrase) just the ticket. He has the gravitas and experience (yes, “gravitas” doesn’t really cut it for Biden, but you know what I mean), and she is a leftist woman.
…or against illegal immigration, or any number of issues on which the majority of Americans oppose this administration?
Those who were around during the Vietnam War protest days remember all those marches on Washington. I attended one, and it was absolutely huge and very impressive.
And of course who can forget the photos of Martin Luther King standing in front of the Washington monument on the Mall?
Of course, it’s not clear how effective or important those marches were, even when dealing with administrations that cared how the public thought. This administration most definitely does not. But visuals are powerful, and they can affect some lawmakers and some of the public that hasn’t made up its mind yet. They also help to rally energy on the part of those who are already aligned with the viewpoint of the demonstrators.
The issues we face today are extraordinarily crucial for the future of America. And yet (as commenter “Eric” keeps pointing out, again and again, and I agree with him) the right seems curiously passive in the activist sense. There are many forms of non-violent activism, but demonstrations are one of them, and a visible one at that. So what’s up with all this passivity?
Some might answer that demonstrations are just not in the style of the right; we don’t do groups. My answer is that the right needs to figure out something effective that is its style, then, or to change its style, because it is sluggish and ineffectual despite having the majority of Americans on its side in this fight. Donald Trump is not the answer, but the crowds he’s drawing shows that there’s this untapped and outraged energy that could be channeled.
Here’s Eric again:
The only effective solution to the Left-activist Gramscian march is a Right-activist Gramscian (counter-)march where the people collectively take the Left head on everywhere and win control of American society in honest competition.
When the Right wins their contest against the Left, then GOP candidates like “Cruz, Walker, Fiorina, and to a lesser degree Rubio” can do their part defeating the thus-reduced Democrats within the elected political lane.
Conservatives of all stripes need to stop passing the buck to the GOP. However, because conservatives habitually insist on demanding the GOP solve a problem that requires a victorious Right-activist Gramscian (counter-)march to solve, while they habitually eschew the collective Marxist-method activism that is necessary to compete for real with the Left, Trump is able to exploit the resulting market inefficiency.
Ideas, anyone?
Over 2/3 of black respondents in a recent Rasmussen poll agreed with that sentiment over “Black lives matter.” Excellent.
But the Black Lives Matter people scream the loudest, don’t they?
…although this one was less successful, because he rushed towards the shooter before the gun jammed.
I had wondered about the identity of the man on the train who was reported to have been shot in the neck, and here’s the information:
Mark Moogalian, who is reportedly a 51-year-old academic originally from Midlothian, Virginia, spotted a suspicious passenger while traveling on the Amsterdam to Paris train Friday…
“My husband told me that he had seen someone strange because he had entered the toilets with his suitcase and it lasted a long time,” Moogalian’s wife Isabelle told Europe1 radio Monday. “A little while later the guy came out and that’s when he saw that the guy was carrying a gun.”
Isabelle Moogalian, who was also aboard the train, said her husband spotted the gunman “being grabbed from behind by a different person” ”” thought to be a 29-year-old French banker who has chosen to stay anonymous.
Mark Moogalian told his wife to “go” and then “rushed towards the gunman to remove … the Kalashnikov.”
She added: “I did not see my husband get shot, it happened too quickly and I was pretty much hiding behind seats. But I look at my husband through the seats at an angle and he looked straight at me and said, ‘I’m hit!’ … There was blood everywhere. I ran towards him and I could see that he a wound on his back, I then saw another wound by his neck.”
That explains that.
It also highlights the reality that rushing a gunman is very very dangerous, a fact somewhat obscured in the story of the three younger American heroes because they were fortunate enough (although they didn’t know it at the time) to be rushing a man whose several firearms had either jammed or become inoperative because of magazine trouble. But the terrorist still had a knife and/or box cutter, and managed to do quite a bit of damage with it to Spencer Stone before he was through.
Isabelle Moogalian further explained the Stone was a versatile hero, saving her husband’s life into the bargain despite his own injuries:
“He put his finger on my husband’s neck wound to stop the hemorrhaging continuing and he stayed in this position during the whole voyage,” she told Europe1.
And on the gunman:
She added: “It surprised me how long time-wise it took these two, even three people to neutralize him. It was unbelievable. He had a lot of strength for a guy his size.”
Moogalian is still in a French hospital and as far as I know is expected to recover.
A little side story on this issue. I could identify with that last part of the story because at the age of around forty my then-husband helped subdue an unruly and violent airplane passenger (not a terrorist, who was not armed with a gun) on an airplane flying between San Francisco and Los Angeles. This occurred considerably before 9/11, and I was fortunate enough to not be on the plane, but a drug-crazed passenger had tried to strangle or perhaps stab a stewardess and several passengers including my husband rushed towards him and held him down in the aisle while he fought them off.
My husband later reported that it had been astoundingly difficult even for two or three of them to subdue the guy, whom he said was probably high on something like meth and seemed to have superhuman strength. There were no restraints available on the plane, but they used someone’s belt and also held him down forcibly while he struggled against them for the rest of the flight, including of course the landing, which they prayed wasn’t going to be rough because obviously not only were none of them strapped into their seats but they weren’t even in their seats.
We got four free tickets from that airline out of the deal, by the way, rather than the Legion of Honor. But the flights were nice; we took a trip with my husband’s brother and his wife.
This is most definitely an interesting report:
Thwarted train gunman Ayoub El-Qahzzani was part of an Islamic terrorist cell which came within hours of carrying out a ‘major’ attack in Belgium before it was shut down in a deadly fire-fight with police, according to French media reports.
El-Qahzzani has been linked to a gang of Muslim fanatics in Belgium who opened fire on anti-terrorism officers when Special Forces closed in on them near the railway station in the eastern city of Verviers, in January 2015.
Two terrorist suspects were killed and a third was arrested in the operation, close to the Belgian border with Germany.
Now El-Qahzzani has been linked to this terrorist cell, which was made up of Islamic extremists who had returned to Europe after fighting against the Assad regime in Syria.
France’s La Voix du Nord newspaper reported: ‘According to our sources, he [Al Qahzzani] was part of the same jihadist group which attacked on Belgian anti-terrorist police in a violent fire-fight in January 2015, in Verviers, near Liege.
‘It appears that he had been identified as a potential security threat by the Spanish authorities who had alerted French authorities and had asked them for further information about him.’
Too bad they didn’t watch him more closely.
One of the heroes of the French train shooting, Alek Skarlatos, tells the story of what happened, including how fortunate it was that the gun jammed:
If you’re going to have terrorists, best they should be incompetent.
More here from one of the three Americans, Anthony Sadler:
Mr Sadler has described how the attacker pleaded with them to return his AK-47.
He said: ‘He was just telling us to give back his gun. ‘Give me back my gun! Give me back my gun!’ But we just carried on beating him up and immobilised him and that was it.’
The men have since been commended for their bravery by President Barack Obama and French President Francois Hollande has tweeted that he will meet the men tomorrow to thank them.
Today, Mr Stone emerged from the central hospital in Lille, France, wearing bandages and a sling – and offered the cameras a humble wave before slipping into a black sedan with diplomatic license plates.
The US airman was stabbed in the hand during the scuffle with a Klashnikov and Stanley knife on Friday – almost severing his thumb – but was hailed a hero as he disarmed the suspect then administered first aid to others before caring for himself.
At that link you’ll also find conflicting stories about whether the train crew acted badly or not.
This article by “Michael Sonmore” (which I’m assuming is a pseudonum) at NY Magazine is one of the saddest things I’ve ever read, although the author says he’s very very happy. It’s an exercise in talking oneself into something—in this case, being in an open marriage when initially one member of the couple wants it and one does not. Here’s Michael:
When people ask how it started, I say this: We married young. She’d had sex before me, but only with a handful of people a handful of times. She never had a boyfriend, never had a lover. I was the first man she ever had the chance to get to know intimately. By her mid-30s, having already had our children and entering her sexual prime, she felt keenly her lack of sexual experience. Happily for me, she was willing to talk about it, willing to ask if I’d be open to exploring other options. We opened a bottle of wine and started talking, and talking, and talking.
She didn’t present it as an issue of feminism to me, but after much soul-searching about why the idea of my wife having sex with other men bothered me I came to a few conclusions…
The conclusions lean heavily on feminist theory, having to with power and self-expression and a host of other things, and then Michael segues into this:
She knew how deep our love was, and knew that her wanting a variety of sexual experiences as we traveled through life together would not diminish or disrupt that love. It took me about six months ”” many long, intense conversations, and an ocean of red wine ”” before I knew it, too.
Well, are you convinced that Michael is convinced? I’m not, and I wonder how much red wine he’s still swilling down in order to stay convinced that he’s convinced. The couple has two young children aged three and six, by the way, so although Michael is also able to have sexual relationships with other people, and has certainly exercised that option many times, it turns out that his wife seems to get more action and therefore Michael’s the one doing the majority of the babysitting.
I suppose open marriage can “work”for some couples somewhere, somehow, under some circumstances. I think the numbers are very few, and I doubt most of the situations involve young children. I could write about Michael’s choice from a lot of angles: a critique of his “feminist” stance, a moralistic viewpoint, a religious one, or a personal one, but I’m going to take a different tack: a practical one, and I’m going to write this as though I’m addressing Michael himself.
You say you love your wife and she you, and your love is strong. You have young children about whom you care deeply. Do you understand that you’ve just upped the risks in your marriage tremendously? And these risks (including the risk of being badly hurt) are actually even greater for you than for your wife, although there are large risks for both, as well as for your children.
The first risk is that open marriages like yours don’t tend to be even, as you’re already found out. To be blunt, your wife is getting more action than you. You may think that’s your choice, but even if you wanted to change it, you might find you have a difficult time doing it. The reason has to do with certain differences between men and women (yes, there are differences), and the relevant one here is that it is still—even in our hookup culture—more common for women to want some sort of emotional commitment or at least intensity of emotion before they have sex.
Why would that lead to more action for your wife? Wouldn’t it be the other way around? The key is in economics of a sort: your wife is a more rare and desirable commodity in the sexual marketplace. If more men are looking for no-strings sex, and more women wanting sex-with-strings, then a women like your wife—attractive, hot to trot and supposedly emotionally unavailable and undemanding—is just what a lot of guys are looking for and having trouble finding. The fact that she’s married is a small glitch, hardly worth troubling over, since her marriage is “open.” For a lot of men, this is an opportunity both golden and rare. All she really has to do is put out the word, and they will (pardon the expression) come.
For you it’s a bit different. Young men who want sex without commitment are a dime (or perhaps a penny, or a centavo) a dozen. And although many more women than in previous years are willing to sleep with a man without a ring and a date (a marriage date, that is), there still aren’t tons and tons of women whose idea of “just right” is a married guy with no possibility of commitment at all. Why not at least take a guy who’s free, and who could possibly have love and marriage with you in his future?
So your road will be tougher, and your wife’s easier. That’s just the way it is. And you’ll be doing a lot of babysitting, so I hope you enjoy it.
There’s another way in which your risks are higher. Sex tends to be bonding, as you may have noticed. The very act of sex and orgasm actually causes people of both sexes to release a hormone, oxytocin, which—if you believe articles like this—may have a greater effect on women and make them more likely to fall in love with the guy they’ve just slept with. Even if oxytocin has nothing to do with it, the phenomenon of becoming closer and closer to someone you’ve been having sex with is one of those things that occurs, and you probably have noticed it can occur in both sexes but may in fact happen somewhat more often in women.
But for both you and your wife—whatever you may think, whatever you may think you know (as in that paragraph of yours I quoted at the outset)—you really don’t have a clue about the risks you run of having one or the other of you fall in love with someone else, and although you’ve tied yourself into a pretzel justifying sexual infidelity and telling yourself that your very normal feelings of jealousy are somehow abnormal and exploitative, I wonder how well you (or she) will do when emotional infidelity comes to stay.
You seem aware of that danger. In fact, you wrote:
I don’t want her to fall in love with anyone else, and every time she goes on a date, I confront the possibility that she might. It happened at the beginning: The first person she dated after we opened up fell hard in love with her, and my wife, overwhelmed by his ardor, tried to love him back. Watching it happen, I was confused, angry, and terrified that she wanted to leave me. She assured me she didn’t, and whatever feelings she had for him didn’t lessen what she felt for me. Believing her then was the ultimate trust exercise.
It is likely to happen again, and perhaps again. And it may just be that one of those times she won’t be able to assure you so convincingly that “whatever feelings she has for him don’t lessen what she feels for me.” Have you ever fallen in love, hard? One of the things that makes it so overwhelming is the novelty of the new person, the new discoveries—the intensity of the new as opposed to the boredom (intermittent or continuous) nearly inevitable with the old. You have actually countered this boredom with an interesting trick, which is to talk between yourselves about each of these new guys, and that probably adds a sexual titillation and newness to your own sex life. Good luck with that when she (or even you) does find that the feelings for the other are greater.
And then there’s pregnancy. I certainly hope your wife has foolproof contraception, because she could become pregnant with another man’s child. How do the two of you feel about her carrying that man’s child to term? How do the two of you feel about abortion? How do both of you feel about abortion if and only if the child isn’t yours? How do the two of you feel about having a paternity test while the child is still in utero, a test that occurs either between 11 and 13 weeks or 16 and 22 weeks, and increases the risk of miscarriage?
Oh, and of course the more partners you both have the more you run the risk of STDs. And of course each of you informs all potential partners before getting involved that you are in an open marriage, right?
People are monogamous in marriage for a great many reasons. Some reasons are religious. Some are traditional. Some people take vows seriously. Some don’t want to hurt their spouses, and know that infidelity would do just that. Some aren’t even tempted, or tempting. Some are isolated and don’t have much opportunity. Some aren’t all that interested in sex anyway. Some are afraid of STDs.
But some, and this might just be the majority, consider monogamy a gift they voluntarily give to themselves and their spouse and their marriage and their children, a gift that makes for some hardship but that also makes it less likely to cause pain to that spouse and to those children, or to damage the bond itself.
[Hat tip:commenter “Paul in Boston.”]
It’s hard to believe, but this book contains the photographs and stories of eight men who fought in the Revolution.
Yes, that’s the American Revolution.
And yes, photos.
[NOTE: I have a home movie of a great-aunt of mine who was born in 1839. The movie was taken in 1940, and it’s of my parents’ wedding. Pretty amazing stuff for a home movie.]
I watched Trump’s speech in Mobile last night without ever planning to do so. I was flipping around looking for something to watch on TV (in the background while I was doing some cooking) and noticed that CNN was showing it with comprehensive, wall-to-wall coverage, as though it was of the same importance as a State of the Union message.
That in and of itself got my attention. Not only that, the commentary at CNN seemed surprisingly respectful and even serious—not a lot of mocking and derision. So I watched, despite the fact that (as regular readers here know) I don’t like to listen to political speeches.
Of course, Trump giving a political speech is not like anyone else giving a political speech. He’s in his element in front of a crowd. And even in Alabama, the New York shtick that you would think wouldn’t play so well there seems to be something they love when Trump does it. People are really really really sick of feeling impotent as Obama has thumbed his nose at them and lied to them, as the GOP has either disappointed or outright betrayed them, and as PC thought has taken over our values, education, the press, some churches, and many novels and movies.
Trump seems immune from PC considerations and also from the ubiquitous need to be beholden to conventional donors. He has the advantage of his familiarity to the public and his relaxation in front of the camera gained from years of being a showman and a TV personality. Trump has a populist appeal—you could see it very clearly during his speech—but he’s a rich-as-Croesus populist who doesn’t trash the rich as so many populists do; au contraire. Nor does he apologize for being mega-rich himself; he brags.
Trump has mastered not just the “art of the deal” but the art of giving a speech that sounds like ad-libbing stream-of-consciousness but is not. As he went along it occurred to me that what he is doing is cheerleading for America, reiterating over and over what he would do for America and what he would do for the people he is speaking to, and fitting his words to their desire that America be what it once was. It’s the flip side of Obama’s hope and change: they hope that he can change things back to a time when America was great, and that’s his explicit message and the slogan on the very flyover-country-looking hats he wears and sells. This is a guy who knows marketing, and it’s no accident that the slogan is also pretty much what Reagan used in 1980 (Reagan put the word “let’s” at the beginning of the phrase, but otherwise it was exactly the same).
Trump is a happy warrior, or at least talks like one. “I will rebuild the military so it’s so strong and so powerful that we’ll never have to use it. No one will ever mess with us” is a typical utterance. He lists stuff—trade, health care, women’s health issues—and says “we’re gonna fix it.” And I guess people believe him, or at least believe he’s sincere about trying. How he’ll get around the impediments that stand in the way is unclear, but people don’t want clarity. They like his style. They like his spirit
“We have a great lack of spirit,” said Trump, and he’s right; and he’s out to provide it, and he does. He says he had thought Obama would be “a great cheerleader,” (hmmm, I thought; I just perceived him as a cheerleader a moment ago, and now he’s using the word). Instead, Obama is “a great divider.” But Trump? “I am going to make this country bigger and stronger and better and you’re gonna love it, and you’re gonna love your president…and you’re gonna be so proud.”
Anyone who reads this blog knows that I’m not a Trump supporter, but that I also get his appeal. Watching him speak at length, I “got” it even more. He makes all other politicians look boring and stilted (hey, many of them are boring and stilted). He makes it all sound so simple—just as Obama did, but in a completely different direction and with a completely, and I mean completely, different style. Populist appeal is a neat trick in a man who’s a multi-billionaire and who grew up in enormous wealth and graduated from Wharton. But he’s got it, and although I’m sure he carefully nurtures it he manages to make it look natural.
From the start of Trump’s rise in the polls I’ve taken him very seriously as a phenomenon. I haven’t understood those who casually asserted “He’s never going to win the nomination.” I’ve long thought he could, because the force of that appeal is obvious, and he’s somehow made himself immune to being criticized for anything he says. His niche is “the more outrageous, the better,” and the more extreme his utterances the more his supporters seem to like him—although not all of what he says is extreme, of course, and some is just common sense.
If I were one of the other Republican candidates I’d be very very scared. And if I were one of the Democratic candidates I’d be scared, too.
Here’s the entire speech, if you’re interested:
Dershowitz on the Iran deal, and his proposal for a better deal.
A proposal which, I might add, is probably moot. But the interview is well worth listening to.
It always seems odd to me how the obviously brilliant Dershowitz voted for Obama twice. But of course, it’s not odd at all. I’ve noticed how often it is that political affiliation overrules judgement, particularly on the liberal end. Even now, as Dershowitz talks, half of what he says is insightful and tough and half is naive—“naive” because I think he’s a liberal and a patriot rather than a leftist.
Well, it turns out there weren’t any Marines involved. Which turns out not to have really mattered.
And there were three Americans, not two. One is in the Air Force, one in the Oregon National Guard, and one a civilian. The three—who are friends—were the ones who tackled and pinned the shooter (the pinning accomplished with the help of an older British man).
It is unclear, but the shooter’s gun may have jammed—although, if so, they had no idea this was the case when they made their charge towards him. One passenger also appears to have gotten shot in the neck by the gunman before they managed to stop further carnage. There were no fatalities and everyone is expected to survive.
Instead of trying to describe the scene, I’ll just let three of them tell about it. The most heroic of all is in the hospital and therefore not part of the interview, although he’s reported to be doing well despite having been badly cut by the gunman:
This is rich:
The man who attacked the train yesterday is denying that he is a terrorist, and claims only to have planned to rob the train.
French TV channel BFMTV also reports that he claimed he found the bag of weapons “in a park in Brussels”.
No doubt.
Here are some facts about the three Americans, with photos. Some of the descriptions of the attack and their actions are based on earlier accounts and are incorrect, but I put the links here because of the photos:
Spencer Stone, Air Force, and the man who was wounded.
Alek Skarlatos, National Guard, who recently served in Afghanistan.
Anthony Sadler, Sacramento resident on his first trip to Europe.
[ADDENDUM: More information here:
When a French passenger tried to enter a bathroom on the train, he encountered the gunman and tried to overpower him and the gun was then fired, Mr Cazeneuve said.
A French-American passenger was injured by the bullet, and the American passengers intervened shortly afterward, he said.
“Spencer got to the guy first and grabbed the guy by the neck,” Mr Skarlatos told Sky News.
“I grabbed the handgun, got that away from the guy and threw it. Then I grabbed the AK-47, which was at his feet, and started muzzle-bumping him in the head with it.
“Everybody just started beating the guy while Spencer held the chokehold until he went unconscious.”
If you scroll down, there’s a wonderful video (I can’t seem to embed it) of an interview with Sadler’s parents. Do yourself a favor and watch it.]
This is quite a headline, and quite a story:
“Unarmed US Marines foil suspected terrorist attack onboard high-speed train between Amsterdam and Paris after they take down Kalashnikov-wielding Moroccan gunman known to intelligence services”
A group of unarmed US Marines on board a high-speed train between Amsterdam and Paris foiled a terrorist attack after a gunman opened fire with an assault rifle, wounding three people.
The 26-year-old Moroccan national, who was known to security services, came out of the toilet brandishing the gun and opened fire. Fortunately, two US Marines were nearby and overpowered him before he could massacre passengers.
The suspected terrorist had at least nine full magazines of ammunition holding almost 300 rounds. He was also carrying a knife.
Unfortunately, one of the Marines was shot and is believed to be in a critical condition.
…French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve praised the Marines for their timely intervention.
He said: ‘Thanks to them we have averted a drama.
‘(The Americans were) particularly courageous and showed extreme bravery in extremely difficult circumstances.’
That’s what Marines do.
I hope that at some point we get more information on exactly how the gunman was overpowered. It would be very instructive.
Oh, and this:
…Interior ministry spokesman Pierre Henry Brandet said:”…Talking about a terrorist motive would be premature at the moment.”
Sure.
[Hat tip: Ace.]
[ADDENDUM: So far (as of 5:50 PM 8/21/15) there’s not much about this from the American press. Let’s see if there ever is.]
[UPDATE 7 PM: There does seem to be a fair amount of coverage now. Good.]
…this.
From the video at the link:
“They’re scared that maybe there’s no place to make money. If the stock market’s not going to make you money, where do you make it now?”
When I was younger and looking towards this time of life, I figured on a certain return on my money that just isn’t possible right now, nor has it been since 2008. I’ve never had the stomach for the ups and downs of the market, and yet I’ve been in it somewhat because of the dilemma expressed in that last quote—how does a fairly modest investor who can’t accept high risk make much money these days?
When I was married, I let my husband handle it all, and I was very very happy to do so. When stocks rose it was nice, when they fell it was awful (I remember 1987). But I always retained my equanimity, in part because we were young, and then at least youngish, and could make more money and wait for the market to rise again.
Now, not so much. I also am well aware that many people have predicted much, much bigger and far more pervasive collapses in the not-too-distant future. It’s the nature of bubbles to burst.