This is from 1940, when the dial telephone was introduced. It seems not only from another time, but from another planet. Here’s the part where a woman goes on and on explaining much more than you ever needed to know in order to dial a phone. There’s something languid, weighty, and yet sensual in her presentation that makes it quite the tour de force:
Here’s the whole thing, complete with extended family including Gramps, and teenage daughter:
…visiting family and friends.
Yesterday was a long journey, and the easiest part was the plane ride.
But the bus that takes me to the airport had changed one of its policies unexpectedly. The airport was unusually crowded and I have no idea why. I had gotten to the airport so early that they put my bags on another flight without telling me, and I waited a half hour on the other end while the bags circled on the carousel and mine wasn’t there, only to find that it had been safe and sound at the airport already for hours (and don’t tell me to just take a carry-on; for various reasons, including orthopedic ones, it’s not possible).
And then on the way to where I was staying, there was a detour of which my GPS was blissfully ignorant, and it kept stubbornly sending me back to the closed road again and again. The detour instruction signs then suddenly disappeared when they were most needed.
But here I am, and very happy to be here. Where is “here”? Somewhere out west.
Also, even though the flight was from one blue stronghold to another, I noticed that only about 15% to 20% of the people on the plane wore masks. Interesting.
Here are three photos I took from the plane. It was sunset over the Rockies with a thick cloud cover. Time passed and the night got darker.
Here’s the first one:
The second:
The third:
(1) New British PM Elizabeth (there’s that name again!) Truss has lifted the fracking ban. That certainly seems reasonable. But it’s not all that common for leaders to do something reasonable, is it?
The end of the fracking moratorium is part of a larger set of policies the new prime minister announced Thursday, which was put together to manage the crisis and to help households cope with astronomical energy bills…
“It is vital we take steps to increase our domestic energy supply,” Truss said. “We will end the moratorium on extracting our huge reserves of shale that could get gas flowing in as soon as six months where there is local support for it.”…
…[S]ome Tories have been resistant to the notion, citing local opposition in areas that have shale reserves.
A NIMBY phenomenon? But if the shale really is in your backyard, it’s not as though it can be placed somewhere else.
(2) A lot of people believe the MAL documents were related to Russiagate. It certainly is very believable as a possibility. Then again, the desire of the left, the Deep State, and the Democrats to convict Trump of something, anything, is so powerful a driving force that the raid doesn’t even require a scenario as obvious or overt as covering up their tracks in Russiagate.
(3) Washington DC City Council member complains:
DC Council Member @BrianneKNadeau blamed the governors of Texas and Arizona for creating this "crisis" and said they turned DC into a border town. pic.twitter.com/fgPkOrUdQi
— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) September 8, 2022
And what did that powers-that-be in DC do to Texas and Arizona and the “border towns” in those states? The answer is: allow and even encourage them to be flooded with illegal immigrants, that’s what. But Texas and Arizona diverting a little tiny trickle to previously virtue-signaling “sanctuary” DC causes an outraged uproar. “Hypocritical” doesn’t even begin to cover it.
(4) Rasmussen is calling Biden’s Nuremberg rally speech the “Red Sermon.” I think of it as his Captain Ahab “from hell’s heart I stab at thee” speech, but perhaps that’s too literary a reference. In this recent post about the MAL raid and its fallout, I discussed that Ahab speech from Moby Dick, and the fact that it was Ahab’s last speech before he was destroyed along with the Pequod itself and almost all its crew. Biden’s Red Sermon hasn’t had that effect, but it certainly hasn’t been received well, according to Rassmusen’s polls.
(5) Manchin isn’t getting much love from West Virginia voters, which will probably hurt his re-election chances. Then again, I have wondered whether he might be ready to retire; after all, he’s not up for re-election till 2024, at which point he’ll be 77. And although these days in the political world that’s tantamount to being in the prime of life [sic], I have a feeling he might be more than happy to retire and take whatever money his actions will end up getting him, or maybe just plain relax.
I think the sorrow a lot of people feel on Queen Elizabeth’s death is that, even for those of “mature” years, she was always around. I was a tiny child when she was crowned, and I’m certainly a child no more.
I think I have a memory of glancing at the TV and seeing a moment of the ceremony all those long years ago – or do I only imagine it? I also remember that just a few years later, when I was still a young child, she visited New York and even made an appearance in the area where I lived. Is that a real memory, or not?
She was a beautiful young woman, then a middle-aged one, and then an old but very intrepid one. Her predecessor in name, Queen Elizabeth I, had enormous power. But in contrast, Elizabeth II only had the symbolic power of her personal example, and she set a remarkable one.
She hardly even changed her style of clothing, and in a world of enormous change, she held on as an example of the dignity that was more common in former generations. Her demise coincides with a feeling of gloom in the Western world and for many people it augments it, if only emotionally.
Unlike many royals of old – and probably even today – her marriage was a love match. And yet she had problems with some of her offspring and that made it a tiny bit easier to identify with her, even though other aspects of her life were so singular.
Melanie Phillips voiced worry back in October:
To widespread unease, if not outright concern, the Queen has been missing some public engagements recently due to unspecified health issues…
She has also been advised to stop riding. The Queen no longer riding! The world is indeed wobbling on its axis…
Even so, these restrictions on the Queen’s activities have induced a sense of dread. At age 95, it is on everyone’s mind that she cannot go on for ever.
Yet the Queen is an irreplaceable constant in the life of the British nation. Her public appearances aren’t just the exercise of her role as the symbol of the nation. As so many feel so viscerally, she is the nation.
People feel better just for seeing her out and about with her trademark smile, a few gracious words — and trailing a cloud of insoluble mystery. With her unrivalled sense of duty, her stoicism and her emotional restraint, many see in the Queen the embodiment of a Britain whose cultural identity is inexorably fraying. Many feel in their bones that when the Queen eventually passes, Britain will just not be the same. Despite the fact that the monarchy will continue, something of infinite value will have been lost.
Now Giles [Frazier, an Anglican priest] has framed all this in spiritual terms. He sees in the Queen’s very frailty something especially precious. He acknowledges something that few realise and that is never, ever talked about in post-Christian Britain— that the British monarchy is a sacrament and that the Queen is consecrated to God.
And yesterday Phillips wrote this, probably speaking for a great many people:
It was, of course, always an inevitability, as it is for all of us. And in recent months the Queen had obviously become increasingly frail.
Nevertheless, it felt unthinkable that one day she would no longer be with us. We allowed ourselves to imagine that she would go on for ever. For so many of us this evening, this feels like a personal bereavement. Something of priceless value has been torn from us, and we feel devastated…
She held the country together because of the way she effaced herself to become the quintessence of duty and selfless service to her people, a symbol of unity and true inclusion. We watched the way she conducted her great office — her calmness, her strength, her fortitude, her kindliness, and humility — and we felt soothed and reassured that, in looking at her example, we were gazing at ourselves as a nation in the mirror she held up to us. She loved us with deep devotion, and in return we loved her.
Her son Charles, who will finally become king, simply doesn’t inspire anything remotely like the same devotion. Of course, his mother was a tough tough act to follow.
She is so impressive and also so good at breaking down what she’s doing in order to teach othes:
Here’s one of my two very favorite Paul Taylor works (the other is “Esplanade”). The video is a very short compilation of brief clips from performances over the decades – the piece is now 60 years old. I’ve seen the dance live during the 60s, 70s, 80s, and probably a few times since. The video only captures a small portion of its transcendent joyfulness, but it will have to do. A special treat is a 1967 snippet of Paul Taylor himself dancing (1:10 to 1:20). He’s the person I first saw in the role, and everything he did onstage was memorable. Built more like a football player than most dancers, you can see why they called him “The Hulk”:
Here’s just the Taylor part, if you were having trouble isolating it:
I don’t understand how people can think that it’s smart to reduce your own energy supply in order to become dependent on the supply of others. How on earth would that even help the environment, if the environment is your concern? It seems nonsensical on the face of it, and yet politicians propose it and people vote for it. Is it an “extraordinary popular delusion” in order to virtue-signal?
And if you want to use alternate sources of energy that are greener, good luck. I might even say “more power to you” (pun intended). But you’d better be able to deliver, or you’re setting yourselves up for disaster.
Not to mention, of course, the sheer stupidity and folly of becoming dependent on a hostile foreign power for energy. Madness.
Of course, if you posit that the leaders of the Western world have as a goal to destroy the Western world, then all is explained. It’s the old “fools versus knaves” question. I happen to think that stupidity is a goodly part of it, with a generous heaping of “knave” thrown in as well.
In the piece by William Jacobson that I linked in the first sentence of this post, Professor Jacobson quotes this very alarming Twitter thread by Finnish economist and professor Tuomas Malinen:
I am telling you people that the situation in #Europe is much worse than many understand. We are essentially on the brink of another banking crisis, a collapse of our industrial base and households, and thus on the brink of the collapse of our economies. Short thread. 1/4
We are also totally at the mercy of the authorities, and we have very little knowledge what they have planned. Will they be able to stop the onset of the banking crisis, yet again? I don’t know, but I am doubtful. 2/
In any case the speed of deterioration is massive now, and it’s only a matter of time, when markets catch up.
Certain politicians in this country seem to want us to follow suit, and are doing their best to make it happen.
Ezekiel Kelly is in custody after a shooting spree in Memphis in which several people appear to have been murdered:
Police said they received reports he was recording his actions on Facebook. In a Facebook Live video seen by a WREG staff member, Kelly was seen getting out of a car, walking into the AutoZone on Jackson Avenue, and firing shots. The video was later removed.
So, publicity hound as well as murderer.
There are parallels in his background to the history of the perp in the murder of Eliza Fletcher: same city, and an earlier record that included very violent crimes that didn’t result in the victim’s death but might have. Attempted murder was one of the earlier charges against Kelly, but he pled down to aggravated assault, got a three-year sentence, and was out in two. Because Kelly is still only 19, his earlier crime was apparently committed at 17, which may have been part of the reason for the light sentence. But the main reason is probably the usual one: an overburdened system in which prosecutors are happy to plea bargain for all but the most heinous (or politically rewarding to try) cases.
Chief Davis told reporters that suspect Kelly caused at least 8 crime scenes and he killed four people and injuring three more.
My guess also is that his timing was partly inspired by the Fletcher murder. He wanted some of the attention and had to up the ante.
Here are the previous charges against the perp:
Court records also showed more about the teen’s background: He faced four felony charges, including two counts of attempted murder, one count of reckless endangerment and one count of possession of a firearm in 2020 at the age of 17.
Sources told WREG he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of aggravated assault in the case in 2021. He got three years in that case, but was already out of jail.
I don’t know Memphis; if I’ve ever been there it would have been about 50 years ago, when I went on a long trip through the South. But from what I’ve read recently, the city had gotten very dangerous even before these recent murders (see this). In addition, a month ago a soft-on-crime prosecutor named Steve Mulroy was elected there, but these two men were released prior to that so I doubt Mulroy had much if anything to do with decisions around their release.
Here’s an interview with the Republican whom Mulroy beat, the incumbent DA Amy Weirich. The interview took place shortly before that election a month ago. A few excerpts:
WEIRICH: The 40 juveniles that were transferred last year by the juvenile court system at the request of our office, committed murder in the first degree, murder in the second degree, rape, carjacking, aggravated robbery, criminal attempt murder. These are, the majority of them are 17 years old. And if we didn’t seek transfer at the age of 19, the jurisdiction of the juvenile court runs out and they would be released from custody with absolutely no supervision, no control, no regulations on their conduct. If we didn’t seek that remedy, I wish we didn’t have to. I wish we didn’t have so many juveniles committing the violent crime that we’re seeing in this community, but the answer is not just releasing them.
STARNES: And, you know, I’ve seen the debates and I’ve yet to hear a reporter ask Professor Mulroy the question, ‘Okay, out of the 40 people, which ones would you have charged as a juvenile? Which family doesn’t get justice?’
WEIRICH:Right. And that’s, you know, something I’ve said over and over again. I don’t think this community, because I go everywhere in this community, from North Memphis, to Westwood, to Cordova, to Chelsea, to Smokey City, to Southwind, it doesn’t matter. Everywhere I go in Shelby County, the citizens want the same thing. They want a district attorney who’s going to fight hard when the violent crime occurs. That doesn’t mean that we don’t also do a lot to help rehabilitate and a lot to help intervene…And if a juvenile or an adult offender continues to victimize, they leave us no choice as prosecutors.
Hmmm – Professor Mulroy. That prompted me to look up Mulroy’s background, and I found that he’s a law professor who has also served on the County Commission. I don’t see any criminal prosecutorial experience, although “from 1999-2000 he served as a Special Assistant United States Attorney (a federal prosecutor) in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Alexandria, Virginia.”
His actual field of expertise seems to be election law. See this for a sample of his views, which seem to boil down to “democracy, democracy, democracy requires all sorts of machinations to keep Democrats in power and assure real majority rule; here are my suggestions.” The word “republic” appears nowhere in the rather lengthy piece; the fact that we are a republic, or the reason the Founders created that structure, appears to be of zero interest to him.
NOTE: And here’s a “good guy with gun” story from July 4th that didn’t get much coverage at the time.
[NOTE: I have a very busy day and will be in and out of communication, so I’m posting this thread in case something dramatic happens with Queen Elizabeth, or if you just want to discuss the situation.]
Here’s the story on the Queen’s decline in health.
This Bee Gees song from 1974 is obscure, but I love it. They sound like a choir:
Commenter Barry Meislin writes
…”the older generation has had FLAT NOTHING to say about the abusive behavior of either Obama’s outfit or Biden’s….”
THIS is, in fact, the most chilling aspect of this vicious farce.
Dershowitz, whether one agrees with him or not, is unafraid when it comes to defending the Constitution and the rule of law, as he understands it.
The silence of the Old Guard of GOP leaders—and one might assume “decent” Democrats—is deafening, chilling and sinister…
(Or ought one say, “most disappointing”?…)
Many years ago, in my more naive days, I might have thought that most of our “elder statesmen” would be condemning the sort of behavior we’ve seen from the FBI and DOJ under Obama and Biden. I no longer expect such things.
But the comment made me wonder, who are these “Old Guard” of GOP leaders – apart from the Bush/Cheney crowd who hate Trump, because (among other things) he was quite vicious to them over Iraq? I recall Trump saying Bush should have been impeached and that he was evil. In fact, I wrote an article about it – you can find the article here. So one thing that is not a mystery is why the Bushes and Cheneys hate Trump. And many people who support or are allied with Bush/Cheney hate Trump for their own reasons, or on Bush/Cheney’s behalf.
Other Old Guard Republicans? It’s interesting to contemplate that, until Trump’s election, the most recent non-Bush Republican president was Richard Nixon [NOTE: Oops, I was in such a hurry I somehow left out Reagan].
The only non-Bush-allied elder statesman I can come up with is Gingrich, who has pretty consistently defended Trump and criticized Obama and Biden. Googling for a few others I see that John Ashcroft has defended Trump, Kay Baily Hutchison was his NATO ambassador, and Bob Dole endorsed and defended Trump from the start. The only thing Dole split with Trump on was he said he thought Trump lost the 2020 election (“I regret that he did,” Dole added). Dole certainly would be considered the Old Guard – he was 98 when he said that, and close to death.
Sarah Palin, who is a Trump defender, doesn’t really qualify as Old Guard. She’s rather young still, and relatively Trumpish herself.
That’s the Republicans. The silence (or even praise) of old-school Democrats for Obama and Biden’s machinations doesn’t surprise me in the least. Most people are not Dershowitz or Turley; most are not profiles in courage.
Gingrich, on the other hand, who is 79, has been very active on cable news defending Trump and criticizing Democrats and the left. A sample: this and this. Actually, take a look at just about anything Gingrich has said in the last few years and it’s very hard-hitting. Is he elderly enough to be Old Guard? I think so.
Also, for what it’s worth, erstwhile Democrat Joe Lieberman has been consistently critical of Obama’s and now Biden’s Iran Deal, and was pro Abraham Accords.
Learning how it’s done:
A U.S. district court judge issued a ruling on Tuesday that requires Chief Medical Adviser to the President Anthony Fauci, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, and other key public health officials to turn over all external communications with Big Tech companies. The ruling is based upon a lawsuit filed against top-ranking Biden administration officials by Missouri and Louisiana Attorneys General Eric Schmitt and Jeff Landry for “colluding with social media companies to censor free speech.”…
The issuance of the court order comes days after the release of bombshell emails showing that the Biden administration coordinated with senior officials at Facebook and Twitter to censor posts about Covid-19 they claimed contained false or misleading information. As reported by The Federalist, “In an email dated July 16, 2021, addressed to U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, a senior representative for Facebook discussed how the company and Biden administration officials met ‘to better understand the scope of what the White House expects from [Facebook] on misinformation going forward.’”
A separate email chain dated July 20, 2021, also shows Digital Director for the White House Covid-19 Response Team Clarke Humphrey asking Facebook if the tech giant could remove a parody Instagram account of Dr. Anthony Fauci, to which a company official replied, “Yep, on it!”
None of this should come as a surprise.