Is it a case of “give them enough rope”?

The New Neo Posted on by

Suddenly, a lot of Democratic candidates are getting really really stupid.

Now, you might say they’ve been stupid for a long time. But I don’t mean “stupid” as in “thinking they’ll never run out of other people’s money,” or something like that. I mean “stupid” in the sense that Republicans have so often been stupid.

Stupid about campaigning. Stupid about tactics. Stupid about timing. The kind of stupid we recall seeing from “I am not a witch” Christine O’Donnell and “you can’t get pregnant when you’re legitimately raped” Todd Akin, who was on track to unseat Claire McKaskill until his unfortunate remark.

Shoot yourself in the foot, foot in mouth (mixed metaphor?) stupid.

On Monday I wrote about Elizabeth Warren:

I used to think that Elizabeth Warren was smart. I disagreed hugely with her politics and her tactics, but long ago she seemed intelligent. I can’t say I’ve been paying all that much attention to her in recent years, but today’s DNA caper seems an indication that if she ever was smart, being in DC so long has caused her to lose whatever savvy she may once have possessed.

In other words, why on earth would she think that releasing these DNA test results would help her cause? On the contrary, the move makes her look like an absolute fool…

And then yesterday I read about Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota’s doxxing of alleged sexual assault survivors who never gave permission for their names to be used and who claim they’re not even sexual assault survivors. And all in the service of a pretty weak campaign ad, an attempt by Heitkamp to overcome the backlash against her “no” vote on Kavanaugh. The ad made little sense even if the all names had been correct and permission had been given (which apparently was the case with most of the names she used): why double down on the anti-Kavanaugh mess when it’s just not a popular stance in your state?

You might call that a rookie error—but Heitkamp’s not a rookie.

Heitkamp isn’t alone:

Why is all of this happening? Is it a simple case of “give them enough rope”? Perhaps, at least partly. But I continue to think that it’s due to something I discussed yesterday, the fact that Trump is a knuckleballer.

Now you may think that analogy of mine isn’t a good one. After all, isn’t the knuckleball a junk pitch? Not when it’s done right. A superlative knuckleballer is highly skilled at what he does, and it’s not something most pitchers can master and throw with any consistency or effectiveness. But the best knuckleballers can regularly make the batters who face them look like fools. The batters swing wildly, usually trying for the stands, because the knuckleball pitch looks so big and fat and juicy and slow that they’re sure they can knock it right out of the park. Then they end up looking like one of those cartoons of baseball players taking a big swing and missing, corkscrewing their bodies in the process, and then having to unwind.

I don’t know what’s going to happen in the election this year in terms of the results. I confess to being very anxious about it. Then again, I’m almost always anxious about elections these days. But I know that if I were a Democrat I’d be very, very frustrated right about now.

Apparently they killed off Roseanne

The New Neo Posted on by

The character, that is, in the series that used to bear her name. The plot line has her dying from an opioid overdose, in both a nod to a current US problem and an act of vengeance against the series’ creator and star.

We’ll see if that helps them; so far, it’s doing so-so:

Down 35% from the Roseanne opener, the debut of The Conners was just 4% better than the mothership series finale in metered market numbers. In fact, despite a massive marketing push, The Conners wasn’t even the highest rated show of Tuesday night. Though The Conners was ahead of This Is Us by 22% in the early numbers, it was the fourth episode of the 16th season of CBS’ NCIS that topped the night with a 8.1/13 in metered market results.

Killing off Roseanne doesn’t mean they couldn’t bring her back, although I doubt they will (and I’m not sure she would accept even if they asked). After all, towards the end of the original series, Roseanne’s husband Dan was revealed to have died, and they brought him back.

I don’t watch the show, but I’m curious what will happen to the ratings.

The contradictions in leftist identity politics

The New Neo Posted on by

The seeming stupidity of Elizabeth Warren claiming Native American status on the basis of her paltry DNA results points to some deep problems in the leftist identity politics narrative. It goes something like this:

(1) For some identities, leftism dictates that they are self-defined and ignore physical biology. The person creates his or her own reality, and this is most readily apparent with the transgender movement. In fact, once a person has formally identified as a man or a woman, regardless of his or her birth gender, then the world is required to address that person by the preferred gender pronouns whether that new gender seems to fit the person’s appearance or not, and whether or not that person has had sex reassignment surgery. This has already caused some problems in sports (see this, for example).

(2) The history of the assignment of racial identity is fraught with difficult decisions to be made about the governing rules. This is true whether the purpose is discrimination (apartheid, Jim Crow South, Nazis) or the conferring of benefits (affirmative action in the present-day US). Warren tried to take advantage of a minority status in order to gain such advantage in the hiring process (although she denies that motivation). Whatever her reasons, the real question is at what point it becomes ridiculous to claim such racial ties. Warren definitely went far beyond that point; she is no more Native American than most Americans of European descent who wouldn’t even think of claiming it, and a good deal less than some.

(3) Same for Rachel Dolezal, who appears to have had a different motive for her identification with black people although she’s white, probably an emotional one. At any rate, her case highlighted the conflict between the leftist rules about gender identity and the ones about racial identity.

(4) Warren’s case also makes it clear that if she meets the criteria for being a minority, then virtually all of us do, because most people have traces of other races (and often even other species, for example Neanderthals). Once it is accepted that a small amount of a race is enough to confer membership in that race, then the entire edifice collapses because almost anyone could claim membership in any race.

(5) That brings us right back to the more basic question: what is race, how can it be determined, and what is the purpose of such categorization? Why at this point do we have affirmative action or quotas? Why are some races favored and others not? Harvard is having to deal with this question right now regarding their treatment of Asian applicants, and I eagerly await the results of that lawsuit.

[NOTE: It occurs to me that I should point out that the left doesn’t care about the contradictions, although it’s inconvenient for them to have them pointed out. But since the left will say that 2+2=5 if necessary, contradictions are really no big problem for them.]

YouTube goes down all over the world…

The New Neo Posted on by

…and at first I think it’s just my site, so I’m actually relieved to find out it’s global.

And now it’s fixed.

The internet has become extremely sophisticated and ridiculously complex. No matter how many safeguards are built into it, it’s vulnerable.

So far, no one has a clue why this happened. But there were a lot of tweets about the apocalypse.

And of course, within minutes of YouTube’s restoration, there were a ton of YouTube videos with people talking about the outage.

From Melania to Nijinsky in several easy steps

The New Neo Posted on by

Most people couldn’t pull off this fashion statement that Melania Trump made during her recent trip to Egypt. For instance, I would like silly in this outfit. But Melania can wear anything and look good, and she looks great here.

I must add that the First Lady of Egypt is one of the few people who can manage to hold her own while standing next to Melania. She has a different (and simpler) vibe and style entirely, but is equally tall and slim, with a natural elegance.

And how about those strange dancers seen from :12-:20? Is that supposed to be some Egyptian dance? It reminds me a bit of the Fokine version of “Afternoon of a Faun” from 1912:

Nijinsky’s ballet caused a huge scandal when it premiered:

The style of the ballet, in which a young faun meets several nymphs, flirts with them and chases them, was deliberately archaic. In the original scenography designed by Léon Bakst, the dancers were presented as part of a large tableau, a staging reminiscent of an ancient Greek vase painting. They often moved across the stage in profile as if on a bas relief. The ballet was presented in bare feet and rejected classical formalism. The work had an overtly erotic subtext beneath its façade of Greek antiquity, ending with a scene of graphic sexual desire.

That “scene of graphic sexual desire” was with a veil, by the way, left behind by a nymph. Here’s what actually happens in the scene:

The Faun holds the veil to his face before spreading it on the ground and lowering his body onto it, head tucked in and arms to his sides. Soft horns and harp accompany a final flute passage as his body tenses and curls back, head rising, before relaxing back onto the veil.

That really doesn’t sound all that shocking, does it? But I’ve seen the ballet, and if that part is done well, it actually does convey a very sexual vibe that must have been intensely shocking in 1912.

But I very much doubt that anyone can do it the way Nijinsky did it. He was by all accounts one of the greatest dancers of all time, in no small part because of his acting abilities. We do have still photos of him and the veil, although not that final moment. You can see his special qualities:

And here is a video of Nureyev doing the role. I’ve cued up just the last bit:

I’ve come pretty far from talking about Melania’s outfit on her trip to Egypt, haven’t I?

This is my leading theory about Khashoggi, too

The New Neo Posted on by

Stephen Green writes:

It seems possible that Khashoggi was murdered in order to embarrass Crown Prince bin Salman rather than to protect him.

If he was murdered at all, that is—and on the whole I think it’s likely that he was murdered.

I wonder why Lindsey Graham is falling into the trap of accusing bin Salman before we know more. Maybe Graham just can’t turn off his new-found feistiness. From the quotes in that article (I can’t find a full transcript of Graham’s interview), it appears that Graham isn’t saying “if” about the Crown Prince’s responsibility for the murder; he’s assuming it. This just seems wrong to me, and not smart.

Note that we haven’t yet gotten the promised announcement from the Saudis that CNN had predicted. Time will tell, of course, but CNN is not exactly a consistently trustworthy source. In summary, right now this entire affair is wide open and I’m assuming that we know nothing.

1954: an attack of political violence that few remember

The New Neo Posted on by

It happened in 1954, which isn’t all that long ago. But it might as well have been hundreds of years ago, because I doubt most Americans are aware of it. I’m pretty sure that if you were to stop 100 people on the street and ask them about it, none or few would have a clue what you were talking about.

So, what am I talking about? The Puerto Rican independence advocates who shot up the House of Representatives, wounding five members of the House, one seriously.

This happened during the “peaceful” 1950s:

When Lebrón’s group reached the visitor’s gallery above the House chamber, they sat while the representatives discussed the Mexican economy and issues of immigration. After Lebrón gave the order, the group quickly recited the Lord’s Prayer. She stood up and shouted, “¡Viva Puerto Rico libre!” (approximately, “Long live a free Puerto Rico!”) and unfurled the flag of Puerto Rico. The group opened fire with semi-automatic pistols directed toward the Representatives below.

Five representatives were shot in the attack. The wounded lawmakers were Alvin M. Bentley (R-Michigan), who took a bullet to the chest, Clifford Davis (D-Tennessee), who was shot in the leg, Ben F. Jensen (R-Iowa), who was shot in the back, as well as George Hyde Fallon (D-Maryland) and Kenneth A. Roberts (D-Alabama). House pages helped carry Alvin Bentley off the House floor. The representatives were treated and recovered.

Lebrón said she fired her shots at the ceiling, while Figueroa’s pistol jammed. Some 30 shots were fired (mostly by Cancel, according to his account), wounding five lawmakers. Upon being arrested, Lebrón yelled, “I did not come to kill anyone, I came to die for Puerto Rico!”

Lebron, by the way, was a woman.

The shooters were tried in the US and given lengthy sentences that were essentially life imprisonment. But guess what? Until I read it while doing research for this post, I had forgotten this little detail (if indeed I ever knew it):

Figueroa Cordero was released in 1978. One year later, in 1979, President Jimmy Carter pardoned the remaining Nationalists. Some analysts said this was in exchange for Fidel Castro’s release of several American CIA agents being held in Cuba on espionage charges, but the US said that was not the case. The Nationalists were received in Puerto Rico with a heroes’ welcome from roughly 5,000 people at San Juan International Airport

Good old Jimmy Carter.

Here’s Lolita Lebron’s 2010 obituary. You can see from the photo that she was quite the looker:

The former teenage beauty queen may have been a “terrorist” to most Americans, but she became an almost mythical hero, a kind of Joan of Arc, to many Puerto Ricans both on her native island and in their large New York community. Some, however, felt such violence was a step too far. Others compared her to legendary South American revolutionaries such as Mexico’s Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa or later to the Argentine-born hero of the Cuban revolution, Che Guevara. Stylised Che-style portraits of Lebrón began appearing in New York galleries and Che himself said he had been inspired by the gun-toting lady in the silk scarf, dangly earrings, bright lipstick and high heels…

After the Puerto Ricans were freed on 10 September 1979, they were feted as heroes during a tour of Puerto Rican communities in New York and Chicago. They were welcomed by tumultuous crowds, with banners proclaiming “Welcome Lolita!” when they flew into the Puerto Rican capital, San Juan. For the rest of her life, saying she did not regret her action but had renounced violence, Lebrón was known respectfully by her compatriots as Doña Lolita.

I thought about this incident during the recent Kavanaugh hearings, which featured many disruptions from the gallery and the need to escort some of the protestors out. At least we seem to have metal detectors and other protection now; I doubt a group could get in with semi-automatic pistols anymore. But I don’t doubt that there are some people who’d dearly love to (and they’re most likely not Puerto Ricans these days, unlike 1954), and I don’t doubt that they might find some creative way to outwit security and wreak havoc.

Trump the knuckleballer

The New Neo Posted on by

Victor Davis Hanson knows his classics, and the title of his latest article, “The Origins of Progressive Agony,” contains a word—agony—that English speakers usually take to mean “intense pain or suffering.” That is its first definition, but its second comes more directly from its Greek root, agon, a word that means “struggle or contest.”

Hanson’s essay is well worth reading in its entirety; a summary hardly does it justice. I believe he intends “agony” in both its meanings, suffering and contest, and I believe it is the correct word for what the left is going through right now. It is by no means clear who will win this struggle, long term.

Here’s Hanson’s description of what happened right after Trump won in November of 2016:

Progressives soon woke up to the reality that without power they were unable to stop Trump, and so they embraced any desperate means necessary to trap the ogre. The effort proved as frenzied as it was impotent: boycotting the inauguration, suing over state voting machines, using the courts to stymie Trump appointments and executive orders, appealing to the emoluments clause and the 25th Amendment of the Constitution, and winking and nodding at the assassination chic of celebrities and politicos such as Johnny Depp, Peter Fonda, Kathy Griffith, Madonna, Robert de Niro, Snoop Dogg, and a host of others. The many methods to subvert Trump’s presidency or fantasize about his gory death were as varied as the number of faux-accusers who would come out of the woodwork to smear Brett Kavanaugh. And the result was eerily the same: the more the impotent frenzy, the more it discredited its source.

It was a sort of boomerang situation, in which the child’s traditional taunt “bounces off me and sticks to you” seemed to come true over and over. The left kept thinking it had driven a stake through the vampire’s heart, only to find that it had missed the mark.

Blacks Lives Matter, Antifa, and #MeToo were all in a sense weaponized to do what elections had not. Finally, in exasperation, Democrats have begun demonizing the Electoral College itself, which has gone from the legal basis of Obama’s treasured “blue wall” to a relic of old, white male Founders who supposedly favored rural hicks over the better people of the cities. Progressives now damn the idea of a nine-person Supreme Court and mysteriously praise the discredited, hare-brained scheme of FDR to pack the court with progressive toady judges.

This is not new. The left only likes any institution as long as they see it as benefiting them. FDR’s original court-packing scheme was in the furtherance of progressive politics, so it is no surprise that the current-day left would be in favor of it. But they’d be against it if the right were proposing it, of course. It’s purely situational.

It is also no coincidence that Democrats are called “Democrats” and Republicans “Republicans.” The Electoral College and the Senate are nods to the fact that the US is a republic rather than a pure democracy. The House is much closer to a democratic legislative body than the Senate, because although the House is representative, those representatives reflect population differences far more closly than the Senate (which totally ignores population and only reflects state entities) and the Electoral College (a sort of middle way between the two). One of the most profoundly frustrating elements of the 2016 presidential election for Democrats was the fact that Hillary actually did win the popular vote, so it makes perfect sense that Democrats would take out their ire on the Electoral College that had foiled them. So near and yet so far!

Another reason for Democrats’ agony is the nature of the contest against an opponent such as Trump. It’s a lesson the Republicans struggled with, too, during the 2016 primary season. Trump had a lot of rivals in the GOP during the primary vying for the nomination, and if you watched closely you saw that all of them, despite their brains and previous power and support, were caught flat-footed by his idiosyncratic approach. They simply didn’t know what to do with him. Conventional debate and conventional means didn’t seem to work; they’d never really seen anything like him in politics before, and they didn’t know how to meet his tactics and win.

During the primaries, Trump’s Republican opponents never quite figured out how to wrestle this particular alligator. In the time since he’s been president, some of the Republican NeverTrumpers are still going at it and failing, although most have given up the agon and praised him, albeit sometimes reluctantly. Now it’s the Democrats who are engaged in a struggle with this strange opponent, continually thinking “Gotcha!!” and continually being bested.

Which brings me to another metaphor, appropriate for this time of year: Trump as knuckleballer. The knuckleball pitcher confounds batters with the zaniness of the ball’s behavior once it leaves his hand. It doesn’t require extreme force but it’s not an easy pitch to throw and it’s a very difficult one to control. But it can make ordinarily good hitters look bad; they often just can’t figure out what’s going on, and they end up looking silly when they swing at a knuckler.

Here’s Wiki on the subject:

A knuckleball or knuckler is a baseball pitch thrown to minimize the spin of the ball in flight, causing an erratic, unpredictable motion. The air flow over a seam of the ball causes the ball to transition from laminar to turbulent flow. This transition adds a deflecting force on the side of the baseball. This makes the pitch difficult for batters to hit, but also difficult for pitchers to control and catchers to catch; umpires are challenged as well, as the ball’s irregular motion through the air makes it harder to call balls and strikes.

Long ago I read the memoir of prominent knuckleball pitcher Jim Bouton, and later as a Red Sox fan I watched many a game pitched by knuckleballer Tim Wakefield:

And here’s a knuckleball in slow motion:

Michael Avenatti…

The New Neo Posted on by

…is having a bad month:

On Monday, a federal district court judge in California ruled to dismiss Stormy Daniels’ defamation lawsuit against President Donald Trump…

Trump lawyer Charles Harder released a statement claiming that with the lawsuit’s dismissal, the president is entitled to compensation for his legal fees.

Fall 2018, Kancamagus Highway

The New Neo Posted on by

No year is the same as any other year, but this fall the New England foliage has been kind of odd. Somewhat muted, for one thing. And we’ve had lots of rain, which always means that the early, more brilliant colors—the scarlets and oranges—drop prematurely.

But it’s always beautiful along the Kancamagus Highway in northern New Hampshire. Here are some of this year’s photos. I won’t say it’s impossible to take a bad picture there, but you have to try really really really hard to accomplish it:

Just for comparison, here are a few I took in 2015 along the same spot. That was an especially brilliant year for color; I think you can see what I mean about the reds and oranges: