another opinion

This week USA Today published an opinion by the Heritage Foundation's John Malcolm supporting the presidential authority behind Executive Order 13769 ("Executive Order Protecting The Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into The United States"), the so-called "travel ban." President Trump may have the authority, but Malcolm's argument in support is flawed. He writes, "Presidential authority to protect our homeland should not be second-guessed by courts based on some hidden intent divined from tweets and statements made by surrogates in the heat of a presidential campaign." First, Malcolm's attempt to attribute to surrogates Trump's Muslim ban campaign rhetoric is wrong. In December 2015, during the campaign, candidate Trump said at a rally, “Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.” Second, and worse still, Malcolm tries to nullify the intent behind campaign promises. Of course candidates make false promises, but we still have to pretend the promises are true.


Notes:

• At issue is the scope of presidential power over the border. The Supreme Court has allowed parts of President Trump's travel ban to go into effect and will hear oral arguments on the case this fall.
• The "he did not mean it" argument was once part of the legal defense.
• Every previous President made an empty promise.

Source: "Travel ban is president's authority," USA Today, July 5, 2017

(posts) the video for "You Make My Dreams" by Hall and Oates

Notes:

• The best band with the worst videos. 
• Cocaine?

about being attached still at the roots

The blonde-headed young man slides self-consciously into frame. His eyes are pulled twice to the camera, furtively each time; he nods hair away from his face. He knows he is being seen but denies the seer. Finally, a casually intentioned look toward the camera's eye--mutually frank, unwise, and uninvested.

Recording themselves downtown, the boys were making memories, however forgettable in the grand scheme. It is that association between memory and place, time and space, that now leaves me missing home. My hometown: flawed but well planned grids of city streets; tree-heavy suburban neighborhoods where kids get excited about spending the night at friends'; where the beginning and the ending last until I die.

about Megyn Kelly's cold, hard stare

Megyn Kelly and NBC faced a lot of criticism last week ahead of their decision to air a piece on controversial conspiracist Alex Jones during Kelly's new Sunday night show. Why give Jones a platform for his odious views? The guy claims the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was staged or faked to undermine private gun ownership rights.

But after the interview aired, media critics grudgingly formed a consensus that the segment was a success. The Washington Post piece "Facing Alex Jones, NBC's Megyn Kelly manages to avoid a worst-case outcome" is typical:

Rather than let Jones run away with it, "Sunday Night" let him show himself to be an impertinent, ill-informed, foulmouthed, possibly deranged egomaniac with a forehead constantly beaded in sweat. It showed viewers how Infowars grew and sustains itself by peddling right-wing merchandise and Jones-endorsed dietary supplements. It looked briefly back at Jones's early days as just another cable-access kook in Austin, and revealed the flimsy, almost nonexistent definition of "research" (articles he and his staff find online) that sets the Infowars agenda.

... Good night and good luck, in a "Sunday Night With Megyn Kelly" kind of world, has been replaced with the cold, hard stare. Which, as it happens, remains Kelly's surest and perhaps only journalistic asset.

This piece withholds journalistic credit from Kelly, arguing that Alex Jones revealed himself to be a sweaty, crackpot buffoon. The Post just gives Kelly credit for her icy stare. She deserves more. Jones counterattacked with accusations of media liberal bias. But Kelly refused to engage on Jones's terms. A lot of other journalists would have been baited. By remaining on the offensive, Kelly allowed her righteous narrative to prevail. And Jones, as the Post points out, looked crazy--with a lot of help from Kelly.

(posts) DEP's "Setting Fire to Sleeping Giants"

Craigslist ad, "Bass Ho Walking the Streets and Looking for Work (NoVA)"

Hey sailor, need someone to play bass for a gig?

I'm a bassist with over 20 years experience in multiple genres. I have hundreds of tunes under my belt and can learn, read, or fake my way through anything else. I have chops for fingerstyle and slapping. I know how to do this, and like any Ho that's been doing this for a while, I have some tricks to please the customers. I have reliable toys and a ride as well.

Why go with a ho?
- A Ho knows what they are doing, and can get right in on the action with little warm-up time. I don't need a movie and dinner to do my thang.
- A Ho knows not only how to please one client, but all different kinds of clients. I love you long time...
- You don't wanna deal with the crazy ho after you had your fill? No problem, I'm out after I get dressed and paid.
- I got no agenda other than makin money, so you have all your artistic freedom, control, etc.
- You can still go back to your steady if you want, I'll still be around if he/she goes out of town and you're lonely.

So if you find yourself needing a bass player for a gig or more, hit me up. But like any Ho, I ain't doing anything for free except unless it's for my pimp (my wife). And if I don't got her money when I come home, Lord help us all......

I've been checked by the doc, and I'm clean, so let's rock! 

Note: URL [https://washingtondc.craigslist.org/nva/muc/6163711118.html]

(posts) Car Bomb's video for "Black Blood"

about "A Christmas Memory" by Truman Capote

In this short piece by Truman Capote, a seven-year-old narrator lovingly remembers the last Christmas he shared with his intellectually disabled, elderly distant cousin. That season, the pair followed their tradition of making fruitcake and giving gifts. Capote's unadorned writing colors the events with innocence.

In the years following that Christmas, the boy goes away to school and his cousin succumbs to old age and dementia. In the wonderfully sentimental passage below, Capote masterfully captures the heartbreak one feels when a loved one passes:

Life separates us. Those who Know Best decide that I belong in a military school. And so follows a miserable succession of bugle-blowing prisons, grim reveille-ridden summer camps. I have a new home too. But it doesn't count. Home is where my friend is, and there I never go.

And there she remains, puttering around the kitchen. Alone with Queenie. Then alone. ("Buddy dear," she writes in her wild hard-to-read script, "yesterday Jim Macy's horse kicked Queenie bad. Be thankful she didn't feel much. I wrapped her in a Fine Linen sheet and rode her in the buggy down to Simpson's pasture where she can be with all her Bones...."). For a few Novembers she continues to bake her fruitcakes single-handed; not as many, but some: and, of course, she always sends me "the best of the batch." Also, in every letter she encloses a dime wadded in toilet paper: "See a picture show and write me the story." But gradually in her letters she tends to confuse me with her other friend, the Buddy who died in the 1880's; more and more, thirteenths are not the only days she stays in bed: a morning arrives in November, a leafless birdless coming of winter morning, when she cannot rouse herself to exclaim: "Oh my, it's fruitcake weather!"

And when that happens, I know it. A message saying so merely confirms a piece of news some secret vein had already received, severing from me an irreplaceable part of myself, letting it loose like a kite on a broken string. That is why, walking across a school campus on this particular December morning, I keep searching the sky. As if I expected to see, rather like hearts, a lost pair of kites hurrying toward heaven.

Note: "A Christmas Memory" was published in 1956.
 

about admiration for Roger Federer

Federer fans usually remark on the beauty of his play. His game is one of finesse; his style, one of elegance. His endorsement deals reinforce this perception: while other players pitch soft drinks and tennis shoes, Federer stars in Rolex and Mercedes Benz commercials.

I have always cheered for Roger Federer. I cheered for him when he was dominant with a number-one ranking. And I cheer for him now that he is tennis' best, oldest underdog.

After the ascension of Rafael Nadal (and then Novak Djokovic and then Andy Murray), Federer's recasting as an underdog gave me a new and convenient reason to cheer for him. But Federer has been a fan favorite most of his career. Why he has always been a fan favorite is not obvious to me; I am skeptical that style of play alone can earn a player such popularity.
 

Note:
(1) Federer's foil, nemesis, and antithesis is Rafael Nadal (known simply as Rafa). Nadal grinds you down like a stale routine. His game is hustle. Obsession. Compulsion. Nadal will get every ball back over the net, forcing his opponent to eventually lose the point by shanking the ball into the net or out of bounds. (Nadal's game is not without beauty.) In addition to his style of play, another ugly aspect of Nadal is that he is noticeably neurotic, pulling at his clothes and hair compulsively--this aspect is well documented.
(2) The French Open begins Sunday.

(posts) Meshuggah drummer Tomas Haake's playthrough for "Clockworks"

Note: The song is from the Swedish metal band's 2016 album, The Violent Sleep of Reason.
 

about how I probably won't see you anymore

Just like that, our friendship is over. I let it grow—forced it to grow, maybe—to ridiculous proportions in my mind. Rationalizing what I now know were disparities in how we felt about each other, I told myself our friendship was so great that I could only glimpse small parts of it at a time. But it was just never that big to begin with. I was getting all of it, and I just assumed there was more. But it was out of sight, out of mind for you.

(posts) "Bruises" by Dusted

(posts) rhetoric

After the space shuttle Challenger explosion in 1986, President Ronald Reagan remarked, "We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God."

High Flight
   by John Gillespie Magee, Jr

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, --and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of --Wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air...
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark or even eagle flew --
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God

 

something about "I Should Be Dead: My Life Surviving Politics, TV, and Addiction" by Bob Beckel

Bob Beckel's long political career included holding office as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State during the Carter Administration and managing Walter Mondale's presidential campaign. In the years since, he has gained a little more recognizability through his frequent appearances as a political analyst on the news networks. The confessional I Should Be Dead relays some difficult sequences from Beckel's youth and then efficiently details his professional life and recovery. His father's alcoholism is a defining phenomenon, and since childhood Beckel has lived his life as a survivor. Even though it is the book's selling point, Beckel's own debauchery does not occupy a lot of time in the narrative. The man was a functional addict, so you read about campaigns, and now and again Beckel reminds you that this narrator was working with generous amounts of cocaine and alcohol in his bloodstream. It is a painfully personal tale, but Beckel forgoes emotional depth and tells it with a genial directness that makes for an easy read.


Note: I was hoping for more of a political memoir.

(posts) a scan of something doodled during a meeting more than four years ago

(posts) "What Am I Doing Hangin' Round" by The Monkees

"What Am I Doing Hanging 'Round?"

Just a loud mouth Yankee I went down to Mexico.
I didn't have much time to spend, about a week or so.
There I lightly took advantage of a girl who loved me so.
But I found myself a-thinkin' when the time had come to go...

What am I doin' hangin' round?
I should be on that train and gone.
I should be ridin' on that train to San Antone,
What am I doin' hangin' round?

She took me to the garden just for a little walk.
I didn't know much Spanish and there was no time for talk.
Then she told me that she loved me not with words but with a kiss.
And like a fool I kept on thinkin' of a train I could not miss...

What am I doin' hangin' round?
I should be on that train and gone.
I should be ridin' on that train to San Antone,
What am I doin' hangin' round?

Well it's been a year or so, and I want to go back again.
And if I get the money, well I'll ride the same old train.
But I guess your chances come but once and boy I sure missed mine.
And still I can't stop thinkin' when I hear some whistle cryin'....

What am I doin' hangin' round?
I should be on that train and gone.
I should be ridin' on that train to San Antone,
What am I doin' hangin' round?

Note:
At 0:24, Nesmith appears to sneer at someone (or something) off camera.

(posts) a moment from two weeks ago

about the payoff

The knowing tone he artfully employed signaled to me what a wise guy he was. He always had this tone. His emails practically winked at me from the screen. And, in person, well, he winked sometimes. When I discovered his scheme--a discovery made completely by chance--I was unsettled. But when next I went into his office the knowing tone artfully employed was heard in my voice. "I was finishing my edit on the contract addendum and had to verify the effective dates against that budget report you processed."

"Oh?" he said (with a most interrogative inflection).

"Yes!" And I told him about how the contract award announcement date, the comment by the guest technology company executive on Charlie Rose, and our work on drafting the requirements all played out in such a curious little drama. And about how if a body didn't know better, he might get curious about it all.

"How much?" he asked. (This question lacked the exaggerated inflection of his last.)

I winked and pulled the door shut.

about this place

 
Nature is so ugly here. Grimy ivies smother right up to the paved limits. The heat and humidity pick at and needle back all of our encroachments. Winter can not kill the infestations.

(posts) Jefe's "Waiting On My Time"

Waiting On My Time
  by Shy Glizzy

I'M just waiting on my time, I'm just waiting on my time

They say why you never smile? cause a lot be on my mind
When they ass ain't have a dime they was with me all the time
These niggas get some shine now they actin' like they blind
Oh they must've seen my Role(x), I'm just waiting on my time
I'm waiting on my time, I'm just waiting on my time
I'm waiting on my time, I'm waiting on my time
My VVSs shine, bitch I'm waiting on my time
Homie have some lines while I'm waiting on my time

Oh now y'all wanna worry 'bout Glizzy? bitch I'm good
A couple niggas told me they could get me out the hood
You think I listen to them niggas? ha, I wish I would
I'm still thugging with the same niggas from my hood
I stunt out on a hater, yeah I pull out in my new toy
They ain't making no noise, they ain't making no noise
They like look at old boy, remember he was broke boy
Now he got that dope boy, he might take your ho boy
I been on some shit, my mama said I'm actin' different
She know her baby well, there's some shit that I ain't mentioning
Real nigga walk up in this bitch, you better listen
Bought my bitch an Audi, she ain't getting shit for Christmas

They say why you never smile? cause a lot be on my mind
When they ass ain't have a dime they was with me all the time
These niggas get some shine now they actin' like they blind
Oh they must've seen my Role(x), I'm just waiting on my time
I'm waiting on my time, I'm just waiting on my time
I'm waiting on my time, I'm waiting on my time
My VVSs shine, bitch I'm waiting on my time
Homie have some lines while I'm waiting on my time

I'm tooling, you know that
Get rich and get your racks
Knock her up and get your ho back
I fucked her to that Kodak
I'm trying to make some Ms, I ain't trying to be your friend
I been seeing trill niggas act like they don't see him
Soon as I switch it up they just gonna do that shit again
Made a hundred in a month, next month I do that shit again
Glizzy keep the heat, Yeezys on my feet
Bitch I'm looking sweet, you ain't fuckin' then it's peace
I got goons to go, eenie miney moe
Used to get it in Ohio, never been to Idaho
I got my jewels from Joe, I hit every bitch you know
If the rap shit don't blow then it's back to what I know

They say why you never smile? cause a lot be on my mind
When they ass ain't have a dime they was with me all the time
These niggas get some shine now they actin' like they blind
Oh they must've seen my Role(x), I'm just waiting on my time
I'm waiting on my time, I'm just waiting on my time
I'm waiting on my time, I'm waiting on my time
My VVSs shine, bitch I'm waiting on my time
Homie have some lines while I'm waiting on my time