A complete disgrace and danger to the country

 

Denis did well

It seems quite a few weeks since I watched a movie on Netflix which I could strongly recommend, but last night was a good one:  the 2013 Denis Villeneuve directed Prisoners.

 I had never noticed it before, and as I consider Villeneuve a director who can make great looking movies which are nonetheless narratively unsatisfying, I wasn't in a hurry to watch it.  (It also stars Hugh Jackman, an actor who I generally struggle to like.)  \

But it's really good - well directed, well acted, and long but quite engaging all the way.  Given that it's about a neighbourhood child abduction, and the father (played by Jackman) is a conservative Christian who goes a bit nuts thinking he knows what's really going on, I thought it carried some surprising ressonance to the social milieu which has led to the current QAnon conspiracy craze spinning out of control in the US, and even Australia.  As Jack the Insider recently wrote:

The State of Victoria is in lockdown, not to reduce the infectious spread of the pandemic but because armed forces are secretly battling for control of the tunnels; an underground network used by the deep state to transport abducted children. Scott Morrison is with the deep state. Andrews was, too, before his arrest.

It is not yet safe to go to the tunnels. But be patient. The Great Awakening is upon us.

Welcome to the latest news from QAnon, the conspiracy theory that has millions of followers in the US and thousands in Australia.

Don't get me wrong:  Prisoners does have a mystery which is resolved by the end and it's unusual but not completely ludicrous, like QAnon.

And speaking of Villeneuve, yes, I have watched the trailer for Dune, a book which I have never read, and I didn't even see the David Lynch movie because of so-so reviews; but this upcoming version looks very stylish and probably worth seeing. 

A troublesome sect

How come I've never heard of the long running documentary series Unreported World?   It's apparently on Channel 4 in England, has been around for 20 years, and at least lately, posts new content on Youtube weekly.  It's the English Foreign Correspondent, by the looks, and probably preceded it? 

Anyway, I only learnt of it because a recent episode popped up on my Samsung Youtube app recommendations, Google knowing (of course) that I watch a lot of Asian content.

Here's the episode, about a money hungry Buddhist sect/cult the Dhammakaya Foundation in Thailand, which at least has the coolest, UFO looking temple thingy I have ever seen (this is a screenshot from the start of the video):

 

 

Looks like the start of The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951 version, and if the flying saucer had a Nazi reception committee.)

 

Here's the video itself:

Surprised I hadn't heard about it before. 

Sharing a date

Yeah, birthdays count for nothing, except it is my 60th today and that one does give even more of a feeling than your 50th that on life's ride you're up and over that initial roller coaster hump, and only have the moderate twists and bumps to continue with until it comes to an abrupt stop.   Not the cheeriest of metaphors, but truth be told, I don't care for roller coasters much anyway.  😊

Anyway, it's good to be alive and well and around to watch things unfold.

I see that a couple of years ago I had a look at famous people who shared my birth date, and noted a couple of low level celebrities.   Looking at a much, much longer list of famous birthdays, and I note the following:

* DH Lawrence: (I've known that one for a long time, but have never read him and have no great interest to start now, either.  I just realised I know virtually nothing about his life, but he has quite a long Wiki entry, so I might read that later.)

* Oh!  Brian DePalma, the director, is 80 today.   I will go to my grave defending The Untouchables as a great gangster film with actually more serious moral content than most of Scorsese's work, and with the most thrilling shoot out sequence ever; so yeah, he's welcome to share my date.

* Ferdinand Marcos would be 103 today if he was still alive:  good to know I share a date with at least one Right wing dictator.   

* Here's a name anyone who has ever owned a pre-digital camera who have read at least once:  Carl Zeiss ("German scientific instrument and lens maker").

* Minamoto no Yoriie, Japanese shogun.  Born 1182.  Never heard of him, but I've taken to telling my kids I must have been Asian in a prior life (it's why I watch so much Asian content on Youtube and Netflix, obviously); and perhaps he is my specific previous incarnation.   No, wait, he was a bit of a dud:

Yoriie showed when still very young great interest in military arts like fencing, and horse-riding. After his father's death in 1199, the 17-year-old became head of the Minamoto clan and was appointed sei-i taishōgun in 1202.^[2] He was, however, criticized for his abandonment of his father's policies, and his mother forbade him from any involvement political activity.^[2] On June 30, 1203 (Shōji 1, 12th day of the 4th month) his remaining powers were formally taken from him and assumed by a council of 13 elders, headed by his grandfather Hōjō Tokimasa.^[2] He ordained as a Buddhist monk. Yoriie, in turn, plotted with the Hiki to subjugate the Hōjō clan; however, he failed, was put under house arrest and forced to abdicate, and was eventually assassinated on July 17, 1204 in Izu.^[2] Yoriie was succeeded by his younger brother Sanetomo, the last of the Seiwa Genji line to rule, at least nominally, over Kamakura. 

All a bit Game of Thrones-ish.  

* Who to end on?   Perhaps a homeopathic murderer?:  Hawley Harvey Crippen [Dr Crippen], American homeopath and first killer to be caught with the aid of wireless telegraphy, born in Coldwater, Michigan (d. 1910).  He has a lengthy Wiki entry too.  All quite famous, it seems, and I think I have heard of the name.   More fun reading.

Anyway, on with life....

My dieting tips

"So, how's the current bout of 5/2 dieting going?" is a question none of my readers ever ask - so I will tell you anyway.

Been going good.   It's great to feel the pants getting looser and wondering if I will have to buy a smaller belt.   I seem to still be losing about 500 - 600g a week.   Not precisely sure where I started, but BMI is now a solid 26 instead of what I think was a verging on 27.

And I have decided it's easier than ever, because I am finding this routine for the 600 cal days is not boring me yet:

Breakfast - cup of coffee (with a small amount of milk) and a banana

Mid-morning - cup of tea (with small amount of milk)

Lunch - Cup of Soup (about 110 cal or less)

Sometime after lunch - 50 g of beef jerky (which is remarkably low on calories, but satisfying)

Dinner - one of the Cole's or Woolies pre made single serve salads.  These are pretty good now, and very convenient.  Usually they are around 250 cal.

 My daily total calories might be a little over 600 cal, but I doubt it ever reaches 700.  Still works.

So my big tips:   beef jerky and supermarket pre-made, individual salads.

Gravity not causing quantum collapse?

Interesting story at Science about an experiment indicating that an idea promoted by Roger Penrose (gravity is what causes quantum collapse) has passed a test.   (Although the ageing Penrose still thinks it is an inconclusive test.)

Excuse me while I swoon over Julia pointing out something useful to know

I happened to see Julia Gillard on the ABC breakfast show today, speaking in her role as Chair of Beyond Blue.

She said that suicide figures for Victoria (of course, the worst affected Australian state with COVID) for 2020 up to August were now available and there had been no increase in numbers over the previous year.   Still, they are worried about the potential for an increase, and hence have produced a video with an suicide prevention message (8 people who once felt suicidal, but came out of it OK.)

This "no increase in suicide numbers despite COVID lockdowns for 7 months" message is not something I had heard of before.   Instead, we get Right wing hysterics like Creighton going on and on about how this is going to devastate people, sending the message that it's reasonable to feel desperate because everything's going to Hell and yes, if you have lost your job your life is ruined, and for no reason.   (Mind you, even that Ian Hickie and the AMA have been talking about increased suicide risk - which is fair enough as a warning to government to try to bring in an adequate response, but I would have thought does run the risk in its reporting of encouraging a sense of inevitability in the vulnerable.) 

So, the positive message of no increased suicides so far should be given more prominence, I reckon.

And, by the way:  OMG, Gillard plays the role of useful ex Prime Minister with such exquisite grace, humour and intelligence, doesn't she?   I sort of swoon over her reasonableness on all appearances she makes.   Compare her performance to a snippet of Tony Abbott last night on Mad as Hell, making a weird "joke" about virgins during a press appearance in England about the lost cause of Brexit - he is still making people like me grind their teeth over what a complete embarrassment he is.      

 Update:  I see that the "no increase" message did appear in the news (at least, on the ABC, the Guardian and The Age - all of which might still be considered Left leaning sites, although not sure about the Age anymore) at the end of August - not sure that I saw it given much prominence on TV news, though.   Certainly, at the start of August, there seems a flurry of "suicides will increase" stories on sites like 7 News. 

Thanks, social media

Another appalling story of malicious rumour mongering on social media in India:

Wild rumours about coronavirus are fuelling opposition to testing in the northern Indian state of Punjab, reports BBC Punjabi's Arvind Chhabra. 

 

"Human organs are being smuggled," Sonia Kaur, who lives in a village in Punjab's Sangrur district, tells the BBC. "Not just the villagers but the whole world is scared of this. Social media is full of such news."

 

Ms Kaur says she has heard of people's organs being harvested under the guise of diagnosing and treating coronavirus. She is echoing the fears of countless others in rural Punjab who are sceptical of the virus.

 

Rumours are flying fast in Punjab that the virus is a hoax, that people who don't have Covid-19 are being taken away to care centres, where they are being killed for their organs, and that bodies are being swapped to allay suspicion. 

 

A mix of fear, anxiety and easy access to social media, especially WhatsApp, has hastened the spread of these baseless rumours in the form of messages and doctored videos. 

 

This has led to protests and even attacks against health workers. Ms Kaur's village was one of several in Sangrur that did not allow health workers to collect samples for testing - crowds pelted them with stones, screaming "Go back, we don't want to be tested", until they left.

One would hope that the Indian government is running some sort of attempt at educating school kids, at least, not to believe rumours on the internet.   Educating old adults in rural areas may well be impossible, I guess...

 

Almost makes you wish bad problems were even worse

This may be kind of obvious, but I haven't noticed too many people saying it:  the problem in a social sense with both COVID 19 and climate change is that both problems work in ways which are very real and very disrupting, but leave a significant proportion of the population being able to claim no personal and immediate effect, despite what scientists and other experts tell them.

This enables the intense politicisation of the response, and a lack of social cohesion.

I mean, if you get a big enough problem - your country at risk of invasion during a war as a perfect example - people will put up with enormous privation and social disruption for years at a time.   Not only that, but some people find the social cohesion from a massive joint response can make the whole thing almost a positive experience.   (I think the ageing scientist James Lovelock says that about his World War 2 years.  By the way, he's 101 now.  Can't be with us much longer.)  

The social difficulty you get is when a problem is real and bad, but not quite bad or immediate enough to shut up the politically and ideologically motivated contrarians from engaging in arguments with cherry picked "evidence" and large slabs of denial of expert evidence. 

You want to feel depressed about the future of cheap overseas travel?

Then read this commentary at CNA:  

Does COVID-19 spell the end of long-haul budget airline flights?

American policing noted

Even by American policing standards, this is outstandingly nuts:

A 13-year-old boy with autism was shot several times by police officers who responded to his home in Salt Lake City after his mother called for help.

Linden Cameron was recovering in a Utah hospital, his mother said, after suffering injuries to his shoulder, both ankles, his intestines and his bladder.

Golda Barton told KUTV she called 911 to request a crisis intervention team because her son, who has Asperger’s syndrome, was having an episode caused by “bad separation anxiety” as his mother went to work for the first time in more than a year.

“I said, ‘He’s unarmed, he doesn’t have anything, he just gets mad and he starts yelling and screaming,’” she said. “He’s a kid, he’s trying to get attention, he doesn’t know how to regulate.”

She added: “They’re supposed to come out and be able to de-escalate a situation using the most minimal force possible.”

Instead, she said, two officers went through the front door of the home and in less than five minutes were yelling “get down on the ground” before firing several shots.

 

 

Count me "amused"

An ancient key to Tenet?

I hadn't heard about this before:  Nolan's film Tenet seems to have clear ties to an old palindrome square:

The ancient palindrome that explains Christopher Nolan’s Tenet

A puzzle dug up all over Europe holds the key to Tenet — and turns it into more than a movie.

I'm not sure if I should see the movie at the cinema.  It seems to universally be considered far too complicated and puzzling as to what is going on, but many reviewers think it is well worth the viewing anyway.

I'm a high scorer

If I admit that my score on this appears to be 11 or perhaps even a 12, can I reclaim status as a "conservative"?:

Mystery phone

I have gifted myself (but not yet opened) a new, low mid-range (as is my cheapskate wont) Android mobile phone, even though it is seemingly the most under reviewed phone on the planet.

It's the Vivo X50 Lite.  Now this is a major brand in Asia (I believe), and the X50 Pro got lots of review attention (at least within Asia) due to its internal gimbal camera, which is a pretty cool feature.   But I have never seen that model on sale here, and I don't spend a lot of time trying to walk and take videos, so I didn't see a need to track that down. 

JB Hi Fi and Officeworks do sell cheap end Vivo phones, and they seem pretty good value, with nice screens.   The X50 Lite came out not so long ago, originally at $499, but it has been on sale recently for $399.

The price drop might be because no professional reviewer is reviewing it.  Even on Youtube, where it seems hundreds and hundreds of Asian people try to make a living by posting video reviews of nearly every phone that is released by any company, I think all of the videos are just information or comparison ones where they list the features of the X50 Lite alone or against other similarly priced phones.

Why is no one interested in properly reviewing a (now) $400 phone with 8Gb ram, 128 internal storage, an AMOLED screen, and all of the sensors which should see me get through the apocalypse as long as I also have a solar powered re-charger??

Here are the full specs.  I suspect the processor is very mid range, but if you don't play games on your phone, I doubt it matters that much.  

This phone is so under the counter that when I went to Officeworks to buy it, it had not been put on display, ever.   They had 4 out the back, and it was on line, but they just never bothered displaying it.  (JB Hi Fi has had it on display, so I know what it looks like.  Lovely screen.)

Anyway, by next week I will have opened and used it.  As with all new mobile phones, I expect I will be impressed by the upgraded abilities in my hand.   And I will review it here.  Ha.

System failure of the worst kind

This guy (who stalked and shot his teenage kids in their house, following the daughter from her bus to find out where they lived) just sounds like he lived his entire life as a dangerous sociopath (but of the kind who could con women into having relationships with him):

Police records showed the man who shot and killed his two teenage children in a domestic assault in Sydney’s northern suburbs had been violent towards or stalked four prior domestic partners and one of his other children.

In 2010, John Edwards was refused a gun licence due to a prior AVO, the coronial inquest into the deaths heard on Monday.

But despite a long history of stalking and assault charges registered on the central police system known as the “COPS” database, Edwards was able to successfully apply in 2017 for a “Commissioners Permit” to undergo gun safety training at Hornsby and Ku-ring-gai gun clubs...

The inquest into the deaths of John, Jack and Jennifer Edwards has heard Edwards had an extraordinary relationship history, leaving behind six partners before Olga and 10 children in total.

Police interviewed all but one of the former partners, and found Edwards had a constant pattern of violence, control and stalking. Several former partners and one of his children had made police reports over decades.

Olga herself had reported two incidents to police, including an incident in February 2017, when she had been separated from Edwards for a year, and he stalked her in her "hot" yoga class....

Ms Richardson also told the inquest that Ku-ring-gai Pistol Club refused Edwards membership in 2016 after he was threatening to an officer of the club.

The Ku-ring-gai club informed the Hornsby Gun Club it had refused Edwards membership but did not let any authorities know. Edwards, who owned five firearms, completed his training at St Marys gun club, which had no knowledge of his history.

Doesn't this indicate that the system should be capable of being marked "guns to be surrendered and never to be obtained again"?

The singing tyrants

OK, so there's a reasonable chance you've seen it elsewhere, but I think it's only been out for less than a week, and I thought it was pretty interesting:



The most realistic looking thing about it (in my opinion) is the way their heads bob around.

I think I have linked to the original post of it, so it will presumably stay up, as I notice it is being taken down elsewhere.

People are suggesting that it shows what "deep fake" videos can do, and a lot of very serious people worry that politics is going to have a lot of trouble dealing with the poisonous effect of deep fake propaganda in future.

Call me too optimistic, perhaps; but if what fake videos can do is highlighted by examples such as this, doesn't it make it more likely that people will be more sceptical of  online propaganda using any form of video?   Not sure that I can convincingly make that case out when there are literally millions of Americans (nearly all Republicans) who at least partially believe in the ludicrous QAnon conspiracies - but perhaps with conspiracy and propaganda it's somewhat perversely the case that the lowest tech communication (simple text messages) promulgates the best?   All people have to believe is that such messages come from an insider - they don't have to speculate about whether the image, video or voice has been faked or manipulated on the way.       

Nick Cohen being sensible

I have been saying a similar thing for at few years now:

I once believed that you should fight the extreme right and extreme left “at the same time and for the same reasons”. The phrase had a fine sound to it, even if I say so myself, and it remains true enough. Anyone who has witnessed the public shaming of those who deviate from approved leftish ideology will find Boris Johnson’s attempts to purge the cabinet and civil service of all who disagree with him familiar. The politics may be different but the oppressive spirit is the same.

But in this terrible year, it is worth saying that moral equivalence is not the same as practical equivalence. As the world stands, the fight against the radical right is a fight for the preservation of liberal democracy. The fight against the far left is a fight for justice for the individual denied the freedom to express his or, and more frequently today, her opinions without post-Stalinist inquisitors demanding she confesses her ideological crimes or lose her job.

Both fights are essential but the difference in scale is so enormous it barely makes sense to put them in the same category.

He should also have mentioned climate change...

Reviews you didn't need

*  I've not finished it yet, but I can fully understand why the second season of Umbrella Academy has been so popular on Netflix.   It's terrifically directed, and the story is flowing with far fewer angsty relationship diversions than the first season, which did drag at times.   It's overall much wittier, too.    A very enjoyable bit of comic book based nonsense.  
*  How's this for a late review:  finally got around to watching Mulholland Drive on the weekend.   I thought I had read years ago that the movie was capable of making sense, but I didn't work it out for myself and had to go check on Reddit for the explanation.   It does have strong Twin Peaks vibes,  and I had forgotten that it had started out as another TV project that was converted into a movie.   Unfortunately, I have to say that the overall impression it gave me was that David Lynch was quite overrated - Twin Peaks was fun and enjoyable in its day, but his movie work doesn't really do much for me.   He really did make Los Angeles look like a physically unattractive dump in virtually every interior and exterior shot - perhaps that was revenge for his "creative differences" with the business at the time?  Another thing the movie made me realise (again) was how extraordinarily tame by modern standards R rated movies of even a couple of decades ago could be in pornographic and violent content.  We can all blame the internet and modern video games for that...

A good answer from Biden

Have a look at this short clip.   As someone on Twitter says about his answer:

Trump campaign taking on water

I get the impression there is probably panic developing inside the Trump campaign for the following reasons:

*  sufficient polling seems to be coming out now to conclude that the GOP convention did not lead to any substantial improvement for Trump;

*  Trump's popularity within what you would normally consider the natural ally of any "law and order" President - the military - seems to have taken a substantial hit from which it is unlikely to recover.

Remember I said when the RussianS paying for hits on American troops story came out that I thought it was going to important?   Although it did quickly disappear off the news radar, I still reckon it may have been important for hurting the military's regard for him, as was shown by the recent polling indicating that he had lost popularity there.  Now that credible reporting is out that he privately has the most ridiculously selfish view of military service [confirmed by a Fox News correspondent, no less!], I can't see his popularity with those who he was probably hoping would back him in a post election crisis over disputed election results will ever be returning.

Truth be told, the upper reaches of the Pentagon would have been privately grinding their teeth from day one about what a complete ignoramus he is, but it has taken some time for the dismissive view of him to filter down to lower ranks.  

Even the kerfuffle about whether Stars and Stripes would close looks bad for Trump.  He has said it will not close, but the timing of the suggestion it would close within weeks looks very peculiar.  

*  The Trump open encouragement for his supporters to vote twice smells of desperation. 

*  Trump's judgement in what to say about real or virtual dictators who kill their political enemies remains as "off" as ever.   I know it won't matter to his cult followers, who are blind and dumb, but surely Trump's campaigners don't think this is a useful line to be running in a week when another Russian poisoning of an opposition politician is confirmed:

At a small campaign rally in Latrobe, Pa., President Trump on Thursday praised himself for wanting to “get along” with Russia and said that when he hears people talking about Russia in the news he “turns it off.”

“They always say, ‘Trump is radical, he is off the — he is too radical, he will get us in wars,’” Mr. Trump said. “I kept you out of wars. What happened in North Korea? I got along with Kim Jong-un. They said that’s terrible. It’s good that I get along. If I get along with Russia, is that a good thing or bad thing? I think it’s a good thing.”

*  That said, it is a worry that the electoral college seems so skewed now that Biden may have to win the popular view by a really substantial margin to be sure of getting enough electoral college votes.

Family performance

Given that I lack any ability at all with musical instruments, and even the simplest sheet music may as well be hieroglyphics to me, I find it particularly remarkable that I have a daughter (rapidly approaching the end of Year 12) who can now play pieces like this on her violin (no visuals, just the audio):



There is one other piece she played recently that I might upload too.   

Otters as pets

Apparently, Youtube channels devoted to pet otters have become a thing in the last year or so.   They are very cute to watch, if this one is anything to go by:



A 2019 article in Nature Conservation discussed the trend:

In response to growing reports of otters in the pet trade, and suggestions that the popularity of pet otters on social media may be driving demand, we collated YouTube videos of pet otters to test for trends in the number of videos published, their exposure (number of views) and popularity. We used English-language search terms to provide a global overview, as well as local language search terms for four South East Asian countries identified as being of potential importance in the pet otter trade (Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam), and Japan. We found that not only had the number of videos depicting pet otters increased in the last two to three years (2016–2018), but that their popularity and/or engagement had also increased. Notwithstanding some country-level differences in the details of effects observed, the greatest increases in both the number of videos produced and their popularity occurred in Indonesia and Japan. At a global-level, commercial “viral” video sites appeared to be influential in terms of posting highly popular pet otter videos. At a national level, potentially influential videos tended to be produced by four or five individual otter owners....

Our results show an increase in social media activity that may not only be driving the apparent increase in popularity, but also amplifying awareness of the availability of these animals as pets, as well as creating and perpetuating the (erroneous) perception of otters as a suitable companion animal. At a global level, there are welfare concerns associated with otters in the pet trade, and, in South East Asia specifically, there are serious conservation concerns.

 As cute as Aty the otter is in the video above, I would have thought the cost of feeding an otter fish would be enough disincentive from trying to have one as a pet.   (But then again, we know the huge cost of feeding lions and tigers hasn't stopped people keeping them as "pets" in all sorts of countries.) 

Worst Attorney General

Greg Sargent at Washington Post on why Barr is such a dangerous jerk (short version - he buys into the Right's decades' long, culture war inspired, escalation of anything to the left of them as the absolute evil enemy of everything good in the world) :

Barr gave a shocking interview to CNN late Wednesday that left zero doubt about his intentions. Barr refused to denounce Trump’s suggestion that people should try to illegally vote twice (by mail and in person), supposedly to test vote-by-mail’s validity. Trump brazenly repeated this on Thursday.

Barr also repeated his frequent claims that vote-by-mail elections have been riddled with fraud and that a foreign power could fabricate thousands of mail ballots. Both are utter nonsense. But in saying them, Barr is telegraphing his willingness to legitimize Trump’s eventual effort to try to invalidate untold numbers of mail ballots, which Trump has already told us is coming.

Meanwhile, Barr is party to another extraordinary move: Trump just approved a memo declaring the intention to restrict federal funding to Democratic-led cities designated as “anarchist jurisdictions.” Barr will determine which cities earn this label.

This is being widely denounced as illegal, and it may go nowhere. But let’s focus on its stated rationale: A city will be designated as such if it has “permitted violence and the destruction of property” and “forbids the police force from intervening to restore order.”

The idea that these officials have deliberately allowed violence and restrained police from restoring order is crucial. In reality, officials are working amid extremely complex, fast-moving conditions to balance the restoration of order and public safety with respect for civil liberties and peaceful assembly, while (ideally) avoiding abuse of the awesome powers of state violence....

Here's the more general point:

Trump’s reelection case is premised on not just on the idea that Joe Biden and Democrats are too weak to control leftist violence. It’s also that they are willingly allowing those forces to run rampant, in the full knowledge that they are out to destroy the very possibility of civil society itself.

Both Trump and Barr have delivered major speeches spelling out this worldview. Commemorating Independence Day, Trump likened his own struggle against “the radical left, the Marxists, the anarchists” to the struggle to defeat fascism in World War II.

Trump is at war with the left, to rescue civil society itself. He recently declared: “We’re saving the world from a radical left philosophy that will destroy this country.”

For his part, Barr, speaking to the Federalist Society last November, infamously declared that “it is the left” that poses the true threat to the “rule of law,” through a “scorched earth, no-holds barred” war against Trump.

Barr also voiced support for a strong executive, unshackled by oversight and legal nitpicking, declaring that it has delivered glory at moments of great national struggle against fascism, communism and “Islamic fascism,” which elevates the war on terror into an epic civilizational showdown. As Laura Field details, Barr belongs to a movement of “reocons,” or authoritarian reactionary conservatives.

Indeed, Barr is drawing on a long tradition of “anti-liberalism,” which is hostile to liberal democracy in part precisely because it doesn’t cast politics as a perpetual emergency struggle against an overarching enemy, and instead values proceduralism and compromise, which sap the moral will and decisiveness of the polity.

Barr did not explicitly declare the war against the left akin to the war with fascism. But Trump has. And by labeling the left an existential threat to the rule of law alongside a paean to the glory of the executive unfettered at times of crisis, he creeps right up to the precipice of this claim....

 Barr’s grotesque exaggerations of the leftist threat help give Trump justification for urging right-wing vigilantes to take matters into their own hands, lawlessly.

Good analysis.

Some COVID thoughts

*  the Victorian lockdown certainly seems to show, again, that strict lockdowns work;

*  there seems to be surprisingly infrequent polling on whether Dan Andrews and his government are suffering in popularity over this.   Polling back on 11 August indicated 70-something percent support for the current lockdown;  perhaps it has eroded a bit since then?  On the other hand, as case numbers come down, and it seems to work, I wouldn't be surprised if support is still pretty high.   We need to know, so (if public support is still high) we can gloat at the tiny fists being waved about in anger at Catallaxy about this is the worst civil rights crisis ever.  Sinclair just loves to go all civil/property rights on matters which kill and sicken people (in favour of the thing that will sicken them), just as he did with tobacco plain packaging. 

*  news about the possible long term effects of COVID infection on the heart is pretty worrying; except to the likes of Adam Creighton, for whom there is no hill high enough to die on over this.

*  Fauci is never coming back into Trump's (or his cult's) "good books".  No one sensible would ever want to be there, anyway.

The French method

I followed a link to an article in The Economist about a big new university in France, and read this  explanation as to rather different way they do tertiary education:

A HUGE MODERNIST university campus is emerging amid farmland on a plateau south of the French capital. The University of Paris-Saclay, officially launched this year, merges some 20 higher-education and research institutions. It has a teaching and research staff of 9,000, catering to 48,000 students—more than Harvard or Stanford. Specialised in science, it is France’s attempt to create, in President Emmanuel Macron’s words, an “MIT à la française”. Such ambition once seemed fanciful. Yet in August Paris-Saclay stormed into the Shanghai world university ranking, grabbing 14th place overall and 3rd in Europe after Cambridge and Oxford. It took the top international spot in maths.

France’s two-tier higher-education system baffles outsiders. Three-fifths of its 2.7m students are enrolled in universities. These are public. Until recently they did not select undergraduates at entry; they charge no tuition bar a small enrolment fee, and are often sneered at as second-rate. An elite minority, meanwhile, attend selective grandes écoles, for which entrance exams require at least two years of post-secondary-school cramming. To confuse matters further, research is traditionally not carried out in universities or grande ecoles but in specialised public institutions.

Over the years, this unusual structure has led to much French frustration about foreign perceptions. The country has world-class engineering schools, economics departments and mathematicians. After America, France has more Fields medal-winners for maths than any other country. Yet its fragmented system—partly down to the deliberate splitting of big universities after the 1968 student protests—has left it under-performing in world rankings and lacking global star appeal.

I had no idea the French were so into maths.   [At this point, I'm tempted to make a reference to menage a trois, but will leave that to actual comedians.]

Anyway, it looks like a successful merger.

 

Public service announcement from the Republican Party

(There's a near 100% chance that someone else has already done this on Twitter, but I haven't seen it yet.)

A small Hollywood story

One of the few entertainment industry persons I follow on Twitter is Ed Solomon, who wrote Men in Black, amongst other movies.  (He did the Bill & Ted adventure movies too - the third of which has just been released to mostly favourable reviews.)

He reminisces about the MIB movie quite a bit, and how it changed from his initial ideas after discussion with director Barry Sonnenfeld (whose taste in comedy has also appealed to me across quite a few movies).  Anyway, this tweet amused me:

 
I have to say, I remember when I first saw MIB at the cinema, this reveal really did strike a particular note of pleasure because of the way it reminded me of science fiction-y fantasies I sometimes imagined as a child.   I am sure it is a key part of the reason why the movie has been regarded with deep affection by so many people.  

Pop culture notes

Well, I can only welcome this news:

You see, to annoy my son, who feared the Youtube app on the TV would be flooded with K Pop recommendations, I watched the Dynamite clip twice in the last week.  (I wanted to see it anyway, to see why it became the fastest instant hit in Youtube viewing history.)

Ignoring the aspect of the deliberately androgynous styling of some (or all?) in the group (and also ignoring the terrible, exploitative conditions that apparently most K Pop group members have to work under), I think the song is pleasant enough pop, and sounds to my ear rather Bruno Mars-ish.   (My daughter agreed when I pointed this out.)  It is, at the very least, harmless.

Which is more than I can say for the that WAP song, which I could have ignored if it weren't for noticing the ill advised entry of annoying twerp Ben Shapiro into criticism of it.

Apart from what whiny conservative male voices (and in the case of Shapiro, I mean that very literally) have had to say about it, there has been a broader discussion of the dubious merits of "feminist empowerment" by trash talking and acting as badly as men.  See this thread in Reddit for example:

It's had 1,600 or so comments, which is good. (Mind you, a lot are trying to change her mind.)

Anyway, it's good to see that happy, all ages friendly K Pop should have knocked ultra sleazy, surely- you-do-not-want-your-daughter-(or-son)-thinking-of-sex-like-this WAP off the top position.   (No sexual pun intended, either.)

Going back to K Pop:  while I think I made some comment here a few years ago that it seemed that K Pop was really upping the androgynous style, I see that the topic of why this is a thing has been discussed on line for years.

Someone speaking in an article in 2013 suggested this, and it sounds more-or-less plausible:

I think that, according to Western expectations of gender, the overwhelming majority of male K-pop idols would be considered androgynous. But I don’t know that that has to do with K-pop challenging the gender binary. I think this has a lot to do with the “objectifiability” of K-pop idols, as is the fetishization of cuteness. Part of femininity as a social construct in nearly every culture are passivity, perceived weakness, harmlessness, and allure based on the preferences of the observer. And, of course, with cuteness, you have a performance of childishness, a major feature of which is a lack of agency. K-pop idols are someone else’s moneymaker whose worth is based on the ability to be non-threatening fantasy fodder for their audience, which translates into money spent. No wonder nearly EVERYONE in K-pop is what the West would consider hyper-feminized (women, too). This isn’t unique to K-pop. Teen heartthrobs in the West tend to be more feminine, as they have to appear innocuous and available for objectification too.

An article in 2018 notes:

That wasn't always the case. In the 1980s and 90s the salaryman was the prevailing male aesthetic. Suits, luxury watches and a traditional strong male look were the norm. Korea has mandatory national service and that moulded and defined what men thought would look appealing.

"In the 80s and 90s, men in Korean pop content were largely portrayed as tough guys in gangster and detective films, and rebellious young men in some TV dramas," says Sun Jung, the author of Korean Masculinities and Transcultural Consumption.

But all that changed in the mid-1990s when music group Seo Taeji and The Boys came onto the scene, says Prof Elfving-Hwang. They used rap, rock and techno influences and incorporated English language into their music.

They kick-started fan culture which has now become a major force in the music industry, she says.

Then followed the big entertainment companies churning out K-pop girl bands and boy bands, and their influence has been like nothing before it.

Yes, well, it is interesting to wonder how much of this is driven by the entertainment companies dictating taste.  More from that last article:

"Compared to the 80s and 90s, now there are a lot more soft masculinities - pretty boy images and gentle male images - represented in media, and consumers welcome and widely consume them," says Dr Sun Jung.

They came to be known as Khonminam - combining the words for flower and a beautiful man. She says it takes inspiration from similar concepts in Japan of bishonen or beautiful boys and Shojo manga - girls comics.
 1
But it's not feminine.

"I think the phenomenon should rather be explained through the notion of hybrid or versatile masculinity - soft yet manly at the same time - which is different from effeminised," says Dr Jung.

She cites Song Joong-ki, the star of hugely popular Korean drama "Descendants of the Sun" as the embodiment of this. He may be a khonminam in his look, but as a special forces captain in the military he is also a tough guy.

It goes on to discuss beauty products aimed at young men too, and God knows that there are a lot more of that on the shelves of Japan than Australia.

Anyway, I still think it is all pretty peculiar - a culture specific fashion trend that has been around for longer than I would have expected; even though, as noted above, Western acts aiming at a teen female audience have long de-emphasised masculine features too.   But it's as if something of dubious fashion merit, like 70's glam rock, perhaps, lasted 20 years instead of (what?) 10?   

Up, through the at-mos-phere, up, where the air is clear...

Gawd, you would have felt sick to the stomach if you saw this live, but it all has a happy ending:

Tweets noted

Actually, I am less pessimistic than the last tweeter, but I could be proved wrong....

A useful summary

My only quibble - 5 decades seems a tad longer than I thought:

Particularly apt illustration for how the Bird brain, such that it is, works

Poor reviews

My impression from Twitter is that not only did all liberals think that the Trump speech was flat and way too long, but so did the frequent Trump apologist Brit Hume on Fox.   I assume that it really was flat, then.  (I saw bits and pieces, and it is no surprise to me that it is getting this sort of comment.)

Yet look at the headline on the Washington Post on line headline:

which gives the impression that it was an energetic speech.

I am very much on side with those media critics who are getting ropeable again that the mainstream press is not doing more caning of Trump for his abuse of his position, but are "two sides-ing" the parties again.

What have they got to lose by calling out a wannabe dictator as a wannabe dictator?  He already tells his followers they are the "enemy of the people" - itself an extraordinary undemocratic and dangerous attitude that should never have been normalised by resigned acceptance of its repetition.

To be clear:  the Washington Post routinely carries pages of strong Trump criticism, including of this speech.   But it shouldn't be giving a false impression in its main headline choice.  

Unsubtle symbolism

So, not only did a President use the White House and the Presidential seal for a party political convention, he also got to use a huge amount of (I assume) public land to launch a 4th July worthy fireworks display around the most obviously phallic monument in America.   

(Look, I don't normally think of the Washington Monument as phallic, but in the context of a narcissistic, trash talking, thinks-he's-real-masculine-but-probably-needs-Viagra President, I don't think this is an unwarranted take on the symbolism.)  

Update:  Heh -

Encouraging violence for political purposes

Good article at WAPO about how it is 100% clear that Republicans have no incentive to hope that community violence calms down rapidly, as it suits them politically:

At the Republican convention, one speaker after another claimed America’s cities have descended into chaos, which is not the fault of the current president but shows how much worse things will get under Biden, who is a supposed captive of radical forces unleashed inside the Democratic Party.

Some on the right are so convinced this will be effective that they haven’t shied away from cozying up to vigilante violence. Speaking about 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, a Trump supporter who traveled to Kenosha with his AR-15 and has been charged with killing two protesters, Fox News host Tucker Carlson said: “How shocked are we that 17-year-olds with rifles decided they had to maintain order when no one else would?”

That’s extraordinary, not only for its seemingly understanding tone toward the alleged vigilante murder of protesters but also in its depiction of a country in total civil collapse.  And while the Trump campaign distanced itself from the killings, this points to an extraordinary level of confidence (or feigned confidence) on the right in the power of all this imagery to help Trump.

Apparently, Biden has been making the point about the cynicism of this, but not enough are hearing it:

For instance, on MSNBC Thursday, Biden responded directly to Vice President Pence’s claim at the convention that “the hard truth is, you won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America.” Biden said: “The problem we have right now is, we’re in Donald Trump’s America.” Biden added that Trump is “rooting for more violence, not less.”

The “Donald Trump’s America” formulation makes the simple point that Trump is the problem. Trump promises only more violence and searing divisions because he thinks those things are good for him and he doesn’t care about anyone but himself.

But he has to push harder as being the one capable of bringing calmer times:

Biden has repeatedly condemned the violence, of course, despite all the lies to the contrary. And the Biden bet is that he’s intuitively understood as a creature of the center, giving him more leeway to speak frankly to the country about how systemic racism and police brutality unleash rage and grief that is understandable and calls for serious reform — and that voters are sophisticated enough to hear this.

Central to that bet, though, is the idea that Trump is widely seen as a uniformly destructive, instigating, malevolent force. This provides an opening for Biden and Harris to argue that their offer of balance — taking the protesters’ grievances seriously while condemning violence — holds out the promise of peace, where Trump only offers more chaos and devastation. And Conway just helped Democrats build that case.

 

Presenting live from the White Palace, King Trump, watched on by Prince Don, Prince Eric and Princess Ivanka

Update:

Come on, Biden

I've been saying this for a while, but with the latest escalation in violence related to a police shooting, why isn't Biden doing a speech for national TV calling for calm and addressing specifically how the situation should be addressed.

A federal government cannot solve all of the problems, but he can make sensible proposals and call for national unity to de-escalate the situation.     All Trump and his supporters are doing is telling people there is no significant problem with policing and race, and encouraging more rednecks to join in.   Biden ought to be able to make political gain as being the one who can help calm the nation.

Military event noted

I've read some tweets about Melania Trump's robotic, look at the audience as little as possible, speech in the newly de-flowered and de-tree'd Rose Garden, and still haven't seen anyone saying how her dress looked a lot to me like a version of a khaki military coat.  Surely someone else has noticed:

I would say it suited the whole Our Glorious Leader is Endorsed by the Military vibe of the proceedings, which many are noting is inappropriate if not actually illegal.

Steve Kates would be drolling in his porridge in excitement, though, I bet.

A broken blog

Huh.  If I am not mistaken, Sinclair Davidson's Ship for Old (and occasionally middle aged) Fools (Catallaxy) is broken.  It hasn't worked completely right for many weeks, actually.  

In any event, it's become pretty much unreadable since COVID struck - full of rage against Dan Andrews, continual denial of the seriousness of the disease, the most grovelling Trump admiration, and even internal fighting over whether some of the most hysterical commenters have really gone too hysterical this time.   Not to mention one younger nut who posts about his personal involvement in the "resistance" to the Victorian lockdown, but sounds half the time like he's on cocaine.   Didn't some anti lockdown protesters get arrested yesterday?  With any luck, he will be among them.

Sinclair doesn't make many appearances anymore so I don't get much fun from attacking his dubious takes.   The site now looks more like it's "CL and Friends", and the circle of commenters is narrower and more boring than ever.  I don't even read the posts by the other cranky, anonymous posters - they all sound like grey haired male retirees with too much time on their hands.  

So, the entertainment value is way down.

Donald will be annoyed

Viewing numbers for the American political conventions shouldn't matter much either way, except when you can take pleasure in knowing that the Narcissist in Chief will be telling his minions he doesn't want to see headlines like this again:

Democrats beat Republicans in first-night convention TV audience

Travel wishes

I have decided that Portugal seems well worth visiting.  I saw some ponderous young Vlogger on Youtube call it the most underrated country he has been to, but also Richard Ayoade's visit to Porto on Travel Man sparked my interest.

I also want to go to Norway, but that's a more long standing wish.  I should look up travel vloggers' trips through there on Youtube, too.

On calories

You know, it seems to me that Twisties (cheese flavour) have a lot more calories in them than the weight would suggest.  

Maybe it's in the cheese powder? 

Which has made me realise - how do they make cheese powder?   Here's an article in the New Yorker (of all places) about that.   It includes this bit of history:

While Marco Polo reportedly encountered a type of powdered milk in thirteenth-century Mongolia, and the first patent for commercial spray-drying was awarded to Samuel Percy in 1872, the first industrial spray-dried dairy products weren’t manufactured until shortly after Kraft’s development of processed cheese in the nineteen-twenties, according to “Food Powders: Physical Properties, Processing, and Functionality.”

Huh.

 

Uncle Roger power move

The most recent "Uncle Roger" bits on Youtube aren't really going anywhere much, but I'm still watching.  This amused me on Twitter, though, from some random person talking Chinese uncles:

Even unhappier than I knew

I see that it was waaaay back in 2011 that I posted about an interview in which the normally happy looking comedian Alan Davies explained that he had in fact been in psychotherapy for years as a result of an unhappy childhood, with the main problem being that his Mum died when he was 6, and his controlling father kept him from saying "goodbye", and the funeral, or even the grave. 

Now, it turns out, he says he was sexually assaulted by his Dad, who is still alive but with dementia.

I'm a bit surprised by this, because I have watched on TV some of a stand up show he was doing (as usual, I didn't like it much), and he did reference some boys at his boarding school and their enthusiasm for, um, demonstrative masturbation.  I find this a little hard to imagine in an Australian context, but yes, this is in England, where "boarding school" and "sexually inappropriate behaviour" go together in what seems to be a peculiarly national tradition.  So it's a bit  odd to me that he would be getting laughs out of that when sexually abused at home.   Not saying it didn't happen, just surprised.


But anyway, once again I ask:  what percentage of comedians actually come from a happy family background, no great disasters in personal relationships, and no addiction or bouts of depression?  Seems like it must like 2 or 3% of them.   (Jerry Seinfeld being the stellar example of "nope, everything's been pretty good for me, really.")

PS:  while I am having a day of just saying what I do and don't like - have I mentioned before that I can't stand English comedian Jimmy Carr, who turns up on SBS ads for his unfunny panel show all the time?   Don't find him funny, or likeable, at all.  


*  not referencing a technique.

Speaking of movies I didn't care for...

I don't think I have mentioned, sometime over the last year or so, having watched the American re-make of the Japanese ghost/curse story The Ring.   It was just OK-ish, my son and I thought; but we both found The Grudge (the English remake, but still set in Japan) much scarier.

Anyway, I saw on Google Play that the original Japanese Ring, or Ringu, was available, and thinking that the trailer looked sufficiently creepy, we decided to watch it.  

It was, shall we say, underwhelming.  At first, it was close to the American re-make, but then it veered off somewhat.   But it's really surprising watching a movie regarded (according to reviews) as being "the most disturbing since The Exorcist" and not being very scared at all. The creepy factor in some movies seems to really diminish quickly over time.

As it happens, I have never watched all of The Exorcist, but from bits I have seen, quite some time ago now, I have warned my son that it almost certainly looks more silly now than disturbing.  

Anyway, back to Japanese ghosts:  Netflix has recently put up a series from Japan (Ju-On Origns) which is the backstory to The Grudge movie.  Looks like the same house.   Oddly, though, it is only 30 minutes an episode, which is barely enough to get a good scare going.   We watched the first episode last night, and I thought it was worth continuing with.  Yet it has had some very bad reviews, and some good ones.  It was pretty dark in the first episode:  it apparently gets much worse.

I guess I will stick with it, for now...

An unpopular opinion

I don't care a bit for Shawshank Redemption.  Must be the Stephen King origin.

This movie routinely comes up in people's list of favourite, or feel good, or inspiring movies.

I can't remember when I watched it (it wasn't at the cinema), but it left nearly no imprint at all on my memory except for thinking at the time "why do so many people think this is so good?"

Just wanted to put that out there, for no particular reason.

Why is Sunrise so Right wing now?

I don't pay all that much attention to Sunrise, although I do usually see/hear about 20 mins of it between 6.30 and 7am.

What I want to know is this:  why has the show gone so thoroughly populist Rght wing?   The guest commentators I have seen a lot of in the last few months are social-conservative-failure-in-his-own-life Barnaby Joyce, now-hates-every-single-person-in-the-Labor-Party and Pauline-Hanson-sycophant Mark Latham, ex rampaging Liberal Premier Jeff Kennett, and from the purported Left, but wants to be part of the Right, Joel Fitzgibbon.

Sure, they dumped Pauline Hanson herself but Latham is there anyway.

This is the show that popularised Kevin Rudd to the Prime Ministership (another bad political call on their part, I reckon.)   Now we have Samantha Armytage (well, actually, I see that she is taking time off due to illness, apparently) who seems to me to very snidely Right wing populist in most of her quips. 

The internal dynamics between producers and hosts on that show would be good to know.

Never did trust Sailer

The deep state, QAnon administration

What an appalling administration:

Senior health officials in the Trump administration were taken aback last Monday when the president's trade adviser, Peter Navarro, accused them of being part of the "Deep State" during a meeting that was supposed to be about COVID-19 and the Strategic National Stockpile.

Why it matters: Five days after Navarro's private comments toward the FDA, the president echoed Navarro's sentiments with a pair of Saturday morning tweets and tagged Stephen Hahn, the head of the Food and Drug Administration.

• "The deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics," the president tweeted. "Obviously, they are hoping to delay the answer until after November 3rd. Must focus on speed, and saving lives!"
• Trump then attacked the FDA for revoking its emergency use authorization "of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine for treating COVID-19 amid growing evidence that the drugs are 'unlikely to be effective' in treating the coronavirus."

Yet more reason to visit Singapore

The most surprising thing I saw on CNA on the weekend:  in Singapore, a man has a shop that sells ants for hobbyists:



"Just Ants" is the name of the shop. 

I used to enjoy brief stints of ant keeping as a child, but never knew how to get a queen.  If only I was a child in Singapore, now.

So, not a bad week for the Democrats...

Seems most mainstream commentary gives Biden's acceptance speech the thumbs up;  there were notable other highlights (none of which I have got around to watching yet);  we are going to get to see if Steve Bannon's visage deteriorates even further when he is in prison with no access to skincare  products.   (Or do we learn the secret of his homeless bum looks is that he has always used whatever the American equivalent of a bar of Solvol might be for his morning facewash?) 

All in all, not a bad week for the Democrats and the hope of putting the country back on some sort of more even keel.

Mind you, the real scandal should be that there is still, probably, support for Trump in the 40 something percent range.

And the scandal about that should be that no one is talking seriously about how to undo the Right wing media information bubble that has led  the Right to gas-lit itself into such idiocy that they would defend an outright authoritarian, corrupt, intensely dumb President because he's their authoritarian, corrupt, intensely dumb man who (they think) "owns the libs".  

The US is going to have to do something about that if they want to have hopes of pulling back from a the artificial and poisonous reality maybe a full third is fully living in, with another 15% or so half way in.

It is utterly, utterly ludicrous that Right wing culture war spivs are trying the "no, you're the ones dividing us" line in light of the appalling content of the Trump campaign, the likes of which the press - and any serious pundit - should never have helped "normalise" by not calling it out at the time.