Patriot Anna Timmer Blasts Rep. Justin Amash at Grand Rapids Town Hall (VIDEO)

This was a viral moment on social media, and the woman appeared on Fox News as well.

Thank you all for the love! Unexpected and greatly appreciated. This is a wrap for me for the week, but I'll be back in the Twitter game on Monday!

— Anna Timmer (@VeritasSola) June 2, 2019

David Epstein, Range

At Amazon, David Epstein, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World.

Timothy P. Carney, Alienated America

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Timothy P. Carney, Alienated America: Why Some Places Thrive While Others Collapse.

Since Tiananmen, China Has Never Been the Same

A flashback to 30 years ago this week.

At the Los Angeles Times, "I watched the 1989 Tiananmen uprising. China has never been the same":

Former @latimes bureau chief David Holley covered the Tiananmen massacre 30 years ago. This is his memory of the experience: https://t.co/34chwcuUhp

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) June 1, 2019

In the predawn hours of June 4, 1989, the Chinese army was bringing a bloody end to seven weeks of student-led protests centered on Tiananmen Square, Beijing’s historic center.

From the windows of a deserted coffee shop at the Beijing Hotel, a few hundred yards east of Tiananmen, I could look toward the square and see several hundred soldiers forming lines across the capital’s broad main street. In front of the hotel was an angry and brave crowd of a couple thousand Beijing residents. These protesters were furious at the army for shooting its way into the city center, tanks and armored personnel carriers smashing obstacles, soldiers spraying bullets at crowds blocking its advance. Now I watched as the soldiers periodically fired into this crowd.

For me, what the Chinese call simply “June 4” — a date that fundamentally shaped today’s China — had begun the previous evening.

I was the Los Angeles Times Beijing bureau chief then, and had overseen the newspaper’s coverage of the pro-democracy protests since they began in mid-April. The Times’ team had been taking turns staking out the square, and my shift was to begin at midnight. Before leaving home late on June 3, I learned that the army had begun smashing its way through crowds several miles west of Tiananmen.

I grabbed my bicycle and raced toward the square.

As I pedaled, I passed hundreds of Beijing residents fleeing on foot and bicycle away from the square and the main body of troops approaching from the west.

Soon a single armored personnel carrier came hurtling around a corner, headed toward the square. As it clambered over red-and-white concrete traffic barriers placed by protesters, I nearly kept up with it, weaving my own way around the barriers — which might stop trucks and cars but not tanks and bicycles. Finally the driver stopped when he encountered too thick a crowd on a side street at the northeast corner of the square. It seemed he was unwilling to start killing masses of people by running them over. Once the armored vehicle stopped, someone thrust a thick metal bar into its treads.

The furious crowd threw burning blankets and Molotov cocktails onto the vehicle; a few young men got on top and began banging the hatch. They managed an opening and started throwing burning objects inside. Three soldiers jumped out, scattering into the crowd. I followed one, and watched as he ran in a zigzag pattern while being severely beaten with pipes and sticks. Blood dripped down his face, which held a look of terror. Then two or three students grabbed him away from his tormentors, who almost certainly were not students, and put him into a nearby ambulance.

I interviewed students at the center of the square, who planned nonviolent resistance to the end, and nonstudents, more inclined to fight back, who dominated the fringes. I moved from the pedestrian part of the square onto Changan Avenue, which passes the famous portrait of Mao Tse-tung on Tiananmen, the Gate of Heavenly Peace.

Then I realized that I was within bullet range of soldiers.

I decided to telephone the bureau from the Beijing Hotel — mobile phones were still a rarity in Beijing at the time. At the hotel entrance, security searched me for cameras or film. I found a phone in the dark coffee shop, and to my relief the hotel operator put me through to my office. I watched the shooting through the windows and periodically phoned in more notes.

Rumors and unconfirmed reports spread among the international reporters, Chinese and other foreigners in the hotel, and many inside came to believe that the sounds of gunfire audible from the direction of the square meant the students who stayed behind were being killed. I figured that was probably what was happening.

Deng Xiaoping, Mao’s successor as China’s paramount leader, had ordered the army to take the square by dawn — and authorized it to do the killing necessary to achieve this. The slaughter ranged over much of the city, mostly along several miles of the western approach roads to Tiananmen.

The Tiananmen uprising came during a fateful year in which communism was under siege in Eastern Europe. The Berlin Wall would fall that November; two years later, the Soviet Union would cease to exist. Deng’s fateful decision may have been timed in part to a desire to clear the square before a June 4 election that would end communism in Poland. Deng was not seriously afraid of the students, but he did fear a Polish-style Solidarity movement.

The months of protest in China had been triggered by the death of a popular former Communist Party leader, Hu Yaobang, who lost the party’s top post in 1987 partly on charges of being too soft on protesters. In the spring of 1989, students were planning pro-democracy demonstrations for the 70th anniversary of a watershed protest on May 4, 1919. The students moved their plans earlier by bringing wreaths to Tiananmen Square to honor Hu upon his death.

That was an implicit criticism of the surviving leaders. Yet it was difficult for the police to immediately suppress this because superficially it began as mourning for a top Communist.

Officials under Deng divided bitterly over the protests, which gathered momentum during a visit by Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev in mid-May.

When Deng decided to use the army to clear the square, Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang, the leading economic reformer who was relatively liberal politically, refused to go along.

Word of Zhao’s opposition leaked, and when troops tried to enter the capital on May 20 massive crowds blocked them. The people of Beijing, supporting the students’ calls for more freedom and an attack on corruption, peacefully held their country’s army at bay for two weeks, as the protests morphed into an attempt to force Deng out and perhaps throw power to Zhao. But by then it was too late: Zhao was under house arrest, and Deng along with the other tough old warriors ruling China had no intention of losing this battle...

RTWT.

Anne F. Hyde, Empires, Nations, and Families

At Amazon, Anne F. Hyde, Empires, Nations, and Families: A New History of the North American West, 1800-1860.

The Cable-Social Media Feedback Loop

Jonathan Martin is on to something I think, but few reporters outline current politics as such: the powerful role activist media plays in current partisan campaign mobilization.

Check this tweetstorm for the NYT piece, via Memeorandum, "You Don't Have to Be in Des Moines.' Democrats Expand Primary Map, Spurred by Social Media."

NEW: Morning from San Fran, where 14 (!) Dem candidates have gathered for the Calif Dem convention

At the same time, Biden is in...Ohio tonight.

How and why the 2020 race went national - and IA & NH have lost their stranglehold >>https://t.co/Sp2Azp600m pic.twitter.com/YLhPIgFXIe

— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) June 1, 2019

Hope you’ll read the story, but this map from @jsonkao really paints the picture:

the Dem candidates have already visited over 30 states + territories for non-fundraising events.

And the year isn’t halfway done https://t.co/Sp2Azp600m pic.twitter.com/8qNLXPqzee

— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) June 1, 2019

It’s not *just* Super Tuesday.

The nature of Dem coalition & Trump has made ‘20 the mirror of ‘08:

Obama spent 89 days in Iowa and won the nom in part bc he showed there he could win rural whites. Now the candidates must prove they have a message for, and can win, non-whites.

— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) June 1, 2019

It’s hard to overstate how central the cable-social media feedback loop has become to this primary. Staff judge events in part on if cables went live from venue. And they’re fixated on creating settings& moments that can go viral.

— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) June 1, 2019

Warren has won plaudits for her meaty policy proposals, but no candidate besides Biden has benefited as much from Trump. Why?

Because cable TV drives polling and cable is fixated on Mueller

After Warren called for impeachment her cable mentions soared and polling followed...

— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) June 1, 2019

...and then Warren helped herself w a good turn at, wait for it, a *cable* town hall just 3 days after calling for impeachment post-Mueller report

It’s no accident polls show she’s doing best of any non-Biden candidate among the most engaged Dems: they’re glued to cable/social

— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) June 1, 2019

BUT: The early states still thin the field@davidplouffe warns that campaigns are making a mistake if IA and NH aren’t their “the north star”

“If you need to come in third but you came in fifth you’ll say, ‘Shit, if only I had spent three or four more days in Iowa.’”

— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) June 1, 2019

AND:

the new rules from the DNC on debate access will only incentivize candidates to focus more on breaking thru on TV and spending more on social/TV https://t.co/Sp2Azp600m

— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) June 2, 2019

Mindy Robinson Patriotic

On Twitter:

#NewProfilePic pic.twitter.com/iFMcBZnWEi

— Mindy Robinson 🇺🇸 (@iheartmindy) May 31, 2019

Stacy Poole

On Twitter:

pic.twitter.com/cH7Q2RPZqp

— 🍀GODDESS (@duljc) June 1, 2019

And skim the topless fan page.

Bree Daniels on the Balcony

Check the photos.

And on Twitter.

Woman Changing

Amazing.

See, "Changing Clothes."

'Stray Cat Strut'

I haven't posted the Stray Cats for six years. See, "'Storm the Embassy'."

And I was just thinking about it after hearing "Stray Cat Strut" at 93.1 Jack FM while out to the bank.

Rocket Man
Elton John
2:04pm

Seven Nation Army
The White Stripes
1:54pm

You Shook Me All Night Long
AC/DC
1:50pm

Words
Missing Persons
1:46pm

November Rain
Guns N' Roses
1:40pm

Sweet Dreams
EURYTHMICS
1:37pm

Fat Bottomed Girls
Queen
1:32pm

Something Just Like This
Coldplay / The Chainsmokers
1:22pm

Tom Sawyer
Rush
1:17pm

I Will Die 4 U / Baby You're A Star
Prince
1:11pm

Comedown
Bush
1:06pm

If You Leave
O M D
1:01pm

Iron Man
Black Sabbath
12:51pm

Stressed Out
Twenty One Pilots
12:48pm

The Waiting
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
12:44pm.

"Stray Cat Strut" came on just before Tom Petty, but I'm just now checking the website and the playlist.

I saw the band twice at the Roxy in Hollywood back in the day.

The Stray Cats are the only band I can ever remember that botched a song on stage and had to start over. Brian Setzer forgot the lyrics --- it was probably "Rock This Town," now that I think about it --- and drummer Slim Jim Phantom banged his snare drum --- twap, twap!! --- stopped and looked over at Setzer with a look saying, "WTF man" (plus an eye-roll lol).

Bernard DeVoto, Across the Wide Missouri

At Amazon, Bernard DeVoto, Across the Wide Missouri.

Woke Los Angeles is the New Typhus Hotbed: Homeless Catastrophe Makes City of Angels Unlivable (VIDEO)

Why are Democrat-run cities such hellholes of infectious disease and humanitarian catastrophe?!!

And don't even get me going about San Francisco, where the current California Governor Gavin Newsome left behind a legacy of human feces, heroin junkies shooting up on the sidewalks, and progressive NIMBY losers turning away with indifference.

California really is a lost cause.

At the New American, "“Sky High” Piles of Trash Making Downtown Los Angeles Unlivable."

And the Los Angeles Times, "Rats and other vermin infest LAPD downtown station, sparking anger among officers."

LAPD Officers Diagnosed With Suspected Case of Typhus, Salmonella Typhi: Los Angeles has no formal rat abatement program. But, yay, we have the Olympics. https://t.co/pDVY4eJVtw via @nbcla

— Amy Alkon (@amyalkon) June 1, 2019

When state officials inspected the Los Angeles Police Department’s Central Division station last November, they uncovered rodent infestations and other unsanitary conditions at the facilities responsible for protecting skid row and other parts of downtown.

The conditions have now become the source of growing anger inside the station, with some officers threatening to seek transfers and city leaders scrambling to address the problems.

The issues at the Central Division come amid larger concerns about disease and filth across downtown, notably a vermin infestation at City Hall last year. One city employee was diagnosed with typhus, a disease that can be spread by rodents. City Hall workers said they saw fleas, rodent droppings and plants eaten by vermin in the building.

The California Department of Industrial Relations issued six violations and a $5,425 fine to the LAPD on May 14 and two violations and a $1,910 fine to the Department of General Services, records reviewed by The Times on Thursday show.

On Thursday, Mayor Eric Garcetti and the LAPD said they are working to resolve the problems. The division has 414 sworn officers — the largest number in the city.

“Our officers work hard every day to protect our city, and they deserve the best working conditions,” said Alex Comisar, a Garcetti spokesman. “Whether the issue is bad plumbing or something else, the mayor is working with the department to get to the bottom of this situation — and will take every possible step to protect the health and safety of all our employees.”

The department added: "The state’s report is concerning and we are taking steps to ensure the men and women who work for the Los Angeles Police Department can come to work in a healthy environment.”

The LAPD announced late Wednesday that an employee who fell ill at the downtown LAPD station had contracted the strain of bacteria that causes typhoid fever and was being treated for the condition. The LAPD confirmed that a second employee had a lower intestinal infection, but a specific diagnosis has not been determined...

What a nightmare.

Still more at the link.

Alex Morgan Behind the Scenes (VIDEO)

At Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2019:

Italian Fashion Model Chiara Bianchino

At Drunken Stepfather, "CHIARA BIANCHINO NAKED OF THE DAY."

Kara Del Toro Lingerie

At Drunken Stepfather, "KARA DEL TORO LINGERIE OF THE DAY."

BONUS: "Maxim Model Kara Del Toro Unveils Her Scorching Hot Bikini Body in Mexico."

Gillette's Woke Transgender Son Shaving for the First Time Advertisement (VIDEO)

So lame.

Megham Murphy nails it, at Feminist Current, "The ‘intersectional’ masses celebrating Gillette’s new ad reveal their empty politics":

"Much less amusing is the fact that not only multi-billion dollar companies, but LGBT 'allies,' are pushing young people down an incredibly harmful path without any concern for the consequences." https://t.co/2UXVnseluo

— Feminist Current (@FeministCurrent) May 31, 2019

In their ongoing attempts to use politically correct politics to sell razors, Gillette has hit another home run. This time, the company produced an ad depicting a father helping his daughter learn how to shave.

Naturally, there is a woke twist. The daughter, named Samson, is “trans,” and we are meant to understand she is a man. The ad, called “First Shave,” begins with Samson saying, “Growing up, I was always trying to figure out what kind of man I would become.” While we could choose to read this as a celebration of a supportive father, lovingly teaching his child the rituals of entering manhood, it makes far more sense to read this as a company’s attempt to glom onto the most saleable trend right now: transgenderism.

To be clear, I have little interest in criticizing this father and child, who are clearly doing their best in a culture that finds the most superficial, profitable solutions for personal, cultural, or social problems.

Parents are stuck between a rock and a hard place, as they are told over and over again, by a multitude of institutions, including public schools, governments, mainstream media, LGBTQ organizations, the medical establishment, and the pharmaceutical industry, that if their child announces they are either transgender or literally the opposite sex, they must affirm this assertion and support their child to transition, or be labelled abusive, oppressive, or even responsible for mental illness and suicidal ideation.

Children and teenagers are inundated with propaganda telling them that it’s possible to be born in the wrong body; that if they don’t feel perfectly comfortable with rigid gender roles, they must actually be the opposite sex (a scientific impossibility); and that if they feel either a desire to have the body of the opposite sex or to reject the gender stereotypes associated with that sex, their only option for a happy life is to transition. Telling young people that their only route towards fulfillment lies in numerous cosmetic surgeries and a lifetime of hormones that destroy their bodies and render them sterile and unable to experience sexual pleasure is irresponsible, cruel, and dangerous. Yet this is what Gillette is selling. Or rather, using in order to sell.

Initially, I was confused as to why a company that sells shaving products to men would imagine their consumer base would be propelled to buy more Gillette products by imagery of a young woman shaving. I suspect most men don’t buy into gender identity ideology, and certainly “transmen” are not a large enough group to support any jump in sales. But apparently their last ad, which aimed to associate the company with the #MeToo movement, by demonstrating “good masculinity” vs “bad masculinity,” actually did succeed in broadening their audience (despite the fact that thousands of men hated the ad). I suppose the assumption is that new audiences will translate to new consumers, in the long term.

I’m not an ad executive and I certainly have no idea how to make money (I mean, look at my career choice…), but if all this attention from liberals and the media translates into dollars, good for Gillette, I guess… That is their goal, after all. What I find most amusing about this ad and the conversation happening around it online, though, is the way it is being universally celebrated as “progress” by people who will, in the same breath, claim to be “intersectional” — a term intended to communicate a commitment to understanding the intersections of race, class, and gender on individual people’s lives. So, people who are using a concept that is intended to be critical of capitalism (i.e. the thing responsible for class oppression) and gender in order to sell themselves to the world as Very Good and Righteous are celebrating the most brazen co-optation of the most regressive ideology, by a company owned by Procter & Gamble. L-o-fucking-l, you chumps.

What is much less amusing, of course, is the fact that not only multi-billion dollar companies, but LGBT “allies,” are pushing young people down an incredibly harmful path (one that will lead them right into the hands of other multi-billion dollar companies, of course) without any concern for the consequences...

Still more at that top link.

Peter Caddick-Adams on D-Day (VIDEO)

This is great!

Here's the book, at Amazon, Peter Caddick-Adams, Sand and Steel: A New History of D-Day.

And at Prager University:

Sponsors Bail on Fresno Grizzlies After Class AAA Affiliate Showed Memorial Day Tribute Video

I love this video!

Good on the Grizzlies!

Let's just hope the woke sponsors just chill the fuck out and get with the patriotic program. Don't cave to the censoring Democrat Party left.

At LAT, "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez video spurs more sponsors to drop Fresno Grizzlies."

And USA Today, "Fresno Grizzlies losing major sponsors in aftermath of offensive Ocasio-Cortez video."

Disneyland Manages Wait Times at the New Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge

Disney's now gone all woke with corporate social justice policies, and CEO Bob Igor's a fool.

But their crowd management techniques for the new attraction are definitely putting paying customers first. Everything's pricey, but heh, you gotta pay the price to feel nice.

At LAT, "Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge forces Disney to tap eons of crowd-control expertise":

Disneyland first wrestled with crowding on opening day in 1955 when restaurants ran out of food and drinks, lines formed at the bathrooms and visitors sneaked in with counterfeit tickets.

In the 1960s, Disneyland pioneered the use of stanchions and tape to create switchback queues for waiting visitors and provided entertainment to pass the time. The park took another swipe at the problem two decades ago, when it introduced “Fastpass,” the virtual queueing system.

But the opening this weekend of the biggest expansion in park history — the 14-acre Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge — pushed Walt Disney Co. to launch perhaps its most comprehensive crowd-easing effort yet, in effect acknowledging that the 18.7 million people estimated to have visited Disneyland last year is a record primed for breaking.

“It’s always been an area of work for us because we know intuitively that it does impact the experience,” said Kris Theiler, vice president of Disneyland Park. ”By coming at it from a comprehensive perspective, we’re able to make some really big impacts.”

On Friday, the first day that the expansion was opened to the public, the hard-core Star Wars fans for the most part moved about the $1-billion land with ease. But the lines to the only operating ride as well as the cantina and the most anticipated shops — attractions in their own right — fluctuated from brief to excruciatingly long.

Giovanni Peraza, a recent high school graduate from Chandler, Ariz., complained that he waited an hour to ride the interactive Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run. “It was too long,” he said.

But Karen Covington and her husband, Bill, from Del Mar said they were happily surprised that their wait for the ride was only 25 minutes.

“They are doing a good job of crowd control,” Bill Covington said.

“I hope it stays this way,” Karen added.

To keep crowds from creating gridlock, Star Wars employees directed parkgoers to move in a counterclockwise direction, starting at the Millennium Falcon ride and circling to the Middle Eastern styled marketplace.

About 90 minutes after the land opened, workers were seen putting black tape on the ground to create switchback lines near the opening of Savi’s Workshop, where visitors can build their own lightsaber. At about the same time, Oga’s Cantina, the space-themed pub, reached capacity and only allowed new entrants when the crowds thinned.

Disneyland executives, who stood by to assess the opening day, said they saw no surprises.

“It happened exactly as we thought it would,” said Josh D’Amaro, president of Disneyland Resort.

Anticipating an out-of-this-world demand for the fictional land, Disneyland required parkgoers to book a four-hour reservation period to visit the Star Wars expansion during the first three weeks. Visitors were given colored wristbands to identify those who were allowed in and those whose allotted four hours had run out.

When the reservation period for a Star Wars land visitor ended, the guest was not allowed to board an attraction or enter a shop and was told: “Your credentials have expired.”

The reservation system allowed the park to control how many people are in the Star Wars land at any given time. But even with such restrictions on guests, the wait time for the Millennium Falcon ride fluctuated Friday from 20 minutes to 70 minutes.

Disneyland is the second-most visited theme park in the world behind Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom in Florida, according to an annual attendance study by the Los Angeles consulting firm Aecom and Themed Entertainment Assn., a trade group for theme park designers and producers. Disneyland drew 18.7 million visitors last year while the Magic Kingdom hosted 20.9 million visitors, both up 2% from the year before.

Disney doesn’t release daily attendance figures, although longtime Walt Disney Imagineering art director Kim Irvine recently revealed that Disneyland attendance of 65,000 is a “normal” day. During holiday seasons, Disneyland has had to temporarily shut its gates from time to time when the park reached capacity, a ceiling that has never been publicly disclosed but some insiders have said is about 80,000 visitors.

Some industry experts say crowding worsened at Disneyland after the resort began in 2009 to offer monthly payment plans to make it easier for more visitors to afford annual passes.

Such passes range in price from $400 to $1,400.

To cope with the expected crowds during the 60th anniversary of the park in 2015, Disneyland opened up behind-the-scenes pathways to direct crowds around gridlock areas.

A year later, the theme park adopted a “demand pricing” policy that lowered admission ticket prices on a typically slow day — maybe a Wednesday in September — and increased prices on high-demand days. Disney portrayed the move as a crowd-management technique.

A study by the Los Angeles Times found that the queues at the park grew longer even after the dynamic pricing scheme was adopted.

In 2015, only three years after the Walt Disney Co. acquired Lucasfilm for $4 billion, the theme park announced plans for a $1-billion land based on the blockbuster Star Wars sci-fi franchise...

Still more.