Thursday, December 17, 2020
Perry Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State
At Amazon, Perry Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State.
Wednesday, December 16, 2020
Belle Delphine Holiday Teaser
At Celeb Jihad, "Belle Delphine Holiday Teaser."
Plus, at Know Your Meme, "Belle Delphine's Christmas Day Video."
PREVIOUSLY: "More Belle."
Joe Biden's Unsolvable Identity Politics Problem
Great piece from Michael Barone, at the Washington Examiner, "Biden: Identity politics and no apologies":
Even as the Supreme Court rejected the last pro-Trump lawsuit and the Electoral College confirmed his 306-232 majority, Biden seemed to be playing identity politics with his major appointments. “Identity-based groups,” the New York Times is reporting, “continue to lobby Mr. Biden to ensure racial and gender diversity at all levels in his administration.” He’s facing demands for two cabinet posts for Hispanic women, for a black attorney general, and for a Native American interior secretary. He’s facing criticism for placing “people of color” in posts for which they have no apparent expertise — Xavier Becerra at Health and Human Services, for example, and Susan Rice at the Domestic Policy Council [and she's a fucking foreign policy "expert"!]. Every incoming president faces vexing choices and scornful criticism, but it’s an especially vexing problem for Democrats. Their party, since its creation in 1832, has been an often unwieldy coalition of out-groups with grievances and self-appointed advocates. Their urban political bosses developed the art of balancing party tickets (with Southern Democrats, decades and decades ago). The plaints and pleas of identity group advocates can sometimes seem disconnected from reality. How many Hispanic-surnamed women out there are determined to renounce the Democratic party unless Biden appoints to his cabinet not just one but two Latinas? (At least the Times isn’t using the university-spawned and unpronounceable adjective "Latinx.") Will black voters really feel betrayed if this Democratic president doesn’t appoint a black attorney general as the last Democratic president did? At this point in our history, it seems apparent that the public will not only accept but approve of appointees of any ethnic or racial description, depending on their performance and policies. And one suspects that among the public, if not in the press, most people care more about policy than ethnicity, more about competence than ticket-balancing...RTWT.
Tuesday, December 15, 2020
Today's Shopping
At Amazon, Shop Deals.
See, KIND Breakfast Bars, Peanut Butter, Gluten Free, 1.8 Ounce, 32 Count.
And, CLIF BAR - Energy Bar - Crunchy Peanut Butter - (2.4 Ounce Protein Bar, 12 Count).
Still more, AmazonBasics AA Performance Alkaline Batteries (48 Count) - Packaging May Vary.
Here, Tactical Sabre 2.0 Waterproof Jacket, Polyester Bonded Softshell, Detachable Hood, Style 48112.
BONUS: Philip Roth, The Human Stain (American Trilogy).
See, KIND Breakfast Bars, Peanut Butter, Gluten Free, 1.8 Ounce, 32 Count.
And, CLIF BAR - Energy Bar - Crunchy Peanut Butter - (2.4 Ounce Protein Bar, 12 Count).
Still more, AmazonBasics AA Performance Alkaline Batteries (48 Count) - Packaging May Vary.
Here, Tactical Sabre 2.0 Waterproof Jacket, Polyester Bonded Softshell, Detachable Hood, Style 48112.
BONUS: Philip Roth, The Human Stain (American Trilogy).
Monday, December 14, 2020
Beth Harmon 'Venus' Scene in 'The Queen's Gambit' (VIDEO)
This show is riveting, to say the least. Anya Taylor-Joy plays "Beth Harmon." She's spectacular. I mean just wow! There's all kinds of accolades, at Entertainment Weekly, for example, "The Queen's Gambit plays familiar moves with style and star power: Review."
Also at the Cut, "The Sexiest Show on Television Is About … Chess?"; and at Vogue, "The Story Behind Beth Harmon’s Red Hair in The Queen’s Gambit, According to the Show’s Hair and Makeup Artist"; one more, at the Detroit Free Press, "A leadership lesson from 'The Queen’s Gambit'."
Watch the "'Venus' (Shocking Blue song)" scene, and you'll know what I mean.
Also, the original video segment of Shocking Blue playing their 1969 hit, "Venus."
China 'Floods' U.S. With Spies
From Gordon Chang, at Gatestone, "Espionage Emergency: China 'Floods' America with Spies."
Sky News Australia had the bombshell breaking news the other day, "Leak reveals Chinese Communist Party members working in Aust, UK and US consulates."
And from Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit, "REPORT: Chinese Communists Have Infiltrated Top Companies, Governments In US, UK, Australia."
FLASHBACK: From 2017, "Killing C.I.A. Informants, China Crippled U.S. Spying Operations."
PREVIOUSLY: "Chinese Communist Party Pushing Narrative of the Superiority of its Authoritarian Political Model."
Unthinkable? As Pandemic Rages, Colleges Cut Tenure
At Tax Prof, "WSJ: Hit By Covid-19, Colleges Do The Unthinkable and Cut Tenure":
When Kenneth Macur became president at Medaille College in 2015, the small, private school in Buffalo, N.Y., was “surviving paycheck to paycheck,” he said. Enrollment was declining and the small endowment was flat. Then came the coronavirus pandemic. The campus shut down and revenue plummeted 15%. Dr. Macur saw what he considered an opportunity: With the approval of the board of trustees, he suspended the faculty handbook by invoking an “act of God” clause embedded in it. He laid off several professors, cut the homeland security and health information management programs, rescinded the lifelong job security of tenure and rewrote the faculty handbook, rules that had governed the school for decades. “I believe that this is an opportunity to do more than just tinker around the edges. We need to be bold and decisive,” he wrote in a letter to faculty on April 15. “A new model is the future of higher education.” Dr. Macur and presidents of struggling colleges around the country are reacting to the pandemic by unilaterally cutting programs, firing professors and gutting tenure, all once-unthinkable changes. Schools employed about 150,000 fewer workers in September than they did a year earlier, before the pandemic, according to the Labor Department. That is a decline of nearly 10%. Along the way, they are changing the centuries-old higher education power structure. The changes upset the “shared governance” model for running universities that has roots in Medieval Europe. It holds that a board of trustees has final say on how a school is run but largely delegates academic issues to administrators and faculty who share power. This setup, and the job protection of tenure, promote a need for consensus and deliberation that is one reason why universities often endure for centuries. But this power structure can also hamper an institution’s ability to make tough personnel decisions or react quickly to changes in the labor market or economy. In recent months, the American Association of University Professors, which advocates for faculty and helped establish the modern concept of tenure in 1940, has received about 100 complaints from professors around the country alleging power grabs by college presidents. The organization has labeled the changes at colleges a “national crisis.”
Hat Tip: Instapundit.
California Central Valley: Desperation and Defiance Amid Lockdown
At LAT, "‘I’ve seen people die.’ COVID-19 slams Central Valley hospitals, as many resist lockdowns":
FRESNO — The last time Dr. Eyad Almasri had a day off was in November, when he was infected with the novel coronavirus. His symptoms were not life-threatening, but it crushed him, he said, that he couldn’t be with his patients for 10 days. A pulmonologist with the Fresno campus of UC San Francisco, Almasri works in the intensive care unit at Community Regional Medical Center in downtown Fresno — so packed with COVID-19 patients that the hospital has had to create makeshift isolation wards, including one in a hallway. Exhausted staff, working long hours seven days a week, rarely take off their protective gear because the entire area is the “dirty zone” — a phrase Almasri detests. With so many patients, there is no time for breaks anyway. The story was similar this week in much of the San Joaquin Valley, where hospitals were crowded with COVID-19 patients. As of noon Saturday, availability of ICU beds in the region was zero. Fresno, a metro area with more than 1 million people, hit that dubious marker two days earlier. “There is no help on the way,” Almasri said Thursday. “I can’t tell you how scared people are, and I can’t even sit there and hold their hands. There are so many others waiting.” Across California, medical professionals such as Almasri live a world apart from average citizens, who have no clear window into the conditions of hospital wards. But the San Joaquin Valley is different. Nowhere else in California do intensive care doctors and nurses work in such a fragile system. It’s an agricultural valley with high rates of poverty and a staggering shortage of doctors. Yet during the pandemic, many local leaders have been openly defiant of public health directives. The Fresno City Council on Thursday approved an order intended to clamp down on backyard parties, for what it was worth. But the city police chief quickly issued a statement saying his officers would not enforce it. Meanwhile, coronavirus cases continue to soar in the county, in part because of outbreaks at a Foster Farms poultry plant and a state prison. In Stockton, in the northern part of the San Joaquin Valley, some small-business owners are demanding a reprieve from closures, arguing that this third round is arbitrary and unfair. They say there is little sense in having large chains such as Target and Walmart, where workers come into contact with hundreds of customers a day, remain open while shutting down outdoor dining for neighborhood eateries and services such as salons. Closing again, they contend, may mean that they go under permanently — a financial catastrophe for them and their employees. “The hospitals are not overflowing because of restaurants,” said Johnny Hernandez, co-owner of the Black Rabbit gastropub in Stockton, who joined a protest with other small-business owners Thursday on the steps of Stockton City Hall. Hernandez said he has let go seven of his 10 employees and doesn’t have the funds to make it past this month. For him, the threat of financial ruin is more real than the specter of illness. “I don’t see Republican; I don’t see Democrat,” said the former union organizer. “I see people hurting.” The valley is a diverse place, with complex opinions on the pandemic. Farmworkers and other essential Latino workers have been hit hard and are scared that the coming months will be even tougher. But with many lacking legal immigration status and unable to receive state aid, they must work to put food on the table. Many business owners also recognize the seriousness of the pandemic and are taking precautions to protect themselves, their families and employees...
Still more.
Chinese Communist Party Pushing Narrative of the Superiority of its Authoritarian Political Model
I hear Buddy Holly singing up there near the Pearly Gates, "That'll Be the Day..."
At NYT, "China’s Combative Nationalists See a World Turning Their Way":
In one Beijing artist’s recent depiction of the world in 2098, China is a high-tech superpower and the United States is humbled. Americans have embraced communism and Manhattan, draped with the hammer-and-sickle flags of the “People’s Union of America,” has become a quaint tourist precinct. This triumphant vision has resonated among Chinese. The sci-fi digital illustrations by the artist, Fan Wennan, caught fire on Chinese social media in recent months, reflecting a resurgent nationalism. China’s authoritarian system, proponents say, is not just different from the West’s democracies, it is also proving itself superior. It is a long-running theme, but China’s success against the pandemic has given it a sharp boost. “America isn’t that heavenly kingdom depicted since decades ago,” said Mr. Fan, who is in his early twenties. “There’s nothing special about it. If you have to say there’s anything special about it now, it’s how messed up it can be at times.” China’s Communist Party, under its leader, Xi Jinping, has promoted the idea that the country is on a trajectory to power past Western rivals. China stamped out the coronavirus, the messaging goes, with a resolve beyond the reach of flailing Western democracies. Beijing has rolled out homegrown vaccines to more than a million people, despite the safety concerns of scientists. China’s economy has revived, defying fears of a deep slump from the pandemic. “In this fight against the pandemic, there will be victorious powers and defeated ones,” Wang Xiangsui, a retired Chinese senior colonel who teaches at a university in Beijing, averred this month. “We’re a victor power, while the United States is still mired and, I think, may well become a defeated power.” The firm leadership of Mr. Xi and the party has earned China its recent success, say newspapers, television programs and social media...
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