Periodically one comes across some research finding that make me stop short. One of them was this one that suggests that some men hesitate to take certain actions towards protecting the environment because those actions are seen as feminine and so others may doubt their heterosexuality.
No, really!
Robert Mackey connects the dots that form a deadly triangle.
Indeed, the steady drumbeat of invasion rhetoric from the network and the president over the past two years suggests that they are locked in a feedback loop, working together to generate an ever-intensifying level of paranoia and frenzy in their shared fan base.
Brandon Friedman looked at the El Paso shooter’s manifesto and draws straight lines between his words and Fox News and Trump.
Using the El Paso terrorist's manifesto, I connected the dots for folks still having trouble doing that.
This is just the first page. pic.twitter.com/mQcW3doGNF
— Brandon Friedman (@BFriedmanDC) August 4, 2019
This is not a suburb consisting of high-rise buildings. It is a suburb that is itself in a high-rise location.
In Djakarta, Indonesia there is a small town of 78 identical two storey homes that is located ten storeys high on the roof of of a parking garage.
It’s Thursday and the residents of Jakarta’s Cosmo Park are out jogging, watering their plants or walking their dogs along neat asphalt roads.
Neighbourhood kids pedal their bikes under frangipani trees and peach-coloured bougainvillea to the pool and tennis court. Apartments, comfortable and modern, sit side by side, with barbecues and toys stacked outside.
Quiet and orderly, it feels like any other suburban idyll – but there is one difference. Cosmo Park is a village in the sky, perched 10 storeys up on top of a shopping centre and car park, a world away from the heaving megalopolis below.
It is a surreal urban bubble, where normal life unfolds at an abnormal altitude. To access ground level, resident drive their cars down a ramp. A tall metal fence runs around the perimeter to make sure no one falls or drives off. Peer beyond the fence and you can spot the city’s landmarks below.
The husband of devoted Trump aide and supporter Kellyanne Conway knows exactly how this latest mass murder atrocity will play out when it comes to Trump’s response.
- Trump will go on TV and give a speech. On paper, the speech may say some of the right things. It will look somewhat presidential. There’s an off chance it might even be good (grading on a curve).
- But the problem will be that it was given by Trump, who’s incapable of sincere empathy. So it’ll be hard to believe that he believes the words he said. And his speech won’t address his own hateful, racist rhetoric.
- So he’ll be roundly criticized for that. And he’ll also be criticized on policy grounds, because whatever he says on that score will not suffice for many people.
- He’ll see and hear all this criticism on TV, and he’ll stew. And stew. He’ll grow angry and resentful that he was forced to give the speech in the first place.
- Finally, perhaps within 24 or 48 hours, the narcissistic pressure will break the dam, and his anger and frustration will gush forward.
- He’ll tweet, otherwise say, or do something that’ll completely undo whatever positive benefit came from the speech.
- We’ve seen this movie before how many times?
Conway is right. Trump obviously does not care at all about the victims of his inciting rhetoric. He will only care about how people are so ungrateful for not fawning over his obviously phony gestures of sympathy.
As Donald Trump’s nakedly racist rhetoric feeds the flames of white supremacist violence, and the support he is getting from the Republican party and his base of supporters just adds fuel to the fire, this places some Republicans in an awkward situation. If they continue to support him, will they also be seen as racist? And is it fair to be tarred with guilt by association? Some of them are desperately looking for absolution, that they can still view themselves as good people while supporting a racist president.
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This cartoon captures what is behind the ‘concern’ expressed by some that Democrats are moving too far to the left.
How can the leaders of two nations who are both inveterate and known liars and backstabbers negotiate a workable deal? It is hard to make a deal if you think the other party will renege on it at the first opportunity, even to the extent of not honoring any commitment that they themselves publicly make in the negotiations.
We may soon find out.
New British prime minister Boris Johnson has been described as dissembling, dishonest, dark, and duplicitous, qualities that he shares with Donald Trump. So while there may well be a genuine ‘special relationship’ between the two of them as individuals, I am curious about how they will arrive at deals since neither party can be trusted an inch to negotiate in good faith.
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We have two separate back-to-back mass shootings to contend with. One in El Paso, Texas where 20 people were killed and more than two dozen injured and the shooter has been captured. The other in Dayton, Ohio where nine people plus the shooter were killed and another 26 injured. The killers both used rapid-fire assault weapons that enabled them to reach this high toll in just minutes.
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There are many stories of people being mortified when they ask someone, even someone they know, whom they think is pregnant how far along they are only to discover that the person is not pregnant at all. But women say that they have been astonished at how the visible signs of their pregnancy seem to give total strangers the impression that they have license to make personal remarks and give advice. Someone named Jax tweeted her response when some officious stranger gave her unsolicited and unwelcome advice.
(I am 6 months pregnant)
Me after ordering my coffee:
Stranger at Starbucks: you know you should be drinking decaf when you’re pregnant.
Me: I’m… not pregnant.
Stranger: (horrified) I am so, so sorry!
And that’s what you get for giving unsolicited advice.
— Jax ⚡️ (@Diamond_Jax) August 2, 2019
Her tweet prompted a lot of responses from other women recounting their own experiences and how strange it was to suddenly find people thinking that their bodies were now communal property.
It is not just pregnancy. I have a friend whose chemotherapy resulted in hair loss, a common side effect. She described how a strange woman at a store asked her if she had had breast cancer and a mastectomy and my friend did not rebuff her but answered yes. She was astonished when the woman then asked her which breast had been removed! That was too much even for my always courteous friend.
It s weird how some people cannot recognize personal boundaries.
When one thinks of floods, one thinks of a disaster that lasts for a short time. Heavy rains or hurricanes or snowmelt causes a rise in the levels of rivers that overwhelm their banks and levees or the sewer and other drainage systems. But although the damage caused can be great and long lasting, the water usually subsides fairly quickly.
But this year, there have been parts of the US where people have not seen the ground for six months because the floods have stuck around.
Compounding the problem was a high Mississippi River, which remained near or above flood stage for the longest span since 1927. The perfect storm of historic rainfall and a high river resulted in a backwater flood that has lingered beyond anything the region has ever seen.
Only within with the past couple weeks has the water receded, and for the first time in nearly half a year, farmers are finally beginning to see their land re-emerge.
Imagine seeing something like this for six months.
Farmland in the lower Mississippi delta remains submerged in floodwater. Photograph by Rory Doyle/The Guardian
It is surprising that this phenomenon is not getting wider coverage. I had heard about widespread flooding but assumed that it was in different regions at different times. I had not been aware that some places seem to be under permanent floods.