a lot of the chaos about Trump's negotiating style is best understood if you realize he doesn't play by the polite rules, and chaos is part of his negotiating tactics because it keeps the other side off balance and frantic.
take last week's incident where after an aggressive interviewer wouldn't let him answer the question he walked out...
Welker begged him to stay, saying she had traveled to Wisconsin for the exclusive sit-down.
'Mr President please, I traveled all the way to Wisconsin,' Welker pleaded.
And normal folk just laugh, because we know the high hats ridicule us. When Trumpiboy walked out on an interview, remember she had complained that she was forced to fly all the way to Wisonsin to do the interview and he should respect her for this. In other words, she was implying Wisconsin was outside her comfort zone.
Famous cartoon on the NYC mindset of the MSM:
well, anyway these sports are not my thing, but they are for a lot of folk, including immigrants.
In other sports news, the world cup of soccer is going on aka FIFA... and some of those visiting the US outside the usual tourist stops are astonished to find friendly people and...airconditioners.
USA. Summer. It is 95 degrees outside, and I am shivering inside a sandwich shop.
I have discovered how Americans forge strong souls.
Outside, the sun is trying to kill everyone. Inside this small restaurant, it is winter. My breath does not fog, but it is thinking about it. A… pic.twitter.com/hSaJXpfba2
and yes people do play soccer in the USA (and it is now officially soccer, not football because Pope Leo called the game that).
My son (born in Colombia) joined a local team that included five Central American college students, one deaf mute from the same college and two girls who were ASL translators, and a steel worker from Johnstown.
After the first game they won every game because they could shout instructions to each other in Spanish or sign in ASL and the other teams couldn't understand what they were saying...
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the idea that Civility, in one of its meanings, is among the most valuable social virtues: the skill to discuss topics that really matter to you, with someone who disagrees and yet somehow still get along. In another of its meanings, when Civility describes the limits of behaviour that is acceptable, the idea can reflect society at its worst: when only those deemed 'civil enough' are allowed their rights, their equality and even their humanity. Between these extremes, Civility is a slippery idea that has fascinated philosophers especially since the Reformation, when competing ideas on how to gain salvation seemed to make it impossible to disagree and remain civil.
and for your grossout movie of the week: John Walter's movie Pink Flamingos is on internet archives to the delight of all those with the sense of humor of a 13 year old kid. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Pope Leo XIV appeals for 'no more war' in first Sunday message,,,Tens of thousands of people in St. Peter's Square and on the Via della Conciliazione leading to the Vatican broke into applause at the call for peace on what was a joyous occasion despite Leo's solemn message
yup. Reminds me of this:
.... one of the things Pope Francis did that annoyed the Trads was his outreach to moderate Muslim leaders. Trumpiboy is doing the same thing with his Abraham accords, including his recent moves to delink American policy from the aggressive Israeli war e.g. telling the Houthis he wouldn't bomb them since they agreed not to bomb ships... (alas they bombed Israel instead, and whoops: FAFO...)
So Gracie is right: You need law and order to stop the bad guys before you pretend wishing for world peace will work.
like most elders I didn't know or care a lot about Gamergate, where the woke tried to reform the game industry, the incels fought back on line and the left exaggerated their trolling as being an extremist right wing conspiracy instead of guys just wanting their games to continue to be fun and who liked ridiculing the gaming equivalent to nagging girlfriends aka Karens.
To me, gaming seemed to be just another shoot em out thing like wrestling or John Wick, where the good guys fought the bad guys but since gamergate overlapped with other trends trying to destroy free speech it caught my attention.
Essentially we saw censorship: done by cyberbullying of those whose opinions are not politically correct. But it went beyond mean tweets: by libeling those who disagree with them they marginalized their opinions, and this influenced the industry and led to the woke Karens taking over the adventure/superhero stories to use them as propaganda instead of entertainment. Of course, it also led to the customers not using the product anymore, and financial problems for the gaming (and later comicbook and film industry) but the woke Karens didn't worry about such things.
So Gamergate and sad puppies in sci fi, was a precursor to the destruction of Hollywood franchises, e.g. the destruction of Star wars etc by woke... and a similar fight could be seen after covid hit, and we saw not the Karens but the government censoring qualified medical data on covid by libeling true experts as anti vax crazies (something that continues to this day).
so how to fight back? Humor and satire.
Trolling with memes is a big way to fight back, and the left wing hysteria of the experts to being trolled is laughable.
But the censorship was worse when it came to science: some prominent physicians not only were censored but punished.
And since the usual methods of discussing things was being censored, a lot of folks drifted to alternative sites: true, some are crazy but some were just saying things that some people in government didn't want to be said.
But with Trumpieboy taking over, the hope is that the push back will include free speech, and that means that mature types will be able to take over the culture wars before the crazies do.
This freedom of speech means letting us discuss medical illnesses and treatment. You know, we used to do this in our hospitals, where we had meetings discussing and analyzing journal articles. These published articles were often biased or laughable, but back then, aside from a letter to the editor, which was slow and clumsy, we had no way to push back against what was being published.
Now we can discuss our questions and tweet our objections without being censored.
A lot of the MSM/government monopoly was destroyed not just by crazies but by pushback: thanks to podcasts and the twitter files.
And this is good.
the destruction of the woke censorship complex goes beyond medicine, and goes beyond politics, but into culture itself.
Because I have worked in various cultures both in the USA and overseas, I have an interest in mythology and how mythology and psychology impacts culture (and religion). Jordan Peterson has a lot of lectures about this, People forget that he started on the internet by posting to discussion boards answering questions for boys, and saw the need to teach boys to be mature men.
But then something unexpected happened: Trumpieboy won, and suddenly things changed.
The culture wars, which appeared to be lost on many levels, has seen a revival of traditional ways of looking at things.
Fast forward to Kekius maximus, an icon that Elon Musk is using on Twitter/X.
I know Kek from the Q conspiracy pages, and Maximus is a bow to the Gladiator I character played by Russel Crowe.
The catchphrase "Kekius Maximus," used in a way similar to "lol" to react to something funny, is a portmanteau of "kek" and an Ancient Roman name such as Flavius Maximus.
"Kek" originated as a translation of the acronym "lol" when written by members of the Horde faction and viewed by Alliance members in World of Warcraft and became a popular alternative to "lol" in the late 2000s and early 2010s, primarily on 4chan.
Kekius Maximus likely references Maximus Decimus Meridius, the main character in Ridley Scott's film Gladiator, and has been associated with imagery of gladiators and soldiers of Ancient Rome for many years. Additionally, "Kekius" translates to "the greatest" or "largest", with the phrase therefore literally translating to "the greatest kek" (while "great kek" is itself a common expression).
more details at link.
But it also has to do with a game that is now being released: Path of Exile 2.
I saw a discussion of these games on a Joe Rogan podcast that mentioned these games are ways to relax the mind for geeks.
These multi layer games are not just shoot em ups, but include strategy and planning that overlap into war gaming, which is a way to teach people to think strategically.
Hmm... sounds interesting.
Wonder if they are using this to teach medical students to think? thirty Years ago, we did have a primitives game to teach us about CPR, and apparently there are still games being used to teach thinking.
So if nothing else, Elon Musk's using Kekius Maximus is not just a troll, but a heads up to we old folks that this gaming subculture exists and like movies and books can be used for good or bad ends.
The bad news: My step son is into all of the conspiracy theories.
The good news: My granddaughter said if I actually went on tictok, instead of just reading what the "ain't it awful" clickbait right wing sites post about it, I would find that the kids are returning to old fashioned values.
True, it might mean stable same sex marriages and families without marriage papers instead of traditional values of the past, but it also means that the social influencers of the kids are rejecting the open hedonism and nihilism seen in Hollywood and Netflix etc. films, which no longer mirror societal values of the youth, but continue to promote the nihilism of the aging boomer ideas of the sixties.
Just read the whole thing. A wise old man ponders on real life (as opposed to the screeds we tend to see posted on the internet/twittersphere).
The most prolific father of all time was surely Solomon, who, according to Scripture, had 700 wives and 300 concubines, which would certainly keep a man well-occupied on evenings and weekends. Just remembering their names and birthdays would take a concerted effort.
And if the Song of Solomon is any indication (“How beautiful and pleasant you are, O loved one, with all your delights! How much better is your love than wine, and the fragrance of your oils than any spice!”) he was quite enthusiastic in the bedroom. So it’s reasonable to assume he fathered thousands of kids.
But in his Book of Proverbs, Solomon is not so euphoric. Fatherhood weighs on him. He says, “My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. Walk not thou in the way with them.”...This is a father talking. Don’t hang out with jerks. Nothing good happens after midnight. I don’t want to hear that kind of language around here.
... And when we come to Solomon’s Book of Ecclesiastes, we find a rather weary man, not the same guy who was sniffing his naked wife and smelling cinnamon: “The thing that has been is the thing that shall be … there is nothing new under the sun.”
When the Philippine military had to do urban fighting against the Islamic terrorists who took over Marawi, they filmed what was going on, so that the people knew what they were doing. Of course, in Marawi, the local Muslims didn't want the crazies and often hid their Christian neighbors.
One does wish the Israeli defense forces would do the same (or are they doing this, but their side of the story is just being ignored in the name of left who hates Israel?)
so in Gaza, what is happening is that Hamas is using violence porn to change the minds of the world, and in a world of sentimentality over hard facts, it seems to be working.
So is Israel killing innocent medical personnel and patients, or is Hamas hiding in a hospital to get maximum propaganda out to the world.
and of course, no one seems to want to discuss what will happen if Iran's proxies in Gaza win: The war has already spread and the West Bank
add to this the Houthis who are attacking everyone, even Chinese ships, pretending this is about Israel when it is about just hatred of civilization, sort of like the Boko Harum and Fulani in Nigeria, the Somalis, etc.
Nothing I can do about it.
Of course, we are vulnerable to ISIS working in the Moros in the South, but there is also fear of attacks by the returning workers who converted to Islam in the Middle East.
but of course our real danger is China keeps attacking Philippine islands and fishermen and now the Coast Guard, saying hey they owned the West Philippine sea in the past so get out. Never mind that in the days of the Ming dynasty, it was Chinese pirates who terrorized the place and tried to conquer Luzon, but got their puits kicked because locals hated them more than the Spanish.
Oh well: just ignore those 20 thousand Chinese citizens of military age working in our casinos.
The latest hysteria from the Darien gap is all those military age Chinese men who are joining the economic refugees seeking illegal admittance to the USA.
The buzz on the right wing conspiracy sites is to keep their power dry and get ready for a black swan attack.
Don't ask me. Since Lolo died, we no longer have any guns on premise...China has my OPM file, and probably knows where I am living, as if an aging grandmom (who had a waiver not to carry a gun) might shoot back.
Sigh
never mind.
The staff is busy with the winter harvest right now, so if the world ends, well, we are packing up our gourmet brown rice.
Lolo, who as a young teen fled to the farm with his mom and cousin when the Japanese invaded, assured me that if we retired here, I'd always have rice to eat.
And this week is Holy week. Florinda always had a small chapel for the locals to sing the Pasyon, but she died so the nearest singing is in the regular barangay chapel. The ladies sing, but the locals also come in and say a prayer or two, and people donate money for food for the singers and the neighborhood folk.
for those who think that the mess in the Middle East is due to religion, well, it was going on 2000 years ago, when Jesus was falsely accused of being a rebely by the locals who were scamming the pilgrims to the Temple. But of course, the Battle of Meggido happened 1500 years earlier.
Father Andrew Greeley once quipped that as soon as the Catholics dropped a custom, it was picked up by the Protestants.
In today's world, such things are being picked up by secular culture.
The lecture is one of a series to teach women how to idenify if they are being exploited by narcissists, and here she points out that her concept of narcissism is similar to the seven deadly sins.
It says a lot about modern culture that many of these personality traits are admired and encouraged.
There is a story about a time when the Mongols were asking the crusader states to help them fight the local Muslims, so they could pass through and invade Egypt.
The king of France thought this was a great idea, but the Pope had received news of the horrible massacres, especially the destruction of Baghdad, and said do not help them: because one should always side with the civilized, not with the barbarians.
The usual idiots are rejoicing that Hamas soldiers massacred unarmed men, women and children.
One expects this of barbarians but the shame is that the left in the US is rejoicing with them.
They are siding with the barbarians, and more shame to them.
And of course, the anti war left will shout with anger about genocide when Israel destroys munitions hidden in civilian areas (a war crime to hide munitions in civilian areas because of the danger, but never mind: when they explode, and civilians are injured, they just shout it's Israel's fault.) Just ignore that Israel gave them ample warning to leave.
Hatred is a choice: look at Yugoslavia, whose civil war killed hundreds of thousands because locals remembered hatred between ethnic groups, some of which went back centuries. This was blamed on religion despite the fact that few in that country went to church or mosque and the churches opposed the war.
There are religious ïssues behind the action:
GetReligion has a list of them here, including the Jewish right wing desire to destroy the Mosque in Jerusalem and build a new Temple. Won't happen, of course, but hey it makes good propaganda to inflame hatred of Israel.
No, hatred is a choice in all these conflicts.
So anyway, yes the Palestinians had a bad deal and the heavy hand of Israel makes it worse,
It's sort of like what Trump told North Korea; you can have resorts and money or you can continue to face starvation by promoting war and nuclear weapons.
Ah, but making peace would mean the big shots would lose the ability to steal money and have power. Not logical but alas true. And so they spout propaganda that is alas believed by the naive children of light.
According to the scripture "the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the
children of light." This observation fits the modern situation. Our democratic civilization has
been built, not by children of darkness but by foolish children of light. It has been under attack
by the children of darkness, by the moral cynics, who declare that a strong nation need
acknowledge no law beyond its strength. It has come close to complete disaster under this
attack, not because it accepted the same creed as the cynics; but because it underestimated the
power of self-interest, both individual and collective, in modern society. The children of light
have not been as wise as the children of darkness.
StrategyPage has a long analysis of the situation, Sacrificing Hamas, which can be summarized as saying the Mullahs of Iran were willing to sacrifice Hamas (and Gaza) to stop the growing agreements between the Sunni Arab world and Israel.
It is a warning to these states that their proxies can do the same to destroy them too.
and any Israeli attack on Iran might take the pressure off of a government that is facing increased opposition due to...women's clothing of all things.
Jailing and having women die in custody because they refuse to wear a headscarf should have energized the left in the West who usually cares about human rights: indeed one jailed leader of the protest just won the Nobel Peace Prize.
And one wonders these supporters of Islam were when China decided to reeducate their Uighar people, or when the Rohingye were chased from a land where they had lived for generations.
hey the BLM protests have resulted in increased crime and are becoming unpopular so they have to protest something.
alas these protests bodes poorly for ordinary Muslims in the USA who just want to raise families and be part of a free society, because now they will face more suspicion of being possible terrorists by too many of the public there.
The entire album can be downloaded from Internet archives.
We ran across this lovely song from the British TV series Midsomer Murders (s08E08) (the plot was about people maipulating the original manuscript of the music to claim part of the royalties, so the script includes a few grisley murders, of course. )
But the music was so wonderful we googled and found it was written by James Parker, who does the themesong and background music for the series. He is one of these little noticed musicians who write background music for TV/Film dramas.
The theme music of the show is eerie, to say the least:
the musical instrument playing that eerie sound is a Theremin: an instrument that you play without touching it. Here is a film about this instrument:
