By Lambert Strether of Corrente
Bird Song of the Day
California Thrasher, Mission Trails Regional Park, San Diego, California, United States. “Singing from Laurel Sumac in coastal sage scrub habitat.”
In Case You Might Miss…
- Shots fired, as Biden consigliere Anita Dunn lets loose on her way out.
- Coach, coach, coach! .
- Trump steps outside the bulletproof glass to check on a fainting crowd member.
- On euphemisms.
Politics
“So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles
2024
Less than one hundred days to go!
Friday’s RCP Poll Averages:
There is no good news here for Trump. The deterioration in both Pennsylvania and Georgia is especially marked. Remember, however, that all the fluctuations — in fact, all the leads — are within the margin of error. So the “joy” is based on, well, vibes.
“Where Harris Has Gained and Lost Support Compared With Biden” [New York Times]. “In this month’s New York Times/Siena College battleground polls, she led Donald J. Trump by two percentage points across the seven states likeliest to decide the presidency, compared with Mr. Trump’s five-point lead in May. It’s an enormous shift, but Vice President Harris didn’t improve equally among all demographic groups. Instead, she made big gains among young, nonwhite and female voters, and made relatively few or no gains among older voters and white men.” • Handy chart:
Senior Biden Advisor Anita Dunn, also defenestrated, lets loose:
“Leave the Dunn. Take the cannoli” [Politico] (August 20, 2024). At a White House gathering honoring her: “A group of senior advisers had just entered the room with the event in full swing — among them chief of staff JEFF ZIENTS, deputy chief of staff NATALIE QUILLIAN and national security adviser ELIZABETH SHERWOOD-RANDALL. Moments later, Dunn surprised people by announcing that she had ‘a few more things to say.’ Pulling out some notes, Dunn proceeded to speak in blunt terms for roughly 10 minutes, according to five people who were in the room, about themes that, to some, seemed laden with subtext: loyalty, revenge and advice from a career in bare-knuckle politics. ‘It was crazy — the most epic, jaw-dropping speech I’ve ever heard,’ one attendee told West Wing Playbook. “This was talked about for days.’ …. To understand how to succeed in Washington — to understand the use of power, she said, was to know ‘The Godfather.’ Having spent a good part of her final days on campus meeting with younger staffers looking for career advice, Dunn offered a few pearls of wisdom from the film for those in the room. ‘Never hate your enemies,’ she said. ‘It clouds your judgment.’ ‘Revenge is a dish best served cold,’ she continued, underlining the point that paying back those who’ve wronged you could take months, even years…. It seemed like she was making a point, that her words may have been meant for some of the other senior aides who weren’t there,” another attendee said. Over the weekend that followed, two attendees said, many of them watched ‘The Godfather’ for the first time.” • Who, I wonder, was “college boy” Michael Corleone? And—
“Why Biden Was Really Forced Out of the Race, According to Anita Dunn” [Politico] (August 9, 2024). This factoid on the Biden/Trump debate caught my eye: [DUNN:] “I watched the debate at home. I watch it on dial groups. I watched the dials.” Wired up to the dials were a panel of ndecided voters. And: “When you watch dial groups, people are instructed to start at 50 on their dials. That is the neutral position. If they feel better, they turn it to the right and the numbers go up. And if they don’t like what they’re hearing, they turn it to the left and the numbers go down.” And: “It’s immediate feedback. But you also do a focus group before with a vote and you do a focus group after with a vote. And you hear people’s reactions. And so voters experience this differently. And one of the things that was interesting was that voters didn’t particularly like Biden’s performance in the first half hour. He wasn’t scoring well at all. But it’s not as though they walked out. They very much liked a lot of the second half of the debate for Joe Biden. They hated Donald Trump. By the end of this, the first part of the strategy had absolutely worked in that people were like, ‘Oh, I’d forgotten. I really don’t like this guy. He’s all about himself, he’s bragging.’ I mean, they really did not like him. So Trump didn’t gain any ground in the debate whatsoever. And we actually picked up a few votes in the group. So it was a bad debate, but it didn’t feel catastrophic at all, certainly in terms of voters. And I think other people who did independent research saw roughly the same thing. If you go back and you look at the polls, what you will see is you didn’t see much movement whatsoever coming out of the debate because the structure of this campaign had been fairly static for a long time, and the debate didn’t change that. What did change it was 24 days of unremitting negative, horrible attacks on Joe Biden.” • So it wasn’t simply delusion that made the Biden team hang on; it was instrumented delusion; they had data they trusted that backed up their views. However, we at NC also watched the debate, and if somebody had wired us up to a dial, our reaction — universally — when Biden slipped his cog (and Trump drove the knife home) would have been very different and, I think, more representative of the voters. It’s interesting to speculate why Dunn’s dials misled her so. The sample could have been bad, but Dunn is obviously a stone professional, so that’s unlikely. I’m sure that there’s a technical word for this, but clearly the panel knew they were wired up for the purpose of evaluating Biden, and perhaos the social norming that Biden was “sharp as a tack” was so strong that even if they thought that somebody should take Biden’s car keys away they couldn’t communicate that to a person in authority (note that the dials are moved by conscious choice, and not measure autonomous nervous system stuff(.
* * * Democrat National Convention Vignettes:
Metaphor:
DNC attendees cover their ears as the names of dead Palestinian children are read as they leave the convention pic.twitter.com/9bueCbFeEr
— BreakThrough News (@BTnewsroom) August 22, 2024
* * * Back in 2020 (“‘What It Took’: The Price of Democrat Victory in 2020,” still worth reading) I made five claims about the Democrat base, the PMC, for which the attendees at the Democrat National Convention should be a good proxy. I think they’ve stood the test of time:
In the years 2016-2020:
1)The Professional Managerial Class (PMC) attained class consciousness.
2) The PMC was and is embubbled by a domestic psyop.
3) The press replaced reporting with advocacy.
4) Election legitimacy is determined by extra-Constitutional actors.
5) “Fascism” became an empty signifier, not an analytical tool.I would revise claim #2, because the RussiaGate psyop, though essential to creating Democrat/PMC embubblement, has now been superseded. However, I would argue that embubblement remains a key aspect for Democrat/PMC (as we see vividly above at “Metaphor,” and also in the mechanisms of denial and minimization that were so effective in social norming mass infection during our ongoing Covid pandemic). Indeed, one might argue that the purpose of the entire Censorship-Industrial Complex — including its use of lawfare — is designed to make sure that the Democrat bubble is never pricked. This, it seems, is an aspect of the modern Democrat Party at least as important as control of the ballot). I seem to remember that one feature of domesticated animals is that they retain the juvenile characteristics of their species. Hence the chanting (below) of “Coach, coach, coach!”
We also notice that claim #4 applies with even greater force today, as Biden was delegitimized and defenestrated by one extra-constitutional entity, a small group of electeds and former electeds at the apex of the Party, the Party itself being an extra-constitutional entity.
* * * “Coach’s Clinic: Tim Walz Delivers Emotional, Energetic DNC Speech” [HuffPo]. “Convention-goers welcomed him with signs that said “Coach Walz” and chanted “Coach, coach, coach!” The Minnesota delegation even held big cutouts of Walz’s face.” • Wowsers. Maybe high school was the last time these people were truly happy?
“Coach Walz: Win One for the Veeper” [The American Prospect]. “Just as the top banana of old vaudeville acts would be preceded on stage by a line of chorus girls, Walz was preceded by the now middle-aged members of Mankato West High School’s 1999 state champion football team, for whom Walz was defensive coordinator. Normie dads, some now way out of shape, led the way for Coach Walz to take the stage and deliver his distinctive normie American, good-neighbor, progressive Democrat acceptance speech. Some of it was adapted from the stump speech he’s been giving to great effect around the country. But it hit all the right notes for a national audience. If all this normie-ness didn’t fully normalize Walz’s progressive achievements, he took care to tout not only his enactment of paid sick leave and groundbreaking pro-union laws and universal school breakfasts and lunches, but also, repeatedly, the middle-class tax cuts he signed into law as well. Walz also spoke, more than I’ve heard him do so before, in his coach persona. There was a bit of John Madden drawing play diagrams in his delivery, and a touch of Pat O’Brien playing the sainted Knute Rockne in The Spirit of Notre Dame, telling Democrats to win one for—well, not for the Gipper (who had been played in that 1930s Warner Bros. film by a young Ronald Reagan)—but for Kamala, and the nation, and your kids.”
* * * “Influencers at the Convention: Pioneers of the Digital Frontier” [RealClearPolitics]. “Behind black curtains in United Center lies “Creator Lounge,” lit by the flattering glow of ring lights and teeming with social media influencers big and small. Charmed with free coffee and readily available charging stations, hundreds of content creators enjoy the Democrats’ hospitality as they remind traditional media that in 2024, digital dominates.” • Contrast the brutal treatment of the press described yesterday.
“The Convention Nobody Gets to See” [Prospect]. “Last night, press members weren’t allowed on the floor for indefinite periods, particularly during the party’s DJ-infused celebratory roll call. If you received your pass (which only lasts an hour) at the periodicals table before they shut the doors, then you missed most of your time allotment before the floor opened back up. One side of the halls last night featured a “blue carpet” event where a procession of politicians stopped by for interviews. The only media figures actually allowed on the blue carpet appeared to be DNC content creators and a few big networks. When I asked a DNC liaison about getting onto the carpet, she said you needed to have gone through a separate credentialing process other than the official credential. The apparent qualifications for scoring the blue carpet slots appeared to be more about if you could do the Apple dance than any particular lines of questioning.” And: “The degree of access for certain events and not others is also a window into the political operations of all the various groups trying to influence-peddle at the convention. Some policy groups want to spread their message far and wide, while others seem to be wary and fearful about the word getting out about their plans. Exclusivity is of course a coveted feature for big-money organizations courting donors. Most, though not all, of the closed-off events are corporate-sponsored, and they are typically packed with lobbyists and lawmakers.” • Well, naturally, but one wonders if the influencers were granted easy access.
* * * “A protest carnival produces little heat in Chicago” [Semafor]. “The Coalition to March on the DNC started building Monday’s event last summer, before the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel. By the time delegates arrived in Chicago, the march was almost entirely about American support for Israel’s war. And the activists who wanted to give up on electoral politics, and demolish the Democrats, grew further away from the activists trying to bring their party in line…. Code Pink, the Party for Socialism & Liberation, the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, the Atlanta Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression — the 270-odd groups that marched to the DNC security perimeter were united around cutting off military aid to the Jewish state. Some wanted to abolish it altogether, dismantling one ‘settler-colonial’ nation on the way to dismantling all of them. Inside the convention, the three dozen uncommitted delegates, elected by anti-war protest voters, were just as focused. But their demands diverged. Democratic anti-war activists in the United Center wanted an immediate ceasefire and an ‘arms embargo’ on Israel. The Biden administration was working on the first, but unlikely to deliver the second, and Harris had essentially ruled it out. ‘The Vice President’s team has been engaging,’ said Abbas Alawieh, an uncommitted delegate from Michigan and frequent spokesman for the faction. ‘They’ve been listening. I find that very encouraging. It is definitely a very big change from when we were trying to have conversations with President Biden.’” • I don’t see 270 organizations as a strength. Quite the reverse.
Trump (R): Good idea, especially if his content spreads instantly on TikTok (which I presume the campaign has arranged):
Former President Trump says he’s doing a live play-by-play on Kamala Harris’s speech tonight, as well as some other speeches given at the Democratic National Convention.
He’s doing it on Truth Social. pic.twitter.com/cV1i9aVovo
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) August 22, 2024
The Democrat propaganda is making me a bit counter-suggestible, so: In the firehose of “joy” it’s possible for even me to forget that Trump is, in fact, a formidable campaigner. 2016: Went through the Republican establishment like a knife through butter, then beat Clinton. 2020: Wins but for Covid. 2024: Having rebuilt the Republican Party, for good or ill, to be more Trumpian, he then knocks the Democrat candidate out of the race in debate. From the 30,000-foot view, that’s not a bad track record. All this with the press, the spooks, and large parts of the justice system serving as arms of the Democrat Party. Now, I do think he needs some re-adjustment of his schtick, but come on.
Trump (R): “Trump speaks from behind bulletproof glass at first outdoor rally since his attempted assassination” [Associated Press]. “At his first outdoor rally since last month’s attempted assassination, Donald Trump spoke from behind bulletproof glass Wednesday in North Carolina at an event focused on national security.” • Swing state. Oddly, or not, Biden never did give RFK Secret Service protection. It’s almost as if the Democrats were in LIHOP mode. Oddly, AP doesn’t mention this incident–
Trump (R): “Trump steps outside bulletproof glass to hug woman having a medical emergency in first outdoor rally since the shooting” [Daily Mail]. “Trump was in mid flow at a rally in Asheboro, North Carolina, his first outdoor event since he survived an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13. Suddenly, there was a commotion in the crowd and people could be heard shouting ‘Medic!’. Trump, who was talking about UFC and boxing, stopped and looked. He then said into the microphone: ‘A doctor, please…’” Video:
JUST IN: Donald Trump steps out from the bulletproof glass at his North Carolina rally to check on one of his supporters who passed out.
Today was Trump’s first outdoor rally since the assas*ination attempt at his PA rally on July 13.
Trump is giving the speech at the North… pic.twitter.com/xVCdTIxBif
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) August 21, 2024
Say what you like about Trump, he’s got brass ones. (Not, as I have said, that courage is a virture. Courage is virtuous depending on the end it serves. Nevertheless.)
“RFK’s Running Mate Nicole Shanahan: DNC “Turned Us Into A Spoiler,” Made A Fair Election Impossible For Us” [RealClearPolitics]. Shanahan: “I did not put in tens of millions of dollars to be a spoiler candidate, I put in tens of millions of dollars to win and do the right things. ClearChoice, this DNC-aligned PAC that was created specifically to take us out, has spent millions of dollars to take us out. They have turned us into a spoiler. . We wanted a fair shot. The DNC made that impossible for us. They have banned us, shadowbanned us, kept us off stages, manipulated polls, used lawfare against us, sued us in every possible state, they’ve even planted insders into our campaign to disrupt it and create actual legal issues for us. . I really wanted a fair shot at this election, and I believed in the American that I pledged allegiance to as a little girl. And that is not where we are today, and it is not because of the Republican Party taking us out, it is the Democratic Party taking us out. And I am so disappointed I ever helped them, I am so disappointed I helped Chuck Schumer in that Georgia runoff, to secure the [Senate] majority. It is probably one of the biggest mistakes of my life.’ • I don’t disagree that the RFK campaign was in it to win it; getting on the ballot in as many states as they did was an extraordinary achievement.
* * * MT:
Cannot overstate how huge this is for any Harris/Walz agenda. Without Jon Tester winning reelection and maintaining a Senate majority, all these encouraging domestic agenda items could die on the vine. https://t.co/UMFU6J803a
— Emma Vigeland (@EmmaVigeland) August 21, 2024
Campaign Finance
“How Kamala Harris is winning over Wall Street” [CNN]. “But even before Harris revealed key details of her platform, Roger Altman, founder and senior chairman of Evercore, told CNBC last month that he supports Harris and that expects her campaign to be ‘very well financed.’ Blackstone president Jonathan Gray contributed $413,000 to the Harris Action Fund at the end of July, a source familiar with his giving told CNN. Alex Soros, son of billionaire liberal donor George Soros, endorsed Harris in an X post last month. George Soros also supports Harris, his spokesperson told CNN. Avenue Capital Group CEO Marc Lasry donated $100K to the Harris Action Fund in March, according to Federal Election Commission data. Sonnenfeld, known as the ‘CEO Whisperer,’ argued that Harris’ stronger relationship with Wall Street compared to Biden’s is because she toned down the ‘class warfare’ rhetoric and had a track record as California attorney general acting fairly — even if not overly favorably — with businesses. ‘She went after abuses but . She knows that thriving businesses are good for the economy and the average American worker,” Sonnenfeld said. Of course, some Wall Street bigwigs have made their support for Trump clear. Bill Ackman, billionaire hedge fund manager and chief executive of Pershing Square Capital Management, endorsed Trump as president in a July X post. Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman said in March that he is backing the former president’s bid. Key Square Group founder Scott Bessent is a supporter of Trump and attended his rally in Asheville, North Carolina.”
“Big Crypto, Big Spending: Crypto Corporations Spend an Unprecedented $119 Million Influencing Elections” [Public CItizen]. “Crypto corporations are by far the dominant corporate political spenders in 2024 as nearly half (48%) of all corporate money contributed during this year’s elections ($248 million so far) came from crypto backers.” • Cool, both parties are financed by fraudsters. Which makes sense.
Democrats en Déshabillé
“Democratic platform favors slate of smaller goals over a health overhaul” [STAT]. “Gone are the days when Democrats bickered over wholesale reform of the American health care system — including Vice President Harris herself during the 2020 campaign cycle. Instead, their plan this election cycle evokes President Biden’s slogan to ‘finish the job’ — even though they’re running a new candidate. With the notable exception of calling to erase medical debt by working with states, Democrats are largely eyeing marginal extensions or reinstatements of their prior policy achievements.” • “Bickering.”
“Democrats Scrub Death Penalty Opposition From Campaign Platform” [HuffPo]. • Hmm. I wonder who former DA Kamala has in mind?
Syndemics
“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison
Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).
Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!
Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (dashboard); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).
Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).
Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).
Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, KF, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).
Stay safe out there!
Airborne Transmission
“Sources, compositions, spatio-temporal distributions, and human health risks of bioaerosols: A review” [Atmospheric Research]. From the Introduction: “Bioaerosols can be categorized in to natural and anthropogenic sources (Kathiriya et al., 2021). The bioaerosols from natural sources are generally less pathogenic and play crucial roles in material cycle, energy flow, and ecological balance…. Various pathogenic bioaerosols has been identified in urban atmosphere originating from man-made facilities. This leads to serious bioaerosol pollution inducing potential risks to the ecosystems, air quality and human health.”
Sequelae: Covid
“How wave of new dementias may be fueled by surprising culprit every home has been touched by” [Daily Mail]. • You’ll never guess the “culprit.” That’s right, Covid!
Elite Maleficence
Hard to see how the CDC could get it wrong on lice, but one parent’s experience says they did:
“Nits bond to the hair shaft and are unlikely to transfer to others”?? “Minimal risk of transmission”?? So we’re just lying at this point?? When my sister was in 3rd grade her class had a SEVERE lice outbreak that originated from a sleepover and spread like wildfire 🧵 https://t.co/kNLOhrHivp
— Meredith, M.Ed. (@thatmaskedgirly) August 21, 2024
Lambert here: Worth noting that national Emergency Room admissions are as high as they were in the first wave, in 2020.
LEGEND
1) ★ for charts new today; all others are not updated.
2) For a full-size/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and “open image in new tab.”
NOTES
[1] (CDC) This week’s wastewater map, with hot spots annotated. Keeps spreading.
[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.
[3] (CDC Variants) KP.* very popular. First showing of the new variant from China, XDV.1 (though it didn’t appear in traveler’s data).
[4] (ER) Worth noting Emergency Department use is now on a par with the first wave, in 2020.
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Going down. Doesn’t need to be a permanent thing, of course. (The New York city area has form; in 2020, as the home of two international airports (JFK and EWR) it was an important entry point for the virus into the country (and from thence up the Hudson River valley, as the rich sought to escape, and then around the country through air travel.)
Lambert here: Since things are bad out on the West Coast, I went looking for California hospitalization data to compare with New York’s, and found this: “Due to changes in reporting requirements for hospitals, CDPH is no longer including hospitalization data on the CDPH dashboard. CDPH remains committed to monitoring the severe outcomes of COVID-19 and influenza, including the impact on hospitals. CDC’s National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) will remain open to accept data, and CDC and CDPH strongly encourage all facilities to continue reporting.” Thanks, Mandy!
[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). The visualization suppresses what is, in percentage terms, a significant increase.
[7] (Walgreens) Fiddling and diddling.
[8] (Cleveland) Jumping.
[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Up. Those sh*theads at CDC have changed the chart so that it doesn’t even run back to 1/21/23, as it used to, but now starts 1/1/24. There’s also no way to adjust the time range. CDC really doesn’t want you to be able to take a historical view of the pandemic, or compare one surge to another. In an any case, that’s why the shape of the curve has changed.
[10] (Travelers: Variants) The new variant in China, XDV.1, is not showing up here.
[11] Deaths low, but positivity up.
[12] Deaths low, ED up.
Stats Watch
Employment Situation: “United States Initial Jobless Claims” [Trading Economics]. “The number of people claiming unemployment benefits in the US rose by 4,000 from the previous week to 232,000 on the period ending August 17th, slightly ahead of market expectations of 230,000 to mark a three-week high. The increase held initial claim counts well above their averages from earlier this year, consolidating the trend of a softening labor market outlined by the July jobs report and the large downward revision to nonfarm payrolls for the year ending in March, backing bets that the Federal Reserve will deliver rate cuts in every decision remaining this year.”
Manufacturing: “United States Kansas Fed Manufacturing Index” [Trading Economics]. “The Kansas City Fed’s Manufacturing Production index rose to 6 in August 2024, the highest in one year, from -12 in July.”
The Economy: “United States Chicago Fed National Activity Index” [Trading Economics]. “The Chicago Fed National Activity Index fell to -0.34 in July 2024 from a revised -0.09 in June, compared with market expectations of +0.03.”
The Bezzle: “Banks obtained crucial jobs data while report was delayed” [Bloomberg]. “At least three banks managed to obtain key payroll numbers Wednesday while the rest of Wall Street was kept waiting for a half-hour by a government delay that whipsawed markets and sowed confusion on trading desks…. Once the data was publicly released, there was a surge of trading.” • And those got the data early did very well for themselves, didn’t they?
Tech: “Apple splits App Store team in two, introduces new leadership” [Ars Technica]. “Apple is comprehensively restructuring its long-standing App Store team, splitting the team into two separate divisions as the executive who has run it for more than a decade says goodbye to the company. There will now be one team for the familiar, Apple-run App Store, and another one to handle alternative app stores in the European Union. Apple recently partially opened the platform to third-party app stores in response to the Digital Markets Act, a set of European regulations meant to break up what legislators and regulators deemed to be app store monopolies.” • The App Store has a horrible UI/UX, and whoever made or let that happen should have left long ago (of course, it was a monopoly, so there’s no incentive to improve it. Maybe the EU did us all a favor).
Tech: “Elon Musk’s X must disclose full ownership structure, judge rules” [Fortune]. “In a Tuesday ruling, a federal judge in California decided that a detailed corporate disclosure statement from X Holdings should be unsealed, a move that would effectively pull the curtain back to reveal the list of stakeholders in the parent company of X, formerly known as Twitter, and X.ai, an AI startup that Musk launched in 2023. Musk acquired Twitter in 2022 for $44 billion, taking the company private and laying off roughly three-quarters of its staff.”
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 49 Neutral (previous close: 50 Neutral) [CNN]. One week ago: 33 (Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Aug 22 at 1:19:03 PM ET.
Book Nook
“Dorothy Richardson and the Stream of Consciousness” [JSTOR Daily]. “Is a brainchild still your brainchild even when you don’t claim it as your own? This question could have been posed to British author Dorothy Miller Richardson (1873–1957). Though Virginia Woolf is often credited as the first woman writer to use a ‘stream of consciousness’ method in her work, Richardson employed the technique some twenty years before did Woolf. So why isn’t she credited as often she should be? As a narrative device, ‘stream of consciousness’ allows characters’ inner musings to develop on the page as would a real thought process. Stylistically, this often results in an internalized monologue that incorporates unconventionally structured sentences and fragments. Proper punctuation may be omitted altogether, as old thoughts quickly transition into new ones. Literary critic Annika J. Lindskog suggests that ‘[t]he freedom from restrictive punctuation creates a flow in the text which represents the experience of reality through consciousness in the moment: unstructured and unstoppable.’ Ultimately, it can create both challenges and rewards for the reader, inviting them into the inner workings of another’s mind.” • I went and found Richardson’s “Pointed Roofs.” Maybe I’m so imbued with modernism already I’m missing the technique.
The 420
“How I Learned to Love Mushrooms (and MDMA, Ayahusca and LSD)” [The Daily Beast]. “Microdosing involves taking small, sub-perceptible amounts of a psychedelic drug like LSD or psilocybin (the psychedelic agent in ‘magic mushrooms’) every four days. Not enough to get all Lucy-in-the-Sky, but enough to lighten the mood and open up new creative pathways. I’ve been doing it for five years, and it’s been hugely helpful to me during the writing process. In my business, you only get paid when you turn in the script, and five micrograms of LSD twice a week for three weeks gets me to that payday.” And: “Which was a fair question. I’m a man in my late fifties—exactly how late is none of your business—and for most of my life I’ve been a buttoned-up establishment Republican. I’m still pretty buttoned up (though I haven’t been a Republican since 12:01 p.m. on January 20th, 2017) but now, every few months, I like to blast my brain with psychedelic medicine and see what comes up.” • And still on mushrooms–
Gallery
“Learn to Forage and Process Your Own Natural Pigments with ‘The Mushroom Color Atlas’” [This is Colossal]. “[Julie] Beeler’s new book, The Mushroom Color Atlas: A Guide to Dyes and Pigments Made From Fungi, dives into the chromatic world of mushrooms. Published by Chronicle Books, the volume is part field guide and part how-to, shepherding readers through identifying different species, harvesting, and distilling a range of hues. The author has created 500 swatches to illustrate the phenomenal range of natural colors that can be made from different varieties. While Beeler provides step-by-step instructions for making your own hues, above all The Mushroom Color Atlas emphasizes foraging and hand-processing pigments as a way to more intimately connect with nature, sparking the joy of discovery through creativity and exploration.”
“Euphemise this” [Aeon]. “What the cognitive psychologist and linguist Steven Pinker has artfully termed ‘the euphemism treadmill’ is not a tic or a stunt. It is an inevitable and, more to the point, healthy process, necessary in view of the eternal gulf between language and opinion. We think of euphemisms as one-time events, where one prissily coins a way of saying something that detracts from something unpleasant about it. That serves perfectly well as a definition of what euphemism is, but misses the point that euphemism tends to require regular renewal. This is because thought changes more slowly than we can change the words for it, and has a way of catching up with our new coinages. Since that is likely eternal, we must accept that we’ll change our terms just like we change our underwear, as a part of linguistic life in a civilised society…. A word, then, is like a bell tone, with a central pitch seasoned by overtones. As the tone fades away, the overtones can hang in the air. Words are similar, with opinion, assumption and, more to the point, bias as equivalents to the overtones. Crippled began as a sympathetic term. However, a sad reality of human society is that there are negative associations and even dismissal harboured against those with disabilities. Thus crippled became accreted with those overtones, so to speak, to the point that handicapped was fashioned as a replacement term free from such baggage.”
“What If Data Is a Bad Idea?” [Beyond the Frame]. “Data is inherently objectifying. This property is an asset when describing inert phenomenon such as the composition of soil or the properties of various metals. Data enables the applied work of engineers and there are no direct ethical considerations.There are plenty of systemic ethical considerations when using these resources. But that’s beyond the scope of this article. The problems become apparent when we start talking about people. Data cannot express a meaningful distinction between intelligent actors and the things they act upon; a database that tracks widget production can also store information about the people who buy those widgets. Databases then turn intelligent actors – who are often human beings – into things to be acted upon. This is where data can quickly become a ‘bad idea.’”
“1 in 4 Unresponsive People with Brain Injuries May Be Conscious” [Scientific American]. “At least one-quarter of people who have severe brain injuries and cannot respond physically to commands are actually conscious, according to the first international study of its kind. Although these people could not, say, give a thumbs-up when prompted, they nevertheless repeatedly showed brain activity when asked to imagine themselves moving or exercising. ‘This is one of the very big landmark studies’ in the field of coma and other consciousness disorders, says Daniel Kondziella, a neurologist at Rigshospitalet, the teaching hospital for Copenhagen University. The results mean that a substantial number of people with brain injuries who seem unresponsive can hear things going on around them and might even be able to use brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) to communicate, says study leader Nicholas Schiff, a neurologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City.”
Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi, lichen, and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From PR:
PR writes: “From a recent trip to NW Oregon and SW Washington state.”
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