It's War

Via Joe.My.God., this from the Washington Examiner

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has created a religious liberty task force to “protect and promote religious liberty.”

Speaking from the Justice Department in Washington, Sessions said the task force, which he will chair, is to help implementation of the religious liberty memo he signed in October.

That 25-page memo outlines 20 guiding principles that federal agencies can use to protect religious liberty in employment, contracting and programming.

We all know that "religious liberty" is code for "Christian supremacy," when the "Christian" is a particularly noxious form of Old Testament atrocities.

Joe also refers to Sessions' announcement from the DOJ website. You can read it, but turn your irony meter off:

A dangerous movement, undetected by many, is now challenging and eroding our great tradition of religious freedom. There can be no doubt. This is no little matter. It must be confronted and defeated.

This election, and much that has flowed from it, gives us a rare opportunity to arrest these trends. Such a reversal will not just be done with electoral victories, but by intellectual victories.

We have gotten to the point where courts have held that morality cannot be a basis for law; where ministers are fearful to affirm, as they understand it, holy writ from the pulpit; and where one group can actively target religious groups by labeling them a “hate group” on the basis of their sincerely held religious beliefs.

Sounds like it was written by Tony Perkins. There's not a word of truth in it. That "dangerous movement" is simply the trend toward recognizing the rights of those that right-wing "Christians" don't approve of.

This just puts the seal on the pattern we've seen emerging since Trump took office. A few headlines, with links (with thanks to commenter Gregory in Seattle):

The State Department Is Retroactively Revoking Transgender Women’s Passports, Report Says

U.S. Justice Dept. Files Brief Rejecting LGBTQ Workplace Protections

Trump has declared war on LGBTQ rights. Here’s everything he’s done so far

Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel, the stupidest lawyer in America not named Larry Klayman, is ecstatic. I guess he figures that now his outfit can win a case. And Alliance Defending Freedom, one of the worst anti-gay hate groups, is right on board. This article shows just how incestuous this whole thing is.

On July 30, Sessions launched a new “Religious Liberty Task Force” that would enforce discriminatory religious exemptions guidance that the DOJ released in October 2017. (Sessions had worked with ADF on the guidance before its release.) Religious exemptions policies, such as those the DOJ released, allow people and businesses to be exempt from nondiscrimination laws and policies by citing a burden on their religious beliefs. People have frequently used the exemptions to discriminate against the LGBTQ community and others.

ADF was one of the first to break the news of the July 30 “Religious Liberty Summit” in which the task force was announced, noting that the event would feature a panel including the group’s client Jack Phillips, a Christian baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple and who took his case to the Supreme Court in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commision. ADF’s news release, however, did not mention that the panel’s moderator, DOJ media affairs specialist Kerri Kupec, worked at ADF for four years before joining DOJ in January. During his remarks, Sessions said that the DOJ had “been holding listening sessions” with “religious groups across America,” which ADF has acknowledged it has been involved with in the past. Extreme anti-LGBTQ group Liberty Counsel has already praised the announcement of the task force.

I'm sure I'll be adding to this as more bigots are heard from.

Fasten your seatbelts -- it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Melissa McEwen has a succinct and accurate assessment:

We must be very blunt about the creation of the Religious Liberty Task Force: It's another huge step forward in the Trump Regime's creation of a regressive Christian white ethnostate.

And if that sounds like hyperbole to you, you're not paying attention.

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) July 30, 2018

Remember "Big Brother"? Guess What

If you're flying anywhere for any reason, he's watching you:

A reporter from the Boston Globe has helped lay bare an otherwise hidden program of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA): one that targets all US citizens.

The program, called "Quiet Skies," goes beyond previous TSA efforts, including specific watch lists, air marshals, and other actions designed to secure US airways in a post-9/11 world. In the previously undisclosed program, US citizens are tracked and treated as potential terrorists even though they are not otherwise under investigation.

"Quiet Skies represents a major departure for TSA. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the agency has traditionally placed armed air marshals on routes it considered potentially higher risk, or on flights with a passenger on a terrorist watch list," says the Boston Globe.

They continue, "Deploying air marshals to gather intelligence on civilians not on a terrorist watch list is a new assignment, one that some air marshals say goes beyond the mandate of the US Federal Air Marshal Service. Some also worry that such domestic surveillance might be illegal. Between 2,000 and 3,000 men and women, so-called flying FAMs, work the skies."

I have nothing but contempt for TSA -- as far as I can see, it's done nothing to increase security on flights, and it seems to recruit small people and give them some power, always a bad combination.

Somebody sue them, before Trump stacks the courts even worse.

Today in Shamless Liars

No, it's not Tony Perkins, although I think a Tony Perkins Award is in order:

Vice President Mike Pence on Sunday defended the White House's decision to ban CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins after she asked questions that upset President Donald Trump.

During a pool spray last week, Collins pressed Trump about whether he is disappointed that his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, had released an audio tape proving that the president knew about a hush payment for former Playboy model Karen McDougal. Collins was later told that her invitation to the president's next event had been revoked.

In an interview with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, Pence said he backed the White House's ban on Collins.

"Let me say, this administration believes in the freedom of the press," Pence told Bartiromo. "President Trump and our entire administration have provided extraordinary access to the media. The president answers so many questions. I can assure you we'll continue to do that."

He answers so many questions. The best answers. Lots of people say it.

This is the one that caused hysterical laughter:

We stand for the freedom of the press in this White House.

The horrible part is that Trump's base will have no trouble swallowing that, along with another helping of "enemy of the people."

Here's a little more on how much the Trump White House, and Trump himself, stand for freedom of the press:

In an absolutely unprecedented move, Donald Trump tried to personally black list certain reporters from attending and covering White House events. The Washington Post is reporting that Trump has sought to personally ban reporters he felt asked too many tough questions of him and his administration, you know, those people "doing real journalism." He even inquired about revoking their press credentials - a shocking accusation, if true.

As for Pence himself, a word of caution from Frank Bruni at NYT:

There are problems with impeaching Donald Trump. A big one is the holy terror waiting in the wings.

That would be Mike Pence, who mirrors the boss more than you realize. He’s also self-infatuated. Also a bigot. Also a liar. Also cruel.

To that brimming potpourri he adds two ingredients that Trump doesn’t genuinely possess: the conviction that he’s on a mission from God and a determination to mold the entire nation in the shape of his own faith, a regressive, repressive version of Christianity. Trade Trump for Pence and you go from kleptocracy to theocracy.

Remember, this is the man who signed Indiana's right to discriminate bill.

Via RawStory.

This Week at Green Man Review

The site's been up and down; we actually published this week's update yesterday. You can visit the site, but we can do anything more than that. So, let's see:

Ravens musical and otherwise, Totem Poles, some novels by Charles de Lint, new music and old music, and Other Matters

There's more, of course -- there's always more. Have a nice visit.

Review: Satoru Ishihara: Kimi Shiruya: Dost Thou Know?

I had a run of exceptional shounen-ai manga, all excellent examples of the genre, some even pushing the genre beyond where I thought it could go. Satoru Ishihara's Kimi Shiruya: Dost Thou Know? is another one of those that puts "BL" in an entirely new light.

Katsuomi Hanamori is a high-school kendo competitor; his brother Masaomi competes in the junior-high division. They find themselves facing off against a couple of new guys, Tsurugi Yaegashi and his younger brother, Saya, a "girly" boy, exceptionally timid, who is nevertheless a fierce competitor. The main story line centers on the courtship between Katsuomi and Tsurugi: on their first meeting, each sees the other as more likeable than he would have preferred -- they are rivals, after all -- and it's not long at all before Katsuomi, at least, begins thinking about what it would be like if Tsurugi and he were close friends -- or more than friends.

Kimi Shiruya operates on an entirely different dynamic than the typical formulaic school-boy romance. (Not that there is anything wrong with those: There are a number of them that are exceptionally well-done and very good reading.) Yes, these are school boys, both high school and middle school, but that is not the aspect of their characters that matters to this story. They are athletes, competitors in a sport with its own rich history and traditions (and we get a glimpse of that as Masaomi first dashes off to Saya's rescue when Saya is being bullied by a group of seniors: he recognizes that Saya understands the honor and integrity of the swordsman and deems that worthy of his respect), and this whole love story is, in a very real sense, a duel between two strong, proud, competitive young men. It's this kind of surround, I think, that makes Ishihara's stories so rich and full of potential meanings: in both of her works that I've read so far, her men are fierce and proud, and not at all confused about what they want.

This is another that has no sex scenes. There is, however, one kiss, which we only ever really see as a reflection in the water, that reverberates throughout the second half of the book: everything that happens hangs from that kiss, and Ishihara handles it so deftly that we don't even realize until the last two pages what's been going on. (I don’t think I'm spoiling anything for you here: there are a few widely-spaced clues, but you really can't tell where they're leading until the last two pages, when Ishihara really does a number on you and you find yourself sitting there saying "Of course!")

This is not to say that the story is not erotic -- in fact, it's far more truly erotic than most any other BL manga I can think of offhand (with the exception of Ishihara's own God of Dogs). It's an eroticism composed of innuendo, implication, and facial expressions that hold secrets (and don't ask me how she does that in a comic, but she does -- Tsurugi, especially, is one for enigmatic glances), all starting with the central metaphor of kendo: the emotional and erotic subtext all derives from the competition of the sport. The innuendo in the dialogue ranges from circumspect to blatant (when Tsurugi talks about crossing swords with Katsuomi, you know he's not entirely concerned with the next kendo tournament). Even the drawing is erotic, rough as it is.

And speaking of Ishihara's drawing, she notes in an afterword that Kimi Shiruya took three years to complete, and one can see the transformation in the graphics. The first chapter has a rough, harsh quality that, although perfectly in keeping with the story and characters, doesn't display quite the finesse that the last chapter does. Her line becomes more fluent and flexible, the character designs more finished, and the whole visual aspect takes on greater coherence (although I found the drawing in the first chapter perfectly acceptable, and even appealing).

Yeah, I like this one, a lot, in case you were wondering. I will tell you this, though: it snuck up on me. I found myself drawn back to it again and again, and discovering something new each time. My analysis at this point is that this is an exceptionally subtle and strong example of the genre.

And that's a good thing.

(Digital Manga Publishing, 2005)

Today in Trump's America

The latest "crime": sitting at home while black:

Ving Rhames (Mission Impossible, Pulp Fiction) recounted the incident on The Clay Cane radio show, of how it came to pass that he was almost shot by cops in the middle of the day in his own home. A neighbor said "a large black man" had broken in.

Fortunately, the police chief recognized him (and why was the chief there?).

Rhames had one really serious concern:

Rhames knows he was lucky, but the situation made him worry about his son.

“My problem is, as I said this to them, what if it was my son and he had a video game remote or something and you thought it was a gun?” Rhames asks.

Of course, the neighbor who made the call denied it.

And of course, this is an America that no longer believes in human rights -- at least, not officially:

Speaking at the Ministerial To Advance Religious Freedom this week, Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney attacked the Obama administration for using taxpayer dollars to promote women’s rights and LGBTQ rights in Africa.

What the Obama administration was doing was withholding aid to those countries who abrogated the basic rights of women and LGBT people. (I really don't understand how you can be using taxpayer dollars for something if your not spending taxpayer dollars, but then, this is Trump's America.) And in case you had any doubts, this points up the fact that when "conservatives" say "religious freedom," they mean "Christian" supremacy, specifically, a particularly noxious form of "Christianity." And forget about the Establishment Clause.

Today in Trump's America: Banking While Black

These stories are popping up every day now. And it's not just trumpanzees doing the honors:

Barbara Carroll just wanted to cash a check for $140. The 78-year-old former probation officer and assistant bank manager, who is black, stopped by a Wells Fargo branch in Fort Lauderdale last November for what she thought would be a quick errand.

Instead, she says, she spent two and a half hours at the bank's Victoria Park location while employees refused to cash her check or return her driver's license, asking the PhD-holder what she did for the money and telling her they had called police. They were suspicious that Carroll was guilty of forgery, she says — even after the man who wrote the check confirmed it was legitimate.

We all remember Wells Fargo as the biggest fraudster -- out of a very crowded field -- responsible for the Great Recession. It seems that the banks is rewarding us for not prosecuting by continuing its racist policies.

And yes, Barbara Caroll is suing on the grounds of racial discrimination.

Via Crooks and Liars.

Today's Must-Read: It's About More than Roe v. Wade

Interesting piece by Michelangelo Signorile on the implications of Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court for the religious right's agenda:

With Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings coming up, it’s important to underscore that some anti-LGBTQ leaders appear to be going for the brass ring, far beyond just dismantling marriage equality. They’re signaling they want to see the Supreme Court allow states to once again ban sodomy.

Kavanaugh, like Neil Gorsuch and the late Antonin Scalia, is a constitutional "originalist," which means that he thinks they Constitution should be interpreted from an eighteenth-century mindset. (They don't say it that way, of course, but that's what it amounts to.) The Founders, as it happens, were a lot more savvy about the processes of history and human society than contemporary "conservatives": they knew damned well that time passes, attitudes change, and the law has to reflect that. As Justice Anthony Kennedy put it, the Founders “knew times can blind us to certain truths, and later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress." The goal of the hard-line "Christians" in this country, at least as regards privacy and the rights of LGBT citizens and women, is to put Tony Perkins in your bedroom, watching everything you do.

Via Towleroad.

Footnote: From Digby, this survey on public opinion on Roe v. Wade, another decision the "religious" right wants to demolish:

Historically, the Supreme Court has paid attention to public opinion -- it's the way they have of gauging changing attitudes. We'll see if that still holds.

Delusional

I really don't need to say anything -- except maybe "Let's see what sticks to the wall."




Via Joe.My.God.

The GOP Midterm Strategy

Buy the votes:

The Department of Agriculture (USDA) on Tuesday announced it would offer $12 billion in aid to farmers hindered by retaliatory tariffs imposed on U.S. grain, produce and meat exports as the Trump administration digs in for a protracted trade battle.

The department will use the emergency aid to assist and buy crops from farmers who’ve lost billions of dollars in sales from foreign buyers in the European Union, Canada, Mexico and China. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said the assistance plan was “a short-term solution to allow President Trump time to work on long-term trade deals to benefit agriculture and the entire U.S. economy.”

“America’s hard-working agricultural producers have been treated unfairly by China’s illegal trading practices and have taken a disproportionate hit when it comes illegal retaliatory tariffs,” Perdue said in a statement.

That last bit is choice, coming from an administration with no respect -- or for that matter, no awareness -- for international law.

Or at least, offer to buy them:

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives unveiled an election-year tax plan on Tuesday that is unlikely to become law but could energize party voters this autumn by promising permanent tax cuts for individuals and most business owners. . . .

Brady expects his committee to vote on legislation in September, setting the stage for a House floor vote.

But new tax legislation is unlikely to succeed in the Senate, where Republicans would need support from Democrats, who opposed last year’s overhaul that permanently slashed corporate taxes but provided only temporary reductions for individuals and business owners.

I think this comes under the heading "Look! Squirrel!" and of course, it's entirely typical of Republicans that their default would be tax cuts. That's all they have.

Both via Joe.My.God.

Culture Break: Ravel's Bolero

Somehow, it's always "Ravel's Bolero", as if there were any other. Another flash mob, this time composed of the members of the orchestra of Opera North, Leeds, UK:

At Last, Green Man Review

I don't know what happened, or how it happened, but Green Man Review is up and running again. Hurry on over for this week's offerings -- no telling how long it will last.

Today's Must-Read: The Right vs. America

This is actually from a couple of days ago, but I was tied up with the GMR problems, so here it is today. A cautionary tale from Tom Sullivan at Hullabaloo:

Donald Trump will devour the Republican Party from within, warned David Frum. In an excerpt from "Trumpocracy" published in The Atlantic in January, the former George W. Bush speechwriter cautioned (emphasis mine):

Maybe you do not much care about the future of the Republican Party. You should. Conservatives will always be with us. If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy. The stability of American society depends on conservatives’ ability to find a way forward from the Trump dead end, toward a conservatism that cannot only win elections but also govern responsibly, a conservatism that is culturally modern, economically inclusive, and environmentally responsible, that upholds markets at home and U.S. leadership internationally.

In short, Frum hopes Republicans will outgrow Trumpism and into everything Trump and his followers are working to smash with a mallet. Will [they] reject democracy?

It looks more and more like they already have -- look at the pattern over the past couple of decades, as "conservatives" have taken over state governments and, almost automatically, have redrawn electoral maps and passed targeted voting laws to guarantee themselves a permanent majority, which eventually gave them Congress and, if Trump has his way, the presidency on a continuing basis. (Trump, of course, would prefer that he be president for life.) The right, over the past couple of generations, has come to have less and less regard for the foundations of American democracy. And now, with their alliance with evangelical "Christians," the gloves are off. It should be glaringly obvious that "Christians" of that stripe are one of the most, if not the most, anti-American forces at work today.

Read the whole thing, of course, but it's pretty depressing.

Review: Aquaplus and Toyuki Kobayashi: Utawarerumono

Another originally published at Epinions and no longer available there.

It took me a couple of weeks to learn to pronounce the title of this series, Utawarerumono, but I was determined. It was another find on a recommendation by my manga expert, and it's a good one. (The title is translated as "He Whose Song is Sung" -- in Japan, just as anywhere else, if people sing songs about you, you're in.)

A severely wounded man wearing a half-mask is found in the woods by a girl, Eluluu, grandaughter of the village healer, Tuskuru, who also happens to be the chief. They nurse him back to health, but he has no memory of who he is or where he came from. He is soon accepted by the villagers and shows himself to be a natural leader. When Tuskuru is killed defending her other granddaughter, Aruruu, from one of the local lord's soldiers, the villagers select the man, who has been given the name Hakuoro, as their new chief. And when they decide that the death of Tuskuru cannot go unavenged, they, and Hakuoro, are set irrevocably on the path of empire. And as he goes, he collects a strong -- and more than a little eccentric -- group of heroes around him.

This is sort of an odd story. We eventually learn that it actually takes place in the far future, although the setting is fantasy-feudal, Japanese style, give or take the bipedal dinosaurs that are the main riding animal. And everyone has animal ears, and women and girls also have tails. Everyone except Hakuoro, that is. The reasons for that are revealed well into the series, and I don't want to give them away here: it's a nice little "Aha!" moment.

We also learn that Hakuoro is not exactly human, and that he shares a soul with someone who has become, behind the scenes, his worst enemy. That leads to a spectacular final battle and a poignant, bittersweet finish.

Speaking of enemies, one flaw in the story is that the bad guys -- and there are a series if them -- get crazier and crazier, until they turn into caricatures. Actually, it doesn't really take very long for that to happen -- the first really seriously bad guy, Niwe, has perhaps the most irritating villain laugh ever.

The graphic work is good, if not spectacularly so -- characterizations are solid, action sequences are smooth, and the general level of the animation is pretty high. One thing I did notice, which still puzzles me: the major characters fit into a sort of manga-standard template, with triangular faces, retrousse noses, pointed chins, small mouths, and large eyes -- sort of High Shoujo characterizations. Even Haruoko fits into that mold, and it's to the animators' credit that he is as visually expressive as he is -- remember, he's wearing a half-mask throughout. The other half of the puzzle is that the secondary characters are strongly individual and much more "realistic" insofar as a cartoon can be. It works, though.

The acting, as tends to be the case in anime, is very good, although it did take me awhile to get used to some of the voices. Half the central characters are girls, and young girls at that: the voices sometimes approach hypersonic ranges. Special mention to Rikiya Koyama as Hakuoro: he doesn't say much, but when he does, it's nearly perfect. This must have been an extraordinarily difficult role in which to develop a full character, but Koyama pulled it off.

I can't really explain why I find Utawarerumono so appealing. It's not perfect, by any means, but it is tremendously engaging -- another one that I found myself watching seven or eight episodes at a stretch. If it weren't for the violence -- and it's there, in many battle scenes with lots of bright red blood -- I'd recommend this as nice family viewing. There are many quietly humorous moments that project warmth and comfort, and the message is one of peace and doing the right thing. Even though there are a lot of battles, the message there is that war is only justified in self-defense and even in that case, one is stained by bloodshed.

(Funimation, 2009)

A Message for the Media

A meme for our time. pic.twitter.com/Hq5K5fijfY

— Lauren Wolfe (@Wolfe321) July 20, 2018

Today at Green Man Review

is going to happen later, most likely tomorrow. The site is having technical issues. Check back tomorrow.

Today's Must-Read #2: Looks Like Someting Was Edited

For most rational people, it's a given that the Bible was composed by a number of different authors over a period of time. Well, it looks like Leviticus wasn't immune:

The original version of Leviticus expressly permitted gay sex, a Biblical scholar writes in the New York Times.

Idan Dershowitz is a fellow at Harvard and has studied the development of the Old Testament carefully, including Leviticus 20:13 which reads that “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.”

. . .

“There is good evidence that an earlier version of the laws in Leviticus 18 permitted sex between men,” he argues. “In addition to having the prohibition against same-sex relations added to it, the earlier text, I believe, was revised in an attempt to obscure any implication that same-sex relations had once been permissible.”

Take that, Tony Perkins.

Looks like somebody way back when had issues.

Today's Must-Read: Into the Abyss

America under the Trump regime is going to start looking like the worst parts of Central America. Two posts at Hullabaloo only point up how morally bankrupt the right has become.

First, this post by Tom Sullivan on the regime's not-in-good-faith attempts to obey court orders to reunite the families it has torn apart:

The court-imposed deadline is less than a week away for the Trump administration to reunite migrant families it forcibly separated a the border as part of its "zero tolerance" approach to refugees. The administration missed a deadline last week for reuniting children under five with their parents. Of the more than twenty-five hundred children in government detention, only 450 between the ages of 5 and 17 have reunited with their parents ahead of the July 26 deadline.

The Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland Security that found it easy to take children from their parents' arms at U.S.-Mexico border stations find it much more difficult to reunite them. DHS personnel admitted weeks ago that records linking parents and their children have disappeared and in some case destroyed (a DHS spokesperson disputes this). HHS requested volunteers to help pore through case records to match children with their parents.

As you read through, it becomes more and more obvious that Trump's minions have no intention of rectifying this atrocity.

And now there are calls to assassinate "leftists", which is to say, anyone who objects to Trump's policies or his methods.

Here on Hullabaloo, Tom Sullivan recently posted a tweet informing us that Trump supporter Michael Scheuer, an ex-CIA spook, bestselling author and world-class paranoid approvingly mentioned the growing interest on the right in assassinating those opposed to Trump:

As this week’s end, it seems likely that it is quite near time for killing those involved in the multiple and clearly delineated attempts to stage a coup d’état against the legitimately elected [sic] Trump government and thereby kill our republic. 

Finally, this week saw a significant and quickening advance toward the moment when those millions of well-armed citizens who voted for Trump, and who have been abused or wounded by Democrats, their Antifa-thugs, and their thug-civil servants for exercising their franchise to elect Trump, cannot be, in good conscience, patient for much longer.

Fortunately, they have in hand a long and very precise list of the names and photographs...

That's right. Scheur even provided a list of people who it is "quite near time to kill."

This would sound to me like paranoid ravings, except that Trump supporters are already showing up armed at protests -- and let's not forget Charlottesville. Or for that matter, our monthly mass shootings.

Snowflake du Jour

You may have run across this story earlier, about the white graduate student who called campus police because black person:

Source: City Pages

Braasch, a 43-year-old graduate student at Yale University and two-degree graduate of the University of Minnesota, was planning to use a shared common space in her dorm late one May night. There, she encountered a young black woman sleeping.

Braasch called campus police to report the woman's presence, marking the second time this year she'd asked for police to check on the presence of black students in the common room. In both cases, the black student in question was a fellow Yale student of Braasch's.

The second incident went viral, after the target of Braasch's cop call, Lolade Siyonbola, recorded a brief confrontation between the two. "I have every right to call the police," Braasch tells her. Yale and its police disagreed.

So she laid low for a while, then finally decided to assert her specialness. The twitterverse wasn't having it:

“Done nothing wrong,” pal you called the police on a black woman taking a nap while saying “I have every right to call the police” when you could’ve expended LESS effort by minding your business and walking past. pic.twitter.com/OxAnwIJDlf

— Zoé (@ztsamudzi) July 19, 2018

There's more at the link.

Ms. Siyonbola was lucky -- she didn't wind up dead.

Look! Squirrel!

Guess who's dodging this week's negative reaction to -- well, just about everything he's done this week.

The NFL National Anthem Debate is alive and well again - can’t believe it! Isn’t it in contract that players must stand at attention, hand on heart? The $40,000,000 Commissioner must now make a stand. First time kneeling, out for game. Second time kneeling, out for season/no pay!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 20, 2018

At the risk of repeating myself (and everyone else), the players have a right to protest -- and it's not about the military or the flag. It's about being murdered by the cops for being black.

Via Joe.My.God.

Oops! Somebody Let the Cat Out Of the Bag

It would be interesting to see the demographics of NRA members:

CHUCK HOLTON (NRATV CORRESPONDENT): You know it really has been fascinating to just kind of get an overview of the gun laws and how they affect -- how the culture affects the gun laws, I guess. Because you take a place like Switzerland, where they have a strong gun culture, number two to the United States as far as gun ownership and although they have very, very low crime. Very, very low murder rates. Essentially, maybe one per 100,000 a year or less. Very, very low and yet -- so what I’m saying is that it doesn’t have anything to do with the crime rate, as far as more guns equals more crime. That’s not true. What I’ve seen is actually the safer places that we’ve been, be that Monaco, San Marino, even Italy to some extent up in the north, and here in Switzerland and Liechtenstein, those places tend to have higher gun ownership but lower crime. And it really doesn’t have anything to do, I don’t think even with gun ownership, as much as it does with the homogeneity of the culture. That is, the people who just -- they feel like they’re part of a country, they feel like they’re part of one culture and they aren’t so divided like we are in the United States. And that’s something that kind of makes you go man, it would be really nice to go back to that time in the U.S. where we all just felt like Americans and we left each other alone to, you know, hey, it’s a free country.

GRANT STINCHFIELD (NRATV HOST): Yeah, regardless of color or race or religion, or any of those things. Where we all just were Americans.

Nice try, Stinchfield, but there's no cleaning that one up. And you know what? A lot of us -- probably most of us -- still feel like we're all just Americans, in spite of what your paymasters in Moscow are doing to change that.

Via Joe.My.God.

In Case You Had Any Doubts

that the Republican party has become the anti-American party, here's just a sample of this morning's stories:

HHS Deletes LGBT Resources From Obamacare Site

Feds Seek To Gut 1973 Endangered Species Act

DHS Chief Won’t Say Charlottesville Nazis Were Wrong

More detail:

"I think what’s important about that conversation is, it’s not that one side is right, one side is wrong," Secretary Nielsen told NBC News' Peter Alexander Thursday afternoon, when asked specifically about the August 2017 Charlottesville rally that left one woman, Heather Heyer, dead.

The Secretary of Homeland Security doesn't think Nazis are wrong. That fits.

This one nails it:

Dems React To Fiery Steny Hoyer Speech With “USA!” Chants After Republicans Block Election Security Bill

Putin has the whole damned party in his pocket.

This is just a selection from my first survey of this morning's news.

Oh, and this:

Hillary Clinton: 'Deeply troubling' for White House to consider Putin request to interview Americans

The idea that an American president would even consider allowing a hostile foreign power to "interrogate" a former ambassador is beyond belief.

Idiot du Jour

There seems to be this little corner of Iowa that has a racist, neo-fascist majority that keeps sending Steve King back to Congress. Here's an example of what a shining example of rational intelligence he is:

Speaking Tuesday during the House Judiciary Committee's, "Facebook, Google and Twitter: Examining the Content Filtering Practices of Social Media Giants," Rep. King demanded to know why a right wing site is losing traffic. King specifically mentioned a pro-Trump conspiracy theory and "fake news" website known as Gateway Pundit, run by Jim Hoft, a man whose name has become synonymous with "the stupidest man on the Internet," according to a Google search.

In the House hearing, King challenged Facebook's head of global policy management, Monika Bickert, to explain why Gateway Pundit supposedly "saw its traffic cut by 54%." Facebook, contrary to King's assumptions, does not guarantee traffic to any website.

Congressman King also suggested Facebook uses the Southern Poverty Law Center as an ethics "advisory group" to determine how much traffic a Facebook page or website would receive.

It's called the "free market," bozo: your traffic is determined by how popular your content is.

It figures that King would support a wacko-conspiracy theorist.

Culture Break: Oysterband: We Could Leave Right Now

This is quite possibly my favorite Oysterband song:

(And yes, it just popped up on this morning's playlist.)

Today in Right-Wing Civility

Fromo "Pastor" Rick Wiles, one of the leading lights of the unhinged "Christian" right:

We’re in for the fight of our lives. If these people get power in this country again, you and I are toast, we’re done. Do you understand that? If they regain power, you and I are history. They’re coming after us. They will exterminate all opposition. Take my word for it. These people are ruthless. They’re murderers, they’re perverts, they’re pedophiles, they’re the worst scum that’s ever crawled on this planet and they’re dangerous. They will do anything to hold on to power, including exterminating their domestic opponents because they’re driven with madness, total madness. When you reject God, you’re opening your mind to madness. And these people have rejected God, they rejected God decades ago and madness has taken over.”

And of course, he has a TV show -- and, one assumes, an audience.

Via Joe.My.God.

The Summit

It's all over the blogosphere and the press as well, not the one-on-one, closed door summit itself, because no one knows what Trump gave away there, but the press conference, which in itself is, given the reaction across the board (except for Hannity and perennial contrarian Rand Paul) apocalyptic.* Even Mitch McConnell is running away from it.

Rachel Maddow, who has covered the Russian angle more thoroughly than anyone else, sums it up. It's a full segment, but hunker down and listen: it's worth it.

* Tucker Carlson, who seems to live in a universe of his very own (and I'm sure he's very comfortable there) has his own unique take on election interference:

"I don't think Russia is our close friend or anything like that," said Tucker. "I think of course they try to interfere in our affairs. They have for a long time. Many countries do. Some more successfully than Russia, like Mexico, which is routinely interfering in our elections by packing our electorate."

I'm speechless.

Review: Dead Can Dance: Wake: The Best of Dead Can Dance

First published at Epinions.com.

I was first introduced to the music of Dead Can Dance a number of years ago, when cassette tapes were state of the art. (Yes, that many years ago.) With my interest in offbeat popular music and music from other cultures, they were a good fit, but it wasn't until I picked up their "best of" release, Wake, that I realized how much in tune (if you'll pardon the expression) we were.

Listening through this album again, the range of traditions embodied in the music is remarkable.

Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry met in Melbourne in 1980. Perry, according to Gerrard, was making music in the mold of the New York Dolls; she doesn't talk about what she was doing, but what happened when they got together was something very different than either had been doing before. The collection starts off with their first collaboration, "Frontier," which they used as their demo when they moved to London and managed, after four years of rejection, to link up with Ivo Watts-Russell of 4AD. The amazing thing about "Frontier" is that it is already full-blown DCD: Perry's instrumental collages flow over, under and around Gerrard's highly abstract vocalizations to produce something that it, indeed, unique -- in this case, a beat that is almost something you might find in pop music (and more about that later), and Perry's own supporting vocals that become an inextricable part of the instrumentals.

About that beat: Dimitri Ehrlich, in his essay put together from interviews with Gerrard, Perry, and Watts-Russell, notes that Gerrard grew up in East Prahran, Melbourne, with a mix of Greek, Italian, Turkish, Irish and Arab neighbors. The two also worked in a Lebanese restaurant while saving money for the move to London. It would be insane to say that these experiences had no influence on their music. (Keep in mind that both are Australian, and that Australia is historically as ethnically mixed as North America; the major groups of immigrants there today are Asian. When Australians go "overseas," they are much more likely to go to the Philippines, Indonesia, or Japan than Europe.) What is astonishing about the music is that, while one can point to a particular piece and say, "Indonesian influence," or "Arab influence," or "from medieval sources," when one backs away a step or two, those influences are submerged into a seamless whole that simply says "Dead Can Dance." I mean, how does one attribute influences to the high drama of "Summoning of the Muse," with its carillon and heavy synths supporting a multi-tracked Gerrard singing a chorale (and being Gerrard, of course, doing bizarre things with the harmonies that we almost notice).

It's clear, listening to this set (and one of the best parts of writing this review is that I'm sitting here listening while I'm writing, which I always do with music review), where the strengths are. Perry is a talented singer, but those songs on which he is featured are more "standard" fare, with a clear vocal line in song form. His strength is in the instrumentals that pull together all the diverse influences and introduce amazing subtleties -- toward the end of "In the Kingdom of the Blind the One-Eyed are Kings," for example, he introduces a very quiet pulse on the bass drum, barely audible, with the effect of throwing the entire soundscape into high relief.

Gerrard is The Voice. Ehrlich says in his essay that "Gerrard . . . made sounds with her voice and turned that experience into something much larger and more far-ranging than mere singing." I can't describe it any better myself. Take my favorite combination on this collection, "The Lotus Eaters" and "Rakim" on disc 2: In "Lotus Eaters," the vocals may or may not be in any known language. It doesn't matter -- I'm not even sure those are actual words (no lyrics are provided for that one). The song is an Iberian-Arabic influenced masterpiece instrumentally, and Gerrard's vocals, charged with raw heat, twine sinuously through, creating one of the most erotic pieces of music I've ever heard. "Rakim" is a very different animal, Perry fronting a lively, upbeat Afro-Caribbean-sounding piece while, starting about halfway through, Gerrard starts yodeling in the background. It sounds odd put like that, but that's what she's doing: yodeling. It's perfect, and it's fantastic.

This is not a chronological sequence, quite -- "The Lotus Eaters," from 2001, is near the beginning of the second CD, followed by "Rakim" from Toward the Within (1994); the set ends with "How Fortunate the Man with None" from Into the Labyrinth (1993). The design, by the way, is superb -- it's worth having this set for the booklet alone, which is just beautiful.

I think this really is "The Best of Dead Can Dance," and if you're going to have one album by this pair, this is the one to have, hands down.

(4AD, 2003)

What's New at Green Man Review

There's a wide range of things offered this week at Green Man Review:

Robert Hunter’s ‘Brown-Eyed Women’, Music that Defies Classification, Indians from Day One, Patricia A. McKillip’s World-building, Gummi Butterflies, and Other Matters

"Gummi butterflies?" You ask. Yes, there are such things. Click on over and read about them and more.

Sneaky

My "other" orchid, a Colmanara "Wildcat", has not been adapting well to the new environment. I had about given up on it when it surprised me: it has three blossoms on a stem about four inches long, all but hidden under the leaves.

Does this count as a silver lining?

(Mine, at least in this blooming, is not as dark as the illustration -- that needs lots of sun to bring out the colors, and it's sitting on a crowded table at an east window.)

Today in Witch Hunts, Russian Assets in Congress Edition

So the House decided to have a joint committee investigation of Peter Strzok and the FBI's (non-existent) attempts to sink the Trump candidacy and hand the election to Hillary Clinton. It blew up in their faces and made them look like fools (because Strzok was more than they bargained for). Charles P. Pierce has a good overview:

There’s no real point in recapping the highlights. The videos are going to be in regular rotation for quite a while now. It was, as it was called at various points in the hearing, a kangaroo court, a show trial, and a travesty of a sham of a mockery of a sham of two mockeries. But it was designed to be that. It was a performance piece. It was not a very well-cast one, and several of the lead actors fell into the orchestra pit, but it managed to run from curtain-up to curtain-down.

And there’s still the basic fact out there that the president* of the United States needed money to shore up his failing businesses, and he went to Russian oligarchs in league with a KGB goon at the head of an authoritarian nation to get it, and that we don’t know what he owes, and to whom, and what he’s willing to do to settle his debts.