Review: Bill Willingham, et al.: Fables: Homelands

I reviewed most of this series at Epinions. Now you get to read the reviews here.

Bill Willingham's Fables: Homelands gives us the adventures of two of Fabletown's denizens who have gone missing: Jack, who is suspected (with good reason -- as Beast points out, Bigby Wolf told him "Always suspect Jack first.") of having made off with the contents of one of the late Bluebeard's treasure rooms; and Boy Blue, who seems to have made off with several of the town's magical artifacts, specifically the Witching Cloak and the Vorpal Sword.

We start off with another of Jack's schemes to make his fortune -- except this time he's starting off with a fortune. He heads to Hollywood to make -- well, with Jack, it's never quite sure what his goals are, since he can't go public -- but he's going to make a splash. He sets himself up as a production company, with layers of front men to keep himself out of the public eye, and begins work on a fantasy trilogy -- the story of Jack. (No one ever said he was short on ego.) He's brought Jill with him on this jaunt. She just wanted to get out and see the world, but winds up living in Jack office in a series of antique dollhouses (she's rather diminutive). She's not real happy about that.

If this is Willingham's take on Hollywood and its workings, it's a little heavy handed. Jack has set himself up to be the biggest shark in an ocean full of them, and pretty well succeeds: we get a picture of Jack's character in this one, and it's not pretty. He's forgotten, though, that there's always payback -- this scheme works out just like the others have.

Boy Blue's goals are somewhat different: he's busily carving his way through the Homelands to get to the Adversary. He wants the Adversary to be history, and he wants Red Riding Hood, the real one, the one he fell in love with. There are a few surprises, but Blue is up to them -- he's a lot sneakier than we thought. And he's working for someone even sneakier than he is.

We also get to meet Mowgli, of Jungle Book fame, who's one of the "Travelers," Fabletown's spies in the mundy world. The new mayor, Prince Charming, has a special job for him.

This one is a lot of fun, from the swashbuckling adventures of Boy Blue in the Homelands to the machinations of the Adversary (and we finally find out who that is) and Prince Charming.

The art is up to the usual standard, and there are even distinct shifts in style when the characters are telling their histories that set off the narrative into a real "once-upon-a-time" mode. There's one thing I haven't mentioned before, and that's the borders around a lot of the pages. They give the feel of an old story book and add a lot to the fairy tale feel of the books.

This volume takes us back to the main narrative, and although the Jack story tends to go on a little too long -- I mean, we know Jack's a creep, right? We don't really need the repetition of just what a piece of work he is -- the Boy Blue story line more than makes up for it. I'm calling it a solid 4.

(Vertigo, 2006) Collects Fables #34-41.

What's New at Green Man Review

As tends to happen regularly, it's Sunday again, and that means more reviews at Green Man Review:

Ailette De Bodard’s Xuya Universe, Mutants, A Fairport Boxset, A Trip Up the Thames, Dinosaurs, of a sort, and other neat stuff

ANd it's all there waiting for you.

Another WTF? Moment

The right, and especially the members of the Trump regime, are expert at turning reality on its head:

The largely white protesters who oppose social distancing measures to protect the public from COVID-19 are like Rosa Parks, who waged a historic battle for racial equality, right-wing economic commentator and White House adviser Stephen Moore repeatedly insisted Friday.

“I call these people modern-day Rosa Parks. They are protesting against injustice and a loss of liberties,” Moore told The Washington Post, in one of at least three instances of this astonishing comparison.

He also told CBS News: “It’s interesting to me that the right has become more the Rosa Parks of the world than the left is.” He said in a YouTube video quoted by The New York Times: “We need to be the Rosa Parks here, and protest against these government injustices.”

So, let me see if I've got this right: the government doing its job and trying to save people's lives is "government injustice". I would have thought it came under the heading of providing for the common welfare.

And lawless vigilantes (who, incidentally, showed up at the Michigan state capitol armed to the teeth with their AR-15 penis substitutes) are freedom fighters.

As for Moore -- well, this seems to be representative of his take on things:

He once quipped that Trump’s first act as president would be to kick a Black family (the Obamas) out of public housing (the White House), according to The Atlantic.

Only the best and the brightest.

Via Joe.My.God.

Political Ad of the Month

I don't usually post political ads -- mostly because, since I don't watch TV, I never see them.

This one, I think, should be aired repeatedly on every Fox affiliate in flyover country:

This is the most devastating political ad I’ve seen in years. It reveals the truth about Trump and China, and that truth is ugly. pic.twitter.com/52cNf9Ay9u

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) April 18, 2020

It's in response to this.

Read It and Weep

Pew has done another survey. This one should give you pause:

Today, about half of Americans (49%) say the Bible should have at least “some” influence on U.S. laws, including nearly a quarter (23%) who say it should have “a great deal” of influence, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey. Among U.S. Christians, two-thirds (68%) want the Bible to influence U.S. laws at least some, and among white evangelical Protestants, this figure rises to about nine-in-ten (89%).

Here's the breakdown:

It gets worse:

All survey respondents who said the Bible should have at least “some” influence on U.S. laws were asked a follow-up question: When the Bible and the will of the people conflict, which should have more influence on U.S. laws?

The more common answer to this question is that the Bible should take priority over the will of the people. This view is expressed by more than a quarter of all Americans (28%). About one-in-five (19%) say the Bible should have at least some influence but that the will of the people should prevail.

Two religious groups stand out for being especially supportive of biblical influence in legislation, even if that means going against the will of the American people: Two-thirds of white evangelical Protestants (68%) say the Bible should take precedence over the people, and half of black Protestants say the same. Among Catholics (25%) and white Protestants who do not identify as born-again or evangelical (27%), only about a quarter share this perspective.

I've been saying for a while that evangelical Christians simply don't believe in democracy -- their whole religious philosophy is founded on authoritarianism.

However, all is not lost:

At the other end of the spectrum, there’s broad opposition to biblical influence on U.S. laws among religiously unaffiliated Americans, also known as religious “nones,” who identify as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular.” Roughly three-quarters in this group (78%) say the Bible should hold little to no sway, including 86% of self-described atheists who say the Bible should not influence U.S. legislation at all. Two-thirds of U.S. Jews, as well, think the Bible should have not much or should have no influence on laws.

One thing that tends to get glossed over, if mentioned at all, in reporting on the doings of the "religious" right, is that they're a minority. Unfortunately, over the past couple of generations, the Republicans have managed to put too many of them into positions of influence.

Time to clean house.

Via Dispatches from the Culture Wars.

Thought for the Day

With thanks to commenter Boreal at Joe.My.God.

The Next Step

On the road to one-man rule. Well, one man and a host of incompetent "advisors". Who needs Congress anyway?

Donald Trump is threatening to use a never-before-employed power of his office to adjourn both chambers of Congress so he can make “recess appointments” to fill vacant positions within his administration he says Senate Democrats are keeping empty amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Mr Trump opened his daily virus press conference on Wednesday by griping about Senate Democrats blocking tens of his nominees, alleging many otherwise would be working on virus-related efforts. He offered few specifics, however, on how the federal virus response might be different if a substantial amount of those individuals had been approved by the upper chamber.

Article II, Section 3, Clause 3 of the US constitution gives a president the power to adjourn both chambers if they cannot agree on an adjourn date. No chief executive, however, has ever used it.

Call it a trial balloon. He wants to see how bad the blowback is going to be -- or what Sean Hannity says.

And I can't quite shake the feeling that he is running scared about November -- there's something of panic in this latest threat.

Via Joe.My.God.

Culture Break: Joaqin Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez, Adagio

I don't remember where or how I first came in contact with Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez, but it's become a regular on my playlist. The Adagio is a prime example of over-the-top romanticism. I have the recording by the Romeros:

Scapegoating

With Trump, it's always someone else's fault. Especially if it's an international organization:

President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he is halting funding for the World Health Organization pending a review of its response to the initial coronavirus outbreak after the organization criticized his restrictions on travel from China.

Trump accused the WHO of "severely mismanaging and covering up" the coronavirus crisis, specifically the initial outbreak in Wuhan, China. He took particular issue with the agency's criticism of his order to temporarily deny entry to the U.S. by most foreign nationals who had recently been in China. The order was issued Jan. 31, when China was the center of the pandemic.

"With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have deep concerns about whether America's generosity has been put to the best use possible," Trump said. "The reality is that the WHO failed to adequately obtain and share information in a timely and transparent fashion.

"It could have been contained at its source," he added.

That last statement is, at the least, debatable. There's no telling how many asymptomatic carriers had left the region for other parts of the world when the scope of the problem was discovered.

This is telling:

"Well, we're going to be dealing with countries," Trump said, adding that he's going to "channel" that money to places that need it.

Hmm -- let's see -- Russia? Turkey? North Korea? Saudi Arabia? Or just anyplace that has a Trump hotel or resort?

In addition to reflecting Trump's pettiness and vindictiveness, it's also indicative of his willingness to dismantle the world order -- Trump has no use for international agreements that do not reflect his vision of America's interests (read that as "Trump's interests"). The idea of "cooperation" of completely foreign to him. (And, or course, one has to wonder how much of his disdain for the international community is dictated by his allegiance to -- or fear of -- Russia. After all, Trump has alienated our allies, weakened the Western alliances as well as our major international treaties, all of which is to Russia's benefit.)

And withholding funding for the World Health Organization in the middle of a major pandemic -- well, that's sort of par for the course for Trump, who never thinks about consequences for anyone but himself.

Via Joe.My.God.

He Said It Again

I have two possibilities for the origins of statements like this:

“When somebody’s the president of the United States, the authority is total … and the governors know that,” said Trump. “The authority of the president of the United States is total.”

He probably thinks that's the case -- he's cited Article II of the Constitution, saying it says he can do whatever he wants. (Anyone who's read it knows it says just the opposite.) And Moscow Mitch's Senate has rubber-stamped that idea.

I really can't decide whether he's setting us up for the idea of Trump as President for Life -- which assumes he's much more of a strategic thinker than we have any evidence for -- or whether he's living in a fantasy world built around his own megalomania.

Hmm.

I'll take "megalomania" for four hundred, Alex.

Antidote

So peaceful:

From @cat_densuke: “#お家に居ればだいじょうぶだぁ” #catsofinstagram pic.twitter.com/ULyw2jtnVo

— Cats of Instagram (@catsofinstagram) April 14, 2020

With thanks to commenter jixter at Joe.My.God.

This week at Green Man Review

And once again, a treasure trove of goodies. The tip of the iceberg:

Music from Aaron Copland, A History of Bananas, Roddy Doyle’s Two Pints and Other Matters

You know the drill -- click on over and enjoy.

Today in Disgusting People

I know, I know, but they've been crawling out from under their rocks for the last three years. This one is choice:

In times of national crisis and fast-spreading tragedy like the novel coronavirus pandemic, you can always count on the people who promote sociopathic political worldviews to reveal their awful, deeply inhuman natures for all the world to see—and they don’t come much more sociopathic than immigrant-hating Nativists.

Sure enough, the leaders and spokesmen of key Nativist hate groups—notably the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), both designated hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center—have taken the lead in opposing any release of immigrants currently held in detention centers around the United States despite the spread of COVID-19 in these facilities, as Michael Edison Hayden reports at Hatewatch.

Some of the statement coming from these racist groups sound reasonable, until you stop to think about them. This is just one example:

Another writer at CIS’s website, Andrew Arthur, argued: “Releasing ICE detainees takes them out of a facility where sanitary protections are readily available, testing is accessible, quarantine can be accomplished, and treatment is guaranteed. If that is not joining forces with the current pestilence, I am not sure what is. Detention is the best resistance to pestilence.”

This is pure horsepucky. It's well documented that the conditions at these facilities are appalling -- overcrowded, unsanitary, inadequate food, and practically non-existent medical care.

If these "nativists" want America reserved for the real Americans, they should all go back to Europe.

Read the whole thing, and also the article linked to at Hatewatch.

Footnote: I can't help but wonder how many of these people consider themselves good Christians. How many times does their Bible tell them to welcome the stranger?

Review: Bill Willingham, et al.: Fables: Mean Seasons

Or, A Year in the Life. Another Epinions orphan.

Bill Willingham's Fables: Mean Seasons focuses mostly on Bigby Wolf and Snow White and their children, and some upheavals in the lives of the Fables of Fabletown.

The first two stories, "Cinderella Libertine" and "Dog Company," give us a view of Bigby's activities now and back when. It seems that Cinderella, after her failed career as a revolutionary (Animal Farm), has gone to work for Bigby, undercover, while Bigby himself is revealed to be no stranger to black ops, blowing a clandestine Nazi operation. (Think Frankenstein Redux.) "The Cruel Hot Summer" brings us back to Snow, who delivers six cubs (much to her surprise) coincidentally with the mayoral election, which results in a landslide for Prince Charming, because of his campaign promises. In "The Long Hard Fall," Snow is at the Farm with the babies and Bigby has made off for parts unknown, while Beauty and Beast, their successors as Deputy Mayor and Sheriff, respectively, of Fabletown, cope as best they can. We learn in "The Dark Killing Winter" that transition to the new administration is not all that smooth: Boy Blue, who knows how everything works, disappears, along with several magical artifacts. And Beast decides, as an act of clemency, to commute Flycatcher's (the Frog Prince) sentence of community service, much to Flycatcher's dismay. We also witness the first of a series of mysterious deaths, which seems somehow connected to a letter from Frau Totenkinder to Snow about her seven children. And in "Until the Spring," we learn that there was indeed a seventh child.

Although it's not clearly defined, in terms of a real "plot," there is an overarching storyline to this volume, but it grows in your awareness rather than being plainly laid out. Fortunately, Willingham's storytelling is engaging enough that I didn't feel the lack. The dialogue, however, sometimes goes flat: it's fairly matter-of-fact to begin with, but the situations are generally enough to carry it. That's not always the case in this collection.

The art, a team effort by Mark Buckingham and Tony Akins, pencils, and Steve Leialoha and Jimmy Palmiotti, inks, maintains its appeal, but once again, is somewhat constrained by the heavy scripting. The babies, though, are adorable.

It's a filler volume, really, a sort of breather before the next chapter of the fight against the Adversary resumes. It's still a good read, but I can't really put it at more than a 3, maybe just a smidge above.

(Vertigo, 2005) Collects Fables #22 and 28-33.

Read It and Weep

A new poll from Pew on where people believe the CoVID-19 virus originated:

While a plurality of Americans (43%) say the new coronavirus most likely came about naturally, nearly three-in-ten (29%) say it most likely was created in a lab, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted from March 10 to 16, 2020, as part of the Center’s nearly yearlong Election News Pathways project.

Around a quarter of adults (23%) say it is most likely that the current strain of coronavirus was developed intentionally in a lab; another 6% say it was most likely made accidentally in a lab. A quarter say they aren’t sure where the virus originated.

Note that it's already been determined that CoVID-19 is a mutation of the SARS virus. But, thanks to Fox News and Glorious Leader, that bit of information got buried.

Here's the breakdown:

 

What's appalling about this is that less than half the people in this country believe the virus is a natural mutation. (And let's face it, viruses mutate like crazy -- that's why there are so many varieties of flu.) And even worse, look at the age breakdown: the 19-29 year-olds are the group with the largest number of -- what shall I call them? How about "paranoid fantasists"?

I fear for the future.

Via Joe.My.God.

Today's Must-Read: Quid Pro Quo

Yet another example of the axiom "There is no bottom". This is just the way Trump operates:

As we work to find out the scope and goals of the White House’s seizure of medical goods across the United States, a simpler pattern is coming into view: the White House seizes goods from public officials and hospitals across the country while doling them out as favors to political allies and favorites, often to great fanfare to boost the popularity of those allies. The Denver Post today editorialized about one of the most egregious examples. Last week, as we reported, a shipment of 500 ventilators to the state of Colorado was intercepted and rerouted by the federal government. Gov. Jared Polis (D) sent a letter pleading for the return of the equipment. Then yesterday President Trump went on Twitter to announce that he was awarding 100 ventilators to Colorado at the behest of Republican Senator Cory Gardner, one of the most endangered Republicans on the ballot this year. As the Post put it, “President Donald Trump is treating life-saving medical equipment as emoluments he can dole out as favors to loyalists. It’s the worst imaginable form of corruption — playing political games with lives.”

. . .

Were these a subset of the same ventilators? Like money, amidst the COVID-19 Crisis, all ventilators are fungible. It’s hard to know whether President Trump even knew in this case that his pandemic task force had swiped away five times as many ventilators just days before. Indeed, we still don’t whether this is all a central part of the White House’s crisis strategy – grabbing supplies from blue states to hand out to endangered Republicans or red state allies – or simply a layering of corruption over the general chaos.

Remember when wunderkind Jared Kushner said "These are our stockpiles"? No we know what he meant.

Read it. It's more than infuriating.

Via Digby, who adds:

I think this is the tip of the iceberg. There is going to have to be a full pandemic profiteering commissions after this is over. The question is whether or not the Democrats will be willing to “look in the rearview mirror.”

I'm not aT all confident of the Democrats' willingness to hold Trump's feet to the fire -- although they did impeach him. Of course, with Moscow Mitch in control of the Senate, another impeachment will go nowhere. But if we succeed in booting Trump and his criminal gang out of office in November. . . .

Today's Must-Read: A Follow Up

Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly is acting no more -- he resigned. Ads a folliow-up to this post from Monday, here's a must-read from Digby that adds a couple of dimensions to the story:

You do what he wants or else. And if it blows back on him, you will take the fall. That’s the deal.

Why so many people eagerly sign on to that is beyond me but there seems to be an endless supply of them:

Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly resigned Tuesday after traveling nearly 8,000 miles to Guam to berate thousands of sailors on Monday, later saying he stood “by every word,” and then subsequently apologizing for the remarks within the span of about eight hours.

Modly submitted his resignation a day after audio of his speech on the carrier was published by Task & Purpose. James McPherson, Undersecretary of the Army, will be tapped to replace Modly, a defense official told Task & Purpose.

His remarks were even more tone-deaf and -- well, "clumsy" is inadequate, but it will have to do -- than I had known from initial reports:

“Crew of the Teddy Roosevelt, you are under no obligation to love your leadership, only respect it,” Modly said. “You are under no obligation to like your job, only to do it. You are under no obligation, you are under no obligation to expect anything from your leaders other than they will treat you fairly and put the mission of the ship first.”

“That’s your duty,” Modly continued. “Not to complain. Everyone is scared about this thing. And let me tell ya something, if this ship was in combat and there were hypersonic missiles coming in at it, you’d be pretty fucking scared too. But you do your jobs. And that’s what I expect you to. And that’s what I expect every officer on this ship to do, is to do your jobs.”

It's like he's trying to a WWII movie hero. What he is is a jackass.

Read the whole thing -- it's probably not an eye-opener -- we should have known -- but it's illuminating nvertheless.

Culture Break: Kazaky: Dance and Change

Been a while since I've watched any Kazaky videos. This one seems to have all the elements:

If You Do Something Stupid, Double Down

In this instance, speaking of Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly, who, as you will remember, fired the captain of the USS Theodore Roosevelt for trying to take care of his crew. Well, he outdid himself this morning:

The Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly blasted the now ousted commander of the USS Theodore Roosevelt as "stupid" in an address to the ship's crew Monday morning, in remarks obtained by CNN.

Modly told the crew that their former commander, Capt. Brett Crozier, was either "too naive or too stupid" to be in command or that he intentionally leaked to the media a memo in which he warned about coronavirus spreading aboard the aircraft carrier and urged action to save his sailors.

The acting secretary accused Crozier of committing a "betrayal" and creating a "big controversy" in Washington by disseminating the warning so widely.

The only betrayal is that Trump didn't look good. (t'[s still unconfirmed, but the word is that the firing originated with Trump.)

This is the crew that cheered Capt. Crozier as he left the ship. Modly must have a death wish -- except that those who are really serving have too much respect for the service.

And what are the odds that this is another distraction to throw into the mix. There is, after all, an election coming up, and you can bet Trump is shitting bricks over his chances of winning another term.

If you're still wondering what kind of human being -- and I use the term in its biological sense -- Modly is, note this from arch-conservative Bill Kristol:

Perhaps worth remembering that Modly is Acting Secretary because he, unlike his predecessor, had no problem acquiescing to Trump's pardoning war criminals.https://t.co/gq25wnggn3

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) April 6, 2020

Via Joe,.My.God.,

Review: Bill Willingham: Fables: March of the Wooden Soldiers

I found Bill Willingham's Fables series to be more engaging as I worked my way through it. March of the Wooden Soldiers offers an even richer story with layers of deception and intrigue -- not to mention angst and guilt -- and a couple of side stories that continue to fill out the major characters.

We start off with a little history on Boy Blue, Snow White's assistant. Every year, Blue and a group of friends gather for an evening of hard drinking. They were the last to escape the Homelands, but the evening is not marked by celebration: there's a lot of guilt that they escaped while others perished. Blue's story is particularly poignant: the last refugee to reach their final stronghold was Red Riding Hood, and she and Blue fell in love. When the final battle came, he sent her to the ship that was carrying the refugees to safety, while he went back to the battle. Unknown to him, she left the boat and went back to fight at his side, while he, through the gift of his commander's magic cloak, was able to transport himself to the ship after it had left.

And now Red Riding Hood has made it to the Earth. But there's something a little off -- her reaction to meeting Blue again is extreme, and not at all friendly. Bigby, as usual, is suspicious. And then a group of men appear, wanting to buy guns. Lots of guns. And, as it turns out, they're not exactly men.

In the meantime, Snow is pregnant, the result of that little camping trip with Bigby, aided and abetted by Bluebeard's hypnosis. She's not really very happy about it. And Prince Charming, having finished off Bluebeard, is searching his apartment for whatever gold, jewels, silver, or anything else of value hasn't gone to fill the coffers of Fabletown. (Bluebeard died intestate, so his fortune reverted to the government. But Prince Charming isn't really interested in full disclosure.) He has a brilliant idea: he's going to run for Mayor.

Things develop, and Fabletown is under attack by the wooden soldiers of the title. Since Bigby is away on his investigation, Snow takes command of the town's defenses, even enlisting the witches to work in Fabletown's defense -- for free, which doesn't make them happy at all, but their options are limited.

This one is a lot of fun, and I think my favorite in the series so far. The story is multi-layered, there's a lot of intrigue, but nothing you can't figure out if you want to. It's so well done, though, that you don't bother. Willingham's script sucks you right in, and it's really easy to just go with the flow of the story.

Mark Buckingham, Craig Hamilton, and P. Craig Russell penciled this volume, and the visuals are just as appealing as the previous collections. The battle scenes are exceptionally effective, but the whole thing is worth looking at. My one objection to this one, and looking back, to the series as a whole so far, is that Willingham scripts fairly heavily -- there's not a lot of room for the visuals to carry the narrative, and it never gets past the idiom of illustrated story and into true graphic literature, with that particular synergy between the elements.

Collects Fables: The Last Castle, and Fables #19-21 and #2-27.

(Vertigo, 2004)

What's New at Green Man Review

We've all been hunkered down writing reviews, so we've got some great stuff this week:

Amano dark chocolate bars, Terry Gilliam’s Fisher King, Béla Bartók, Ellen Kushner on Steeleye Span, Danish String Quartet Live and Other Matters

So hunker down yourself, scoot on over, and enjoy.

Today in Petty Vindictiveness: Two Firings

Trump likes to fire people. We knew that when he first made his mark (such as it was) as a reality TV star. This one was a long time coming:

U.S. President Donald Trump notified Congress on Friday that he is firing the inspector general of the U.S. intelligence community who was involved in triggering an impeachment probe of the president last year.

In a letter to key lawmakers, Trump said he planned to remove the official, Michael Atkinson, in 30 days, saying, “it is vital that I have the fullest confidence in the appointees serving as inspectors general.”

“This is no longer the case with regard to this inspector general,” he said.

"Fullest confidence", of course, means a reliable sycophant. Atkinson's big sin, of course, was that he did his job and reported the Ukraine whistleblower's complaint to Congress. Besides, Trump doesn't like the intelligence community anyway.

For the second firing, he used a surrogate:

[Capt. Brett] was removed from duty after a letter he wrote pleading for help for those onboard his ship who are infected with the coronavirus leaked to the media.

The Navy announced his removal on Thursday. According to acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly, whether Crozier intentionally leaked the letter or not, he "did not take care" to ensure it was not leaked.

As of Thursday, 114 sailors on board the Roosevelt had tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

Crozier's letter to Navy officials, which leaked on Tuesday, warned that the tight quarters onboard the ship did not allow for the safety of the crew. He asked leadership to offload most of the sailors on the ship in order to allow for social distancing and sanitizing the ship.

So, try to take care of the service members under your care and you get fired.

And the surrogate is madly trying to cover his ass:

Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly said Friday that his firing of the captain who raised the alarm about a coronavirus outbreak onboard a U.S. aircraft carrier was the "hardest thing that I've ever had to do."

But he did it anyway, because:

"I know that he loves this crew. I know that the crew loves and respects him. But that's not an excuse for exercising the judgment that he did," Modly said.

If anyone displayed poor judgment in this, it's the" Acting" Secretary of the Navy.

All via Joe.My.God.

Another PR Stunt

After Trump made a big to-do about sending Navy hospital ships to New York to help with the overcrowding in hospitals there -- well, who could have known?

Such were the expectations for the Navy hospital ship U.S.N.S. Comfort that when it chugged into New York Harbor this week, throngs of people, momentarily forgetting the strictures of social distancing, crammed together along Manhattan’s west side to catch a glimpse.

On Thursday, though, the huge white vessel, which officials had promised would bring succor to a city on the brink, sat mostly empty, infuriating executives at local hospitals. The ship’s 1,000 beds are largely unused, its 1,200-member crew mostly idle.

Only 20 patients had been transferred to the ship, officials said, even as New York hospitals struggled to find space for the thousands infected with the coronavirus. Another Navy hospital ship, the U.S.N.S. Mercy, docked in Los Angeles, has had a total of 15 patients, officials said.

And it's deliberate:

But the reality has been different. A tangle of military protocols and bureaucratic hurdles has prevented the Comfort from accepting many patients at all.

On top of its strict rules preventing people infected with the virus from coming on board, the Navy is also refusing to treat a host of other conditions. Guidelines disseminated to hospitals included a list of 49 medical conditions that would exclude a patient from admittance to the ship.

And the Trump regime continues its stellar response to the pandemic.

Maybe he should put Jared in charge.

Via Joe.My.God.

I Know This Feeling

with thanks to commenter Michael R at Joe.My.God.

Today in Disgusting People -- A Twofer

Franklin Graham and his minions move to the head of the line:

The group building a makeshift tent hospital for coronavirus patients in Manhattan’s Central Park is asking all volunteers to read and follow a “statement of faith,” including rejections of same-sex marriage and abortion.

As the toll of the outbreak on New York continues to increase dramatically, Mount Sinai Health System has been working with the relief group Samaritan’s Purse to open a 68-bed respiratory care unit that will begin treating patients as early as Tuesday.

Praised by Mayor Bill de Blasio (D), the tent facility is one of several efforts to expand medical capacity across the city: A 350-bed facility is set to be erected at the Queens tennis arena home of the U.S. Open, while a temporary hospital has been constructed inside a Manhattan convention center.

Yet unlike the other projects, Samaritan’s Purse has asked all volunteers working at the field hospital — including health workers — to pledge to 11 declarations, Gothamist reports, including one that defines marriage as “exclusively the union of one genetic male and one genetic female” and another that says “human life is sacred from conception to its natural end.”

The Christian group was founded by Franklin Graham, a minister with a famous preacher as a father and a history of making incendiary comments, and has specifically sought out Christian medical staff for the tent hospital.

I'm surprised they haven't demanded that patients sign the same pledge.

And then there's this:

As some local lawmakers questioned whether LGBTQ patients would receive equal treatment, a spokesperson for de Blasio told Gothamist that the field hospital must adhere to Mount Sinai’s nondiscrimination policy.

“Our record on human rights is clear; and we are confident that the joint effort by Mt. Sinai and Samaritan’s Purse will save New Yorkers’ lives while adhering to the values we hold dear by providing care to anyone who needs it, regardless of background,” she wrote to the news blog.

I think it's telling that the statement came from de Blasio's office and not Samaritan's Purse.

Things like this are, I think, one of the elements that differentiate the loudly religious from normal people: they can't even follow the teachings of Jesus (see Matthew 25:31-46 for a good summary) without attaching strings, on the order of "you must belief what we believe" -- even to volunteer to help those in need.

Add in Jerry Falwell, Jr., who decided to re-open Liberty University:

As Liberty University’s spring break was drawing to a close this month, Jerry Falwell Jr., its president, spoke with the physician who runs Liberty’s student health

service about the rampaging coronavirus.

“We’ve lost the ability to corral this thing,” Dr. Thomas W. Eppes Jr. said he told Mr. Falwell. But he did not urge him to close the school. “I just am not going to be so presumptuous as to say, ‘This is what you should do and this is what you shouldn’t do,’” Dr. Eppes said in an interview.

So Mr. Falwell — a staunch ally of President Trump and an influential voice in the evangelical world — reopened the university last week, igniting a firestorm. As of Friday, Dr. Eppes said, nearly a dozen Liberty students were sick with symptoms that suggested Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. Three were referred to local hospital centers for testing. An additional eight were told to self-isolate.

What did anyone expect?

Once again,that unique combination of arrogance and self-importance that marks the blatantly religious.

Culture Break: Ralph Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending

This is probably my favorite Vaughan Williams:

"It's Everybody Else's Fault!"

Guess where that comes from:

The Washington Post reports:

“I don’t take responsibility at all.” That’s what President Trump said this month when asked whether he takes responsibility for the slow rollout of testing that public health officials say handicapped the country’s ability to protect Americans from the coronavirus.

But Trump’s desire to not take responsibility could also be extrapolated to the coronavirus crisis in general. Trump has thrown blame in nearly a dozen different directions for the virus’s spread and different aspects of the response to it.

He really does blame -- or wants us to blame -- everyone but him for his regime's inept response to the pandemic.

But his ratings are beating everyone. Says he.

And did anyone expect anything different?

(The WaPo article is behind a paywall, which is why I don't have more extensive quotes.)

Words Fail Me

The plague is spreading, and this is what Trump thinks is important. From Digby:

Here’s an example of what President Trump thought was important to share with his millions of Twitter followers this past weekend as we watched the nation’s coronavirus numbers climb into the tens of thousands:

“President Trump is a ratings hit. Since reviving the daily White House briefing Mr. Trump and his coronavirus updates have attracted an average audience of 8.5 million on cable news, roughly the viewership of the season finale of ‘The Bachelor.’ Numbers are continuing to rise...

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2020

It goes on . . . and on. This has-been reality show star is puffing up his flabby ego by tweeting about his ratings while we're in a national crisis.

And the irony is that most people don't believe anything he says about the pandemic.

Read Digby's whole post, if you have the stomach for it.

Image du Jour

Posted by charemor in the comments thread to this post at Joe.My.God.

What's New at Green Man Review

Yes, it's Sunday again, and we at GMR have all sorts of things to keep you occupied while you're hunkered down at home:

the first real Celtic Rock album, a Celtic history, Holy Molé chocolate, Ray Bradbury poetry, Silly Wizard live and Other Neat Stuff

Be sure to check out the other neat stuff -- it really is neat.

Review: Bill Willingham: Fables, The Deluxe Edition, Book One

I reviewed most of this series at the late lamented Epinions, although for some reason I never reviewed the first three trade paper backs. Maybe this is why.

Imagine all your favorite (and not-so-favorite) characters from fairy tales, folk tales, and children's literature living in Manhattan right now. (Except for the not-so-human characters, who are living on an extensive farm/estate in upstate New York.) Refugees from their own scattered kingdoms and realms, all conquered by a creature known as the "Adversary," they live in a particular section of town, which they have named "Fabletown." They have their own government and spend a fair amount of effort keeping the "mundys" unaware of their existence. King Cole is the Mayor of Fabletown, and Snow White is his deputy, who manages the day-to-day affairs of the Fables -- the real power behind the throne, so to speak. The Big Bad Wolf, now known as Bigby, is the sheriff. (He has taken on human form for the past few hundred years.)
\
The first half of this volume, "Legends in Exile," fills in the background a bit and gives us the first adventure: Jack (of Beanstalk fame) comes huffing into Bigby's office to report a terrible crime: He has been keeping company with Rose Red, Snow's estranged sister, and went over to her place only to discover the apartment a blood-spattered shambles. It's Rose's blood, alright, but there's no trace of her at all. Bigby, being a naturally suspicious sort, immediately comes up with a list of suspects, starting with Jack. The list soon expands to include Snow White and Bluebeard -- one of the few who escaped the Homelands with his fortunes intact.

The second installment, "Animal Farm," finds Snow and Rose (no, she wasn't dead, and no one ever really thought she was) on their way to the Farm on Snow's annual visit. They read the farm to find Weyland Smith, the Administrator, AWOL, and the farm being run by the Three Little Pigs. It soon turns out that there's a revolution brewing, led by Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

I had read this volume of the series as background for a ficlet at Green Man Review, but with the backlog I'd built up of material for review, never went back to it until recently. It's worth following, I think: these are fairy tales for adults, and in many respects probably closer to the originals transcribed by the Brothers Grimm and other collectors than the versions eventually published for children. The characterizations aren't what we might expect -- Snow White is a little rigid, not very sympathetic, and more than a little arrogant (and you'd best not mention the Dwarves in her hearing, if you know what's good for you) -- but the cast is highly entertaining, from the Frog Prince, now in human form, who keeps getting sentenced to community service for eating flies in public, to Beauty and the Beast, whose main marital problem is that the glamor that keeps Beast looking human works more or less, depending on how mad at him Beauty is at any given moment. Reynard the Fox, in "Animal Farm," lives up to his reputation as a trickster, and Goldilocks' relationship with Baby Bear is bound to raise a few eyebrows.

The art is a group effort by Lan Medina, Mark Buckingham, Steve Leialoha, and Craig Hamilton. There's good stylistic consistency throughout, and while layouts tend to hew closely to the standard frame-follows-frame of Western comics, there's a nice openness to the renderings that keeps it from getting monotonous or claustrophobic, even in the crowd scenes.

Collects Fables #1-10.

(Vertigo, 2009)

How Does "Petty and Vindictive" Sound?

It's always been part of the acting president's make-up, but now it's out in the open. This time the target is Michigan:

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer suggested Friday that a growing rift with the White House is affecting shipments of medical supplies to Michigan amid exponential growth in confirmed coronavirus cases.

"When the federal government told us that we needed to go it ourselves, we started procuring every item we could get our hands on," Whitmer said Friday on WWJ 950AM. "What I've gotten back is that vendors with whom we had contracts are now being told not to send stuff here to Michigan. It's really concerning."

Whitmer didn't say who has told vendors to stop sending medical supplies to the state, but strongly implied the order came from President Donald Trump's administration.

If that seems a little circumstantial, how about this?

During a Friday evening press conference, Trump said he's instructed Vice President Mike Pence, "don't call the woman in Michigan."

"If they don't treat you right, I don't call," Trump said of Whitmer.

If you find this unbelievable, consider again what we're dealing with: a sociopath with severe ego problems whose only talent is duping the unwary. Who thinks he should be president for life.

Via Joe.My.God.

Herons

I saw what I think was the first black-crowned night heron to arrive at Lincoln Park this afternoon. Black-crowned night herons are endangered in Illinois, but there are a couple of nesting colonies in Lincoln Park, one in the Children's Zoo at Lincoln Park Zoo and one farther south.

Originally, there was a small colony on the island in South Pond. The Zoo staff, being very conservation minded, immediately set it up as a sanctuary, with signage on the boardwalk and everything. The herons, as perverse as any other creature, decided they liked the red wolf habitat in the Children's Zoo better -- they seem to prefer nesting in somewhat spindly trees, such as birches, which I find odd -- they're fairly clumsy clambering around the branches. In the beginning, there were maybe eight or ten nesting pairs, making a racket and dropping guano all over the place. Over the past few years the population has grown until they've pretty much taken over the Children's Zoo during nesting season -- if you want to visit the Children's Zoo in the summer, you'll find it wise to take an umbrella.

At any rate, it looks like they're back (although it's a bit early, I think).

Any Excuse Will Do

Via Joe.My.God., the EPA has decided to suspend all the rules for the duration of the pandemic (maybe) because reasons:

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a sweeping suspension of its enforcement of environmental laws Thursday, telling companies they would not need to meet environmental standards during the coronavirus outbreak.

The temporary policy, for which EPA has set no end date, would allow any number of industries to skirt environmental laws, with the agency saying it will not “seek penalties for noncompliance with routine monitoring and reporting obligations.”

Pardon me if I fail to see how the pandemic would impact compliance with environmental laws, especially in those companies who are up and running and not laying off workers.

Read the whole thing. It's another D.C. boondoggle.

As for Andrew Wheeler, current EPA administrator -- well, in his last life, he was a coal lobbyist, among other things.

This seems an appropriate place to remember an old favorite:

Today's Must-Read: Onward, Christian Soldiers!

I'm not the only one who's noticed the rabid support Trump gets from evangelical "Christians" -- from Franklin Graham and Robert Jeffress on down. And I'm not the only one who's noticed how the evangelical movement has taken over the Republican party -- at least, the part not already owned by corporate America. It's not by chance, as Val Wilde points out in this post at Friendly Atheist:

This I guarantee: You know the “Seven Mountain Mandate.”

You’ve read about it online. You’ve watched it on the news. You’ve seen it in action, even if you’re not aware of it. Most Americans aren’t. Yet it’s a concept that inflects nearly every part of U.S. politics, touching the lives of all Americans as well as plenty of others around the world.

It is the battle plan for an American theocracy that has been in the works since the 1970s. At least, that’s when the movement’s founders claim God spoke to them individually and directly about the seven “mind molders” of culture and how to claim them for Jesus Christ.

Wilde goes on to lay out the game plan, from its beginnings in the '70s to now. From a video by Lance Wallnau:

What we need to be doing now, in this complicated world that we’re having such a limited impact, is we should be going into all the systems instead of all the nations… The Christians in the West are not shaping culture because they don’t understand the game. The game is: not souls only, but nations. If you get a nation you can win souls. It’s not about just focusing on eternity, it’s about focusing on what’s happening now.

What's happening now is that they've got someone in the White House who will give them free rein in return for their support.

Read the whole thing.

Culture Break: Carl Orff: Carmina Burana (Flash Mob)

"Flashmob Oradea - Carmina Burana". Oradea is in Romania.

Rabbits Are Magical

We have a couple of rabbits on our block. I see them sometimes munching away at a patch of lawn across the street, usually only one, but sometimes two, usually in the evening, but sometimes in the morning. They also browse around the garden at my place.

And they appear and disappear without warning. This morning I was out and saw one across the street, and when I turned to come back inside, the other one had appeared. They do that. The other evening I was out and the one across the street suddenly just vanished.

I've seen that happen before -- I was at the Zoo just outside the south entrance, and there was a rabbit browsing just inside the fence, next to a shrub. There was a squirrel foraging on the other side of the shrub, and sure enough, they were suddenly face to face. The squirrel levitated about three feet and the rabbit just disappeared. Gone. Poof.

They're also really good at holding very, very still, so they're hard to see to begin with.

Today's Must-Read: Conservatives to the Rescue . .(Update).

of the economy. This post from Tom Sullivan at Hullabaloo is a good summary of the sickness that is the American conservative movement:

American conservatives faced with addressing the COVID-19 pandemic are grappling with the Trolley problem before our very eyes. The classic thought experiment in ethics involves a runaway trolley headed towards five people who will be killed on the track ahead. But you can throw a switch sending the trolley down a side track where only one person will be killed. What would you do?

As an American conservative, you save the trolley company.

He goes on to look at the Senate bailout bill which, as you might expect, is not oriented toward helping workers, He quotes this tweet summarizing the horror:

THE POSITIONING BEGINS — here are some problems with the bill, as flagged by a democrat.

Big four plus mnuchin meeting this am. pic.twitter.com/dlKVKO7WBG

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) March 22, 2020

They consider it a "Randian act of courage." If said it often enough, but I'll repeat myself: Randian conservatism, also known as "libertariansim", born of the philosophy of Ayn Rand (who, you will remember, had no hesitation about sucking at the government teat when it suited her), is the most morally bankrupt excuse for a philosophy that I've ever run across.

Read the whole thing.

Update: I'm making this a twofer, adding on this post from Digby:

If I’m reading the tea leaves correctly it appears Trump plans to announce that he has personally cured the virus with hydroxychloroquine, the epidemic is pretty much over and everything can now go back to normal. Because he wants that to be true[.]

There's a lot of analysis going into Trump's anxiety about the economy right now. I'll put it simply: If Trump has learned one thing about elections, it's something you may remember from the Bush-Clinton campaign in '92: "It's the economy, stupid." Trump is worried about the economy for one major reason: he's knows damned well that if the economy tanks, his chances of winning in November go down the toilet. And that's what it's all about for him: the election. That's why he's been campaigning for the last three years (aside form the fact that's all he knows how to do -- he has no idea how to govern). It's the ultimate popularity contest. It's ratings.

He thinks he's starring in another reality show.

Sign of the Times

I just got this from my friend Terry in Arizona:

How apropos.

The Great Outdoors -- Sort Of

For those of us who are pretty much housebound, here's a nice post from Water Girl at Balloon Juice with links to remote cameras at various zoos, aquariums, and outdoor parks.

Here's a sample from Chicago's own Shedd Aquarium:

Sea otters make everything better.
💙 🦦 Let’s all pause, take a big breath and watch Yaku play! pic.twitter.com/TiNslLvQhW

— Shedd Aquarium (@shedd_aquarium) March 21, 2020

Is Anyone Surprised?

Trump seems to want the economy back on track in spite of the pandemic:

President Donald Trump made clear in an all-caps stroke of midnight tweet he’s done with sacrificing the economy to save millions of lives.

“WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF,” Trump tweeted at 11:50 PM Sunday night.

Now reports from several news organizations are giving that disturbing tweet even more disturbing context.

“President Trump and some of his senior officials are losing patience with the doctors’ orders,” Axios reports. “Senior Trump officials, including the president himself, have only limited patience for keeping the economy shut down. They are watching stocks tumble and unemployment skyrocket.”

\

Maybe if the response had been other than a bunch of tweets downplaying the seriousness of the pandemic, the economy wouldn't be in trouble.

and of course, this just illustrates once again the priorities of Trump and the sociopaths he has surrounding him -- money first, people last.

About Comments

I had thought no one was commenting on the posts here -- I had, at one time, disabled comments because I was getting to much spam, but I must have enabled them again. However, I didn't know anyone was commenting -- I don't get alerts, for some reason, and I almost never go back and look at previous posts.

So, feel free to leave a comment. I'll try to be better about keeping track.

Review: Wim Wenders: Once

Another Epinions orphan. Another review of this book appears at Green Man Review.

To be quite honest, I’m not familiar with Wim Wenders’ films. After leafing through Once, I have a feeling I’d like them. Characterized on the jacket flap as “autobiographical sketches,” they seem to me to be more on the order of Ned Rorem’s “high gossip” – familiar, diaristic, a little gossipy, dropping names like crazy – Kurosawa, Francis Ford Coppola, Harry Dean Stanton – the names one might expect. There are also encounters with the anonymous – a little girl in Russia, an unknown actor in Hollywood – that are illuminating of the richness found in the mundane.

Most of the sketches come with photographs, which are usually spare, lean, uninflected – the kind of casual, “dumb” imagery that comes out of Pop Art, the photography of Gary Winogrand, and deconstructionist semantics. I happen to find them quite wonderful, almost magical in many cases – in spite of (or maybe because of) their leanness, they are often tremendously evocative, and to me offer insight into Wenders’ aesthetic stance – some of the series are almost like film, a slow pan through a desolate landscape with surprising and sometimes surreal details. As Wenders says in his introduction,

A photograph is always a double image,
Showing, at first glance, its subject,
But at a second glance – more or less visible,
“hidden behind it,” so to speak,
the “reverse angle”:
the picture of the photographer
in action.

This is a good book to just wander through, touching ground here and there, backtracking, taking another look at a certain view, absorbing the stories (the prose is cast as verse, even though it’s not, really), and finding little treasures here and there (the “Mighty Mouse” sketch is delightful, even though regrettably lacking photographs). It’s a world-wide ramble, with stops in Australia, Russia, Germany, the US, India, Algiers, and some surprizing places as well – Butte, Montana, for example. There are reproductions of unfixed Polaroids that Wenders found in a drawer, which are some of the most haunting images in the book.

How much do I like this book? I bought it. I don’t usually buy art books, because they are an addiction that I finally broke (after learning the hard way that it’s very easy to run out of space and money), but this one is too rare and wonderful to pass up. Be warned, however – liking this book depends on a certain degree of openness and sophistication in both visual art and literature, and, to be quite honest, if you can’t stand photographers like Lewis Baltz or Robert Frank, you will have trouble with this book. On the other hand, if you are one of those who is constantly looking for ideas and images, places to jump off from and go wandering through your own imagination, I think you’ll like it just fine. I know it’s going to have some impact on my own work – I’m looking forward to it.

(Distributed Art Publishers (orig. Shirmer-Mosel, 1993), n.d.)

What's New at Green Man Review

Lots of good stuff this week, as usual:

A Folkmanis Mouse with Cheese, Wim Wenders’ Once, Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Stevenson’s ‘Solstice’, Hot Chocolate, A Parcel of Steeleye Span and Other Matters

Hop on over and forget the world for a while.

Thought For the Day

Given our present regime's yearning for autocracy, this is worth pondering:

⚡️ https://t.co/fXgEzPrrQf

— Paul Rieckhoff (@PaulRieckhoff) March 19, 2020

What's New at Green Man Review

It's that time again, and in spite of everything, here we are, with our usual mix of goodies, so hop on over and enjoy.

Culture Break: The Evolution of Dance, 1950-2019

With thanks to comments Max_1 at Joe.My.God.

This Week at Green Man Review

Once again, it's that time of the week when Green Man Review has reviews of all sorts of things:

A Book About Writing, a Film from the Rom, Chocolate and Peanut Butter, Music by Moby, Fables, a Short Story, and there’s always more. . .

Yes, there is more, and it's all right here.

Today's Must-Read: Where Do We Go From Here?

From Adam L. Silverman at Balloon Juice, this very cogent and right-on-target post about what our choices are in the upcoming election. It's almost impossible to pull a quote, so I'll just give you the beginning:

We ended up here because of a combination of four things. The first is that Senator Sanders has been running non-stop for president since 2016. He never really stopped running when that election ended. This has allowed him to build a large organization to support his candidacy, keep his name recognition high, and mobilize his supporters. The second is Vice President Biden’s name recognition and connection to President Obama. The third is the sad reality of our news media, especially our political news media and how they frame and shape and weight things in a campaign. The fourth and final reason this happened is that the 2020 presidential election is not about Medicare for All or any other specific policy or plan. It is solely a referendum on the President.

Read the whole thing. It's not all that long, but it's the best item I've seen on what the 2020 election actually means.

Culture Break: Shaka Ponk : Palabra mi amor

With thanks to commenter jaspersdad at Joe.My.God. I had never heard of them, but here's the Wikipedia entry, if you want to learn more.

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The Administration's Response to the Possibility of a Pandemic

Trump appointed Mike Pence to head up the administrations coronavirus response team. Yes, the same Mike Pence to did nothing to halt the worst outbreak of HIV in Indiana when he was governor.

Here's the team hard at work:

And do notice how representative it is of America -- well, the Republican part of America, at least.

Why do I think we're really in for it?

This Week at Green Man Review

Quite a mix this week:

Bacon and Tea Considered, John Fogerty Live, An SF Play and Other Interesting Things

And they really are interesting things. Check it out.

Antidote

Watch this. It's been all over the blogosphere, but this is the first time I've seen a video of this encounter. Nine-year-old Zachary Ro asked a question of Pete Buttigieg at a town hall in Colorado:

If you can't imagine the outrage from the usual suspects, read this. Keep in mind, though, that factual accuracy is not a requirement for right-wing commentators.

Today in Disgusting People: More Crap from a "Christian"

I wonder, quite often, if these people really are this deluded or if they're more cynical than even I can believe. This is from Stephen Strang, founder of Charisma Media, via Joe.My.God.:

Light versus darkness. Good versus evil. God’s plans and purposes versus the enemy’s deceitful agenda. That is the binary way Bible-believing Christians see the world.

And there's your first mistake -- the world is not black and white, either or: it's an infinite series of grays, a "yes, and" sort of place. I see this way of thinking as a major cause of the mess that Western civilization has become, even in science, where two possibilities that are not mutually exclusive are presented as an either/or proposition. For example, the Field Museum of Natural History, at the beginning of the "Ancient Americas" exhibition, has a video presenting the two prevailing theories of the peopling of the Americas -- did people come across the Bering land bridge during the Ice Age, or did the follow the coast in boats? The answer that make the most sense, of course, is "Yes": There's no reason in earth they couldn't have done both.

But I digress.

Needless to say, Strang, being a hard-right "Christian" supporter of Trump, goes on:

And I believe that behind the craziness manifested by so-called “Trump Derangement Syndrome” are principalities and powers.

The vengeance with which some people hate Trump can only be understood if seen in spiritual terms.

Horsepucky. It's perfectly understandable that people hate Trump for purely mundane reasons: he's a liar, a crook, a cheat, a sexual predator (at least in his fantasies), and even worse.

And have you wondered why these evangelical "Christians", who claim to follow a god who taught shelter the homeless, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, are fine with separating migrant children, some of whom are too young to walk, from their parents and putting them in cages? Or, one of the latest bits of nastiness, the regime wants to fund its "emergency response" in part by taking money from poor people:

House Democrats tell us they are outraged by one aspect of the White House response in particular: The White House appears to have informed Democrats that they want to fund the emergency response in part by taking money from a program that funds low-income home heating assistance.

A document that the Trump administration sent to Congress, which we have seen, indicates that the administration is transferring $37 million to emergency funding for the coronavirus response from the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, which funds heating for poor families.

yeah, take away subsidies for heat during winter. That will certainly help solve a health crisis. Which just demonstrates that Trump and those who work for him are not only nasty, but stupid.

Culture Break: Flash Mob, Beethoven's Ode to Joy

This one seems to be a favorite for flash mobs. An antidote, of sorts:

What's New at Green Man Review

More goodies -- books, music, film, the works:

A Collaboration between Steeleye Span and Terry Pratchett, Two of the Best-loved Fantasy Movies of the 1980s, Eight Classic SF Novels of the 1960s, Ritter Chocolates, Jazz Drumming, A Choice Zelazny, Live Nightnoise and Other Lively Matters

And it's all right here.

WTF? A Twofer

The "Christian" apologists are out in full force, and even more clueless than ever. First, Glenn Beck, from a diatribe against Pete Buttigieg:

You can’t pick and choose if you’re going to use the Bible.

As if every Christian throughout the history of the religion hasn't done just that.

And even more unhinged, Bill Donohue:

There is a reason the Diocese of Harrisburg filed for bankruptcy the day after the Boy Scouts of America did: both have been targeted by lawyers who have a profound hatred of institutions that promote traditional moral values. It is incontestable that no religious organization is known for doing this more than the Catholic Church, and no secular organization can rival the Boy Scouts on this score.

It would be interesting to learn a bit more about what Donohue considers "traditional moral values". I had never heard that they included raping boys put in your care.

Words fail me.

Culture Break: K. Sridhar: from Raga Keervani

We're used to hearing raga -- if we're used to hearing raga at all -- played on the sitar. Krishnamurti Sridhar does it on the sarod, which is a very different sound. I have an album of a concert he gave in Paris which, sadly, does not include this piece.

Today in Disgusting People (Updated)

You may have heard that the Boys Scouts of America has filed for bankruptcy. Perennial hate-monger Tony Perkins, of course, is ready to fix blame. Via Joe.My.God.:

It’s one of the saddest, most predictable “I-told-you-so” moments of our generation. The Boy Scouts, where future moon walkers and presidents learned the virtues and value of leadership, has finally collapsed. Turns out, the decade of compromise hasn’t been kind to the Scouts, who turned in their moral compass seven years ago to chase the approval of critics it could never win. Now, deep into the BSA’s self-imposed identity crisis, the group is filing for bankruptcy — an unhappy ending we all warned was coming.

For those who knew the Scouts through their proud and honorable days, the demise has been slow and painful. But this is what comes of throwing up your hands on a century of conviction: irrelevance and, ultimately, insolvency. For 103 of its 110 years, the Boy Scouts were a pillar of principle — not that it was easy.

As most of us know, the fight to live out your beliefs in this world can be an exhausting one. The Scouts spent years in court just for the freedom to stick to their moral code. They won — but to the organization’s dismay — the battle didn’t end. Waves of LGBT activists kept coming. The pressure built and built until finally, in 2013, under the leadership of Rex Tillerson, headquarters gave into the lie that compromise would be their salvation. Seven years later, the irony is: there’s nothing left to save.

As Joe points out:

. . . today’s bankruptcy filing comes in response to thousands of lawsuits filed over alleged sexual abuse that happened long before openly LGBT persons were allowed to participate. In almost all of the cases, the alleged abuse took place decades ago in Boy Scout chapters operated by Christian churches.

There's a lot more information on that in the comments, which are worth reading.

Update: Here's a report on what's actually happening, without the moral posturing.

This Week at Green Man Review

It's Sunday again, and another collection of reviews of the odd, the unusual, and the fascinating:

On Breakfast, Judy Collins Live, Cats, Tolkien in Person, Champagne, Music from Just About Everywhere, and much more

So dive on in and enjoy.

Image of the Week

The expression on that kid's face is priceless:

With thanks to commenter Fred Kepler at Joe.My.God.

What's New at Green Man Review

It's that time of the week again, and more goodies in store:

Horslips live, Bourbon, Definitive Earthsea, Traveling the Pacific, Robin Hood, and more

And if you're wondering what that's all about, hop over and see for yourself.

Read It and Weep

While you still can -- this is almost beyond belief -- or it would be with any other administration. From an interview with historian Matthew Connelley:

So, you write, “The Department of the Interior and the National Archives have decided to delete files on endangered species, offshore drilling inspections and the safety of drinking water.” You also talk about, specifically, when we’re talking about ICE, that last month they announced that ICE could go ahead and start destroying records from Trump’s first year, including the detainees’ complaints about civil rights violations and shoddy medical care. Is this different from previous administrations?

It gets worse. It gets much worse.

This is straight out of something -- maybe a Monty Python sketch:

MATTHEW CONNELLY: It is. I would say that under this administration things have gone much further, much faster. I think perhaps the best example of that is how Donald Trump tears up his own papers in tiny little pieces. Now, in this case, the National Archives tried to do the right thing. They sent staff to the White House to Scotch tape those papers back together again. I’m not even kidding. So, what happened to them —

AMY GOODMAN: Say that again.

MATTHEW CONNELLY: They went to the White House to Scotch tape those pieces of paper back together again. These are our federal employees having to fish out of the trash pieces of paper that Donald Trump had left there rather than leaving a record for the rest of us. And so, they Scotch taped those records back together. So, what happened to those people? They were fired. They were terminated.

This is your government, ladies and gentlemen -- covering its tracks.

Thanks to commenter coram nobis at Joe.My.God.

Now What?

OK -- the Senate had it's "trial" -- and frankly, Stalin couldn't have staged a better show -- acquitted Trump (no surprize there -- Moscow Mitch told us right up front that was going to happen), all this just after Trump gave his State of the Union address, as usual chock full of lies. Nancy Pelosi ripped up her copy at the end.



Cue the right-wing outrage -- "How disrespectful!". Trae Crowder -- a/k/a the Liberal Redneck -- has some thoughts on that:

Of course, it's all Democrats, out to destroy America. (Just a reminder: it's called "projection".) Franklin Graham is just one example:

What we saw from President Donald J. Trump’s opposition last night during the State of the Union address felt like a very personal resentment and hatred for the successes of America that had just been spoken of. How could leaders in Congress be so indignant about good news for the people of this country?

It gets better:

BREAKING: I'm filing an ethics complaint against @SpeakerPelosi for destroying @realDonaldTrump's State of the Union speech.

Her conduct was beneath the dignity of the House, and a potential violation of law (18 USC 2071).

Nobody is above the law. She must be held accountable. pic.twitter.com/dXPPWQNtI8

— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) February 6, 2020

You may remember that Gaetz is not only rabidly pro-Trump, he's not very intelligent.

There. That's my summation of the news for the past few days.

Antidote

This kitten was caught in a house fire, and rescued by one of the firefighters:

Ending today with this. Good night. 💚pic.twitter.com/IGJZIhUFim

— Ricky Davila (@TheRickyDavila) February 6, 2020

There are good people in the world.

With thanks to commenter jixter at Joe.My.God,

This Week at Green Man Review

Unlike that Scottish Estate, there's actual sunshine here -- weak, tentative, but there, for the first time in days. But, back to that Estate:

J

ohnny Clegg’s Final Album, More Fables Considered, Live Steeleye Span, Some Things Whovian, An Unusually Flavoured KitKat and Other Matters

And it's all there waiting for you.

And Happy Groundhog Day.