Eric

    In the spring of 1953, we suddenly shifted from being occupiers to allies. In Bonn the US Representative was no longer High Commissioner, just an Ambassador.

    And we were no longer required to wear our uniforms off duty but rather encouraged not to.

    The personal consequence was that my contact with Eric rather than being mildly disapproved by the battery commander became a non-issue. That contact mostly consisted of Saturday nights drinking white wine at the main local bar, the University Club, or rather the German of that. University was something like Universitatis, and I haven't a clue what the word for Club was.

    Interview with the Umpire

    Having put off reading Michael Wolraich's "Unreasonable Men" on the Roosevelt/La Follette saga for almost 3 years, the following exchange sprung from my wish to snapshot my reactions before I forgot, as well as take advantage of having the author in our midst. Being historical but somewhat akin to our times, the book provides the opportunity to look at a more crystallized version of today's issues, institutions and personalities. Rather than trying to keep the cross-hairs on a confusing, ever-moving target, we can evaluate these events more leisurely, with the luxury of hindsight and room to contemplate, without getting mired down in too much "he said, she said", thus avoiding the trap of “having a dog in that fight”. Sometimes our emotional attachment to events seems to be our biggest hindrance to grasping them.

    This "Entrevista" took place over email on Michael's return from Mexico ("don't destroy Dagblog while I'm gone!") largely as a single block of questions focused on the book's events and a couple followups. Many thanks to Michael for playing along and giving us a chance to play hookie from the exhausting current political chaos. A followup installment is expected to dig more into contemporary parallels.

    For readability, my questions and comments are in bold or brackets, Michael's in normal type.

     – Peracles Please

    Richard Day's picture

    THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES

    Hca33.jpg

    The Emperor's New Clothes is a famous fable from afar.
    Or created in another age OF REASON?
    The fable posits that there are these two con artists who invade the empire and somehow become part of the King's Entourage.
    And somehow, these cons talk the king into believing that they are tailors who might produce the perfect line of clothes and that this king would prove himself to be at the forefront of this new line.
    So these con artists feign to present to the leader this new line of clothing that involves invisible thread.
    And they enthrall this great leader with their invisible threads.
    And this King ends up parading naked in front of his throng of adorers.
    In front of his dominion.
    So this six or seven year old speaks up:
    THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES!
    And the crowd goes nuts, so to speak.
    And the crowd laughs in unison.
    And the King is embarrassed.
    hahahahhahahahah

    Danny Cardwell's picture

    Who's Really Woke?

    I wanted to share a piece I wrote about a troubling rift inside the black community.

    http://thyblackman.com/2017/04/21/whos-really-woke/

    Unrisible Irrascible Men

    Michael Wolraich's Unreasonable Men is an engaging exercise in political map making, following the fashions of the times with the entrenched interests of every year. The period in this case is the turn to the 20th century up to pre-WWI America, when her social development lagged significantly behind her economic success, but I found myself wishing for similar vignettes in other ages and historical climes. It's not the most weighty of tomes - finished in 1 day - but I'm not alone in not having time for say Carl Sandburg's 6-volume set on Lincoln - Unreasonable Men is more in the spirit of Hamilton, the Musical - a theater piece you can enjoy and put down, though revert to and contemplate with pleasure.

    Maleing it in: Masculine Mystique & the Savior Complex

    Elaine Chao, Washington veteran, noted at Politico's recent "Women Rule" that, 'Men don’t prepare that much, so why do we have to?' and continues "“I prepare so much more than some of my male colleagues,” Chao tells POLITICO editor Carrie Budoff Brown in the latest “Women Rule” podcast interview. “And I know women who are prepared more and we get ridiculed and it's like, ‘Oh, my gosh. She's just preparing so much. She's such an automaton. Can't she just like, wing it?’”"

    The reason, of course, is our millennia-old mythos of men being born for glory and greatness, ready to roll, walk-ons for greater things. We call this "The Natural", like that Robert Redford movie.

    You might think of it as Magic Johnson vs. Larry Byrd - roughly comparable skill & success, but in popular lore largely "the guy with the screaming God-given talent vs the Hoosier who always had to work so hard". 

    A Path to the Maryland Governor's Mansion for Ben Jealous

    Former NAACP President Ben Jealous has indicated that he will compete for Maryland's Democratic gubernatorial nomination and the right to square off against Larry Hogan in next year's general election. Mr. Jealous faces a daunting task. In order to take on the "deeply popular" Republican, he'll have to beat a slate of other Democrats while likely facing staunch opposition from Maryland's Democratic Party. 

    Read the rest of my op-ed here. http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-governor-jealous-201...

    Chicago Cops Live Up to Their Reputation

    Bad enough that United decided to bump four seated passengers on a short hop for Chicago to Kentucky. Bad enough it was not for other passengers but for 4 United employees who United at the last minute wanted to get to Louisville fast. Even worse followed when only 3 passengers accepted offers to leave the flight.

    No, what was the worst thing about it was that a Chicago cop treated a 69 year old Asian American physician like.....well like Chicago cops treat people in Chicago every day. The Obama DOJ summed the Chicago Police Department business as usual in a report from Jan. 13, 2017:

    Danny Cardwell's picture

    #GolfLiesMatter

    “I’m going to be working for you, I’m not going to have time to go play golf.”

    Donald J. Trump

    Topics: 

    Charting Progress: Workers' Pair of Dice

    In discussing Kaep & whether he's being blackballed, I came across some graphs at Business Insider showing the typical NFL player's increase in salary - and the steadily decreasing chance he'll make it there:

     

    And then I thought of the implications for workers in general - what's our expected salary and performance trajectory, how many times will we be "traded", or have bad seasons or not make the cut in spring training and be pushed down to the minors?

    Where would *you* chart? Because we have the technology, the analytics to chart *everyone*, whatever industry. Like in sports, we have a window of productivity, peak performance, and then we often fall off or find a different groove and work from there.

    Projection Some: Russia's Sea Change

    In 2014, with Russia's shipyard lease in Crimea to expire in 2017 and the deal to extend it another 30 years on the rocks with Yanukovich's ouster, Putin brazenly occupied the peninsula militarily, invoking historical precedents and the image of "Greater Russia". But despite Donbas Ukrainians dreams of uniting with Russia, Putin's heart didn't seem to be into the conflict so much as reinvigorating Crimea, and the only significant action since was a brief push towards Mariupol in the presumed attempt to give Russia an easy land route to Crimea. But aside from laughable attempts to get Russian tourists to keep Crimea afloat economically with horrendous lines at the ferry, the Russians started rebuilding their Sevastopol fleet, where most of their global naval power is housed, within weeks of occupation (scroll down for better pics of the whole fleet).

    But perhaps Putin had a change of heart or wisdom about maintaining the bridge or land route to Crimea, as Russia's new $1.4 billion base is meant to open in 2020, not in Sevastopol, but in Novorossiysk heading down the Black Sea's east coast towards Sochi - firmly in undisputed Russia.

    This Black Sea investment might not have seemed the greatest idea what with Russia's relationship with Turkey on the rocks, but suddenly amidst significant surprise, Russia's Turkish relations vastly improved (with Turkey & Russia now arrying out naval maneuvers together in lieu of the short-term gas embargo). Erdogan also took advantage of the "beginning of a beautiful relationship" to crack down on Islamic dissenters at home and take off the gloves as to Kurdish rebels in Syria. [Some think Erdogan is just playing East off West, but it's hard to see what he wants from the West at this point, aside from a foil and scapegoat]. Putin's obvious benefit? Anything in the Black Sea comes out the Bhosporus Straits, i.e. through good ol' ancient Byzantium, aka Istanbul.

    Hannah Drake's picture

    Dear Colin Kaepernick: All You Had To Do Was Play The Game, Boy.

    All you had to do was throw the ball, boy. We concealed this auction block well, didn’t we, boy? You didn’t know you were on sale, boy? Didn’t we tell you to just run, boy? Entertain us, boy. Win championships for us, boy. Stay in your place, boy. Don’t you dare get these other slaves, Black men riled up, boy. Didn’t we pay you enough, boy? Why can’t you just be satisfied, boy? Stand up and salute this flag, boy. Honor your allegiance to the system, boy. Didn’t we give you enough money to entice you, boy? How dare you reject your master, boy. Didn’t you like your name in lights, boy? Didn’t we stroke your ego, boy? All you needed to do was play the game, boy. Keep dancing for us on Monday Night, boy. Make us rich, boy. We don’t care if you get hurt, boy. Our job is to break bucks like you, boy. Didn’t you know boys like you come a dime a dozen, boy? We can replace you with no thought, boy. Make sure our new boy is a controlled boy. Thought you knew we don’t trust Negroes to be the quarterback anyway, boy. We did you a favor, boy. How dare you turn your back on us, boy. If you are kneeling, it will be before us, boy. Ain’t this game your God, boy? Don’t you see how everyone else bows down before us, boy? Don’t you know what we do to Negroes like you, boy? Back in the day, we let Negroes like you sway from the trees, boy. Make an example outta you, so other Negroes will stay in their place, boy. Don’t you smell that strange fruit in the air, boy? All you had to do was just shut up, boy. We don’t have to kill you, boy. All we have to do is silence you, boy.

    KEEP CALM & CARRY ON, ISIS EDITION (PT 4)

    When I began this as diary as a "series", I pointed to Mosul as a metaphor for Nov 8, 2016, and true to form, the chaos of the ensuing weeks have thrown me off - but constructively so.

    Sadly and ironically, the progress on the "battlefield", Mosul's ancient tightly wound streets booby-trapped for maximum obstruction, has been replaced by the PR & propaganda battle over what really happened March 17, though largely this battle has been lost already - whatever the allies do now, they will be mostly remembered for civilian casualties, despite all the extraordinary painstaking effort they've taken to avoid them.

    And that should give Democrats great pause as well - the seeming victories over Trump & the Republicans the last few weeks can be ephemeral and imagined, with a PR loss pulled from the clutches of victory. As one person noted, giving Flynn immunity to testify can be a huge trap, and that's just 1 possible trip-up point. But I'm more interested in the idea of "cooperation" vs. "collusion" in how we go forward.

    armchair guerrilla's picture

    Breaking: White man from Vermont dismisses claims of racism, sexism, homophobia, slams Democrats.

    This statement encapsulates my problems with Bernie.

    "Some people think that the people who voted for Trump are racists and sexists and homophobes and deplorable folks. I don't agree, because I've been there. Let me tell you something else some of you might not agree with, it wasn't that Donald Trump won the election, it was that the Democratic Party lost the election," Sanders said.

    Where to begin? First, it's a straw man. Nobody is saying everyone who voted for Trump is a racist, sexist, homophobe. More important, this minimizes the undeniable fact that Trump's "win" was premised on explicit appeals to white nationalism and overwhelming support from white men. Needless to say, tens of millions of women, people of color, immigrants and LGBTQ, the ones whose rights are threatened, feel differently, despite the self-serving statements of the octogenarian socialist from Vermont.

    Shovelready's picture

    Can you dig it, Suckas?

    Hey guys, new here, but I just want to tell you all that I really “dig” this blog.  Get it?  I’ve been looking for years for a place like Digblog, where smart people gather to discuss hoes.  Backhoes, that is!

    librewolf's picture

    URGENT! Protect Your Online Information and Privacy.

    THIEF
    Courtesy Crocktock

    On March 29, 2017, Congress repealed the broadband privacy rules that blocked providers from collecting and selling your information (name, accounts, browsing history, financial transaction, pictures, everything you touch and surf to on your computer, tablets, and in some cases phones). Clearly there are few of us who approve of this move, and it is purely in the interests of broadband providers. However, there are ways for you to fight back. Some of the information below was garnered from an excellent article by PC World - Three Privacy Tools that Block Your Internet Provider From Tracking You.

    Too Big to Fail: Why Government as a Business Doesn't Work

    Much is being written about Jared Kushner leading another task force to make government run like a business, with the usual caveats about how it's likely to fail. Included are all the usual right and wrong reasons about government not being a business. But the lack of failure is the biggest point.

    American business is successful precisely because so many businesses fail, and are replaced by new trendy companies with just as much chance of failing. Amazon, one of our great recent "success" stories, didn't make a profit for years, and now 20 years later only pulls in profits of maybe 1% of revenues. Uber's much worse, with a 2016 loss of perhaps $3 billion. It's hard to imagine US voters putting up with such poor results. And those are the *good* examples.

    Doctor Cleveland's picture

    Brexit vs Breakfast: Food and Free Trade

    The United Kingdom officially triggered Article 50 today, meaning the two-year march to Brexit has begun. The UK is leaving the European Union, and leaving without any concessions, any deals, any accommodations. It's the "hard Brexit." There are many reasons this is a bad idea, but let's keep it simple: the United Kingdom cannot feed itself.

    The Melania Trump in hiding mystery solved?

    I am watching her speak Live on CNN right now, on a serious topic. As it says at the bottom of the screen "Melania Trump Makes Rare Appearance at State Dept./First lady presenting International Women of Courage Awards".

    Though she is clearly using a prepared script, she is stumbling on some words and her accent has never sounded so heavy. Yet there is a sincerity to her delivery that it comes across that this is one issue she cares about.

    Danny Cardwell's picture

    Stop Taking The Bait

    Bill O'Reilly's sophomoric attempt to shade Maxine Waters wasn’t funny: you don't go after our Auntie no matter what! He thought he was being clever with his James Brown joke, but ended up stepping in a pile of his own oral feces. He tried to diminish the points she was making about the Trump administration and got away with it. We should call out his ignorance, but we can't allow it to overshadow the statements that put it on display. a lot of the outrage I’ve seen on social media has been just as distracting as his failed attempt at humor.

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