5409

This is the sort of thing to keep you up at night:

I’ve been kind of hopeful that Trump ends up being such a walking disaster that in future years everything associated with him would end up politically toxic. That is, maybe he is a disaster, but somehow wakes people up and inoculates the body politic against this strain, preventing the still greater disaster that a much more competent version of Trump could be.

But that won’t work, if, as Coates argues, we can’t really accept what gives him so much power.

5410

Context

5411

This may sound crazy but I have actually done exactly what those guys in the picture are doing, played golf while a mountain in the background burned, and ash fell on the golf course. It was probably 20 years ago at a course in the gold country of California. Because of the winds we were never evacuated and were allowed to play golf.

There is a definite photoshopped look to that picture though.

5412

To be fair, with the prices a lot of courses charge these days, I’d keep playing too, at least until the flag on the hole started to burn…

Also, according to the article the fires were 1.5 miles away across the river, so not much chance the fires would reach the course. Makes for an awesome Facebook post though!

5413

Not photoshopped!!

5414

I guess the picture being taken late in the day accounts for the “weird” shading and coloring in the picture. So the river (you can’t see it) is probably the Columbia? That would be a safe border I think.

5415

Fire danger aside, I can’t imagine it feels good on the lungs. (At least they were just playing golf instead of a real sport hurr hurr).

Then again, with the fire that close, probably the air quality isn’t going to vary that much if they went home, so why not?

5416

Man that’s for damn sure. The last couple of weeks between fires in BC and in the Cascades, the air quality around Seattle has just been awful, my sinuses are taking a beating and my throat’s been sore the last couple days. I never thought about stuff like that before but it’s tough just being downwind of all that.

5417

I am currently the only one in my household who isn’t suffering from some sort of cold, throat or breathing thing that is probably fire smoke related. The one good thing about the heat wave we have had is that we pretty much are running the A/C 24/7 and so haven’t been tempted to use the whole house fan, which would bring the smoke into the house.

5418

I wish he’d stayed.

5420

Or smoke. Lighting is going to be off when the whole sky is effectively obscured by it.

5421

Yes, this is what is so troubling about the MSM treatment of trump. Just four weeks ago he’s sympathizing with nazis; he then makes an almost inconsequential “deal” with Democrats (which by they way can’t happen w/o Ryan and McConnell letting it get to the floor) and suddenly trump is an independent president upending 150 years of two party politics. It’s disgusting.

And by the way, Greg Sargent has a really good opinion piece on Coates’ essay today in WaPo:

5422

I’m pretty sure the response to that opinion will be the sarcastic #notallwhitepeople

To put it a bit less succinctly; the essential arguments Coates raises and people like Coates have been raising, they insist, can’t be hand waved away by saying “not me!”. That the infuriating power of these “identity politics” assertions; that your identity indemnifies or inculpates you in a way that implies participation in the structures of oppression whether or not you directly participate in them, benefit from them, or are aware of them.

So even as he’s saying Coates is completely right, what he doesn’t understand is that (from that point of view) he’s still also part of the problem.

5423


5424

A policy manifesto from an influential conservative group with ties to the Trump administration, including Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, urges the dismantling of the Education Department and bringing God into American classrooms.

The five-page document produced by the Council for National Policy calls for a “restoration of education in America” that would minimize the federal role, promote religious schools and home schooling and enshrine “historic Judeo-Christian principles” as a basis for instruction.

5425

What about the Greco-Roman principles that have been the basis of liberal arts education for millennia?

5426

Definitely had a big impact on rasslin’ or so I hear.

5427

I think this belongs here.

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/09/new-hampshire-police-refuse-to-discuss-apparent-lynching-of-8-year-old-biracial-boy/

5428

Holy shit, talk about emboldened racism. Poor kid.

And I just finished reading that essay by Coates. Fucking brilliant. Our shitty racist history and its legacy will be our undoing if people don’t wake up.

5429

This is an old post and I don’t mean to bring back an old argument, but I was under the impression that when lobbyists and businessmen paid for access in the US system it was always to the politician’s campaign funds or PAC/SuperPAC? There’s actual known cases where people put money directly (or laundered) into the politician’s bank accounts for access and people don’t care?