Grandpa, who was about ninety-seven and a half on the record books, had never gone what he called “an overnight piece” from his birthplace in the Appalachian Valley, never, not even once. So, after church one Sunday, he waited to talk to the mountain preacher, and he got the Reverend to one side, and, stroking his beard thoughtfully, he said, “Parson, I don’t reckon I’ll ever get to do no traveling till I’m a spirit. But,” he said, “I’ve allus had a hankering to see a big town, and I wish you’d just mention casually to the Lord that, while I’m on my way to heaven, I’d like it powerful well if I could make a little detour down around Knoxville.”
Tuesday, June 10, 2025
I don’t reckon I’ll ever get to do no traveling till I’m a spirit.
From A treasury of American anecdotes; sly, salty, shaggy stories of heroes and hellions, beguilers and buffoons, spellbinders and scapegoats, gagsters and gossips, from the grassroots and sidewalks of America by Benjamin Albert Botkin.
History
Who's excited for this year's Met Gala? Here's our favourite meme from galas past pic.twitter.com/A3jqCQY2B2
— Classical Studies Memes (@CSMFHT) May 2, 2025
I see wonderful things
The flexibility of 15th century gothic armor developed in Europe pic.twitter.com/0IZAGmv7ms
— Historic Vids (@historyinmemes) May 3, 2025
Offbeat Humor
Who's excited for this year's Met Gala? Here's our favourite meme from galas past pic.twitter.com/A3jqCQY2B2
— Classical Studies Memes (@CSMFHT) May 2, 2025
Data Talks
Isn’t it cute that left populists always scream for „the rich“ to pay more taxes? Folks, top 1% income earners in the US already pay almost as much income taxes as the other 99%.
— Michael A. Arouet (@MichaelAArouet) May 3, 2025
As socialists are not able to create anything, they always resort to stealing other people’s money. pic.twitter.com/ZRRw9k7SxB
We have to speak in a more genuine and respectful way so the morons will understand us.
From The Antidote to Democrats’ Worst Impulses Is Right There, Inviting Them to Like and Subscribe by Michael Hirschorn.
A grating example of a person making an argument that subverts itself.
The general context is How do Democrats reconnect with men? The specific vehicle is How to Democrats connect with male podcasters?
Hirschorn argues that:
But if the bro-casters lack a coherent policy agenda, what they do have is a well of knowledge, honed from years of touring the country from one chuckle hut to another, about how to talk to people without talking down to them. And in a world where authority of all kinds (medical, professorial, journalistic, political) is in decline, where information from top-down media is losing ground to an infinitude of bottom-up sources, this precise kind of realness matters. Authenticity, it seems, is what fills the void when authority dies.Democrats long since forgot how to communicate that way. They operate on the assumption that ideas and governance are the primary things that move people. That’s why we get endless debates about what Democrats should stand for that are of interest to insiders and hugely off-putting to everyone else. The problem isn’t getting the ideology right; it’s using words like “ideology” to begin with. Democrats are very much not out there going: This is my truth.
In other words
Podcasters are politically agnostic.Podcasters have learned to talk to people in a genuine and respectful way.Authoritarian messaging is in decline (medical, professorial, journalistic, political).Information distribution is now free and atomized.Democrats don't know how to communicate in a genuine and respectful way.The problem isn’t getting the ideology right. The problem is the way the ideology is being messaged.
The last point is essentially where the Democrats were with their loss in 2016. They spent a few months in stunned disbelief and then came to the conclusion that there was nothing wrong with their leadership, ideology or policies and that they had simply not communicated Hillary's message well enough.
And it is where they appear to be stuck after their 2024 defeat. "We didn't get our message over to the public. We need to fix our messaging."
"We need to fix our messaging" is a tired and lazy interpretation of recent complex events. It has the convenience that the solution is better messaging. BUT . . . there is the unavoidable sotto voce implication: the public isn't that bright. We need to quit using big words and abstract ideas.
Hirschorn seems to want to freshen the lazy argument up by putting it in exciting podcaster framing. But it is still a lazy and insulting argument.
Back to the implied argument in the two paragraphs. All the predicate assumptions are reasonably true. And unconnected at all with his conclusion.
Podcasters are politically agnostic. Reasonably true.Podcasters have learned to talk to people in a genuine and respectful way. Reasonably true though they can be brutal on lazy thinking, posers or frauds.Authoritarian messaging is in decline (medical, professorial, journalistic, political). True.Information distribution is now free and atomized. Reasonably true.Democrats don't know how to communicate in a genuine and respectful way. True.The problem isn’t getting the ideology right. The problem is the way the ideology is being messaged. Conclusion unsupported by the predicates.
The five predicates are all true and provide context for whatever conclusion he might draw but don't actually have any causal relationship with the conclusion he does draw. He offers no reason to believe that the Democrat's problem isn't their ideology. Which is the default conclusion from an election - the electorate chooses one party (and their candidates and ideology and policies) over another.
Hirschorn is writing a lot of words that mask the simple argument - We have the right ideology and policies and people will choose our ideology and policies if we explain them better.
I think he is wrong. Democrat's loss was multicausal and ideology and policies were among those critical causes.
But what struck me was how Hirschorn subverted his own argument. Essentially, he is arguing that Democrats need to learn how to communicate in a genuine and respectful way. Hard to argue that that wouldn't be beneficial to any politician of any party or faction.
But you don't have to be overly sensitive to read a subtext of disdain throughout his editorial.
The first being the hard to avoid implication that the electorate was at fault for not better understanding what was being said because big and sophisticated words were being used.
The problem isn’t getting the ideology right; it’s using words like “ideology” to begin with.
Really? "We have to improve messaging so the morons will understand us" is the argument? The only thing worse than that is "We have to speak in a more genuine and respectful way so the morons will understand us."
Maybe I am just cantankerous first thing in the morning, but the whole essay seems rife with the very disdain and disregard that Hirschorn is arguing they ought to forswear. Among the jibes:
Joe Rogan is a racist and transphobe ("his statements about transgender people and race so horrified liberals")The dismissive "bro-casters" instead of podcasters.His observation that podcasters are ignorant. "Mr. Schulz and Mr. Von recently shared their amazement at discovering that 27 million Soviets died during World War II"His observation that podcasters are stupid. ("The ideas they articulate can seem 10,000-monkeys-level random, ranging from half-baked libertarianism to late-stage lib-owning to just-asking-questions ramblings.")Hirschorn can't help being dismissive, as in“The word ‘retarded’ is back,” Mr. Rogan recently announced, ridiculously, “and it’s one of the great culture victories.”(emphasis added). Is it ridiculous to claim that words are being reclaimed from the prohibition list? I suspect not."The bro-caster ecosystem is a safe space for men to such a comical degree that it seems less menacing than juvenile."Bro-casters are misogynist ("By my rough count, fewer than two dozen of Mr. Von’s last 467 shows, spanning almost a decade, featured women")Hirschorn is surprised that bro-casters aren't necessarily "brutish or insensitive."
Hirschorn has a valid conclusion:
So maybe instead of disdaining these guys and looking for liberal alternatives, Democrats should be taking a deeper lesson from bro-caster success: Get past litmus-test politics and focus-tested messaging. Relearn how to talk like nonpoliticians. Then get over yourselves, go on these shows and mix it up in this brave new world of anything goes.
It's just that the editorial he writes to reach that conclusion is written in the old-fashioned way with censoriousness and disdain.
Sunday, Women Drying Their Hair, 1912 by John French Sloan
Sunday, Women Drying Their Hair, 1912 by John French Sloan (America1871–1951)
Click to enlarge.
Monday, June 9, 2025
Do you think that Jesus Christ was a Southerner?
From A treasury of American anecdotes; sly, salty, shaggy stories of heroes and hellions, beguilers and buffoons, spellbinders and scapegoats, gagsters and gossips, from the grassroots and sidewalks of America by Benjamin Albert Botkin.
An aged woman, bom and nurtured in the South, . . . was endeavoring to impress upon her nephews and nieces the beauties of the South and its people, when one of the young men spoke up. Auntie, he asked, do you think that all the virtues originated in and have been preserved by the Southern people?” “No, not all, but most of them,” she replied. “Do you think that Jesus Christ was a Southerner?” The old lady hesitated a moment and said, “He was good enough to be a Southerner.”
History
The Ottoman port of Caffa in Crimea was a major center of the Crimean slave trade.
— Aristocratic Fury (@LandsknechtPike) May 2, 2025
In his work On the Customs of Tatars, Lithuanians and Muscovites, 16th century writer Michalo Lituanus writes about this port as "not a city, but an abyss into which our blood is pouring." pic.twitter.com/PbRoye9Eil
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