July 24, 2017

Beastly graphics.

The Daily Beast is going for a distinctive graphic style. Here's how the top of the front page looks right now:



Red and yellow predominate, but notice the streaks of magenta in the red background and the intense blue of Melania's shoulder (and also dotted around around her jacket).

Like the colors, gender is heightened and highly contrasted. 2 of the 4 rectangles are feminine, 2 are masculine. The males are: 1. In shadows, 2. Brutally violent, 3. Not individuals. The females are: 1. Specific individuals, 2. Distinguished from each other through color and style, 3. Distinguished morally: One is depicted as a saint, the other as complicated, mysterious, and dangerous.

Here's "Inside the Cult of Melania Trump/Does the first lady of the United States have something she’s afraid to confront in the little city where she grew up?" It's really just an article about Melania's home town:
Today, [Melania's] family has a modern two-floor white house in the center of the modern part of Sevnica. It has a built-in garage, a mansard floor, a balcony, and a small satellite dish on the roof. While not grandiose, it is still far from the modest apartment where Melania and her sister Ines grew up.
What's a mansard floor? That's a mistake, no?
The house is not far from a statue of an enormous boot, a monument installed at the entrance to the city in honor of local Kopitarna shoe factory. (Last year Kopitarna sent Ms. Trump “White House” slippers as a present.)...
That's comically dull. Meanwhile, we hear of Bojan Pozar, who's writing (or has written) a book about Melania and who "interviewed several local men who claimed that they had once been Melania’s boyfriends" and said she was "cold" — which either means Melania was (and maybe is) cold or that these guys never really attained the elevated status that we in the United States call "boyfriend."

Also in the article, the way some Slovenians would like to hear Melania speak Slovenian and would like her to wear Slovenian clothes. So... basically, this is a completely inconsequential puff piece about Melania, and it contains absolutely nothing that's religion-like or cultish about anybody's interest in her. Nor is there anything to justify the subtitle, nothing about Melania's fear of anything back home.

But it's a fascinating graphic. It made me think of another article about an American First Lady, one that really did work on the idea religion — "Saint Hillary," a cover story by Michael Kelly in the NYT Magazine in 1993 (previously blogged here). Sample text:
Driven by the increasingly common view that something is terribly awry with modern life, Mrs. Clinton is searching for not merely programmatic answers but for The Answer. Something in the Meaning of It All line, something that would inform everything from her imminent and all-encompassing health care proposal to ways in which the state might encourage parents not to let their children wander all hours of the night in shopping malls.

When it is suggested that she sounds as though she's trying to come up with a sort of unified-field theory of life, she says, excitedly, "That's right, that's exactly right!"
The 1993 cover image of Hillary makes a nice contrast to the graphics that sear the Daily Beast today. The color idea here was white white white:

111 comments:

Ron Winkleheimer said...

When it is suggested that she sounds as though she's trying to come up with a sort of unified-field theory of life, she says, excitedly, "That's right, that's exactly right!"

That quote alone would disqualify anyone from being POTUS in a sane world.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

Also, politics aren't about morality. People who are engaged in politics can and occasionally do have morals which can inform their political choices. But politics is a messy business that is about people living together with a minimum amount of violence while coming up with a plan to allocate resources and order society.

David Begley said...

Hillary's virtue was accepting cash for future favors. Graft. Quid pro quo.

Darrell said...

Much different than their Cult of Michelle the Mooch.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

I must admit, that is an excellent picture of Hillary.

Otto said...

FFLOTUS.First F= foxy. No contest, the sexiest first lady ever.

Quayle said...

"Mrs. Clinton is searching for not merely programmatic answers but for The Answer."

How about: Don't lie

To yourself or to others.


[It is fascinating to note that the historical figure Jesus spoke things that have moved people for centuries and still do, but these modern politicans are furioiusly looking for that one special new thing that will help them move Macomb county in Michigan and the like.]

traditionalguy said...

FLOTUS is shown Medussa like with snake like hair and snake head like flower heads. But her smile is still there. She married well.

Actually A cold beauty harmonizes well with the fiery President.

Henry said...

I think they are using the term "mansard floor" to refer to the "top floor" whose shape is determined by the mansard roof.

Peter said...

"Hillary's virtue was accepting cash for future favors."

"Staying bought" is a virtue in a politician, is it not? Delivering measurable value (when possible)?

Reading media has become as baroque as reading Pravda used to be: look at these photos, text and graphics, and attempt to devine, what's to be the next Party line?

Laslo Spatula said...

"Reading media has become as baroque as reading Pravda used to be: look at these photos, text and graphics, and attempt to devine, what's to be the next Party line?"

As I have said before: Maybe ending up like the Soviet Union is the best a people can hope for.

I am Laslo.

Mr. D said...

I miss Michael Kelly.

Henry said...

"Mrs. Clinton is searching for not merely programmatic answers but for The Answer."

The word "programmatic" seems unfortunate in retrospect.

Server security is so programmatic.

The irony here is that all Mrs. Clinton could come up with, every time she had power, was wholly programmatic. Given the banality of her ideas, Mrs. Clinton eventually came to the conclusion that she, like Allen Iverson, was "The Answer".

Darrell said...

I would tell people back home to sell reporters fishing for a story into Muslim slavery. That is one of the reasons why I will never be First Lady.

rehajm said...

Yah, what Henry said. Mansard floor refers to the level of the home and it's unique character as determined by the roof of the same name.

Big Mike said...

@Otto, I think Jackie Kennedy was more attractive, and you should have seen the cleavage on Dolley Madison.

Martha said...

Somehow I am unable to connect the "politics of virtue" with Hillary—or Bill for that matter.

Trump saved us from Hillary's unified-field theory of life,

Henry said...

Regarding the Beast, funny how Drudge still does it better.

rehajm said...

It's almost comical now to consider how much value the Clinton's placed on virtue and 'family values' in their political strategy. At the time it seemed like Bill could have said 'Hell ya, I boinked her!' without serious consequence.

TrespassersW said...

42.

Someone should have asked Hillary what the question is.

Bob Ellison said...

Do people really say "mansard floor" to refer to the top floor under a mansard roof? It's clumsy. Requires the reader to know what "mansard" means (as an Arizona boy, I had no idea before age 25 or so) and how the lack of an attic might affect the ceiling shape. Sounds elitist.

rehajm said...

Her imminent health care proposal. Heh.

Fabi said...

Mansard roofs are elite, not elitist.

Ann Althouse said...

Thanks for the answer on "mansard floor." I guess with a non-mansard roof, you get an attic — which you might choose to finish — with a ceiling that slopes from the center, but if the roof is a mansard-type, there's a flat part to your ceiling in the center of the finished attic and the sloping begins farther out toward the sides.

Ann Althouse said...

I think a better name for this kind of finished upper floor is "garret."

Bob Ellison said...

I used to have an office on the adobe floor. The floor was not adobe! The ceiling was. Just for you rubes who don't know southwestern roof design.

Today, my office is on the shingle floor. Those shingles hurt like hell.

Ann Althouse said...

I think the main reason people get so upset about Trump's lying is that they never faced up to the way other politicians were lying. They were lying like politicians, and Trump is lying in a new way. It should be embarrassing to display yourself as so naive.

Ann Althouse said...

Too naive to be embarrassed by naivety.

MayBee said...

Melania's cult sounds pretty boring. They just don't make good cults anymore.

MayBee said...

Ann Althouse said...
I think the main reason people get so upset about Trump's lying is that they never faced up to the way other politicians were lying. They were lying like politicians, and Trump is lying in a new way. It should be embarrassing to display yourself as so naive.


YES!

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Hillary's daughter used Clinton Foundation money for a big lavish expensive wedding.

Code, cracked!

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

There's a Mansard roof on the haunted house at Disney Land.

OMG!

Jersey Fled said...

Come on now. Alan Iverson was a much better basketball player than Hillary was ever at anything.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

Do some people really think that Hillary Clinton is the model of probity? If so, how could that be? The Travelgate story alone showed her to be both petty and avaricious.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

claimed that they had once been Melania’s boyfriends" and said she was "cold" — which either means Melania was (and maybe is) cold or that these guys never really attained the elevated status that we in the United States call "boyfriend."

Probably means she wouldn't "put out", didn't have round heels. Sour grapes guys. Get over it.

YoungHegelian said...

"interviewed several local men who claimed that they had once been Melania’s boyfriends" and said she was "cold"

STOP THE PRESSES! "Gorgeous Chick Has 'High Standards'".

tcrosse said...

I would hate to get the Stink Eye from Melania, almost as much as I would hate to get it from Charlotte Rampling. Shrinkage.

Meade said...

Fabi said...
"Mansard roofs are elite, not elitist."

Ha.

Mansard floors are the pits, not the dregs.

uffda said...

The Times cover shot was Hillary's submission in the 1993 new Betty Crocker competition.

tcrosse said...

The Mansard floor is seldom the rez-de-chaussée.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

What a misuse of the word "virtue" that was! The politics of virtue? Is that like the etiquette of coprophagia?

Kate said...

I love Melania. I could be persuaded to buy all kinds of silly articles that appealed to my cult-like adoration. But the MSM are unable to write them because they are required by their peers to hate her.

Darrell said...

Hillary found her answer.
Hillary Clinton will never be President of the United States.

Henry said...

I think the main reason people get so upset about Trump's lying is that they never faced up to the way other politicians were lying. They were lying like politicians, and Trump is lying in a new way. It should be embarrassing to display yourself as so naive.

This is a good point. Failure to recognize this point was one way Sam Harris failed in his Scott Adams interview.

Sebastian said...

Hillary Clinton and the Politics of Virtue! I had forgotten that, from back in the day when I subscribed to the NYT. Funny stuff.

As if we didn't know, the cover illustrated very nicely that in politics virtue is just a pose.

Though the protagonists lacked virtue in the classical sense, the long Clinton saga had the considerable public virtue of exposing the grifters for who they were. Not that it makes any difference to Dems.

Ralph L said...

For "unified" read "centralized."

I assumed the Mansard floor was the upper story of 2, like a Cape Cod, but it isn't clear.

tcrosse said...

So we've moved on the the Politics of Virtue Signalling.

YoungHegelian said...

Izzit just me, or does it look to anyone else that the graphic style of the Melania "portrait" is meant to imitate a saint in an Orthodox icon?

rhhardin said...

Solvenia has a lot of very good morse code ham operators. It must be a thing there.

Moved up from the boot factory.

rhhardin said...

Either that or they're all using keyboards to send morse.

rhhardin said...

Don't date actresses surely extends to models, as a rule of thumb for guys.

toxdoc said...

Mansard floor sounds very elegant, garret sounds like an unheated,drafty attic out of Dickens

Darrell said...

Don't date actresses surely extends to models, as a rule of thumb for guys.

An easy rule-of-thumb for most guys to meet.

William said...

Hillary's current image and reputation are wildly out of joint with that photo and caption about "The Politics of Virtue". It is more an illustration of how the NYT gets things wrong than of anything to do with Hillary.........Melania is not so much out of my class as out of my dimension. I have never in my life known anyone remotely like Melania. I don't know enough about her to like or dislike her. She's clearly beautiful and knows how to dress well, and she's a conscientious mother. These are positive things, but a lot of her success is due to good looks. Good looks, like inherited wealth, can trigger resentment among those of us who have occasion to curse the light and sweat the bread.....Of all the First Ladies, I liked Laura Bush the best. She was clearly out of my class, but in an aspirational way.

Meade said...

Jackie set the standard, Melania exceeds it.

Snark said...

It should be embarrassing to be so complicit in shitting all over one's own hard won democracy by contorting excuses for Trump's assault on truth.

William said...

That's a good point about Trump and his lies. He lies in a sincere way. His lies are full of bravado and braggadocio. They're not plotted and manipulative......Bill Clinton was a better liar than Hillary. He, at least, made the effort to sound convincing.

David said...

The NYT mag cover is remarkable, a serene, pure composed Hillary. Hillary as she wanted us to believe she was. (Also Fake News 1990's style.)

Now it's as if she swallowed some horrible potion, and became the crippled, haggard wretch of today.





Bill said...

Interesting about the boot. Ivana Trump was born in Zlin, Czechoslovakia, home of the Bata shoe company.

Saint Croix said...

I miss Michael Kelly.

He was an editor at the New Republic back in the glory days.

Interesting that liberals who hated his writing still revere the man as a human being. Watch that clip from the movie Shattered Glass, it's awesome.

Bay Area Guy said...

Melania is still hot.

Hillary is still not President.

Ergo, life is still good

Earnest Prole said...

Troll-lol-lol-lol-LOL

rhhardin said...

That's probably why she's interested in shoes.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

YoungH asked: the Melania "portrait" is meant to imitate a saint in an Orthodox icon?

Not just you. I thought the same thing immediately. A stylized Eastern Orthodox rendering of a Saint or the Madonna.

Quayle said...

"These are positive things, but a lot of her success is due to good looks."

Perhaps. But her linguistic skills didn't just “appear” because of high cheekbones. I also sense in her some hard work and some savvy.

Unknown said...

Melania is a lovely woman and there no reason not to admire her, but to form a cult around her, nah. The real cult is the Trump Cult. To be so smitten by Trump as to think that Trump's lies don't exceed any other politicians lies befor him, is not only naive, it's delusional. It makes me wonder what it would take to shake the sycophants loose of their obsessive love for this fraud. Some people are very good as turning a very flawed human into someone desirable, while completely blind to the fact that they've turned themselves into a human pretzel doing so. Sad, as Trump would say.

Meade said...

"It should be embarrassing to be so complicit in shitting all over one's own hard won democracy by contorting excuses for Trump's assault on truth."

Gen. George Washington should've been embarrassed by his assault on truth when he lied to the British high command in 1780. How very undemocratic of him.

Darrell said...

The lie about Trump's lies.
ISWYDT
Truth took a holiday when Barack Obama took office.

Meade said...

"Some people are very good as turning a very flawed human into someone desirable, while completely blind to the fact that they've turned themselves into a human pretzel doing so."

You can keep your doctor.

tcrosse said...

YoungH asked: the Melania "portrait" is meant to imitate a saint in an Orthodox icon?

The colors suggest a hint of Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of wealth, beauty, and good fortune

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Good Lord what a contrast! It'd take a heart of stone not to laugh at that cover of Hillary with the title "The Politics of Virtue." That's straight up hilarious. Hillary-arious.

But look, lots of LifeLongRepublicans will insist that there's not such thing as "The Media" and while one or two outlets may be a bit biased there exist right-leaning publications and there's no reason to discuss an overwhelming Leftist tilt of the Media in general and what effects that might have.

Note the contrast, as well, with the Media's curiosity regarding Melania's unusual/foreign background with their utter lack of curiosity with our last President's. I don't remember mainstream Media doing too much digging into his family, what foreigners who knew him and his family had to say, etc. As I recall anyone who pointed out the President's exotic/foreign upbringing was pretty quickly shouted down as a dog whistling racist, etc.
An inexplicable difference, certainly.

Darrell said...

The Democrats new push is "The Better Deal."
Beats "The Raw Deal," I suppose.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

I'll add: I don't care about Presidential spouses. I don't want to care about Presidential spouses. I don't think Presidential spouses should get much coverage, nor have very much official power/very many official duties at all. If I wanted to live under a monarchy I'd move to somewhere with one.
Nevertheless it's bullshit how the Media and popular culture fawn over Dem President spouses and attack and ridicule Repub President spouses.

J2 said...

Seemed to me that the presentation of Melania was quite Bollywood.

Chris N said...

The few straight male reporters left are probably hoping to move into the honorary Sigenthaler Silverback chair over at NPR.

You move the ladies through the forest of Middle America, provide security and have exclusive breeding access to government stories.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

..Inside the Cult of Melania Trump...

Yes, it has to be a cult protecting her. Everyone just knows that after dark Melania roams the land feasting on the blood of the newborn. The DNC villagers just haven't hunted her down yet because they've been on the dole for so many generations they've forgotten what a pitchfork looks like.

..."interviewed several local men who claimed that they had once been Melania’s boyfriends" and said she was "cold"...

Unlike Michelle Obama who radiated nothing but warmth and personality!

...Mrs. Clinton is searching for not merely programmatic answers but for The Answer. Something in the Meaning of It All line...

Did anyone else hear a burst of sitar music when they read that or was it just me?

Howard said...

By trying to portray Hillary pure as the driven snow, the contrast with her eyes and mouth makes her look even more evil.

Comanche Voter said...

Hillary Clinton and the "politics of virtue"? Those two statements don't belong in the same county, much less on the cover of a magazine.

If Hillary was out for a stroll and bumped in virtue when it came round the corner, the two would have to be introduced.

Nonapod said...

I think the main reason people get so upset about Trump's lying is that they never faced up to the way other politicians were lying. They were lying like politicians, and Trump is lying in a new way. It should be embarrassing to display yourself as so naive.

People know that politicians in general lie. And it seems like people are aware of when a specific politician is lying to them (but maybe not always consciously?). But if it's a lie that they like, they'll either (A) pretend that it's the truth or (B) overlook/ignore it. In case (B), it's easier to ignore a lie if it's not obvious and blatant. And it's easier to defend a lie if it's vague.

Traditionally politicians use the tool of equivocation, using carefully worded ambiguous language. Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama were pretty good at that, in fact you could even say they were masters of being vague and misleading. Listeners could and would infer all sorts of things from what they said.

Trump is the exact opposite, he just comes right out and says things for better or worse. So even when he lies he's doing it bluntly. Strangely that's refreshing to many people. So it's not so much that people don't like lies or being lied to, they just don't like traditional politicians lies at this time.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

If Hillary was out for a stroll and bumped in virtue when it came round the corner, the two would have to be introduced.

I disagree, if Hillary ever physically encountered virtue there would be a violent release of energy that would cause devastation for hundreds of miles. Sort of like a matter/anti-matter collision.

MayBee said...

I thought the cult picture of Melanie was very yoga studio.

Comanche Voter said...

You can keep your doctor; you can keep your policy, the Benghazi raid was over a video etc.
That's Obama; i "never had sex with that woman" is Billy Jeff.

Now as my late brother pointed out, Billy Jeff could have saved us all a lot of trouble if he had said (when asked about Monica Lewinsky), "Yeah, I banged her like a cheap Chinese gong. So what?" Imnpeachment avoided, and the whole kerfuffle would have gone away. But for a Clinton, why tell the truth, when a lie comes so readily to your lips? The difference between Billy Jeff and Hillary is that Billy Jeff is an unusually skilled liar, and Hillary is a rank amateur. You'd have to rate Trumps ability as a liar below Billy Jeff and Barack, but above Hillary.

Chris N said...

Ron,

It would rip the very fabric of postmodern space-time

Bodies would no longer be juxtaposed against dominant narratives within white pantsuits.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

I thought the cult picture of Melanie was very yoga studio.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDLzl-Ozg1A

buwaya said...

The Melania picture seems more like a cross between 60's pop art and 19th century painting/portrait conventions, including advertising illustration.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/03/38/ec/0338ec235995b2c5336e1b89b58f170d--princess-alice-alexandra-feodorovna.jpg

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/22/f0/49/22f049f1f0fb5338642fe52c20f317e3.jpg

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/4a/a4/58/4aa4588953fa3017a6b6539ac4caa84d.jpg

This was a thing. Also consider that cultural influences went both ways, West->East moreso than East->West, that this included modification and back-feed from the East of Western memes, and vice versa of course. And this has been going on for much longer than most realize.

Mary Beth said...

Ron Winkleheimer said...

I must admit, that is an excellent picture of Hillary.

7/24/17, 8:27 AM


It is as good as it could be. She still looks like a chipmunk.

buwaya said...

Melania has an air of a character out of fantasy, with her cheekbones.
She looks like someone out of a Frank Frazetta illustration, a Princess of Mars.

There is nothing out of fantasy about Hilary Clinton.

Snark said...

"Perhaps. But her linguistic skills didn't just “appear” because of high cheekbones. I also sense in her some hard work and some savvy."

The typical Slovenian speaks 3 languages. Her English is not great despite the fact that she likely learned it in school and she's been immersed in this culture for at least a decade. Given that, I'd love to hear her "fluency" in German and Italian. What non-Slovenian speaker really knows who she is given her limited ability to communicate in complex and nuanced ways in English?

Mary Beth said...

The real cult is the Trump Cult. To be so smitten by Trump as to think that Trump's lies don't exceed any other politicians lies befor him

You still haven't figured it out. It's not Trump that they are smitten with, it's the effect he has on the media and anti-Trumpers (the Left, entrenched politicians on both sides...).

Snark said...

"You still haven't figured it out. It's not Trump that they are smitten with, it's the effect he has on the media and anti-Trumpers (the Left, entrenched politicians on both sides...)"

Oh yes, democracy definitely deserves to be shat upon because CNN et al won't perfectly reflect your editorial preferences. Good call. MAGA!

Ron Winkleheimer said...

Oh yes, democracy definitely deserves to be shat upon

You keep using that word, democracy. I don't think it means what you think it means.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

It is as good as it could be.

Exactly, hair, makeup, lighting, wardrobe all done by consummate professionals in order to create an image meant to influence the American electorate that the FLOTUS was almost semi-divine and certainly to good for us plebes. Have no fear though, she is seeking out enlightenment on our behalf in order to reconstruct society so as to solve all of our problems.

buwaya said...

"given her limited ability to communicate in complex and nuanced ways in English?"

It is extremely difficult to communicate in "complex and nuanced ways" in anything other than your mother tongue, if you define complex and nuanced as tightly as you seem to be doing.

I quote Unamuno (discussing Jose Rizal) on this - and note, eventually, in the 1930's, Unamuno was Mr. Spanish Literature, the authority, the ultimate critic, no one before or after had his stature, and no one has had the equivalent in English since, maybe, Samuel Johnson.

And Unamuno, like Rizal, like Joseph Conrad, and like any number of much humbler people such as I, had to learn their primary professional language as a second language (He was Basque). This is a life's work for non-geniuses. I can read and speak two others, and read French reasonably well. But it is a struggle to keep up with 3 1/2. To be functional in 5 is a real achievement.

My translation, from Unamuno's Epilogue to Retana's "Vida y Escritos del Dr. José Rizal"
Please excuse my infelicities -

"I refer to my own experience. I learned to babble in Castilian, and Castilian was spoken in my home, but this was the Castilian of Bilbao, which is to say a poor and timid Castilian, in veils, and often a poor translation of Basque. And those of us who learned it this way later struggle to express our thoughts and feelings, we are forced to rebuild, with difficulty to create a language."

buwaya said...

"Oh yes, democracy definitely deserves to be shat upon because CNN et al won't perfectly reflect your editorial preferences. Good call. MAGA!"

Look at this all with a broader field of vision. Or perhaps increase your altitude to orbit, and look down. The bigger picture is not about CNN et. al., they are small though highly visible features in that landscape. It is a cultural/economic conflict between fundamentally opposed systems of interests.

I.e., on either side it is clear that poverty for one means prosperity for the other, occlusion for one means hegemony for the other. This is a zero-sum conflict. CNN et. al. are merely small portions of one side.

Sebastian said...

"it is a struggle to keep up with 3 1/2." There you go again, you (honorary) hillbilly.

buwaya said...

Thank you, I am happy to accept the "honorary hillbilly" award, as a foreigner.
Much like my ancestor accepted the Legion d'honneur.

Darrell said...

Is anyone within arm's reach of Snark? Do you own a ball-pein hammer?

Jose_K said...

No contest, the sexiest first lady ever. . Marilyn

Bilwick said...

Re being smitten by Trump: I'm not, and I find "liberal" Democrats are the one's who are smitten: by the State, and by the State's leading henchmen/henchwomen. (See the Hillary cover above, for just a minor example.) If there's anyone I'm smitten with, it's that lady with the torch who stands on an isle in New York harbor.

Bilwick said...

You might also want to run the cover of SOLDIER OF FORTUNE that Hillary was on, following her narrow escape when the helicopter she was on over Bosnia came under enemy fire.

Snark said...

"It is extremely difficult to communicate in "complex and nuanced ways" in anything other than your mother tongue, if you define complex and nuanced as tightly as you seem to be doing."

That was my point - that limitation means there are gong to be limitations in how much we as English speakers can know her. If we spoke Slovenian we'd know much more about who she is, what she knows, what she thinks and how nimble she is with ideas, for example. Right now we mostly know she's poised, attractive, seemingly dedicated as a mother, and supportive of her husband.

Snark said...

"Is anyone within arm's reach of Snark? Do you own a ball-pein hammer?"

Is anyone within arm's reach of Darrell? Do you own a dictionary with ball peen in the B's?

Snark said...

"Look at this all with a broader field of vision. Or perhaps increase your altitude to orbit, and look down. The bigger picture is not about CNN et. al., they are small though highly visible features in that landscape. It is a cultural/economic conflict between fundamentally opposed systems of interests."

There are common interests too though, in a liberal democracy. Trump's all out attack on the very concept that truth can even exist is the beginning of an existential threat to the things that matter to everyone. It's something that should be relentlessly and universally resisted.

MayBee said...

Ron Winkleheimer- hahahahah!

buwaya said...

"There are common interests too though, in a liberal democracy. "

There are common interests in any society, there is no reason to limit this to democracies.
An Lushan and his Tang overlords agreed on the idea that China should not be invaded by foreign barbarians, and, probably, that drought was a bad thing. That did not prevent them from exterminating each other, including their peasant populations, wholesale.

These common interests do not preclude existential-level differences of interests.

"Trump's all out attack on the very concept that truth can even exist"

?

This seems an odd idea to derive from whatever Trump has said or done. He is a practical man. There are impractical sorts (academics) who will defend the idea that truth is not a useful concept, but not Trump. I suspect that you may need some more depth in your studies.

Darrell said...

Do you own a dictionary

Ball-pein is the preferred way to spell it among those that actually buy and use the tool. Idiot. Maybe you should check all the spellings before you make an ass out of yourself. Again.

Bad Lieutenant said...

Darrell, I know it is distasteful to be humbled before such a one as this Snark, whose jib I don't think I like the cut of, but I (admittedly, not a metalworker) had always understood it was "peen" as in ball-peen, shot-peening et al. If this alternative spelling is valid I hope you can provide an authority to that effect, but don't double down on error.

buwaya said...

Ball-pein is an alternate spelling indeed - it seems a standard spelling in the hardware industry -

http://www.stanleytools.com/products/hand-tools/hammers/ball-pein
http://www.hammersource.com/Ball-Pein-Hammers/
https://www.grainger.com/category/ball-pein-hammers/hammers-and-striking-tools/tools/ecatalog/N-15w9
https://www.craftsman.com/products/craftsman-16-oz-ball-pein-hammer
http://www.wiltontools.com/us/en/view-series/b-a-s-h-ball-pein-hammers/BlPeinHmr

Paco Wové said...

"Is anyone within arm's reach of Snark?"

Now, don't be nasty, Darrell. I'm sure he'll be fine if somebody just changes his diaper.

Bad Lieutenant said...

Thanks buwaya, for teaching as always. That must be an archaism or US/UK variance or something, though. No like.

Ken B said...

Leaks make a great pretext for firing them, as long as he does a thorough house-cleaning not just the justice department. A grand purge. If Adams is right Trump can find a way to accept some of the blame, imply the deep state and Obama holdovers are the real problem, and ditch dozens of liabilities.