In a complete coincidence having nothing whatsoever to with eye shadow or other heretofore smoldering fires in the D.C. area, this terrific digression on Smoke in The Paris Review, courtesy of the late great John Berger, with illustrations by Selçuk Demirel.
* another old-timey saying involving smoking, common among the hobo gentry when one too-many were gathered around your flame.
Because you have no idea how to cover politics in this country:
NPR believes the opinions of Republicans matter more than what the rest of us think, or what the country overall thinks.
[clip]But again, the Mueller probe is being seen through an increasingly partisan lens by Americans. For the first time, a majority (55 percent) of Republicans say his investigation is unfair, with just 22 percent calling it fair — which is a 17 point swing since last month. Almost three-fourths of Democrats say Mueller’s investigation is being handled fairly, a five-point net uptick since last month, along with almost half of independents — though there’s a nine-point net drop.
But again, the Americans who think the probe is unfair are a minority — 30%.
[clip]Even with GOP frustrations, a majority of Republicans (56 percent) say Mueller should be allowed to finish his investigation, while almost a quarter think he should be fired and 20 percent are undecided. Among all adults polled, 65 percent say Mueller should be retained, 15 percent want him terminated, and 20 percent aren’t sure.
The key statistic here is that “let Mueller finish” beats “dump Mueller” by 50 points — but to NPR the key question seems to be “What do Republicans think?” As it turns out, even they want Mueller to finish. So efforts by the White House and right-wing media to tarnish the investigation aren’t really working. Why isn’t that even part of NPR’s lede?
Every bit of their political coverage drips with this flavor of cluelessness, plus they reassure their liberal audience (Republicans don’t listen to public radio!) with the calming rationality of David Brooks and others when actual conservatives, not to mention Republican office holders, are foaming-at-the-mouth vicious when it comes to policies they favor. And then there’s the ever-present fund-driving, soliciting support from liberals in exchange for this level of being informed. It’s a lose-lose, including their very real fear of being de-funded by the government. But this is not helping. As pointed out by Steve, they are deliberately misreading the polls they site. For why?
There’s a non-sensical story in here somewhere about harnessing the friction between the world’s two largest emitters of GhG’s to generate electricity, but I either can’t find it or look past it too easily.
He noted that China has recently leapfrogged over the United States to become the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases. “They know the world’s radar is on them,” Mr. Ramesh said. “If transparency becomes the stumbling block, China doesn’t want to be blamed. If China is the only party holding out, they won’t collapse the negotiations.”
It’s Cancún, you see, anything can happen – unless december weekends are decidedly un-spring break-like. Actually, I don’t mean to be so flip. This is the United Nations – the group to which falls the tasks labeled ‘doing something’ when nobody wants to do anything. Nobody wanting anything done actually is another case entirely and has a conference of its own.
But another word, because something is escaping us here with all these willing and smart people gathered in one place, on envy, especially as the wrench ex machina of egalitarianism.
A different way in which envy might be thought to motivate broadly egalitarian thought is by appeal to the idea of envy-free allocations. A distribution of goods is said to be “envy-free” when no one prefers anyone else’s bundle of resources to her own.[] The suggestion here is not that envy is the psychological motivation for the concern with equality, but rather that, where a distribution in fact produces envy, this is grounds to doubt the fairness of the distribution. But ‘envy’ in these contexts is a technical term for any situation in which someone prefers another’s bundles of goods, and does not refer to the emotional syndrome with which this entry is concerned.[]
This is the chief virtue of resistance to economic changes and any greater changes in the way we power, light, ship and travel. The haves (look around you) are afraid that at the end of this dull day, we will all be reduced to just having the same things. When, really, taste, rather any kind of envy-free allocation, would never allow for such a thing – as this failure of imagination gainfully proves. So this brand of resisters really have nothing to worry about. Just not the way they usually expect to be beyond worry. Fear of the bottom, therefore, drives the refusal to alter any actions at the top. Let this be addressed.
