zenpundit.com » Blog Archive » Metaphors, more ii
«
»

Metaphors, more ii

[ by Charles Cameron — continuing from Metaphors, more — which has become seriously overloaded and is listing to port ]
.

This one’s from Cass R. Sunstein, It Can Happen Here, in the LRB:

What matters are “we anonymous others” who are not just “pawns in the chess game,” because the “most powerful dictators, ministers, and generals are powerless against the simultaneous mass decisions taken individually and almost unconsciously by the population at large.”

That’s worth reading and (critically) pondering in its entirety — partly because Sunsttein’s a writer worth pondering (I was particularluy taken with his exploration of Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures), but also because the comparison of developments leading up to Nazi Germany and events here in Trumpian USA is both a significant topic and one that is all too easily and often marred by hyperbole, and therefore demands deliberative elucidation in long form, rather than brash assertiveness or denial in short.

**

Okay, now here’s a doozy.

I’m more used to questioning “prophetic” explanations of earthquakes and the like as literal acts of God, but some seismologists in Mexico have an altogether more engaging explanation:

Did Mexico’s Revelry in World Cup Win Over Germany Cause an Earthquake?

Late Sunday morning, seismic sensors in Mexico City detected what was reported to be a small earthquake. But it was triggered in an “artificial manner,” according to the group monitoring the gauges.

“Possibly because of mass jumping,” said the group, the Institute of Geologic and Atmospheric Investigations in Mexico, which said that at least two of its sensors picked up the activity.

The cause of that mass jumping? Moments before, the Mexican men’s national soccer team had scored a goal against powerhouse Germany in their group-stage match in the World Cup in Moscow.

I’ve heard of the idea that soldiers marching across a bridge might cause it to collapse — but an entire earthquake? I stand impressed..

**

Ourob, New Yorker:

The Reputation-Laundering Firm That Ruined Its Own Reputation

Bell Pottinger’s work in South Africa included the covert dissemination of articles, cartoons, blog posts, and tweets implying that the Guptas’ opponents were upholding a racist system. As the brothers’ influence over Zuma’s government fell under increasing scrutiny, Bell Pottinger’s tactics were exposed. More details of the Oakbay account became public, including revelations about the inflammatory economic-emancipation campaign. Soon, one of the world’s savviest reputation-management companies became embroiled in a reputational scandal. Bell Pottinger could not contain the uproar, and, in September, 2017, it collapsed.

**

Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan:

[Coming 8/31] When CIA analyst Jack Ryan stumbles upon a suspicious series of bank transfers his search for answers pulls him from the safety of his desk job and catapults him into a deadly game of cat and mouse throughout Europe and the Middle East, with a rising terrorist figurehead preparing for a massive attack against the US and her allies.

Ah, yes, “a deadly game of cat and mouse”.

**

I’ll add more good or odd ones as they occur..

This entry was posted on Monday, June 18th, 2018 at 5:19 pm and is filed under acts of god, Charles Cameron, conspiracy, Mexico, nazis, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

15 Responses to “Metaphors, more ii”

  1. Charles Cameron Says:
    June 22nd, 2018 at 3:40 pm

    Here’s an astounding ouroboros story from George Will‘s memoir of Charles Krauthammer:

    In 1972, when he was a 22-year-old student at Harvard Medical School, he was swimming in a pool. Someone pushed the diving board out, extending over a shallower part of the pool. Charles, not realizing this, dove and broke his neck. At the bottom of the pool, “I knew exactly what happened. I knew why I wasn’t able to move, and I knew what that meant.” It meant that life was going to be different than he and Robyn had anticipated when they met at Oxford University.
    .
    He left two books at the pool. One was a text on the spinal cord. The other was André Malraux’s novel “Man’s Fate.”

    I’m not quite sure what to make of “He left two books at the pool.” — literally, he had them with him at the pool?
    .
    Charles Krauthammer, RIP.

  2. Charles Cameron Says:
    June 23rd, 2018 at 11:18 am

    Pardon me? No, Trump won’t get away with it. — advertised in First Reads as “Trump won’t get away with a self-pardon”.
    .
    **
    .
    ‘I’ve never read any other column … that resonated so deeply’: Readers reflect on Charles Krauthammer’s writing

    Dr. Krauthammer’s “In Defense of the F-Word” [July 2, 2004] created a phrase that remains as relevant today as when the column was published. The article, which covers the reaction to Vice President Richard B. Cheney’s personal instructions to Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) on the Senate floor, is a masterpiece of American literature. Alternately pungent, lyrical, and hilarious, he highlights, then smashes, political hypocrisy with the zest of taking a sledgehammer to a watermelon. So, in the immortal words of Dr. Krauthammer, give cancer “the deuce.” — Todd Stansbury, Charlottesville

    And then, from In Defense of the F-Word, we have sports, that deuce again, the saber, and an ouroboros:

    The deuce is the preferred usage when time is short and concision is of the essence. Enjoying the benefits of economy, it is especially useful in emergencies. This is why it is a favorite of major league managers going nose to nose with umpires. They know that they have only a few seconds before getting tossed out of the game, and as a result television viewers have for years delighted in the moment the two-worder is hurled, right on camera. No need for sound. The deuce was made for lip reading.
    .
    Which makes it excellent for drive-by information conveyance. When some jerk tailgater rides my bumper in heavy traffic, honking his horn before passing and cutting me off, I do a turn-to-the-left, eyeball-to-eyeball, through-the-driver’s-window two-worder — mouthed slowly and with exaggerated lip movements. No interlocutor has yet missed my meaning.
    .
    Nonetheless, while the two-worder has the directness of the dagger, the three-worder has the elegance of the wide-arced saber slice. It is more musical and, being more clearly spelled out, more comprehensible to the non-English speaker (a boon in major urban areas). It consists of a straightforward directive containing both a subject and an object — charmingly, the same person.

    The deuce was made for lip reading.
    .
    **
    .
    Martial metaphors:
    .
    In The Post Most:

    Trump says trade wars are ‘easy.’ Here come the first American casualties.

    Julia Ioffe:

    When the bullet’s barreling down at you, things look a little diffeent.

    **
    .
    I Served Aboard One of the Last U.S. Navy Battleships. And It Changed My Life.:

    Missile-age naval doctrine exhorts U.S. naval commanders to strike down a hostile “archer”—a missile-toting ship or warplane—before he can let fly his “arrow,” or missile. [ .. ]
    .
    Thayer Mahan defined “capital ships” as “the backbone and real power of any navy,” heavy hitters that “by due proportion of defensive and offensive powers, are capable of taking and giving hard knocks.” That is, these were brawny ships able to dish out and absorb heavy hits in duels against rival battle fleets. [ .. ]
    .
    Old-school naval architecture proceeded from Mahanian assumptions. Rather than bowmen sniping at one another with arrows from long range, surface combatants in the age of steam were more like armored knights hacking away in close-quarters combat. There was no striking down foes at long range. Blow met counterblow. Hence warriors in the age of chivalry wore heavy armor and bore shields to ward off attack. [ .. ]
    .
    Admiral Jim Stavridis observes that while the oceans and seas are vast in horizontal, geographical space, there’s also a vertical dimension to seafaring. It undulates back in time. When you walk out on deck, he notes, “you are seeing the same view, the same endless ocean that Alexander the Great saw as he sailed the eastern Mediterranean . . . and that Halsey saw as he lashed his Fast Carrier Task Force into combat in the western Pacific.”

    That last comment of Admiral Stavridis is fascinating for its “horizontal and vertical” analysis of life at sea — compare Northrop Frye’s similar ideas in literary criticism, and my exploration of thm in terms of Dylan Thomas’ poem Fern Hill, in Time In all his tuneful turning (ii)
    .

    **
    .
    Russia escalates spy games after years of U.S. neglect
    .
    **
    .
    Wired, on a fight, an amazingly vivid paragraph:

    Absurd Creature of the Week: Ferocious, Fearless Mantis Shrimp is the Honey Badger of the Sea
    .
    One of the kung fu film genre’s greatest fight scenes comes from 1979’s Dance of the Drunk Mantis, in which bad guy Rubber Legs channels the raw power of the praying mantis style to deftly tear the pants off our hero Sam Seed, uttering the immortal quip: “Old man, you should be ashamed. Drunk mantis grabs ass.”

    **
    .
    Leonard Bernstein, Norton Lecture, The Unanswered Question, I:

    Music is supposed to be a metaphorical phenomenon — some kind of symbolization of our innermost, affective existence..

    Powerful phrase, that, “symbolization of our innermost..”
    .
    **
    .
    Ourob?

    In some ways, Ivanka succeeded in being a Mini-Me. By 16, she trademarked her name with the intention of using it for everything from bras to brow liner to scrub masks. “There is a distinct genetic quality to Ivanka’s preternatural ability to self-promote,” Fox writes.

  3. Charles Cameron Says:
    June 25th, 2018 at 1:18 pm

    A Washington Post editorial:

    Trump is playing a risky game o chicken

    Here’s the final para:

    In short, Mr. Trump owns this trade war, at home and abroad. He not only has decided to play a game of chicken with the U.S. economy. He has decided to play against the whole world.

    **
    .
    How China Got Sri Lanka to Cough Up a Port
    .

    The case is one of the most vivid examples of China’s ambitious use of loans and aid to gain influence around the world — and of its willingness to play hardball to collect.

    **
    .
    THREE TOURS, ONE UNSOLVABLE RIDDLE
    .
    “Unsolvable riddle” — Howzzat for a koan?

    Sometimes he would shoot back with his favorite retort, “Yes. We could increase police in (fill in the province). But will you help us by squeezing the Taliban in the FATA [Federally Administered Tribal Areas]? Or is your relationship with Pakistan too important? Who comes first, Afghanistan’s security or Pakistan’s stability?” It was a difficult question to answer then and remains so now.

    Steve Coll’s 700-page tome, Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America’s Secret Wars in Afghanistan, attempts to answer Gul’s paradoxical question: Why does the United States tolerate Pakistan’s support for the Taliban at the expense of its mission in Afghanistan?

    **
    .
    Lawrence O’Donnell opening, June 26 2018:

    When they encounter a judge who is clearly leaning against them, it just means they have to be so much better in court – they know, that if the ball’s on the corner of the plate, the judge is not going to call a strike, there’s — always lean one way, so they just have to be perfect.

    **
    .

  4. Charles Cameron Says:
    June 27th, 2018 at 3:39 pm

    A couple from Foreign Policy today:

    Experts Question Wisdom of Canceling U.S. Exercises with South Korea, As Mattis Makes It Official

    **

    Xi Jinping Is the World’s Most Powerful Soccer Coach
    China’s team is a national embarrassment — but the party chairman has big plans for the game.

    Quirk note:

    When China was trying to qualify for the 1986 World Cup in Mexico the team hosted Hong Kong, then a British territory, in a qualifying match in Beijing’s Workers’ Stadium.
    .
    Hong Kong won the game 2-1 and the home fans rioted in the stands before order was restored by the People’s Armed Police. The game is still infamous on both sides of the border as the “May 19 Incident.”

    Reminds me of the 1969 soccer war between El Salvador and Honduras — what is it about games and war?
    .
    **
    .
    A whole article on baseball as a metaphor / model for, well, life, from the Atlantic:

    Because individual success or failure is so easy to isolate in baseball, the sport itself is also easy to study; individual performance can be related clearly to team success. “Moneyball” is already used to explain changes in everything from company hiring to restaurant operations. Now, it is hoped, solving baseball chemistry might advance corporate teamwork where Myers-Briggs tests and other methods have failed.
    .
    “Baseball is a team game,” Pete Rose, the former player and manager, once said. “But nine men who reach their individual goals make a nice team.” Surely that’s too simple. A good team helps those men reach their individual goals, and harnesses them to something larger. The question is how.

    That’s the gobbit the Atlantic used to alert me to this piece, Chasing the ‘Holy Grail’ of Baseball Performance. One more para to ponder:

    Baseball has always been a strange mix of social and solo. In American fashion, the game stresses the collective, but demands that you play for yourself. Despite all the intimacy of the sport’s language — crowding the plate, touching base — its play is quite lonely. Other sports require a tacit harmony between players—setting a pick for a teammate, blocking for someone 10 yards behind. In contrast, a baseball hitter stands in the solitary confinement of the batter’s box, facing a pitcher on the desert island of the mound. The players on the defense align themselves, except for the occasional shift, to be as far from one another as the limits of the ability to recuperate lost space permit. Defensive errors are unfailingly—and officially—attributed to individual players. The rule book, irrespective of out-of-play butt slaps and handshakes, does not sanction contact.

    Very useful as an opening quote for a major subsection.
    .
    **
    .
    And howm about this? A complete article of nothing but Trump :: World Cup metaphors:

    Comments I’ve Heard About the World Cup That Could Also Be Trump Quotes
    .
    “Is this the good Korea or the bad Korea?”
    .
    “The cameras they have in Moscow are top of the line. You don’t even notice them.”
    .
    “There are some very fine players on both sides.”

  5. Charles Cameron Says:
    June 29th, 2018 at 5:00 pm

    Newsroom becomes news, newsroom work transfers outta there:


    Josh McKerrow, left, a staff photographer, and Pat Furgurson, a staff reporter, worked Thursday on the next day’s newspaper from a pickup truck in a mall parking garage in Annapolis.CreditNate Pesce for The New York Times

    Ouroboros bit his tongue..
    .
    **
    .
    Myanmar’s Brutal Military Is Convicting Its Own Soldiers of Atrocities
    Generals of an army accused of genocide have started putting troops in the dock, and it’s not because they care about human rights.
    .
    **
    .
    The Beat, “Everyone is orepared to play hardball..”
    Hardball, “there’s a mind meld there clearly between Trump and Fox News..”
    .
    **
    .
    Foreign Affairs, Realist World:
    The Players Change, but the Game Remains
    .
    **
    .
    Callum Flack, THE BRIEF, THE SCOPE AND THE DANCE:

    I would be given a brief at my desk under fluorescent lights from a Client Account Manager. The brief was a folder with some paper in it. It was my job to take that brief and deliver a result, based on some expectation of getting the job done within a time limit and a quality standard. It was mostly a game of Chinese Whispers and Counting Hours. This was part of the Creative Agency Structure of my experiences, and it worked whereby the Agency made a profit and I got paid.

  6. Charles Cameron Says:
    July 4th, 2018 at 12:28 am

    he literally knows whe re all the bodies are buried — nicolle wallace
    throw him under the bus ..\Anything Trump says can be 100% true, and anything Trump says can be 100% false. And as Trump says, we’ll just have to see ..
    .
    Will North Korea Play Nuclear Hide-and-Seek with Trump?
    .
    The appropriate reading to go with this is:
    .
    Cheryl Rofer, Estimating North Korea’s Nukes
    .
    **
    .
    it’s being played out on the world stage, and the officers have to do this perfectly ..
    the protester climbing the statue of liberty .. [ari]
    You’ve got tto go to the mat[ch?] [hardball]
    trump was the one who was throwing the punches ..
    .
    **
    .
    GOP strategist Steve Schmidt eviscerates the two evangelical hypocrites – pastors John Hagee and Robert Jeffress – who helped the ignorant troll Trump facilitate another bloodbath by opening the embassy in Jerusalem.

    Steve Schmidt told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, “It is in appalling disgrace that these two were allowed to open in prayer under he flag of the United States at an official US government event given their mountains of bigotry, their anti-Catholicism, their anti-Judaism, anti-Islam, Anti-Mormonism.
    .
    We don’t talk about who these people are often enough. So let’s do it for a moment… Jerry Falwell… Franklin Graham… Mike Huckabee… all of them.
    .
    They dress up as men of God, but they are not.
    .
    They are in business and they are in politics… and the type of politics which they advocate is a extreme theocratically charged politics.
    .
    You see that they thirst for the nectar of political power – the gospel is secondary.
    .
    When you look at their explications of Donald Trump from all sorts of behavior that they previously condemned for expedient, partisan political purposes.
    .
    One of the things that is certainly true about this movement… wherever you look around the world and you see a fusion of the state with religion… whether it is Putin and the Orthodox church complicit in his power – or other places around the world – the ideology advanced and represented by Hagee, et all, always veers towards the autocratic.
    .
    It is always less free… it is always dominated by an extreme animus towards gays. There are people who would much rather tell you how to live, or what birth-control your are allowed to take, for example, if you’re young woman… that would ever dare say what is so obviously true about conduct by this president that is so obviously wrong.
    .
    These are the modern day Pharisees in the temple.
    .
    They are hypocrites, and one of the blessings of Roy Moore‘s candidacy is that we know who they are and no one in this country ever has to pretend again when they hold up a cloak, and say “you’re attacking my religion” to do anything but laugh out loud.
    .
    They’re politicians and extreme ones at that.”
    .
    Indeed. Thank you, Mr. Schmidt for nailing it on the head again and for having the courage to so eloquently call them out. .

    **

    **

    Foreign Policy, Editors’ Picks: A World Cup special:

    If you type in “the beautiful game” into Google, the search engine doesn’t even skip a beat before returning millions of paeans to the sport Americans call soccer, and the world knows simply as football. But the beautiful game, it turns out, is not just about who can score the most goals on a soccer pitch. It’s also about power and politics. And there is no grander stage than the World Cup for nations to showcase their sporting might.

    **

    Xi Jinping Is the World’s Most Powerful Soccer Coach

    Chinese football was a non-entity under Maoism — five-a-side games would have constituted mass gatherings — and only re-entered FIFA under Deng Xiaoping, a soccer fan from his student days in Paris, in the late 1970s.

    Russia’s Muslim Strongman Is Winning the World Cup

    Russian President Vladimir Putin last week welcomed visitors, viewers, and players from around the world to an “open, hospitable, and friendly” World Cup — Russia’s first as host, and an event that Moscow is keen to leverage for diplomatic purposes. But there’s one man even more eager to take advantage of the cover of the cup — Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya’s strongman, a longtime sports enthusiast who is using the tournament to reach out to potential allies in North Africa and the Middle East.

    For Serbs, Switzerland Isn’t Neutral

    Serbia’s nationalist soccer fans hoped to restore their national pride by beating a Swiss team led by Kosovar stars. Instead, the Kosovo-born Xherdan Shaqiri handed them a humiliating defeat.

    Russia’s Goals Won’t End With the World Cup
    .
    If Trump Tears Up NAFTA, Sports Will Keep North America Together
    .
    Anxiety grows in Thailand as trapped boys are being given diving lessons:

    Relief has given way to anxiety around the site of a vast cave complex where a soccer team of 12 boys and their 25-year-old coach remain trapped after 11 days, as rescuers deliberate the best way to extract them before severe storms hit.
    .
    The boys were being given rudimentary diving lessons Wednesday, even though none of them knows how to swim. Water levels have receded, but volunteer divers who have spent hours deep in the cave complex say currents remain strong, and even they have to hold on to ropes to haul themselves out.
    .
    “The water is still too rough for the boys now,” said Tiraya Jaikaew, who leads a team of volunteer rescue divers helping the Thai navy. “We are focusing on setting up ropes in each section of the cave to help them.”
    .
    Videos released Wednesday by the Thai navy, which is overseeing the effort, show the boys in apparently good spirits, introducing themselves to the camera, with their palms pressed together in the traditional greeting.

  7. Charles Cameron Says:
    July 5th, 2018 at 7:01 pm

    Oh my! Grurray has found an ouroboric tweet re sarcophagi..

    **
    .
    WotR, RIMPAC 2018 KICKS OFF, LADEN WITH GEOPOLITICAL SYMBOLISM:

    There is no end of symbolism and subtext in all this well-choreographed cooperation. In many respects, modern RIMPACs are soft power events designed to showcase the attractiveness of the United States as a partner and ally. They highlight in extensive media and social media detail that many navies want to exercise with the U.S. Navy, that it actively invites them to, and that, moreover, the U.S. Navy helps them participate.

    In contrast, some major nations, including China (and by implication Russia), don’t invite others to their major naval exercises; and worse, the “others” do not deem China and Russia particularly useful partners to exercise with. For the United States, there is a bit of the “I’m the popular kid on the block”-messaging approach to all this.

    In larger geopolitical terms, though, significant in this Mai Tai military diplomacy is that China’s neighbors (all except Russia and North Korea) are signaling support for the United States in general, and the U.S. Navy in particular, at time when China-U.S. tensions in the South China Sea are rising. ASEAN states might not be willing to sail with the U.S. Navy through the disputed waters, but they are keen to exercise with the U.S. Navy and seemingly show solidarity in that way.

    Ah, this is messaging, signalling. Coleridge must be turning in his grave, who in his The Statesman’s Manual defined a symbol thus:

    On the other hand, a Symbol is characterized by a translucence of the Special in the Individual or of the General in the Especial or of the Universal in the General. Above all by the translucence of the Eternal through and in the Temporal. It always partakes of the Reality which it renders intelligible; and while it enunciates the whole, abides itself as a living part in that Unity, of which it is the representative.

    **
    .
    Ouroboros: killing the messenger.
    .
    As rumors fuel mob lynchings in India, WhatsApp offers $50,000 grants to curb fake news

    In the eastern state of Tripura, officials hired rumor-busting announcers to travel from village to village with loudspeakers to warn villagers not to believe fake messages. Three people were killed there last week, including one “rumor buster.”

    One muroboric aspect worth noting. We might easily classify this as a “social media confronting fake news” piece, but when the warner is killed for giving the warning against fake news, there’s an ouroboric aspect to the thing. This is about lynching, and gives us an instance of “killing the messenger”. It would be foolhardy to take on the job of messenger given the circumstances.
    .
    **
    .
    It’s a numbers game, and we’ll see if he [Trump] guessed right ..

  8. Grurray Says:
    July 6th, 2018 at 7:14 pm

    Hi Charles, Nigel up there was sharing pictures from his visit to Istanbul. The HS stands for Hagia Sophia. This photo was taken on the grounds of the old cathedral/mosque/museum. In a way, the Hagia Sophia is a sort of graveyard in and of itself, for the Byzantine civilization. So looking at it that way would mean the picture shows a graveyard graveyard inside a graveyard.

  9. Charles Cameron Says:
    July 6th, 2018 at 8:14 pm

    I was wondering about:
    .
    Sittin’ here resting my bones
    And this loneliness won’t leave me alone
    It’s two thousand miles I roamed
    Just to make this dock my home
    .
    the loneliness line, as an ouroboros.
    .
    Henry Butler just died, I am getting an education from obuituaries these days.
    .

  10. Charles Cameron Says:
    July 6th, 2018 at 8:16 pm

    I was wondering about:

    Sittin’ here resting my bones
    And this loneliness won’t leave me alone
    It’s two thousand miles I roamed
    Just to make this dock my home

    the loneliness line, as an ouroboros.
    .
    Henry Butler just died, I am getting an education from obuituaries these days.

    .

    .. watchin them roll away..
    .
    **
    .
    … all of which led me to Jonathan Edwards and Al-Ghazali on occasionalism, but that would be a post of its own.

  11. Charles Cameron Says:
    July 7th, 2018 at 5:36 am

    [Pakistan] Tribune, Support pours in from World Cup for trapped Thai footballers:

    MOSCOW: Football stars urged the Thai team trapped in a cave to “stay strong” as messages of support and concern poured in for the 12 boys and their coach.
    .
    Players from Brazil legend Ronaldo to England’s John Stones said they were closely following attempts to rescue the team, whose ordeal coincides with the World Cup in Russia.
    .
    Many fans on social media said the boys deserved the World Cup trophy for their bravery after spending two weeks trapped in darkness underground.

  12. Charles Cameron Says:
    July 7th, 2018 at 8:21 pm

    I don’t know the sports meaning here — basketball?

    Anyway, a game within a game.
    .
    **
    .
    North Korea calls U.S. attitude toward talks ‘gangster-like’ and ‘cancerous,’ rejecting Pompeo’s assessment
    Pompeo seeks denuclearization details on North Korea trip

    Evans Revere, a former U.S. diplomat with a long history of negotiating with North Korea, said it was evident that the talks in Pyongyang had not gone well — and that it appears North Korea may have no intention of actually denuclearizing in the way the United States would want.
    .
    “Pompeo appears to have presented the North Koreans with some demands and requirements for real moves toward denuclearization, as opposed to the symbolic steps and empty language Pyongyang has been using so far. He deserves credit for doing so,” Revere wrote in an email.
    .
    “But in doing so, he has elicited North Korean ire, and he has now seen the reality of North Korea’s game plan and intentions that many of us have been describing for some time,” Revere added. “Welcome to our world, Mr. Secretary.”

    North Korea’s game plan is my excuse ffor bringing this here, but the entire article is fascinating.

  13. Charles Cameron Says:
    July 9th, 2018 at 8:56 am

    In terms of journalistic ethics and NatSec blogging it’s a very significant article:

    PUTTING A FACE (MINE) TO THE RISKS POSED BY GOP GAMES ON MUELLER INVESTIGATION
    by emptywheel
    .
    I’d like to put a human face — my own — to the risk posed by GOP gamesmanship on the Mueller investigation.

    **
    .
    MSNBC 7/9/2018
    .
    Ari Melber, erly on: dealer’s choice ..
    Rachel, w Nina Totenberg
    .
    MSNBC 7/10/2018
    the politics of inside base (?)
    every time he (Giuliani opens his mouth, he seems to step into it ..
    .
    MSNBC 7/11/2018
    you’ve got the home court advantage here
    I’ll let you tee up here..
    I think the question is, What’s the long game? ..
    the problem was [?] Danielle Pletka, AEI
    he’s not aware of the consequences [Hadley]
    we’ve never had a political insurgeny that captured the presidency .. [Hadley]
    after two years disruption to reset the table [reset the table?]
    tell us what your game plan is .
    the person who is tired of winning is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ..
    hiw many more times are they going to telegraphthis [presume: a punch]
    we have avenatti because we’re desperate to have an anti-trump ..
    i take it you’re the guide in this metaphor .. !!
    those of us who oppose him.. we play his game..
    every knock is a boost — boxing
    he’s essentially playing from vladimir putin’s playbook .. which is also his playbook .. [Blumenthal]
    this zero-sum view of the world [Milliband]
    that he somehow has to have fights.. the pugilism of American foreign policy..
    it’s been a genuine win-win [Milliband]
    playing to is base
    all of these leaders around the world areplaying on a different chess board, or checkers board ..
    he’s like a little kid in a playground .. cap pistol..
    these kids aren’t human boomerangs — chris matthews
    i will not be a punching bag as part of someone else’s defense strategy.. [cohen]
    this john macinroe moment with breakfast ..
    he’s betting 20 or 30 years on this ..
    you know what they say in boxing, “take the short money “.. [chris matthews]
    pound for pound the premier intelligence agency in the world .. [Mossad]
    don’t play into putin’s hand at the end of the day ..

  14. Charles Cameron Says:
    July 14th, 2018 at 1:47 pm

    ? 13 July 2018
    .
    if there really are witches out there ..
    if you want to go on with this tit for tat .. there may be some tats for the tit we’re looking at ..
    pinning the tail on the donkey .
    it’s like a heavyweight champion against a high school .. [Donald T re asbestos]
    Uralbestos has Trump branded asbetos on its homw page ..
    work your way towards the bull’s eye
    he’ll fold like an accordion
    I don’t think a lot of kids knew what Simon Says was ..
    it’s a warlock capture, not a witchhunt ..
    .
    12 July 2018
    .
    Clint Watts: They [the Russians] see it as a zero-sum game.
    .
    also
    .
    Williams: Putin does the most rudimentary things, like mirroring, which communications experts will tell you is a way to kind of endearing yourself to your guest.
    .
    Watts: [agreeing] Ingratiate and mirror. President Trump openly says If you say to me that you like me, then I like you. He’s just opening the door for this. Putin has done this with other world leaders. .. You want to build rapport with President Bush, talk about religion, and the Christian Orthodox church. you do these things to build and ingratiate and build a mirror relationship with the target.

    [sigh: i wish i could get more details as the speakers flash by on MSNBC, or that transcripts were available sooner]
    .
    **
    .

    Negative ouroboros.
    .
    **
    .
    In the tug of war between workers and investors, Americans living on a paycheck have seldom been left with a shorter end of the rope.
    .
    tug of war.

  15. Charles Cameron Says:
    July 15th, 2018 at 10:04 pm

    When sports as metaphor and politics get entangled, French soccer fans cheer celebrated son of low-income Paris suburb:

    This year, there was also a bit of controversy when some supporters heralded the French team as an African team, given the number of players with ethnic origins in Africa.

    A bleu by any other name would smell as sweet?
    .
    **
    .
    “He is playing right into the hands of Vladimir Putin,” Remnick said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
    .
    What’s the game ref in “playing into the hands of”?
    .
    **
    .
    “Why the Hell Are We Standing Down?” — The secret story of Obama’s response to Putin’s attack on the 2016 election, Corn & Isikoff

    Given Trump’s business dealings with Russians over the years and his long line of puzzling positive remarks about Putin, there seemed ample cause for Putin to desire Trump in the White House. The intelligence experts did believe this could be part of the mix for Moscow: Why not shoot for the moon and see if we can get Trump elected?

    Shooting for the moon is often explained as a card game ref:

    In trick-taking card games, such as Hearts, Spades and Euchre, “Shoot the moon” is a description for an end condition where one player or team has performed a difficult task of ending the round having taken a threshold number or all point cards in their tricks.

    Rhen there’s the OED, which among other meanings gives:

    to shoot the moon: to remove household goods by night in order to avoid seizure for rent. (Cf. the older phrase in shove v.1 10 c.) 1836 Comic Almanack Sept. (1870) 63 And lack-a-day! here’s Quarter Day; It always comes too soon; So we by night must take our flight, For we must shoot the moon! 1844 Alb. Smith Mr. Ledbury iii, Gradually moving all his things away, and shooting the moon to a friend’s lodging. 1882 Besant All Sorts iv, I let his houses… I warned him when shooting of moons seemed likely.

    Oops, and I thought it might be a baseball ref!

Switch to our mobile site