#wells p eagleton

[reallybadblackoutpoems]

brain abscess, its surgical pathology and operative technic (1922) - wells p. eagleton

“hey bbg let me see that frontal lobe ahaha”

#they rlly just named people wells eagleton back then huh #also its says his lifespan is #1865- #so he hasnt died yet #wells p eagleton #where are you #please contact me #i will fall in love w u #blackout poetry #blackout poem #author #book #i am a poet

[therogerclarkfanclub]

★ Roger's Audiobooks (E—H) ★

UPDATED: March 13, 2024

If Audible isn't your thing, Roger's audiobooks can also be found at these other sellers but selection varies from site to site:

Apple Books ☆ Audible ☆ Audiobooks.com ☆ AudiobooksNow.com ☆ AudiobookStore.com ☆ Barnes & Noble ☆ Binge Books ☆ Chirp Books ☆ Downpour ☆ Everand ☆ Google Play ☆ Hoopla ☆ Libro.fm ☆ Overdrive + Libby ☆ Rakuten Kobo ☆

Links to more of Roger's Audiobooks:

A-D ☆ E-H ☆ I-L ☆ M-P ☆ Q-T ☆ U-Z

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BOOK SERIES: "The Eastern Front" by Prit Buttar • Collision of Empires: The War on the Eastern Front in 1914 (Vol. #1) • Germany Ascendant: The Eastern Front 1915 (Vol. #2) • Russia's Last Gasp: The Eastern Front 1916–17 (Vol. #3) • The Splintered Empires: The Eastern Front 1917-21 (Vol. #4)

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• Eliot After The Waste Land by Robert Crawford

• Enlightened Vagabond: The Life and Teachings of Patrul Rinpoche by Matthieu Ricard (editor and translator), Constance Wilkinson (editor)

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BOOK SERIES: "Ever Chace" by Susan Harris • Skin and Bones (Vol. 1) • Collateral Damage (Vol. 2) • Smoke and Mirrors (Vol. 3)

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• The Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization by Bryan Ward-Perkins

• The Famine Plot: England's Role in Ireland's Greatest Tragedy by Tim Pat Coogan

• Fatal Colours: Towton 1461—England's Most Brutal Battle by George Goodwin

• Finding Freedom in Illness: A Guide to Cultivating Deep Well-Being Through Mindfulness and Self-Compassion by Peter Fernando

• The First World War: A Complete History by Martin Gilbert

• The Florentines: From Dante to Galileo—The Transformation of Western Civilization by Paul Strathern

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BOOK SERIES: "The Freeman Files" by Ted Tayler (The link above will take you to Barnes & Noble where you can check out the entire series) • Fatal Decision • Last Orders (Vol. 2) • Pressure Point (Vol. 3) • Deadly Formula (Vol. 4) • Final Deal (Vol. 5) • Barking Mad (Vol. 6) • Creature Discomforts (Vol. 7) • Silent Terror (Vol. 8) • Night Train (Vol. 9) • All Things Bright (Vol. 10) • Buried Secrets (Vol. 11) • A Genuine Mistake (Vol. 12) • Strange Beginnings (Vol. 13) • Dead Reckoning (Vol. 14) • A Normal November (Vol. 15) • Into the Sunlight (Vol. 16) • Tame the Storm (Vol. 17) • One True Friend (Vol. 18)

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• From Here to Financial Happiness: Enrich Your Life in Just 77 Days by Jonathan Clements

• George Bernard Shaw: A Very Short Introduction by Christopher Wixson

• Getting It in the Head: Stories by Mike McCormack

• The Healing Power of Meditation: Leading Experts on Buddhism, Psychology, and Medicine Explore the Health Benefits of Contemplative Practice by Andy Fraser (editor), Daniel Goleman (foreword)

• History and Morality by Donald Bloxham

• Hitler’s Death: The Case Against Conspiracy by Luke Daly-Groves

• How to Invest: Navigating the Brave New World of Personal Investment by Masood Javaid, Peter Stanyer, Stephen Satchell

• Humor by Terry Eagleton

#roger clark #audiobooks #audio literature #writers #authors #narrators #scheduled post #roger's audiobooks

[roaringgirl]

book club - July

keeping a little record for myself

feel like I say this every time, but really an abysmal showing at reading women writers. More abysmal than usual, even.

1. L. P. Hartley - The Go-Between (1953): Honestly I don’t remember an awful lot about this - I know I enjoyed it and there’s a cracker of a cricket match - one of the great sport scenes of literature?

2. Geoff Dyer - Out of Sheer Rage (1997 - reread): Was puzzled by this the first time I read it. On reread, I think it’s mostly solipsistic and boring. Dyer not as interesting a subject as D. H. Lawrence - even though it’s missing the point, I would rather have read Dyer’s unwritten book about D.H. than his book about not writing a book about D.H. Although he does, occasionally, have some great observations about old D.H., and has strengthened my conviction that although I don’t think Lawrence’s books are good, always, necessarily, I feel a sort of grudging affinity with him (whereas, although I like or even love a lot of E.M. Forster, I am fundamentally antipathetic to his spirit).

3. Szczepan Twardoch - The King of Warsaw (trans 2020): Some of this was really, really fun, but both twists were absolutely awful. Like, you can’t really supply a more harrowing twist to a novel about Jewish gangsters in Warsaw in 1937 than the one that we know is inevitably, historically coming. If you ignore the weird twist the main story could have been good, but the framing device was just awful.

4. Joseph Roth - The Radetzky March (1932 - reread): I went to Vienna at the beginning of July so got very into Mitteleuropa. I found this book very dull when I read it at about 16 - loved it on rereading. Fathers, sons, the historical weight of a crumbling empire, duelling, Austro-Hungarian army officers - what more could anyone want?

5. Bruno Schulz - The Street of Crocodiles and Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (1934, 1937): Very Kafka (a kind of softer, more expansive Kafka?- and Schulz translated Kafka into Polish, I think). Love the shorter stories and the ones more concretely set in Drohobycz - less keen on the stories and novellas in Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass.

6. Frank Tallis - Vienna Blood (2006, reread)

7. Frank Tallis - Fatal Lies (2008, reread) - Fun Secession-Vienna set murder mysteries. Reread back in London while on Covid sickbed having caught it at the Vienna State Opera. Would have to be syphilis for the full Viennese experience, though.

8. Benjamin Myers - The Gallows Pole (2017) - Very taken by this. Historical novel about 18th century coiners in Yorkshire on the brink of the Industrial Revolution. Fun, overwritten prose - Myers thinks he’s Ted Hughes - but I am a sucker for this kind of revisionist - what would be the equivalent of Americana? Anglicana? Do find the trend for these very violent, very niche, self-consciously masculine historical novels quite funny but can’t complain as I am writing one myself.

9. Ben Galley - Lester Young. Cannot find any information on this online so suspect I may have misrecorded author’s name. But it was the rare short, well-written, perceptive jazz book with good selection of recordings as well as thorough discography. Oh, Pres! What a sound!

10. Adam Phillips - Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life (2012): Enjoyed this a lot when he was, like, explaining psychoanalysis, although really (like most of Phillips’ work) it’s a bit of a rag-bag of essays and he’s a better second-order explainer than he is at doing original work. He is, though, a supremely gifted and entertaining explainer of others’ work (I’d compare him to Terry Eagleton). His literary criticism is interesting if insubstantial, though, especially because when I was ‘doing’ literary criticism I never really worked from a psychoanalytical standpoint.

11. Nick White - How to Survive a Summer (2017): Brandon Taylor-recommended, pretty rubbish really. Never really followed through on the O’Connor style grotesqueries I was expecting - a much softer book than I’d thought it was going to be, which is maybe more a mismatch of expectation to material, but - rather lightweight.

12. Eliza McFeely - Zuni and the American Imagination (2015): Boring book but fascinating subject. Read like a Master’s dissertation or something - not even quite a PhD.

13. T.H. White - The Sword in the Stone (reread)

14. T.H. White - The Witch in the Wood

15. T. H. White - The Ill-Made Knight: These are great. I loved The Sword in the Stone as a child (book and film), and really enjoyed the next two as well - think I may have originally read a different, shorter version of The Sword in the Stone. I love how much it reads like a Nancy Mitford novel, as well.

16. Jonathan Coe - Mr Wilder & Me (2020): Rubbish. Ordered second-hand to flat by my dad after we’d been discussing Billy Wilder. Very easy read, but flat-out bad. Might go and see the film adaptation if it ever gets made, though.

17. Bruce Chatwin - The Viceroy of Ouidah (1980): Another second-hand boon from my dad. Not sure what prompted it. Enjoyed a lot, although can only imagine da Sousa as Klaus Kinski following Herzog’s Cobra Verde - although think a lesser film that his others with Kinski).

18. Mieko Kawakami - Breasts and Eggs (2008, trans 2020): Breasts section great. Second section about sperm donation much longer and much less compelling.

19. Oliver Sacks - The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (1985): Enjoyed very much, although the puritan in me suspects I should be reading Luria instead.

#book club

[groupbookingz1]

New Year Party in Bangalore 2024: Explore the Best Party Resorts

Time to prepare for a big welcome to 2024 as we say goodbye to another amazing year. Bangalore, sometimes known as the "Silicon Valley of India," is a bustling metropolis with a thriving nightlife. Therefore, if you're searching for a memorable way to start the New Year, look no further. The most intriguing New Year's party resorts in Bangalore for 2024, which promise an extraordinary celebration, are examined in this article.

Celebrations of the New Year in The Garden City: Bangalore, renowned for its tech-savvy residents, is also well-known for its propensity for wild parties. On New Year's Eve, the city comes to life and offers a variety of ways to ring in the new year. Even though the city is filled with clubs and events, party resorts provide a distinctive and immersive experience.

New year party in Bangalore 2024: 1. Golden Shores Resort

Golden Shores Resort, tucked away on the outskirts of Bangalore, is a stunning location for your New Year's celebrations. This resort provides the ideal backdrop for an unforgettable evening with well-kept gardens, a dazzling pool, and opulent lodgings. With live music, a delectable buffet, and a fireworks display that will light up the night, this New Year's Eve event promises to be electrifying.

Cliffside Retreat (b)

Cliffside Retreat is a great option for people who want to get away in a calm and natural setting. This resort, which is surrounded by lush vegetation, has sweeping views of the Nandi Hills. They host a DJ party, a bonfire, and BBQ as part of their New Year's celebration. As you ring in the New Year with your loved ones, you can dance beneath the stars.

Resort Windflower Prakruthi:

In close proximity to the airport is the serene Windflower Prakruthi Resort. This resort is a popular spot for New Year's celebrations since it mixes natural beauty with contemporary facilities. A delicious buffet, live entertainment, and a themed party are all included in this location's 2024 celebrations, which ensure a wonderful evening.

c. The Golf Resort at Eagleton:

Eagleton The Golf Resort is not only a haven for golfers, but it's also a great place to celebrate the New Year. Their celebrations for 2024 include a huge DJ night, fireworks, and an opulent banquet, offering a blend of luxury and adventure. The lovely golf course enhances the appeal of this place.

Chairman's Jade Club and Resort (e)

In Bangalore's New Year's celebration scene, Chairman's Jade Club and Resort is a well-kept secret. This resort guarantees a memorable evening with tastefully furnished rooms, a swimming pool, and a tempting selection of gastronomic treats. An interior DJ party, delectable food, and a glittering fireworks display will all be featured at the 2024 celebrations.

New Year's Eve events not to be missed in Bangalore:

Bangalore offers a variety of activities in addition to these wonderful resorts to make your New Year's celebration even more memorable. Here are few things you must do:

1. Skydiving

Why not begin the year with an exhilarating skydiving experience if you love adventures? A short drive from Bangalore is Nandi Hills, which provides the ideal setting for this heart-pounding pastime.

c. Trekking at night:

Experience the magic of Bangalore's night sky by setting out on a nighttime journey to the Savandurga or Skandagiri Hills. Awe-inspiring panoramic views may be seen from the top.

c. Stargazing and Camping:

Spend the final night of the year in the great outdoors. Around Bangalore, there are lots of campgrounds where you may spend New Year's Eve. Enjoy stargazing, bonfires, and barbecues with your loved ones.

d. Festivals of art and music:

During the New Year, Bangalore's vibrant cultural scene comes to life. Check out the countless cultural events, music festivals, and art exhibits happening all across the city.

Here are some crucial suggestions to make your New Year's party a success before you visit one of the amazing New Year Party Resorts in Bangalore 2024:

a. Booking in advance:

Because New Year's Eve is a well-liked occasion for celebration, many hotels fill up rapidly. To guarantee your spot, make your reservations well in advance.

b. Transportation Plans:

Make advance plans for your trip to and from the resort. To guarantee a secure and trouble-free journey, think about carpooling, taking a cab, or utilising ride-sharing services.

d. Present Your Best Face:

The ideal time to dress up is on New Year's Eve. To look your best, be sure to pack your party attire and accessories.

d. Enjoy Your Holidays Safely:

While having a good time is crucial, celebrating appropriately is just as important. If you intend to drink, assign a driver or make plans for a safe form of transportation.

Conclusion:

In Bangalore, the Garden City, 2024 is about to be ushered in with a boom, and you should be there to witness it. The Bangalore New Year party resorts provide a range of activities, from exhilarating DJ parties to tranquil nature retreats. Any choice you may have will be catered for in this energetic city. Plan your New Year's getaway, reserve your space in advance, and get ready to ring in 2024 in style amidst Bangalore's picturesque surroundings. Your New Year's party in Bangalore will undoubtedly be memorable, whether you select a resort tucked away in the wilderness or one with a more opulent atmosphere.

[marauders70s]

a collection of dumb hp-p&r text memes

dumbledore, gesturing: could a depressed person make this???

mcgonagall: your hand is literally rotting off

---

harry: sometimes I feel like arguing with you is like arguing with the sun.

hermione: WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT I AM SUPER CHILL ALL THE TIME.

---

pansy: you look awful

draco: what up bitch i just ran a 5k

pansy: really?

draco: no i threw up blood in the shower

pansy: that fight with potter really got ya down huh

---

harry: hey ron are you okay

ron, wearing the locket, staring straight ahead at a tree: yeah i'm fine it's just that life is pointless and nothing matters and I'm always tired.

harry: hermione it's your turn

---

sirius, at any minor convenience: everything hurts and i'm dying

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goyle: I once knew a guy for seven years and never learned his name. best friend i ever had. we still never talk sometimes, because he's dead.

---

oliver: sometimes you gotta do a little work so you can ball a lot.

mcgonagall: that is incorrect

---

james, during house arrest: If I keep my body moving, and my mind occupied at all times, I will avoid falling into a bottomless pit of despair.

lily, from the couch: oops

---

snape, at a christmas dinner: I can still smell her hair at night

dumbledore, pouring a generous amount of mulled wine: Put some alcohol in your mouth to block the words from coming out.

---

ron: hermione, i'm not using your color coded talking planner

hermione: we need to get good grades on our OWLs!

ron: there's nothing that could motivate me to use it

hermione: well, there's nothing we can't do if we work work hard, never sleep, and shirk from all other responsibilities in our lives.

---

harry: Professor, I wanna go home early. Ooh, hold on actually, hang on. Yeah, no, I wanna quit and never come here again.

---

ron: i'm going to tell you all my secrets

hermione: you don't have to do that

ron: I once forgot to brush my teeth for five weeks

ron: I didn't actually break charlie's wand all the way I just hid it and forgot where

ron: I don't know who scrimgeour is and at this point I'm too afraid to ask.

ron: when they have 2 sickles a scoop on salamander eyes i'm not sure where the rest of the salamander goes

ron: when i was a baby fred turned my teddy into a spider and i got so scared my mum took me to a mindhealer and they wrote a textbook about me

ron: i once threw a garden gnome so hard that it hit my sister in the face and began attacking her

hermione, looking up from her book: what did ginny do?

ron: she bit it and it ran off.

hermione: classic

---

severus: no matter what i do nothing bad can happen to me. i'm like a white wizengamot official who pretended they were mind-controlled after the fall of the dark lord

lucius: I resent that

---

sirius: thank merlin my great uncle alphard just died so I am fluuuuusheeeeeed with galleeeeooonsss

remus: I'm going to regret this flatshare

---

seamus: i passed up a gay halloween party to see this troll. Do you know how much fun gay Halloween parties are? Last year I saw three Peverell Brothers make out with three Viktor Krums. It was amazing.

---

luna: We need to remember what's important in life. Friends, unpredictable creatures, and school. Or unpredictable creatures, friends, school. It doesn't matter. But school is third.

---

tom riddle: I totally hear you, but I also don't like what you're saying. So if you say no, I will release a giant snake in the bathroom

---

luna: would you like some -

hermione: no! I am going to run for minister of magic someday, so no, thank you. I mean, not that I haven't - I ate a brownie once at quidditch cup party. It was intense. It was kind of indescribable, actually. I felt like I was floating. Turns out there wasn't any potions in the brownie, it was just an insanely good brownie.

---

sirius: do i look like the kind of person who drinks water

---

neville: flying is the worst. I know it keeps you healthy, but merlin, at what cost?

ron: okay, you don't have to join the pick up game -

neville: no no i want to be included. i'll come

---

james: What I hear when I’m being yelled at is people caring really loudly at me.

sirius: that's not right

---

mcgongall: I think you’ve got several options. They’re all terrible…but you have them.

peter: this career counseling session is getting a bit intense

---

neville: how are you handling the...breakup...

ginny: I’m gonna buy some sweat pants and a Gilderoy Lockhart novel. Might as well lean into it.

---

dumbledore, in the staff room, extremely intoxicated: Who hasn’t had gay thoughts?

---

james: Goodbye, Lily Evans, my head girl partner. Hello, Lily Potter, my fallopian princess.

lily: i should have never married you. or at least made you wear a condom

james: what's a-

---

sprout: I’m a simple lesbian. I like pretty, dark-haired women, and man-killing plants.

---

sirius: A couple more rules: if you ever read a sad book, you have to wear mascara so we can see whether or not you’ve been crying. There’s no noise allowed on Mondays. And no magic after breakfast.

peter: er i'm sorry this was the dorm assigned to me...

---

remus: Hogwarts Library is headed by the most diabolical, ruthless bureaucrat I’ve ever seen. She's like a death eater but instead of avada kedavra and crucio she uses shame and shhhing.

james: she wouldn't let him into the restricted section without a note

remus, choking back tears: I AM A PREFECT

---

pansy: I have never flown the high road. But I tell other people to ‘cause then there’s more room for me on the low road.

---

hermione: If I had a stripper’s name, it would be Equality. for house elves and all beings.

ron: if i had a stripper's name it would be sugar striped candy pole for my -

harry: hermione, DON'T -

---

sir cadogen: You know, in the 1880’s, there were a few years that were pretty rough and tumble here at Hogwarts. This depicts kind of a famous fight between Morpheus Rane, a prefect in Slytherin house, and Wilhemena Batlock, a Hufflepuff seventh year. The original title of this painting was ‘A Lively Fisting.’ But y’know, they had to change it for…obvious reasons.

---

bellatrix, in the afterlife: i regret nothing. the end.

---

harry: I don’t want to be overdramatic, but today felt like a hundred years in hell and the absolute worst day of my life.

tofty: I'm sorry but you WILL have to repeat your history of magic OWL

---

james: Lucky for me, I’ve processed all my feelings. And I’ve gone through the five stages of grief - Denial, anger, picking on Peter, cat adoption, reckless dueling, cat returning to the adoption place, reading all Martin Miggs books in the series (what i was picking on peter for actually), and not giving a flying fuck.

remus: you can't say fuck

james: oh great i'm going to have to start the process all over again.

remus: peter, you'd better run

---

dudley: I’m allergic to magic candy. Every time I eat more than 80 sweeties I barf.

fred: how about...81

---

sirius: I’ll have a glass of your most expensive red wine mixed with a glass of your cheapest white wine served in a dog bowl. Silly straws all around, please.

remus: this is why we can't date in public

---

neville: I’m gonna get drunk and then I’m gonna order a three course meal where each course is made of dessert.

---

arthur: I promised myself I was not going to cry tonight, and I’ve already broken that promise five times. But I will not break it a sixth.

bill: dad maybe you shouldn't give a toast while fleur's family is still here

---

gilderoy: I have no idea what I’m doing, but I know I’m doing it really, really well.

---

pansy: Use him. Abuse him. Lose him. That’s the Parkinson motto.

draco: I thought the Parkinson motto is don't look at me you whore.

pansy: the motto is really more like a chapter book.

---

harry: You’re ridiculous and pureblood rights is nothing.

voldemort: wow

---

tonks: I would like a glass of red wine and I’ll take the cheapest one you have because I can’t tell the difference.

sirius: cheers i'll drink to that

remus: put. the bowl. down.

---

eh, and just one for the road: “I wonder who else was born in Eagleton. Voldemort, probably.” – Leslie Knope

#parks and rec #hp memes #incorrect harry potter

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Graphics by Jasmine Mithani

President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden are well on their way to facing off in November, but this hasn’t stopped the new coronavirus from casting a pall of uncertainty over the campaign. Numerous primaries have been postponed and the Democrats have already delayed their convention. In fact, there’s a decent chance that neither party will be able to hold one in person, possibly necessitating the first virtual convention in U.S. history. There’s also a real question mark around the general election, as it may fall in the midst of a resurgence of the virus.

But if we’re going to entertain doomsday scenarios, let’s consider one that’s always lurking but may be disturbingly relevant in 2020: the death or incapacitation of a presidential nominee. How would the parties — and the public — respond to such a tragic event?

We know this is macabre, but Trump and Biden are both in their 70s (Trump turns 74 in June, and Biden is 77), making them the oldest major-party nominees in American history.

And on top of the reality that the elderly simply have a greater chance of dying, COVID-19 is particularly dangerous for those 65 and over. So if there were ever an election cycle to worry about this morbid hypothetical, it’s this one.

If something were to happen to the presumptive nominee before the convention, the parties have a plan — they’d proceed as normal and use the convention to pick the nominee. And if something happened after the convention but before the election, there’s a plan for that, too — national party committees would step in. After the election, though, things get murkier, as it’s uncertain how the result would work out in the Electoral College.

Let’s tackle that first scenario — something happens to either Biden or Trump before their respective conventions. In the case of the Democratric nomination, that would all of a sudden open up the race, according to Lara Brown, director of the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University. The delayed primaries would become far more relevant, and this could create a free-for-all with Sen. Bernie Sanders and the other candidates. “Let’s face it, none of the candidates have officially withdrawn,” said Brown. “They’ve all just suspended [their campaigns].”

But if tragedy didn’t strike until the convention, Biden delegates would have to choose someone else to support.1 Richard Pildes, a constitutional law professor at the New York University School of Law, stressed, however, that even under normal circumstances, the Democratic delegates are technically free “on the first ballot to vote their conscience.” As for the GOP convention rules, Pildes told me they specifically bind the delegates, and as Trump is the only candidate who will really have delegates, the party might need to issue an “interpretation” of the rules or even vote to change them to deal with this unforeseen situation.

Brown and Pildes said it wouldn’t necessarily prevent a drawn-out convention battle, but if Biden had picked a running mate, that might go a long way in limiting the intraparty fighting because Democrats would already have someone to rally around rather than being split among a host of alternatives. On the other hand, Vice President Pence would automatically ascend to the presidency should something happen to Trump, giving the Republicans a pretty straightforward pick if disaster struck before their August convention.

If something happened after the conventions but before the election, the national party committees would pick another nominee. Under Republican rules, the Republican National Committee could reconvene the national convention, although Pildes told me it’s hard to imagine that being feasible. So in both parties, national committee members would vote to elect a new nominee.2 Pence would once again be the obvious choice for Republicans, although the GOP would also have to pick a new vice presidential nominee (as would the Democrats if this situation arose for them). And while Democrats could try to back a former candidate or an outsider who didn’t run — say, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo — Brown said a crisis like this would likely push the Democratic National Committee to put the vice presidential nominee at the top of the ticket. “I assume that the Democrats would attempt to follow that same pattern [as the GOP],” she said.

Neither party has ever had to replace someone at the top of the ticket, but Democrats do have some experience with replacing someone in the No. 2 spot. In 1972, the national convention nominated Missouri Sen. Thomas Eagleton to be George McGovern’s running mate, but after reports surfaced that Eagleton had received electroconvulsive therapy for depression, he withdrew, and the DNC chose Sargent Shriver to fill the vacancy. Brown cautioned me not to read too much into how this worked, though, because she argued that the process would work differently if someone died. “It’s different with a death because a death is unexpected,” said Brown. “Whereas by the time you get to Eagleton withdrawing at McGovern’s request, the whole party is kind of on board with that already.”

And what if something happens very close to Election Day? It’d probably be really hard to pick a replacement in time to update ballots, as most deadlines to certify state ballots would have passed by early October — not to mention other logistical hurdles that could pose problems, such as mailing ballots for overseas military service members in time, or making last-minute adjustments to absentee ballots. It’s entirely possible that if the candidate died only a few days before Nov. 3, voters might not know who the party’s nominee was when they go to the polls.

Again, neither party has experienced this at the top of the ticket, but Republicans did have this happen to a vice presidential candidate in 1912, when sitting Vice President James Sherman died on Oct. 30, just days before the election. This left insufficient time for the RNC to meet and nominate a replacement to join President William Howard Taft on the GOP ticket, but it was also largely a moot point as Taft lost to Woodrow Wilson. The RNC still chose a replacement, Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia University, who received all eight of Sherman’s electoral votes, but it’s unclear whether a new presidential pick would receive the electoral votes intended for the original nominee today.

That’s because, unlike in 1912, more than half the states have laws that attempt to bind electors to a state’s vote. In fact, there’s an ongoing case in front of the Supreme Court about whether members of the Electoral College are free to vote for whomever they want or whether state laws can require them to vote a certain way. And depending on how the court rules, that could affect the ability of individual states to adjust for the unexpected death of a presidential nominee. For instance, Michigan’s law requires an elector to vote for the ticket named on the ballot whereas Florida’s rules say that an elector is to “vote for the candidates of the party that he or she was nominated to represent.”

Finally, if the nominee was incapacitated after Election Day, a lot might depend on whether he is considered the “president-elect.” If he is, it’s actually pretty straightforward — the 20th Amendment says the vice president-elect shall become president. But if it all happened before the Electoral College votes on Dec. 14 or even before Congress counts the electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021, it’s not clear what would happen next, as he might not be considered the president-elect. There is one instance of this happening — in 1872, Horace Greeley died on Nov. 29, just before the Electoral College’s Dec. 4 gathering and most of his 66 electoral votes were split among four alternate candidates (including Greeley’s vice presidential nominee, Benjamin Gratz Brown), but this example is largely academic, too, as Greeley had already lost to Republican President Ulysses S. Grant.

It’s hard to know what exactly might unfold, but none of these timelines would leave much time for the near-certain legal wrangling over the fallout from a candidate’s death, a problem that we haven’t adjusted for even after the messy recount in the 2000 presidential election. Pildes put it bluntly: “We’ve been lucky. We have actually had some presidents who have died shortly after taking office but not somebody who died either between the convention and the election, or after being elected and becoming the president-elect.” And if that were to happen this year, it would likely create intraparty division, uncertainty among voters or a tidal wave of litigation. Let’s hope that the country’s luck doesn’t run out in 2020.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Geoffrey Skelley

[vladimir-nabokov-official]

It is worth adding that though formalist theories of literature are notably shy of history, they themselves tend to arise under distinctive historical conditions. One such condition is when literary works no longer appear to serve any very definite social function, in which case it is always possible to pluck a virtue from necessity and claim that they represent their own function, ground and purpose. Hence the formalist view of the literary work as autonomous. Another condition is when the basic stuff of literature – language – is felt to have become tarnished and degenerate, so that literary works have to wreak a certain systematic violence on this unpropitious material, alienating and transforming it in order to wrench some value from it. The poetic is thus a kind of alienation to the second power, defamiliarising an already distorted medium. The Russian Formalists, Prague structuralists, American New Critics and English Leavisites all write in civilisations which are living through the early impact of so-called mass culture, along with accelerating scientific and technological advances, on the everyday language that forms the literary artist’s raw materials. At the same time, that language is buckling under the strain of new urban, commercial, technical and bureaucratic pressures, as well as being thrown increasingly open to cosmopolitan cross-currents. In this situation, only by being brought to a certain crisis can it be restored to health.

Terry Eagleton, The Event of Literature (p. 34–5)

#terry eagleton

[edwad]

What’s your mum’s favourite book about Marx? And yeah I was asking about which books about Carl marcks you thought were the worst

ah well i’m an idiot and wrote all that for Nothing. anyway my mom has no opinions bc she’s a fellow traveler at best. but for the thing you actually wanted:

i feel like almost all books on marx are p bad tbh so this isn’t hard to do. not sure if you’re asking about biographies or just books on his Thought but i’ll talk about a few of each here.

the revolutionary ideas of karl marx (callinicos) is one of the best books on the planet if you want to understand marx the wrong way. it’s traditional marxism 101, including a chunk of the text dedicated to explaining dialectics and idealism/materialism as poorly as possible. gets lots of things flat out wrong, and not just interpretive stuff but actual historical facts. it was also published in the 80s iirc and he laughs at the idea that we’ll all have our own computers someday (supercomputers are so big!!! how would they fit in an apartment!!). this bit actually made it through to the 2nd edition which came out in like 2006 or something so it’s even more laughable. he’s also a trotskyist and did some fucked up shit which i’m not gonna get into here. swp sucks ass

marx for beginners (ruis) is an illustrated guide to marxs life and ideas which refers to him as “charles” throughout and makes a fucking mess of everything. i read it pretty early on into my marxism and i don’t think there was a single thing in the whole book that i didn’t already know (rightly or not lol) just from skimming marxs wikipedia page. it’s pretty bad

unraveling capitalism (choonara) written by another swp-er but focusing on marxs capital. it pushes the TSSI interpretation, which i don’t dig, and comes with all the problems of a text written by a swp-er. i don’t think this one is completely trash because it might have some utility as a 101 text, but it treats marx as an economist rather than as a social theorist critiquing economics, i.e. he approaches marx backwards.

marxs das kapital (wheen) mildly informative book stuffed with wheen’s typical bizarre speculation presented as unsourced fact. heinrich rightly rips him apart for this in his new marx biography. this book is more of a biography of capital itself, rather than a biography of marx (which wheen also did, poorly), but it tries to draw things out that aren’t there and tie marxs later critical project directly to things from his youth, which isn’t an uncommon position by any means but one that i always have a hard time tolerating.

marx and marxism (claeys) this book was so bad that i don’t even remember reading it. i retained nothing. i learned nothing. i just know that i kept fighting the author in my head

why marx was right (eagleton) i read this after years of being told it should be read as a beginner-friendly book on marx. turns out it’s bad. i think class-struggle-anarchism is the one who said this book should’ve been called “why marx wasn’t wrong” because that’s really what the book is trying to do. it defends marx from the 20th century (more or less the trotskyist history of the soviet union) but doesn’t actually prove him correct. he also gets some things wrong, which doesn’t help his case

every book ernest mandel ever wrote except maybe the formation of the economic thought of karl marx which is like 60-70% alright, mostly because there aren’t a lot of other books like it. allen oakley is the only person i can think of who’s doing something similar and which has been published in english, but oakley is loads better. he’s just much heavier on the marxology and less on The Narrative (which is fine by me)

[literary-structures]

Berys Gaut includes the fact of ‘belonging to an established literary form’ among the conditions for a work being regarded as art. But what of the work that sets out to demolish or transform that set-up, to dismantle the prevailing definitions of literature and revolutionise the rules of the game? Does the literary institution really instruct us so assuredly in what to do with, say, “Finnegans Wake,” and is that work at risk of being denied the honorific title of literature if it does not? Richard Gale tells us that ‘words and sentences occurring in a fictional narrative do not acquire a new meaning, nor do our ordinary syntactical rules cease to apply to such sentences.’ To this extent, we always know in principle how to handle them. But there are many experimental works that bend words and syntax well out of their customary shape. Why do philosophers of literature always seem to take Jane Austen and Conan Doyle as their paradigm, rather than the poetry of Paul Celan or Jeremy Prynne? Charles Altieri is in no doubt that we should withhold the name of literature from a work which proves unresponsive to canonical procedures. In a similar way, Soviet psychiatrists used to withhold the name of sanity from those who proved resistant to their treatment. Good works of literature are those that resemble other good works of literature, allowing us to do with them what we are accustomed to doing. The literary canon submits itself to no other court of judgement. It is self-confirming. Yet why should such canonical procedures go unchallenged? There is an assumption among many champions of the canon, for example, that an authentic work of art must always and everywhere forge unity out of complexity – a prejudice that survived with astonishing tenacity from the age of Aristotle to the early twentieth century, when modernists and avant-gardists dared to query what political ends were served by this fetishistic obsession with integrity. Why should artworks never have a hair out of place? Why should every one of their features be slotted precisely into place, organically related to every other? Can nothing ever simply freewheel? Is there no virtue in dispersion, dislocation, contradiction, open-endedness? This compulsion to coherence is by no means beyond the reach of criticism. On the contrary, it has ideological and even psychoanalytic implications of which the custodians of the canon appear innocently unaware. Yet it continues to crop up in the work of philosophers of literature as more or less axiomatic. And this spontaneous conformity to a deeply questionable dogma is sufficient grounds for scepticism when we are informed by the aestheticians that they have the key to the nature of literature in their possession.

Terry Eagleton, The Event of Literature (p. 56–8)

#canonisation #experimentalism #literary value #modernism

[ilynm2018-blog]

Defining Aesthetics

In this blog post, we'll be discussing the two opposing theories on aesthetics and ultimately concluding with my own personal definition after examining the counterpoint theories. 

The origins of the word 'aesthetic' can entirely be thanked by the Ancient Greeks. Aesthetic derives from the Greek word 'aisthesis' - to do with feelings and sensitivity, as well as 'aisthanestai' to feel with the senses. With this definition in play, the origins of aesthetics had little to no correlation with beauty. In modern-day times, if one were to glance at the sentence, 'to feel with the senses', you'd assume we were defining the word intuition. Linguistics is a complicated manner, and so too, like humans, definitions evolve and adapt over time to suit its surrounding environment. 

At the very beginning, 1750 to be exact, upon arrival of Baumgarten's (one might say, infamous) book Aesthetica caused quite the uproar between philosophers and artists alike. Although this was not the first article to delve into aestheticism as a whole, The Pleasures of the Imagination (1712) by journalist Joseph Addison being one of the predecessors, Baumgarten is credited as a major source within the aesthetic movement. Although there are many branches upon branches of theories and ideologies, the main theory that academics, poets and philosophers alike tend to question is, "are aesthetics, beauty and pleasure inherently tied together?"

During the Mid Modern Period, or the less commonly referred to, Age of Revolution, was when Alexander Baumgarten published 'Aesthetica' - a book containing his thoughts and studies on beauty, something Baumgarten emphasized being tied to aesthetics - 'the inquiry in the science of sensuous knowledge or the meaning and value of our experiences of beauty and the arts' (Richter, Perspectives in Aesthetics, 5). Baumgarten being the very soul founder of coining the term aesthetics itself. 

Aside from Baumgarten, the famous philosopher Immanuel Kant linked the pleasures from beauty to aestheticism but focused much less on fine art and artworks. Although Kant revolved his ideologies more so around 'natural' beauty, his theories still apply and he is one of the biggest founders for this particular movement. 

"Beauty’s abiding meaning is associated with the order, but in the more modern readings the aesthetic interpretation of beauty is associated with delight and perception (Feagin and Maynard, 1997)." 

Lavie and Tractinsky, 2003, Assessing Dimensions of Perceived Visual Aesthetics of Web Sites.

Branching down from the theory of aestheticism and beauty, Frank Sibley issued a set of articles discussing aesthetic concepts and how one requires higher perception and/or more sophisticated 'tastes', which in itself is why most conversations having to do with aesthetics and aestheticism discuss rulings and class - the bourgeois specifically. 

“My argument that the ‘aesthetic,' at least in its original formulations, has little enough to do with art. It denotes instead a whole program of social, psychical and political reconstruction on the part of the early European bourgeoisie.”

Eagleton, 1989, The Rhetoric of Interpretation and the Interpretation of Rhetoric, 75 - 76. 

On the other end of the aestheticism spectrum, philosophers and writers like Terry Eagleton, George Dickie and Anthony Savile all oppose the notion that aestheticism must be linked to beauty and pleasures. After analyzing the etymology of the word aesthetic, these few have grounded their beliefs in that the 'aesthetic experience' had become inherently based on classism and tastes, otherwise corrupting the original notion of aestheticism itself - Dickie even going as far as writing an entire book entitled 'The Myth of the Aesthetic Attitude’ (1964). 

The reason why aestheticism is such a fiercely debated topic throughout history is because of how intricate and in-depth one needs to go to justify re-defining aesthetics. So if aestheticism is based on beauty, but my definition of beauty is different to yours, how do I know if something IS truly beautiful? What makes person A's tastes more perceptive and higher quality than person B's? Their social status and wealth? And the very argument that beauty is something that only brings pleasure and happiness is easily arguable by any person that has even a smidgen of emotional capacity. 

Allowing aestheticism to be soiled by classism and general snobbishness is quite frankly highly against my values. After reading further into several theories and philosophical articles, I've found myself leaning more towards not allowing aestheticism to be soiled by hierarchy, so to speak. One might consider that an almost purist outlook on the concept, but redefining aestheticism with unneeded rules and regulations takes away from the experience. 

I don't only look at art, 

I feel it too.

I allow my senses to guide me through my aesthetic experience! 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

References

Adorno, T., 1996. Aesthetic theory. 1st ed. London: Athlone.

Dickie, G., 1964. The Myth of the Aesthetic Attitude. 1st ed. University of Illinois Press: North American Philosophical Publications.

Hernadi, P., 1989. The Rhetoric of Interpretation and the Interpretation of Rhetoric. 1st ed. Durham: Duke University Press.

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2019. Aesthetics. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.iep.utm.edu/aestheti/. [Accessed 20 August 2019.]

Kivy, P., 2004. The Blackwell Guide to Aesthetics. 1st ed. Malden, MA: The Blackwell Pub.

Lamarque, P. and Olsen, S., 2019. Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. 2nd ed. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell.

Plato Stanford. 2016. Nietzsche. [ONLINE] Available at: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/. [Accessed 20 August 2019.]

Wikipedia. 2019. History by Period. [ONLINE] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_by_period#Mid_Modern_Period_(1750_–_1945). [Accessed 20 August 2019.]

Y9history. 2019. What factors shaped the world from 1750 to 1918? [ONLINE] Available at: http://y9history.weebly.com/uploads/2/6/0/9/26094658/y9chapter1.pdf. [Accessed 20 August 2019.]

[adanicole04]

Power to the People: An Ideological Analysis

**this is a paper I wrote in college about the ideology of democracy, and tied to current culture. It’s been a couple years since this was written, but I remember this being one of my favorite projects, and I believe it’s still applicable today. Hope you enjoy! But please don’t steal it ;)

Introduction:

           NBC’s Parks and Recreation character Leslie Knope is a passionate bureaucrat who personally renewed my faith in what government is supposed to be by consistently reinforcing what democracy means to her. It may be a little pathetic in retrospect that it actually took a TV show to do so, but in light of everything happening today, it seems pretty understandable. Considering approval ratings of Congress have been at a historic all-time low for several years now, it should come as no surprise that “this more negative attitude toward Congress mirrors other indicators showing that Americans are at or near record lows in their confidence in the executive and judicial branches and the federal government in general” (Connolly, 2016).

           The American people are losing (if not already lost) trust in their government, and really, who can blame them? We’ve been lied to, deceived, and had our money stolen from us to be blown on government officials vacation homes while the rest of us have the worries of our basic needs to live constantly hanging over our heads. We are a people in need of reassurance; not of what our government is doing for us (because who knows if we are ever told the truth about that), but what our government was founded on: democracy.

After Donald Trump was elected president, there seemed to be enough interest as to what “Leslie Knope” would say, that an actual letter was written up in her name (by the writers of the show). There is a lengthy story about democracy, the central idea of this paper, of which I will discuss later. For now, I will start with the proclaimed point of that story.

           “People are unpredictable, and democracy is insane.”

           Critics, like random Quora user Carl Hancock, argue that democracy should be considered a concept, and that the ideology of democracy is limited to the belief of one’s ideal form of government (Hancock, 2013). And even Merriam-Webster defines “democracy” as a form of government (Democracy). Should democracy be restricted to a concept and/or form of government?

           Foss (2009) states that “an ideology is a pattern of beliefs that determines a group’s interpretations of some aspect of the world” (p. 209). Our government should be reflected on the beliefs and values our founding fathers had for America: that we are free people. By limiting “democracy” to a form of government, we eliminate the potential belief system that essentially directs our government. Using “Leslie Knope Writes Letter to America Following Donald Trump’s Victory” as my main artifact, quotes from Parks and Recreation (Parks & Rec for short) episodes, and ideological criticism, I argue that democracy is (and should be considered as) an ideology.

           Foss (1989) also asserts that the goal of a rhetorical criticism is to introduce an artifact and essay that transforms the lives of the reader (p. 26). My goal for this analysis is to embody the persona of Leslie Knope herself, and inspire American citizens to engage in the idea of democracy. I know too many people who actively avoid anything political, because it’s not only an untrustworthy area, but it’s also confusing due to issues exactly like this essay: what even IS democracy? My contribution is to simplify the rhetorical foundation of what government is supposed to be to provide confidence the people should have about it.

Context and Artifact Analysis:

           Parks & Rec first aired sometime in 2009 while interest in politics really sparked after the 2008 Presidential Election. President Obama based his political campaign on “hope”, creating a positive aura around Congress. The creators of Parks & Rec were inspired by this and with the success of the politically charged show The Wire to produce a comedy about an optimistic woman starting her career in politics while highlighting the general failure of local government (Weiner, 2009).

           This government-loving optimist named Leslie Knope was born, and she reminded us every week why government is important, and what it stands for. She was always consistent in her views of democracy, women in government, and breakfast foods. All of the characters were impeccably cast, but Amy Poehler brought upon a certain charm and admirable trait to her love of government. Personally, I related politically more with the character Ron Swanson, a firm libertarian. However, I really loved Knope’s idea of democracy, and how often she talked about it.

           For instance, when visitors from Venezuela came to Pawnee, Indiana (the fictitious location of the show) to financially help build a park, one of the men tried to trick Knope into taking their money, videotaping the donation, so they could humiliate Americans back in their country. Knope hilariously stood her ground by reinforcing her American values by telling him, “I am gonna build that park myself, and it is gonna be awesome. And it's not gonna have a fountain shaped like Hugo Chavez's head spitting water all over everyone. Unless that's what the people want. And that, sir, is democracy.”

           When it came down to the recent election of Donald Trump, it was embarrassingly comforting to have that same reassurance by her. Honestly, there are more than enough quotes from the show itself to discuss, but her letter to America was classic Leslie Knope rhetoric covering a very real issue.

           To make her initial point, she almost immediately began with a story. She was in fourth grade, and her teacher conducted a mock election in which two fictitious characters were presented. One character was cool, promised things like extra recess and pizza with a candy bar crust, and the other was “bookish”, and promised to take things slow to be able to evaluate the problems of the school in a careful, intentional manner.

           But before they voted, one student (Greg) asked if they could nominate a third candidate. Her teacher replied, ““Sure! The essence of democracy is that everyone—” and Greg cut her off and said “I nominate a T. rex named Dr. Farts who wears sunglasses and plays the saxophone, and his plan is to fart as much as possible and eat all the teachers,” and everyone laughed, and before Mrs. Kolphner could blink, Dr. Farts the T. rex had been elected President of Pawnee Elementary School in a 1984 Reagan-esque landslide, with my one vote for Greenie the Tortoise playing the role of “Minnesota.”

           Knope then went on to say, “Winston Churchill once said, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except all those other forms that have been tried.” … The point is: people making their own decisions is, on balance, better than an autocrat making decisions for them. It’s just that sometimes those decisions are bad, or self-defeating, or maddening, and a day where you get dressed up in your best victory pantsuit and spend an ungodly amount of money decorating your house with American flags and custom-made cardboard-cutouts of suffragettes in anticipation of a glass-ceiling-shattering historical milestone ends with you getting (metaphorically) eaten by a giant farting T. rex.”

           Even in her self-proclaimed despair, she finds a way to make us laugh. More importantly, Knope reminds us the importance of having our belief system of democracy serve as the foundation to how government operations should run, even if the results don’t sway in the direction we want or intend. Regardless, “democracy only works if people get involved” (Pilot Episode) because “the whole point of democracy is decisions are made by the people, as a group” (Canvassing).

           There were also a couple of episodes in Season 6 where her idea of democracy was even further defined. In New Slogan, Leslie inspires the town of Pawnee to vote for a new town slogan. Obviously, she created most of the selections, and she encouraged the people to vote for one of the slogans. Well, matters took a brief turn for the worst when the local radio DJ “the Douche” suggested a write-in option of “The Home of the Stick Up Leslie Knope’s Butt”, and it led the polls. And why was there a write-in option you may wonder? “Because every election has a write-in option. That's how democracy works. I'm not a dictator. If I we're a dictator, I would throw the Douche in prison without a trial” (New Slogan). Once again, even though sometimes it makes her hysterically angry, her ideology of democracy guides practically everything she does, and every decision she makes.

           Even when her archenemy Councilman Jeremy Jamm snuck in a meeting to vote on a bill that would take away voting rights to its new citizens (there was a town merger that joined the bordering town of “Eagleton” when their government went bankrupt) right before Knope’s recall election. Councilwoman Knope interrupted the meeting to filibuster it so it couldn’t pass. During the filibuster, she found out that the new citizens supported her actions, but would not be voting in her favor. She had to weigh the options out loud, but ultimately remained true to her beliefs. She could’ve stopped in order to have a better chance in the election, but instead she declared that “the right to vote is fundamental in any democracy, and this is bigger than me or anyone” (Filibuster).

Ideological Criticism:

           By using the application of ideology to democracy, we can ensure a level of consistency that is desperately needed (and currently lacking) within political actions. As opposed to the restrictions the literal translation of democracy offers, the ideology behind it ensures that the “actions and their rationale are not isolated but woven into a broader fabric of understanding, anticipation, and value” (Brock, Huglen, Klumpp, & Howell, 2005).

           During my analysis of the presented artifacts, it is clear that Leslie Knope has a deeply rooted understanding of democracy that is based on the idea of “the people”; that government cannot properly or fairly operate without the input of its citizens. The element that Knope presents is that we also need people within our governmental systems to uphold those beliefs and values. We need people to encourage group participation.

           Although she explicitly speaks to females near the end of her letter, she acknowledges the misogyny protruding from Trump. Because this character is also quite the feminist, it probably would’ve been easier to cover this and other artifacts using a feminism approach. However, I’ve found that her hardcore belief in democracy is the basis of her rhetoric and actions. She encompasses the power within groups by simply using the word “we”; accomplished within this letter, and pretty much everything she does on the show.

           “We will acknowledge this result, but we will not accept it. We will overcome it, and we will defeat it. Now find your team, and get to work.”

           Democracy isn’t yet another form of government. It should be the idea behind every single decision made and action taken within the system. Political leaders and elected officials should stop and think, “Is this what the people want? AM I 100% SURE?” before signing or approving anything.

           Using her anger as a tool, she encourages the beliefs behind democracy to fight the good fight in politics, and overcome this embarrassment that is our current president. When she says, “I work hard and I form ideas and I meet and talk to other people who feel like me, and we sit down and drink hot chocolate (I have plenty) and we plan. We plan like mofos. We figure out how to fight back, and do good in this infuriating world that constantly wants to bend toward the bad. And we will be kind to each other, and supportive of each other’s ideas,” she is literally describing her idea of democracy in classic Leslie Knope fashion. As the elected official in her town, she remains determined to improve lives through the power of the people, and through communication.

Conclusion:

           Democracy shouldn’t be placed in a box, and set aside in politics. It should be the automatic default deciding factor for everything that happens in our government. Without the ideology of democracy, we have no real guide for how things are done. The values and beliefs behind it consistently point to the PEOPLE; not one person, not only elected officials. If anything, the elected officials should ONLY be acting in the wishes and demands of their citizens. No politician should have a final say in anything without the approval of the people first. Maybe that’s why our government is as screwed up as it is: because we have put democracy in a box, labeled it as a concept, and threw it in the dark and musty basement that no one ever goes in.

           Politicians want us to believe that the notion behind democracy is some liberal tactic to take more of your money, and encourages welfare systems “for the good of the people”. This also discourages others to participate in government because people will blindly accept and trust that elected officials will do the right thing. Well, if there is no foundation of beliefs, morals and/or values, what (besides dirty money) is left to guide them?

           Simple answer? Democracy. Myself, and others like Mrs. Knope (aka Parks & Rec writers) firmly believe that democracy is a set of beliefs grounding all political actions to be decided upon by the people. It is also the mutual understanding of myself and others like me that this can only be done through communication. Any politician has the “power” to draft a bill, and receive approval within the system, without ever reaching awareness of his or her citizens. In a fair and just democracy, that can no longer happen. Americans need to understand the true power of the people, and reconstruct our government to do the same. We are in desperate need of a government that works for us, not over us. We can only make this happen through the ideology of democracy.

#america #american #democracy #ideology #fourth of july #independence day #true democracy #parks and rec #leslie knope

[istmos]

"(...)there is something peculiarly self-undoing about the civilising process. If the death drive lurks within the urge to create, then what makes for civility also threatens to mar it. There is an anarchic aspect to our very rage for order. It is possible, Freud considers, that the project of culture or civilisation demands more from us than we can properly yield, not least because the superego, being obtuse as well as vindictive, issues its ukases in callous indifference as to whether we can obey them or not. Culture is a sickeningly unstable affair. If a society fails to evolve beyond the point where the satisfaction of a minority depends on the suppression of the majority, Freud writes in The Future of an Illusion, it ‘neither has nor deserves the prospect of a lasting existence’. The political implications of the claim are dramatic.(...)"

Terry Eagleton,  “Culture and the Death of God”, p.173, Yale Univ. Press

#terry eagleton #culture and the death of god #civilizing process

[patriotsnet]

How Many Republicans Are In The House Of Representatives

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-many-republicans-are-in-the-house-of-representatives/

How Many Republicans Are In The House Of Representatives

Texas V Azar: Another Legal Challenge With Tenuous Logic And Significant Potential Ramifications

Republicans register their fury as House holds historic first proxy vote

When GOP lawmakers passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that prospectively repealed the individual mandate penalty, it triggered a new lawsuit filed by 20 Republican-led states .

The plaintiff states argument is essentially this: The Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that the individual mandate was constitutional because the fine for non-compliance was deemed a tax rather than a penalty. Now that the tax for non-compliance with the individual mandate has been set at $0, plaintiffs in Texas v. Azar are arguing that the entire ACA is unconstitutional and should be struck down.

Legal scholars on both sides of the issue believe that this is an absurd argument, but Judge Reed OConner sided with the plaintiffs in December 2018, ruling that the ACA should be invalidated. And a few months later, the Trump administration agreed that the ACA should be overturned.

Oral arguments were held in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in July 2019, with Democratic-led states stepping in to defend the ACA since the Department of Justice has agreed with the plaintiffs in the case.

A group of Democratic-led states subsequently asked the Supreme Court to step in and hear the case during the 2020 term, instead of waiting for it to make its way back through the lower court. But the Supreme Court declined to do so. So for the time being, the Appeals Court is awaiting a decision from the lower court in terms of which provisions of the ACA should be overturned.

What Activists And Democrats Want To Happen

For years, Democrats and activists alike have pushed for an independent redistricting commission to draw Indianas maps. Their argument is that only an independent group can do so without party influence.;

But Republicans have long stifled any legislation that would make that change.;

Now activists such as Common Cause and;All IN for Democracy; and Democrats alike are asking for a transparent process with more time for analysis of the proposed maps and public comment after the proposed maps are released.;

What Is Gerrymandering And Does Indiana Do It

Gerrymandering is the practice of drawing electoral district lines to favor one political party or group over another.;

Indianas current state and congressional maps substantially favor Republicans, according to a recent study commissioned by activist group Women4Change and completed by;Christopher Warshaw, a political science professor at George Washington University.

Warshaw arrived at that conclusion by looking at the number of wasted votes; or the number of votes above what is needed to win in Democratic districts compared to those in Republican districts.;

During the 2012 House race immediately following redistricting, for example, the efficiency gap; or difference between wasted Republican and wasted Democratic votes;; was more extreme than 95% of other statehouse elections;throughout the country and in Indiana over the past five decades.;

Likewise, the 2014 state Senate election results, when the 2011 plan fully went into effect, had a higher efficiency gap than 96%;of other state Senate elections. A similar gap exists on the congressional side.;

Warshaw concluded the disparity wasnt just due to Indianas natural geographical makeup.;

Wesco argued that the maps Indiana uses currently are more fair than those used in the early 2000s when Democrats controlled the House.

Recommended Reading: Republican Vs Democrat Convictions Chart

Permission To Reproduce Cawp Materials

Reproduction of information on the CAWP website for non-commercial purposes is encouraged, provided that clear and visible credit is given to Center for American Women and Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University. Any information reproduced must include footnotes/endnotes that apply to that information. Commercial reproduction requires prior permission in writing from the Center for American Women and Politics. All CAWP fact sheets are available on this web site and may be downloaded and copied as needed.

Voting Members By State

As of July;30,2021:

District Executive Director of EMILY’s ListPolitical aide Delaware Health and Social Services SecretaryDelaware Labor Secretary Assistant General Counsel to the Florida Department of Community AffairsPresident of the Florida Association of Women Lawyers McLean County Board of CommissionersAir Force pilot President of the Maryland Board of Higher Education

As of January;3,2021:

District

“Directory of Representatives”. United States House of Representatives. Retrieved September 9, 2014.

^

“Biographical Directory of the United States Congress”. United States Congress. Retrieved October 31, 2020.

^Washington, U. S. Capitol Room H154; p:225-7000, DC 20515-6601. “Mike Rogers ), 117th Congress Profile”. Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives. Retrieved January 14, 2021.

^Washington, U. S. Capitol Room H154; p:225-7000, DC 20515-6601. “David Schweikert ), 117th Congress Profile”. Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives. Retrieved January 14, 2021.

^Washington, U. S. Capitol Room H154; p:225-7000, DC 20515-6601. “Doug LaMalfa ), 117th Congress Profile”. Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives. Retrieved January 14, 2021.

^Washington, U. S. Capitol Room H154; p:225-7000, DC 20515-6601. “Julia Brownley ), 117th Congress Profile”. Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives. Retrieved January 14, 2021.

^

^“History of Maryknoll”. Retrieved March 13, 2016.

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South Carolina House Of Representatives Elections 2012

See also: South Carolina State Senate elections, 2012 and State legislative elections, 2012

South Carolinas 2012 legislative elections were marred by a series of events that eventually led to nearly 250 candidates being removed from the primary ballot. Here is a brief timeline of those events, followed by a detailed account of what happened.

Deadline for candidates to file a required statement of economic interest. Many candidates from both parties fail to do so.

Week of April 16: The State Ethics Commission gives candidates an additional 10 days to turn in the form. Democrats call the decision unfair while Republicans say that they are okay with it.

May 2: The South Carolina Supreme Court rules any candidate who did not file the form must be removed from the ballot. Calls for a rehearing are denied.

May 9: While the Senate attempts to pass legislation to allow challengers back on ballot, attorney Todd Kincannon requests a delay in the primary. Both efforts fail.

Primaries take place as scheduled.

Additional filing time

Republicans said they were fine with the commissions decision.

Candidate disqualification

14Footnotes

Elections to the U.S. House were held on . All 435 seats were up for election.

In 2010, 54 incumbents lost to challengers in the general election with Republicans swinging 63 total seats in their favor.

The 147 Republicans Who Voted To Overturn Election Results

By Karen Yourish,;Larry Buchanan and Denise LuUpdated January 7, 2021

When a mob of President Trumps supporters stormed the Capitol building on Wednesday, they forced an emergency recess in the Congressional proceedings to officially certify the results of the 2020 presidential election. The disruption came shortly after some Republican lawmakers made the first of a planned series of highly unusual objections, based on spurious allegations of widespread voter fraud, to states election results. The chambers were separately debating an objection to Arizonas results when proceedings were halted and the Capitol was locked down.

When the Senate reconvened at 8 p.m., and the House of Representatives an hour later, the proceedings including the objection debates continued, although some lawmakers who had previously planned to vote with the objectors stood down following the occupation of the Capitol. Plans to challenge a number of states after Arizona were scrapped, as well but one other objection, to Pennsylvanias results, also advanced to a vote. Here are the eight senators and 139 representatives who voted to sustain one or both objections.

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Republicans Win Control Of House With Historic Gains

Republicans expected to pick up between 60 and 70 seats in House, ABC projects.

John Boehner Gets Emotional at NRCC

The GOP House victory would be the biggest gain for a party in a midterm since 1938, when Democrats lost 71 seats amid deep economic malaise during the Great Depression.

House Minority Leader and likely future speaker John Boehner was moved to tears when he addressed a crowd of supporters in Washington.

With their voices and their votes, the American people are demanding a new way forward in Washington, Boehner said. The peoples priorities will be our priorities. The peoples agenda will be our agenda. This is our pledge to America, this is our pledge to you.

The president called Boehner to congratulate him on the Republicans big win. Boehners office released a statement saying the two men discussed working together to focus on the top priorities of the American people, which Boehner has identified as creating jobs and cutting spending.

Thats what they expect, Boehner said. He thanked the president for the call.

From Virginia to Indiana, Florida to North Dakota, Democratic incumbents felt the wrath of an angry electorate, fueled by record turnout among conservative voters, exit polls showed.

Comparison To The Senate

US Midterms 2018: Democrats take the House and Republicans keep the Senate | #GME

As a check on the regional, popular, and rapidly changing politics of the House, the Senate has several distinct powers. For example, the “advice and consent” powers are a sole Senate privilege. The House, however, has the exclusive power to initiate bills for raising revenue, to impeach officials, and to choose the president if a presidential candidate fails to get a majority of the Electoral College votes. The Senate and House are further differentiated by term lengths and the number of districts represented: the Senate has longer terms of six years, fewer members , and larger constituencies per member. The Senate is referred to as the “upper” house, and the House of Representatives as the “lower” house.

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In 2012 Democrats Won The Popular Vote But Lost The House Not This Year

It didnt take long in the wake of the 2012 elections for Democrats to point out an inconsistency: The party won the popular vote in House races by more than 1 million votes, but the Republicans still controlled more seats. This was fodder for all sortsofprognostication, focusing on redistricting and the Big Sort;as possible rationales.

That same scenario didnt repeat itself this year, however. In fact, 2012 is one of only two times in the past 12 cycles that the winner of the House popular vote didnt also win more seats. The other was 1996, when Democrats barely won more of the popular vote. Both years followed strong shifts in control of the House.

Looking at the data another way, 2012 is the big dot on the graph below, the one point thats distinctly not in either the lower left quadrant or the upper right .

Also note in the first graph that, since 1992, Democrats have received more of the popular House vote in four of six presidential cycles. Republicans have received more votes in five of the six midterm cycles. So 2016 seems to be setting up as a possible repeat of 2012: a presidential year following a dominant Republican performance. It could be a much better test of whether the Big Sort is providing a substantial long-term benefit to the GOP or if 2012 was an outlier.

An Incoming Class Of History

Several of the newly elected state representatives are making history.;

The Republican Madison Cawthorn, 25, who beat the Democrat Moe Davis to represent North Carolinas 11th Congressional District, will become the youngest member of Congress in modern history.

The Democrat Cori Bush is set to become the first Black congresswoman from Missouri after winning in the states 1st Congressional District.

The Democrats Mondaire Jones and Ritchie Torres will also be the first openly gay Black men to serve in Congress, after winning in New Yorks 17th and 15th districts respectively.

And nine out of the eleven Republicans who have so far unseated incumbent Democrats are women wins that will drastically expand the representation of women and especially of women of color in the House Republican caucus.

Currently, there are just 13 voting female Republican representatives in the House and 11 female Republican incumbents who ran for reelection in 2020.

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How Many Republicans Voted For Obamacare

The Affordable Care Act, also called Obamacare, received no Republican votes in either the Senate or the House of Representatives when it was passed in 2009. In the Senate, the bill was passed with a total of 60 votes, or 58 Democratic Party votes and 2 Independent Party votes. The House passed the legislation with 219 Democratic votes.

The Affordable Care Act received 39 votes against it in the Senate, all from Republicans. One senator abstained from voting. In the House, the ACA received 212 votes against it, with 34 coming from the Democratic Party and 178 from the Republican Party. There were enough votes for the ACA in the Senate to prevent an attempt to filibuster the bill, while the House vote required a simple majority.

The ACA originated in the Senate, though both the House and Senate were working on versions of a health care bill at the same time. Democrats in the House of Representatives were initially unhappy with the ACA, as they had expected some ability to negotiate additional changes before its passage. Since Republicans in the Senate were threatening to filibuster any bill they did not fully support, and Democrats no longer had enough seats to override the filibuster, no changes could be made. Since any changes to the legislation by the House would require it to be re-evaluated in the Senate, the original version was passed in 2009 on condition that it would be amended by a subsequent bill.

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Membership Qualifications And Apportionment

Under Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution, seats in the House of Representatives are apportioned among the states by population, as determined by the census conducted every ten years. Each state is entitled to at least one representative, however small its population.

The only constitutional rule relating to the size of the House states: “The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative.” Congress regularly increased the size of the House to account for population growth until it fixed the number of voting House members at 435 in 1911. In 1959, upon the admission of Alaska and Hawaii, the number was temporarily increased to 437 , and returned to 435 four years later, after the reapportionment consequent to the 1960 census.

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Personnel Mail And Office Expenses

House members are eligible for a Member’s Representational Allowance to support them in their official and representational duties to their district. The MRA is calculated based on three components: one for personnel, one for official office expenses and one for official or franked mail. The personnel allowance is the same for all members; the office and mail allowances vary based on the members’ district’s distance from Washington, D.C., the cost of office space in the member’s district, and the number of non-business addresses in their district. These three components are used to calculate a single MRA that can fund any expenseâeven though each component is calculated individually, the franking allowance can be used to pay for personnel expenses if the member so chooses. In 2011 this allowance averaged $1.4 million per member, and ranged from $1.35 to $1.67 million.

The Personnel allowance was $944,671 per member in 2010. Each member may employ no more than 18 permanent employees. Members’ employees’ salary is capped at $168,411 as of 2009.

About Legislative Sessions In Colorado

The Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution declares that any power not already given to the federal government is reserved to the states and the people. State governments across the country use this authority to hold legislative sessions where a states elected representatives meet for a period of time to draft and vote on legislation and set state policies on issues such as taxation, education, and government spending. The different types of legislation passed by a legislature may include resolutions, legislatively referred constitutional amendments, and bills that become law.

Article V of the Colorado Constitution establishes when the Colorado General Assembly, of which the House is a part, is to be in session. Section 7 of Article V states that the Assembly is to convene its regular session no later than the second Wednesday of January of each year. Regular sessions are not to exceed one hundred twenty calendar days.

Section 7 also states that the Governor of Colorado can convene special sessions of the General Assembly. Special sessions can also be convened by a two-thirds vote of the members of both legislative houses.

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Most Recent Election For Speaker

The most recent election for House speaker took place January 3, 2021, on the opening day of the 117th United States Congress, two months after the 2020 House elections in which the Democrats won a majority of the seats. Incumbent speaker, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, secured a narrow majority of the 427 votes cast and was elected to a fourth term. She received 216 votes to Republican Kevin McCarthy‘s 209 votes, with two votes going to other persons; also, three representatives answered present when their names were called.

[ttexed]

The Great Beast and The Buddhist

Posted By: Chad Eagleton

The man who taught Aleister Crowley magic was the same man who helped bring Buddhism to the west, yet you’ve probably never heard of Charles Henry Allan Bennett.

Allan Bennett was born in London in 1872. Bennett’s father was a civil engineer and passed away when he was still a child. His father’s death and Bennett’s severe asthma meant that Allan grew up both sickly and in severe poverty.

Despite his impoverished upbringing, Bennett was educated at Hollesley College and trained as an analytical chemist. Unfortunately, his poor health made it difficult for him to keep steady work.

Bennett was raised a Roman Catholic by his widowed mother, but rejected the faith at a young age. In 1890, when he was around 18 years old, Bennett experienced shivadarshana, a yogic term for a deep trance state where the individual experiences the destruction of the universe and achieves union with the god Shiva. Shivadarshana is one of the stages of samadhi(meditative consciousness), which you’ve probably heard more frequently referred to as right concentration, the final step on the Buddha’s Eightfold Path. (An easier way to parse this for those interested in Western mysticism would be “crossing the Abyss”) This experience, which we know little about in terms of details other than what he later related to Crowley, had an immense impact on Bennett.

Trying to understand this experience is probably what lead him to join The Theosophical Society in 1893 and undoubtedly what helped send him on the path toward becoming a Buddhist monk.

Whether she was a charlatan or not, the impact of Helena Blavatsky’s Western Occult cocktail served with an Eastern mysticism chaser cannot be stated enough. Not only did her work introduce Eastern ideas to a wide Western audience, but among indigenous peoples it sparked a revival in their own religions. Mahatma Gandhi was quite vocal about how it wasn’t until he was introduced to Theosophy, while living in London, that he ever thought about practicing Hinduism, let alone questioning what the Christian Missionaries had told him: his religion was nothing other than superstitious nonsense. And Buddhism was basically dead in India until 1891.

In 1894, Bennett joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. While he never had the same impact on the group as some of its members, he was well known for his supreme concentration, his knack for practical ceremonial magic, and his specially constructed wand whose parts could be changed as needed for different workings.

Along with George Cecil Jones, Bennett was one of Crowley’s first magical teachers. When Crowley initially met Bennett, Allan was living in a dilapidated tenement slum south of the Thames. The living conditions were so terrible that Crowley promptly invited him to room with him at 67/69 Chancery Lane.

Allan’s impact on Crowley was deep and profound. While roommates, Bennett introduced him to the use of mind-altering drugs. The Beast would expand on his and S.L. Mathers’s work on the Hermetic Qabalah for his own Liber 777. And Crowley’s seldom discussed concept of Magical Memory comes directly from Bennett’s later writings for Buddhists.

Other than his first mountaineering instructor, Bennett is the only significant person in Crowley’s life that the he did not later attack or defame in either public or private writings. Crowley had only positive things to say about Allan, even within his private diaries, calling him “a tremendous spiritual force” and “the noblest and gentlest soul that I have ever known.” He described Bennett’s mind as “pure, piercing, and profound.” Despite being written five years after their last meeting, he dedicated his poem “UT” to Bennett. And, perhaps most telling of all, Crowley would later say that in all his years of studying magic and the occult Bennett was the rarest of breeds, a man who wasn’t interested in gathering power but in finding enlightenment.

Bennett eventually had a falling out with Mathers over his “orientalism.” In 1900, Allan traveled to Sri Lanka, hoping the change in climate would alleviate his many health problems. There he found employment with the Solicitor General, a man named P. Ramanathan, as a tutor for his sons. Boring enough on the surface. However, to occultists the Honorable Ramanthan was better known as Shri Parananda, a Shavite yogi and the author of commentaries on the life of Christ in which he puts forth the notion that Jesus was in fact a composite figure created from several different people, one of whom he believed to be a Hindu holy man whose yogic aphorisms were attributed to Jesus.

Crowley visited Bennett in 1901 and received instruction in Yoga.  Later, that same year, Bennett joined a local Buddhist Sangha (unsurprising that this should happen there–the Buddhist revival that began in India in 1891 was lead by a Sri Lankan named Anagarika Dharmapala) before making his way to the city of Sittwe (then called Akyab) in Burma. There, in the monastery of Lamma Syadow Kyoung, he took the monastic vows and the Dharma name Ananda Metteyya.

Officially, Bennett is considered to be the second Englishman to be ordained as a Buddhist Monk of the Theravada tradition. George Douglas, who was ordained in 1899 or 1900, was widely considered to have been the first. There are conflicting accounts as to Douglas’s fate, some reports allege he died a mere 6 months after his ordination and others that he relocated to Sri Lanka where he lived quietly.

Most research now points to an Irish migrant worker named Laurence Carroll as the first westerner to be ordained. Though he later squabbled with Bennett in the press, Dhammaloka (Carroll’s Dharma name) is mostly forgotten today. Instead of spreading the Dharma, he focused most of his time and energy on attacking Christianity, Western and colonial influence in Burma (this would see him convicted of sedition), and being a harsh proponent of the Vinaya (the monastic rules handed down by the Buddha).

Bennett meanwhile, with the help of some wealthy Burmese Buddhists, began working to bring Buddhism west. He founded the Buddhasasana Samagam, the International Buddhist Society, sometime around 1902, began editing and publishing Buddhism: An Illustrated Review in 1903, then founded The Buddhist Society of Great Britain and Ireland in 1908. Until near the end of his life, he divided his time between Burma and London working to spread Buddhism in the UK as much as his health and the generosity of his benefactors would allow.

Unfortunately, the climate of Burma did not improve Bennett’s severe asthma. By 1908, he was suffering new health conditions endemic to the tropics. Finally, in 1914, he traveled to England for the last time. While there he met with his sister and hoped to travel with her to California but was denied a VISA due to the start of World War I. Stranded in England, Bennett found it impossible to keep his monastic vows due to the practicalities of modern life in London, so he had no choice but disrobe. He continued teaching and lecturing on Buddhism until his death in 1923.

Why then is he such an obscure figure?

I think there are a couple of reasons. While I’ve heard Bennett described as mysterious, I don’t think that’s true.  In this modern age, most of us with very little effort generate a lot of info that’s easy to find. You want to know what your high school girlfriend had for lunch last Wednesday? No problem. That’s not true for those who lived in the past. Unless the person was well-known or intentionally sought out the lime-light (like Crowley), the further back in time you go, the more difficult it becomes to find any information. This becomes twice as hard with someone like Bennett who spent most of his life poor and with little possessions.

While I do think Bennett has gotten lost in Aleister Crowley’s long and black shadow, I suspect it’s mostly due to how Buddhism has been presented to make it more palpable to Westerners who are drunk on the illusion of their superior intellect and, despite claims otherwise, have never been able to fully escape the tyranny of a monotheistic worldview.

Walk into your local bookstore and look at the section on Eastern religions. Odds are it’s mostly Buddhist books and odds are those books are about mindfulness, how to be happy, and other self-help topics. But good luck finding anything else. In the West, Buddhism is portrayed as a slurry of relaxation techniques, proto-psychological therapy, and a mix of philosophy and self-help.

This is, I think, quite clear from a quick search at the magazine for Western Buddhists. There is only one article on Allan Bennett at Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. It presents Bennett as the answer to a trivia question. It glosses over Theosophy, The Golden Dawn, and Crowley in a single sentence. Though Bennett wrote about things like the role of devotion and the miraculous in Buddhism and meditative techniques for plumbing past lives, the article frames Allan’s motivations as the sort of things that would send you or I to the gym and to therapy.

This is Buddhism in the West. There can be no mention of anything that might make it feel like a religion. Buddhist cosmology and eschatology are only good for anime. Tulpas and the Diamond Vehicle are acceptable only in the context of Twin Peaks. And we like the Dalai Lama as long as he’s a leader in exile who reminds us to be kind and we don’t mention that his position is based on controlled powers of reincarnation. And so poor, sickly Allan Bennett made the dangerous journey halfway around the world not to find enlightenment but, you know, to just be happier and healthier.

Don’t forget your mindfulness t-shirt on the way out. And we do accept credit cards.

http://disinfo.com/2017/10/great-beast-buddhist/

#Charles Henry Allan Bennett.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup. Today’s theme song is “We’re the Chipmunks” from the television show “Alvin and the Chipmunks.”

Poll of the week

A new YouGov survey found that 72 percent of Americans consider North Korea an enemy. That was by far the highest share for any of the 10 countries tested — Iran, at 40 percent, came in at No. 2, and Russia followed with 26 percent. And it outpaces the share of Americans who said on the eve of the Iraq War in 2003 that Iraq was an enemy (66 percent).

Yet despite the public’s worries about North Korea, Americans are far more hesitant about beginning a military conflict there than they were with Iraq. There are a few factors that seem to be limiting Americans’ willingness to go to war that weren’t around in 2003, and that includes the person serving as commander in chief.

To be clear, Americans believe North Korea is a problem. In October, 64 percent of Americans said in a Pew Research Center survey that North Korea was capable of a launching a nuclear missile that could reach the U.S., and 75 percent thought North Korea’s nuclear program was a “major threat.” That’s about the same share of people who thought Iraq was a threat in 2003 — 79 percent.

But most Americans don’t support a war with North Korea. In a survey out this week from the University of Maryland, just 33 percent of Americans supports military action to stop North Korea’s nuclear program. That’s far lower than the consistent majority who were in favor of a ground war to remove Saddam Hussein from power in the lead-up to the Iraq War.1

Why is there less support for a conflict with North Korea?

First, Americans’ appetite for military engagements seems to have been eroded by the drawn-out wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The atmosphere heading into the Iraq War was very different. Back then, Americans thought the Afghanistan War was going well, and the most recent war before that, the 1990-91 Gulf War, had largely been successful.

Second, Americans think the U.S. can still reach a compromise with North Korea. In October 2017, Quinnipiac University found that 54 percent of voters said the U.S. could resolve the situation with North Korea diplomatically; 29 percent said military force will be needed. That’s far different from the 58 percent who said on the eve of the Iraq War that military action was the only way to disarm Iraq.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, Americans just don’t trust President Trump the way they trusted President George W. Bush in 2003. Only 39 percent of Americans told the Pew Research Center that they had confidence in Trump’s ability to handle the North Korea situation. A CBS News poll in early March 2003 found that a majority of Americans had confidence in Bush’s approach to Iraq. Obviously, if you don’t have confidence in the commander in chief, supporting a war that he is leading is difficult.

Americans have little doubt that Trump would start a war with North Korea — an astounding 84 percent believe he is willing to use military force, according to that Pew Research Center survey. And they’re afraid he’ll do so too easily. According to a CBS News poll, more Americans said they were concerned that the U.S. would enter a war with North Korea too quickly and start an unnecessary war than that the U.S. would act too slowly and fail to prevent an attack (53 percent vs. 36 percent).

Other polling nuggets

Martha McSally (31 percent) leads Joe Arpaio (29 percent) and Kelli Ward (25 percent) in an OH Predictive Insights survey of Arizona’s potential 2018 Republican Senate primary.

37 percent of Americans are “somewhat dissatisfied” or “very dissatisfied” with the position of women in the U.S., according to a new Gallup poll. That’s the highest share since Gallup first asked that question in 2001.

A record-high 61 percent of Americans said they favored legalization of marijuana, according to a Pew Research Center survey.

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, scored a 74 percent approval rating in a MassINC survey. Trump had a 29 percent approval rating among Massachusetts voters.

Just 37 percent of Americans want a border wall with Mexico to stop illegal immigration, according to a YouGov poll. The same survey put support for a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, which would give temporary legal status to young immigrants who were brought illegally to the U.S. as children, at 55 percent.

The share of political independents among U.S. adults increased to 42 percent in Gallup’s 2017 polling. But the percentage of Americans who are true independents — who don’t consistently vote for one party even while identifying as independents — was just 9 percent.

Republican Josh Hawley is ahead of Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill 49 percent to 45 percent in a Remington Research Group poll of the 2018 Missouri Senate race.

The Rutgers-Eagleton poll gives outgoing New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie a 13 percent favorable rating, which makes him the third-least-popular American governor of all time.

Democrat Oprah Winfrey has a 48 percent to 38 percent advantage over Trump in a Rasmussen Reports poll of a hypothetical 2020 presidential matchup.

Gallup finds that 37 percent of Americans say their favorite sport to watch is football. It was followed by basketball (11 percent), baseball (9 percent) and soccer (7 percent). That’s a record high for soccer. And that’s the lowest share baseball has received since the question was first asked, in 1937.

Trump’s job approval rating

Trump’s job approval rating is up again, to 39.1 percent, while his disapproval rating is down to 54.6 percent. Last week, his approval rating was 38.5 percent, and his disapproval rating was 55.3 percent.

The generic ballot

The Democrats’ lead on the generic congressional ballot held fairly steady this week. Last week, Democrats were ahead of Republicans 49.3 percent to 37.7 percent. This week, those numbers were 48.8 percent and 37.4 percent.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Harry Enten

[vladimir-nabokov-official]

There is a paradox in the idea of the self-flaunting sign. In one sense, this kind of language keeps the world at arm’s length, drawing our attention to the fact that the text is writing and not the real thing; yet it seeks to put flesh on real things by unleashing the full range of its resources. The paradox of the poetic sign is that the more densely textured it becomes, the more it expands its referential power; but this density also turns it into a phenomenon in its own right, throwing its autonomy into relief and thus loosening up its bond with the real world. Moreover, because the sign’s sound, texture, rhythmic and tonal value are so palpable, it can enter more easily into connotative relations with the signs around it, rather than seeming to denote an object directly. To ‘bring up’ the sign is thus to ‘fade down’ its referent, as well as, paradoxically, to bring it into sharper focus. The busier the sign, then, the more referential work it accomplishes; but by the same token the more it draws our eye to itself, displacing it from what it denotes. F.R. Leavis is keen on signs which smack of material reality (Shakespeare, Keats, Hopkins), but takes a stern view of autonomous ones which seem to cut adrift from the real (Milton). There is, however, a fine line between words which are redolent of the taste and texture of things, and words which appear to have become things themselves. Fredric Jameson sees modernism as involving a reification of the sign, though one that emancipates it from its referent into its own free space. There is thus loss and gain together. In one sense, the world is well lost, but the price some modernist works are forced to pay for this freedom from the importunity of the real is alarmingly steep. By contrast, the poet who rejects the autonomous sign choosing instead a language full of the feel of (let us say) tangerines and pineapples might be better off as a greengrocer. Words which really merged with their referents would cease to be words at all.

Terry Eagleton, The Event of Literature (p. 37–8)

#terry eagleton