“Political Teamsmanship”

“Even if we were all, as Americans, very, very similar people, which we’re not — but even if were, it would be possible for us to see a lot of hatred and animosity between our political teams, simply because they’re teams.” A dispiriting story from WGBH’s Innovation Hub: “Political Teamsmanship.”

Concentration camps

At The New Yorker, Masha Gessen writes about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s characterization of detention facilities for migrants as concentration camps:

It is the choice between thinking that whatever is happening in reality is, by definition, acceptable, and thinking that some actual events in our current reality are fundamentally incompatible with our concept of ourselves — not just as Americans but as human beings — and therefore unimaginable. The latter position is immeasurably more difficult to hold — not so much because it is contentious and politically risky, as attacks on Ocasio-Cortez continue to demonstrate, but because it is cognitively strenuous. It makes one’s brain implode. It will always be a minority position.

As I read only yesterday in The Washington Post, detained migrant children are being held without soap, without toothbrushes, without adequate food, in conditions that make sleep impossible. Those conditions should make sleep impossible for all Americans.

*

Later the same day: The New Yorker has an interview with Warren Binford, a lawyer and law professor who has interviewed children at a Border Patrol “facility” in Texas. An excerpt:

“They told us that they were hungry. They told us that some of them had not showered or had not showered until the day or two days before we arrived. Many of them described that they only brushed their teeth once. This facility knew last week that we were coming. The government knew three weeks ago that we were coming.”

Today’s Saturday Stumper

If I were using the Romper Room magic mirror with today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Matthew Sewell, I’d say “I see Walt” (16-A, five letters, “Whitman's Civil War job”). And “I see Edie” (40-A, five letters, “Birth name of Mrs. Soprano’s portrayer”). And then I’d have to ask, “Can I say ‘Mister’ on Romper Room”? That’d be 25-A, five letters, “Sotomayor’s TV inspiration.” I guess I just did.

I liked this puzzle, a lot. Short on names, short on trivia, big on words. Clue and answer pairs I especially liked:

The dowdy 21-D, ten letters, “Campfire entertainment.”

The I-never-heard-of-it 28-D, ten letters, “Encouragement for a homer hitter.”

The homey 36-A, ten letters, “Caruso, by birth.”

The very clever 51-A, five letters, “Totally blocked?”

The clever 52-A, five letters, “Two-way address.”

And the kind of obvious but still clever 56-A, three letters, “Size or three sizes, briefly.”

No spoilers: the answers are in the comments.

“As if a person had suddenly materialized”

Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities. 1930–1943. Trans. Sophie Wilkins (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995).

Musil’s understanding of contingency and the formation of an adult identity is eerily similar to Willa Cather’s: see The Professor’s House. The difference is that Cather’s protagonist, Godfrey St. Peter, notices — and in so doing, undoes his life.

Related reading
All OCA Robert Musil posts (Pinboard)
Fluke life (My story of contingency)

50 Things: “Pencil”

From the BBC: the latest episode of Tim Harford’s podcast 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy: “Pencil.” Nothing here that a pencil-lover won’t already know. And the episode treats the pencil not as something that helped make the economy but as something made. But still worth a listen.

Related reading
All OCA pencil posts (Pinboard)

“Scientifically” vs. “just words”

Donald Trump, yesterday: “It’s documented scientifically, not just words.” An odd sentence, in several ways:

It misunderstands science: “knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method.” Answers supported by evidence are not necessarily answers to scientific questions.

It bespeaks extraordinary hypocrisy, because Trump so often dismisses science, as in his statements about global warming and vaccinations.

It reduces language to a medium in which anyone can say anything, without evidence, free of any obligation to truth. “Just words”: language as a medium not of inquiry and knowledge but of lies. Of course, that’s the way Donald Trump has treated language for many years.

Moleskine sandwich

Re: ice-cream sandwiches: it occurred to me this afternoon, and not for the first time, that the Moleskine twelve-month hardcover pocket Daily Planner is the ice-cream sandwich of planners.

Related reading
All OCA Moleskine posts (Pinboard)

“Constellations, bacteria, Balzac, and Nietzsche”

Ulrich, lovesick lieutenant, explains the world to the major’s wife:


Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities. 1930–1943. Trans. Sophie Wilkins (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995).

Related reading
All OCA Robert Musil posts (Pinboard)

Carvel apostrophe

[“Lost in the Stars.” Zippy, June 20, 2019.]

Indeed, it’s Carvel, not Dairy Queen, who can claim the Flying Saucer. So it must have been a Carvel stand that we walked to sometimes in summer. (Yes, it was.) I remember the Saucer’s cookie: like Masonite, without the cakey softness of the typical ice-cream sandwich cookie. Maybe the Flying Saucer cookie kept better in outer space.

Related reading
All OCA Zippy posts (Pinboard)

A parade of phone booths

[The Brasher Doubloon (dir. John Brahm, 1947). Click for a larger view.]

Six of them, I think, or seven. The proper term of venery for phone booths is parade. Here’s another parade.

Also from this film
An EXchange names sighting : A pocket notebook sighting