Radio stars

A headline from today’s New York Times: “Trump Wanted a Radio Show, But Deferred to Rush Limbaugh.”

Before reading the article, I thought, Oh, so he thought about doing talk radio before deciding to run for president. But no. He floated the radio idea last month.

Total authority

I read these words: “When somebody’s president of the United States, the authority is total.”

And I think of these: “I’m Gumby, dammit!”

prius starts wont go into gear

Elaine and I put on masks and gloves for a robbery shopping expedition this morning and found ourselves with an unusual problem: our Prius wouldn’t go into gear. The electrical system switched on, but the car wouldn’t move. Turning the car off was a problem too, requiring repeated presses of the Power button before anything happened. It took half a dozen false starts before we could back out of the driveway.

I did a search — prius starts wont go into gear — and found a range of explanations, from faulty foot to faulty brake-pedal sensor to failing hybrid battery. While the car was moving, we thought we should take it in to the dealer. So we called, got the okay to bring it in, and soon thereafter had an explanation. An error code in the car’s computer system pointed to a problem with the battery in the key fob. Cost of a new battery: $5.95. But with labor: $62.50.

I share this account so that a Prius owner with this same problem might find a fix that saves time and money.

[When we shopped, we saw many other customers wearing masks. Employees, not so much. And now no one can accept a tip.]

“Us, the unnoticed”

Fernando Pessoa, from text 24, The Book of Disquiet, trans. from the Portuguese by Richard Zenith (New York: Penguin, 2003).

*

As I discovered later in the day, the materials of this passage reappear in Text 274. On the one hand, kings, emperors, geniuses, saints, leaders, prostitutes, prophets, and the rich. On the other, “there’s us”: the delivery boy, Shakespeare, the barber, Milton, the shop assistant, and Dante.

Related posts
Pessoa now : Pessoa and Almodóvar

Mystery actors

[Click for a larger view.]

I think that two of the three are easy. Can you name them all? Leave your answers in the comments. I’ll drop hints if I can think of good ones.

*

All three names are now in the comments.

More mystery actors (Collect them all)
? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ?

Mysterious boxes

From the New York Times: Metropolitan Diary:

I was walking to the corner store to pick up a soda when I noticed a postal worker unlocking one of those olive-colored mailboxes that have always been a mystery to me.

And then the mystery deepens.

By the way, they’re called relay boxes. I’ve seen an opened one just once or twice.

Twenty-eight tools

Luke Leighfield, writer, lists twenty-eight tools he uses to get things done. He has a weekly newsletter of worthwhile links, Ten Things, available from his home page.

Making us worse

Tom Nichols, writing in The Atlantic, says that Donald Trump*’s matinee performances are making us worse people. An excerpt:

In his daily coronavirus briefings, Trump lumbers to the podium and pulls us into his world: detached from reality, unable to feel any emotions but anger and paranoia. Each time we watch, Trump’s spiritual poverty increases our own, because for the duration of these performances, we are forced to live in the same agitated, immediate state that envelops him. . . .

Daily, Trump’s opponents are enraged by yet another assault on the truth and basic human decency. His followers are delighted by yet more vulgar attacks on the media and the Democrats. And all of us, angry or pleased, become more like Trump, because just like the president, we end up thinking about only Trump, instead of our families, our fellow citizens, our health-care workers, or the future of our country. We are all forced to take sides every day, and those two sides are always “Trump” and “everyone else.”

On March 29 I told myself not to watch. Instead, I ended up looking at Aaron Rupar’s clips of choice moments. And on Friday I watched the live performance, at least a little of it. And I found myself (once again) charting new directions in obscenity as I cursed at the screen. And man, were they some strange directions. No more.

I like what Virginia Heffernan says:

Trump no longer matters.

He says the pandemic is bunk, go to work on Easter, try this quackery. Some people cheer; some people say he sucks. And then 316 MILLION AMERICANS listen to Fauci, stay home, flatten the curve.

Right on.

A first draft of history from TNYT

The New York Times has a lengthy report on the history of the Trump* administration’s response to the coronavirus. An excerpt:

Throughout January, as Mr. Trump repeatedly played down the seriousness of the virus and focused on other issues, an array of figures inside his government — from top White House advisers to experts deep in the cabinet departments and intelligence agencies — identified the threat, sounded alarms and made clear the need for aggressive action.

The president, though, was slow to absorb the scale of the risk and to act accordingly, focusing instead on controlling the message, protecting gains in the economy and batting away warnings from senior officials. It was a problem, he said, that had come out of nowhere and could not have been foreseen.

As efforts to mitigate the effects of this pandemic continue, this administration’s failures must never be forgotten. Long story short: this president was and is more concerned with his own political well-being than with the lives of the American people. He is reckless, incompetent, a danger to the country he is supposed to be leading, and a danger to the world.

Bye, Will

I’ve finally acknowledged that The New York Times crossword puzzle sparks, for me, no joy. I ended my subscription and switched to the syndicated puzzle some time ago, after TORME, Mel Tormé, was clued as a “cool jazz pioneer.” No, he wasn’t one. I wrote to Will Shortz, the crossword editor, to make that case. I even sussed out the likely source of the mistake (which I suspected was Shortz’s) — the Times obituary for Tormé, which misinterpreted a statement about Tormé and cool jazz in a book on jazz singers. Shortz wrote back to say that I obviously knew more about jazz than he did (well, yes) but that he had “several sources” to support the clue (sure, sure). No correction appeared.

Fast-forward to today’s syndicated puzzle (published March 1). The clue for 54-A, seven letters: “Informal ‘Ugh!’” The answer: NOLIKEY. Ugh, indeed. Here’s a different kind of cluelessness, the same kind that let BEANER appear as a puzzle answer last year, even after Shortz had been told that beaner is a derogatory term. If there’s any doubt that “No likey” is blatantly racist stuff, a search in Google Books will return ample evidence. An additional element of cluelessness: in no universe might “No likey” be regarded as less formal than “Ugh!” Ugh, indeed, again.

In a comment on my Saturday Stumper post yesterday, blogger Zhoen recommended of The American Values Club crossword. Her recommendation couldn’t have been more timely. I’ve started a trial subscription.