Nonbelief and belief

Fernando Pessoa, text 288, The Book of Disquiet, trans. from the Portuguese by Richard Zenith (New York: Penguin, 2003).

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Graduation 2020

With three pieces of advice: Don’t be afraid. Do what you think is right. Build a community.

An excerpt:

“Doing what feels good, what’s convenient, what’s easy: that’s how little kids think. Unfortunately, a lot of so-called grown-ups, including some with fancy titles and important jobs, still think that way. Which is why things are so screwed up. I hope that instead you decide to ground yourself in values that last, like honesty, hard work, responsibility, fairness, generosity, respect for others.”

The guy always makes me feel know that there’s hope.

[My transcription.]

Meltdown

From the Financial Times, out from behind the paywall, an utterly damning summary of the Trump* administration’s response to pandemic, by Edward Luce: “Inside Trump’s coronavirus meltdown.” An excerpt:

What has gone wrong? I interviewed dozens of people, including outsiders who Trump consults regularly, former senior advisers, World Health Organization officials, leading scientists and diplomats, and figures inside the White House. Some spoke off the record.

Again and again, the story that emerged is of a president who ignored increasingly urgent intelligence warnings from January, dismisses anyone who claims to know more than him and trusts no one outside a tiny coterie, led by his daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner — the property developer who Trump has empowered to sideline the best-funded disaster response bureaucracy in the world.

People often observed during Trump’s first three years that he had yet to be tested in a true crisis. Covid-19 is way bigger than that. “Trump’s handling of the pandemic at home and abroad has exposed more painfully than anything since he took office the meaning of America First,” says William Burns, who was the most senior US diplomat, and is now head of the Carnegie Endowment.

“America is first in the world in deaths, first in the world in infections and we stand out as an emblem of global incompetence. The damage to America’s influence and reputation will be very hard to undo.”

Something I learned from this article: the backstory on Robert Redfield, head of the Centers for Disease Control.

Nancy distancing

[Nancy, September ?, 1977. Click for a larger view.]

Social distancing in the comics.

I like the idea of children in 1977 still watching television through outside a store window — like their parents before them.

Thanks, Chris.

*

As Pete Lit points out, the television, too, is outside the store. What’s up with that?

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“Infinite rocks”

[Zippy, May 17, 2020.]

In today’s Zippy, way too many rocks. And they speak.

Venn reading
All OCA Nancy : Nancy and Zippy : Zippy posts (Pinboard)

Fred Willard (1933–2020)

The actor Fred Willard has died at the age of eighty-six. The New York Times has an obituary.

So much to admire, from Fernwood 2 Night to Christopher Guest films to Modern Family. This clip, from Guest’s A Mighty Wind (2003), with Willard as Mike LaFontaine, is one of our fambly’s favorite things.


[The pop-up ad and closing promotion are annoying, I know. That’s the price of the clip.]

Astrid Kirchherr (1938–2020)

Photographer of the Beatles in the pre-Fab Hamburg days. The New York Times has an obituary.

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper is by “Anna Stiga” (Stan Again), Stan Newman constructing under one of the aliases he uses with easier Saturday Stumpers of his making. I found this puzzle not especially easy but not especially tricky.

Some clue-and-answer pairs I especially liked:

7-D, eight letters, “Trans-Neptunian dwarf planets.” For sentimental reasons.

16-A, six letters, “Common typeface in upscale magazines.” Nice, and I can see it on the page, even if I can’t name a single magazine. In my experience, the only typeface that turns up in crosswords is Arial.

26-A, four letters, “Whaler who became a retailer (1850).” Uh, AHAB? No. This clue taught me something.

46-A, four letters, “Christie alternative.” So clear once you see it.

My favorite clue in today’s puzzle: 12-D, eight letters, “Holders of pointy diamonds.” Defamiliarization, as we used to call it in lit crit.

No spoilers: the answers are in the comments.

Bushes, rocks, puffs

[Nancy, August 11, 1950.]

“Some” of each. And everyone knows that you need more than “some trees” to make a forest.

I am calling those little clouds foot puffs. If you turn around quickly enough when you’re walking, you can see “some puffs” behind your own feet.

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[“Some rocks” are an abiding preoccupation of these pages.]

Our own private “Molambo”

[“Molambo” (Jaime Florence–Augusto Mesquita).]

“Let’s keep that one,” Elaine said. I agreed.

Music = life.