“Proto-neofascist”

Vanity Fair reports that James Mattis has told people that Donald Trump* is a “proto-neofascist.”

See also Mattis’s public statement on Trump*.

“Manufacturing crime”

I read this Twitter thread by Sean Trainor earlier today. It’s an account of one night riding along with a high-school classmate who’d become a police officer. What Trainor says he witnessed: “a full shift devoted to manufacturing crime.” Please, read what he wrote.

While you read the thread, I’ll note that after I read it, I went for a walk. And had lunch. And then the power went out. But now it’s back.

Trainor’s thread made me realize how many arrests in my small corner of reality follow a pattern: a “routine stop” for “a minor traffic violation.” And then a search with a dog, and the discovery of what’s usually a piddling amount of an illegal substance, and someone goes to jail, almost inevitably followed by probation. Sometimes a vehicle is seized.

Should someone be driving around with drugs in their car? No. But does this pattern represent the best use of a community’s resources? Does it help anyone, or is it, really, an exercise in manufacturing crime?

Thanks, Rachel.

Orange 1906 art

[Deborah Griscom Passmore (1840–1911). “Scientific name: Citrus sinensis. Common name: oranges. Variety: Thornton No. 5. Geographic origin: Orlando, Orange County, Florida, United States.” 17 x 25 cm. 1906. U.S. Department of Agriculture Pomological Watercolor Collection. Rare and Special Collections, National Agricultural Library, Beltsville, MD 20705. Click for a larger view.]

I found this lovely orange at the U.S. Department of Agriculture Pomological Watercolor Collection.

Related reading
All OCA orange posts (Pinboard)

[Via Open Culture.]

Lost Forest as Calverton

[Mark Trail, June 8, 2020. Click for a larger view.]

What, like some incredible journey? Mark, you must be kidding.

It has to be said: this storyline, with Andy the dog hopping into the back of a truck and going on a long journey, appears to be Lassie-inspired. It’s straight from the three-episode 1962 Lassie story “The Odyssey.”

A warning: if you ever happen to be teaching Homer, and you decide to show the last couple of minutes of the third episode to your class, someone will cry. Don’t ask me how I know.

Related reading
All OCA Lassie and Mark Trail posts (Pinboard)

[What kind of human addresses a small group of family members as “any of you”? More natural: “Anyone ever heard,” &c.]

Mitt Romney marching

The world may not be upside down, but it’s certainly tilting a bit more. Mitt Romney is marching in Washington. His words, my punctuation:

“We need a voice against racism — we need many voices against racism and against brutality. We need to stand up and say that black lives matter.”

THANK YOU USPS

I’ve taken to writing or drawing a thank-you on almost every piece of mail I send. Why not?

The canvas here is not a paper bag. It’s an envelope from the Muji store, cheap and good.

Things to look for

In today’s comics: an apple, a fork, a mask, a microscope, a shopping cart, a steering wheel. Dustin makes it all clear.

“We gave you a lot”

The New York Times has an account from two sources of a telephone call between Donald Trump* and Roy Cooper, governor of North Carolina. Trump* was insisting on a Charlotte convention sans social distancing, sans masks:

As the call wrapped up, the president reminded Mr. Cooper of the ways in which the federal government had come to North Carolina’s assistance during the peak of the coronavirus outbreak. “I think we’ve done a good job,” Mr. Trump said. “Testing, ventilators, we got you a lot, and that’s OK.”

“We’ve been good to you,” Mr. Trump added, according to one of the people familiar with the call, who spoke anonymously to discuss private negotiations. “We gave you the National Guard. We gave you a lot,” and said to Mr. Cooper, “You and I get along good. You’ve been nice to us about it.”

Everything’s a deal. I did something for you — as if medical supplies and the National Guard are gifts, personally bestowed. Now it’s your turn to do something for me. See also: “I would like you to do us a favor though.”

Torch, passed

What a great opening. Alexandra Schwartz, writing in The New Yorker about a Bill de Blasio appearance on WNYC:

The record for the most notorious radio appearance made by a New York City mayor has long been held by Rudy Giuliani, who, on his weekly WABC call-in show, berated a ferret-loving constituent for showing an “excessive concern with little weasels” and advised him to seek psychiatric help. The baton has now been passed.

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Brad Wilber, is truly stumperesque. Stumpacular. Stumperiffic. I spent thirty-nine minutes coming to terms with this puzzle and was surprised that I was able to finish. I started in the southeast and traveled to the southwest, the northeast, and the northwest, with one clue in each area giving me a start: 60-A, four letters, “Blog troll’s name, often”; 58-A, “When the Common Era began”; 16-A, five letters, “‘Daily ___’ (L.A. newspaper)”; 27-A, five letters, “Global Strike Command facility: Abbr.”

Some clue-and-answer pairs I especially liked:

7-D, six letters, “Habitual pincher.” The answer always reminds me of an All in the Family storyline.

17-A, four letters, “’60s singer who sounds sylvan.” There’s an excellent documentary.

20-A, eight letters, “Sort of breaker.” OVERTIME? No.

21-D, seven letters, “Restrains, as sounds.” DAMPENS? No.

23-A, three letters, “Passage disclaimer.” A little strained. But I suppose the answer fits as it would appear in a passage.

29-A, nine letters, “Color-correcting cosmetic.” The answer broke open much of the puzzle for me.

37-D, seven letters, “Where one shouldn’t go.” One might agree that it’s a clever clue.

42-D, seven letters, “13-time leading name on Gallup’s Most Admired Women list.” I’m always happy to see her name.

56-A, four letters, “Certain calf brusher.” I was thinking tykes and pants legs. Then I figured it out.

57-A, four letters, “Not quite a calf brusher.” See previous clue.

A startling factoid: 4-D, four letters, “She turned down Swanson’s role in Sunset Boulevard.” I think of what Billy Wilder said when George Raft turned down the lead in Double Indemnity: “We knew then that we’d have a good picture.” The thought of 4-D as Norma Desmond makes my head hurt.

And one clue whose answer I still don’t understand: 8-D, “‘Don Juan’ for all time.” Meaning what, exactly? And here the puzzle’s use of quotation marks and not italics makes for a puzzle within a puzzle: is “Don Juan” a nickame, or Byron’s poem?

*

8:14 p.m.: One more, which I wrote off as another bit of bafflement. But now I understand: 34-A, three letters, “One in a sure-to-sue scenario.”

No spoilers: the answers are in the comments.