Mystery actor

[Click for a larger view.]

Leave your best guess in a comment. I’ll drop a hint if needed.

More mystery actors (Collect them all!)
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Laurel and Proust

In the dining-room of the Grand-Hôtel at Balbec. The narrator’s grandmother wants to make sure that he has plenty of fresh air for his health. And for a moment, Proust’s novel turns into a Laurel and Hardy short.

Marcel Proust, In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, trans. James Grieve (New York: Penguin, 2002).

Related reading
All OCA Proust posts (Pinboard)

[Translator’s note for Saint Blandine: “one of the first Christian martyrs in Gaul, put to death in Lyon in 177, remembered for her serenity under torture.”]

Yes, a coup

Fiona Hill explains that “Yes, It Was a Coup” (Politico):

There’s a standard coup “checklist” analysts use to evaluate coups. We can evaluate Trump’s moves to prevent the peaceful transfer of executive power against it. To successfully usurp or hold power, you need to control the military and paramilitary units, communications, the judiciary, government institutions, and the legislature; and mobilize popular support.

Let’s see how well this applies to what Trump has done.

A letter to Mary Miller

I’m sharing the text of a letter I’ve sent to my district’s representative in Congress, the representative now known on Twitter as #hitlerlady. She’s also made Boing Boing. She’s a disgrace, and she needs to go. If you’d like to sign the petition calling for her resignation, it’s here.

The Honorable Mary Miller
1529 Longworth House Office Building
United States House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Congresswoman Miller:

For the good of our district and our country, please resign. I see two reasons why you should.

1. Your invocation of Adolf Hitler suggests a glaring absence of moral awareness. Let’s look at your words, which you and your allies claim have been twisted:

“Each generation has the responsibility to teach the next generation. You know, if we win a few elections we’re still going to be losing unless we win the hearts of our children. It’s the battle. Hitler was right on one thing — that whoever has the youth has the future. Our children are being propagandized.”

First, you say that Hitler was right about something. There is no good reason to say that Hitler was right about something. There is no good reason to say that a murderous dictator was right about anything at all. My wife and I have managed to raise two children without ever turning to Hitler for parenting tips. Second, you invoke Hitler’s observation as the measure of what you believe you and your allies must do: engage in your own effort to make children think and act as you want. Your contorted and unconvincing apology for your words makes things worse still by likening to a Nazi anyone who holds views to the left of yours. And your assertion that you are pro-Israel makes things worse by suggesting that objections to your remarks are just a Jewish thing. Hitler’s cruelty and madness had many more targets than Jews. You don’t have to be Jewish to despise Hitler and think it’s disgraceful for a member of the United States Congress to say that Hitler was right about something. Comments on social media from your allies lead me to think that your apology is hardly genuine anyway.

As a practical matter, your assertion that “Hitler was right” damages our district, which is now known around the nation and around the world for your comments. As friends elsewhere ask, “Is she your representative?” Who would want to locate to a district whose representative in Congress says that “Hitler was right”? Oh, wait — I think I know.

2. Your willingness to go ahead with the effort to subvert the acceptance of the 2020 presidential election — even after the violence in Washington last Wednesday — suggests a disdain for the workings of our democratic republic. You may recall from philosophy what’s called the categorical imperative, the idea that one must act as one would have all others act. You have said that your purpose in objecting to the election results was to assure proper procedures in future elections. But what if all members of the House and Senate had acted as you did on Wednesday? The principle that elections are decided by voters would have been overturned, and democracy with it. To have objected for the sake of theater, to stir up “the base,” to please an unhinged president, while knowing that your minority position would make no difference to the outcome, is to have objected in bad faith, with the understanding that enough other people wouldn’t object. That’s a craven attitude to take in Congress or anywhere else.

I doubt that my words will have any influence on you, but I’m offering them anyway, in the spirit of the categorical imperative. I think that everyone should speak up.

And if you plan on serving out your term, please wear a mask around your fellow members of Congress.

Sincerely, &c.

Related posts, for context
January 6 in D.C., with Mary Miller : The objectors included Mary Miller : Mary Miller in The New York Times

Library humor

[Dustin, January 11, 2021. Click for a larger view.]

In today’s Dustin, the librarian has just told Dustin that she runs a tight ship.

I wonder how many other readers will seek out a list of Dewey Decimal classes to get the joke. (No link: it’s DIY humor.)

The librarian’s bun, pencil, and glasses chain have reminded me to recommend Bill Denton’s coverage of libraries in Archie comics. Thanks, Stephen.

[Did you know that Melvil Dewey was a racist, anti-Semite, and sexual harasser and was known and censured as such in his time? Consider, too, the assumptions that underwrite Dewey’s classifications for religion, homosexuality, and subjects related to women.]

Items in a series

Marcel Proust, In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, trans. James Grieve (New York: Penguin, 2002).

Related reading
All OCA Proust posts (Pinboard)

Mary Miller in the news

Mary Miller (R, Illinois-15), “my” representative in Congress, has made The New York Times, among other prominent sources for news, after telling the audience at a “Moms for America” rally in D.C. that “Hitler was right on one thing.” The Associated Press also has the story. Don Lemon called Miller out last night on CNN. You’ll have to take my word for that: I can’t find the footage online.

Miller is also in the news in another way: Representative Seth Moulton (D, Massachusetts-6) reports that when he took a photograph of Republican members of Congress “proudly refusing to wear masks” while sheltering in place in the Capitol Building,

a freshman Trump acolyte, Rep. Mary Miller of Illinois, ran over and started screaming in my face. Apparently, she didn’t want her hypocrisy on public display, even though earlier today [no, Tuesday] she had no qualms rallying protesters by invoking Hitler: “Hitler was right on one thing. He said, ‘Whoever has the youth has the future.‘”

A petition calling for Miller’s resignation is nearing 15,000 signatures. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D, Illinois) is among the many public figures who have called for Miller to resign. Miller needs to put on a mask, get on a plane, and go home. Or, better, find a new home outside Illinois-15. Miller is a disgrace to her office.

Here’s a brief campaign video in which Miller speaks of her dedication to “the important issues.” First up: “our God-given right to own a gun.”

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Because of a dumb mistake not worth explaining, I lost the content of a post about the January 9 Newsday puzzle, the first non-Stumper, by “Andrew Bell Lewis” (Brad Wilber and Matthew Sewell). The post is not available in Google’s cache.

I didn’t realize that I could get the text of this post from my e-mail:

Today’s Newsday  crossword, by “Andrew Bell Lewis” (Matthew Sewell and Brad Wilber), is titled “Themeless Saturday.” In my solving experience, the title for the Newsday Saturday puzzle has always been “Saturday Stumper.” Mother of mercy, as Rico Bandello might have asked, is this the end of the Stumper? For me, this puzzle was surprisingly easy, a Saturday that solves like a Friday, or even a Thursday. I started with a giveaway, 11-A, four letters, “Beatnik’s show of empathy,” and the answers began to fall into place. Crazy, man.

Some clue-and-answer pairs I especially admire:

9-D, five letters, “Household openers.” I was thinking of prefixes.

17-A, ten letters, “Determined to get it done.” My context for the answer reminds me: “I hate Illinois Nazis.”

22-A, seven letters, “Straw beds.” I had no idea.

25-D, five letters, “Inspirational assistance.” That’s Stumper-y.

28-D, five letters, “Alpine towers on the way out.” An example of how the most mundane answer can be made novel. I first suspected that this strange clue was a cryptic.

40-A, ten letters, “Group game with Yoshi and Luigi.” I’ve never played, but it sounds cute.

43-D, six letters, “Metaphor for fading.” I’ve always like the word that is the answer.

52-A, eight letters, “Existentialist’s void.” Remember existentialism? When I was in college, it was everywhere No void.

56-A, ten letters, “Bug out.” The answer taught me an additional meaning of bug out.

61-A, ten letters, “Mandate for maturity.” No, never.

One bit of murk: 36-A, three letters, “NYY rival.” But for many solvers, the clue and answer will be obvious. We all have our strengths and weaknesses.

No spoilers: the answers are in the comments.

*

A comment from joecab called attention to the end of the Stumper:

As of tomorrow (1/9). the Saturday Stumper will be renamed THEMELESS SATURDAY. It is now intended to be somewhat less difficult overall than before, though still the most challenging of the week. Your comments are invited; please send them to StanSaturdays@gmail.com.

https://www.facebook.com/stanley.newman.5/posts/3896325300401326

*

January 31: The Stumper will be back, at least occasionally.

Verilux HappyLight Luxe

I’ve long suspected that whenever all the leaves are gone and the sky is grey, I might benefit from what’s called a SAD lamp, a light source to combat seasonal affective disorder. In mid-December I decided to get some light. And now I can recommend the Verilux HappyLight Luxe. It’s a small tablet-like device, 11.7 × 7.5 × 0.5. (And nothing like — ugh — a tanning lamp.) I keep the HappyLight on my desk, angled and off to one side, and let it run for twenty minutes every morning. Getting the right intensity, light shade, and time takes a little experimenting. I think the benefits of this device are real: more energy, better sleep, fewer typos, less despair, even when the sky is really, really grey. Highly recommended.

This device is sold out at Verilux, but the smaller HappyLight Touch Plus is available.

[If I were speaking, I’d have to decide between \ˈlu̇ks\ and \ˈlüks\. I’d go with \ˈlüks\, which seems to me the more downhome pronunciation. Grey, as I think most writers would agree, is greyer than gray. Fewer typos: in other words, better concentration, though my iPhone is still a typo forest.]

Mr. Grip

I speak of household repair, not my hold on sanity. Woodmate’s Mr. Grip is a handy item to have around the house. That screw in the knob that attaches to the rod that holds a roll of paper towels in place in the paper towel holder, the screw that turns and turns but never engages, no matter how many prepositional phrases you add to the sentence? Mr. Grip can solve that problem. Some trial and error might be required. I’ve found that cutting a piece smaller than what I think I need works better. Any empty space can then be filled with prepositional phrases.