Paul Harvey redux

From a New York Times article by Peter Baker about last night’s presidential address to the nation:

He always knew that he would be delivering a speech like this. He just thought, or hoped, that it would be more than four years from now. Yet while it was not technically a farewell address, with six months still to go in office and more presidenting to do, it was the beginning of Joe Biden’s long goodbye.

Mr. Biden’s address to the nation from the Oval Office on Wednesday night was all Joe, love him or hate him — the paeans to American exceptionalism, the evocations of family, the selective boasting about his record, the favorite lofty phrases about an “inflection point” and “saving our democracy,” and yes, the soft, raspy old man’s voice that no longer commands the room the way it once did.

“And yes, the soft, raspy old man’s voice”: it sounds as though Peter Baker is attempting to channel Paul Harvey.

I read these paragraphs aloud in the Orange Crate Art test kitchen. Elaine had the same gah! reaction.

[A belated thought: Baker’s prose is also reminiscent of H. V. Kaltenborn in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington: “But those tired Boy Ranger legs are buckling.”

Saving our democracy

“Nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy. That includes personal ambition. So I‘ve decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation”: President Joe Biden, a few minutes ago.

“It’s pathological”

In the news: a revelation from Fred Trump III that his uncle Donald told him that people with several medical conditions “maybe ... just should die,” given “the shape they’re in, all the expenses.” Fred Trump III has a son with severe developmental and intellectual disabilities. Fred says that on a later occasion his uncle told him, “I don’t know. He doesn’t recognize you. Maybe you should just let him die and move down to Florida.”

The historian Eddie Glaude on MSNBC a little earlier this afternoon:

“It’s pathological. My sister — my mother’s been changing diapers for sixty years. Had German measles when she was pregnant as a young woman. My sister can’t walk, can’t talk, can’t hear. She’s never had a bedsore. She’s never been instiutionalized. My mother’s been changing her diapers for sixty years. And this man is going to say something like that to her? It gives you a sense of the depth of the depravity of him, right? — and how he thinks about the most vulnerable.”

The story of Donald Trump’s attempt to end medical benefits for his nephew’s son is already well known.

What did I think about Kamala Harris?

I searched these pages to see what they (I) have said about Kamala Harris. Her name appears in thirteen — and now fourteen — posts. From a January 2, 2019 post:

The last thing Democrats need to do is to turn the 2020 presidential election into a battle between oldsters. Such a battle will do little to spark voter interest and much to spark parody. Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren: no. What the Democratic Party needs is a candidate who offers a sharp contrast to Donald Trump not only in policy but in affect. Sherrod Brown, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Beto O’Rourke: yes.

On January 27, 2019, I was happy to see that Harris was running. And on August 12, 2020, one day after Joe Biden named Harris as his running mate, I wrote, “she will (almost certainly) make a great nominee for president in 2024.”

[And, yes, there was a “How to improve writing” post about campaign e-mails, which were certainly not written by Harris.]

Recently updated

Mott Street, in July Now with a passage from The WPA Guide to New York City. And pizza.

John Mayall (1933–2024)

The New York Times has an obituary (gift link).

I wanted to find something with Mayall playing piano, solo. I got close: here’s “Bear Wires,” with Bob Hite of Canned Heat.

Later in the day: I found what I was looking for: “Milkman Strut.” That’s a door closing at the start. Explanation: a milkman’s arrival had interrupted recording.

[From the Times obituary: “In 1969, after recording the album Blues From Laurel Canyon and befriending members of the American blues band Canned Heat, Mr. Mayall moved to the Los Angeles area, where he lived for the rest of his life.”]

TV as radio or children’s game

Often we watch a movie and then, at 10:30 Central or so, we turn on The Eleventh Hour and start from the beginning. As the show runs, we listen as we look at our devices. It’s television as radio.

Now and then we look up, and when there’s a panel of commentators across the screen, television turns into the children’s game Guess Who?  “Is your person wearing a ridiculous hat?”

Or better, and meta: “Does your person look like they could be a person from Guess Who? ” The person in question: a mustachioed gentleman wearing a bowtie. (It‘s Charles!)

“President Venn Diagram”

[xkcd, July 21, 2024.] The webcomic xkcd is on the case.

Goodbye, goo.gl

At Daring Fireball, Jon Gruber reports that Google is shutting down its URL shortener. After August 25, 2025, links with the form http://goo.gl/*/ will no longer return results.

Gruber asks,

How much money could it possibl[y] cost to just keep this service running in perpetuity? Tim Berners-Lee wrote his seminal essay, “Cool URIs Don’t Change” back in 1998. It’s bad enough when companies go out of business, taking their web servers down with them. But Google isn’t struggling financially. In fact, they’re thriving.

I’ve used the Google URL shortener on the cumbersome links for pages in Google Books. Where are those shortened links? Scattered somewhere in these pages. Oh well.

One original thought

One thought, not derived from commentary elsewhere: this clip makes me think that Andy Beshear would be an excellent vice presidential choice for Kamala Harris. He’d be the anti-Vance.