Seasons Come, Seasons Go

by JanieM

In my love of springtime, I tend to forget how lovely late summer and early fall can be. July is the only month that consistently brings us stretches of sweltering weather here in central Maine; August is almost always moderate and pleasant. September is similar, if a little cooler, but because the kids are back in school and autumn color hasn’t really gotten going yet, it too is a bit underappreciated.

At least by me.

This time around I’m enjoying it immensely. Fall color makes it easy to find beautiful pictures (see below), but really, there’s no hurry.

*****

Open thread.

*****

ETA: Link to a bigger version at Flickr.

Comments

[wj]

One (among many) thing I'd like to do at some point, native Californian that I am, is visit New England in the fall. See, first hand, what the fall colors look like.

[JanieM]

wj! Do it!!

[Snarki, child of Loki]

So, astronomical seasons or meteorological seasons?

Fall starts on the autumnal equinox, sez me, but I know there are some that are wedded to Sept 1 for the beginning of Fall.

[wj]

astronomical seasons or meteorological seasons?

Met, for sure!

IMHO, "astronomical seasons" ought to be right-shifted ~6 weeks when talking about anything happening on earth. Midsummer isn't June 21; more like the end of July. Ditto midwinter is around the end of January. Hours of sunlight, alone, aren't determinant.

[JanieM]

Not going to get into that debate, because the phenomenon wj mentioned -- fall color in New England -- doesn't care what we call the season, it comes in its own good time.

"Peak" color comes at different times in different places, of course, and the timing varies a little from one year to the next. Plus there are phases: mostly green, still some green, green all gone, all the color on the ground, gray (a.k.a. November).

Every year is lovely, occasionally there's a year where everything bursts into color at once and those are overwhelming.

I always told my relatives that they should come toward the end of the first week in October to have the best chance of seeing high color around here. But it's still beautiful for a couple of weeks after that.

The picture was taken on October 12 of last year -- you can see that the reds are about as red as they can get, but there's still some green in one of the trees.

(And this reminds me that I should put up a copy on Flickr so we have a bigger version available.)

[Hartmut]

Around here Xmas season starts 1st of September. At least that's when the supermarkets starts to sell the seasonal products.

[ral]

For Hartmut, a song: Suddenly It's Christmas

[JanieM]

Tempted the weather deities....now we have a week in the eighties. Which would be okay except for the humidity....

[CaseyL]

When I was in Maine a couple years ago, I was about a week or two too early for fall foliage (late Sept-early Oct) - and for the cold weather. I packed all kinds of snugglies that weren't needed. But as my 2 weeks there progressed - and as my itinerary went up the state, south to north - the colors did start to show up.

Got to meet JanieM, which was a highlight!

[JanieM]

CaseyL -- it was fun, and it seems like yesterday.

[CaseyL]

JanieM - There's so much I didn't get to! Am still bummed I didn't go to Sunflower Creamery farm in Cumberland (home to the famous running goats!). I was just tired of driving great distances at that point :)

[JanieM]

CaseyL -- funny, I'm just a few miles from there right now, and didn't know of it. Someday I'll check it out -- maybe when the grandkid is old enough to walk around and enjoy the goats.

There's always more to see, and though Maine doesn't have a monopoly on that phenomenon, it certainly never gets boring here.

Maybe you can come back someday! Although I know the cross-country trip isn't a minor enterprise....

I'd love to visit the PNW again, but with other priorities crowding in, including travel wishes, I'm not sure it's ever going to happen. The Olympic Peninsula still ranks as the most beautiful place I've ever seen, although in fairness, it didn't rain the whole two weeks I was hiking there -- both in the mountains and along the coastal strip. Just a stunning place.

[Girl from the North Country]

maybe when the grandkid is old enough to walk around and enjoy the goats

It is my experience that baby goats are one of the most joy-inducing sights one can see (whether leaping randomly around, or not). Lucky you and the grandkid, if you time your visit appropriately.

[JanieM]

GftNC: incentive!! I will keep that in mind.

[Michael Cain]

After I had lived in Front Range Colorado for a couple of years, and mentally compared the weather to the places I had lived before, my conclusion was that the Front Range had fall-fall, cold-fall, green-fall, and hot-fall. In particular, there was no season that you would be tempted to rename Mud.

[JanieM]

Interesting, Michael. Our mud season is late winter / early spring, when all the winter stuff thaws. Some roads are posted with weight limits at that time of year.

Where have you lived that has a mud season in the fall?

I remember two descriptions of Maine seasons that people gave me when I moved here:

Maine has 5 seasons: spring, summer, fall, winter, and mud.

Maine has 2 seasons: winter and the 4th of July.

[CaseyL]

JanieM - Oh, I do want to come back. I think my preferred objective is for a post-retirement road trip, when I can visit Maine again, and Vermont (for the first time). But that is years off. Right now, for many reasons, I'm avoiding flying anywhere.

Except, ironically, Florida. I would never willingly go to that dreadful state, but my Mom has asked me to come out and help her declutter her house. She's in her late 80s, still alert and engaged, but not so spry anymore (and extremely distrustful of whatever day labor is around her area). So I'm breaking all my self-imposed standards to go out there in January.

[JanieM]

CaseyL -- wait, "out there" is where you are!

Reminds me of the time I was hiking in the Olympics, and there was a small bear circling the little meadow where a number of tents were pitched. Some people were talking about what kind of bear it might be, and one guy said it couldn't be a grizzly, because all the grizzlies were "back east." (The bear disappeared when a rescue helicopter landed in the meadow, looking for an injured hiker who was actually in the next mountain over.)

Made us chuckle, since to us "back east" was Massachusetts, where we were from.

*****

I would just as soon never set foot in Florida again either, but 1.5 of my siblings (one only in winter) and most of my cousins live there, so ... never say never, probably.

*****

Edited to correct garbled paragraph order

[CaseyL]

JanieM - It's all a matter of perspective, innit?

(When they said "back east," I wonder guess they meant Eastern Washington, though very few are left even there. Happily, the federal government is thinking of re-introducing them to the North Cascades.)

I don't feel as disconnected from the eastern half of the country as when I first moved to Seattle in '76, because of online news, Skype, and social media. But I do feel somewhat disconnected, and prefer it that way.

Being in a big city back East is disconcerting, because the culture is so vastly different from Western Washington. I expect quite a bit of culture shock while I'm in Pompano Beach.

[Michael Cain]

From time to time I hear someone who grew up in western states say "out East" rather than back East.

[JanieM]

CaseyL -- they meant Colorado; they eventually said that. :-)

Michael -- "out West" is a commonly used phrase, at least in my experience, and now that you mention it I've heard "out East" too. But that brings up something interesting, which is that I've never heard of "back West." Surely there's "back East" and not "back West" because there's been a huge amount of migration from east to west in past however long (a century and a half?) but relatively little migration in the other direction.

[Michael Cain]

Being in a big city back East is disconcerting, because the culture is so vastly different from Western Washington.

My friend the anthropologist, who has lived and worked all over the country, says that suburbs of all major metro areas in the West (Census Bureau definition) are more like each other than they are like any place east of the Great Plains.

One of the differences that was "discovered" fairly recently, when the CB joined the 21st Century and made it possible to compute density based on built area rather than county area is that the suburbs of major metro areas in the West are almost twice as dense as suburbs of major metro areas in any other part of the country.

[JanieM]

Michael -- what about the densities of the central cities themselves? I don't have any kind of feel for it, since I've spent very little time in cities. But it's hard to believe NYC isn't as dense as they come... ??

[wj]

the suburbs of major metro areas in the West are almost twice as dense as suburbs of major metro areas in any other part of the country.

I confess, I'm astonished. Considering how big suburban lots are here, I would have expected them to be less dense. But perhaps there are more and bigger families (i.e. young couples with kids, vs singles or grandparents) here than in the east...? I wonder if anyone has tried comparing housing units (homes or apartments) rather than people per square mile.

[CharlesWT]

Looks like there might be some benefit for the time we boomers spend on the internet.

"A longitudinal study of a large group of older adults showed that regular internet users had approximately half the risk of dementia compared to their same-age peers who did not use the internet regularly. This difference remained even after controlling for education, ethnicity, sex, generation, and signs of cognitive decline at the start of the study. Participants using the internet between 6 minutes and 2 hours per day had the lowest risk of dementia. The study was published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society."
Older adults who regularly use the internet have half the risk of dementia compared to non-regular users

[CaseyL]

Michael, I'd like to know when that study was done; and also how they define "suburb."

I can vouch for higher density here Seattle metropolitan area, but it's a fairly recent thing. Suburban homes used to be single family with large yards. Many of those are now being replaced by high-density housing: townhomes and condo towers. The reason: everyone and their cousins have been moving here, and they need somewhere to live.

(The rise in high-density housing doesn't translate to greater affordability, unfortunately.)

[nous]

The developers are fully aware that they can charge more for a large house on a smaller lot than they can for a smaller home on a larger lot. And with more public land and more conservation easements, the developers in the west can maximize the value of the land they own by reducing what is available to develop. In those conditions it makes sense to keep developments dense.

[Michael Cain]

Michael -- what about the densities of the central cities themselves? I don't have any kind of feel for it, since I've spent very little time in cities. But it's hard to believe NYC isn't as dense as they come... ??

Absolutely. The Los Angeles CSA and the New York City CSA are, using built area as the denominator, about equal density. There's nothing in LA like NYC, especially Manhattan. But the LA suburbs are a lot denser.

Pull up Google Maps, satellite view, and (zoomed in to where you can see individual houses), go from Los Angeles to Long Beach. It is difficult to find areas in the NYC suburbs that have that same degree of packing the houses in, nor so many little apartment buildings. Overall, LA's suburbs balance NYC's core density.

Anecdotally, 35 years ago my family and I moved from New Jersey to one of the west Denver suburbs. The two things we noticed immediately when shopping for a house was the houses were packed much closer together in the Denver suburb, and there were a lot more apartments mixed in with the houses.

[JanieM]

Michael, thanks, that's all fascinating.

[hairshirthedonist]

Much of what we now call suburbs in the East were once small towns a day or two by horse from the nearest large city and separated by stretches of woods or farmland. Suburbs in the West are far more likely to have been built to be suburbs.

Of course, there's been plenty of building in what were once the empty spaces between the old towns in the East, but it's done in a more piecemeal fashion. In the West, they go for it on a much larger scale with more planning.

My sister lives in Anthem, AZ. It's a bit outside of contiguous metro-Phoenix and surrounded by empty space, but what isn't empty is packed with housing, retail space, entertainment, dining, etc., all of which was built more or less at once. There's nothing I can think of like that here in NJ.

[Michael Cain]

...how they define "suburb."

That's an excellent question -- perhaps the excellent question. I'm a dilettante at this, but for the US as a whole the population characteristic for suburban is non-rural and density below about 3,500 per square mile. I've seen arguments that the dividing line should be as low as 3,200.

Consider Riverside, CA, out near the eastern edge of Greater Los Angeles. The city has a population of about 315,000 and density around 3,900 per square mile. The Riverside urban area has 2.2M people and a density around 3,750 per square mile. Compare it to Cincinnati (for some reason, I use Cincinnati for comparisons). Urban population 309,000 with density 3,970. Urban area is 1.7M, density 2,240.

[wj]

the population characteristic for suburban is non-rural and density below about 3,500 per square mile

Is there any requirement for there to be an "urb" for it to be a "sub" of? And perhaps how close? I mean, I could see a small town being both clearly non-rural and having that density, but being hundreds of miles from the nearest actual city (however defined).

[CaseyL]

Michael, if they define suburb on the basis of how dense it is at the current time, then "suburbs" are going to move. A lot. Constantly.

I can't count the number of places near me in Western Washington that made the leap from rural "boonies" to high-density housing in one fell swoop, skipping over "suburb" altogether.

Maybe some other factors are involved, like availability of infrastructure? Grocery stores, health care centers, public transit, presence or absence of municipal utilities?

[GftNC]

Open thread, so I've just been reading in the NYT about the Wisconsin Republicans talking about impeaching a newly elected liberal justice before she is even seated, so she cannot participate in throwing out their gerrymandered maps. Sorry about the length of the link, but it is one of my free monthly 10:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/06/us/politics/justice-protasiewicz-impeachment-wisconsin.html?unlocked_article_code=az9qcueJKolrAp1brdCycAoDJ5zgAKSWKgy_P4ONmPr7r6H-3Ipd_K9u3QStGiAhx3E8bI3aCkGhxSNqrcLb3XgXqrIyONfboNQ--uisMC2199hW3m9ewP0DggCHzqvQtsVJS7W3esg4SIRXFeQvHhAZwGCIn6k5XOb3-YG76YsPcAYPPMiUH0vqS1OqaZ9Zz9RzJ9R88G6-IEcPFBYfvu0gbQAvavbdTkIjjKQHFYFw_hqXExTcd2GbR7yvcyBfbVrj0Bgn5fe9eM0uy_jFLt-nMsI1GHQn5QHR_8kJj34Srj6thA-hgQM0vg3UPDQ2Efc2eyLdhw_-PoL1NFabhN30IGUZ-RXx6SNc-HHdmuf5zhCEIj0Fdw&smid=url-share

So, the ever more naked intention of Republicans to end democracy in America becomes clear, and the existential threat faced by the Democrats, and the few sane Rs, is brought into greater and greater focus. I am starting to be really afraid of what is going to happen in the next few years.

[wj]

I was particularly taken by the Washington Post's headline on the story:

Wisconsin’s gerrymandering rides to the rescue of its gerrymandering
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/09/06/wisconsins-gerrymandering-rides-rescue-its-gerrymandering/

[wj]

On the other hand, a Trump appointed judge just lost his patience with the Alabama legislature's blatant defiance of his order to correct their districting. And appointed a Special Master to do the job for them.

The Alabama AG is appealing, of course. But nothing unites judges, at every level and no matter their other differences, like their irritation at someone ignoring a court order. Any court order. An appeal is fine; just ignoring the order is unacceptable. So figure the appeal to go nowhere. (Even the current Supreme Court seems like to respond with something like "FODS!")

[Hartmut]

So, what happens, should Alabama ignore as second SCTUS order and uses its 'improved' (if I read correctly even more gerrymandered than the one declared void)? The House speaker has been open about it that his majority is worth more to him than anything else, in particular laws and courts, and encouraged the Alabamaian GOPsters to not budge.
Who certifies House seats? Could the seated GOP majority decide to ignore Alabama's defiance and simply seat the delegation (with potentially even one more GOPster in it).
Looks like Florida is going the same path. deSantis is looking for passing an even more lopsided map than the already outrageous current one that would give the GOP three additional House members.

[wj]

Basically, the Federal government has two levers. First is straight money. Alabama, like most red states, gets a huge net dollars from the Feds. "Comply of get your funding cut" can be an attention getter.

Second is straight force. I'm old enough to remember President Eisenhower sending the 82nd Airborne, guns very much in hand, to enforce a Supreme Court order for Little Rock, Arkansas to integrate its high school. (Less Federal funding leverage in the late 1950s.) Crude, but definitely effective.

[nous]

One of the things I found most dismaying on our drive to and from Colorado last week was the number of pickup trucks we passed with both a military veteran sticker and a Trump 2024 sticker proudly displayed. Put me back in mind of my earlier question here about what happens if a Democratic president calls in the military and the local reservists and law enforcement show up to obstruct.

I'm back to thinking that we are closer to being Yugoslavia than we are to being Northern Ireland. We have the same regime cleavage and the same nationalist separatist propaganda with alternate histories going on. We just have Christian Nationalism standing in for Ethno-Nationalism.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

On the subject of seasons:
https://xkcd.com/2825/

[Pro Bono]

To my English eyes, displaying political slogans one's vehicle is just bad manners. People disagree about stuff, why bring that up out of context?

[wj]

what happens if a Democratic president calls in the military and the local reservists and law enforcement show up to obstruct.

In my (admittedly limited, but non-zero) experience, the military (including reservists) is sufficiently hierarchical (for lack of a better word) and disciplined that they will follow orders. Those paratroopers at Little Rock included, I'm sure, a number whose personal views were entirely with the segregationists. But they did the job regardless.

As for reservists not on duty, or local law enforcement? As bad as the situation with guns, including military weapons, is in this country, the military itself is on a whole different level. Both in terms of available equipment and in terms of experience, even at just the small unit level.

Something like the Civil War, with equally equipped and experienced units on both sides, isn't really in the cards. (The National Guard would get nationalized in a heartbeat if some governor was daft enough to try to use his state's National Guard as a group. Successfully nationalized.) Guerrilla warfare is a possibility. But any sign that they might succeed, even locally, would result in the military essentially wiping them out.

Could they get a bunch of people killed? Sure. But overall, most of the cultists are Rambo wannabes, not actual troops. OK for intimidating civilians, but crumbling fast when actual troops are shooting back.

God knows I wouldn't want to see it happen. But I'm not concerned about the outcome if it does.

[McKinneyTexas]

Put me back in mind of my earlier question here about what happens if a Democratic president calls in the military and the local reservists and law enforcement show up to obstruct.

I'm not sure role reversal wears well on the Prog Left or the MAGA right. There was a time when the left lionized military personnel who refused to deploy. IIRC, when Tom Cotton proposed deploying the military during the post George Floyd riots (and they were riots), heads exploded across the left spectrum and a NYT editor got bounced. It gets even worse--for the left--when trying to sort through the DEI/anti-racism/intersectionality dialectic (rewrite any number of sentences, replacing white with black--or vice versa--and see what you get). If I were a lefty, I'd leave that particular line of argumentation alone.

In a related (at least it seems related to me) we see the outcome of trendy, lefty policy clashing with reality. From today's Free Press:

A local Dem official in Minneapolis was beaten and her leg was broken by a carjacker, all in front of her children—and in her own driveway. It’s a terrible thing, and the victim’s journey says a lot about the last three years. The victim here is Shivanthi Sathanandan, second vice chairwoman of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party in Minneapolis, who in 2020 was a major proponent of abolishing the Minneapolis Police, and who wrote posts such as: “We are going to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department. Say it with me.” And then writing it again—DISMANTLE The Minneapolis Police Department—but with little clap emojis between each word.

Now, in 2023, what is Shivanthi writing on Facebook?

Catch these young people who are running wild creating chaos across our city and HOLD THEM IN CUSTODY AND PROSECUTE THEM.

PERIOD.

Look at my face. REMEMBER ME when you are thinking about supporting letting juveniles and young people out of custody to roam our streets instead of HOLDING THEM ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS.

I wonder how the latter sentiment, carried to its logical conclusion, would play out against relaxed school discipline policies, restorative justice and all the rest that--again, it seems to me--are thoroughly detached from the reality of being a crime victim.

So, maybe rethink role reversal as a useful debate tool.

[hairshirthedonist]

Was there a debate?

[wj]

I'm back to thinking that we are closer to being Yugoslavia than we are to being Northern Ireland. We have the same regime cleavage and the same nationalist separatist propaganda with alternate histories going on.

The critical difference being the the Yugoslav army was split up when the country was formally divided. So each side had roughly equal forces at hand. And the geography was different: our cultists don't have blocks of countryside with little to no population of opposing views. Maybe a bit of the Idaho panhandle, but not much more. Something like Serbia/Coratia/Bosnia isn't here.

As for those trucks with veteran and Trump bumper stickers, you're looking at individuals there. Almost never even small units, let alone something brigade size.

[hairshirthedonist]

People disagree about stuff, why bring that up out of context?

It would be great if so many people didn't make their political views such a large part of their personal identities (or at least their public presentations of their personal identities). And it would be nice if more people could refrain from starting political arguments at social gatherings having nothing to do with politics.

Rude is a apt description. There's time and place. The rest of the time, just be a f**king person.

[wj]

In breaking news, following the recommendation of the special grand jury, Fulton County Georgia has just indicted a) Senator Lindsey Graham and b) the two Republican senate candidates from 2020: David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler.

Expect hysteria to follow in short order.

[hairshirthedonist]

Where did you see that, wj? I've only read about the recommendations. I can't find anything on indictments.

[wj]

I may have misread something. Or else the article I read has been corrected. (Online news has that tendency. Leaving me asking, Did I really see that?)

[hairshirthedonist]

No worries. It's not like we can't let the dust settle for some number of minutes, hours, maybe even days, to find out what's really happening or happened! People once had no choice, right? ;^)

[McKinneyTexas]

To my English eyes, displaying political slogans one's vehicle is just bad manners. People disagree about stuff, why bring that up out of context?

An out-sized percentage of US adults feel their opinions on any and everything need to be respected and admired by everyone else, hence bumper stickers, yard signs, etc., etc. To HSH's point about social gatherings, it can certainly be a pain in the ass when someone is dragging you into a conversation you didn't leave your home to engage in. The flip side is, it's sometimes hard not to have a discussion, e.g. not a lot of people were discussing the weather on January 7, 2021.

[nous]

I'm not sure role reversal wears well on the Prog Left or the MAGA right. There was a time when the left lionized military personnel who refused to deploy. IIRC, when Tom Cotton proposed deploying the military during the post George Floyd riots (and they were riots), heads exploded across the left spectrum and a NYT editor got bounced.

This conflates active and passive resistance and whistles past the organized militia groups that were involved in January 6.

And were I to praise any military personnel for following their conscience and refusing a call-up, I'd also expect that they would be subject to discipline for having done so. That's the nature of passive resistance.

But lest it get lost in all this, I want to go back to the thing that is so alarming to me about those stickers (and billboards). Trump lost. Trump refused the peaceful transfer of power. Trump's organization worked with private paramilitary organizations to try to disrupt the transfer of power. That's not just a riot or civil unrest, that's an attack on the very principles of liberal democracy. The fact that so many people who have taken oaths to protect the constitution are actively supporting the person who did this *over those on their own political side who remain committed to the principles of democracy* is extremely dangerous.

As for those trucks with veteran and Trump bumper stickers, you're looking at individuals there. Almost never even small units, let alone something brigade size.

But unlike the sporadic and unorganized resistance on the left, he training and coordination are there for the MAGA veterans to call upon, should we hit a tipping point. The left will not spontaneously form organized paramilitary groups in response to perceived governmental threats. The differences here are night and day.

Go to a training session for either side and you will see what I mean. The right wing groups are spending thousands of dollars every year for tactical training and practice and the left wing groups are giving basic firearm safety training to LGBTQ+ people who have never handled a gun before.

[Girl from the North Country]

I haven't had time to read the recent comments (since yesterday) yet, but this from today's Grauniad by Marina Hyde on Elon Musk is too good to risk any of you missing:

The tech deity reportedly shut down his Starlink system to foil a Ukrainian attack. Is he the guiding force we need right now?

Fri 8 Sep 2023 14.21 BST
895
When Elon Musk posted a personally crafted 280-character “peace plan” for the war in Ukraine last October, a Ukrainian diplomat offered a carefully considered review. It ran to a full two words: “Fuck off”. This week’s allegations that Musk shut down his Starlink system (on which the comms-shattered Ukraine relies to defend itself against Russia) right in the middle of a counteroffensive last year – apparently deliberately to neuter it – forces a new question. When he does finally make it there in his big space rocket, will even Mars be far enough for Elon Musk to fuck off to?

For now, it’s time to take another turn around the block with Phoney Stark, as Musk’s biographer Walter Isaacson reveals that the edgelord magnate (and edgelord magnet) ordered his engineers to switch off the Starlink satellite communications network during a surprise attack on the Russian fleet in Crimea last year. Or to “disrupt” the attack, as CNN puts it, still clinging embarrassingly to the preferred Silicon Valley argot that surely ought to have been discredited once its boy kings started becoming more powerful than many of the world’s actual countries. I can’t help feeling that the benefit-of-the-doubt era with these guys ought to have officially ended back when Y2K fashion was just fashion. Yet until very recently, Musk was still being breathlessly judged a net good to humanity, what with his electric cars and his hyperloops and the fact he once smoked a joint on a podcast. So! Very! Cool! Elon was endlessly covered by the media as a kind of fascinating, eccentric inventor, as opposed to someone with a vast amount of power who should be held to account accordingly. Just as it was with Mark Zuckerberg before him, by the time people realised a lot of what was happening, it was rather too late.

Anyway, back to this strategic Starlink blackout, which was apparently prefaced by Elon wailing to his biographer: “How am I in this war?” The question appears to have been rhetorical, but demands an alternative answer to the one towards which Musk was apparently gesturing (he followed up by explaining that Starlink was “so people can watch Netflix and chill and get online for school and do good peaceful things, not drone strikes”). You’re in this war because you’re literally a defence contractor – just as you’re in the news this week for demonising the Jewish Anti-Defamation League (ADL) because you’re literally a media mogul. Man up.

Instead of accepting the complexities of the consequences of his own actions, Musk seems to have simply buzzed in on the answer to that age-old question: how can a just tech god permit suffering? The Ukrainian drones were thus stopped in their tracks, while the Russian fleet remained unharmed and able to launch future attacks itself. Musk himself returned to other based-deity pursuits, such as enabling the dissemination of Moscow propaganda and Twitter-polling what should happen to Ukraine. This last gambit fell squarely in the tradition of the Treaty of Versailles, of course, which famously asked Allied users whether Germany should be punished extra-hard, and offered three options: “Hell yeah”, “Hell no”, and “I don’t care – just show me the numbers”.

It’s not that Musk doesn’t have a consistent worldview so much as he doesn’t even have consistency. Barely a week goes by without him making threats and failing to follow through. By now it should be clear that Musk isn’t going to have a cage fight with Zuckerberg. He isn’t going to sue the ADL. He probably wasn’t even really going to buy X (formerly Twitter), and only ended up going through with it because the courts forced him to. He just says any old stuff for attention or a laugh, or because he can. The key question is whether someone who just says any old stuff for attention or a laugh or because he can should have quite this much supra-democratic power.

Alas, this is not a question being asked by Elon’s fanboys, that whole heaving army of betas out there defending him minute by minute on his own platform, in the hope that he sees their posts and perhaps … what? “likes” them? Oh man. It’s too poignant. Yet the second this latest story about the Starlink shutdown broke, you couldn’t move on X for Muskovites suggesting that if Ukraine doesn’t like the deal it signed up to, it can terminate its contract and sign up to another service. Please let’s put much, much more of our future security in the hands of people who treat war and the fallout from an unsolicited invasion like a broadband contract.

Ultimately, it remains one of the more pathetic tragedies of our age that Musk is seen as a superhero analogue – but perhaps also an inevitable one, given that superheroes connote institutional failure. After all, if society and its institutions were working as they should be, we wouldn’t need them. This is certainly the mood that Musk likes to play into, forever fanning the sense that the world and its problems are too hard to manage for everyone from ordinary people to police chiefs to politicians and supranational bodies. Only recently, he was speaking tellingly of himself as Earth’s “other option” to Mark Zuckerberg. Yes, have no fear, because Elon’s here. Until – as the Ukrainians seem to have discovered at something of a crucial moment – he suddenly isn’t.

[Girl from the North Country]

But lest it get lost in all this, I want to go back to the thing that is so alarming to me about those stickers (and billboards). Trump lost. Trump refused the peaceful transfer of power. Trump's organization worked with private paramilitary organizations to try to disrupt the transfer of power. That's not just a riot or civil unrest, that's an attack on the very principles of liberal democracy. The fact that so many people who have taken oaths to protect the constitution are actively supporting the person who did this *over those on their own political side who remain committed to the principles of democracy* is extremely dangerous.

This is exactly right. It is now crystal clear that a substantial part of the Republican party (both state and federal) and their sympathisers are happy to end America's democracy, if it helps them to achieve their ideological aims and keeps likeminded people in power.

[McKinneyTexas]

But lest it get lost in all this . . .

Well, maybe someday we can get lost 'in all of this.' I think a thorough look at how role reversal works would be enlightening. And fun.

The fact that so many people who have taken oaths to protect the constitution are actively supporting the person who did this *over those on their own political side who remain committed to the principles of democracy* is extremely dangerous.

It is now crystal clear that a substantial part of the Republican party (both state and federal) and their sympathisers are happy to end America's democracy, if it helps them to achieve their ideological aims and keeps likeminded people in power.

Because I have a lot of friends who range between Fully Down With Trump to Trump Tolerant If It Comes To That, I think I have some useful insight. The common denominator seems to be a really stunning disconnect between what Trump actually says and does and how they hear what he says and does--they do not hear his literal words. They project into his words their very real and over-arching abhorrence of Progressivism that is not all that different from Progressive over-arching abhorrence of conservatism.

You may recall Biden telling African Americans that Mitt Romney wants "put y'all back in chains." That kind of BS might resonate on the left, but it looks like straight-up race-baiting outside the bubble. At pretty much any gathering in this very Trumpy neck of the woods, the crowd is diverse, including gay and lesbians. Very few have issues with gay marriage. Many are employers who hire for competence and results, with the natural result being diverse work forces. Many have friends and family who are gay, black, Hispanic, whatever. They don't like being told they and the country many of them fought for are irredeemably racist and they especially don't care for the overtly racist elements of anti-racism and CRT. They see Trump as someone who will "fight back", just like a lot of Progressives thought Bernie Sanders would take care of those nasty capitalists.

They especially do not like the comfortable fit Progressives seem to have with Marxists (and calling Marxists Socialists doesn't make it any better). If their perception of Trump is flawed, their understanding of the uncompromising nature of unvarnished Progressivism is far from irrational.

No one defends January 6th, but they very much are of one mind that massive post-George Floyd rioting went virtually unpunished. They also are very aware that law enforcement treatment of Hunter Biden saga pales in comparison with the enthusiasm for going after Trump.

What they don't see--which is what I can't fathom--is that Trump has only one rule: I Win. No rules, no facts, nothing but I Win. And this means, as you say, invalidating election results, usurping constitutional government and everything else that makes Trump a clear and present danger.

As an aside, the Tolerant crowd is much larger than the Down With crowd, which suggests my cohort is not representative since something like half the Republican Party affirmatively favors Trump. With those people, the end probably does justify the means, which makes them anti-democratic. The problem for me is, the farther left you move on the Progressive side, the same view holds.

But unlike the sporadic and unorganized resistance on the left, he training and coordination are there for the MAGA veterans to call upon, should we hit a tipping point. The left will not spontaneously form organized paramilitary groups in response to perceived governmental threats. The differences here are night and day.

Nous, rioting and arson are ongoing left wing acts of terrorism. The post George Floyd riots weren't the first of their kind. The post-Dobbs burning of Abortion Counseling Centers aren't nothing. The widespread church burnings in Canada weren't by angry Trumpers. see https://www.wsj.com/articles/vandalism-arson-burning-canada-church-catholic-residential-schools-11627584689;
https://thespectator.com/topic/lack-indigenous-mass-graves-canada/

Antifa is, in fact, a far left paramilitary organization. So, the unilateral focus on right wing militia's is misleading and--but only time will tell--likely overblown. January 6th was not an armed insurrection. Getting 150 fat-gutted yahoos to show up in the same place is a huge effort. Your concern about a tipping point--which I would like understand what you mean by this--seems either hyperbolic or pretextual justification for government surveillance, content moderation, politically-motivated law enforcement and so on.

[nous]

Antifa is, in fact, a far left paramilitary organization. So, the unilateral focus on right wing militia's is misleading and--but only time will tell--likely overblown. January 6th was not an armed insurrection. Getting 150 fat-gutted yahoos to show up in the same place is a huge effort. Your concern about a tipping point--which I would like understand what you mean by this--seems either hyperbolic or pretextual justification for government surveillance, content moderation, politically-motivated law enforcement and so on.

McT - my focus is not unilateral. I've been actively researching groups on both sides for several years now as part of my research interests for teaching.

Antifa is not an organization. What exists are small local cells with little in the way of coordination. The groups almost entirely lack any military training and few members are military veterans. I've seen a few groups training and they are the equivalent of a local dojo or paintball crew in their effectiveness.

They are paramilitary in goals and aspirations, but they have very little actual capacity to carry out anything but isolated property destruction, and they have little to no actual combat experience or training. There are groups like this on the right as well, mostly grown out of online chat spaces and local fight clubs, if this were all we had to worry about, I'd not be very concerned.

The Oathkeepers and the Proud Boys, just to name the most well known of the right wing groups, are on another level both in terms of training and organization. There is a high level of both military training and organization in their ranks. Antifa and the RW fight club types are the equivalent of rec league players. Many more Oathkeepers and Proud Boys actually had training and service experience, and the Oathkeepers have experience coordinating with local law enforcement and are seen in a favorable light by a lot of LEOs.

The rest of your points seem just to be an attempt to provide counterbalancing grievance narratives. I'm not interested in that because it is chaff. What matters here is the actual capacity and intention on either side to establish an anti-democratic authoritarian order in place of a liberal, representative government (however imperfect it might be in practice).

The left simply doesn't have that capacity or the collective will for that.

[McKinneyTexas]

Many more Oathkeepers and Proud Boys actually had training and service experience, and the Oathkeepers have experience coordinating with local law enforcement and are seen in a favorable light by a lot of LEOs.

Can you give me a specific example or two of what you think either or both of these organizations might actually do at some point that is a viable threat to public order (as oppposed to have a march or a gathering)? This sort of ties in with my hint at requesting your thoughts about a tipping point.

The rest of your points seem just to be an attempt to provide counterbalancing grievance narratives. I'm not interested in that because it is chaff. What matters here is the actual capacity and intention on either side to establish an anti-democratic authoritarian order in place of a liberal, representative government (however imperfect it might be in practice).

Actually, I was attempting to add (very general) context to a part of the Trump tolerant slice of America. They are not who you and GFTNC think they are.

The left simply doesn't have that capacity or the collective will for that.

I lack your confidence in this assertion, recognizing that "left" is a very broad spectrum.

[Pro Bono]

Can you give me a specific example...

Perhaps what happened in the Capitol on January 6th 2021 was underreported.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

It was terrible how AntiFa plotted an armed kidnapping of a red-state governor, and planned to put them on kangaroo trial for political "crimes", followed by execution.

Oh wait, that wasn't AntiFa, that was some right-wing loons plotting to do that to the Dem Governor of Michigan.

[Girl from the North Country]

Actually, I was attempting to add (very general) context to a part of the Trump tolerant slice of America. They are not who you and GFTNC think they are.

The point has long passed where your previous assertion that "Trump is sui generis" can be even vaguely credible. This means that your attempts to argue about this are either wilfully blind, or in bad faith. Republican administrations in various states are fighting explicitly to protect their established gerrymandering by not only impeaching elected officials who might overturn their attempts, but also to impeach those involved in the legal processes against Trump, whose supporters (or "the Tolerant group" in your downplaying formulation) explicitly maintain that the last election was illicit. These are clear, obvious attempts at and support of the destruction of American democracy, and if your friends don't see that then they are among the people who, after democratic breakdown, are clearly seen to be at best useful idiots, and at worst actively complicit.

As for your (or their) obsession with Marxists, socialists or "the left", since they include in these categories anybody who maintains that there is widespread, active racism or homophobia in America, which must be confronted and fought, it is rather difficult (impossible actually) to engage with it. It suggests such enormous and extraordinary amounts of bias and closed mindedness, that it seems impossible even to discuss. Obviously, this is very unfortunate, and God knows we have demonstrated it here often enough, but I can't see a way out of it.

[Girl from the North Country]

Clarification and reminder: when you said "Trump is sui generis", it was by way of dismissing the risk of any contagion. Alas, the resulting contagion from the Trump presidency is there for all to see.

[liberal japonicus]

You may recall Biden telling African Americans that Mitt Romney wants "put y'all back in chains." That kind of BS might resonate on the left, but it looks like straight-up race-baiting outside the bubble.

from
https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/08/vp-biden-says-republicans-are-going-to-put-yall-back-in-chains

Specifically, the vice president said to the Danville, Virginia, crowd that the House GOP budget, partly written by House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., gives an indication of the Republican presidential ticket's values.

"We got a real clear picture of what they all value," Biden said. "Every Republican's voted for it. Look at what they value and look at their budget and what they're proposing. Romney wants to let the - he said in the first hundred days he's going to let the big banks once again write their own rules, 'unchain Wall Street.' They're going to put y'all back in chains."

Yet another entry from Projection Times

[Michael Cain]

Open thread...

I finally finished penciling the next drawing in the sort-of-fairy-tale series I started for my kids 30 years ago, abandoned for decades, and have now resumed for the granddaughters. It seems like it took forever. Part of the depression I've been struggling with is anxiety attacks to the point of freezing up. Sitting there for minutes at a time with the pencil in my hand telling myself, "It's a PENCIL. There's an eraser RIGHT HERE. Just DRAW THE DAMNED LINE." Sometimes I have a small bit of sympathy for Mitch McConnell.

[JanieM]

Ah, Michael.... You've had a lot to contend with. One day at a time, I guess....

Sending good wishes from here.

[Girl from the North Country]

However long it takes, Michael, is as long as it will take. You are not Mitch McConnell.

Plus, speaking for myself, I would be quite keen to see this fairy tale series in due course, and I bet I'm not alone. I have always read children's books, along with much else, and have in fact just ordered a book for children aged 9 - 12, called Impossible Creatures, which has been getting very interesting reviews. The author, Katherine Rundell, also wrote a non-fiction book on John Donne, which won prizes and was well reviewed earlier this year. And I thought I recognised the name: she also wrote a book which I was given some years ago, by someone who knew my reading habits, called Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise.

[Michael Cain]

You take what you can get. I was at my daughter's the other day and granddaughter #1 (recently turned 10) was drawing at the dining table. My daughter asked what she was drawing and the granddaughter replied, "A castle tower. See, it's crenelated." To which my daughter said, "You've been drawing with Grandpa again, haven't you?"

[JanieM]

Made me chuckle, Michael, especially the thought of a 10-year-old who knows what "crenelated" means.

I am only at the beginning of that set of relationships compared to you (1st grandchild not yet 2, 2nd coming soon). It's fun, and not like what I expected. Although I'd be hard put to see what exactly I expected in the first place.

[liberal japonicus]

Michael, I'm feeling your pain and I think that the demographic here has a lot of us wrestling with related symptoms/situations. I'm finding that I need to search more and more to find a name or something that I remember, but can't quite sketch out. I also think that the enshitification of search tools has contributed, what used to be a single search is now 3 or 4 plugging in different words. And god forbid if hotel is one of them.

I've started rereading some stuff by Csíkszentmihályi, who researched the psychological concept of 'flow', in the perhaps vain hope of trying to summon it up again. We'll see...

[Michael Cain]

Made me chuckle, Michael, especially the thought of a 10-year-old who knows what "crenelated" means.

This is the same granddaughter who, at 18 months, latched on to the word debris. If you were doing repair work and dropped any scrap of anything she would pounce on it, hold it up, and announce "Debris!" You have to admit that it's probably a fun word to say at that age.