And...anything the GREEN EYES have to add to this? Sure---always---(we boast). Here, at the very apex of the second part's overdone happy ending, Alex, the Hamlet of sexual orientation, proposes to John (story is set in 2014): “Hold on,” Alex says, “hold on. While we are at it, why don’t we have a double wedding?” “What?” “Yes. John here and I. We are the perfect complement to this ceremony.” “WHAT?” No, he means it, Alex says. He has to make it up to John, he really does, he’s done so many terrible things during the last couple of days, especially to John, and he has apologized once too often-—we need to bring out the big guns, and marriage would fit the bill. “Are you crazy?” I say. “How do you know I want to marry you?”
Anything the GREEN EYES have to add to this? We usually do. Here, From Part II of the Green Eyes, This Is Heaven, Chapter 41, John Lee being interviewed, for the third time, by his nemesis, Inspector Mario LaStrada...(context, context:)...We're in the police department, and LaStrada has John cornered, but there's a pet fish bowl sitting on the reception desk, and John has his cell-phone activated in video-recording mode, lurking out of the breast pocket of his T-shirt:
Handcuffs appear out of nowhere. Nothing can save me now, except that the detective, his sight trained on the only Lee in the room, has overlooked the further goings-on fish-wise. And it’s not what you expect; it’s worse, the dark-blue shark undertaking a sexual assault on the pretty goldfish in the most uninhibited ways.
I once visited France, the country of my mother, where people would occasionally say: ‘Voila, un putain.’ (“Look, a hooker”). Along those lines I say, “Look, Inspector, the shark is raping the goldfish.”
And it works, Strada turns around. I could run away now, but say instead: “Bestiality in the police department, Inspector. Do something, do something.”
He’s listening. “Do something,” I repeat. “Not in this office.”
“Stop it, stop it!” he yells at the fish. He clutches the bowl with both hands, half-lifts it off the counter—-presumably intending to haul it to some location where sex between unrelated species of pesci would be a biological novelty rather than a crime—-but the big, water-filled, fish-filled container is too heavy for the Strada; it glides off the counter and drags the inspector down, smashing into pieces as it hits the ground, the long arm or the law falling onto the vicious shards of splintering glass.
Perhaps I can sell the same footage twice, I think the most heartless thought of this episode. I’m leaving the PD--head erect, pace deceivingly measured, a false expression on my face.
I stride across an almost empty parking lot. Nobody seems to be around, and the sergeant…where was the sergeant, didn’t he hear the fishbowl crashing? Strada didn’t say a word though, he fell silently onto his fish sword. He could be unconscious. There was immediate blood—-he might exsanguinate. And the fish—-they are also God’s creation, especially in the State of Georgia with its staggering number of churches per inhabitant—-the fish deserve a new life in two separate bowls where they can pursue their pointless rounds till they expire of boredom. Instead they are lingering there on the ground, hapless, gasping for air, provided they haven’t been crushed by Strada’s bulk.
You are a piece of shit, John, you are a piece of shit.
I’m back at the scene of the crime a few seconds later. Strada is splayed out on the ground, prone, moaning imperceptibly or not loud enough to alert the bowel-impeded sergeant. Nobody else is in evidence. There is more blood.
I stoop, bend over the stricken Strada, helpless myself. Where are the fish?
The sequel to the Green Eyes---available now ("click")
If we could add something to this: Trump knows more about the American press than this press knows about itself.
Ben Bowling, the valedictorian of Bell County High School.
Wisdom comes from the unlikeliest places. And on Saturday, Ben Bowling, the valedictorian of Bell County High School in Pineville, Ky., made an inspirational appeal that left his graduating classmates and their parents dumbstruck.
“This is the part of my speech where I share some inspirational quotes I found on Google,” he told the packed auditorium. “‘Don’t just get involved. Fight for your seat at the table. Better yet, fight for a seat at the head of the table’ — Donald J. Trump.”
The crowd burst into applause. President Trump is quite popular in Pineville and the surrounding area, which is the heart of coal country and overwhelmingly supported the president in the 2016 election after he promised to bring coal jobs back to America.
Mr. Bowling, though, wasn’t finished. “Just kidding,” he said. “That was Barack Obama.” The cheering abruptly stopped. The crowd went mostly silent. There was a lone boo. Mr. Bowling was quoting a May 2012 commencement speech President Obama gave to the graduating class of Barnard College in New York City. Obama offered this message to graduates of the women’s college then: “Women shape not only their own destiny but the destiny of this nation and of this world.”
We didn't do our connubial bliss for quite some time, but here we go: Chang, as a Korean, is of course much-begone with the North-Korean-US-rapprochement. He and I discuss this a lot, and occasionally we agree. We did agree on the fact that Trump's acting outside the box made sense (as a large chunk of political Game Theory has been telling---"proving" by any standard---since more than 50 years). Lots of "games" lock you into a losing position for as long as your adversary can assume that you are a bienpensant-negotiator. But if your adversary has to fear that you don't care much about a few million Korean citizens killed in a war that's ultimately won by your side because you have "the bigger nuclear button on [your] desk," the equation changes, and you may prevail in negotiations that are otherwise lost. The whole North-Korean nuclear armament issue since 1994 is possibly the best example. Trump is not a complete idiot because he understood this. (We would still say Trump is a complete fool, leaning on semantic differences between the terms "fool," and "idiot"). And now this Trump-fool, having been promised a meeting with the "supreme leader" (as his own "commemorative medal" of the meeting issued a few days ago calls the Kim Jong-un tyrant), and having been put onto the fawning shield of a Nobel Peace Price by South-Korean president Moon, and then having evoked his Nobel-eligibility on TV, this fool has then his vice-president Pence give a talk in which the latter compares the deal with Kim to the deal with Arab dictator Qaddafi, who gave up on his nuclear prep-work in exchange for nothing and was then swept away by the Arab insurgency of 2011 while the West stood idly by. Plus, during all of this, Trump cancelled the US deal with Iran, thus putting his country in a position where it may face two major wars of choice at once (from where is Trump to launch his attack against Iran? From Quatar, where he alienated the ruler xxx, and where the US has two military bases, a fact of which the supreme leader (Trump, in this case) was apparently not aware when he did his anti-Quatar twittering? Any other US bases nearby? No.).
So, North-Korea didn't show up during a preparatory meeting three days ago and then didn't even answer the phone. (This is like dealing with local craftsmen on our beloved Cote d'Azur.)
At that point, Trump had maneuvered himself into a position where he needed the meeting more than Kim. Snapping defeat from the jaws of victory---as Trump's erstwhile chum Steve Bannon characterized the Trump's trade negotiations with China a few days ago. The art of the deal.
Connubial bliss...sorry, we'll try again tomorrow.
Here's a picture of the coin the Trump administration released prematurely in "commemoration" of the historical Trump-Un meeting:
Trump canceled said meeting today.Haha. Two issues: (1) Trump joined the Axis of Evil here, by adopting the tyrant's own terminology ("supreme leader"); (2) Trump was right in cancelling the meeting, because Un had the president ensnared in a nice rope of Machiavellian diplomacy; in the end, Trump needed the meeting more than Kim Jong-Un.
We do agree on the fact that Trump's acting outside the box made sense (as a large chunk of political Game Theory has been telling---"proving" by any standard---since more than 50 years). Lots of "games" lock you into a losing position for as long as your adversary can assume that you are a bienpensant-negotiator. But if your adversary has to fear that you don't care much about a few million Korean citizens killed in a war that's ultimately won by your side because you have "the bigger nuclear button on [your] desk," the equation changes, and you may prevail in negotiations that are otherwise lost. The whole North-Korean nuclear armament issue since 1994 is possibly the best example. Trump is not a complete idiot because he understood this. (We would still say Trump is a complete fool, relying on semantic differences between the terms "fool," and "idiot"). And now this Trump-fool, having been promised a meeting with the "supreme leader" (as his own "commemorative medal" of the meeting issued a few days ago calls the Kim Jong-un tyrant), and having been put onto the fawning shield of a Nobel Peace Price by South-Korean president Moon, and then having evoked his Nobel-eligibility on TV, this fool has then his vice-president Pence give a talk in which the latter compares the deal with Kim to the deal with Arab dictator Qaddafi, who gave up on his nuclear prep-work in exchange for nothing and was then swept away by the Arab insurgency of 2011 while the West stood idly by. Plus, during all of this, Trump cancelled the US deal with Iran, thus putting his country in a position where it may face two major wars of choice at once (from where is Trump to launch his attack against Iran? From Quatar, where he alienated the ruler XXX, and where the US has two military bases, a fact of which the supreme leader (Trump, in this case) was apparently not aware when he did his anti-Quatar twittering? Any other US bases nearby? No.). So, North-Korea didn't show up during a preparatory meeting three days ago and then didn't even answer the phone. (This is like dealing with local craftsmen on our beloved Cote d'Azur.) At that point, Trump had maneuvered himself into a position where he needed the meeting more than Kim. Snapping defeat from the jaws of victory---as Trump's erstwhile chum Steve Bannon characterized the Trump trade negotiations with China a few days ago. The art of the deal.
Our take from the previews of James Comey's book A higher Loyality:
Most damaging for Trump is the observation that The Donald never laughs. He is unable to laugh. And second, obviously, is the recurrent, and convincing comparison of Trump's behavior with that of a Maffia boss.
...the man in the middle is actually Michael D. Cohen, Donald Trump's personal lawyer:
And here, a quote from "slimeball" Comey's book: “I once again was having flashbacks to my earlier career as a prosecutor against the Mob. The silent circle of assent. The boss in complete control. The loyalty oaths. The us-versus-them worldview. The lying about all things, large and small, in service of some code of loyalty that put the organization above morality and above the truth.”
If utilitarian calculations are to be applied, they need to be fully applied. For a package of political benefits, these evangelical leaders have associated the Christian faith with racism and nativism. They have associated the Christian faith with misogyny and the mocking of the disabled. They have associated the Christian faith with lawlessness, corruption, and routine deception. They have associated the Christian faith with moral confusion about the surpassing evils of white supremacy and neo-Nazism. The world is full of tragic choices and compromises. But for this man? For this cause?
We're reading the Fire and Fury book by Michael Wolff that came out on Friday, and it's much better than expected, much deeper than the usual collection of scabrous/scandalous anecdotes. Wolff really proffers insight---Krugman, in his Friday column in the NYT wonders rhetorically whether he needs to read the book---yes, Paul you do, trust us. And here, just in between, the funniest thing we came across so far, and by our reckoning still unaccounted for in the weekend news cycle of this publication...
Steve Bannon and you-know-who
(Dramatis personae: (a) Anthony Scaramucci, (b) Steve Bannon, adviser to Donald Trump; (c) Ryan Lizza, a journalist with The New Yorker; Place: US East Coast; Time: July 2017)
Anthony Scaramucci
Having lobbied desperately for a White House Job for seven months, Scaramucchi has been appointed White House Director of Communication. There is a party to celebrate, and Scaramucchi ("The Mooch") has had one too many, apparently. He gets on the phone with Ryan Lizza and unloads about a few people, including Steve Bannon, we quote:
"I'm not Steve Bannon. I'm not trying to suck my own cock."
So Ryan Lizza writes this up (he publishes roughly one piece per day on the NY blog about Trump and his White House). Next thing, the Fact Checking Department of The New Yorker contacts Steve Bannon and asks, hands down, whether he has the habit to suck his own cock. (That was the punch line).
Reince Priebus
You may remember what followed. Reince Priebus, Chief of Staff of the White House, throws in the towel, citing Scaramucci's appointment. Priebus is replaced by John F. Kelley, a retired 4-Star Marine general, whose first order of business is to fire Scaramucci.
"Trump didn’t read. He didn’t really even skim. If it was print, it might as well not exist. Some believed that for all practical purposes he was no more than semiliterate . . . . Some thought him dyslexic; certainly his comprehension was limited. Others concluded that he didn’t read because he didn’t have to, and that in fact this was one of his key attributes as a populist. He was postliterate—total television.
But not only didn’t he read, he didn’t listen. He preferred to be the person talking. And he trusted his own expertise—no matter how paltry or irrelevant—more than anyone else’s. What’s more, he had an extremely short attention span, even when he thought you were worthy of attention."
