Headline of the Day

Obama Blasts Dems for Their Most Obama-Like Traits

—Jacobin on how the Democrats spelunker in chief should not be lecturing the party on caving

It's not surprising that he is lecturing though, it's kind of his thing.

As Democrats debate how and whether to use power if they regain control of Congress and the White House, former President Barack Obama has lambasted his party for failing to more aggressively challenge or circumvent obstructions to enacting their campaign promises.

“There’s been some unwillingness on the part of Democrats in the past to break down some of the institutional barriers for us getting stuff done, just because, well, it’s always been done that way,” he lamented to a YouTube host earlier this year.

Obama said he was frustrated during his presidency with Senate filibuster rules, which require sixty votes to pass most legislation. He suggested it was a mistake for Democrats to preserve the filibuster “when it blocks us from making government effective,” arguing that it “makes people feel like government is corrupt.”

However, amid Obama’s media tour unveiling his new $850 million presidential center, documents obtained by Zeteo and the Lever through an open records request show Obama as president scoffing at demands that he more forcefully navigate those same barriers on health care policy, when he and his party controlled the White House and large majorities in Congress.

 Yeah, pretty much.

He lectures on this when there is no personal cost for him to do so.

The last 'graph of the article says it all, "Obama’s new presidential center, which will open later this month, has received at least $1 million from the health insurer Health Care Service Corporation, which is part of Blue Cross Blue Shield."

Clarence Thomas Learned Corruption from the Master

In news that should surprise no one, Scalia Cheney engaged in virtually identical corrupt behavior, and engaged in a virtually identical defense of the indefensible.

In recent years, Justice Clarence Thomas’s fondness for taking luxury vacations on billionaire-owned superyachts has made Supreme Court ethics reform perhaps the single easiest campaign promise for Democratic politicians to make. But two decades ago, the real-world particulars of Supreme Court conflict-of-interest scandals were smaller in scale: for example, the physical proximity of Justice Antonin Scalia to Vice President Dick Cheney when the two men were sitting in duck blinds, shotguns in hand, waiting to kill some birds.

The saga began in January 2004, shortly after Cheney and Scalia—good friends since their time working together in the Ford administration—traveled to Louisiana for an annual duck hunt hosted by an acquaintance of Scalia’s. Cheney invited Scalia to join him on a government plane for the flight from Washington; Scalia, along with his son and son-in-law, accepted.

The objectionable part of this story (legally speaking, I mean) was that several weeks earlier, the Court had granted certiorari in a case about whether Cheney had to disclose details about clandestine meetings with fossil fuels executives while he was leading a task force responsible for the Bush administration’s energy policy. The Sierra Club had argued that Scalia, fresh off a vacation with the vice president and a free flight on Air Force Two, should recuse himself from the case, on the grounds that his impartiality “might reasonably be questioned.”

Scalia refused, however, releasing a 21-page memo in which he assured the public that he and Cheney had not discussed the case, and had never even been alone together—in duck blinds or otherwise—during the entirety of the trip. After running through a brief history of social relationships between Supreme Court justices and elected officials, from poker games to dinner parties to Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone’s early-morning medicine-ball workouts with members of the Hoover administration, Scalia asserted that a rule requiring the justices to recuse themselves from cases involving their famous friends would be “utterly disabling.”

Gee, it sounds awfully familiar.

Scalia did, as Thomas, Alito, and Roberts do, found press coverage of corruption to be the real problem.

The End of an Era

The US Marine Corps has retired its final AV-8B Harriers from service.

The unmistakable howl of the AV-8B Harrier II has been a soundtrack to U.S. Marine Corps aviation for more than four decades. From the deserts of the Middle East and Afghanistan to the decks of amphibious assault ships at sea, the aircraft’s ability to take off from short runways, operate from austere forward bases, and land vertically made it one of the most distinctive combat aircraft ever to wear American markings. Before then, its predecessor, the first-generation AV-8A Harrier, had pioneered the ‘jump jet’ in U.S. service, after entering Marine Corps service in 1971.

Now, that illustrious era has come to an end.

In a ceremony today, the Marine Corps said its official farewell to the AV-8B when its final operational Harrier II squadron, Marine Attack Squadron 223 (VMA-223), known as the “Bulldogs,” marked the retirement of the aircraft at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, North Carolina.

The event closes a remarkable chapter in Marine aviation history. The Harrier’s departure marks more than the retirement of an aircraft; it represents the conclusion of a concept that shaped Marine air power for generations and helped define the Corps’ expeditionary character.

It provided some unique capabilities, though these capabilities led to a high loss rate. 

Headline of the Day

‘Like a Klingon prison’: inside Barack Obama’s audacious, near-windowless, $850m presidential library

—The Guardian, on the architecture of the Obama library

Over 7 years ago, I said that his library would, "Rip the heart out of one of Fredrick Law Olmstead's most significant works."

I stand by this assessment.  See the world's ugliest menhir:

About That Lasagna

This is a sweet dessert historical dessert lasagna using a sweet spice mix (powder deuce) and walnuts made with fresh egg-free pasta which uses grape must as a leavening.

Pasted from MS Word, so there may be issues in the formatting.

It was rather well received: 

Lenten Sweet Lasanas (Lasagna)

I am using leavened pasta.  See Liber de Coquina ubi diuersitates ciborum docentur, (A Book About Cooking):[1]

I — 10. De lasanis : ad lasanas, accipe pastam fermentatam et fac tortellum ita tenuem sicut poteris. Deinde, diuide eum per partes quadratas ad quantitatem trium digitorum. Postea, habeas aquam bullientem salsatam, et pone ibi ad coquendum predictas lasanas. Et quando erunt fortiter decocte, accipe caseum grattatum.

Et si uolueris, potes simul ponere bonas species puluerizatas, et pulueriza cum istis super cissorium. Postea, fac desuper unum lectum de lasanis et iterum pulueriza; et desuper, alium lectum, et pulueriza : et sic fac usque cissorium uel scutella sit plena. Postea, comede cum uno punctorio ligneo accipiendo.

This translates[2] to: (emphasis mine)

I — 10. Take leavened dough and make a sheet as thin as possible. Then, cut it into squares the size of three fingers. Then, cook the said lasanae in boiling salted water. When they are well cooked, take some grated cheese.

If you want, add good, ground spices and dust them on a cutting board. Then, place a layer of lasanae and dust again; and then, another layer, and dust; and continue in this way until the table or plate is full. Then, eat them with a wooden stick.

I will to use leavened pasta for a Lenten recipe to account for the lack of eggs.  It's presence is for dough flavor and conditioning, and not for actual leavening.

The basis for my recipe is from Anonimo Veneziano’s Libro di cucina/Libro per cuoco.[3]  It is a recipe for Lent, and is a sweet dish, suitable for dessert.

Se tu voy fare lansagne de quaressima, toy le lasagne e mitile a coxere, e toli noxe monde e ben pesta e maxenate, e miti entro le lasagne, e guardale dal fumo; e quando vano a tavola, menestra e polverizage de le specie, del zucharo.

Translation was by Helewyse de Birkestad,[4] OL  (MKA Louise Smithson):

If you want to make lasagne in lent, take the lasagne (wide pasta noodles) and put them to cook (in water and salt).  Take peeled walnuts and beat and grind them well.  Put them between the lasagna (in layers), and guard from smoke (while reheating).  And when they go to the table dress them with a dusting of spices and with sugar.

Normally for fresh pasta, I would use eggs, but during lent at this period as the consumption of meat, fowl, eggs, and milk products were forbidden, hence the walnuts, sugar, and olive oil.

In addition to the ground walnuts in between the layers, I am adding chopped, "Wet," walnuts and sugar syrup to the top of the lasagna.

I am using powder douce (see Appendix A) as the spice mix.  It is mentioned in the recipe for Loseyns in The Forme of Cury. Then I am baking in a pan to allow the flavors to meld and for the syrup to infuse the dish.

Ingredients:

Quantity
2 cup	Flour, general purpose or 00 flour
2 cup	Flour, Semolina
2 cup	Fermenting grape juice, room temperature
	Additional flour, Semolina
	Olive oil
2 cup	Active (fermenting) grape juice or sourdough.  (I am using juice, see Appendix B)
1 cup	Ground walnuts
	Powder Douce (See Appendix A)
1 tsp	Salt (optional)
	Granulated or powdered sugar, can be white, brown, etc.
1½-2 cups	Chopped walnuts

Preparation of the pasta:

1. Mix the 2 cups of both flours thoroughly in a large bowl along with 1 tsp salt.
2. Make a mountain out of flour mixture and create a deep well in the center, then add 1½  cups of the grape juice and 1 Tbsp of olive oil into the well and whisk the juice and oil gently with a fork, gradually incorporating flour. When mixture becomes too thick to mix with a fork, begin kneading with your hands until the dough comes together.  Add additional water or juice as needed.
3. Knead dough until it is smooth and supple, 8 to 12 minutes. Form into a smooth ball, and  place in bowl covered in a damp cloth let sit in a bowl covered with a damp towel for 2 hours.  Knead the dough again to remove as much of the leavening as possible.  Allow it to rest at room temperature for at least 30 (1-2 hours is better) minutes or in the refrigerator over night. (preferred)
4. Roll out to desired thickness (I do about 1/16 of an inch) and cut into 2 inch (3 finger) wide strips.  You can dock the dough with a fork.
5. Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil and add sufficient salt so that it tastes like the ocean, then add the noodles, cooking until tender yet firm to the bite.  This will probably be 5-7 minutes.
6. Remove from water store so that they do not stick together. (Hanger, parchment paper, etc.)

Preparation of the lasagna:

1. Mix ground walnuts and Powder Douce to taste, add water to make a paste similar to peanut butter.
2. Oil a baking pan. (I will also be lining the pan with parchment paper)
3. Put a layer of noodles into the pan, and then spread a thin (About the thickness of peanut butter on a peanut butter sandwich) layer of the walnut spice mixture.  Finish with a layer of noodles on top.
4. Add a dusting of the Powder Douce the top layer of noodles.
5. Spread wet walnut glaze evenly over the top of the lasagna.
6. Cook at 350-400°F (175-205°C) for ½ hour covered, and then uncover and cook for an additional 10 minutes. After the lasagna has cooled, cut into squares and skewer with toothpicks.

Preparation of wet walnuts:

1. Take 2 cups sugar of your choice and 1 cup water, and bring to a simmer, stirring frequently, until the sugar is completely dissolved.
2. Add the chopped walnuts and boil for at least 10 minutes stirring regularly. 

Appendix A.                 Spice Mixes

I could not find any detailed documentation for these spice mixes.

This is unsurprising.  This mix would be generally known by cooks, and so in a recipe, it would just be called out as if it were a single ingredient.

It is likely that it may have varied from cook to cook as well.

Powder Fort

I am using the following spice recipe from Dishably.[5]

The spice is strong (hence fort) and peppery mix.

Ingredients:

Quantity
¼ C	Powdered Ginger (or use fresh grated ginger at a 4:1 fresh:ground ratio)
¼ C	Long Pepper, Ground
¼ C	Cinnamon (Ceylon preferred),Ground
1½ tsp	Cloves, ground
¼ C	Black pepper, ground
1 tsp	Cubeb
1 tsp	Grains of paradise

 

Powder Douce

Powder Douce (Sweet in Latin) is a milder and sweeter mix, and much like Powder Fort, documentation of the spice is sparse.

I am using the spice recipe from Edouard Halidai (MKA Daniel Myers) Medieval Cookery:[6]

Quantity
3 Tbsp	Powdered Ginger (or use fresh grated ginger at a 4:1 fresh:ground ratio)
4 (2) Tbsp	Sugar (Whatever type you favor, I am using dark brown sugar)
1½ Tbsp	Cinnamon (Ceylon preferred, adjust for different cinnamon varieties),Ground
¼ (1) tsp	Cloves, ground
1 tsp	Nutmeg, ground

 

The numbers in parenthesis are the original recipe.

When I tried out the spice mix, I found that the clove was overpowering, and it needed to be sweeter.

Appendix B.                  Grape Pomace, Must, Juice, and Lees

For my recipes, I am calling crushed grapes, "Must," calling the cloudy fluid pressed from crushed grapes, "Juice," and, pulp and skins remaining after pressing "Pomace."

Organic grapes have active wild yeast on their skins, and so can be used as leavening, like sourdough. 

For modern grapes, particularly non-organic table grapes, it is likely that fermentation would not start on its own, as the yeast has been removed through washing and chemicals.

As such, after crushing, I added a small quantity of yeast (I had an already open packet in the refrigerator) to the crushed grapes, which was set out at room temperature until activity was observed.

In addition to creating yeast flavors, fermentation of the must extracts tannins and color from the grape skins.

For the purpose of any of the included recipes, you can stop here.

From this point forward, I will be discussing the ambiguity of the terms, "Must," and, "Pomace."

These terms are used in a number of different ways depending on region, type of wine, etc.

Grapes are harvested and then crushed, bursting the grapes and creating a mash, which contains juice, pulp, stems, and seeds.  (This is usually called must)

For white wines, this is often (but not always) pressed almost immediately, extracting what is often called grape juice, but sometimes called must, which is distinct from the grape juice that you find in the store, which is filtered.

Neither the white wine grape juice nor the pulp remaining (pomace) have experienced significant fermentation at this step.

In red wines, initial fermentation is allowed to occur in the crushed, which extracts color from the skins of the grapes, giving red wine its color.

After 5-7 days,the juice which is pressed out (typically at about 3-5% ABV) is called either must or juice.  The remains of the pulp and skins are called pomace.

Both the must and the pomace contain active yeast cultures as well.

When must is used as a leavening agent, it can refer to either the fermenting juice or must.  The latter use seems to be primarily (at least in Roman cookery) used for making millet cakes that were intended to be used as a shelf stable leavening agent.[7]

Lees are the sediment that accumulates at the bottom of a brewing vessel after they have done their job, and it is sometimes also used to make brandy.

There are some wines that are allowed to age before racking to allow the lees to create different flavor profiles.

---

[1] https://www.uni-giessen.de/de/fbz/fb05/germanistik/absprache/sprachverwendung/gloning/tx/mul2-lib.htm?set_language=en

[2] https://historicalitaliancooking.home.blog/english/recipes/medieval-lasagna-with-walnuts-a-lenten-recipe/

[3] https://www.uni-giessen.de/de/fbz/fb05/germanistik/absprache/sprachverwendung/gloning/tx/frati.htm

[4] https://www.medievalcookery.com/helewyse/libro.html

[5] https://delishably.com/grains/Lasagna-The-Easy-Recipe

[6] https://medievalcookery.com/recipes/douce.html

[7] https://tavolamediterranea.com/2017/09/01/baking-bread-romans-part-pliny-elders-leaven-starter-pasta-madre-levain/

 

How is This Not Dancing on Sailors' Graves?

When Kash Patel went to Hawaii last year, he insisted that it was not a vacation, but rather a working trip where he snorkeled around the wreck of the USS Arizona.

As an FYI, this is generally forbidden, with exceptions being made for surveys of the state of the wreck and for interring survivors of the December 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, who have requested to be laid to rest there.

I did not think that the Trump Administration could get any more creepy and inhuman.

It appears that I was misinformed.

FBI Director Kash Patel has been caught in yet another eyebrow-raising side quest: a snorkeling excursion to a sunken battleship in Hawaii entombing hundreds of sailors and Marines.

The controversial official’s strange trip was almost a year ago, but leaked now amid mounting scrutiny of his activities in office.

When Patel flew to Hawaii last July, FBI news releases framed the visit as part of his “ongoing commitment to supporting frontline efforts and strengthening interagency partnerships,” noting meetings with local law enforcement and a walking tour of the Honolulu field office. He then went on to Australia and New Zealand.

But the FBI director returned to the island just days later for what government officials described in internal emails as a “VIP snorkel” around the USS Arizona, the Associated Press reports. The battleship was sunk during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and serves as a memorial and a war grave for more than 900 crew members.

Headline of the Day

The Federalist Is Super Mad Virginia Will No Longer Subsidize Racists

—Techdirt

I've written about the elimination of funding to neo-Confederate organizations in Virginia, but this is as succinct a description of how the racists in the Federalist Society have responded.

It Turns Out That Humanity is Worse than Radioactivity

At least if you are a wolf.

Despite the radiation, the wolf population surrounding Chernobyl has increased 7 fold.

The most expensive nuclear disaster in human history turned 40 on Sunday, but the consequences have been almost perversely benign for some of the region’s wildlife.

………

Environmental scientist Jim Smith at the University of Portsmouth, who has studied this “Chernobyl exclusion zone” (CEZ) for over 30 years, told The Guardian last week that wildlife in this would-be radioactive wasteland has improved even as it’s become surrounded by war.

“Wolf populations are seven times higher than they were before the accident because there is less human pressure,” according to Smith, who noted that populations of elk, roe, deer, and rabbit have also flourished in the zone.

“The ecosystem in the exclusion zone is much better than it was before the accident,” Smith opined. “It’s been a very powerful demonstration of the relative impact of the world’s worst nuclear accident, which is not so big, and the impact of human habitation, which is devastating.”

Humanity is not good wolves, or other living things. 

………

Evolutionary biologists at Princeton discovered something unique about this gray wolf population, which likely helped these predators carve out their new niche in the exclusion zone: mutations that appear to make Chernobyl’s wolves more resistant to cancer. 

This is not particularly surprising, though it is likely that there was a f%$#-ton of cancer on the way to this outcome. 

Ecch (Tweet) of the Day

Between the lame FF(X), the F/A-XX games and the battleship effwittery, all I can say is that the last time anyone screwed the Navy as hard as Mango Musso, Kegs, and the Ruler Of The Queen's Navee are doing, the Navy had to get the Air Force to take him out. pic.twitter.com/i1kL6zoII5

— Bill Sweetman (@ValkStrategy) April 22, 2026

Mr. Sweetman, you just won the internet.

This is f%$#ing brilliant. 

Maybe I Was Too Cynical

While I was not pleased when Abigail Spanberger won the Democratic primary for Governor of Virginia, former CIA officers are not my first choice for elected officials, she is clearly better than her predecessor the antediluvian Glenn Youngkin.

Since her taking office, I have been impressed by her actions, such as her stripping tax exemption from Confederacy huggers, rolling back executive orders requiring law enforcement to collude with ICE, and supporting a constitutional amendment restoring felon voter rights.

She is not playing nice, as can be seen by her signature on a bill ending Robert E. Lee license plates in the Commonwealth.

Being willing to stick it to racist dirt-bags is a good thing. 

Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed Del. Dan Helmer’s bill to end the renewal of commemorative Robert E. Lee license plates in Virginia Wednesday, according to a press release.

A portion of the sale of these plates has previously supported the neo-Confederate organization known as the Sons of the Confederacy.

“The Confederacy was a four year period in which traitors hellbent on preserving slavery tried – and then failed – to divide the Union,” said Helmer in a statement. “The Confederacy and its leaders do not deserve our commemoration, and its adherents certainly do not deserve taxpayer dollars.”

More red meat please.

Snark of the Day

Siri, What Killed the Most S.S. Soldiers in the Final Year of World War 1?

Graphic Firing Table noting that SecDef Pete Kegsbreath will no longer be requiring that US soldiers get flu shots.

For the historically challenged, the biggest killer of US soldiers for the entire war was Spanish Influenza.

I think that the joke might have been a bit funnier invoking one of the AI programs out there, but it is still funny as hell. 

Asking for this dumbf%$#:

Mind you, this fits with this overpromoted dumbass' worldview, where pushups always trump logistics (yswidt) and military learning.

His abysmal ignorance of why the US military has been aggressive about things like preventive medicine, field sanitation and hygiene since 1941 explains a lot (tho this jackass is on record boasting that he doesn't wash his hands after dumping a load, so YMMV...).

I wrote a whole series on "The Imperial Japanese Army in WW2: What Went Wrong", and one of the single biggest failures that hammered the 大日本帝國陸軍, Dai-Nippon Teikoku Rikugun was the whole manly-man/bushido cult of warriorness that neglected beans and bullets for swords and spirit.

The notion that somehow a poorly-supplied, under-resourced and -armed fighting force would beat more logistically and tactically competent enemies because of some sort of mystical whatever-the-Japanese-is for "cult of the badass"?

The stoopid, it burns.

 

More of This

Providing subsidies in the form of tax breaks to groups that support the Confederacy is bad policy and bad politics. 

New Virginia governor Abigail Spanberger has signed into law a bill that removes tax exemptions from the Daughters of the Confederacy and other Neo-confederate groups.

About f%$#ing time:

On Monday, Virginia’s governor, Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat and the state’s first female governor, signed into law a bill that eliminates tax exemptions for organizations connected to the Confederacy.

HB167, passed by Democrats in the Virginia house and senate, specifically removes the Virginia division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the Stonewall Jackson Memorial, the Virginia division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the Confederate Memorial Literary Society, along with other groups, from the state’s list of organizations that are exempt from state property taxes.

Founded in 1894, the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) is a non-profit with chapters in states including California, Kentucky, South Carolina and others. The organization is largely responsible for the proliferation of Confederate statues and monuments across the country after the US civil war. According to tax filings published by ProPublica, the group raised more than $2.1m in revenue, had more than $1.1m in expenses and possessed $15.8m in assets in 2025.

………

Still, Virginia lawmakers are pushing ahead with their efforts. Last week, Spanberger signed into law a different bill that discontinues speciality license plates that feature Robert E Lee and the Sons of Confederate Veterans. She also sent a bill that would establish a taskforce at the Virginia Military Institute to, among other things, recommend ways for the college to distance itself from sanitized narratives about the Confederacy back to the assembly with recommendations.

In many ways, this is more important than removing the statues, because this ends a direct state subsidy to an ideology that supports slavery and insurrection.

Econ 101, if you pay for it, people will make it.

Stop paying for Confederate apologists. 

A Charity Not to Donate To

The Holocaust Memorial Museum.

It turns out that they shut down all their online and offline programs detailing the linkages between Jim Crow in the United States and the Nazis in Germany without being asked by the Trump administration..

This is not a minor thing.  This is them betraying their whole mission because they are concerned that Trump will throw a hissy fit.

In the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington quietly removed from its website educational resources about American racism and canceled a workshop about the “fragility of democracy.”

The changes, which have not been previously reported, came as Trump cracked down on what he called “corrosive ideology” at the Smithsonian Institution, demanding a slew of alterations at the world’s largest museum network to more closely align its content with his worldview. They also coincided with the administration’s efforts to remove content related to diversity, equity and inclusion from federal websites.

Unlike his posture toward the Smithsonian, Trump has not publicly commented on the USHMM’s content or publicly called for any modifications. But two former museum employees who left amid the changes told POLITICO they believed the museum was altering its content preemptively, so as to not draw unwanted negative attention from the Trump administration. Both were granted anonymity due to fear of professional retaliation.

“It seems like they were trying to proactively fall in line as to not then be forced to change,” one of the people said.

The museum pulled from its website a page called “Teaching Materials on Nazism and Jim Crow” at some point after Aug. 29, 2025, the last time the page was captured on the Internet Archive. That page provided lesson plans and resources about the connections between American de jure racism and the Nazi regime, including links to sites about “African American Soldiers during World War II” and “Afro-Germans during the Holocaust,” among other topics.

………

Since taking office, Trump has tightened his grip on the USHMM, an independent museum that relies on both private donations and federal appropriations and is not affiliated with the Smithsonian. In an unprecedented move last year, the president purged from its board several of President Joe Biden’s appointees before the end of their terms. And in the months since, he has installed his own loyalists on the board — most notably replacing Stuart Eizenstat, who helped found the museum, with GOP megalobbyist Jeffrey Miller as chair last month.

………

In emails reviewed by POLITICO sent from a museum employee to two professors who had planned on hosting the workshops, the employee attributed the cancellation to “a set of cuts that are due to limited federal funds and a difficult fundraising environment.” But the employee — who has since left USHMM — said museum leadership had privately told them the cancellation was also about “shifting priorities.”

It's really simple, when push came to shove, the the USHMM showed who they were, because this is what they did.

As such, they do not deserve our support. 

Interesting Analysis

So,I came across this video about 80s SF movies that were considered duds when they came out and are now considered classics, or prophetic, or are at least cult classics.

They are Blade Runner, The Thing, Tron, Dune, Brazil, Big Trouble in Little China, RoboCop, They Live, Buckaroo Banzai, Videodrome, and Miracle Mile.

Notice anything interesting about this list?

I'll give you a hint, one director put out 3 of these 11 films, John Carpenter. (The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China, and They Live.) 

The Thing, which was largely panned upon its release, is now considered a masterpiece of the genre, and They Live is not viewed as prescient social commentary. 

Big Trouble in Little China, would probably make no one's list of great movies, but it's fun as hell and has a great following.

There a number of John Carpenter films that do nothing for me, Prince of Darkness and Christine come to mind, but his oeuvre figures predominantly in my top films list.

BTW, I'm pretty sure that the vid is AI slop, but the point stands.

On the Road Tomorrow and Thursday

Heading to a customer meeting in Dayton, Ohio, which means light posting.

That being said, I do think that I will have time to hit the US Air Force Museum there, and hopefully, I will generate some kick-ass photographs. 

In Unity, There is Strength

As near as I can tell, this is the earliest recorded example of a labor strike.  It's in Egypt, around 12,000 BCE.

Artisans were not being paid in a timely manner to make art glorifying Pharaoh, so they stopped until they got paid.

“1768 is really when the word ‘strike’ begins to develop out of the UK.”

That’s the view of classicist Sarah E Bond, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast.

As Bond explains, the word ‘strike’ comes from a moment when sailors in the port of Sunderland decided to literally strike down the topsails of their ships, immobilising them until their demands were met by their bosses. The tactic worked, spread south to the shipyards of the Thames, and quickly entered the political vocabulary.

I did not know this entomological fact, but now I do, and so do my reader(s).

………

One of the earliest, clearest examples of what would now be termed a ‘strike’ comes from ancient Egypt – a civilisation that was rigidly hierarchical and dominated by unquestionable royal authority. Beneath the monumental architecture and other cultural feats, Egyptian society depended on a vast pool of labour.

In the second millennium BC, during the reign of Ramesses III, Egypt had passed the peak of imperial expansion it had enjoyed a century earlier. Ramesses III ruled during the early 12th century BC, at the end of the New Kingdom, a period marked by mounting economic pressure, as well as internal and external instability.

Ramesses III presented himself as a traditional warrior-pharaoh, defending Egypt against repeated Libyan incursions and threats from other foreign enemies, such as the mysterious ‘Sea Peoples’. Reliefs and inscriptions depict the pharaoh’s decisive victories, but modern historians view his reign as one of crisis management, with Egyptian prosperity faltering. Not only was the kingdom embroiled in expensive wars, but agricultural output was stalling.

Despite these pressures, Ramesses III occupied an impossibly powerful position. The Egyptian pharaoh was viewed as a divine intermediary, responsible for maintaining maat – a religious notion of cosmic order that guaranteed harmony between gods, people and nature. Feeding workers, paying temple staff and sustaining major construction projects were all part of that sacred duty.

……… 

The strike itself unfolded at Deir el-Medina, a purpose-built village housing the highly skilled artisans who carved and painted the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings. These workers were salaried state employees, exempt from agricultural work, housed by the government and supplied directly from royal granaries. Many were literate, and they left behind letters, complaints and administrative records that give historians a rare view into the lives of non-elite Egyptians.

But because they didn’t farm their own food, missed deliveries of their payment left them vulnerable. When Ramesses III’s administration fell badly behind on promised rations, families at Deir el-Medina faced serious consequences.

“The necropolis workers decided that they were going to go on strike until they got the rations and payment that they were promised by the pharaoh,” Bond says.

The workers peacefully withdrew their labour entirely and carefully chose their protest site. Their actions were documented by local scribes, making this the earliest recorded labour strike in human history.

“They decided that they were going to go and sit in the back of a temple, and that they were simply going to refuse to work until they were given the back payments.”

Temples in ancient Egypt were sanctuaries of non-violence. Fighting and bloodshed within them was taboo. It’s for that reason that “going and sitting in peaceful protest at the back of a temple, or just outside a temple, was something that became extremely common in Pharaonic Egypt, and continued well into the Ptolemaic period and beyond.”

A note here, for those of you who are not familiar with the history, this was in the midst of the Late Bronze Age collapse, which likely contributed to the problems.

Neat stuff. 

YouTube Comment of the Day

They [The Beatles] weren't "going" prog, they were inventing it.

User @jamescox42317 d explaining to producer and composer Isaac Brown what the Beatles really did.

Brown has a series of videos of him reacting to hearing every Beatles album for the first time. (Thank you for making me feel old as f%$#, dude!)

While listening to, "Happiness is a Warm Gun," Brown says, "What the heck is this, Prog Rock? Hey, The Beatles are going Prog!" (about 27:10 of Part 1 below) 

Over the span of less than a decade, the Fab Four literally redefined rock and roll.

Part 1:

Part2:

FWIW, I do agree with Brown's basic thesis, which is that White Album is less an album than it is a collection of songs from 4 amazingly talented dudes.

It is a chaotic magnificent masterpiece, and my favorite Beatles album. 

Today in Gay Bashing

Trump administration officials pulled down the Gay Pride Flag from the Stonewall National Monument, since (of course) we cannot have any LGBTQ symbolism at the birthplace of the gay liberation movement.

Orwell and Kafka are spinning in their graves right now.

Some local officials are pledging to restore the Stonewall National Monument’s large Pride flag after a Trump administration directive this week removed it from the only national park site dedicated to LGBTQ+ history.

Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal shared a photo of the bare flagpole at the West Village park on social media Monday evening, along with a screenshot of the U.S. Department of the Interior memo to the National Park Service that led to its removal.

The federal directive states that in most cases, the National Park Service can only fly the U.S. flag, the Department of the Interior flag and the Prisoners of War flag in the public spaces it maintains. The policy makes limited exemptions, such as when a flag would “provide historical context” to a site, or when a site is co-managed with another entity “that may fly that state’s or city’s relevant flag.” But the parks service said in a statement that “changes to flag displays are made to ensure consistency with that guidance.”

In an interview on WNYC’s "Morning Edition," Hoylman-Sigal said protests are being organized for Tuesday, with plans to fly the flag again as soon as Thursday.

I'd also suggest that it might be a good idea for the local LGBTQ community to organize s 24 hour watch on the flag pole to ensure that anyone trying to take down the flag is confronted. 

 

Sign of the Apocalypse

I did not expect to see this, but the New York Times OP/ED page actually has a worthwhile article, "State Terror Has Arrived," by M. Gessen.

They aren't saying anything that you aren't hear everywhere, but the for what Atrios calls, "That Fucking Paper," it is a departure. 

I would also note that given Gessen's experience in Russia, they are in a position to draw parallels.

After the past three weeks of brutality in Minneapolis, it should no longer be possible to say that the Trump administration seeks merely to govern this nation. It seeks to reduce us all to a state of constant fear — a fear of violence from which some people may at a given moment be spared, but from which no one will ever be truly safe. That is our new national reality. State terror has arrived.

………

……… We don’t focus on these details in order to justify the federal agents’ actions, which are plainly brutal and unjustifiable; we do it to force the world to make sense, and to calm our nerves. If we don’t talk back, if we alter our routes to avoid protests, if we are lucky enough to be white, straight, natural-born Americans — or, if we are not, but we lie low, stay quiet — we will be safe. Conversely, we can choose to speak up, to go to protests, to take a risk. Either way, we tell ourselves, if we can predict the consequences, we have agency.

But that’s not how state terror works.

In the 1990s, when I talked to people in the former Soviet Union about their families’ experiences of Stalinist terror, I was repeatedly struck by how much people seemed to know about their circumstances. Time and time again, people would tell me exactly what had led to their family members’ arrests or executions. Jealous neighbors had reported them to the authorities, or colleagues who had been arrested named them under duress. These stories had been passed on from generation to generation. How could they come to know so much, I wondered. They couldn’t. People crafted narratives out of suspicions, rumors and hints, to fill a desperate need for an explanation.

………

For this was the secret about the secret police that became clear when the K.G.B. archives were opened (briefly) in the 1990s: They were ruled by quotas. Local squadrons had to arrest a certain number of citizens so they could be designated enemies of the people. That the officers often swept up groups of colleagues, friends and family members was probably a matter of convenience more than anything else. Fundamentally, the terror was random. That is, in fact, how state terror works.

………

The toolbox isn’t particularly varied. President Trump is using all the instruments: the reported quotas for ICE arrests; the paramilitary force made up of thugs drunk on their own brutality; the spectacle of random violence, particularly in city streets; the postmortem vilification of the victims. It’s only natural that our brains struggle to find logic in what we are seeing. There is a logic, and this logic has a name. It’s called state terror.

To true. 

 

A Cartoon, Context, and a Bit of History

This puts everything in the proper context.

H/t Assigned Male