Tuesday, July 19, 2016

RNC Gut Check

The Republican Convention has so far been an utterly demoralizing spectacle of broken people threatening to break other people.

7 comments:

  1. > Dale Carrico Retweeted
    >
    > . . .
    >
    > Scott Baio is not a celebrity.

    And besides, Kirk Cameron is cuter.

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  2. > . . .an utterly demoralizing spectacle of broken people. . .

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2L6dk5J6ns
    ---------------
    Trump: Obama’s Words Okay But Body Language Suspicious
    The Young Turks
    Jul 18, 2016

    (quoting Donald Trump:)

    You know, I watch the President, and sometimes the words are OK,
    but you just look at the body language and something['s] going on.
    Look, there's something going on, and the words are not often
    OK, by the way. There's just bad feeling. And a lot of bad
    feeling about him. I see it too, there's a lot of bad feeling
    about him. . .
    ====


    The Young Turk commentators mocked this, of course, but I
    think they also missed a point.

    There **is** something about Obama's mannerism which, I suspect,
    rubs a lot of people the wrong way, and which Trump "gets"
    and is playing up. It's the whole "cool Vulcan" thing --
    Mr. Tuvok aboard Voyager. I appreciate it as much as
    Captain Janeway did, but **a lot** of people, especially
    in Trump's target demographic, are going to react to that emotional
    constraint the way Dr. McCoy (also a Southerner :-0 )
    did to Mr. Spock in the original show.

    I'm also reminded of:

    Kirk "No Room for Bigotry" S01E14 Balance of Terror
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdqseBkIoSk

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  3. Kirk Cameron is cuter

    Only when he is praying. And, presumably, preying.

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  4. There **is** something about Obama's mannerism which, I suspect,
    rubs a lot of people the wrong way, and which Trump "gets"
    and is playing up.


    Trump's mannerisms are much more normal and reassuring, to be sure.

    https://youtu.be/zVe8canfI_U

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  5. Speaking of guts, I saw in the newspaper this morning that
    there's a suspected outbreak of norovirus at the RNC.

    Shades of _Veep_!

    Bring on the yoghurt. (Notice I spelled that with an 'h'.)

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  6. We've been rickrolled!

    Republicans Plagiarized A LOT Of Lines At RNC
    The Young Turks
    Jul 19, 2016
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp_YGpnoyuc

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  7. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/21/technology/peter-thiels-embrace-of-trump-has-silicon-valley-squirming.html
    ----------------
    Peter Thiel’s Embrace of Trump Has Silicon Valley Squirming
    Farhad Manjoo
    STATE OF THE ART
    JULY 20, 2016

    . . .

    Venture capitalists have a special term for investment opportunities
    that offer the potential for a big return but also carry a great deal
    of risk: high beta. For Silicon Valley’s political aspirations,
    Mr. Thiel’s speech is the ultimate high-beta performance. . .

    On the one hand, an emissary from tech will have a national
    platform to push the industry’s agenda and, more important,
    its worldview. By the end of Mr. Thiel’s speech on Thursday night,
    it’s possible he will have succeeded in showing off an
    ideology that is rarely encountered in public — the hands-off-my-stuff,
    techno-libertarian vision that is a hobbyhorse of Mr. Thiel
    and a few other Silicon Valley bigwigs.

    And if Mr. Trump wins the White House, Mr. Thiel will have a
    direct line to a chief executive who hints at a penchant for
    making big things happen for his supporters. . .

    On the other hand, this could end quite badly. . .

    [I]t could also become another plot point in the larger story
    line that Silicon Valley is exclusionary and narrow-minded
    and that its innovations are advancing global inequality. . .
    ====


    What's this "beta" crap, kemosabe? We all **alpha** males
    'round here!

    Calling all Singularitarians: TRUMP! TRUMP! TRUMP!

    ReplyDelete