President Ashraf Ghani, criticizing efforts by the international community to initiate indirect talks with the Taliban:
"There are too many players running too many parallel tracks with too little clarity on who they are and what they represent ..."
"A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabihullah Mujahid, said the talks were pointless because foreign troops remained in the country. 'While Afghanistan is occupied, discussion and talking about peace will not have any outcome or meaning,' he said."
Then why don't we get the hell out of there.
I do not know a lot about rock climbing. This seems to be such an extraordinary physical feat ... but even more so, a triumph of a human being's mental abilities.
"Q: Do you worry about dying young? A: I do worry about dying young, which is why I spent a year or two preparing. I climbed El Cap [with ropes, I assume] without falling as early as 2008 or 2009. So physically I've been able to free-solo this for eight or nine years. But it's taken me a long time to feel safe enough on it that I want to do it."
"Guides say to allow four days to do the climb. Honnold did it under four hours. Climbing professionals called it 'incomprehensible' and 'generation defining'."
"President Trump thrust himself into a bitter Persian Gulf dispute on Tuesday, taking credit for Saudi Arabia's move to isolate its smaller neighbor, Qatar, and rattling his national security staff by upending a critical American strategic relationship."
"Qatar's financing of radical groups has long been a source of tension with Washington."
We've been in bed with worse.
"The Saudis played Donald Trump like a fiddle ..."
And as I said yesterday, all of Trump's silly tweets will ripple through the complex geopolitical reality with results that could be really really bad for everyone involved.
Most of our previous presidents thought through their public pronouncements with great care and diligence.
Trump's Twitter handle must be handled. By someone. Please.
In local news:
"Tucson Electric Power announced that it would buy power from a solar farm for less than 3 cents a kilowatt-hour, which is less than half of what it paid in recent years."
"Progress is possible, even with Mr. Trump standing in the way."
A very disturbing article.
"'Okay, I will,' [Conrad] Roy, 18, typed back, adding, 'No more thinking.'
'Yes, no more thinking,' Ms. [Michelle] Carter wrote. 'You need to just do it'."
The word "more" is superfluous. Teenagers don't think. Period. Oh yes, and
"Ms. [Lynn] Roy [Conrad's mother] said she knew little about Ms. Carter, but knew that she and her son were in close touch. 'I saw him text her,' Ms. Roy said, 'all the time'."
Parents. You should have to get a license.
"Six months after Republicans seized total control of Washington, the Republican agenda is not so much stalled as it is still sitting in the lot with the price sticker firmly attached, but with no apparent buyers."
Good one, Jennifer.
Only one reason this is in here. I just love the sound of this word:
Spatchcock.
SPATCHCOCK.
spatchcock
"Over more than 4,000 images, Ms. [Fiona] Tan reads from a text -- a letter, it seems, as a character named Mary, who addresses her dead partner, Hiroshi. Hiroshi responds in a Japanese-language voice-over read by the actor Hiroki Hasegawa ..."
" ... uncanny use of dissolves, deliberate camera movement within a frame ..."
Sounds a lot like La Jetée.
"'The FAKE MSM [would you please stop shouting, Mr. President?] is working so hard trying to get me not to use Social Media,' he wrote at 7:58 a.m."
"Even though the mainstream media was the target of his Tuesday morning ire, it is Mr. Trump's own team that has been pointedly critical of his tweeting habits, with members of his legal, communications and political staffs urging him to cut back on self-expression in the interest of political self-preservation."
Donald, you're watching the wrong TV shows. Haven't you ever seen the one where the guy says, "anything you say may be used against you in a court of law"? Really? Never seen that one?
Only several years ago, the thought of the President's Press Secretary saying,
"The tweet speaks for itself"
would have caused me to giggle, at a bare minimum.
"[Trump] went on to contradict his own aides, who have avoided the use of the hot-button phrase 'travel ban,' calling the order 'what we need and what it is, a TRAVEL BAN!' He said it would be imposed on 'certain DANGEROUS countries' and suggested that anything short of a ban 'won't help us protect our people'!"
George T. Conway III (husband of Kellyanne) then tweeted:
"'These tweets may make some ppl feel better, but they certainly won't help OSG get 5 votes in SCOTUS, which is what actually matters. Sad,' Mr. Conway wrote referring to the Office of the Solicitor General."
There is some ripe comedy just in that headline, alone. Go for it, Jimmy(s), Stephen and Samantha!
This appears to be the Overture to Act I of this magnificent political opera, which opens tomorrow on the set of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Here's an interesting tidbit:
"As F.B.I. director, Mr. Comey wrote a detailed memo after every major phone call or meeting with Mr. Trump and left those memos in the bureau's files when he left. As special counsel, Mr. Mueller has access to those memos, but the F.B.I. declined a request from the Senate Intelligence Committee for copies, citing the ongoing investigation."
IOW, we won't be getting to the really juicy stuff until Act II (Mueller's investigation).
According to his memo, this is what Trump said to Comey:
"I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go ... he is a good guy. I hope you can let this go."
If that's not obstruction of justice ...
God bless Terry Gilliam.
As an amateur film student, I can confidently say that he's in the Top Ten of my favorite directors. (Yes, Ted, I know you hate ranking great artists -- and I do get your point! But what it all boils down to is that I believe he is a great, great artist.)
Depending upon the way you count them, this might be his 13th film.
Some of Gilliam's films have made money. Many have not.
The two that he was a hired gun on (The Fisher King and Twelve Monkeys) -- back-to-back -- made good money. His great masterpiece, Brazil, cost $15 million. To date, it's grossed around $6.5.
I am really looking forward to this long-awaited film!
"The president's detractors fall into three camps: illegals, commies and Samantha Bee."
"By many accounts, the atmosphere in the White House is one part high school cafeteria, two parts 'Lord of the Flies'."
Bruni concludes by noting the aides in favor have "walk-in privileges."
"I suspect, that the Trump era will flip that phrase, and the people walking out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue will be seen as -- and be -- the privileged ones."
"Students cluster together, working at laptops. They use software to select their own assignments, working at their own pace. And should they struggle at teaching themselves, teachers are on hand to guide them."
Back in 1968, as a junior in a public high school, I was completely bored. My English teacher was cool, though (Mr. Bianco) -- and I did well in his class because he made it interesting. (I remember being blown away by e.e. cummings.)
At some point, Mr. Bianco recommended me for "Independent Study," and I spent my last semester in public school (next year would be Interlochen) preparing a massive report on the works of Theodore Dreiser.
Maybe that's why I'm such a compulsive completist. I recently bought an old, but complete -- and ever-so-slightly moldy -- set of the complete works of William Makepeace Thackeray.
Mainly, because I fell in love with the Mira Nair film adaptation of "Vanity Fair" and wanted to re-read the book. I'm about 20% through the complete works!
TIME MACHINE
June 7, 1974
43 years ago
Serpico probably got more ink, but this guy got Prince of the City.
Gosh, remember how amazing Kissinger was at Diplospeak?
"Asked whether he had received from Syrian leaders some indication that they would attempt to control guerrilla attacks from Syrian territory, Mr. Kissinger said: 'It would be totally contrary to any purpose that anybody may wish to achieve with respect to this to force a public disclosure of the content of these discussions'."
IOW, no.
See if any of this sounds familiar ...
"Mr. Nixon voiced alarm to aides that The New York Times had published details of the United States' plans for talks with the Soviet Union on limiting strategic arms.
Mr. Nixon reportedly proposed at the meeting with his aides that lie-detector tests be given to as many as 400 employes [sic] of the State and Defense Departments. The President was quoted as saying, 'We want to scare the hell out of these people'."
"[T]here are 1.75 million paperback copies ... the paperback printing is not unprecedented; Bantam Books, for instance, had an initial printing of 2.5 million copies of Jacqueline Susan's novel 'Valley of the Dolls'."
Page 20 OUTCRY REPORTED ON NIXON "STYLE"
"Representative Elizabeth Holtzman told a graduating class ... at Brooklyn College yesterday that 'an outcry' had been raised about President Nixon's 'intellectual style' and that it was heartening.
'Talk of beating raps, of paying hush money, of cutting off Congressional investigations, of threats to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, of threats to members of other investigating committees, of presenting as the whole story incomplete reports to the country'."
This type of public exposure to widespread government corruption was something quite new and shocking back then -- not at all an everyday, commonplace event, like today's news, where we shrug our shoulders and move on after yet another scandal ... or another bodyslam of some unfortunate journalist ...
Page 17 EXPLANATION: IMPEACHMENT AND NATIONAL SECURITY
"The Judiciary Committee's staff has listed six areas that are under investigation:
Page 17 EXPLANATION: IMPEACHMENT AND NATIONAL SECURITY
"The Judiciary Committee's staff has listed six areas that are under investigation:
- Caulfield-Ulasewicz
- Wiretaps
- Huston Plan
- Plumbers
- Dita Beard
- Judge Byrne
Nostalgic reading.
"The President, he [St. Clair, Nixon's lawyer] said, 'regretted' the grand jury's action and considered it 'inappropriate'."
Nixon got off way too easy.
No comments:
Post a Comment