…then he nailed me to the chair with a rat-a-tat grilling

"What should I call my next project? Celestia? Empyrean? Royal Imperial Regal? He must run that routine on every visitor. 

This is "the Sign Lady" telling her story on NY Daily News, a woman contractor who came into contact with the deadbeat Trump. She tells about her unhappy interaction with Trump and how she managed to get him to pay his bills owed her. Virginia Postrel pointed to this sub hosting at pjmedia.

The story puts us in Trumps office. He told her to show up at that specific time. She went there to challenge him about paying up. He dismissed all that as matters for clerks and went on with his style of questioning instead. This is the moment in reading the story that matched up with something else unrelated that's been lingering for days. It's been bugging the hell out of me. This trait in Trump matches with traits shown by friends repeatedly.

I'm not talking or thinking about Trump anymore. I'm bringing it home, what he did there is corrective to a personal failure. I've been lingering on this for days.

On Monday two acquaintances stopped by after work for dinner. They stayed for two hours. We had a great time. They both work the next day.

I don't drink alcohol. Acquaintances are divided among non-driners and lushes. So I keep a completely stocked cabinet. Very well stocked. I'd blow your mind considering I don't drink. Whatever you might want is in there, that I could reasonably know about, it's a full garage type storage cabinet. It's ridiculous. Come over, you can have anything.

I know a good host will ask what they can get you by way of refreshing beverage. Immediately. So I do. Deena thinks and answers, "Water, please." Pleased with her decision.

That set the tone for everything.

I asked, she answered. Simple as that.

Others I know would insist. They'd make suggestions. Every negation and all uncertainty is call for further suggestion. So it goes, bing bong, hello, glad you can make it, would you like a cocktail? Would you like a glass of wine? Would you like red wine? Would you like white wine? Would you like a Cuba libre? Would you like gin and tonic? Would you like a beer? How about a soft drink? Would you like some vodka?

Before you can think you are hit with a barrage of bar drink suggestions that makes your head spin until you blurt out something to make the suggestions stop. Before you have your coat off, before you enter a room. That is the way of hosts that I've seen. That is where I utterly fail. I am to total fail host when it comes to that.

I was looking at a photo of a dinner win and realized the wine glasses are empty. We three all have our full choice of what we want and it's not wine and it's not cocktails. Even though all that stuff is right there. The Pepsi can stick out in the photo and so do empty wine glasses. My friends will see this photo and imagine dinner fail because of that. Dinner fail in the eyes of all drinking friends. They will not understand this as preference. They will understand this as hosting fail.

If a bottle of wine is to be opened, then they'd have to do it themselves because I cannot share the wine. That's what happened. That's what needs correction. They'll have to drink the whole bottle. That's not so hard. They'll have to decide to open the bottle. As if the decision is beyond me because I cannot drink it. And guests cannot do that. They're being polite. I really should have forced it. Even though they're working the next day. Anyone else that I know would have simply insisted. Just opened one of the bottles and poured it. That didn't occur to me any more than it would occur to me to roll a joint and torch it up and pass it around. It's not something I do so I didn't think of it. But when it comes to this wine at dinner I should think of it. I think. I think the pictures shows I really should behave more hostly obnoxious. As Trump does, as regular aggressive hosts do.

I'm still undecided.

Peggy Noonan: Trump and the Rise of the Unprotected

There are the protected and the unprotected. The protected make public policy. The unprotected live in it. The unprotected are starting to push back, powerfully....

If you are an unprotected American—one with limited resources and negligible access to power—you have absorbed some lessons from the past 20 years’ experience of illegal immigration. You know the Democrats won’t protect you and the Republicans won’t help you. Both parties refused to control the border. The Republicans were afraid of being called illiberal, racist, of losing a demographic for a generation. The Democrats wanted to keep the issue alive to use it as a wedge against the Republicans and to establish themselves as owners of the Hispanic vote.

Many Americans suffered from illegal immigration—its impact on labor markets, financial costs, crime, the sense that the rule of law was collapsing. But the protected did fine—more workers at lower wages. No effect of illegal immigration was likely to hurt them personally.

It was good for the protected. But the unprotected watched and saw. They realized the protected were not looking out for them, and they inferred that they were not looking out for the country, either.

The unprotected came to think they owed the establishment—another word for the protected—nothing, no particular loyalty, no old allegiance.

Mr. Trump came from that. (read the whole thing)

NFL's Dante Fowler -- Refs Baby Mama Brawl

NFL star Dante Fowler -- the 3rd pick in the '15 Draft -- played the role of referee as the mother of his child brawled with another woman at a FL apartment complex.

Soldiers coming home

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Flying Scotsman

Flying Scotsman is an historic train in Britain that's been out of commission for a decade undergoing extensive refurbishing. A rail tour is prepared to display the train across the country attracting train enthusiasts in large numbers.

Let's join such a train enthusiast, Ryan Allen, who traveled fifty miles by train to get a good shot of this green Flying Scotsman as they pass each other on separate tracks at Little Bytham village. This is timed in advance by careful schedule. We join Ryan on his train as he is fraught with excitement seconds before the perfect viewing moment so carefully planned.

Bummer. That's okay. Ryan whinged on social media, the tremendously funny mishap went a bit viral, it was picked up by Branson of Virgin who compensated Ryan with a trip to Atlanta Georgia, U.S, where Branson says they have a super busy rail network. That should make him happy. Virgin apologizes for photobombing the man's big moment.  "Fancy a trip courtesy of Virgin Atlantic? Because we’d love to make you the #FlyingYorkshireman in apology!" Class.

KLEM FM

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The song is from 1979 -- the penultimate year of Carter. Of course those were bad times for the US and I remember them well. I chose to escape to Italy for the summer and for part of the fall -- so long that I missed the registration deadline at UW-Madison and had to sit out a semester working full time. But enough of that.

This song goes out to all the old-enough-to-vote-but-dumb-enough-to-vote-for-Carter people. We know who we are. We missed the Reagan bandwagon.

Melania Trump's Diary

What a night! We had another debate in Texas and Donald is very upset. It seems that little Marco Rubio grew a pair and decided to play with the big boys. We know he likes to play with boys but he decided to let his bitchy side show. The nasty sweaty Queen.  It was like a Reality show. Rupaul’s Drag Race with a Spanish accent.

"Harvard ‘racial justice’ protesters protest award ceremony about … racial injustice"

The College Fix: Approximately 20 demonstrators representing Reclaim Harvard Law, which is currently occupying part of a building on Harvard’s campus, and Brandeis University’s own building-crashers Ford Hall 2015, interrupted a Brandeis awards ceremony on Thursday honoring Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow.

Ironically, Minow was being recognized for her “scholarship on race relations and legal issues.”

Also ironically, the protesters weren’t there to confront one of the theses of Minow’s presentation (titled “Bystanders, Upstanders and Justice”) – “expanding the full scope of civil liberties” beyond the public realm into the private.

They were there to tell Dean Minow “Your school is racist. Your school is not inclusive. Harvard Law School does not teach justice.” (Read More)

"Chris Christie Endorses Donald Trump"

“He’s been my friend for many years, he’s been a spectacular governor,” said Mr. Trump, standing with Mr. Christie at a press conference in Fort Worth, Texas, for the endorsement.

hagwon

Like parents everywhere South Korean parents take the education of their children very seriously. In South Korea the educational system is more tightly state controlled, more totalitarian, actually, and this extends to the authorization of extracurricular tutors that appear for every subject, a very large business in South Korea in addition to formal state education. These tutorial schools are for math and science mostly, known as hagwons.

Here an American language instructor writes for Cato Institute about South Korea clamping down on private tutors like himself. One of the concerns of government is the schools not charge too much for their services.

Since the breakout artist Psy with the dance craze that he introduced, Gangnam Style, a new demand arose for dancers, a new demand for different type of hagwon has appeared and the number of dance K-pop hagwons is startling.

This is the study that South Korean children choose to cram.

This is where South Korean children choose to have their education money directed.

But not all of it is for study for career in dancing on stage. Most students are paying some few hundred dollars to cram to learn K-pop dancing just because they want to learn dancing. They're just having fun and learning to dance and that's all.

The schools come under criticism for turning out synchronized robots but that challenge misses a tremendous amount of intriguing variation.

And the thing that just kills me while watching is how expressed in another form this same synchronization is admired as with military precision in parades. Grown men practice for hours and prepare as long polishing and having absolutely every detail just so. The product is a type Sheltie-dog type of precision devoid of individuality or heartfelt humanity. This is not that. This is not bizarre jaw-rattling North Korean marching. This is its polar opposite. And there are more, dozens, scores, hundreds more studios uploaded to YouTube, endless videos of K-pop dancers and every single one of them, each team from every studio is fascinating to watch.

This is their education of their choice and their pouring their hearts into it as fanatics do.

I want to dance too.

They make me want to join them. My legs don't work anymore. I watch them with tremendous envy. I love them. Every single one.

If my daughter of my son said, "Dad, I want to go to South Korea to learn some K-pop dance." I'd go, "Here's 10,000 bucks try not to hurt yourself and have a great time."  It would be worth it to have this added to their life.

I think this will be Lia Kim at the front very first. Her's in one of several hundred such videos available on YouTube. I find them addictive.

Shit. After all that, SME.  Here, watch the f'n thing on YouTube. Now I'm cross.

But that reminds me. When the nattering nabobs of negativism proscribe cultural appropriation, the essence of cultural exchange, then this stands as counter example, and fine examples too, all the South Korean studios prefer American songs to interpret to set their dance moves. Heavily prefer American songs. And this song they're using for this video, you'll see if you click over, has me wondering, what in this song appeals to South Korean sense of music? When you consider their own cultural music. What elements in here are they really digging? They're showing us what they're picking up on by what they choose to interpret into dance. You'll notice a jaw dropping signal and robotic energy wear-downs to the beat. I must say, the whole thing altogether is brilliant.

Buttons

The icons are speaking but sometimes they say too much. Don't listen. Or hear them but then have them shut up. 

It's sillier than you might think because it appears to be inaccessibly technical and complex. The engineers are saying the button is important by placing it next to on/off in a short array of small buttons it is first. So there's that. That's what the engineers are saying, "this function is important."

The second thing the button says is "I control exposure compensation" and that is all. Nothing more can be read into it. Even though it offers more symbols. Surely it is telling us more. No, it is not. 

It does not say positive for darkness and negative for lightness. It is not making a suggestion one way or another. It is not saying which direction positive and negative go, toward light or darkness or from light or darkness. The position of the plus and minus symbols within the new icon is arbitrary. The button is not making any suggestion regarding what you want or what you have. The icon designer was not thinking of that. All they were thinking is "this is the exposure compensation control."  Too bad. 

When you get into it you'll be pressing minus for less exposure and darker photos and you'll be pressing plus for more exposure and lighter photos. The opposite of what the button shows.

Photograph from BMW photo via Google images [nikon exposure button] 

This lesson in semiotics is a continuing service of Lem's Comonocreerendios.

KLEM TV

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Q: How can a victim of eminent domain be against paying the Federal Income Tax?

I mean, I thought the eminent domain meanies were the tax scofflaws.

Last night's GOP debate highlights

GOP Debate Open Thread