ATM Robbery, Ireland
Amazing drone control
via: here and here
Wednesday, January 11, 2023
The Cheetahs Made a Kill. Then the Safari Trucks Swarmed In.
The video surfaced online around October. Filmed from a distance, it shows an antelope grazing on the African plain. Suddenly, two cheetahs race toward it and the antelope takes off, running toward the camera. But the cats are too fast. They converge on it and bring it down. They begin to feed.
Almost at that exact moment, a second drama unfolds: The safari vehicles that have been parked in the background begin to move. One dark-colored 4x4 hits the gas and begins driving closer to the animals. Then vehicle after vehicle is on the move — green, brown white, in various states of repair. You can hear the voices of the guides within yelling at one another. Some start to honk their horns. The vehicles form a circle, jockeying for position as their passengers hold up cellphones to record the cheetahs and their meal.
A woman’s voice can be heard in the background. “Are they stupid?” she asks.
The video was filmed in the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya, home to many of the Big Five animals (lions, leopards, elephants, buffalo and rhinoceroses) that safari participants tick off their lists. The identity of the video’s creator remains unknown, as does the date it was shot.
It was originally shared by a Twitter account using the name @DrumChronicles and has been viewed more than 175,000 times since it appeared. Guides and conservationists who have seen it said the video underscored a problem many of them have observed since the Kenyan government began lifting most pandemic-related travel restrictions: safari vehicles packed with cellphone-wielding tourists led by guides who are willing to get too close to the animals.
Overcrowding at popular safari spots was a serious issue before the pandemic, but as tourists have returned to Kenya, the problem has come back with alarming speed and “appears to be heightened by pent-up travel demand,” said Judy Kepher-Gona, director of the Sustainable Travel and Tourism Agenda, an organization based in Kenya that has called for stricter monitoring in the reserve.
“Sadly, what is seen in this video is the rule and not the exception in Masai Mara reserve,” she said.
In February, a Toyota Land Cruiser carrying tourists got so close to a family of cheetahs, the vehicle nearly ran over one of the cubs.
In August, Simon Espley, the chief executive of Africa Geographic, a travel and conservation company, watched in horror as 60 vehicles idled on both sides of the Mara River, which runs through the reserve, mere feet from where hundreds of wildebeests and zebras were slowly amassing at a crossing point during their migration in the Masai Mara.
When the hooves hit the water, there was a “crazy, chaotic rush as hundreds of tons of steel lunged forward with screaming engines” from the 4x4s that maneuvered to get closer to the herds, Mr. Espley said.
“It was surreal and sickening as we all converged on what is only a few hundred meters of riverbank, jostled for position and somehow avoided collisions,” he said.
Mr. Espley, whose company had organized the safari trip for a group of photographers, said he felt “regret and unease” about being part of that crowd. “Everyone in our safari vehicle did,” he said. The travelers asked their guide, a local Masai, to drive them away immediately.
“He was happy to oblige,” Mr. Espley said.
by Maria Cramer and Costas Christ, NY Times | Read more:
Image: Simon Espley
[ed. No interest in Africa (or many other places) for this reason. Aggressive tourism. Industrial tourism. Call it what you want. Unique experiences/destinations around the world are being plasticized, eroded and lost. The only answer seems to be more restrictive access/regulations. But for whom?]
Almost at that exact moment, a second drama unfolds: The safari vehicles that have been parked in the background begin to move. One dark-colored 4x4 hits the gas and begins driving closer to the animals. Then vehicle after vehicle is on the move — green, brown white, in various states of repair. You can hear the voices of the guides within yelling at one another. Some start to honk their horns. The vehicles form a circle, jockeying for position as their passengers hold up cellphones to record the cheetahs and their meal.
The video was filmed in the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya, home to many of the Big Five animals (lions, leopards, elephants, buffalo and rhinoceroses) that safari participants tick off their lists. The identity of the video’s creator remains unknown, as does the date it was shot.
It was originally shared by a Twitter account using the name @DrumChronicles and has been viewed more than 175,000 times since it appeared. Guides and conservationists who have seen it said the video underscored a problem many of them have observed since the Kenyan government began lifting most pandemic-related travel restrictions: safari vehicles packed with cellphone-wielding tourists led by guides who are willing to get too close to the animals.
Overcrowding at popular safari spots was a serious issue before the pandemic, but as tourists have returned to Kenya, the problem has come back with alarming speed and “appears to be heightened by pent-up travel demand,” said Judy Kepher-Gona, director of the Sustainable Travel and Tourism Agenda, an organization based in Kenya that has called for stricter monitoring in the reserve.
“Sadly, what is seen in this video is the rule and not the exception in Masai Mara reserve,” she said.
In February, a Toyota Land Cruiser carrying tourists got so close to a family of cheetahs, the vehicle nearly ran over one of the cubs.
In August, Simon Espley, the chief executive of Africa Geographic, a travel and conservation company, watched in horror as 60 vehicles idled on both sides of the Mara River, which runs through the reserve, mere feet from where hundreds of wildebeests and zebras were slowly amassing at a crossing point during their migration in the Masai Mara.
When the hooves hit the water, there was a “crazy, chaotic rush as hundreds of tons of steel lunged forward with screaming engines” from the 4x4s that maneuvered to get closer to the herds, Mr. Espley said.
“It was surreal and sickening as we all converged on what is only a few hundred meters of riverbank, jostled for position and somehow avoided collisions,” he said.
Mr. Espley, whose company had organized the safari trip for a group of photographers, said he felt “regret and unease” about being part of that crowd. “Everyone in our safari vehicle did,” he said. The travelers asked their guide, a local Masai, to drive them away immediately.
“He was happy to oblige,” Mr. Espley said.
by Maria Cramer and Costas Christ, NY Times | Read more:
Image: Simon Espley
[ed. No interest in Africa (or many other places) for this reason. Aggressive tourism. Industrial tourism. Call it what you want. Unique experiences/destinations around the world are being plasticized, eroded and lost. The only answer seems to be more restrictive access/regulations. But for whom?]
Tuesday, January 10, 2023
AI Will Dominate Music and Songwriting
[ed. It already is with Auto-Tune (Rick Beato). See also: How I Got an AI Theme Song for My Substack (Ted Gioia - The Honest Broker).]
Stop Talking to Each Other and Start Buying Things: Three Decades of Survival in the Desert of Social Media
I bet you're wondering how we got here...
Yeah, Twitter was a mess. Sure. Any sufficiently large gathering of humans won’t always be a great time. But it wasn’t a hell
Stop talking to each other and start buying things. Stop talking to each other and start hurting each other.
Hurting each other is just ever so much more useful than talking and connecting. Leaving people alone doesn’t produce narcissistic supply. It doesn’t feed the need to control and force that some humans, it seems, have always been and always will be born with.
And look, I’m not going to sit here and go full anti-capitalist vision quest on you. I understand these sites aren’t free to run. Servers, bandwidth, coders, mods, everything costs. We all have to eat and the costs involved in the operation of these kinds of networks can get unreal and unwieldy. And until we achieve post-scarcity, all these things must be done by people who also need to eat and live. I surely don’t expect to be handed mature social networks all run by Andrews out of the good of their hearts and the pleasure of making little things.
And I also understand that we are the generation who has to go through this part of it. We’re the ones born in time to be forced to make the rules and defend them. To say hey maybe one guy shouldn’t be able to own the village square. Because it was never remotely possible before. It’s all new and we have to figure it out. To agitate and legislate and be constantly vigilant. Maybe it’ll all seem so obvious and settled in 50 years, but those are our 50 years and no one else is going to have to be the first to have these conversations and try to make policy out of them. That’s us, it’s our lot, and it sucks ass, but this technology is the singularity we geeks have been talking about, and it turns out it’s not just impossible to imagine life on the other side of it before it happens, but it’s really fucking hard to figure out life on the other side of it once you get there, too. This is our actual Oregon Trail. We have to walk it on foot. We have to be the ones who fuck up and we have to be the ones who fix it. We have to be the ones who learn the lessons the hard way and write it all down so someday people get to just hop in a plane and sleep for five hours rather than die in the snow wrapped around our shivering children, praying for a dawn that is far too distant to help us now.
And we’ve seen very clearly this year that even progress that seems obvious and settled 50 years down the track is always vulnerable to people who confuse the ignorance of their own childhoods with the absence of societal problems. (...)
There isn’t enough money printed to change who they are. Elon Musk is (or was) the richest man on Earth. He’s losing money like a teenage nosebleed every time he goes further to the right. This is just the shape of his soul, it’s not a feint for profit. It’s not just about making enough money to keep the servers going and buy everyone in the office a house, it’s not even about making shareholders rich, it’s fundamentally about the yawning, salivating need to control and hurt. To express power not by what you can give, but by what you can take away. And deeper still, this strange compulsion of conservatism to force other humans to be just like you. To clone their particular set of neuroses and fears and revulsions and nostalgias and convictions and traumas so that they never have to experience anything but themselves, copied and pasted unto the end of time. A kind of viral solipsism that cannot bear the presence of anything other than its own undifferentiated self, propagating not by convincing or seduction or debate, but by the eradication of any other option.
And I’m so tired of it. I’m so tired of running from that Nothing, that creeping enforced sameness, that self-programming grey goo of empty fear of the Other. Running from oasis to oasis in a desert of uncaring where empathy never wets the sand.
I’m so tired of just harmlessly getting together with other weird geeks and going to what amounts to a digital pub after work and waking up one day to find every pint poisoned. Over and over again. Like the poison wants us specifically. Like it knows we will always make its favorite food: vulnerability, connection, difference. I’m so tired of lunch photos and fanfic and stupid jokes and keeping in touch with family across time zones and making friends and starting cottage industries and pursuing hobbies and meeting soulmates and expressing thoughts and creating identities and loving TV shows and reading books and getting to know a few of your heroes and raising kids and making bookshelves and knitting and painting and fixing sinks and first dates and homemade jam and, yes, figuring out what Buffy characters we are, listening and learning and hoping and just fucking talking to each other weaponized against us. Having our enthusiasm over the smallest joys of everyday life invaded by people who long ago forgot their value and turned into fodder for the death of thought, the burial of love. (...)
I’m just so angry.
by Catherynne M. Valente, Welcome To Garbagetown | Read more:Image: (Image: Cryteria, CC BY 3.0; Heisenberg Media, CC BY 2.0; modified via:)
I can’t promise what’s happening with Twitter is just the public meltdown of a malignant narcissist. I can’t promise it’s not more practice. Twitter is much bigger, much more influential, and much more ingrained into the fabric of modern society than Livejournal ever was. It’s a big bite to swallow. But it’s happened before. We know governmental entities with vested interests in eliminating avenues of effective dissent and the dissemination of truth (Saudi Arabia, China, others) provided funding for Musk to complete his purchase when he couldn’t otherwise pull it off. We see him, barely months at the helm, take off any remaining mask of progressivism or moral purpose and speed-run a descent into radicalization while working day and night, not even to make money, but to change anything that might smack of mercy or kindness or acceptance of others. To welcome monsters and ban journalists. To get people who’ve managed not to fall into the right-wing oubliette to turn against Ukraine, turn against vaccines, turn against Jews, turn against LGBTQ+ community but especially gender-nonconforming human fucking beings, turn against fact-checking, turn against economic aid packages meant to benefit them and not him, turn against liberal democracy, turn against each other.
Stop talking to each other and start buying things. Stop talking to each other and start hurting each other.
Hurting each other is just ever so much more useful than talking and connecting. Leaving people alone doesn’t produce narcissistic supply. It doesn’t feed the need to control and force that some humans, it seems, have always been and always will be born with.
And look, I’m not going to sit here and go full anti-capitalist vision quest on you. I understand these sites aren’t free to run. Servers, bandwidth, coders, mods, everything costs. We all have to eat and the costs involved in the operation of these kinds of networks can get unreal and unwieldy. And until we achieve post-scarcity, all these things must be done by people who also need to eat and live. I surely don’t expect to be handed mature social networks all run by Andrews out of the good of their hearts and the pleasure of making little things.
And I also understand that we are the generation who has to go through this part of it. We’re the ones born in time to be forced to make the rules and defend them. To say hey maybe one guy shouldn’t be able to own the village square. Because it was never remotely possible before. It’s all new and we have to figure it out. To agitate and legislate and be constantly vigilant. Maybe it’ll all seem so obvious and settled in 50 years, but those are our 50 years and no one else is going to have to be the first to have these conversations and try to make policy out of them. That’s us, it’s our lot, and it sucks ass, but this technology is the singularity we geeks have been talking about, and it turns out it’s not just impossible to imagine life on the other side of it before it happens, but it’s really fucking hard to figure out life on the other side of it once you get there, too. This is our actual Oregon Trail. We have to walk it on foot. We have to be the ones who fuck up and we have to be the ones who fix it. We have to be the ones who learn the lessons the hard way and write it all down so someday people get to just hop in a plane and sleep for five hours rather than die in the snow wrapped around our shivering children, praying for a dawn that is far too distant to help us now.
And we’ve seen very clearly this year that even progress that seems obvious and settled 50 years down the track is always vulnerable to people who confuse the ignorance of their own childhoods with the absence of societal problems. (...)
There isn’t enough money printed to change who they are. Elon Musk is (or was) the richest man on Earth. He’s losing money like a teenage nosebleed every time he goes further to the right. This is just the shape of his soul, it’s not a feint for profit. It’s not just about making enough money to keep the servers going and buy everyone in the office a house, it’s not even about making shareholders rich, it’s fundamentally about the yawning, salivating need to control and hurt. To express power not by what you can give, but by what you can take away. And deeper still, this strange compulsion of conservatism to force other humans to be just like you. To clone their particular set of neuroses and fears and revulsions and nostalgias and convictions and traumas so that they never have to experience anything but themselves, copied and pasted unto the end of time. A kind of viral solipsism that cannot bear the presence of anything other than its own undifferentiated self, propagating not by convincing or seduction or debate, but by the eradication of any other option.
And I’m so tired of it. I’m so tired of running from that Nothing, that creeping enforced sameness, that self-programming grey goo of empty fear of the Other. Running from oasis to oasis in a desert of uncaring where empathy never wets the sand.
I’m so tired of just harmlessly getting together with other weird geeks and going to what amounts to a digital pub after work and waking up one day to find every pint poisoned. Over and over again. Like the poison wants us specifically. Like it knows we will always make its favorite food: vulnerability, connection, difference. I’m so tired of lunch photos and fanfic and stupid jokes and keeping in touch with family across time zones and making friends and starting cottage industries and pursuing hobbies and meeting soulmates and expressing thoughts and creating identities and loving TV shows and reading books and getting to know a few of your heroes and raising kids and making bookshelves and knitting and painting and fixing sinks and first dates and homemade jam and, yes, figuring out what Buffy characters we are, listening and learning and hoping and just fucking talking to each other weaponized against us. Having our enthusiasm over the smallest joys of everyday life invaded by people who long ago forgot their value and turned into fodder for the death of thought, the burial of love. (...)
I’m just so angry.
by Catherynne M. Valente, Welcome To Garbagetown | Read more:
[ed. See also: What the fediverse (does/n't) solve (Pluralistic).]
Monday, January 9, 2023
Congress Must Listen to Working Families and Overhaul Healthcare, Minimum Wage and Education
I am proud to be assuming the chairmanship of the US Senate’s health, education, labor and pensions committee (Help), a committee with wide jurisdiction over some of the most important issues facing the American people. As I move into that position I’m thinking about how we can best address some of the serious challenges facing my fellow Vermonters and working families all across the country.
Today, in terms of health, we have a dysfunctional healthcare system in which we spend the astronomical and unsustainable sum of nearly $13,000 for every man, woman and child, twice as much as most developed countries and almost 20% of our GDP. Yet, despite that huge expenditure, 85 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured and we have worse health outcomes and lower life expectancy than many other nations. While the insurance companies make huge profits, over 500,000 people declare bankruptcy each year from medically related debt, and over 68,000 die because they can’t afford the care they need. Our complicated and fragmented system is so broken that it cannot even produce the number of doctors, nurses, dentists and mental health personnel that we desperately need.
As a nation, we must focus on the reality that the function of a rational healthcare system is to provide quality care for all, not simply huge profits for the insurance industry.
Today, as we pay by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, the pharmaceutical industry is making record-breaking profits and more than a few executives in drug companies are becoming billionaires. Meanwhile, despite billions in government investment in prescription drug research and development, nearly one out of four Americans are unable to afford the medicine their doctors prescribe and too many seniors are splitting their lifesaving pills in half because they can’t afford them. And because Medicare doesn’t cover dental, hearing and vision, there are millions of seniors who are trying to survive without these basic healthcare needs.
But it’s not just our healthcare “system” which needs a major overhaul. In terms of education, we need to take a hard look at how we are educating our kids – from childcare to graduate school.
While psychologists tell us that the first four years of life are the most important in terms of human intellectual and emotional growth, it’s hard to deny that our childcare system is in disarray. The cost is unaffordable for many working parents, there are not enough slots available, the quality is spotty and the pay and benefits childcare workers receive is unconscionably low. This is not how we should be treating our children, the future of America.
The situation in K-12 education is not much better. For a variety of reasons – lack of respect, low pay, the stress of Covid and the politicization of school boards – thousands of gifted and dedicated teachers are quitting the profession, leaving students unprepared for the challenges they face as they enter the adult world. The future of this country depends upon the quality of education we provide our kids, and there is no reason why we cannot create the best public educational system in the world.
In terms of higher education, we face the absurd situation of hundreds of thousands of bright young people who have the desire and ability to get a college education but cannot do so because their families lack the money. How many great doctors, scientists, and teachers are we losing as a result? There are also millions of young people who need training in order to become skilled mechanics, carpenters, welders, and electricians who are not getting the post-high school training they need. Further, 45 million Americans are struggling with student debt – sometimes in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
In terms of labor and our economy, we must recognize that we live in a period of more income and wealth inequality than at any time in the last hundred years. While the very rich become richer and three people now own more wealth than the bottom half of American society, 60% of American workers live paycheck to paycheck and millions are trying to exist on starvation wages. Meanwhile, we have a pathetic federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour which has not been raised since 2009. (...)
There is a lot of discussion in the media about how “divided” our nation is and, on many issues, that is absolutely true. But what we don’t appreciate is that on some of the most important issues facing our country the American people – Democrats, Republicans, independents – are quite united.
The American people know we are being ripped off by the drug companies and they want lower prescription drugs prices.
The American people know that our healthcare system is outrageously expensive and they want universal and lower cost health care.
The American people know that education is essential to our lives and the future of this country and they want high quality and affordable education from childcare to graduate school.
The American people know that no one can survive on a $7.25-an-hour minimum wage, and they want to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. (...)
At a time when too many Americans are giving up on democracy, now is the time to attempt to restore faith in our government. Now is the time for Congress to have the courage to take on the lobbyists and powerful special interests and show the American people that our government can work for them, and not just the 1%. Let’s do it.
Today, in terms of health, we have a dysfunctional healthcare system in which we spend the astronomical and unsustainable sum of nearly $13,000 for every man, woman and child, twice as much as most developed countries and almost 20% of our GDP. Yet, despite that huge expenditure, 85 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured and we have worse health outcomes and lower life expectancy than many other nations. While the insurance companies make huge profits, over 500,000 people declare bankruptcy each year from medically related debt, and over 68,000 die because they can’t afford the care they need. Our complicated and fragmented system is so broken that it cannot even produce the number of doctors, nurses, dentists and mental health personnel that we desperately need.
As a nation, we must focus on the reality that the function of a rational healthcare system is to provide quality care for all, not simply huge profits for the insurance industry.
But it’s not just our healthcare “system” which needs a major overhaul. In terms of education, we need to take a hard look at how we are educating our kids – from childcare to graduate school.
While psychologists tell us that the first four years of life are the most important in terms of human intellectual and emotional growth, it’s hard to deny that our childcare system is in disarray. The cost is unaffordable for many working parents, there are not enough slots available, the quality is spotty and the pay and benefits childcare workers receive is unconscionably low. This is not how we should be treating our children, the future of America.
The situation in K-12 education is not much better. For a variety of reasons – lack of respect, low pay, the stress of Covid and the politicization of school boards – thousands of gifted and dedicated teachers are quitting the profession, leaving students unprepared for the challenges they face as they enter the adult world. The future of this country depends upon the quality of education we provide our kids, and there is no reason why we cannot create the best public educational system in the world.
In terms of higher education, we face the absurd situation of hundreds of thousands of bright young people who have the desire and ability to get a college education but cannot do so because their families lack the money. How many great doctors, scientists, and teachers are we losing as a result? There are also millions of young people who need training in order to become skilled mechanics, carpenters, welders, and electricians who are not getting the post-high school training they need. Further, 45 million Americans are struggling with student debt – sometimes in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
In terms of labor and our economy, we must recognize that we live in a period of more income and wealth inequality than at any time in the last hundred years. While the very rich become richer and three people now own more wealth than the bottom half of American society, 60% of American workers live paycheck to paycheck and millions are trying to exist on starvation wages. Meanwhile, we have a pathetic federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour which has not been raised since 2009. (...)
There is a lot of discussion in the media about how “divided” our nation is and, on many issues, that is absolutely true. But what we don’t appreciate is that on some of the most important issues facing our country the American people – Democrats, Republicans, independents – are quite united.
The American people know we are being ripped off by the drug companies and they want lower prescription drugs prices.
The American people know that our healthcare system is outrageously expensive and they want universal and lower cost health care.
The American people know that education is essential to our lives and the future of this country and they want high quality and affordable education from childcare to graduate school.
The American people know that no one can survive on a $7.25-an-hour minimum wage, and they want to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. (...)
At a time when too many Americans are giving up on democracy, now is the time to attempt to restore faith in our government. Now is the time for Congress to have the courage to take on the lobbyists and powerful special interests and show the American people that our government can work for them, and not just the 1%. Let’s do it.
by Bernie Sanders, The Guardian | Read more:
Image: IronHeart/Getty Images[ed. Sounds pretty straightforward, yet also impossible. Why? Inertia. Just Capitalism in general, where any weakness is exploited in the name of competition, freedom and profit. It's the nature of the system (with a not-good ending for future generations - though rich descendants will be secure). I don't know why there haven't been more (any?) uprisings (actually, I do: the middle class has been effectively weaponized against each other over cultural/political issues, dulled by shiny objects - smartphones, social networks, Amazon/Netflix, etc. - and living in fear of falling out of their class, just trying to survive). Unfortunately, the only entity in government that does seem anxious to do as much as possible is the Supreme Court. See also: US supreme court could radically reshape clean water rules (The Guardian).]
Cobrahawk
[ed. Missed this over the holiday season... my golf buddy Matt is the bass player. Great band.]
How US State Agencies Got Funny
"I feel frustrated when my feelings aren’t heard or acknowledged!"
"Do you have the emotional/mental capacity for me to vent about you thinking about eating me right now?"
Image: Twitter
Saturday, January 7, 2023
Clown Show
So if this godawful mess is not personal or ideological, then what is it? Ultimately, it's not about Kevin McCarthy at all. It's about the Republican Party's self-conception in its exciting new fascist iteration (which was forged under Donald Trump but doesn't really have much to do with him either). Fascism needs to be understood less as an ideological movement and more as a movement devoted to the worship of power for its own sake, and also a dramatic aesthetic of constant warfare and performative purification of an ever-narrower conception of the body politic.
Those are big words, and I apologize, but here's a simpler way to put it: Fascists are a bunch of trolls who are never satisfied. They must always prove their power by ganging up on someone who's been cast as an "outsider." As the Atlantic's Adam Serwer famously observed, "The cruelty is the point." Most of the time, the targets are racial and sexual minorities, liberals or immigrants. But sometimes, that restless need to constantly bully someone manifests in purification rituals, where a once-trusted or even beloved insider is deemed an outsider who must be ritually purged. It's just Kevin McCarthy's turn in the proverbial barrel, though he almost certainly hasn't helped his cause by constantly debasing himself before the hardliners. He's marked himself as a weenie, and that just makes his tormentors enjoy watching him suffer even more.
The Trump era has, understandably, led to a nonstop and frustrating debate over what exactly "fascism" is. I favor the famous 1995 essay by Italian philosopher Umberto Eco, who argued that fascism is a movement of "rigid discombobulation, a structured confusion," replete with contradictions and incoherencies, and yet that "emotionally it was firmly fastened to some archetypal foundations."
In other words, fascism is about vibes more than fleshed-out ideas. Very, very authoritarian vibes. One big reason we can identify Republicans as fascist now is because while their appetite for power knows no end, their willingness to govern — that is, to use power to achieve substantive ends — has diminished to nothing. It's all vibes and no ideas, beyond an inchoate loathing of anyone they deem too dark-skinned, too queer or too literate to be truly American.
In his "Ur-Fascism" essay, Eco laid out 14 features of fascism, which add up not to a coherent political philosophy so much as a series of antisocial impulses. It's worth reading in its entirety, but the McCarthy debacle illustrates some of Eco's most important observations: Fascism is deliberately irrational. Indeed, it makes a fetish of irrationality. It's a "cult of action for action's sake" that believes thinking before acting "is a form of emasculation." The fascist believes that "life is permanent warfare" and therefore there must always be an enemy to struggle against. That's why fascists love conspiracy theories. Their "followers must feel besieged," and since they have no real oppressors to rail against, they make up imaginary ones.
After Trump's coup failed and the red wave of the midterms didn't materialize, Republicans are turning on each other. Even healthy political parties tend to have periods of recrimination after suffering bitter defeats. For the dysfunctional Republicans, however, this anger is being refracted through their increasingly fascist worldview, which is paranoid, irrational and hostile to democracy. That's why the demands made by the anti-McCarthy faction are incomprehensible and seem to change by the hour. The mentality that "life is permanent warfare" leads to the party's desire to constantly purify itself of the enemy within, in this case the despised "RINOs." But as more and more RINOs get purged, the definition becomes more expansive and maintaining party purity becomes almost impossible. Eventually, craven sycophants like McCarthy are rechristened as RINOs and thrown overboard. There is no endpoint where the party has finally cleansed itself.
Watching Republicans tear each other apart like this isn't just entertaining, but also useful. Fascists are always itching for a fight. Under Trump, that energy was directed outwardly at their perceived enemies: Democrats, liberal "elites," immigrants, LGBTQ people and eventually democracy itself. But as this House leadership fight has shown, fascists will also turn on each other like a bunch of weasels in a sack. With any luck, they tear themselves apart before they can tear democracy down.
Nancy Pelosi may not be the House Democrats' leader anymore, but her party are responding to this clown show in a way that shows they retain the unity and clarity of purpose Pelosi typically brought to their caucus. They are resisting the centrist punditry that insists Democrats have a responsibility to swoop in and protect Republicans from their own worst elements, as if saving their most vicious opponents from their own mistakes were somehow the same thing as saving democracy. We saw this impulse most recently in the media reaction to Democratic campaign ads highlighting the MAGA bonafides of certain far-right candidates to GOP primary voters, believing those kinds of radicals would be easier to beat in a general election. Those media criticisms were based on the shaky assumption that fire-breathing fascists are a bigger threat to democracy than supposed "mainstream" Republicans like McCarthy, who share their anti-democratic views but can play moderate in front of the cameras.
Well, the strategy of sowing internal discord among Republicans is working pretty well so far. A lot of the GOP's most egregious nuts lost their elections. Those who made it across the finish line are currently in the process of blowing their party up. Democrats are wise to continue refusing to bail Republicans out of their own mess. Even though Kevin McCarthy is the fascist crowd's newest piñata, that doesn't mean it's good for Democrats or democracy if he secures the speaker's gavel. He has no interest in governing. The plan, if we want to call it that, was to ignore legislation and appoint lots of House committees to spread conspiracy theories about Joe Biden and other political foes. McCarthy was also expected to use threats about the debt ceiling and a possible government shutdown in a pointless and destructive effort to force cuts in Social Security and Medicare. By far the best thing for democracy is if the Republicans simply implode and their nefarious schemes never come to fruition.
Those are big words, and I apologize, but here's a simpler way to put it: Fascists are a bunch of trolls who are never satisfied. They must always prove their power by ganging up on someone who's been cast as an "outsider." As the Atlantic's Adam Serwer famously observed, "The cruelty is the point." Most of the time, the targets are racial and sexual minorities, liberals or immigrants. But sometimes, that restless need to constantly bully someone manifests in purification rituals, where a once-trusted or even beloved insider is deemed an outsider who must be ritually purged. It's just Kevin McCarthy's turn in the proverbial barrel, though he almost certainly hasn't helped his cause by constantly debasing himself before the hardliners. He's marked himself as a weenie, and that just makes his tormentors enjoy watching him suffer even more.
In other words, fascism is about vibes more than fleshed-out ideas. Very, very authoritarian vibes. One big reason we can identify Republicans as fascist now is because while their appetite for power knows no end, their willingness to govern — that is, to use power to achieve substantive ends — has diminished to nothing. It's all vibes and no ideas, beyond an inchoate loathing of anyone they deem too dark-skinned, too queer or too literate to be truly American.
In his "Ur-Fascism" essay, Eco laid out 14 features of fascism, which add up not to a coherent political philosophy so much as a series of antisocial impulses. It's worth reading in its entirety, but the McCarthy debacle illustrates some of Eco's most important observations: Fascism is deliberately irrational. Indeed, it makes a fetish of irrationality. It's a "cult of action for action's sake" that believes thinking before acting "is a form of emasculation." The fascist believes that "life is permanent warfare" and therefore there must always be an enemy to struggle against. That's why fascists love conspiracy theories. Their "followers must feel besieged," and since they have no real oppressors to rail against, they make up imaginary ones.
After Trump's coup failed and the red wave of the midterms didn't materialize, Republicans are turning on each other. Even healthy political parties tend to have periods of recrimination after suffering bitter defeats. For the dysfunctional Republicans, however, this anger is being refracted through their increasingly fascist worldview, which is paranoid, irrational and hostile to democracy. That's why the demands made by the anti-McCarthy faction are incomprehensible and seem to change by the hour. The mentality that "life is permanent warfare" leads to the party's desire to constantly purify itself of the enemy within, in this case the despised "RINOs." But as more and more RINOs get purged, the definition becomes more expansive and maintaining party purity becomes almost impossible. Eventually, craven sycophants like McCarthy are rechristened as RINOs and thrown overboard. There is no endpoint where the party has finally cleansed itself.
Watching Republicans tear each other apart like this isn't just entertaining, but also useful. Fascists are always itching for a fight. Under Trump, that energy was directed outwardly at their perceived enemies: Democrats, liberal "elites," immigrants, LGBTQ people and eventually democracy itself. But as this House leadership fight has shown, fascists will also turn on each other like a bunch of weasels in a sack. With any luck, they tear themselves apart before they can tear democracy down.
Nancy Pelosi may not be the House Democrats' leader anymore, but her party are responding to this clown show in a way that shows they retain the unity and clarity of purpose Pelosi typically brought to their caucus. They are resisting the centrist punditry that insists Democrats have a responsibility to swoop in and protect Republicans from their own worst elements, as if saving their most vicious opponents from their own mistakes were somehow the same thing as saving democracy. We saw this impulse most recently in the media reaction to Democratic campaign ads highlighting the MAGA bonafides of certain far-right candidates to GOP primary voters, believing those kinds of radicals would be easier to beat in a general election. Those media criticisms were based on the shaky assumption that fire-breathing fascists are a bigger threat to democracy than supposed "mainstream" Republicans like McCarthy, who share their anti-democratic views but can play moderate in front of the cameras.
Well, the strategy of sowing internal discord among Republicans is working pretty well so far. A lot of the GOP's most egregious nuts lost their elections. Those who made it across the finish line are currently in the process of blowing their party up. Democrats are wise to continue refusing to bail Republicans out of their own mess. Even though Kevin McCarthy is the fascist crowd's newest piñata, that doesn't mean it's good for Democrats or democracy if he secures the speaker's gavel. He has no interest in governing. The plan, if we want to call it that, was to ignore legislation and appoint lots of House committees to spread conspiracy theories about Joe Biden and other political foes. McCarthy was also expected to use threats about the debt ceiling and a possible government shutdown in a pointless and destructive effort to force cuts in Social Security and Medicare. By far the best thing for democracy is if the Republicans simply implode and their nefarious schemes never come to fruition.
by Amanda Marcotte, Salon | Read more:
Image: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images [ed. Hold on to your shorts, it's going to be a bad couple of years. Do read Eco's essay: Ur-Fascism.]
Friday, January 6, 2023
The Perfect Seahawk
For the second time this season, an all-time Seahawks icon is returning to Seattle with his new team Sunday.
However, the debate over linebacker Bobby Wagner’s reception as a member of the Los Angeles Rams couldn’t be any different from the one that preceded Russell Wilson’s appearance four months ago with the Denver Broncos at Lumen Field, way back on Sept. 12.
Should you boo, or should you cheer? That was the raging debate for months among fans, if you’ll recall, once the schedule was released in May. The NFL, recognizing a good human drama when it sees one, had placed the Broncos in Seattle for the season opener, providing fans an instant referendum on their complicated feelings about Wilson.
Coach Pete Carroll definitely seemed to be pushing the fans to, well, give Wilson the business when he said, on the Wednesday before the Broncos game (when asked how he wanted the fan to receive the quarterback): “You are either competing, or you are not, I’m leaving it up to the 12s. It’s game time, and we are going for it, so however they take it I will follow their lead on that. I’m not going to be involved in that opportunity to react, so I don’t have to make that decision. We will see what happens. I’ll leave it up to the 12s. I think they will know exactly what to do.”
That was widely interpreted as a license to boo Wilson, and that’s precisely what fans audibly did (leavened by a smattering of cheers, to be fair). The Seahawks pulled out a 17-16 victory, starting Wilson on his path to a thoroughly miserable 2022 season in every way.
With Wagner, however, the question isn’t whether fans will cheer or boo. Rather, it’s how long and loud will they cheer?
Here’s what Carroll said Wednesday when asked a similar question about how he thought fans would receive Wagner. This time, the tone and nuance was entirely different:
“Oh yeah, they’re going to be great. They love him. I think they’re going to welcome him back. I just think that’s what’ll happen. Then if he makes a tackle or something, then maybe they don’t give him as much love. I don’t know. He’s going to make some hits in this game. He’s playing good ball and doing good stuff, but they’ll do the right thing. Whatever it is, they’ll do it.”
Considering that Carroll once called Wagner “the perfect Seahawk,” the implication of what the “right thing” is in this case seems clear.
Wagner is that rarest of commodities: An all-time performer who left without any baggage, his reputation fully intact. There is nothing but unequivocal fondness toward Wagner, who came to Seattle in the same 2012 draft as Wilson and was cut by the Seahawks on the same momentous day as the Wilson trade in March.
Over that decade, however, Wagner’s relationship with the fan base (and the organization) was not nearly as complicated as the quarterback’s.
Certainly, that’s a reflection of the positions they play, the quarterback invariably being a lightning rod for strong opinion.
But it’s also a reflection of Wagner’s personality. There doesn’t seem to be any of the angst that was associated with Wilson, who like Wagner did tons of good deeds in the community, and on the field, but could also be divisive (should or shouldn’t he be allowed to cook?) in a way that Wagner avoided.
The linebacker simply racked up his 100-plus tackles a year (way plus, in many seasons) and was a fount of consistency. While teammates took veiled (and sometimes anonymous) shots at Wilson over the years — even more this season, the epitome of hitting a man when he’s down — Wagner was an unparalleled and unanimously respected leader.
One huge difference between Wagner and Wilson coloring current perceptions is that Wagner wholeheartedly wanted to stay in Seattle. He was cut largely for salary-cap reasons (and left with a bit of hard feelings when, he tweeted, he didn’t hear of his release from the organization first — for which Carroll and general manager John Schneider apologized).
Here was Wagner’s final quote on the topic of his future with Seattle in the final weeks of last season:
“Obviously, I can’t control everything,” he said. “I can only control my part, and my part on this is I feel like I love this city, I love this team, I love the Seahawks. I always wanted to be a part of a franchise in the good times and bad times and every time. This is a team that I would love to be able to be a part of for a very, very long time. On my end, that’s where I’m at, that I’m a Seahawk until they tell me I’m not.”
They told him that, eventually, on March 8, making Wagner the last link to the “Legion of Boom” defense that helped win one Super Bowl and nearly win another. Wagner was a five-time Seahawk captain, named to eight Pro Bowls and earned first team All-Pro honors six times, more than anyone in franchise history. Second on the list with four is Hall of Famer Walter Jones.
However, the debate over linebacker Bobby Wagner’s reception as a member of the Los Angeles Rams couldn’t be any different from the one that preceded Russell Wilson’s appearance four months ago with the Denver Broncos at Lumen Field, way back on Sept. 12.
Should you boo, or should you cheer? That was the raging debate for months among fans, if you’ll recall, once the schedule was released in May. The NFL, recognizing a good human drama when it sees one, had placed the Broncos in Seattle for the season opener, providing fans an instant referendum on their complicated feelings about Wilson.
It was a delicate balance between appreciation over Wilson’s 10-year body of work, and irritation over the way he had seemingly forced his way out of Seattle (and, yes, some of that irritation was based on the smarminess that Wilson often tended to project).
That was widely interpreted as a license to boo Wilson, and that’s precisely what fans audibly did (leavened by a smattering of cheers, to be fair). The Seahawks pulled out a 17-16 victory, starting Wilson on his path to a thoroughly miserable 2022 season in every way.
With Wagner, however, the question isn’t whether fans will cheer or boo. Rather, it’s how long and loud will they cheer?
Here’s what Carroll said Wednesday when asked a similar question about how he thought fans would receive Wagner. This time, the tone and nuance was entirely different:
“Oh yeah, they’re going to be great. They love him. I think they’re going to welcome him back. I just think that’s what’ll happen. Then if he makes a tackle or something, then maybe they don’t give him as much love. I don’t know. He’s going to make some hits in this game. He’s playing good ball and doing good stuff, but they’ll do the right thing. Whatever it is, they’ll do it.”
Considering that Carroll once called Wagner “the perfect Seahawk,” the implication of what the “right thing” is in this case seems clear.
Wagner is that rarest of commodities: An all-time performer who left without any baggage, his reputation fully intact. There is nothing but unequivocal fondness toward Wagner, who came to Seattle in the same 2012 draft as Wilson and was cut by the Seahawks on the same momentous day as the Wilson trade in March.
Over that decade, however, Wagner’s relationship with the fan base (and the organization) was not nearly as complicated as the quarterback’s.
Certainly, that’s a reflection of the positions they play, the quarterback invariably being a lightning rod for strong opinion.
But it’s also a reflection of Wagner’s personality. There doesn’t seem to be any of the angst that was associated with Wilson, who like Wagner did tons of good deeds in the community, and on the field, but could also be divisive (should or shouldn’t he be allowed to cook?) in a way that Wagner avoided.
The linebacker simply racked up his 100-plus tackles a year (way plus, in many seasons) and was a fount of consistency. While teammates took veiled (and sometimes anonymous) shots at Wilson over the years — even more this season, the epitome of hitting a man when he’s down — Wagner was an unparalleled and unanimously respected leader.
One huge difference between Wagner and Wilson coloring current perceptions is that Wagner wholeheartedly wanted to stay in Seattle. He was cut largely for salary-cap reasons (and left with a bit of hard feelings when, he tweeted, he didn’t hear of his release from the organization first — for which Carroll and general manager John Schneider apologized).
Here was Wagner’s final quote on the topic of his future with Seattle in the final weeks of last season:
“Obviously, I can’t control everything,” he said. “I can only control my part, and my part on this is I feel like I love this city, I love this team, I love the Seahawks. I always wanted to be a part of a franchise in the good times and bad times and every time. This is a team that I would love to be able to be a part of for a very, very long time. On my end, that’s where I’m at, that I’m a Seahawk until they tell me I’m not.”
They told him that, eventually, on March 8, making Wagner the last link to the “Legion of Boom” defense that helped win one Super Bowl and nearly win another. Wagner was a five-time Seahawk captain, named to eight Pro Bowls and earned first team All-Pro honors six times, more than anyone in franchise history. Second on the list with four is Hall of Famer Walter Jones.
by Larry Stone, Seattle Times | Read more:
Image: Kyusung Gong/The Associated Press
[ed. The best of the best in every way. Tyler Lockett would be another one. We might've been in the playoffs this season if they hadn't let Bobby go - he had that kind of impact (and Seattle's defense was that bad). Miss you, Bobby. UPDATE: Well, the heaven's parted and Seattle lucked out (winning against LA; Detroit beating Green Bay) so... one more shot in the playoffs. BTW: Check out the amazing pictures of Jennifer Buchanan and Dean Rutz for the Seattle Times (44 in all) - always outstanding.]
[ed. The best of the best in every way. Tyler Lockett would be another one. We might've been in the playoffs this season if they hadn't let Bobby go - he had that kind of impact (and Seattle's defense was that bad). Miss you, Bobby. UPDATE: Well, the heaven's parted and Seattle lucked out (winning against LA; Detroit beating Green Bay) so... one more shot in the playoffs. BTW: Check out the amazing pictures of Jennifer Buchanan and Dean Rutz for the Seattle Times (44 in all) - always outstanding.]
Real Magic
Transcendental Meditation (or TM, as it is widely known), is a now widespread mantra-based meditation technique, loosely based on Vedic principles but formulated primarily for a Western audience. The technique was first popularized by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in the 1960s. Today it reappears mostly in conjunction with the name David Lynch, whose frequent mention of TM in interviews ensured a new wave of its popularity among young Lynch fans hoping to explore the “deep seas” of consciousness and tap into their own latent reserves of creativity. (In 2005, Lynch founded a global charity to teach TM in schools and to other “at-risk populations,” including war veterans, refugees, incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people, and those struggling with addiction.) I first learned TM earlier this year, having had several friends claim unironically that learning the technique had “changed their life.” For a flat fee, charged according to a means-dependent tier system and ranging from four hundred to a thousand dollars, you get a four-day course made up of both in-person and online sessions, as well as the “lifetime support” of your teacher. The first session is a private consultation and ceremony, during which the teacher gifts you your personalized mantra—a “meaningless” word made up of sounds derived from Sanskrit—which must not be shared with anyone.
My TM teacher was a white yoga instructor from North London and the ceremony took place in her flat. I’d already joined the obligatory onboarding Zoom call, in which she’d taken me and others through a whistlestop PowerPoint of studies backing up the multiple benefits of TM. She asked us to guess her age. She was forty, she revealed after someone placed her in her thirties, but her biological age was at least ten years younger, thanks to TM. On the day of the ceremony, I arrived at her house with the objects I’d been instructed to bring with me: several pieces of fresh fruit, a bunch of fresh flowers, and an unused, plain white handkerchief. She led me into a small room, bare except for two chairs and a table, atop which sat a white tablecloth and a picture of the Maharishi in an ornate golden frame. Chanting in Sanskrit, she performed the puja while I stood by holding a flower from my bunch.
At the end of the ritual, she whispered my word to me, and asked me to repeat it back to her. I kept getting it wrong. “Good enough”, she said on my tenth try, and instructed me to continue repeating it, quietly, more quietly still, until it was just a silent whisper in my mind. I still wasn’t sure if I was saying the word right. I sat in the chair, thinking my mantra. At a certain point, I heard her get up and leave the room. I became very aware of my breathing and was horrified to remember that I was a sack of meat. After some time had passed, she returned to the room, and asked me how long I thought it had been. “Fifteen minutes?” I guessed. She looked disappointed and said it had only been ten minutes. This suggested that time had been dragging for me. I asked her whether that meant I was doing it wrong. “No,” she responded. “It’s not possible to do it wrong.”
In the days that followed, I took myself through the TM course via an app on my phone. The filmed tutorials were led by Tony Nader, the clean-cut Lebanese neuroscientist who assumed leadership of the TM Organization after the death of the Maharishi in 2008. These were interspersed with questionnaires and short archival videos of the Maharishi, in which the guru sat cross-legged atop a gold-draped couch, dressed in white robes, behind him an arrangement of flowers laid out in front of a portrait of his own teacher. I was instructed to meditate twice a day for twenty minutes. I was told repeatedly not to share the technique with anyone, as I was not trained to do so and might inadvertently ruin their experience.
During this period I had daily check-ins with my teacher and a twenty-something-year-old photographer who was learning TM at the same time as me. Each evening the teacher would ask us how we were doing. “Amazing,” the photographer would say. He’d never had more energy. He was starting to experience brief glimpses of transcendence. He described the feeling as a sort of sudden dipping, as if he’d been dunked in a great well of energy. “And you?” the teacher would ask me, thrilled with his answer. “I don’t think I’m doing it right,” I said, and explained that I was having trouble shutting off what I think I described as “the skeptical part of my brain.” In response, I received the smile reserved for the unenlightened. “As long as it’s easy,” she said sympathetically. Ease is perhaps the central principle of Transcendental Meditation, which is where it differs from most other popular techniques. By reciting the mantra, TM teaches, the mind will automatically journey inwards towards “pure consciousness.” You simply have to trust that it will do so on its own. Having thoughts is not a hindrance; this is a sign that the body is releasing stress. The only obstacle to transcendence is effort.
Before beginning to teach TM in 1955, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi had learned the technique from Swami Brahmananda Saraswati (also known as Guru Dev), who reportedly entrusted him with the task of spreading Vedic knowledge to the masses. In the 1950s, he began teaching what he then called a traditional meditation technique around India and took on the title of Maharishi, which translates from Hindi as “great seer.” By the 1960s, he was setting up international meditation schools and touring to promote the program. It was on one of these tours, in 1967, that he first met the Beatles, who in 1968 would famously travel to his then-residence in Rishikesh. There, they wrote much of the White Album and were joined by Mia Farrow and her sister Prudence. Over the course of their stay, however, the band began to doubt many of the Maharishi’s claims, including his avowed celibacy, especially after Mia Farrow attested that the Maharishi had made unwanted advances on her—claims that the Maharishi and his followers vehemently denied. The Beatles’ disillusionment with their beloved guru became the rumored basis of the song “Sexy Sadie,” which was initially entitled “Maharishi.” Maharishi, what have you done, you’ve made a fool of everyone.
Farrow’s reports and the Beatles’ disillusionment tarnished the Maharishi’s reputation but did little to halt the growth of the TM empire in the years that followed as it expanded into education, medicine, media, politics, and real estate. At the time of the Maharishi’s death, the Transcendental Meditation organization—officially a nonprofit—was estimated to be worth over £2 billion. The TM headquarters were established just outside Vlodrop, Holland (now the Maharishi European Research University), an elaborate compound ringed by a barbed wire fence and patrolled round-the-clock, where the Maharishi himself resided in a suite on the first floor. From there, he headed a largely volunteer staff of around twenty-five thousand people and broadcast TM courses to subscribers via a satellite television channel that reached 144 countries.
The history of TM is a warren of rabbit holes.
At the end of the ritual, she whispered my word to me, and asked me to repeat it back to her. I kept getting it wrong. “Good enough”, she said on my tenth try, and instructed me to continue repeating it, quietly, more quietly still, until it was just a silent whisper in my mind. I still wasn’t sure if I was saying the word right. I sat in the chair, thinking my mantra. At a certain point, I heard her get up and leave the room. I became very aware of my breathing and was horrified to remember that I was a sack of meat. After some time had passed, she returned to the room, and asked me how long I thought it had been. “Fifteen minutes?” I guessed. She looked disappointed and said it had only been ten minutes. This suggested that time had been dragging for me. I asked her whether that meant I was doing it wrong. “No,” she responded. “It’s not possible to do it wrong.”
In the days that followed, I took myself through the TM course via an app on my phone. The filmed tutorials were led by Tony Nader, the clean-cut Lebanese neuroscientist who assumed leadership of the TM Organization after the death of the Maharishi in 2008. These were interspersed with questionnaires and short archival videos of the Maharishi, in which the guru sat cross-legged atop a gold-draped couch, dressed in white robes, behind him an arrangement of flowers laid out in front of a portrait of his own teacher. I was instructed to meditate twice a day for twenty minutes. I was told repeatedly not to share the technique with anyone, as I was not trained to do so and might inadvertently ruin their experience.
During this period I had daily check-ins with my teacher and a twenty-something-year-old photographer who was learning TM at the same time as me. Each evening the teacher would ask us how we were doing. “Amazing,” the photographer would say. He’d never had more energy. He was starting to experience brief glimpses of transcendence. He described the feeling as a sort of sudden dipping, as if he’d been dunked in a great well of energy. “And you?” the teacher would ask me, thrilled with his answer. “I don’t think I’m doing it right,” I said, and explained that I was having trouble shutting off what I think I described as “the skeptical part of my brain.” In response, I received the smile reserved for the unenlightened. “As long as it’s easy,” she said sympathetically. Ease is perhaps the central principle of Transcendental Meditation, which is where it differs from most other popular techniques. By reciting the mantra, TM teaches, the mind will automatically journey inwards towards “pure consciousness.” You simply have to trust that it will do so on its own. Having thoughts is not a hindrance; this is a sign that the body is releasing stress. The only obstacle to transcendence is effort.
Before beginning to teach TM in 1955, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi had learned the technique from Swami Brahmananda Saraswati (also known as Guru Dev), who reportedly entrusted him with the task of spreading Vedic knowledge to the masses. In the 1950s, he began teaching what he then called a traditional meditation technique around India and took on the title of Maharishi, which translates from Hindi as “great seer.” By the 1960s, he was setting up international meditation schools and touring to promote the program. It was on one of these tours, in 1967, that he first met the Beatles, who in 1968 would famously travel to his then-residence in Rishikesh. There, they wrote much of the White Album and were joined by Mia Farrow and her sister Prudence. Over the course of their stay, however, the band began to doubt many of the Maharishi’s claims, including his avowed celibacy, especially after Mia Farrow attested that the Maharishi had made unwanted advances on her—claims that the Maharishi and his followers vehemently denied. The Beatles’ disillusionment with their beloved guru became the rumored basis of the song “Sexy Sadie,” which was initially entitled “Maharishi.” Maharishi, what have you done, you’ve made a fool of everyone.
Farrow’s reports and the Beatles’ disillusionment tarnished the Maharishi’s reputation but did little to halt the growth of the TM empire in the years that followed as it expanded into education, medicine, media, politics, and real estate. At the time of the Maharishi’s death, the Transcendental Meditation organization—officially a nonprofit—was estimated to be worth over £2 billion. The TM headquarters were established just outside Vlodrop, Holland (now the Maharishi European Research University), an elaborate compound ringed by a barbed wire fence and patrolled round-the-clock, where the Maharishi himself resided in a suite on the first floor. From there, he headed a largely volunteer staff of around twenty-five thousand people and broadcast TM courses to subscribers via a satellite television channel that reached 144 countries.
The history of TM is a warren of rabbit holes.
by Lauren Collee, The Baffler | Read more:
Image: © Sebastian Cestaro[ed. I've used TM off and on for most of my life (mostly 0ff). There's no denying it does something, and is a good relaxation technique.]
Wednesday, January 4, 2023
What Really Happens At Halftime
Inside the 49ers’ halftime locker room: Bananas, bathroom trips and study time for Brock Purdy.
“The hell you doing here?”
It’s taken fullback Kyle Juszczyk exactly five seconds to notice there’s an intruder in the 49ers locker room. Kyle Shanahan has given me permission to observe halftime of the Dec. 11 game against Tom Brady and the Buccaneers. He agrees the resulting story might be a good explainer of what really goes on behind the closed — and closely guarded — doors of a halftime locker room.
The cliche involves soaring speeches and players getting whipped into a frenzy before the third quarter. And while there’s certainly a rah-rah element to the intermission, no one is delivering “win one for the Gipper” sermons in the NFL. There’s no time. Halftime lasts only 13 minutes, and the players might be inside for roughly 10 minutes.
“When you’re watching on TV, it feels like the halftime is an hour long,” said running back Christian McCaffrey. “When you’re playing, it feels like the snap of a finger.”
There’s no chair-throwing or pounding on metal locker doors like there is in “Any Given Sunday.” There’s simply too much to do. Halftimes are strictly business. And by the time Brady and the Buccaneers have made their visit to Santa Clara, the 49ers have become very good at taking care of business. (...)
The half hasn’t been perfect. Samuel, the team’s MVP from the previous season, was carted off the field after he was bent backward awkwardly at the end of a short run. And just before halftime, defensive back Dontae Johnson, one of the team’s longest-tenured players, suffered what turned out to be a season-ending ACL tear. Both are out of sight in the training room, which is adjacent to the main locker room, when halftime begins.
Still, there’s a confident energy among the players. Many grew up watching Brady. He’s got god-like status in the NFL, and he’s managed to get beyond the 50-yard line only twice so far. That has everyone buzzing. It’s like the locker room is a massive pinball table with 53 players pinging this way and that.
It’s taken fullback Kyle Juszczyk exactly five seconds to notice there’s an intruder in the 49ers locker room. Kyle Shanahan has given me permission to observe halftime of the Dec. 11 game against Tom Brady and the Buccaneers. He agrees the resulting story might be a good explainer of what really goes on behind the closed — and closely guarded — doors of a halftime locker room.
The cliche involves soaring speeches and players getting whipped into a frenzy before the third quarter. And while there’s certainly a rah-rah element to the intermission, no one is delivering “win one for the Gipper” sermons in the NFL. There’s no time. Halftime lasts only 13 minutes, and the players might be inside for roughly 10 minutes.
There’s no chair-throwing or pounding on metal locker doors like there is in “Any Given Sunday.” There’s simply too much to do. Halftimes are strictly business. And by the time Brady and the Buccaneers have made their visit to Santa Clara, the 49ers have become very good at taking care of business. (...)
The half hasn’t been perfect. Samuel, the team’s MVP from the previous season, was carted off the field after he was bent backward awkwardly at the end of a short run. And just before halftime, defensive back Dontae Johnson, one of the team’s longest-tenured players, suffered what turned out to be a season-ending ACL tear. Both are out of sight in the training room, which is adjacent to the main locker room, when halftime begins.
Still, there’s a confident energy among the players. Many grew up watching Brady. He’s got god-like status in the NFL, and he’s managed to get beyond the 50-yard line only twice so far. That has everyone buzzing. It’s like the locker room is a massive pinball table with 53 players pinging this way and that.
They have the first four minutes to themselves. Defensive end Nick Bosa, who’s been dealing with a mild hamstring strain in the run-up to the game, makes a quick stop in the training room before heading to his locker. Tight end Charlie Woerner picks up a massage gun and presses it into his upper hamstring as he walks around the room.
Many players change the tape on their wrists and ankles; some change their gloves or at least take them off to let them air out. Receiver Jauan Jennings takes off his cleats and walks around in his socks.
“It’s a reset,” he said when asked about it later. “Your foot isn’t even supposed to be in a shoe to begin with, so it’s a grounding type of thing.”
Most players take advantage of their free time by addressing the most important business of all.
“I normally sit in my seat, put my helmet down,” tackle Mike McGlinchey said when asked about his routine. “Then I make sure I use the restroom.”
If it’s been raining, players will change their socks and cleats. If it’s hot or the game’s in a high-altitude city, a handful will pop into the training room for IVs the way a race car makes a pit stop during the Indy 500.
Many players change the tape on their wrists and ankles; some change their gloves or at least take them off to let them air out. Receiver Jauan Jennings takes off his cleats and walks around in his socks.
“It’s a reset,” he said when asked about it later. “Your foot isn’t even supposed to be in a shoe to begin with, so it’s a grounding type of thing.”
Most players take advantage of their free time by addressing the most important business of all.
“I normally sit in my seat, put my helmet down,” tackle Mike McGlinchey said when asked about his routine. “Then I make sure I use the restroom.”
If it’s been raining, players will change their socks and cleats. If it’s hot or the game’s in a high-altitude city, a handful will pop into the training room for IVs the way a race car makes a pit stop during the Indy 500.
by Matt Barrows, The Athletic | Read more:
Image: Kyle Terada / USA Today
Tuesday, January 3, 2023
[ed. Classic. Says it all. See also: A Con Man Is Succeeding Me in Congress Today (aka Santos); and, We’re Going to Miss Greed and Cynicism (Krugman), NYT.]
A Heavily Armed Man Caused Panic at a Supermarket. But Did He Break the Law?
Two days after a gunman killed 10 people at a Colorado grocery store, leaving many Americans on high alert, Rico Marley was arrested as he emerged from the bathroom at a Publix supermarket in Atlanta. He was wearing body armor and carrying six loaded weapons — four handguns in his jacket pockets, and in a guitar bag, a semiautomatic rifle and a 12-gauge shotgun.
Moments earlier, an Instacart delivery driver had alerted a store employee after seeing Mr. Marley in the bathroom, along with the AR-15-style rifle, which was propped against a wall. A grand jury indictment later described what had come next: “panic, terror and the evacuation of the Publix.”
Mr. Marley, then 22, was arrested without incident that day in March 2021. His lawyer, Charles Brant, noted that he had not made any threats or fired any shots, and had legally purchased his guns. Mr. Marley did not violate Georgia law, Mr. Brant said; he was “just being a person, doing what he had the right to do.”
Indeed, Mr. Marley’s arrest kicked off a long and as yet unresolved legal odyssey in which the criminal justice system waffled over what it could charge him with and whether to set him free. Clearly, visiting the grocery store with a trove of guns had frightened people. But was it illegal?
The episode, and others like it, speaks to a uniquely American quandary: In states with permissive gun laws, the police and prosecutors have limited tools at their disposal when a heavily armed individual’s mere presence in a public space sows fear or even panic.
The question of how to handle such situations has been raised most often in recent years in the context of political protests, where the open display of weapons has led to concerns about intimidation, the squelching of free speech or worse. But it may become a more frequent subject of debate in the wake of a landmark Supreme Court decision in June, which expanded Americans’ right to arm themselves in public while limiting states’ ability to set their own regulations.
The ruling also affirmed the principle of allowing states and local governments to ban guns in “sensitive places”; as examples, it cited legislative assemblies, polling places and courthouses. But the high court left much open for interpretation. “A wave of litigation is going to confront the courts with questions about what, for example, makes a restriction on guns in schools and government buildings different than in museums or on public transit,” Jacob D. Charles, a professor and gun law expert at Pepperdine Caruso School of Law, wrote in a recent blog post. (...)
John R. Monroe, a defense lawyer and the vice president of a gun-rights group called Georgia Second Amendment, is not involved in Mr. Marley’s case. But from the outside, he said, it seems baseless.
“I mean, all the guy did was be in the store with guns,” he said. “I go into Kroger with a gun, and I don’t expect to be arrested for reckless conduct when I do that. Based on the information from the case, he didn’t do anything that would even remotely constitute reckless conduct. And shame on the state for even prosecuting him for that.” (...)
Mr. Brant also offered an explanation for Mr. Marley’s conduct that day: He had acquired the guns and the body armor, Mr. Brant said, because he had felt threatened by someone in his neighborhood. On the day of his arrest, he had hoped to take his guns to a nearby shooting range but first had to run some errands, which included a stop at the grocery store. (Mr. Marley did not have a car, Mr. Brant said, which is why he was carrying the guns around with him.) While in the Publix men’s room, Mr. Brant said, Mr. Marley had taken out some of the weapons, including the rifle, to clean them after discovering that some guacamole he had bought had caused a mess inside the bag.
Moments earlier, an Instacart delivery driver had alerted a store employee after seeing Mr. Marley in the bathroom, along with the AR-15-style rifle, which was propped against a wall. A grand jury indictment later described what had come next: “panic, terror and the evacuation of the Publix.”
Indeed, Mr. Marley’s arrest kicked off a long and as yet unresolved legal odyssey in which the criminal justice system waffled over what it could charge him with and whether to set him free. Clearly, visiting the grocery store with a trove of guns had frightened people. But was it illegal?
The episode, and others like it, speaks to a uniquely American quandary: In states with permissive gun laws, the police and prosecutors have limited tools at their disposal when a heavily armed individual’s mere presence in a public space sows fear or even panic.
The question of how to handle such situations has been raised most often in recent years in the context of political protests, where the open display of weapons has led to concerns about intimidation, the squelching of free speech or worse. But it may become a more frequent subject of debate in the wake of a landmark Supreme Court decision in June, which expanded Americans’ right to arm themselves in public while limiting states’ ability to set their own regulations.
The ruling also affirmed the principle of allowing states and local governments to ban guns in “sensitive places”; as examples, it cited legislative assemblies, polling places and courthouses. But the high court left much open for interpretation. “A wave of litigation is going to confront the courts with questions about what, for example, makes a restriction on guns in schools and government buildings different than in museums or on public transit,” Jacob D. Charles, a professor and gun law expert at Pepperdine Caruso School of Law, wrote in a recent blog post. (...)
John R. Monroe, a defense lawyer and the vice president of a gun-rights group called Georgia Second Amendment, is not involved in Mr. Marley’s case. But from the outside, he said, it seems baseless.
“I mean, all the guy did was be in the store with guns,” he said. “I go into Kroger with a gun, and I don’t expect to be arrested for reckless conduct when I do that. Based on the information from the case, he didn’t do anything that would even remotely constitute reckless conduct. And shame on the state for even prosecuting him for that.” (...)
Mr. Brant also offered an explanation for Mr. Marley’s conduct that day: He had acquired the guns and the body armor, Mr. Brant said, because he had felt threatened by someone in his neighborhood. On the day of his arrest, he had hoped to take his guns to a nearby shooting range but first had to run some errands, which included a stop at the grocery store. (Mr. Marley did not have a car, Mr. Brant said, which is why he was carrying the guns around with him.) While in the Publix men’s room, Mr. Brant said, Mr. Marley had taken out some of the weapons, including the rifle, to clean them after discovering that some guacamole he had bought had caused a mess inside the bag.
by Richard Fausset, NY Times | Read more:
Image: Dustin Chambers
Image: Dustin Chambers
Monday, January 2, 2023
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