A hot August

Updates

    1. Originally published, August 7, 12:59 am.
    2. August 8, 7:28 am:
      • Obviously, the Statue of Liberty is just a European plot.[1] (Legal immigration)
      • The article is long. Gawd, it is long. It rambles. Gawd, it rambles. It whines. Gawd, it whines. And it seems like there’s a fucking ad after every god-damned paragraph. But if you want to see what I’m up against when I drive for Uber and Lyft, you could do a lot worse than this article by Ryan Felton. One thing to notice: We see no defense here of how Uber and Lyft treat their drivers; the companies defend themselves by threatening a return to having to stand on a corner to hail a cab.[2] (Ridesharing)
    3. August 8, 8:20 pm:
      • New York City responded to the conditions described by Ryan Felton (see update at August 8, 7:28 am) by passing a temporary cap on the number of Ridesharing vehicles in the city and clearing the way to a minimum wage.[3]
      • I am not caught up.
    4. August 8, 10:30 pm:
      • Added Corte Madera sunset photograph under California wildfires.
      • Added a cute photograph (figure 5) from the Atlantic. Scroll all the way down to see it.
      • I am now caught up.
    5. August 9, 8:42 pm:
      • Added another smoky sunset photograph (figure 2) and two screenshots showing 1) the location of burned areas in the Mendocino Complex fire (figure 3) and 2) a zoomed out version that includes the Carr fire (figure 4) under California wildfires.
    6. August 9, 11:46 pm:
      • The Trump administration attempted to deport a mother and daughter even as a court hearing appealing that deportation was under way. The judge was not amused.[4] (Unauthorized migration)

Donald Trump

It should be no surprise to anyone who read Susan McWilliams’ review of Hunter S. Thompson[5] that bikers at a rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, support Donald Trump, even at the expense of their favorite brands of motorcycles.[6] Nor should it surprise anyone that these bikers are pretty well off.[7] Nor should we be surprised that there is a tyranny of the masses at this rally against dissenting views because those masses of asses supporting Trump “often decline to interpret political conflict as a struggle among interest groups or a good-faith clash of opinion.” Instead, just as Kim Messick observed of authoritarian populists he encountered a few years ago, “they tend to identify the country as a whole with an idealized version of themselves, and to equate any dissent from their values with disloyalty by alien, ‘un-American’ forces.”[8] Still, it’s confirmation of a particular picture I’ve been putting together.[9]

Bill Weir, “Bikers salute leader of their pack: Donald Trump,” CNN, August 6, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/05/politics/sturgis-biker-rally-supports-trump/index.html


James Comey

For those of us, including me, too young to remember all the sordid details, William D. Ruckelshaus was the deputy attorney general whom Richard Nixon fired in the infamous “Saturday Night Massacre, Nixon’s attempt to stop a special prosecutor’s investigation.[10]

William D. Ruckelshaus, “Only one other president has ever acted this desperate,” Washington Post, August 6, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/opinions/only-one-other-president-has-ever-acted-this-desperate/2018/08/06/7eed964e-9994-11e8-b55e-5002300ef004_story.html


California wildfires

Fig. 1. Sunset in Corte Madera, August 8, 2018. Mount Tamalpais is at left. The sky is smoky from numerous wildfires burning in Northern California.
Fig. 2. This is along Highway 116, west of Cotati, looking west towards Stony Point Road, August 9, 2018. The marine layer (fog) can be seen intruding at left. The onshore flow that brings that layer likely accounts for the thin appearance of blue sky between it and the smoky rest of the sky.
Fig. 3. This is a screenshot, taken August 9, 2018, at 5:34 pm, from a Google foundation map showing both the extent of the Mendocino Complex fire and its location relative to landmarks that may be familiar.
Fig. 4. This screenshot, taken August 9, 2018, at 8:27 pm, is zoomed out to include the Carr fire near Redding and a bit more of the coast as a reference. San Francisco is off the map, along the coast to the south. I live near Sebastopol, which is west of Santa Rosa, near the bottom extent of the map.

Paige St. John, Alene Tchekmedyian, and Rong-Gong Lin, II, “Mendocino Complex fire racing at unprecedented speed into the record books,” Los Angeles Times, August 6, 2018, http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-california-wildfires-danger-level-20180806-story.html


Ridesharing

Ryan Felton, “How New York Became the Center of the Fight Against Uber and the Gig Economy Lie,” Jalopnik, August 7, 2018, https://jalopnik.com/how-new-york-became-the-center-of-the-fight-against-ube-1827871915

Ryan Felton, “NYC Becomes First Major City to Cap Uber Cars and Can Set Minimum Wage for Drivers,” Jalopnik, August 8, 2018, https://jalopnik.com/nyc-becomes-first-major-city-to-cap-uber-cars-and-can-s-1828201521


Legal immigration

Chris Sommerfeldt, “Trump administration reportedly plans to limit citizenship for millions of legal immigrants, outraging advocates,” New York Daily News, August 7, 2018, http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-news-advocates-trump-citizenship-immigrants-20180807-story.html


Unauthorized migration

Arelis R. Hernández, “Judge halts mother-daughter deportation, threatens to hold Sessions in contempt,” Washington Post, August 9, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/immigration/judge-halts-mother-daughter-deportation-threatens-to-hold-sessions-in-contempt/2018/08/09/a23a0580-9bd6-11e8-8d5e-c6c594024954_story.html


International Cat Day

Yeah, I miss having a cat. This photograph is just a little bit older than I am. I found it in the Atlantic in their International Cat Day collection.

Fig. 5. Quoting from the Atlantic, where I found this: “The original photo caption from March 23, 1959: ‘Hep cat. A real live kitten on the keys, this music-loving feline lends vocal accompaniment to his mistress in Worcester Park, England. As Marion Holland 15, plays the piano, Money the cat joins in the singing.’”

  1. [1]Chris Sommerfeldt, “Trump administration reportedly plans to limit citizenship for millions of legal immigrants, outraging advocates,” New York Daily News, August 7, 2018, http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-news-advocates-trump-citizenship-immigrants-20180807-story.html
  2. [2]Ryan Felton, “How New York Became the Center of the Fight Against Uber and the Gig Economy Lie,” Jalopnik, August 7, 2018, https://jalopnik.com/how-new-york-became-the-center-of-the-fight-against-ube-1827871915
  3. [3]Ryan Felton, “NYC Becomes First Major City to Cap Uber Cars and Can Set Minimum Wage for Drivers,” Jalopnik, August 8, 2018, https://jalopnik.com/nyc-becomes-first-major-city-to-cap-uber-cars-and-can-s-1828201521
  4. [4]Arelis R. Hernández, “Judge halts mother-daughter deportation, threatens to hold Sessions in contempt,” Washington Post, August 9, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/immigration/judge-halts-mother-daughter-deportation-threatens-to-hold-sessions-in-contempt/2018/08/09/a23a0580-9bd6-11e8-8d5e-c6c594024954_story.html
  5. [5]Susan McWilliams, “This Political Theorist Predicted the Rise of Trumpism. His Name Was Hunter S. Thompson,” review of Hell’s Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs, by Hunter S. Thompson, Nation, December 15, 2016, https://www.thenation.com/article/this-political-theorist-predicted-the-rise-of-trumpism-his-name-was-hunter-s-thompson/
  6. [6]Bill Weir, “Bikers salute leader of their pack: Donald Trump,” CNN, August 6, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/05/politics/sturgis-biker-rally-supports-trump/index.html
  7. [7]Diana C. Mutz, “Status threat, not economic hardship, explains the 2016 presidential vote,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, April 23, 2018, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1718155115
  8. [8]Kim Messick, “Modern GOP is still the party of Dixie,” Salon, October 12, 2013, http://www.salon.com/2013/10/12/modern_gop_is_still_the_party_of_dixie/
  9. [9]David Benfell, “Conservative Views on Undocumented Migration” (doctoral dissertation, Saybrook, 2016). ProQuest (1765416126); David Benfell, “How Donald Trump captured the Republican Party,” Not Housebroken, July 1, 2018, https://disunitedstates.org/2018/07/01/how-donald-trump-captured-the-republican-party/
  10. [10]William D. Ruckelshaus, “Only one other president has ever acted this desperate,” Washington Post, August 6, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/opinions/only-one-other-president-has-ever-acted-this-desperate/2018/08/06/7eed964e-9994-11e8-b55e-5002300ef004_story.html

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