News, Notes, and Notions for 30Jun2024
Ghosts on film, latest from Heard Tell and my writing, plus things worth reading, watching, and listening to from the week that was heading into 4th of July holiday
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I am always immediately drawn into old “action” photographs where the exposure and technology limits of the day blurred the movement of the people and places being photographed. Old photos are powerfully nostalgic, a pull that is added to as photographs have succumbed to the smart phone and Instagram era. More and more folks see their old memories as Facebook reminders than from the archival-like stacks of photo albums the previous generations maintained.
Up Yonder, my mother has constantly reminded me about caring for her photo albums. Several bookcases worth of them. My own life from birth until my early 20s having an album per year, give or take, as do most of my children - her grandchildren- being similarly organized. Living in the center of our family, near the gathering place, in my grandmother's old house, also means a trove of photos from generations past, going back to when the first photographers ventured with their new fangled inventions into the hills of West Virginia in the first place.
I never grow tired of looking at those old photographs. The monochrome older ones especially. My imagination just grabs those blurry images of a person going about their daily routine utterly unaware that someone generations removed from their lives is peeking in on them. Ghosts of the past, not meaning in the moment to be anything other than about their business, recorded for all time. The nostalgic pull of their hustle and bustle, knowing they are long gone from this mortal life, is the stuff poets and preachers spend lifetimes explaining.
Blurry ghosts, fascinating phantasms moving hither and yon but frozen in place, the products of light exposure and limited technology. I don’t believe in ghosts at all. I’m with Thomas Harris, who ended Red Dragon with one of the greatest lines I’ve ever read, combining a legendary battlefield with the mind of mankind he so expertly delved into to make a hammer blow of reality: Shiloh isn't haunted – men are haunted. Shiloh doesn't care.
I doubt old Twitter feeds and TikToks will hold the same nostalgia for the future generations that old photographs hold for the previous ones. Outside of the fascination as to why clicking on the image won’t make it play the video, that is. The ongoing debate over digital rot, and how so much data from the first 30 years of widespread internet is already lost with more to follow. Maybe Facebook endures long enough to remind folks of their memories from 40, 50, 60 years ago. No doubt those memories will bring the feels.
Not sure that’s the same as our ghosts of refracted light, from old faded photographs made by cameras not really made to capture movement. Film not made to keep up with real life as it was happening. Photographers trained for posing portraits not life at real time speed. Equipment that was never meant to do what they were trying to do with it.
But they did it anyway, and the imperfection of those limits created images that grab the mind in ways perfection never could. Those poets and preachers can have a fine debate which is more real: the perfect or the imperfect. Both are preferable to not having any reminder at all. Like all ghosts, we are just really seeing something of ourselves, through a glass - or image - darkly.
From Heard Tell:
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Your Heard Tell Show is turning down the noise of the news cycle and getting to the information we need to discern our times by going beyond the headlines of what Vladimir Putin and Russia are doing in the world and examining how they help fund everything from the invasion of Ukraine, destruction in Syria, power projection elsewhere, and more. Our friend David Clement returns to Heard Tell as one member of the team of experts that put together The Blood Gold Report: How the Kremlin is using Wagner to launder billions in African gold to talk the network of front companies, mercenaries, strongman regimes, friendly governments, and exploited African peoples that funnel billions of dollars from central Africa to the coffers of the Putin dictatorship. Providing background on what and where Wagner group came from, how the world didn't learn the lessons of Russia in Syria, and the spread of Russian influence and power in Africa gives a better perspective on the event in Russia, Ukraine, and elsewhere. Plus, David explains the usefulness and limits of sanctions, and other methods that might be used to deal with the Blood Gold issue economically, as a geo-political problem, and as the humanitarian disaster Russia is causing.
All that and more on this episode of Heard Tell.
My Writing This Week:
My thoughts on the presidential debate at Ordinary Times:
It’ll be a few days before polls on this debate come out, just in time for Trump’s sentencing to hit and require all new polling again, but I suspect Trump will gain some ground here. That’s not really the problem Joe Biden has though. The problem President Biden’s team might not have an answer for is he is losing ground, and the stupidly labeled “double haters” the politicos are obsessing over are more likely than ever to split ticket vote, leave the top of the ballot blank or go with a protest candidate, or just stay home. This kind of debate between unable to perform Joe Biden and performative, cascading lies in Donald Trump might be driving down election participation more than it moves actual support.
Maybe Joe Biden once again proves everyone, and especially, me wrong. Maybe he has another comeback in him. But every time I see Joe Biden on my screen from now on, I’ll be clenching my teeth not really wanting to watch it, waiting for another moment where you want to reach through the tv and stop the embarrassing display of our president unable to form cognitive sentences. That’s a feeling that goes far beyond politics, that I never want to feel again, never want to see on my screen again, never want Joe Biden the man to go through again, never want to see my president look like to the world again.
And I suspect I am not alone.
The ruling came out the next day, so it didn’t get the run that the Dobbs leak did, but yet another Supreme Court internal mess up:
After the Dobbs debacle, which wasn’t the first ever leak by the Court but was certainly the most impactful and glaring of at least the modern era, you’d think every level of process would have been double checked for minor things like – and I’m just spitballing here – not posting internal documents on rulings on a public website. While the Court has taken some baby steps into the modern era with technology such as allowing audio of arguments, clearly the internal machinations of the Court need some work.
Most of the discourse over “legitimacy of the Supreme Court” is political in nature and more about driving content of the moment than judicial review. But leaks in major cases, especially abortion cases which are some of the most politically and emotionally charged while dealing with the most private and sensitive of issues, really does do damage beyond just perception and optics. A high court that can’t route documents and deliberate internally without issue begs questioning of everything it does. And rightly so.
The Supreme Court, by design, is nigh untouchable by most things; but self-inflicted wounds upon the Court by the Court itself is not something that can be covered for. It has to be fixed. And the Supreme Court of the United States better fix whatever is going on inside those walls that is allowing such things to happen.
Me Talking, But On Other People’s Podcast:
We recorded this BEFORE the debate so see how our predictions held up (spoiler, not great as we didn’t see the full blown Biden meltdown coming, but some other things held up like Trump being - surprising - relatively on track by his standards.
Andrew Donaldson joined Brady to preview tomorrow night's presidential debate and check in on the state of the race, the identity crisis facing both major parties, Jamaal Bowman's primary defeat, and much more.
Worth Watching:
Erik Kain not only reviews Kevin Costner’s new western, but talks about watching this latest version of a Western with a split audience that was “at least half native American” and the good and bad of getting “yarn without getting the full sweater.”
Worth Reading:
Our friend Merrie Soltis uses her fear of snakes to explain politics:
Americans have grown lazy about our political system just like my former neighbors grew lazy about their yard maintenance, and for the same reason. It’s hard work! Only about 20 percent of us vote in either party’s primary, and then we wonder every November why we only have snakes and rats to choose from! The people with agendas are willing to put in the work. Those with massive egos who seek the spotlight and a position of power are drawn to it like those copperheads to the ivy. It’s the perfect hunting ground! Those with a financial stake in the outcome will absolutely put in the time and the resources. Local developers poured millions of dollars into a referendum on cityhood to stop rezoning efforts. One issue voters, who put all other considerations aside just as long as they get their way on abortion, have staked out their territory in each party to the detriment of everything else. The two parties have collaborated to keep everyone else out of their ecosystem. And they keep all their supporters in line by stoking fear of the OTHER side.
It's actually pretty easy to keep snakes out of your yard. You just have to dry up their food source. Cut your grass. Weed your garden. Don’t let areas become overgrown. Don’t plant anything invasive that’s going to overrun your healthy yard. If you’ve failed to do that, your job just got much harder. You can try spraying it with weed killer, but the weeds eventually become immune. You have to rip out all that ivy by the root, which is not easy. You have to cut it away from the trees, and you have to stay vigilant so that it doesn’t grow back.
Cleaning up our political process will be even harder. There’s a saying on the right: “This is how you got Trump.” The truth is, we got careless. We were more focused on “winning” than we were on what we wanted to accomplish if we won. A bunch of rats kind of took over the place. They kept making promises they had no intention of delivering on. In fact, they knew that if they DID deliver on those promises, the effects would be devastating. So, they lied. Instead of being leaders and explaining why some of these policies (like a total ban on abortion or deporting millions of people) would be bad, they continued to claim they would do these things if ONLY they could win the next election! Or the one after that. Or if they had a larger majority. Or more seats on the Supreme Court. Until finally, a whole bunch of their voters got tired of the pandering and decided that what they really needed was a really big snake to clean house. So, they found one (it was always there so they didn’t have to look hard). A big orange one. Some of the rats hightailed it out of there. But a lot of them made friends with the big snake, convinced that he won’t eat THEM, despite the snake bragging repeatedly about doing just that. A few people actually WANT the snake. They want to wear it around their necks just to gross out people whom they don’t like. Most of those tolerating it would rather call in the reptile removers, but then the rodents would multiply unchecked and that would be worse.
In West Virginia news, I’ve tried to explain to folks how Gov. Jim Justice’s Babydog is the greatest political weapon in the state since A. James Manchin’s suits, and now the bulldog is enshrined in the State Capitol building. Amelia Knisely and Caity Coyne explain:
While Justice owns multiple dogs, Babydog serves as his constant companion as well as a political prop.
She appears regularly beside him, often seated in a wagon or camping chair, at both campaign events and gubernatorial addresses. Her likeness was used for a massive $23 million COVID-19 vaccination campaign, dubbed “Do It for Babydog,” where residents who received vaccines were entered into sweepstakes to win anything from cash to guns to trucks.
That campaign — and the Justice Administration — later came under federal investigation and criticism for the use of taxpayer dollars to buy the prizes from private businesses. Justice vehemently denied any wrongdoing in the sweepstakes.
The bulldog has also been used by the governor to lobby for and against different political moves, including in 2022 when he took her on a statewide tour to lobby against Amendment 2, a constitutional amendment up for vote that would have, if passed, allowed the Legislature to eliminate certain personal property taxes. In the lead up to voters failing the constitutional amendment, Babydog, in events and meetings across the state, gave a “paws down” to the proposal.
In Kanawha County, as she sat adorned in a crown less than two weeks before the election, commissioners passed a resolution declaring her an “official search and rescue first responder” for “seeking the truth” about Amendment 2.
During campaigns for office, candidates statewide have boasted getting Babydog’s endorsement for their runs.
Outside of politics, she’s the inspiration for and face of the Babydog Boutique shop at The Greenbrier resort, which is owned by Justice, where visitors can buy gourmet dog treats, toys and more.
Justice’s campaign store for his current U.S. Senate run includes bumper stickers, mugs, T-shirts and more with her face and name.
Perhaps the dog’s most notorious moment came during Justice’s 2022 State of the State speech, when the governor flashed her rear to the crowd and cameras with the message “Kiss her heinie.” The move was his response to a social media post from singer and actress Bette Middler, who had called West Virginians “poor, illiterate and strung out.’
‘A clear misuse of taxpayer dollars’
All changes to the Capitol, built in 1932, must be approved by the Capitol Building Commission. Reid-Smith serves as chairman of that commission. The decision to pay for and install the murals was voted on by the commission more than a decade ago, according to Reid-Smith.
More recently, Reid-Smith said the mural scene installed featuring Babydog’s likeness was approved by himself, state Museums Director Charles Morris, Deputy Chief of Staff Ann Urling, Administration Secretary Mark Scott and Director of Intergovernmental Affairs Rebecca Blaine instead of an official state commission.