First, I have to own up to having been wrong about the establishment media’s reaction to the State of the Union address. Yesterday I wrote: “Words you can expect to read and hear from the establishment: vigorous, assertive, confident, bold, and energetic.”
This morning, the New York Times “Friday Briefing” hit my inbox with this subject line:
Here in Denmark, state-run Danmarks Radio (DR) ran with this:
“USA Correspondent: Biden was in top form last night. Joe Biden delivered an energetic, attacking speech, but gets criticism in some places for being too one-sided.”
Forceful. Top form. Attacking.
Don’t know how I could have been so wrong, but there it is.
I haven’t yet watched the speech, so I’m deliberately trying to ignore reading about it. From the coverage I’ve been unable to avoid, however, it appears to have been a “net zero” speech—by which I mean that it’s unlikely to have attracted support from people who didn’t already support the president or to have cost him the support of anyone who already did.
Sound and fury, I’m guessing, with an emphasis on the latter.
Pride Cometh in for a Fall
Meanwhile, in Denmark, this week has seen a win for the forces of sanity.
The kerfuffle described in last Friday’s Almanac, “Pride and Shamelessness,” has come to a close, and for once the good guys have won—decisively.
Last week’s story was about Copenhagen Pride’s attempt to strongarm their supporters into declaring support for Hamas. Not explicitly, of course, but with a lot of weaselly hints and insinuations culminating in a demand that would-be supporters let the board of Copenhagen Pride know where they stood on the Israel-Hamas conflict. Organizations whose answers were deemed “unsatisfactory” would not be permitted to be Pride sponsors.
There was strong and appropriate pushback from every direction, and Copenhagen Pride has now apologized for having shown the true colors of their rainbow flag.
“We do not ask questions or make demands of our partners about Israel or Palestine, so (the statement) was poorly worded by us. When we mentioned our partners in relation to Israel and Palestine, it was to reassure those who had a concern in that direction that this was of course covered by our practice and ethics policy,” the organization writes.
And to put it plainly:
"Copenhagen Pride does not choose sides in the conflict, and we do not ask our partners to do so either."
Copenhagen Pride reiterates that it is “sincerely sorry” for having cast doubt on its partnerships, and that it will do its utmost to create a renewed trusting collaboration.
The wording of their original statement was not ambiguous or unclear. It wasn’t a poor choice of words but a stupid choice of tactics. Copenhagen Pride overstepped its mandate and tried to bully their supporters into supporting Hamas (or opposing Israel), and, unsurprisingly, they got hammered for it.
What they're sorry for is having been called out for it.
One can hope that just as their attempt to force the issue on supporters was a naked attempt at political bullying by the Marxist left, their retreat represents a victory for the sane majority.
One can hope.
Women and the Law
Today is International Women’s Day. It also happens to be the birthday of Kathy Ireland (born in 1963), who established a career for herself by looking really good when almost naked. Kathy is not the daughter of Patricia Ireland, a former president of the National Organization of Women, because there was already enough irony in the world at the time of Kathy’s birth.
Today is also the birthday of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (born 1845). According to Judge Benjamin N. Cardozo, Holmes once “packed a whole philosophy of legal method into a fragment of a paragraph.” The fragment in question, from The Common Law, is cited below:
The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience. The felt necessities of the time, the prevalent moral and political theories, intuitions of public policy avowed or unconscious, even the prejudices which judges share with their follow-men, have had a great deal more to do than the syllogism in determining the rules by which men should be governed. The law embodies the story of a nation's development through many centuries, and it cannot be dealt with as if it contained only the axioms and corollaries of a book of mathematics.
Which is to say, people write the laws that suit them and cannot be compelled to suit themselves to the law. This is a “whole philosophy of legal method” I can appreciate. It's a legal method with respect for the short attention span, peripatetic morality, and whiplash reversals of public opinion.
It therefore strikes me as extremely dangerous if misunderstood, and therefore extremely likely to be misunderstood. What more could you ask from a whole philosophy of legal method?
(Members of the legal profession need not reply.)
It was on this date in 1950 that the Soviet Union announced that it had possession of the atomic bomb. This baffled the western powers, who were sure they had left it somewhere safe.
But wait, there’s more: this is a weekend almanac, so you get bonus material!
On March 9, 1454, Amerigo Vespucci was born. He was an Italian explorer who made many voyages to the new world at about the same time as Christopher Columbus. The two continents of the new world were therefore named for him, and it wasn't until the seventeenth century (Greenwich time) that North and South Vespucci were renamed.
On March 10, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell conducted the first successful experiment on a radical new technology. He put a “transmitter” in one room of his home and a “receiver” in another. He connected them with wire.
He then shouted into the moutpiece of the transmitter, “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.”
A moment later, his assistant, who had been waiting in the room with the receiver, came into Bell's room and said he had heard and understood everything.
The experiment was a success, and just a few days later Bell received the patent for the worlds first Long-Distance Watson Summonsing Device.
The invention didn't enjoy much commercial success because the market for persons with out-of-earshot assistants named Watson was not as large as Bell had hoped, but it did serve as a major stepping-stone to one of Bell's most significant inventions, the Watson Detonator.
Kathy Ireland and Justice Holmes share their March 8 birthdays with Freddie Prinze, Jr. (1976), Aidan Quinn (1959), Monkee Mickey Dolenz (1945), Lynn Redgrave (1943), and Cyd Charisse (1923).
March 9 is the birthday of Emmanuel Lewis (1971), Bobby Fischer (1943), Raul Julia (1940), Yuri Gagarin (1934), Irene Papas (1926), and Mickey Spillane (1918).
March 10 is the birthday of actress Sharon Stone (1958) and Kim Campbell (1947), the first female prime minister of Canada. They share their birthday with Chuck Norris (1940), James Earl Ray (1928), Pamela Mason (1918), and Bix Beiderbecke (1903).
Today is International Women’s Day, and it would be misogynistic to have any other holidays today.
March 9 is Baron Bliss Day in Belize, Labor Day in Australia, and Provincial Anniversary in New Zealand.
March 10 is Székely Freedom Day in Romania and Holocaust Remembrance Day in Bulgaria. It’s also Tibetan Uprising Day and World Mario Day.
Click the Mickey Dolenz link and enjoy the weekend!
(And if you’re American, remember to set your clocks ahead Saturday night or Sunday morning.)
© 2024, The Moron’s Almanac