In a two-minute video released by the Biden Inaugural Committee yesterday, the Oscar-winning actor narrates the accomplishments of the Biden administration in its inaugural year — pointing to the distribution of vaccines and that “shops and businesses are buzzing again all over the country.”
Here's the new video, which I clicked off — muttering "Oh, jeez" — at the 3-second mark:
I'm going to try again to watch it, for the sake of this post, but I'm going to publish first, because I don't know how many on-and-off clickings it will take for me to reach the end.
ADDED: Okay. I've finished. It was long, but it mainly said we're dealing with Covid and the economy is coming back. It would have worked just as well as a Trump ad. Maybe the Democrats realize they need to squirrel away the divisive issues.
The history of polka dots. This is the article I want to read. I feel some pressure to write about Biden's 2-hour news conference yesterday, which I watched, but I'm loath to blog it without a complete transcript. I have seen the "5 takeaways" pieces and the "utter disaster!!!" stuff, and it's propaganda on top of propaganda. Until I find a transcript, I'm holding off, I'm in the ellipsis... and therefore: polka dots!
Haramis writes delightfully:
Though a staple of Central European folk art, and named for a dance popularized in mid-19th-century Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic), polka dots have played an outsize role in defining America’s national identity over the past century. For a country constitutionally preoccupied with happiness, the print has proved a useful and recurring signifier of optimism, especially when it seems furthest from reach. Polka dots are the uniform of the ever-perky Minnie Mouse, and of a relentlessly high-spirited Shirley Temple in 1934’s “Stand Up and Cheer!,” released in the midst of the Great Depression. During World War II, when Westinghouse Electric produced a poster to boost the morale of female workers, it depicted a factory employee with her hair wrapped in a red polka-dot scarf, ready to get the job done. (The refined New Look — rounded shoulders, cinched waist, billowing skirt — that Christian Dior developed in the postwar years was in many ways an expression of European distaste for Rosie the Riveter’s earnest vigor.) By the 1950s, polka dots had come to symbolize, for better or worse, the dogged cheer of midcentury America. Marilyn Monroe and Lucille Ball wore the print with such frequency that it became the visual equivalent of apple pie — comforting but predictable — and in Billy Wilder’s 1961 political satire, “One, Two, Three,” East German Stasi officers torment a suspected spy by playing, on repeat, a caterwauling version of the 1960 Brian Hyland song “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini.” Too much of a good thing can be wonderful; it can also be torture.
Ha ha. I remember when that song came out. There were so many novelty songs at the time, and they were wonderful to me when I was 9. As for bikinis, though they were very controversial until the 1970s, they'd been around since 1946, when the designer named them after the atomic bomb test that had just taken place on the Bikini Atoll. And that drags me back into contemplating Biden's new conference, in which I believe he advised Putin that the only way for him to succeed in Ukraine would be to use nuclear weapons. I need the transcript....
Here's the Wikipedia article on polka dots, where, among other things, I learned about Polka Dot Man and the fact that because the dots on his costume are different sizes and colors, they are not actual polka dots:
Apparently, Polka Dot Man can peel off those dots and turn them into useful weaponry. He looks a little like Biden, don't you think? That smile! Those eyes... speaking of dots....
ADDED: 2 years before "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini," there was that other novelty song about skimpy clothing for women, "Short Shorts." On the piano, that's Bob Gaudio, who co-wrote the song and went on to co-write all the most famous Four Seasons songs:
And as long as I'm extending this post with extra video of songs about wild things women are wearing, here's the most famous number from "The Gang's All Here," "The Lady In The Tutti Frutti Hat":
That moved the classy critic James Agee to write: "There is one routine with giant papier-mache bananas, cutting to thighs, then feet, then rows of toes, which deserves to survive in every casebook of blatant film surreptition for the next century." And here we are in the next century, talking about it.
AND: From the OED entry for "polka dot":
1966 Mrs. L. B. JohnsonWhite House Diary3 Apr. (1970) 382 A young newspaper-woman in a black-and-whitepolka-dotbikini, with a figure to suit it....
1957 V. NabokovPninvi. 138 Amber-brown Monarch butterflies flapped.., their incompletely retracted black legs hanging rather low beneath theirpolka-dottedbodies.
1996 EsquireJune 38 A model whosenom de spumewas Big Ginger bobbed her lush mangoes perkily against herpolka-dottedbikini top.
"We want the president to rise above it and be an inspirational figure. We don’t want the incremental updates of his negotiations with Joe Manchin. We want to see Covid under control. We want to see the sacred right to vote protected. We want the grocery shelves stocked with affordable milk and meat. We want a president who tells us that we will get through this and we will be stronger for it."
Writes Maureen Dowd in her new column, and she sounds just as "lost in the snows of yesteryear" if she thinks Biden telling us "we will get through this and we will be stronger" would be anything at all at this point.
As for "the snows of yesteryear" — here's the old poem you may — like me — remember from high school French class. It's about women.
Relive the good times — replete with Bruce Springsteen soundtrack:
To be fair, we really have conquered cancer in the sense that when you think about what disease is really bothering you, you don't go straight for "Cancer!" anymore.
"But that narrative hasn’t reflected her strategy. She has closely aligned herself with Biden, campaigned to be his running-mate and launched her bid [for governor] with a promise to back the president’s agenda.... While Georgia Democrats typically celebrate a Democratic president’s visit to the state, Biden’s trip was met with complaints from activists and party officials. Some grumbled about the lack of coordination with local Democratic leaders and the timing of an event scheduled a day after Georgia played in the college football championship game in Indianapolis. Others questioned why Biden didn’t hold a fundraiser for Georgia candidates during his trip and lamented that Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris made the trip at all given that the Democratic U.S. senators who needed to be convinced to relax filibuster rules were in Washington."
Here's the transcript of the event, with the text of the speeches given by Biden and Harris. Did anyone even mention the glorious victory of Georgia's football team the day before? A tremendously uplifting event had occurred. It wasn't political. It was special to Georgia.
But the Washingtonians descended upon the state with dramatic, racialized negativity. They insisted on setting the tone, their tone, and it wasn't jubilation. And not one speaker mentioned football. How could they? It would spoil their message of joylessness. It would offer discordant evidence that Americans can come together, and life isn't all about politics.
Said Amy Klobuchar, who says she called Biden on Wednesday to tell him she was withdrawing from competition for the VP slot, NBC News reports.
I think we all already knew her chance was blown:
In the immediate aftermath of Floyd’s killing, Klobuchar’s time as chief prosecutor for Hennepin County came back under scrutiny, specifically the lack of prosecutions she pursued in cases of police brutality....
Asked if those questions about her past record on police brutality would have made it harder for her in the role of vice presidential nominee, Klobuchar said Thursday: "I think I could've functioned fine and there's a lot of untruths out there about my record and now is not the time to debate those."
So what I hear in her effort at a high-minded statement is an undercutting of the other women who are in the running. First, Elizabeth Warren — who is not a woman of color except in her memory of younger days when family lore and a desire to identify were enough. Why step on her chances, Amy? Second, all the various black women who are in the running. Amy is ensuring that when one of them is picked, everyone will believe they were picked because of their race.
"The Massachusetts senator had her own moniker in mind. 'I was going to say I’m here today as an ally, but can we really just say co-conspirator?' laughed Warren, one of the few white women to appear at the events organized by Higher Heights For America, which promotes the organizing and voting power of black women. 'Nothing’s going to change unless it is black women’s voices that are uplifted.' Such overtures could help Warren’s bid to become Joe Biden’s running mate. The presumptive Democratic nominee is under mounting pressure to pick a black woman in the wake of recent outrage over racial injustice and police brutality. But some black leaders say Warren’s progressive politics, economic populism and specific policy proposals addressing everything from maternal mortality to the coronavirus could put her in a strong position. 'I think she’s totally still viable,' said Nelini Stamp, director of strategy and partnerships for the Working Families Party, a progressive labor activist group that endorsed Warren in the primary. 'Warren is one of the folks whose been talking about big structural change. And when we’re thinking about re-imagining public safety, that is something that’s going to require some actual structural change.'"
"... mental acuity and physical health have become a central theme as the 77-year-old Biden and the 74-year-old Trump compete for votes. While previous presidential contests have included whisper campaigns and rumors about candidates’ health, the open charges of senility flying between the two camps sets the 2020 contest apart.... As the video of Trump on the ramp trended online Saturday, the president took to Twitter to explain his cautious stroll. 'The ramp that I descended after my West Point Commencement speech was very long & steep, had no handrail and, most importantly, was very slippery...'... 'I honestly don’t think he knows what office he’s running for,' Trump said.... 'They’re going to put him in a home and other people are going to be running the country and they’re going to be super left radical crazies.'... A Washington Post-ABC News poll released May 31... found that only 46 percent of voters thought Trump had the 'mental sharpness' necessary to serve effectively as president. For Biden, the number was 51 percent.... Some Biden supporters have pushed him to take Trump on more directly and more aggressively on the issue of mental and physical fitness. Some have highlighted how Trump effectively raised doubts about Hillary Clinton’s health in 2016. Philippe Reines, a former top Clinton adviser... publicly pleaded... 'PLEASE force the TRUTH about donald trump’s physical & cognitive health into the open... BEFORE his LIES about YOUR health harden any further.'"
I'm worried about both of them, so I'm creating a tag — "candidate infirmity" — to keep track of them. That's my absurd little way to help — make a tag about it. I dislike both candidates. Maybe you've noticed. Ever since Trump's West Point ramp descent down that ramp...
... I've visualized him taking the off ramp from the presidency and letting Pence go forward into the election. I can't believe we're left with the choice of Trump or Biden.
ADDED: Presidential visits are carefully set up, with the safety of the President meticulously attended to. How could they have provided him with a long, steep, slippery ramp?! That makes no sense.
"He hears and shares the deep grief and frustration of those calling out for change, and is driven to ensure that justice is done and that we put a stop to this terrible pain. Biden supports the urgent need for reform — including funding for public schools, summer programs, and mental health and substance abuse treatment separate from funding for policing — so that officers can focus on the job of policing...."
Has Biden himself come forward to speak to reporters? I'd like to see him do that and to face aggressive questioning on the subject — as aggressive as the questioning reporters use on Trump.
It's irritating to get the message from a campaign spokesman, and I really dislike the preface "As his criminal justice proposal made clear months ago." So much has happened in the last 2 weeks, and Biden should make a show of caring about the new push for dismantling the police. To say, we already talked about this months ago sounds a bit callous toward the people who are demanding very strong measures like abolishing the police and unresponsive to those of us who are anxious about these extreme demands.
"... That makes messaging to large groups of students at once trickier, and Democrats are making plans to be as present as possible on the virtual versions of those quads and dorms: 'There are so many campus-based meme pages where you can spread content dedicated to people usually on those campuses,' he said. He cited the University of Wisconsin at Madison as an example: The 'UW-Madison Memes for Milk-Chugging Teens' Facebook group has nearly 28,000 members; the school has around 32,000 undergraduates. Meanwhile, the Biden camp itself has so far been tentative about its digital outreach to young voters, wary of looking like it’s pandering and conscious of the need to target its messaging to relevant media.... Biden himself has stepped only gingerly into such targeted outreach.... Internally, Biden’s senior aides have been vetting possible appearances and content by asking if it will be a chance to focus on the message of decency, empathy, and connection to real people, which they believe are the former VP’s best attributes to communicate online...."
“Instead of focusing on her account, instead of focusing on her story as a survivor, people are fast forwarding to the political implications,” she said. “‘Do you want Trump to win? Will you be voting for Joe Biden?’ And that denies justice in this situation.”
She's right about that.
Ocasio-Cortez says she will vote for Biden for president but has so far declined to endorse him. An endorsement, she says, “has to do with an understanding of what we are fighting for together.”
“I think an endorsement means we have come to a place where we have come to a place where we have developed a vision together not just for winning [in November] but for getting our country to a better place.”
Nice to see somebody in that party preserving her credibility.
AND: Don't you want to come to a place where we have come to a place where we can see how to get to a better place?
"Possibly because the system for lodging it was opaque and challenging for accusers. Reade, a onetime Biden staffer, says she filed a complaint against him in 1993 when he was in his fourth term in the Senate representing Delaware. The process would have subjected her to a system that did little to protect Capitol Hill staffers from retribution and offered little recourse if they were not satisfied with the outcome. It would take a 1995 overhaul of congressional personnel laws to bring Congress in line with federal labor and anti-discrimination laws. Even almost 30 years later, the alleged complaint — the secretary of the Senate won’t even confirm or deny whether there is one — may never be released because of strict disclosure rules.... Four in 10 women who responded to a 2016 CQ Roll Call survey of congressional staff said they believed sexual harassment was a problem on Capitol Hill, while one in six said they personally had been victimized. 'Unfortunately, due to the system that Congress created to protect itself from being exposed, there has been no accountability,' [said Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif.]. Between 1997 and 2014, the U.S. Treasury paid $15.2 million in taxpayer dollars toward 235 awards and settlements for Capitol Hill workplace violations...."
"The party’s younger voters and women are less likely to view Biden’s denial as credible than older or male Democrats. 38% of all voters say elected officials should resign when facing credible accusations of sexual misconduct, down 18 points since late 2017."
