Stream of consciousness
Keep talking, Donald Trump.
“The dream of a nine-year-old boy”
In The New Yorker , Roger Angell writes about the upcoming presidential election.
Good questions
From Mother Jones. I hope that Lester Holt at least comes close to asking some of these questions.
Trump music
Mozart. Mozart?
Mark Penn, “senior strategist”
Oh New York Times, you can be so decorous.
Help wanted
We need Bernie Sanders.
William Weld’s reading
Borges and Nabokov.
And what is ...?
“And what is Aleppo?”
Something phishy
About e-mail, expletive infixation, and my deep and unerasable misgivings about voting for Hillary Clinton.
Other states
In The New York Times , a state-by-state analysis of how many students leave their home states to attend public universities elsewhere.
Teleprompter glitch
On the news, Donald Trump, reading from a teleprompter a few minutes ago.
Reinventing philanthropy
“The president has reinvented philanthropy in this country.”
Recently updated
Stefan Hagemann deconstructs of a Trump-campaign metaphor.
Spinning and pitching
A dubious three-part metaphor to explain why Donald Trump is now on his third campaign manager.
Allegory
Why I will be voting — utterly without enthusiasm — for Hillary Clinton.
Lobby doors
From a New York Times article about money and the Democratic elite.
Awkward metaphor of the day
“She’s straddling both ends of this.”
Stand down, Debbie
Inspiration from The English Beat.
Words and bonds and borrowings
“Your word is your bond”: why aren’t those words a matter of plagiarism?
Orange Crate Art: Lend me your ears passages
Meredith McIver takes credit for plagiarism in Melania Trump’s speech.
Trump’s ghostwriter
He thinks Trump’s a sociopath.
It’s plagiarism
Melania Trump’s speech.
About last night
Our trip to hear our state representative speak on funding for our university turned out to be an interesting waste of time.
Creative accounting
Our representative’s explanation of funding for education.
David Foster Wallace, Pokémon Go, Trump-Pence
Spect-ops and Johnny Gentle.
Boo
“At one point, boos erupted when Sanders told the Democrats ‘the goal is not to win elections,’ but to ‘transform America.’”
Theodor Haecker on tyranny and difficulty
Tyrants always want a language and literature that is easily understood, for nothing so weakens thought; and what they need is an enfeebled thought, for nothing keeps them so firmly in power.
Geoffrey Hill on difficulty and simplification
I think art has a right — not an obligation — to be difficult if it wishes. And, since people generally go on from this to talk about elitism versus democracy, I would add that genuinely difficult art is truly democratic. And that tyranny requires simplification.
“Illinois, Illinois”
The legislature works out a short-term fix at the last minute.
Illinois budget crisis on The Daily Show
Last night The Daily Show had a six-minute story about the Illinois budget crisis. Spoiler alert: there is no happy ending.