Speaking of Which

Blog link.

Music Week

Expanded blog post, March archive (in progress).

Tweet: Music Week: 32 albums, 8 A-list

Music: Current count 42039 [42007] rated (+32), 31 [28] unrated (+3).

Speaking of Which ran over again. I posted what I had late Sunday night (227 links, 9825 words; the former possibly a record, the latter well above usual but less than 10883 for the week of March 3. (Updated tally: 259 links, 11559 words, so may very well be the biggest one ever.)

I got this started early Monday afternoon, but probably won't post until late, not so much because I expect this to take much as because I'd rather spend the time cleaning up Speaking of Which. I'm under no delusions that what I say here will make any difference to the world, but times like these need witnesses. And that is the one thing I can still offer.

Not a lot of albums this week -- played a lot of old stuff again -- but I'm fairly pleased with the finds this week, including some jazz artists not previously on my radar (Espen Berg, Roby Glod, Nicole McCabe) and a couple old-timers who returned to form with their best releases in years (Kahil El'Zabar, Charles Lloyd). I'll also note that results flipped expectations for two much-hyped reissues (Joe Henderson, Alice Coltrane).

Very little non-jazz this week, especially if you count Queen Esther as jazz (which you should for her better releases below, but not for the still-recommended Gild the Black Lily). Tierra Whack came from Robert Christgau's latest Consumer Guide. I should replay the records he liked better than I did -- Yard Act, Les Amazones d'Afrique, the Guy Davis I reviewed shortly after it came out in 2021. Most other records I have similar grades for (the three I mentioned I'm just one or two notches down on), leaving unheard the Queen compilation and a Thomas Anderson album that isn't streamable yet. By the way, Christgau skipped over Anderson's recent odds & sods set, The Debris Field (Lo-Fi Flotsam and Ragged Recriminations, 2000-2021), which I gave an A- to in my review.

Unpacking below does not include Monday's haul, which looks to be substantial. Most promising among the new releases is Dave Douglas with James Brandon Lewis, but note also a new album with Kevin Sun as Mute. Plus a lot of vault discoveries: Chet Baker/Jack Sheldon, Yusef Lateef, Sun Ra, Art Tatum, Mal Waldron/Steve Lacy, in addition to the Sonny Rollins already uwrapped.

New records reviewed this week:

• Espen Berg: Water Fabric (2023, Odin): [sp]: A-
• Espen Berg: The Hamar Concert (2022 [2023], NXN): [sp]: B+(**)
• Kahil El'Zabar's Ethnic Heritage Ensemble: Open Me, a Higher Consciousness of Sound and Spirit (2023 [2024], Spiritmuse): [sp]: A-
• Romy Glod/Christian Ramond/Klaus Kugel: No ToXiC (2022 [2024], Nemu): [cd]: A-
• Julian Lage: Speak to Me (2024, Blue Note): [sp]: B+(*)
• Remy Le Boeuf's Assembly of Shadows: Heartland Radio (2023 [2024], SoundSpore): [cd]: B
• David Leon: Bird's Eye (2022 [2024], Pyroclastic): [cd]: B+(**)
• Charles Lloyd: The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow (2024, Blue Note): [sp]: A-
• Nicole McCabe: Live at Jamboree (2023 [2024], Fresh Sound): [sp]: B+(***)
• Moor Mother: The Great Bailout (2024, Anti-): [sp]: B+(*)
• Willie Morris: Conversation Starter (2022 [2023], Posi-Tone): [sp]: B+(**)
• Willie Morris: Attentive Listening (2023 [2024], Posi-Tone): [sp]: B+(*)
• Kjetil Mulelid: Agoja (2022 [2024], Odin): [sp]: B+(**)
• Queen Esther: Things Are Looking Up (2024, EL): [cd]: A- [04-09]
• Queen Esther: Rona (2023, EL): [sp]: B+(*)
• Ron Rieder: Latin Jazz Sessions (2023 [2024], self-released): [cd]: B+(***)
• Viktoria Tolstoy: Stealing Moments (2023 [2024], ACT): [sp]: B+(*)
• A Tonic for the Troops: Realm of Opportunities (2022 [2023], Odin): [sp]: B+(**)
• Tierra Whack: World Wide Whack (2024, Interscope): [sp]: A-

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

• Alice Coltrane: The Carnegie Hall Concert (1971 [2024], Impulse!): [sp]: A-
• Joe Henderson: Power to the People (1969 [2024], Craft): [sp]: B+(***)

Old music:

• Espen Berg Trio: Bølge (2017 [2018], Odin): [sp]: B+(***)
• Espen Berg Trio: Fjære (2021 [2022], Odin): [sp]: B+(**)
• The Herb Geller Quartet: I'll Be Back (1996 [1998], Hep): [r]: B+(**)
• The Herb Geller Quartet: You're Looking at Me (1997 [1998], Fresh Sound): [r]: B+(***)
• Herb Geller and Brian Kellock: Hollywood Portraits (1999 [2000], Hep): [r]: B+(***)
• Herb Geller With Don Friedman: At the Movies (2007, Hep): [r]: B+(**)
• Nicole McCabe: Introducing Nicole McCabe (2020, Minaret): [sp]: A-
• Nicole McCabe: Landscapes (2022, Fresh Sound New Talent): [sp]: B+(***)
• Queen Esther: Talkin' Fishbowl Blues (2004, EL): [sp]: B+(**)
• Queen Esther: What Is Love? (2010, EL): [sp]: B+(***)
• Queen Esther: The Other Side (2014, EL): [sp]: B+(**)

Limited Sampling: Records I played parts of, but not enough to grade: -- means no interest, - not bad but not a prospect, + some chance, ++ likely prospect.

• Nicole McCabe: Improvisations (2022, Minaret, EP): [bc]: -

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Owen Broder: Hodges: Front and Center, Vol. Two (Outside In Music) [04-12]
• Benji Kaplan: Untold Stories (self-released) [05-01]
• João Madeira/Margarida Mestre: Voz Debaixo (4DaRecord) [02-17]
• Ivo Perelman Quartet: Water Music (RogueArt) * [04-00]
• PNY Quintet: Over the Wall (RogueArt) * [03-00)
• Ernesto Rodrigues/Bruno Parinha/João Madeira: Into the Wood (Creative Sources) [01-09]
• Sonny Rollins: Freedom Weaver: The 1959 European Tour Recordings (Resonance, 3CD) [04-20]
• Dave Schumacher & Cubeye: Smoke in the Sky (Cellar) [04-19]

Speaking of Which

Blog link.

I was struck by this meme: "If Israelis stop fighting there will be peace. If Palestinians stop fighting there will be no more Palestinians." The first line is certainly true. This latest war has been so devastating that it's hard to imagine any fight left -- at least of the sort that would strike out at Israelis beyond their wall. The other obvious point is that there's no risk in trying. If Hamas does attack again, Israel can always strike back, and that reaction will be better understood than the systematic, genocidal war Israel is waging.

The second is less obvious, depending on what you mean by "stop fighting." Hamas has never had the capability of fighting Israel like Israel fights Gaza. Hamas has no air force, no navy, no submarines, no tanks, no heavy artillery, no anti-aircraft or anti-missile defenses, no drones. Their rockets are small and unguided, and have never produced more than accidental damage. Aside from the Oct. 7 jailbreak, the only way an Israeli gets hurt is by entering Gaza, and even then the ratio of Palestinian-to-Israeli casualties is 50-to-1 or more. That's not much of a fight.

However, the second line could be rewritten in terms that both sides will agree with, if not agree on: "Palestinians will [only] stop fighting when there are no more Palestinians." An army may sensibly surrender to a more imposing power, but this will only happen if one has hope of surviving and eventually recovering from surrender. Germany and Japan surrendered to the US to end WWII, but only because they believed that they would be given a chance to return to running their own lives. (See John Dower's Embracing Defeat for more on how Japan dealt with this. Japan is a better example than Germany, because its government was still intact when it surrendered, whereas Germany's was in tatters after Hitler's suicide.) A number of American Indian tribes surrendered with similar hopes, even though the US had given them little reason for such hope.

But Israel's current demands for ceasefire terms, following the genocidal threats of Israel's leaders, and the genocidal methodology they've practiced in this war, offer little or no hope to any Palestinian that surrender is anything but suicide. Israelis demand absolute servility, but know that they'll never get everyone to submit, that there will always be resistance of some sort, and as such their security will always be at risk. This presents them with an existential dilemma, to which there are only three solutions: equal rights, separation, or annihilation.

They have long refused to consider equal rights. (Lots of reasons we needn't consider here, like racism and demography.) They've considered separation, at least within certain bounds, but it's naturally a formula for war, so they've insisted on being the dominant power, both by building up a huge military advantage and by preventing Palestinians from ever developing their own popular leadership. But the solution they've always craved was annihilation. The problem there has been finding a time when they could get away with it. Oct. 7 was the excuse they were waiting for, dramatic enough that few of their allies grasped immediately how they had goaded Hamas into action.

Even so, Israel has always had a numbers problem. America was able to reduce its native population to levels where they became politically and economically irrelevant, after which annihilation no longer mattered, and some reconciliation was possible. But for Israel, there were always too many Palestinians, too close by, too economically developed and culturally sophisticated. For just these reasons, colonizers eventually gave up on Algeria and South Africa, but only after extraordinary brutality. Israel is the last to believe they're strong enough to beat down any and all resistance. And that's really because they have few if any scruples against killing every last Palestinian.

And don't for a moment think that Palestinians don't understand this. They've lived through it for decades, and while often beaten down, often severely, they've survived to resist again. They'll survive this, too, and will continue to resist, as peacefully as Israel will allow, or as violently as they can muster.

Looking further down my twitter feed:

From Rami Jarrah: Picture of an adult Palestinian male seated on a couch, surrounded 14 children (a couple into their teens). Text: "Nobody in this photo is alive. Israel's right to self defence."

From Kayla Bennett: Chart image. Text: "One of the most horrifying graphics ever." I looked for an article including the chart, and came up with:

• Ron Milo/Lior Greenspoon/Eyal Krieger: [2023-02-27] The weight of responsibility: Biomass of livestock dwarfs that of wild mammals.

• Nick Routley: [2023-04-28] Visualizing the biomass of all the world's mammals: Different graphs, but essentially the same data.

From Ryan Heuser: A link to the website for The New York War Crimes, reporting on propaganda published by The New York Times (motto: "All the Consent That's Fit to Manufacture"). I haven't figured out yet where the illustrations come from.

From Yousef Munayer retweeted Heuser, adding: "A new poll found that even though some 30,000 more Palestinians have been killed than Israelis since October, half of Americans didn't know which side has lost more lives. This has a lot to do with it."

From Etan Nechin retweeted Chris Olley: "[Pennsylvania]'s richest person Jeff Yass is buying Truth Social for $3 Billion so Trump can pay off his $450 Million judgment in return for Trump doing a 180 on his Tiktok and China stance to preserve Yass's $30 Billion-with-a-B stake in Tiktok. We call this oligarchy' when it's elsewhere." Nechin adds: "Notably, Jeff Yass was the main financier of Kohelet Forum, the shadowy organization behind Israel's attempted judicial coup that was championed by the settler far right. These oligarchs care little for democracy, only market interests." The Wikipedia page for Yass is here, which documents all this and more.

From Daniel Denvir: "Truth Social has roughly twice the monthly app users as my niche left-wing intellectual podcast has monthly downloads. The Dig's own healthy but rather modest financial situation suggests to me that this company is not worth nearly $6 billion."

From Paul Krugman: "So, did the ACA bend the cost curve? Call it coincidence, but excess cost growth -- health spending growing faster than GDP -- basically ended when it passed." See chart:

I'm reminded that Switzerland long had the world's second most expensive health care system, with costs increasing in tandem with US costs, until they adopted a universal non-profit insurance scheme. While this was still much more expensive than systems in UK, Germany, and France, it halted the increase, while US costs continue to rise. ACA hasn't worked as well as Switzerland's system -- by design, it isn't universal, and still allows (and sometimes encourages) profit-seeking -- but it was a step in the right direction.

Top story threads:

Israel:

• Mondoweiss:

  • [03-18] Day 164: Israeli army storms al-Shifa again, aid reaches Jabalia for first time in months: "Over a million people in Gaza face 'imminent' famine as UNRWA aid trucks arrive in northern Gaza for the first time in months. Meanwhile, the Israeli army's Chief of Staff says 'a long way to go' until Israel's military objectives are achieved."

  • [03-19] Day 165: Israeli attacks escalate on Rafah, al-Shifa Hospital invasion enters second day: "After a night of heavy bombardment the PA warns Israel's Rafah offensive has begun. Meanwhile, the invasion of al-Shifa hospital continues; all communication with medical staff trapped inside the hospital has been silent since Monday evening."

  • [03-20] Day 166: Israel kills Gaza officials handling food delivery to the north; Canada votes to halt arms sales to Israel: "Hamas slams Israel for 'spreading chaos' after an Israeli airstrike killed two local police officers in charge of securing and delivering food to north Gaza. In the West Bank, Israeli forces and settlers kill two Palestinians."

  • [03-21] Day 167: Israel has killed over 100 aid workers in Gaza in the last week: "Israel has killed over 100 aid workers in Gaza over the past week as its military siege of al-Shifa Hospital continues. Meanwhile, the Netanyahu government continues planning for an invasion of Rafah."

  • [03-22] Day 168: US advances UN Security Counsil ceasefire resolution as al-Shifa Hospital siege enters fifth day: "The siege of al-Shifa Hospital enters its fifth day as the Israeli army threatens to blow up the hospital, while the U.S.'s proposed UNSC resolution uses nebulous language that does not call for an "immediate" ceasefire.

  • [03-23] Day 169: Israel kills 7 aid-seekers in northern Gaza, 4 children in Rafah as siege of al-Shifa Hospital enters sixth day: "Israel continued its airstrikes on Rafah, killing four children, while in northern Gaza Israel turned back food aid for the second time in a week and killed at least 7 Palestinian aid-seekers near the Kuwaiti roundabout."

  • [03-24] Day 170: Israel assaults al-Shifa, Nasser, and al-Amal hospitals in one day: "Israeli forces ordered Palestinians inside al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis to leave 'naked,' while survivors of the al-Shifa Hospital raid witnessed numerous atrocities committed by the Israeli army. In Jerusalem, Israeli settlers stormed al-Aqsa."

• Sabreen Akhter: [03-21] When children are present in a genocide.

• Faress Arafat: [03-23] Gaza's children are enduring overwhelming trauma: "A Palestinian nurse from the al-Shifa Hospital recalls his experience tending to the children wounded and killed in the war."

• Mohamad Bazzi: [03-21] The Gaza famine is human-made. And the US is complicit in this catastrophe.

• Cate Brown: [03-22] Israel announces largest West Bank land seizure since 1993 during Blinken visit.

• Eliza Griswold: [03-21] The children who lost limbs in Gaza: "More than a thousand children who were injured in the war are now amputees. What do their futures hold?"

• Isaac Chotiner: [03-21] The brutal conditions facing Palestinian prisoners: "Since the attacks of October 7th, Israel has held thousands of people from Gaza and the West Bank in detention camps and prisons." Interview with Tal Steiner, whose Public Committee Against Torture in Israel tries to monitor such things.

• Stephanie Guilloud: [03-20] There is nothing we can do about Israel other than everything: "The war on Gaza is being used to advance fascism and white supremacy in the U.S. It is also opening people's eyes to global systems that require genocide to continue. To stand with Palestine is to transform those systems and build a different world."

• Middle East Monitor: [03-13] Satellite images show 35% of Gaza's buildings destroyed.

• Mondoweiss: [03-18] The real reason Israel stormed al-Shifa Hospital yet again: "Israel's latest attack on al-Shifa Hospital and the successful delivery of food aid to northern Gaza are connected. Here's how."

• Yumna Patel: [03-22] Israel's plans to replace its Palestinian labor force could spell disaster for the Palestinian economy.

• Meron Rapoport: [03-20] The Israeli public is dispirited. So why is the right euphoric?

• Jeremy Scahill: "Man-made hell on Earth": A Canadian doctor on his medical mission to Gaza: "Palestinian doctors 'are working on a daily basis on the most horrific, explosive trauma that you've ever seen. They're doing sometimes 14, 15 amputations, mostly on children, per day, and they've been doing it for six months now."

• Amna Shabana: [03-20] 'All of them are gone except me': "My friend Reem Hamadaqa barely survived an attack on her home in Khan Younis that killed her parents and most of her family. What do you tell a friend who has lost nearly everything?"

• Richard Silverstein: [03-23] Amalek directive approves murders of Hamas leaders' families: "Israel targeting Hamas leadership for elimination along with all family members." The "Amalek directive" refers back to an earlier [2023-10-25] post: Israeli security cabinet orders murders of senior Hamas leaders and families: "Ministers tasked IDF and Shin Bet with mass assassinations, invoking a Biblical verse commanding extermination of Amalek."

• Maureen Tkacik: [03-20] What really happened on October 7? "And why, wonders a new Al Jazeera documentary, did the media go to such lengths to concoct gruesome X-rated versions of an attack that was harrowing enough to begin with?" Pull quote: "Hamas had some rockets, but did it really have the weaponry capable of mounting this level of destruction? Western journalists have reported that Hamas was fully responsible." Who did? Well:

  By November, the IDF conceded that it had, actually, deployed Apache helicopters and tanks to the Nova music festival that "may" have killed "some" of the Nova festival concertgoers, in accordance with something called the Hannibal Directive, a doctrine named for a Carthaginian general who poisoned himself rather than be questioned by his Roman captors, whereby the Israeli army is ordered to fire upon its own troops to prevent the enemy from taking those troops hostage. Around noon on October 7, according to Israeli newspapers cited in the documentary, the IDF may have invoked a version of the Hannibal directive, expanded to include Israeli civilians, and in accordance began blindly opening fire with rockets and helicopter gunships on any person or vehicle seen moving across the border with Gaza. In particular, the documentary visits Kibbutz Be'eri, which looks a bit like present-day Gaza in parts, with a munitions expert who demonstrates strong evidence that some of the houses had been hit with IDF tank fire. It was Israeli troops, not Hamas "murderers," according to one resident, who killed 12 longtime residents there.

  Also on the Al Jazeera documentary:

  • Peter Oborne: [03-22] Al Jazeera tells the 7 October story that British media will not.

• Alex de Waal: [03-21] We are about to witness in Gaza the most intense famine since the second world war: "Even when the numbers of people needlessly dying dwindle, the scars of famine will endure."

• Vivian Yee/Iyad Abuheweila/Abu Bakr Bashir/Ameera Harouda: [03-23] Gaza's shadow death toll: Bodies buried beneath the rubble.

Israel vs. world opinion:

• Michael Arria:

  • [03-20] Canadian foreign minister says country will stop arms sales to Israel.

  • [03-21] The Shift: Schumer's speech.

  • [03-22] Ceasefire resolutions are building organizing power throughout the US: "More than 100 ceasefire resolutions have passed throughout the United States. They might seem merely symbolic, but activists say they will have a lasting impact." I can add that according to friends who have been working on this, the effort in Wichita, KS, is just one vote short of passing.

  • [03-23] US cuts UNRWA funding as famine looms for Gaza: This was included in the bill to avoid shutting down the government.

• Ramzy Baroud: [03-22] Cognitive dissonance: Perplexed US foreign policy is prolonging Gaza genocide: "Perplexed" works on two levels here: they can't figure out how to do things, because they're stuck in a lot of dysfunctional ideas (like deterrence, sanctions, their great "indispensable nation" conceit); but they also can't figure out what they want to do, partly because Israel doesn't allow them any sensible options.

• Daniel Boguslaw: Biden decries civilian deaths in Gaza as Pentagon fails with its own safeguards.

• Peter Beinart: [03-22] The great rupture in American Jewish life.

• Jonathan Chait: [03-21] Schumer is a better friend to Israel than Netanyahu's allies: "Israelis have a right to know the dangers of Netanyahu's one-statism."

• Stan and Priti Gulati Cox: [03-19] Blocking the aid trucks, letting the tanks roll.

• Thomas L Friedman: [03-19] What Schumer and Biden got right about Netanyahu: Like them, Friedman's been so securely on the party bus for so long that he feels entitled to weigh on on Israeli politics, if only to pretend that something can be redeemed out of their descent into genocide. Mostly, that means another attempt to rescue the "two-state" mirage.

  As I've noted elsewhere, "two-state" is a card that Israel shows on occasion when it seems convenient, but always withdraws, because they're unwilling to allow anything like an independent state of Palestinians. Or maybe they've just found it unnecessary, as long as no one seriously twists their arms -- Americans have nominally supported "two-state" since 1967, but never required more than a bit of lip-service. They have at various points suggested they'd agree to "two-state": they supported the 1937 and 1947 partition plans, they agreed to UN resolutions in 1967 and 1973 which they never followed up on, they agreed with Egypt in 1979 to "autonomy" (a vague term with no timetable), they agreed to Oslo (with various delays for "confidence building" that never happened, at least to their satisfaction); all the while building more settlements designed to establish "facts on the ground" making it impossible to return land to any Palestinian state.

  Friedman's six points here just show how maleable his mind is to Israeli thinking. For instance, "Hamas's attack was designed to halt Israel from becoming more embedded than ever in the Arab world thanks to the Abraham Accords and the budding normalization process with Saudi Arabia." So, the real reason a thousand Hamas fighters undertook a suicide mission was to spoil Jared Kushner's kickback scam? Gaza had been blockaded and was being choked to near-death, especially since 2005, but Israelis can only imagine their own existence at stake.

  Mention "one-state," with its obvious implication of everyone under that state enjoying equal rights, and Israelis will reject the very idea as a "non-starter" -- as an idea they're unwilling to even entertain, even though every real democracy takes pains to protect minority individual rights from majoritarian abuse.

• Liz Goodwin/Abigail Hauslohner/Yasmeen Abutaleb/Leigh Ann Caldwell: [03-20] Republicans hug Netanyahu tighter as Democratic tensions with Israel war strategy boil: "The Israeli PM criticized Schumer's comments calling for a new election as 'outrageous' in GOP-only meeting." The meeting itself says volumes about those present: how arrogant and careless Netanyahu is about entering into American party politics, and how arrogant and careless Republicans are in usurping Biden's foreign policy prerogatives. But my first reaction was simply, "birds of a feather flock together" -- be they fascists, or merely criminal-minded.

• Michael Hirsh: [03-22] From 'I love you' to 'asshole': How Joe gave up on Bibi.

• Elie Quinlan Houghtaling: In harrowing speech, AOC warns the US is aiding "genocide" in Gaza.

• Gabriela Kaplan: [03-24] 'Not in my name': How a new generation is divesting from Israeli apartheid.

• Fred Kaplan: [03-18] What Trump really means when he says he would end the war in Gaza "quickly". Why write the article when you know the answer is "nothing"? Trump spent his first term in thrall to his advisers and donors/investors, and got nothing to show for it (aside from his son-in-law pocketing $2B for his Abraham Accords scam). Ok, one stroke of genius was scheduling the Afghanistan withdrawal to occur on Biden's watch, as that was the exact point his approval rates sunk under 50%. But that suggests Trump was smart enough to lose 2020 on purpose, so Biden would get blamed for all of the messes Trump left -- Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Gaza are the loudest ones to date, but many more are still simmering -- so he could rise again and claim a second term on his own far more extremist terms. The main foreign policy change to expect from Trump 2.0 is that he will provide a much more credible test of Nixon's "madman theory."

• Tariq Kenney-Shawa: [03-22] Don't be fooled by Antony Blinken's crocodile tears: "The secretary of state is very good at projecting empathy about the horror in Gaza. But his actions speak much louder than his words."

• Amed Khan: Organizing aid to Gaza led me to a harsh truth: Biden is on board for ethnic cleansing: "I helped with airlifts in Afghanistan, aid to the Ukrainian front, and building roads in Rwanda. None of it prepared me for the challenges of Gaza.

• David Klion: Hit dogs holler: What the backlash against Jonathan Glazer says about Israel's defenders.

• Mary Lawlor: [03-21] There is no moral argument that justifies the sale of weapons to Israel: "Israel has shown it will use these arms indiscriminately against Palestinians."

• Branko Marcetic: [03-23] Israel's meddling in US politics is aggressive and unceasing.

• Joseph Massad: [03-20] In the West, Israel never reinitiates violence, it only 'retaliates': Or so says Western media, especially the New York Times.

• Jeff Melnick: [02-27] A 'Black-Jewish alliance' in the US? Israel-Gaza war shows it's more myth than special relationship.

• James North: [03-23] Mainstream media finally reports on Gaza famine but won't admit Israel is deliberately responsible.

• Trita Parsi: [03-22] Why US ceasefire proposal failed at UNSC: "Russia and China vetoed language which did represent a shift for Biden -- but the devil is in the details."

• Mitchell Plitnick: [03-23] Chuck Schumer's speech widens rifts over Israel in Congress: "Democrats are fracturing over support for Israel, because their constituents don't support it. The long-term result might be the end of the bipartisan consensus on Israel."

• Ted Rall: [03-20] Israel: Hermit kingdom: "Why is Israel rapidly sliding into pariah status now?"

• Michael Sappir: The spiraling absurdity of Germany's pro-Israel fanaticism.

• Karim Sariahmed: [03-19] Doctors justify genocide in a prestigious journal: "The Journal of the American Medical Association published four letters rife with racist anti-Palestinian tropes. The prestigious platform created the appearance of intellectualism and expertise, but it's all just racism with a ribbon on it."

• Norman Solomon: [03-24] How Israel hides its atrocities in Gaza: "Apologists for Israel's mass murder in Gaza fall back on 'antisemitism' claims."

• Prem Thakker: US doubles down on defunding UNRWA -- despite flimsy allegations.

• Philip Weiss: [03-24] Weekly Briefing: Zionism will never be viewed the same after the Gaza genocide: "Jeffrey Goldberg used to brag of his Israeli military service but this week was forced to withdraw from a speaking event after students asked how a former IDF prison guard could speak on democracy. Zionism has lost its hallowed perch in U.S. society."

America's increasingly desperate and pathetic empire:

• Sam Biddle: Tech official pushing TikTok ban could reap windfall from US-China cold war.

• Connor Echols: [03-21] 'Not defendable': Top enlisted brass blast conditions for soldiers: "The 'quality of life' for military and their families has become a persistent problem, and its feeding into the recruitment crisis."

• Jonathan Freedland: [03-22] In defying Joe Biden, Benjamin Netanyahu is exposing the limits of US power.

• Daniel Larison: [03-22] Hawks pushing for 'axis of evil' reunion tour: "Lumping US adversaries into a single-headed monster is a paranoid delusion used as to fuel militarism."

• Alfred McCoy: [03-12] The American Empire in (ultimate? crisis: "The decline and fall of it all?" Sections, predictably, include: "Creeping disaster in Ukraine"; "Crisis in Gaza"; and "Trouble in the Taiwan Straits."

• Andrew O'Hehir: [03-04] America in 2024: Blind, blundering Colossus on a downward slide: "If the Biden-Trump rerun wasn't embarrassing enough, US support for Israel has alienated the entire world."

• Ishaan Tharoor: Washington Post's "Worldview" columnist. These pieces could be scattered about, but fit together:

  • [03-19] Israel's war on Hamas brings famine to Gaza: "What makes this calamity all the more stunning is that it's entirely the product of human decisions." Catherine Russell says, "we haven't seen that rate of death among children in almost any other conflict in the world." He also notes that "Israeli officials, chiefly Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, appear unmoved by the state of affairs." Like it's exactly what they wanted.

  • [03-20] How the war in Ukraine has split the Czechs and Slovaks.

  • [03-22] Mexico rejects Texas's 'draconian' migrant law.

  • [03-25] The US and Israel have a 'major credibility problem': Let's quote some of this, about US Assistant Secretary of State Bill Russo:

    According to NPR, Russo said in his March 13 call that Israel -- and the United States, as Israel's security guarantor and close ally -- face a "major credibility problem" because of the war, the astonishing Palestinian death toll (now more than 32,000 people), the man-made famine gripping ravaged areas of the Gaza Strip, and growing global frustration with Israel's insistence on prolonging the war to fully eradicate militant group Hamas.

    "The Israelis seemed oblivious to the fact that they are facing major, possibly generational damage to their reputation not just in the region but elsewhere in the world," the memo saida. "We are concerned that the Israelis are missing the forest for the trees and are making a major strategic error in writing off their reputation damage."

• Alex Thurston: [03-21] Why the Nigerien junta wants to kick US troops out: "While Washington's policy has been rudderless since last year's coup, an American exit might not be a bad thing." Also:

• Nick Turse: US-trained Niger junta kicks out US troops, drone base.

Election notes: After Super Tuesday, this is turning into a category with not much happening, or at least not much people are bothering to write against. March 19 saw presidential primaries in Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, and Ohio. Biden's been winning the Democratic side by a bit over 80%, which isn't great for an incumbent, but also isn't disastrous. Trump wins as easily, but rarely hits 80% -- also not great considering no one is actively running against him. (In Arizona, the figures were 89.3% Biden, 78.8% Trump; in Florida, 81.2% Trump; in Illinois, 91.5% Biden, 80.6% Trump; in Kansas 83.8% Biden, 75.5% Trump; in Ohio, 87.1% Biden, 79.2% Trump; in Louisiana, 86.1% Biden, 89.8% Trump. Missouri had a caucus, where Trump got 100% of 924 votes.

• Paul Krugman: [03-21] What's the matter with Ohio?

• Nia Prater: [03-22] The Republican Party is too embarrassing for George Santos: So he's going to run as an independent in Nick LaLota's (R-NY) House district. Most people run as independents because they think they are, but the big advantage for Santos is that he can keep his campaign finance scam going all the way to November, instead of getting wiped out in the primary. So pretty much the same reason Bob Menendez is running as an independent to keep his Senate seat in New Jersey.

Trump, and other Republicans: Salon picks up some substantial pieces, but they also do a lot of stuff that basically amounts to Trump trolling. I usually skip past them, but this week they especially spoke to me, so quite a few got crammed in here this week. I can also give you some author indexes, in case you want to dig deeper (just scanning the titles is often a hoot):

• Igor Derysh: managing editor
• Chauncey DeVega: senior politics writer
• Brian Karem
• Amanda Marcotte: senior politics writer, author of Troll Nation: How the Right Became Trump-Worshipping Mosters Set on Rat-F*cking Liberals, America, and Truth Itself.
• Kelly McClure: nights & weekends editor
• Dean Obeidallah: broadcaster, mostly interviews
• Heather Digby Parton: columnist
• Norman Solomon: author of War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine
• Kirk Swearingen
• Tatyana Tandanpolie: Trump crime beat reporter
• Lucian K Truscott IV

This week's links on all things Republican (the Trumpier the better, but the real evil lies in the billionaire-funded think tanks):

• Avram Anderson/Shealeigh Voitl: [03-22] Heritage Foundation's blueprint for regression: "Project 2025 targets vulnerable communities, politicizes independent institutions, and quashes dissent."

• Gregg Barak: [03-23] It's time to ignore Trump's trials: Criminal accountability is now a distraction: "Please wake up sleeping America." It's a rather messy argument, but until judgment came, the civil trials seemed like a circus sideshow, but now he's scrambling for money. Barak himself has a book coming out soon, which news will quickly render obsolete: Indicting the 45th President: Boss Trump, the GOP, and What We Can Do About the Threat to American Democracy.

• Jonathan Chait: [03-23] The paramilitary candidate: "Trump has made justice for insurrectionists the center of his campaign."

• Jeremy Childs: [03-24] Eric Trump says lenders he hit for half-billion dollars in father's bond scramble 'were laughing'.

• Nick Corasaniti/Maya King/Alexandra Berzon: [03-18] The GOP flamethrower with a right-wing vision for North Carolina: "Mark Robinson, the Republican nominee for governor, has a long history of inflammatory statements. He has also called for weaving conservative religious beliefs into the fabric of government."

• Oliver Darcy: [03-22] NBC hires former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, who has demonized the press and refused to acknowledge Biden was fairly elected. As Norman Ornstein tweeted: "At $300,000. Far more than experts, and honest analysts. What an utter disgrace." Not the only blowback:

  • Drew Harwell: [03-24] Former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel faces sharp criticism after NBC hiring.

  • Jack McCordick: [03-24] Ronna McDaniel won't be appearing on MSNBC: "Intense internal backlash has followed NBC News' hiring of the former RNC chair as political analyst." So "cancel culture" got her? I could see that she might be worth it if she totally turned on Trump, and offered the sort of insider dish that proved it. But she isn't credible until she turns, nor is doing so for big bucks helping much. And if she doesn't turn, NBC is just offering her a golden parachute to continue her work as a Republican propagandist.

  • Philip Bump: [03-25] Ronna McDaniel quickly demonstrates that her view isn't worth the cost.

• Igor Derysh:

  • [03-13] "Make the RNC white again": Minority outreach cut, Trump election lawyer installed in MAGA takeover.

  • [03-19] Trump melts down on Truth Social as lawyers admit he can't get bond.

  • [03-21] Legal analyst flags massive Trump Tower debt as AG Letitia James threatens to seize his properties.

  • [03-22] Cash-strapped Trump diverts donations from RNC to pay mounting legal bills after angry denials.

  • [03-22] Trump cashes in on Truth Social "meme stock" -- but can't use the money to pay $454 million penalty.

• Chauncey DeVega:

  • [03-21] Lost in the malignant normality of the Trumpocene: "Normalizing MAGA abuse only further entraps us."

  • [03-22] Trump's love letters to MAGA: Campaign emails forge a cult bond: "Trump campaign emails have become quite phallic and psychosexual."

• Kevin T Dugan: [03-21] How screwed is Trump? "Unless he can find a way out of paying Tish James, he will go bust on Monday."

• Abdallah Fayyad: [03-19] Trump is suddenly in need of a lot of cash. That's everyone's problem. Why on earth is that? The US judicial system isn't famed for treating convicts with the sort of kid gloves Trump feels he's entitled to. Is this supposed to be some variation on the joke: "if you owe thousands, that's your problem; if you owe millions, that's the bank's problem"? Whatever happened to "if you can't do the time, don't do the crime"? I might grant that the system, in general, is biased against defendants, and tends toward overly harsh judgments. But why should Trump, a guy who seems incapable of remorse, and who has never shown any sympathy for anyone else, be the exception? If anything, he's a flagrant example of what the justice system is designed to protect us against.

• Henry A Giroux: [03-17] Brecht's warning about the serpent's egg: Everyday Fascism: "In a world shaped increasingly by emerging authoritarianism, it has become increasingly difficult to remember what a purposeful and substantive democracy looks like."

• Rae Hodge: [01-29] The Trump White House was hopped up on Air Force "go pills" because of course it was.

• Elie Honig: [03-22] What are the odds Trump goes on trial before the election?

• Brian Karem: [03-21] We have met the enemy and he is us: "Trump is just a symptom. The absurdity is everywhere." Links to:

  • Howie Klein: [03-15] The press is pathologizing the normal in the case of Biden . . . and normalizing the pathological in the case of Trump.

  • Jonathan V Last: [03-15] What if Americans *can't* understand the Trump crazy? "Our brains are hardwired to normalize extraordinary inputs when they become ordinary." [stopped by paywall, but he's also quoted by Klein]

• Ed Kilgore:

  • [03-21] Why would Trump back a 15-week national abortion ban now?

  • [03-21] Republicans abandon their strategic silence on the Israel-Hamas war: "It's pretty clear Republicans and their beloved Bibi are now engaged in a mutual escalation of partisan rhetoric."

  • [03-21] Trump defenders dismiss all his legal problems as 'lawfare'.

  • [03-22] Under threat from Marjorie Taylor Greene, GOP speaker faces fateful choice: She's upset that Mike Johnson allowed the House to pass a bipartisan appropriations bill instead of shutting down the government, and worried that Johnson may let Ukraine aid come up for a vote. On the other hand, Democrats may want the Ukraine bill enough to save Johnson's speakership (which they didn't do for Kevin McCarthy). PS:

    • Igor Derysh: Gaetz opposes MTG motion to oust speaker.

    • Chris Lehman: [03-22] Marjorie Taylor Greene's vacant motion.

    • Jim Newell: Congrats to Marjorie Taylor Greene on a perfectly executed stunt.

• Clare Malone: [03-25] The face of Donald Trump's deceptively savvy media strategy: "The former President and his spokesman, Steven Cheung, like to hurl insults at their political rivals, but behind the scenes the campaign has maintained a cozy relationship with much of the mainstream press." Evidently, he's the one responsible for lines like "[DeSantis] shuffled his feet and gingerly walked across the debate set like a 10 year old girl who had just raided her mom's closet and discovered heels for the first time" and "it's clear to see that Haley's campaign is just one giant grift to either build her name ID for life after politics or to audition for a cable news contributor contract."

• Amanda Marcotte:

  • [03-19] Trump's call for a "bloodbath" was literal -- let's not waste time pretending it was ambiguous.

  • [03-20] White evangelicals embrace raunchy photos -- yet they hate sex as much as ever.

  • [03-22] Trump's criminal cases are his campaign.

• Lisa Mascaro/Mary Clare Jalonick/Jill Colvin: [03-19] Trump is making the Jan. 6 attack a cornerstone of his bid for the White House.

• David Masciotra: [03-16] Ignorance and democracy: Capitalism's long war against higher education: "My alma mater, and dozens of other colleges, are ditching the liberal arts. That's a good way to kill off democracy." Sounds like a pretty broad indictment, but first two words in article are "Donald Trump," and a pull quote cites advanced degree holders Ron DeSantis and Ted Cruz. When I see names of some Harvard grads -- KS Attorney General Kris Kobach is one, and as far as I can tell he's never written a law that's been upheld as constitutional -- I'm reminded of the Randy Newman lyric: "Good old boys from LSU, went in dumb, came out dumb too."

  This led me to a couple older articles:

  • [02-03] Remember the rules, liberals: Only the right gets to mock America: "Chase CEO Jamie Dimon offers words of wisdom from Davis: Be nicer to MAGA 'deplorables,' bow down before Trump."

  • [2021-07-11] Could genocide really happen here? Leading scholar says America is on "high alert": Interview with Alexander Laban Hinton, who wrote It Can Happen Here: White Power and the Rising Threat of Genocide in the US.

  • [2021-05-09] Now we're supposed to think Reagan, Bush and the Cheneys are cool? They got us here.

• Andrea Mazzarino: [03-21] A dictatorship on day one? If America were a Trumpian autocracy.

• Kelly McClure: [03-22] Trump refers to AG Letitia James as having an "ugly mouth" and "low IQ" in Truth Social rant.

• Harold Meyerson: [03-21] Republicans say it aloud: They want to raise the retirement age: "The vast majority of House GOPniks tell Americans that if they want Social Security, they need top work longer."

• Stephanie Mencimer: [03-25] From laddie mag model to RNC co-chair: Lara Trump, nepo-spouse.

• Dean Obeidallah: [03-22] "He'll never leave": Why Trump's dynasty, built on corruption and violence, won't end with him: Interview with Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present.

• Heather Digby Parton:

  • [03-13] Trump's new "Honest Don" nickname can't distract from his obvious decline. Is anyone else calling him that? Has anyone ever heard it and not laughed?

  • [03-16] Follow the money, and you'll find Donald Trump in deep trouble.

  • [03-20] Trump is dangerously desperate for a bailout: "The return of Paul Manafort shows that the Trump campaign is willing to trade security for some funds."

  • [03-22] Martyrs to the MAGA cause: Trump follows Hitler's steps with glorification of Jan. 6: "He may not have actually read that book of Hitler speeches but he didn't need to. Trump's a natural."

• Christian Paz: [03-21] 3 theories for why Donald Trump's popularity is rising: None are very convincing:

  1. Trump is benefiting from economic nostalgia
  2. Trump is recovering from a remarkably low moment
  3. Trump is benefiting from a quieter campaign, muted coverage, and a tuned-out public

  You might as well say it's because many people are forgetful, gullible, ill-tempered and flat-out stupid, because that's what Trump's campaign -- which, by the way, has not been very quiet or muted, no matter how many have tried to tune it out -- caters to. I think this also reflects two problems that Biden has: he represents the status quo, which in the end will probably save him, but for now it's mostly marked by increasing inequality and precarity, even through relatively decent economic stats; also, Biden's still in the phase where he's mostly campaigning for the donors -- and he's raising more money, even before you deduct the fines and legal costs Trump is racking up. That focus will shift with the DNC in August, when they start spending their war chest on actually wooing voters they've thus far taken for granted.

• Sam Russek: The mattress tycoon funding the far right in Texas: Jim McIngvale.

• Greg Sargent: Trump's latest rage-rant reveals a major political weakness.

• Deirdre Shesgreen: [03-18] 'Gross misjudgment': Experts say Trump's decision to disband pandemic team hindered coronavirus response.

• Matt Stieb:

  • [03-22] Trump is about to get $3 billion richer thanks to Truth Social. Or maybe not, given that nobody thinks the company is actually worth anything like its valuation.

  • [03-22] The Republican House majority will soon be down to just one seat. Mike Gallagher (R-WS) has resigned. Like the recently resigned Ken Buck (R-CO), Gallagher broke ranks and voted against impeaching Alejandro Mayorkas.

• Kirk Swearingen: [03-24] Who brought the crime, the drugs and the rape? It was him: "Trump's infamous 2015 speech claimed immigrants were 'bringing crime' and were 'rapists.' Talk about projection."

• Prem Thakker: House Republicans want to ban universal free school lunches.

• Lucian K Truscott IV: [03-19] Trump blows the MAGA whistle -- and his signal is heard loud and clear.

• Andra Watkins:

  [03-19] Decoding Project 2025's Christian nationalist language: "Evangelicalese allows Trump's MAGA supporters to hide their extreme positions in plain sight." Note: She also has a Substack called How Project 2025 Will Ruin YOUR Life. Previously wrote:

  • [03-01] Project 2025 is more than a playbook for Trumpism, it's the Christian Nationalist manifesto: "The right intends to force every American to live their definition of a good life through government edict."

• Li Zhou: [03-20] How the threat of a government shutdown became normalized.

Biden and/or the Democrats:

• Perry Bacon Jr: [03-19] Voters of color are shifting right. Are Democrats doomed?

• Hannah Story Brown: [03-25] Tim Ryan's natural gas advocacy makes a mockery of public service: Ex-Representative (D-OH), ran for Senate and lost, now "leveraging his prior career for a group backed by fossil fuel and petrochemical players." Why do you suppose he couldn't convince voters he'd serve them better than a Republican?

• Gail C Christopher: [03-22] Stop ageism: A call for action: "It's one of the last socially acceptable forms of prejudice, and it needs to come to an end in society and this presidential campaign." Really, you think this is going to work? Or even help? Believe me, I know it happens, often in cases where it is inappropriate, but unlike many prejudices, there is also something substantive at root here, and finding the right combination of respect and care and understanding in each distinct case is going to take some work, and not just a bumper sticker slogan.

• Ryan Cooper: [03-11] Democrats need a party publication: "The New York Times is not going to get Biden's campaign message before voters." Pull quote: "There is a giant right-wing propaganda apparatus blasting Republican messaging into tens of millions of homes every day, which Democrats do not have." Also: "You could do quite a lot of journalism for a tiny, tiny fraction of what the Democrats are going to spend on the 2024 campaign." I figured the line about the New York Times was some kind of joke, but here's the unfunny part:

  A recent speech from New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger makes clear that he -- perhaps unsurprisingly for a scion of multigenerational inherited wealth -- is proud of his paper's ludicrously anti-Biden slant and virulent transphobia, and will keep doing it. If it's up to him, this campaign will center around Biden's age, while Trump's numerous extreme scandals and outright criminality -- as well as his own advanced age and dissolving brain -- will be carefully downplayed. If I were Biden and the Democrats, who implicitly elevate the Times as their counterpoint to Fox, I'd be looking to change that, and quick.

• James Downie: [03-23] House Republicans just gave Biden the biggest possible gift: "When it comes to Social Security and Medicare, Republicans just can't help themselves." I could have filed this under Republicans, but didn't want this piece to get lost among this week's Trump scuzziness. Trump is a problem, but he's merely cosmetic compared to the deep Republican mindset, which remains set on destroying the institutions that at least minimally protect us from the most predatory practices of capitalism, supposedly in favor of an entrepreneurial utopia. I was pointed to this piece by an Astra Taylor tweet (link just vanished), possibly because the piece itself cites her The Age of Insecurity.

• Robert Kuttner:

  • [03-18] Man of steel: "President Biden's blockage of the proposed purchase of US Steel by Japan's Nippon Steel is unprecedented and magnificently pro-union."

  • [03-22] The promise of Biden's second term: "And the exemplary effects of his green jobs creation programs in his first term."

Legal matters and other crimes:

• Jamelle Bouie: [03-22] The Supreme Court is playing a dangerous game: "The Supreme Court is making a bet, in other words, that it is truly unaccountable." Also, note: "There is no way to look past the fact that five of the six members of the conservative majority on the Roberts court were nominated by presidents who entered office without the winds of a popular majority." The sixth was nominated by a president who lost next time (as did Trump).

• Akela Lacy:

  • Prosecute a cop? You'll face removal from office: "Reform-minded district attorneys like Minnesota's Mary Moriatry are facing backlash for prosecuting police shootings and misconduct."

  • GOP megadonor's PAC fires off first ads in Summer Lee's Democratic primary: This is more about Israel, but it's yet another example of how rich right-wingers use their money to make the world a more miserable place. Who? Well, Jeff Yass, already mentioned elsewhere.

• Dahlia Lithwick/Mark Joseph Stern: The Supreme Court just gave Texas a green light to harass every Latino person in the state.

• Harry Litman: [03-20] Aileen Cannon's handling of Trump's classified records case just went from bad to horrible.

  • Here's why Judge Aileen Cannon's law clerks seem to have suddenly quit.

• Ian Millhiser:

  • [03-18] Bret Kavanaugh rides to the Biden administration's defense in a big First Amendment case: "The Supreme Court's center right appears increasingly frustrated with the judiciary's far right."

  • [03-20] The Supreme Court's confusing new border decision, explained: "It is hard to believe that Justice Amy Coney Barrett actually agrees with her own opinion."

  • [03-21] The Supreme Court's abortion pills case, explained: "The stakes in the Supreme Court's mifepristone case go way beyond abortion."

• Nicole Narea: [03-21] Apple is facing a new antitrust lawsuit that could dethrone the iPhone: Last Apple product I owned was the Apple II. I soon soured not on the product so much as the company's profit-raking business strategy, something they've only honed further during the intervening forty-some years. Sure, that's exactly what big companies do, but only to the extent we let them get away with it. More:

  • John Herrman: [03-22] The government finally comes for Apple.

• Li Zhou: [03-20] How a Mississippi case of police brutality emphasizes the need for more accountability: "Six former police officers tortured two Black men. They're getting sentenced this week." As the article notes, "police misconduct is a systemic problem -- and there needs to be much more accountability." This was an especially egregious case.

Climate and environment:

• Stephen Lezak: [03-22] Scientists just gave humanity an overdue reality check. The world will be better for it. This follows on [03-20] Geologists make it official: we're not in an 'anthropocene' epoch. For geologists, it's a fairly technical question, and given the ways geologists think about time, I'm not surprised that they don't see need for another division. The Holocene only starts with the retreat of the Wisconsin Ice Age -- the fifth major glacial advance of the Pleistocene, itself an arguably premature designation. (The factors that drove ice ages during the period have are presumably still in place -- certainly the continents haven't moved much, nor has the earth orbit changed, or solar output -- but the atmosphere has been altered enough to make renascent glaciation very unlikely.) Humans started leaving their mark on the Earth's surface as the Holocene started some 11,700 years ago, so the whole epoch could have been named the Anthropocene. Perhaps that seemed presumptuous when first named, and maybe even now, but using 1952 as an convenient dividing line is simply arbitrary.

  • Dominique Browning: [03-23] Let's call our present moment on Earth what it is: Obscene.

• Delaney Nolan: The EPA is backing down from environmental justice cases nationwide.

• Cassady Rosenblum: [03-23] Blocking Burning Man and vandalizing Van Gogh: Climate activists are done playing nice: This is indicative of what happens with those in power deny, dissemble, and ultimately fail at problems that have become overwhelmingly obvious. Those in power should see protests -- orderly of course, but also disruptive and destructive -- as symptoms of underlying issues that require their attention.

  But most often, they think they can get away with suppressing protests, which by aggravating the protesters while ignoring the problems only makes future protests more desperate, and dangerous. As noted here, "something desperate and defiant is stirring in the climate movement." Signs of escalating tactics are as easily measured as the increasing ppm of greenhouse gases. The tipping points of catastrophic inflections are harder to guess, but their odds are approaching inevitable, as we have observed stressed humans do many times before, in many comparable situations.

• David Wallace-Wells: [03-20] When we see the climate more clearly, what will we do? There is not a satellite designed to locate methane leeks.

Business/economic matters:

• Dylan Baddour: [03-19] Gulf Coast petrochemical buildout draws billions in tax breaks for polluters.

• Dean Baker:

  • [03-20] Senators push the Increase Inflation Act (A.K.A. "The Patent Eligibility Restoration Act"): Note that this is the sort of thing that qualifies as "bipartisan legislation."

    This is the sort of nonsense that we can expect to see in large quantities if PERA becomes law. It is 180 degrees at odds from what we should be encouraging businesses to do. We want them to develop better ways to do things and produce better products, not more creative ways to game the patent system. PERA will be a great bonanza for patent lawyers, but really bad news for just about everyone else.

  • [03-23] Ross Douthat rants incoherently on Trump's bloodbath.

  • [03-23] AI, budget deficits, and the aging crisis.

• Matthew Cunningham-Cook: [03-21] The PBM-insurer mafia comes for community pharmacies: "UnitedHealth, CVS, and Cigna's PBMs are using their market share and pull in Washington to drive one of the key levers to manage health caree costs -- independent pharmacies -- out of business."

• David Dayen:

  • [03-18] Landmark settlement breaks up the real estate cartel: "The collusive arrangement among real estate agents that led to Americans paying extortionate commissions is likely over."

  • [03-19] Google and Apple discuss an exclusive deal -- again: "The two tech giants are talking about licensing Google's AI technology for the iPhone. This is precisely the kind of deal that landed Google in court over its search engine."

• Sarah Jones: [03-21] The hunger strike to end 24-hours shifts.

Ukraine War:

• Blaise Malley: [03-22] Diplomacy Watch: Middle powers offer unique 'congrats' to Putin: "Leaders in Turkey, India, use post-election phone calls to offer support in future negotiations."

• New York Times: [03-23] Death toll rises to 133 in Moscow concert hall attack: US sources were quick to blame this on ISIS, and to deny Ukrainian involvement (although Zelensky couldn't resist a "told you so").

  PS:

  • Joshua Keating: [03-23] The battle for blame over a deadly terror attack in Moscow.

  • Max Boot: [03-23] Putin fixates on imaginary foes while terrorists attack Moscow. As do American pundits, who never miss an opportunity to spin against Putin.

  • Anatol Lieven: [03-25] Moscow attack proves Russia -- and US -- have lost sight of priorities: "We both have the same enemies but spend most of the time ignoring that fact." He thinks he's talking about ISIS-K, which indeed is plausibly opposed to both regimes with their long and cruel "great game" history in Afghanistan, but the real shared enemy is the arrogance that led them to think they could impose their power on foreign lands, and then fought back against every hint of revolt.

  • Serge Schmemann: [03-23] For Putin, even a terrorist attack is a chance to spread misinformation.

  • Washington Post: [03-23] Abolishing liberty did not bring Russian security.

  • Joshua Yaffa: [03-24] How will Putin respond to the terrorist attack in Moscow?

• Simon Jenkins: [03-22] Putin is a dictator and a tyrant, but other forces also sustain him -- and the west needs to understand them: "Kneejerk criticism of regimes in Russia, China or India may make us feel better, but there's no evidence it is making the world a safer place."

• Joshua Keating: [03-22] Why the Pentagon wants to build thousands of easily replaceable, AI-enabled drones: "Ukraine's drone innovations have changed how the US is planning for a war with China."

• Jack Hunter: [03-20] Lindsey Graham wants to force more Ukrainian men into the draft: "The war-hawking senator said 'we need more people in the line.' But 'we' doesn't mean 'he.'"

• Pjotr Sauer: [03-22] Over 1m Ukrainians without power after major Russian assault on energy system: "Kyiv says the country's largest dam and hydroelectric plant were hit as Moscow unleashed 88 missiles and 63 drones." For more, see their Ukraine war briefing, which also reminds us of the peril facing the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant."

• Ted Snider: [03-20] How many Westerners are fighting in Ukraine? "There may be more foreign boots on the ground -- troops and mercenaries -- than you think."

• Simon Tisdall: [03-16] How will the Ukraine war end? Only when Vladimir Putin is toppled. This extremely stupid piece was written while Russia's election was happening, which we now know gave Putin six more years with 87% of the vote. He raises the usual alarms about "white flags" and "capitulation," castigates Putin as a "messianic mass murderer," and conjures up a new domino theory, assuming that any sign of weakness would only encourage Russia to attack and swallow more territories. Still, there's little reason to believe that Putin could do those things if he wanted to, which is far from certain. The war is stalemated, but neither side can afford to give up, nor is likely to (and clearly, Russia is no more likely to than the US, where Putin's patsy is leading in the polls -- but still 10 months away from becoming president). And despite all his bluster, even Tisdall admits that a "middle way" -- basically a Korea-type ceasefire where "near-term priorities need to shift from attempting to liberate more territory to defending and repairing the more than 80% of the country still under [Ukraine's] control." I'd submit that an even better deal would be possible -- maybe not on territory, but you'd get more security by allowing economic ties to return to normalcy. One should recall that the parts of Ukraine that Russia was able to seize, especially in 2014 but also extras in 2022, were mostly ethnic Russian, and acted as a pro-Russian bloc inside Ukraine. Giving them up makes the rest of Ukraine more pro-western, which is what the US/EU wanted in the first place. I'd call that a win -- and one which Putin wouldn't have to think of as a loss.

• Robert Wright: [03-22] Special cold war freak-out issue: "China and Russia and Cuba -- oh my!" First section is on TikTok, if you're interested, but I want to point you to the second, on how the Wall Street Journal (Yaroslav Trofimov) tries to twist around things that Putin says to suggest negotiating with him is impossible. Further down there's a section on the "Havana Syndrome" freak out, plus his concerns over AI -- which is more the subject of his [03-15] Meta's dangerously carefree AI chief. I'm rather skeptical of his alarm over Open Source in AI -- my position has always been that the real threat is the business model, and Open Source usually tempers that sort of problem (but doesn't preclude it, as Google has amply demonstrated). I'm an admirer but unpaid subscriber, so I haven't listened to his podcasts, but What does Putin want? could be helpful, especially to the aforementioned WSJ reporter.

Around the world:

• Connor Echols: [03-20] US 'prepared to deploy troops to Haiti if necessary. If Biden goes along with this, I dare say it would be political suicide. For Trump, as for most US presidents going back to Thomas Jefferson, Haiti is the quintessential "shithole country." Right-thinking Americans would bristle at the idea of doing anything to help there. Realistic Americans would realize that the US military is not capable of helping, and that its entrance would make matters worse. The left should be pushing back against Biden's warmaking on all fronts. And nobody wants another costly quagmire.

• Sam Knight: [03-25] What have fourteen years of Conservative rule done to Britain? "Living standards have fallen. The country is exhausted by constant drama. But the UK can't move on from the Tories without facing up tot he damage that has occurred."

• Robert Kuttner: [03-13] WTO, RIP: "The annual World Trade Organization meeting came to an ignominious end last week with no 'progress' on major issues. That is a form of progress."

• Emily Tamkin: Slovakia's presidential election is a warning to America: "What to see what the United States would look like under a reelected Trump?"

Other stories:

Laura Bult: [03-21] Why it's so hard for Americans to retire: "There's a reason so many of us don't have enough retirement savings." Video piece, but links to Teresa Ghilarducci's book, Work, Retire, Repeat: The Uncertainty of Retirement in the New Economy. Probably good, but Astra Taylor covers the key point in her The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart.

Stephanie Burt: Lucy Sante and the solitude and solidarity of transitioning: "In her new memoir, I Heard Her Call My Name, Sante dissects her past in order to understand her future."

David Dayen: [01-29] America is not a democracy. Long piece from the print magazine. Seems like I should have noticed it before. Too much to get into just now.

Sarah Jones: The exvangelicals searching for political change. Self-evident neologism is from the book reviewed herein, The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church, by Sarah McCammon. Related here:

• Carlene Bauer: [03-12] She trusted God and science. They both failed her. Review of Devout: A Memoir of Doubt, by Anna Gazmarian, "an author who grew up in the evangelical church recounts her struggle to find spiritual and psychological well-being after a mental health challenge."

Rich Juzwiak: [03-12] A biography of a feminist porn pioneer bares all: "In Candida Royalle and the Sexual Revolution, the historian Jane Kamensky presents a raw personal -- and cultural -- history." Another review:

• Margaret Talbot: [03-16] How Candida Royalle set out to reinvent porn.

Keren Landman: [03-20] Abortion influences everything: "By inhibiting drug development, economic growth, and military recruitment, as well as driving doctors away from the places they're needed most, bans almost certainly harm you -- yes, you."

• Rachel M Cohen: [03-20] Why abortion in the US is on the rise: "There were more abortions in 2023 than in any year since 2011."

• Jodi Enda: The terrifying global reach of the American anti-abortion movement: "Conservatives have not limited their attack on reproductive rights to the United States. They've been busy imposing their will on other countries, too -- with disastrous consequences for millions of poor women."

• Mary Harris: Homicide is a leading cause of death for pregnant people. Abortion bans are making things worse.

• David D Kirkpatrick: [10-02] The next targets for the group that overturned Roe: "Alliance Defending Freedom has won fifteen Supreme Court cases. Now it wants religious exemptions to anti-discrimination laws -- and is going after trans rights."

• Ian Ward: [03-25] The group behind Dobbs does not want to talk about what comes next: Interview with Kristen Waggoner of ADF ("Alliance Defending Freedom, the conservative Christian legal fund that led the successful legal campaign to overturn Roe v. Wade."

• Mary Ziegler: [03-24] The endgame in the battle over abortion: "The arc of the fetal personhood movement signals where Republicans may be headed."

Katie Moore: [03-17] When Kansas police kill people, the public often can't see bodycam footage. Here's why.

Marcus J Moore: [03-21] The visions of Alice Coltrane: "In the years after her husband John's death, the harpist discovered a sound all her own, a jazz rooted in acts of spirit and will." I'll say something about this in Music Week. Meanwhile:

• Hank Shteamer: [03-23] The Carnegie Hall Concert.

Rick Perlstein: [03-20] 'Stay strapped or get clapped': "How the media misses the story of companies seeking profit by keeping traumatized veterans armed and enraged."

Andrew Prokop: [03-21] The political battle over Laken Riley's murder, explained: Riley was a 22-year-old student in Georgia who was murdered, allegedly by an "illegal immigrant," an event seized upon by right-wing agitators, like the guy who tweeted: "If only people went to the streets to demand change in the name of Laken Riley, like they did for George Floyd." Article provides more details. While the murders as isolated events were equivalent, the policy considerations are very different, starting with responsibility for enabling the killers, and regarding the more general context.

One not even mentioned here is the effect of the sanctions and isolation policy toward Venezuela -- mostly but not exclusively Trump's work -- and how that has driven many, including Riley's alleged killer, to migrate to the US. Prokop: "But reality is also more complicated than Trump's promises that he'll fix everything by getting tougher once he's president."

Brian Resnick: [03-22] The total solar eclipse is returning to the United States -- better than before: "This will be the last total solar eclipse over the contiguous United States for 21 years." I find myself with zero interest in looking up, much less traveling to do so, but family and friends in Arkansas are lobbying for visitors, and I know some people who are going. April 8 is the date.

Dylan Scott: [03-22] Kate Middleton's cancer diagnosis is part of a frightening global trend: "More and more young people are getting cancer." I have zero interest in her, or in any of "those ridiculous people" (John Oliver's apt turn of phrase), and so I've ignored dozens of pieces on them recently, but there's something more going on here. Every category of cancer they used is more common among ages 14-49 than it was in 1990. My wife swears it's environmental, and while I can think of statistical variations, I'm inclined to agree.

Jeffrey St Clair: [03-22] Roaming Charges: L'état sans merci. "Willie Pye is dead and Georgia is back in the execution business." This introduces a long section on what passes for justice in America. Much more, of course. For more on Pye, see:

• Liliana Segura: After four years without an execution, Georgia prepares to kill Willie Pye.

Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins: [03-20] The problematic past, present, and future of inequality studies: Interview with Branko Milanovic, whose lates book is Visions of Inequality: From the French Revolution to the End of the Cold War.

Dodai Stewart: [03-16] You're not being gaslit, says a new book. (Or are you?) Review of Kate Abramson: On Gaslighting. Demands precision of a phenomenon that is deliberately imprecise ("all kinds of interactions -- lying, guilt-tripping, manipulation"; "a multi-dimensional horror show"). Cites Harry G Frankfurt's On Bullshit (2005) as a "spiritual forebear."

Astra Taylor/Leah Hunt-Hendrix: [03-21] The one idea that could save American democracy: Tied to the authors' new book, Solidarity: The Past, Present, and Future of a World-Changing Idea. Also:

• Amy Fleming: [03-23] 'Organising is the best kind of antidepressant': Astra Taylor and Leah Hunt-Hendrix on solidarity: An interview.

By the way, I just found a link to audio for Astra Taylor: [2023-11-17] The Age of Insecurity: 2023 CBC Massey Lectures, with five hour-long lectures corresponding to the book I just read, and recommend as highly as possible -- I'd go so far as to say that she's the smartest person writing on the left these days. I was pointed to the lectures by a daanis tweet: "I finally listened to @astradisastra Massey Lectures on my way to Boston, just mainlined them one after another straight into my brain, and added her language about precarity and insecurity into my own remarks about surviving together by becoming kin."

Maureen Tkacik: [03-11] 'Return what you stole and be a man with dignity': "Doctors didn't think it was possible to loathe the world's biggest health care profiter any more. Then came the hack that set half their bookkeeping systems on fire." About the ransomware outage at Change Healthcare, which is owned by UnitedHealth ("the nation's fifth-largest company").

Bryan Walsh: [03-22] Baseball superstar Shohei Ohtani has been caught up in a gambling controversy. He won't be the last. One of the biggest changes in my lifetime has been the changed attitude toward gambling, which in my mother's day was a degenerative sin indulged by lowlifes, much to the profit of mobsters. Today the mobsters have turned into Republican billionaires -- hard to say whether that's a step up or down ethically -- and their rackets have moved out into the open. For a long time, the shame of the Black Sox kept the lid on sports gambling, but that's been totally blown open in the recent years. I hate it, which doesn't mean I want to try to ban it, but those involved are no better than criminals, and should be reminded of it as often as possible.

• Matt Stieb: [03-21] The Ohtani interpreter gambling scandal is big trouble for MLB.

Daily Log

Gretchen Eick has signed off on my revised "Reading Obits" piece, for inclusion in a second edition of The Death Project: An Anthology for These Times (Blue Cedar Press, original edition, edited by Eick and Cora Poage, published 2020). Eick and Michael Poage (Cora's father) are close personal friends, as well as owners of Blue Cedar Press, and my wife does significant unpaid editing work for them, so my inclusion is arguably just a favor. It certainly doesn't mark much of a breakthrough in me being anything but self-published, but I chose to spin it a bit in a series of tweets:

Felt like noting that I have an essay selected for a 2nd ed of "The Death Project." I've self-published millions of words, but that anyone else shows an interest - in this case a 2011 blog on "Reading Obits" - so this is some kind of personal milestone. More later.

"The Death Project" was published in 2020 when, well, you remember (don't you?). A collection of essays, fiction, and poetry, which has a rep as the worst seller ever at Blue Cedar Press. Link to original edition (w/o my essay): link.

Blue Cedar Press is run by friends - it's been a long time since I've pitched pieces to strangers, and I can't recall any approaching me - so perhaps they're just humoring me. But they've published excellent work over the years, especially this novel: link

The original 2012 "Reading Obits," is still in the notebook (link follows). It's on how hard it is to keep track of people you've known, who were important to you, as they pass, and how unmoored one feels not knowing. I had to revise, as people keep dying: link.

Submitted "voluntary recall of certain models of Cosori air fryers."

Music Week

Expanded blog post, March archive (in progress).

Tweet: Music Week: 33 albums, 8 A-list

Music: Current count 42007 [41974] rated (+33), 28 [27] unrated (+1).

Just a day late, although it feels like longer, and feels like it should have been longer still. I did manage to wrap up a small essay that's been hanging over my head for weeks -- or at least I'm hoping, as a final sign off would be nice. This pushed Speaking of Which back a day, which I didn't mind.

While I've occasionally threatened to kill it, the process of scanning my news sources, plucking out what strikes me as important and/or interesting, and occasionally commenting -- sometimes taking off on a tangent of personal/philosophical interest, sometimes just to heckle -- has been giving me a strange sense of comfort in what are clearly discomforting times.

Besides, this week the writing project I most seriously considered killing was Music Week. As to why, you're free to dig into the notebook, but what you'll find there is rather sketchily one-sided, with very little of what I really think, let alone why. Nor is there more than a hint of how much pain and anger I've felt this week. In my experience, such emotions do no good, although for better or worse -- sure, mostly the latter -- they are a big part of who I am, and how I came to be this way.

You also can simply ignore most of that paragraph, and just accept what I have to say in this one. Music Week changed this week, and may be changed for good, although I rather doubt it. Midweek I stopped reviewing new music, so everything in this week's "New records" section was done by Wednesday last. I don't plan on resuming any time soon, although that's no guarantee I won't have a few next week, and the odds of at least some appearing increase over time. In particular, it's inevitable that at some point I'll return to my promo queue, and when I do play something, I'll probably write it up in my logs, because, well, that's what I do.

Indeed, I started on that this week. After several days of playing my kind of comfort food, I decided I wanted to hear some Art Pepper. But instead of pulling out an old favorite -- of which there are dozens, including any random disc in The Complete Galaxy Recordings -- I remembered a 7-CD box that came out last year, that I thought I could stream. I put it off, mostly due to the length, but I figured I had time now, and was looking to fill it up. Unfortunately, while the title is listed (The Complete Maiden Voyage Recordings, what's actually available is a 4-CD release from 2017, which I couldn't find a label for. But I did find an Unreleased Art volume I hadn't heard, and that got me looking around. And as I did play them, I wound up doing what I always do.

I trust there are no surprises in the "Old music" section this week. Four A/A- records are ones I previously had graded that high in other forms. Getz's Nobody Else but Me is an old standby from one of the primo shelves, and I was surprised I only had it listed at B+, so an upgrade was clearly in order. The Jaki Byard is a bootleg that Allen Lowe raved about. I found it when I was trying to clear up some tabs, and decided I might as well play it, and write it up.

I moved from Getz to Geller by proximity. He's long fascinated me, so seemed worth the dive. Playing him now as I write, so next Music Week will at least have him. His late period seems to produce consistently fine but less than spectacular records.

Indexing February still delayed, as is damn near everything else in my life.

By the way, Kansas's first presidential primary in ages was today. We braved a line of absolutely no one to vote for Marianne Williamson in the Democratic primary. I gave up my Independent status in 2008 to caucus for Obama (against Clinton), and again in 2016 for Sanders (again, against Clinton), both of whom won big in Kansas. Williamson didn't win: current returns (91.9% in) give her 3.4% to Biden's 83.9%, with 10.2% "none of the names shown." Still, anyone who wants to create a Department of Peace gets my vote over Biden's war machine.

Trump is leading Haley 75.3% to 16.1%, with 5.2% for "none of the names shown." Trump had lost the 2016 caucus to Cruz.

PS: Oops! Was thinking about this most of the week, then slipped my mind when I initially posted. Meant to mention that the rated count ticked over another thousand mark this week, now over 42,000.

New records reviewed this week:

• Lynne Arriale Trio: Being Human (2023 [2024], Challenge): [cd]: B+(**)
• Blue Moods: Swing & Soul (2023 [2024], Posi-Tone): [sp]: B+(***)
• Gerald Cannon: Live at Dizzy's Club: The Music of Elvin & McCoy (2023 [2024], Woodneck): [sp]: B+(***)
• The Chick Corea Elektric Band: The Future Is Now (2016-18 [2023], Candid, 2CD): [sp]: B+(*)
• Patrick Cornelius: Book of Secrets (2022 [2023], Posi-Tone): [sp]: B+(**)
• Stephan Crump: Slow Water (2023 [2024], Papillon Sounds): [cd]: B+(***) [05-03]
• Art Hirahara: Echo Canyon (2023, Posi-Tone): [sp]: B+(**)
• Mannequin Pussy: I Got Heaven (2024, Epitaph): [sp]: B+(**)
• Pissed Jeans: Half Divorced (2024, Sub Pop): [sp]: B+(*)
• Diego Rivera: With Just a Word (2022 [2024], Posi-Tone): [sp]: B+(***)
• Jeremy Rose & the Earshift Orchestra: Discordia (2023 [2024], Earshift Music): [cd]: B+(***)
• Bill Ryder-Jones: Iechyd Da (2024, Domino): [sp]: A-
• Nadine Shah: Filthy Underneath (2024, EMI North): [sp]: B+(*)
• Sheer Mag: Playing Favorites (2024, Third Man): [sp]: B+(**)
• Rafael Toral: Spectral Evolution (2024, Moikai): [sp]: B+(*)
• Hein Westergaard/Katt Hernandez/Raymond Strid: The Knapsack, the Hat, and the Horn (2022 [2024], Gotta Let It Out): [cd]: B+(**)

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

None

Old music:

• Jaki Byard: Live in Chicago 1992 (1992, Jazz³+): [yt]: B+(**)
• Herb Geller: European Rebirth: 1962 Paris Sessions (1962 [2022], Fresh Sound): [sp]: B+(***)
• Herb Geller: Plays the Al Cohn Songbook (1994 [1996], Hep): [r]: B+(**)
• Herb Geller: To Benny & Johnny, With Love From Herb Geller (2001 [2002], Hep): [r]: B+(**)
• Herb Geller: Plays the Arthur Schwartz Songbook (2005, Hep): [r]: B+(**)
• Stan Getz/Charlie Byrd: Jazz Samba (1962, Verve): [sp]: A-
• Stan Getz With Al Haig: Prezervation (1948-51 [1967], Prestige): [sp]: B+(**)
• Art Pepper & Warne Marsh: Unreleased Art: Volume 9: At Donte's, April 26, 1974 (1974 [2016], Widow's Taste, 3CD): [r]: B+(***)
• Art Pepper: Surf Ride (1952-53 [1957], Savoy): [sp]: A-
• Art Pepper Quintet: Live at Donte's 1968 (1968 [2004], Fresh Sound, 2CD): [r]: B+(***)
• Art Pepper/Warne Marsh: Art Pepper With Warne Marsh (1956 [1986], Contemporary/OJC): [r]: A-
• Art Pepper: No Limit (1977 [1978], Contemporary): [sp]: A-
• Art Pepper: Saturday Night at the Village Vanguard (1977 [1992], Contemporary/OJC): [r]: A-
• Art Pepper: More for Les: At the Village Vanguard, Volume Four (1977 [1992[, Contemporary/OJC): [sp]: A
• Sonny Redd/Art Pepper: Two Altos (1952-57 [1992], Savoy): [sp]: B+(*)
• Sonny Red: Out of the Blue (1959-60 [1996], Blue Note): [sp]: B+(***)

Limited Sampling: Records I played parts of, but not enough to grade: -- means no interest, - not bad but not a prospect, + some chance, ++ likely prospect.

• Stephan Crump/Steve Lehman: Kaleidoscope and Collage (2011, Intakt): [sp]: -

Grade (or other) changes:

• Stan Getz: Nobody Else but Me (1964 [1994], Verve): [cd]: [was: B+]: A-

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Martin Budde: Back Burner (Origin) [03-22]
• Four + Six: Four + Six (Jazz Hang) [03-29]
• Romy Glod/Christian Ramond/Klaus Kugel: No Toxic (Nemu) [01-02]
• Johnny Griffin: Live at Ronnie Scott's (1964, Gearbox)
• Jazz Ensemble of Memphis: Playing in the Yard (Memphis International) [04-05]
• Last Day Quintet: Falling to Earth (Origin) [03-22]

Speaking of Which

Blog link.

Daily Log

I started to write a thing on two-state vs. one-state confusion in Israel/Palestine, then decided to pull it. Here's a salvaged fragment:

Not least because it extracts "two-staters" from the conflict and responsibility for its recent escalation. We need to consider a few definitions to clear up this muddle:

• The fundamental political division is between left and right. The right promotes inequality and defends hierarchy, using all forms of persuasion including religion and violent force to secure and maintain its preferred order. The left believes that all people should be treated equally. If given no better alternative, the left may attempt revolution, but prefers democratic processes, because in the end, most people will agree to equality, while hardly anyone will submit to tyranny.

Daily Log

On Monday, I posted a review:

Laura Jane Grace: Hole in My Head (2024, Polyvinyl): Originally Thomas Gabel, singer-guitarist leader in punk group Against Me!, third solo album, a short one (11 songs, 25:28). Still sounds male, so you can just bracket the trans angle. Songs open up a bit towards folk, partly to expound on politics, e.g.: "out in the country is where fascists roam." B+(***) [sp]

Melody Esme, a former rock critic (under a different name) I respected enough to accept a Facebook friend request, commented:

I didn't get around to replying, but then Joey Daniewicz posted a screen grab of the review with this:

yo Tom Hull you cannot, cannot, cannot, absolutely cannot write about trans people this way

Esme chimed in again:

If I saw this review with no name attached, I'd assume a TERF wrote it

Even more upsetting considering LJG has been vocal about how much she wishes that name could be scrubbed from the Internet

Daniewicz added:

Per Melody's research, this isn't a one off. Tom Hull seems to have a compulsive name to deadname the trans subjects of his reviews.

Iris Demento, commented:

Sincerely doubt Tom meant harm but I agree. I profiled a trans artist in 2016 and didn't understand the negative gravity of deadnaming and I regret asking the subject for it as part of journalistic background, which I bet is where this impulse is coming from. Please rewrite this one without the "trans angle," deadnaming, or "sounds male." It's Laura's best in about a decade and she deserves the respect and professionalism.

I had been stewing on this since the original comment, and finally wrote this:

But I absolutely can, and did -- using the "archaic" meaning of those words, the one I first encountered in learning English, and not the one Joey seems to mean -- "write about trans people this way." And, as you may surmise and/or guess, so I have in the past, and there's little reason to doubt I will again in the future. Last time, as best I recall, I got roasted for not mentioning that an artist is trans, so with some people on this subject at least there may be no way out. I often do start reviews off with the actual name behind an alias: I find that a short list of background facts helps get me started, and mapping a real name to an alias helps (I think) connect me to that person, although it may well disclose attributes like sex or ethnicity that aren't necessarily relevant or important). "Deadnaming" is new vocabulary for me, although I can intuit its meaning, see its relevance, and still conclude it's not my problem. "TERF" I had to look up, and see no use for. Like "transphobic," it is a hateful term that is almost always be applied to castigate other people (unlike "racist" and "antisemite," which were originally coined by people to describe themselves). And note that I'm not saying that "*phobic" has no political value. It both suffices to label all-too-common attitudes and it turns the tables by pointing out that much hatred is used to mask fear. But when you apply to term to me, I have to ask "what's my fear?" -- and I can't find it. What I find instead is an effort at bullying, at coercing (even if just by guilt-tripping) me into using your wording and framing. And since I can't possibly mold myself into your mental framework, that's tantamount to telling me to just stop writing. I must say, it's tempting. On the other hand, I remember a day long ago when my boss told me I had a "bad attitude." I doubt she had any idea how bad that attitude would get once I embraced it. By the way, do some research of your own, on what "bracket" means. Start with Husserl. Before your time, most likely, but not before mine. Some of us earned the right to be archaic.

"TERF" stands for Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist. There is a long discussion of the term on Wikipedia, which of course links to Transphobia.

Note: The following postscript was written on 2024-03-16, but obviously belongs here.

I read several more comments the next day, then stopped for several days. When I returned to collect the more thoughtful ones here, I found the thread had 43 comments, which is probably more than my last ten Music Week notices had elicited. In chronological order (skipping a few with no interest). First, directly under my comment:

• Joey Daniewicz: I didn't apply any of these terms to you. You've earned way less than you think, and this stands to be an area of deep personal embarrassment for your work.

• Iris Demento: Tom if you admit that you're not familiar with the term "deadnaming" before today, please listen: doing it would not fly with any editor in 2024 whose publication isn't a Republican nest. Doing it in any workplace in 2024 would get you written up and sent to HR if not cause for termination. The level of disrespect and bigotry (and pain it causes) to knowingly call a trans person by their deadname at this time is considered to be on the level of calling someone a racial or homophobic slur. If those are things you also would not do (or defend by saying you've "earned the right to be archaic") you should not do this either. This is completely at odds with virtually all other evidence of your values that I have seen.

• Heather Batson: I think the shocking thing here is there have been some big shifts in how we discuss trans topics and how a transition related name change is now treated as a special case. For most trans artists in 2024, a name change is not a simple artistic alias, though! It certainly makes sense to anchor her in her role with Against Me, but when a trans person changes her name in all areas of life, as Grace did, their birth name should not be thought of as their 'real name' but a wrong name forced on them for years. It is understood now that in this situation the 'real name' is the chosen legal name. This can be confusing when it comes to artists who may have a stage name separate from a legal name, but in the case of Grace, it is pretty easy to find that she is pained by her deadname and that Laura Jane Grace is clearly her real name. 'Sounds male' was like a gut punch level of rude. Like Iris, I am sure this is not intended to offend, so please know we are engaging because we care. I certainly don't want you to stop writing or feel you need my mindset on trans issues but I do want you to know that there is an updated style guide for best practices. I'm pushing 50 myself so I'm no youngster and I have to constantly relearn how to discuss certain things--but that is just part of how rapid culture shifts go!

• Melody Esme: I don't care if you're personally transphobic or not. I think your review is deeply transphobic, and that your doubling down and disregarding terms relating to my community's shared experiences shows a lack of care in how you write about certain subjects of your reviews. Why bother reviewing Laura Jane Grace, or Backxwash, or Ezra Furman, or Laura Les, or SOPHIE, or any of the other trans artists who've put their souls into their art if you don't care to understand the fundamentals of what they're singing about? Who does it help to bring up an old name somebody purposefully shed because it causes them pain? "Laura Jane Grace" isn't a fucking non de plume, it's her name, and she's made it clear that the repeated printing of her old name hurts her. Your SOPHIE review deadnamed her and I don't even know how you did that, since her deadname has hardly even been reported -- I didn't even know it was publicly known until I read that review, to be honest. You don't include Kim Petras' deadname in your blurbs on her work, I'm guessing because it's hard to find, and the reviews don't suffer from that missing context at all. Your phobia is in your reluctance to change in a way that doesn't affect you at all but would make people in a marginalized community feel more comfortable and understood. In recent years, Christgau has made strides in improving the ways he writes about transgender artists -- even switching off on all of Ezra's (at the time) pronouns in his review of Twelve Nudes, which I thought was really cute. Rather than quitting writing, you could follow in his example and just stop writing about this one group of people in a way we unanimously find insulting and bigoted. Also, please never, ever, ever say that a trans woman sounds male. It kinda sucks a lot.

• Eric Johnson: I'm sure you have earned the right to be archaic, but that's not really the issue.

  Archaic or modern, I'm sure you don't want to be hateful or hurtful. That's really the issue. Folks here are giving you credit for your good intentions and asking you to get your public words in line with those intentions. Please listen to them.

• Eric Johnson: Tom Hull I hope it doesn't seem like I'm piling on. Again, this is on the Spirit of hoping you can understand why this is such a concern.

  I completely get being defensive here. But imagine going through a tremendous amount of physical, psychological, and medical work in order to make the way people see you on the outside match up with the way you have _known_ you are on the inside for a long time. Imagine doing that in a country where a major political party has turned you into a public target.

  Then imagine that someone who is ostensibly evaluating your music (or the music of another trans person) virtually ignores the musical content and spends pretty much the entire review claiming that all the work you put in making your inner and outer selves match was a charade, and claiming that "the trans angle" could be "bracketed" while really making the entire review about that angle.

  That's got to be a significantly worse feeling than the feeling we get when we get called out on account of our choices in words. So please don't let feeling sorry for yourself about this overcome the kind of empathy that makes you a good writer.

  Laura Jane Grace is not an alias, full stop. That's her name. That's who she is.

  For the record, I'm nearly 59. I know what it's like to feel like there's no right way to say something. But please listen to people who are trying to help you here.

Other comments (with threads):

• Mark Kemp: Ugh! The weird thing is how much space the writer devotes, at this point, to LJG's transition (and, of course, the bizarre language he uses to talk about it), and how little he spends on characterizing the actual music. Reading this, I have no idea what the album sounds like.

• Boris Palameta: Don't want to pile on here, I respect Tom a lot as a writer. And professional standards are important - though ever-shifting, as several have pointed out. And rightly so, as we listen and learn more about lived experience. As an old guy who's only recently begun to manage openly non-binary and trans staff, when they tell me what's important and what hurts, I believe them.

• Alfred Soto: Tom, let me be as polite as possible. You seem more peeved that ugly-sounding neologisms are allowed to persist rather than trying to understand how/why they work. To respond like you did without referring to the people to whom those neologisms apply strikes me as a fundamental misunderstanding of how writing works, as if you thought a euphonic sentence couldn't possibly be amoral.

• Phil Overeem: As a fellow older cis gender straight male with Kansas roots and pressurized conservative Christian post-birth incubating (I'm not sure we share that last part, Tom, but probably we do), I'd like to chime in. I was ignorant for a long time about trans people while fighting my way out of other modes of thinking until I moved to Columbia, Missouri, to teach. I have taught several trans kids, two in particular who hadn't begun transitioning when I first met / taught them and one of whom was the child of two good friends and fellow teachers. Watching those students struggle with family, friends, random hostile fellow humans, and institutions as they went through the process (including surgery) and found their true selves and as much happiness as anyone can expect in this world taught me extremely well. I have been fortunate to be able know them for that expanse of their lives. I'm still struggling to "see" my current trans students and a fellow worker with ease and habitual respect (I still screw up pronouns on occasion when my visual sense blinds what I know), but I'm getting there, and making sure I include material in class that speaks to them helps everyone--including me, because one of the best ways to really learn something is to teach it, especially over and over. Again, I'm not where I need to be, but I'm close, and it is essential I get there.

  I know you are a copious reader, and I've always been of the mind that, when all else fails, READ. I am including the covers of four very disparate books that have really opened my eyes and heart: a memoir (Lucy Sante's, which I just finished and am still processing), a YA novel--I try to read one every year--about an intersex kid, a NYC-set group of dazzling but often heart-rending stories about trans life by a trans Chilean author, and Torrey Peters' very complex (for a cis mind), funny, and torturous DETRANSITION, BABY.

  One reason I was so fully behind Anohni's album last year was how it dovetailed with the impact of my experiences with students and those books. It's really good aesthetically, but its power as a statement about how it must feel to be trans and try to live in this country (and world) made it impossible for me NOT to understand that feeling and feel it empathetically as much as that's possible for someone like me.

  Tom, we also both live in states where our legislators and many of our fellow residents are a straight-up danger to the lives of trans people, so I think that further obligates us to be as supportive as we possibly can as we keep trying to understand more fully.

  • Phil Overeem: Maybe I'm way off base with this reply and it's about linguistics more than anything. If so, I'm not sure it still wouldn't be helpful, but I'm just trying to help.

  • Tim Niland: I agree, when I moved to blue state New Jersey from the highly Republican/Catholic Upstate NY area where I grew up in 2001 I had no idea. Working in a public library for fifteen years was a big eye-opener for me, learning and becoming much more empathetic toward LGBTQI+ issues. It's a process, we all learn and grow, I don't think Tom meant ill will.

  • Phil Overeem: Tim, I cannot imagine he would be deliberately hurtful.

  • Alfred Soto: Phil, using the language of DeSantis to adduce his toughness sure doesn't help. [TH: what the fuck is he talking about here?]

  • Phil Overeem: I don't get why he used it. It doesn't sound like him. [TH: does Overeem know?]

  • Phil Overeem: Heather, thank you. I "read around" and in this case it's been really important. Have you read any of those?

  • Heather Batson: Phil Overeem during the pandemic I was in a book group with - a few gender variant and trans pals, and with them, I read detransition Baby and LOVED it. one of those friend told me too much about None of the Above so then I didn't read it 😂, and I recently heard a long interview with Lucy Sante that I really enjoyed so I'm on a waiting list for the ebook from the library but did not read yet!

• Scott Coleman: Although the review makes me uncomfortable, so does reposting it here. A comment could have been sent to Tom on his site to discuss the issue. That may have been more effective in prompting a consideration of the very real issue and would likely have been perceived as less confrontational.

  • Joey Daniewicz: My impression had been that Tom had ignored engagement on the issue previously. Thanks for your comment

  • Kenneth Coleman: But we do this kind of thing all the time with Christgau reviews. While I think it's wrong to repost private conversations, this was a public review for all the world to see. And since Hull runs the Christgau site and does reviews in the same format, many of us view his site as something of a more jazz-friendly extension of the Consumer Guide. I suppose there's a difference in that Hull actually posts here on occasion. But if Christgau (or Greil Marcus) participated here, I would assume we could still use this space to point out problematic aspects of their reviews.

    I probably wouldn't have framed or worded my critique like Joey Daniewicz did, but I definitely support the crux of it--and his right to use this space this way. It's also evident here that more constructive attempts with collegial, good faith suggestions also hit a brick wall.

• Greg Morton: I would just like to remind everyone that someday you'll be older too, and new conventions will happen faster than you can keep up with.

  • Alfred Soto: Greg sure, but I intend to keep my sense of empathy, especially when a thread has the folk he's referring to

    • Greg Morton: Just ftr, I was referring to myself with my previous comment. I didn't even know that there was such a thing as "deadnaming" til this all came up. And if I may be so bold, if there were an Empathy Quotient test I would happily compare my score with anyone. So much so that I feel a substantial regret for everyone involved in this conversation. Not least Hull, and Grace, who probably doesn't know that this battle is being fought in her name. And oh yeah, the 81 year old who prompted this whole site.

    • Brian O'Neill: Being ignorant of something is fine. However when I find I am guilty of this and it results in me saying or posing something that is hurtful, and I am informed of this, my response is to apologize, learn from it, and not do it again.

      The author's response in this thread did not instill me with confidence that he even understands the issue, let alone would take steps to not repeat it.

      • Alfred Soto: And the I-won't-back-down attitude in the post was jaw-dropping. Your boss thought you difficult? Um, okay?

• Alfred Soto: I don't even know the posters who _liked_ Hull's post.

I was tempted to respond to Soto's last post: "I didn't notice any who did." Some were less hostile, but everyone who commented except me seemed to agree with the charges.

Another comment that occurred to me is: "Thank you for your comments. I will take them under advisement." I do, and I will, but at this late date, it seemed unwise to prime this particular pump.

But my gut feeling right now is pure trauma. It's exactly the same feeling I had after two gunmen broke into our house, hogtied me in the basement, ransacked the place, stealing everything they took a fancy in, then kidnapped my wife. (After several hours, she was abandoned in our car they stole, and contacted the police, who ultimately rescued me.) Well, it probably won't last that long (unless I keep writing this entry). Probably more like the time Dana Daum screamed at me for disobeying a software design order I found completely unreasonable. (It was, by the way, a grudge he never showed any sign of giving up.)

So this hurts. But most immediately, this makes me very angry. And that's something I'm not used to, and not at all comfortable with. That brings up the obvious question, which is whether I should retreat from my anger -- an easy way to do that would be to follow through on my threat to stop writing reviews, which is what I've mostly (but not yet publically) done this week, or channel that anger into more pointed writing. I'm reminded here that China Miéville, in his book on The Communist Manifesto, sees anger as valuable (maybe even essential) to political writing.

One thing I can say is that I won't be going on an anti-trans rant, nor am I likely to try to raise my unhappiness into a defense of free speech against the vigilantes of political correctness and cancel culture. (Does the DeSantis thing mean they think I'm calling them woke?)

One thing I will grant is that some of the points above deserve future consideration. But even having considered them, I still like my review. Aside from pissing off more people off than expected, it says what I wanted to say, precisely and economically. I'm loathe to follow Trump and claim it's a "perfect review" -- it certainly isn't (for one thing, the transition from "folk" to politics ought to be more secure, and I haven't figured out how the politics relates to the "trans angle" I perhaps too cavalierly brushed aside -- but for my everyday purposes it sufficed. In particular, I don't buy that "sounds male" is an insult, and it definitely isn't inaccurate.

True that I didn't really need to mention trans at all, and that may be the best way forward, but it seems like everywhere I look it's made up to be such a big deal. And it's hard to say it isn't without mentioning what it is.

Some of this will come out in next Monday's Music Week. How much, we'll see. I'm sorely tempted to quash it, but having written reviews before this blew up, I should probably go ahead and post what I have.

Super late here and now, but at least I won't have to start Sunday with this as something to do. "Reading Obits" edit done, should be good to go after a quick re-read. "Speaking of Which" crunch time. It won't be super-big, but I have a good start on it already.

Updates, compiling on March 22. Not sure I need any more of this, but it does keep coming.

• Rex Harris: I'm just coming to this thread myself. Aside from Tom's semi-hissy fit of a defense (and I can put that aside. Being called out for supporting bigotry, one may not feel, can be a hard slap. Takes a bit for the sting to wear off, and allow for an honest self- assessment), this thread, and its well thought out replies, has made me feel a bit better about the condition of my fellow humans. Heather Batson, Iris Demento, and friendly Phil Overeem gave me especially nice reading. By the way, I'm in no way suggesting I'm not a fuck-up in my language or comprehension toward others (hard to see outside myself), but I try. Thanks all.

• Brian O'Neill: This reminds me of my grandmother on my dad's side. She was born in 1900 in upstate New York. She never even saw a black person until my grandfather - who contacted her after buying a pair of pants she put her name in when she made them (a story in and of itself!) - courted and married her and whisked her away to Queens, NY in the 1920s.

  I loved grandma and she was a sweet lady, but she was also a racist. Not the burning-crosses-on-yards type. She just was very suspicious of black people - even my best friend Cliff, even the paramedics who came to help her ("they might come back to steal something," she told me while the man was right there; he just gave me a look that said he's heard this before and he gets it).

  [More "stream of consciousness" here, then:]

  Maybe it would take a real humiliation for Tom to reconsider, but I don't think so. If he viewed this thread as a "pile on," I cannot imagine how he would handle being truly and rudely embarrassed.

  All I do know is that grandma was my grandmother whether I liked or approved of her or not. Tom's just some guy who writes about music and in recent years I have a lot of experience cutting out acquaintances online and even friends in real life out of my life because I didn't approve of their views or how they expressed them.

  I used to love Ted Nugent. Now? Fuck Ted Nugent.

  I'm sure I read Tom before. Now? Fuck Tom.

• Liam Harper: I'm late to all of this, but I'd like to add a few points. (Without sharing personal details, this is a discussion that concerns me.)

  I admire Tom's writing, but ofc the LJG review and subsequent comment here were very bad. Personally I'm most concerned about the "TERF is hateful" comment as it resembles the "TERF is a slur" talking point advanced by various transphobes. Also, it's not good practice to post comments from a private group on a public site without getting permission first.

I think that ultimately the role of allies in these conversations should be to persuade and inform, not to find catharsis for one's feelings of outrage. I worry that public callouts can backfire and cause people to retreat from discussion, or else double down. So I prefer to err on the side of civility out of pragmatism: public transphobia is worse than it has ever been and the community needs all the support it can get. I've seen that some people have reached out to Tom via private messages, which I think is the best approach going forward.

All that being said, I thought most of the commentary here was v nuanced and thoughtful. I really liked Heather and Phil Overeem's posts in particular.

It's also worth keeping in mind is how generally awful the current media environment is with regard to trans commentary. Republicans aside, most of the landscape is dominated by transphobes self-promoting through the "I'm not allowed to say this" angle and uninformed/disingenuous attempts to "objectively" understand the "debate". I think that the effect has been to successfully shift the focus of public discourse onto bad-faith discussions about bathrooms, sports, and detransitioners. Imo the most pressing issues are actually: prison justice, violence against trans POC and sex workers, workplace harassment & employment discrimination, teenage homelessness, and interactions with the police. (That being said, allowing access to children / teenagers to access puberty blockers and hormones is v important.)

I'm going to take the chance to recommend a few more trans writers and media creators who deserve people's attention:

• Mia Mulder (good video unpacking the hormones and sports issue)
• Kai Cheng Thom
• Kama la Mackeral
• Contrapoints (controversial figure who has drawn justified anger from queer leftists on a few occasions, but her videos are highly researched and well-argued . . . her video "Pronouns" is a good debunking of some common arguments from right-wingers)
• Julia Serano

• Joey Daniewicz: So I don't know if we've all read this yet: [url for this entry, quoting from above]

  Key passage: "One thing I will grant is that some of the points above deserve future consideration. But even having considered them, I still like my review. Aside from pissing off more people off than expected, it says what I wanted to say, precisely and economically. I'm loathe to follow Trump and claim it's a "perfect review" -- it certainly isn't (for one thing, the transition from "folk" to politics ought to be more secure, and I haven't figured out how the politics relates to the "trans angle" I perhaps too cavalierly brushed aside -- but for my everyday purposes it sufficed. In particular, I don't buy that "sounds male" is an insult, and it definitely isn't inaccurate."

  Tom Hull, this is pretty disappointing. It's obviously a bit weird that you've used your blog to name all of us, but whatever, maybe some folks care about that more than I do. But some folks did a pretty good job explaining what was wrong with your review, but I'll confess I mostly did not put in that work.

  So I'm going to just go over again why two parts of your review are unacceptable, not just by woke mob standards but by professional standards. Alfred mentioned that you'd be blacklisted from submission by basically any site if you submitted these in a review of this album, and I have to agree! This isn't us being finnicky, this is a very severe issue, and I would very much like to see you understand and remedy it. It appears that you do not.

  "Originally Thomas Gabel"

  This might be confusing, because you are technically correct! However, this information is both completely irrelevant and unhelpful (mentioning that she's part of Against Me! is more than enough for anyone confused about the new name that she adopted over a decade ago now), but also painful. Let me be clear: including Laura's former name is something that a right wing reviewer would do with malice and disrespect towards her trans identity. Laura is not a stage name. It is her name. It's true that you are not exactly saying otherwise, but you are using a name that she has said she'd like to be scrubbed from memory. You can greatly improve your writing about trans artists simply by not bringing these former names (deadnames, as we call them) up at all.

  "Still sounds male"

  I get that you don't think this is an insult. Again, maybe I wouldn't technically call it an insult. But it's also, again, the sort of thing you'd say if you were trying /very hard/ to insult Laura and make her feel bad about her voice and her music. Trans women would really love to be seen as women, and saying you don't is entirely cruel. It doesn't sound like you meant any harm by this or by anything, but you do need to consider both how they appear and how they would be taken.

  Just from those two bits, I have to imagine that if Laura ever came by your review, it would make her feel very, very bad, and not for any valid reasons, such as you not liking her music. The above moments are firmly within your control and frankly do not contribute any positive qualities to your review.

  I also understand that people are often stuck in their ways and haven't quite understood equality issues the way that's natural to us who have gone to college in the last twenty years. That's true, but it also shows that you aren't doing the work necessary of a music writer. Bringing up that artists are trans is fine and often essential to a review, but you should be trying to put in the work to see how people have come to approach those topics. Again, no respectable music publication, absolutely none, would allow a review that states a trans artist's "former" name or that states an artist's voice sounds like their "former" gender. These aren't cutting edge developments, either, this has been figured out for the better part of a decade.

  I'm sorry you felt attacked, Tom. I could have done a better job initiating this, and feel partially responsible for your extremely defensive responses. But I do hope we can bring one of our most esteemed writers in line on this issue. I do promise that I brought this up not in the hopes of "canceling" you, but in the hopes we could figure this out. I probably didn't put in the effort necessary for such a thing, so hopefully this does something more.

  • Phil Overeem: Joey, you have done your level best, patiently, clearly, thoroughly and encouragingly, to open the clouds. I hope it helps. I don't know how else or how much better it could be said.

  • Mark Kemp: [Joey Daniewicz] This is all very nice, and you're right: He's a smart music writer and a perceptive critic. But the fact that he can't appreciate criticism himself, offer thanks to you all for the very clear guidance you've given, and own up to the gaffe(s) tells me he may not be the quick learner that he (and others) think he is. Alfred said it best: a simple "thank you" -- and, I'd add, a sincere apology -- would have gone a long way. Who knows? Maybe that's yet come.

• Alfred Soto: So I guess this is all cool and no big deal and we can keep interacting with him, eh?

  • Alfred Soto: If anyone commented on this thread, you have no business liking his posts unless you think he's earned the forgiveness.

  • Eric Marcus: TH's review and his defense of it were both awful. But shaming people for liking his posts, rallying people to shun him, and telling people under what conditions they can forgive him, is lame.

  • Eric Johnson: The review itself, the single defensive double-down response, and then a week's worth of ignoring a bunch of us crediting him with good intentions but asking him to reconsider those harmful words is not something I can forget.

  • Alfred Soto: Eric, please! If he'd written that thing about gays and Blacks you think the response would be the same?

  • Eric Marcus: I think it's easy to overestimate how much independence each of us has from the patterns of thinking we grew up with. Yes, he should know better. He should have learned at least from the incredibly thoughtful and often generous comments of the people here. I don't know TH at all, but I have no doubt that the past week of shaming has been brutal for him. Yes, trans people (including one of my wonderful kids) have it much worse than an internet drubbing. But if I ever found myself on the wrong end of one, my reaction would probably be to curl up into a ball and not get out of bed for a month. And yes he doubled-down instead. But I am in no way ready to write him off as a person.

  • Eric Johnson: I'm puzzled by this response. I'm agreeing with you here, regarding the likes on Tom's newest post, and also saying personally that I couldn't simply go on interacting with Tom as if this was nothing.

    Btw, just saw the notebook entry on his site, which makes all of this worse. I'm fucking done with this dude.

  • Eric Marcus: I didn't mean to say that everyone must carry on as before. I meant just that I am uncomfortable with Afred's exhortation to shun. And I totally get your reaction, even if I'm inclined towards a more hopeful one. Steve put it best below.

  • Phil Overeem: Alfred, I'm guilty of this, and I did sit and think about it considerably. Also, I did read his intro to his reviews, which was not encouraging. I'd really like to know his thoughts, but I'd been meaning to tell him about the Geller recommendation of two columns ago and decided for better or worse to do so. I understand your position, which now makes me regret clicking a "like," but I would be dishonest unclicking it, right?

  • Steve Alter: I don't think Tom is ignoring the issue, as his Notebook entry makes clear; he's very much grappling with it, though how he's doing so may not be satisfactory to folks. I've been on the perimeter of conversations on addressing gender expansiveness and related issues (and have really enjoyed many of the thoughtful responses from you all here) and honestly have had to control my desire to verbally punch some people in the face because even though I am an old straight white guy, I have some deep personal experiences with trans friends and families. But, outside of some folks who are truly hateful transphobics (and guess what, they're often racist, too!) I've come to feel that a lot of people need to be on a learning journey here (and sometimes it's suprising who does) and I try to show some grace to folks and support them on that path. I can't blame Tom for disappearing from this conversation and don't think that should be interpreted has him hiding from the issue and burying his head in the sand. I hope he gets on that learning journey and evolves his understanding in ways that benefit him, his readers and the communities he's a part of. There have been points at which I have completely disengaged from people whose thinking was stuck in cul-de-sacs, but I try to start by hoping for change and evolution. Understand everyone's MMV.

  • Alfred Soto: Steve, I understand your point. One isn't born to wisdom, and the pile-on can make us more obstinate -- it's happened to me! But EW is not a mean place, nor does it discourage. Several posters less patient than yours truly have attested to his good faith. I've enjoyed reading him. He needn't address every one of points -- and why would he? who has the time -- but a simple "Thanks, all, I'm taking this in," etc. would've been a palliative.

  • Eric Johnson: Yeah, I just don't see much "learning journey" in that notebook. Just more doubling down on how awful it is to be criticized on the internet. Meanwhile, in my non-internet life, I'm seeing people deal with actual hurt caused by the kind of shit he's shoveling, and I'm seeing those people do so with far more bravery and kindness and far less self-pity. I'm deeply, deeply unimpressed.

  • Steve Alter: Brian O'Neill, people hear and process things differently, hence my clarifier on that remark. We're mostly all narcissists, too, and it's not terribly surprising that when someone crushes you on something you don't fully comprehend, your response is going to initially be about you, and be pretty defensive. The fact that he exposed the conversation and is clearly upset by it is a start, even if the focus is still on himself. If it doesn't move beyond that, it'd be a damn shame (especially for someone so deeply immersed in politics and social issues) but I'm hoping he finishes somewhere different in the not too distant future.

  • Phil Overeem: Steve, my hopes align with yours. In that intro, I found myself wondering what his specific anger was. I suppose, too, that his posting today (I was wondering if he would withdraw) surprised me (arrogance? guts? carrying on until he's had more time do get things straight), and it got me to thinking of Mencken: I'll take from him what I need and leave the rest, since he's providing information. I appreciated the Geller recommendation (spot-on, as it turns out), wanted to thank him for that (I perhaps too automatically click "like"), and move on. There are more than a few live people (unlike Mencken) in my life who have views I abhor (such as being certain I am going to hell for not accepting Jesus--and very likely being trans-haters) whom I appreciate (they take very good care of my mom and look after her, have been her joy for 40 years, and live in her town, whereas I'm 3.5 hours away). What am I supposed to do? (I say that calmly.)

  • Steve Alter: [Brian O'Neill], yeah, maybe "engaging" would have been a better word (though probably no more satisfying to you). I've seen folks in similar situations just ignore anything ever happened, and not respond at all. At least a defensive and ill-informed response is an opportunity for education and change. Can't say that will happen, but it's rolling around in his brain and hopefully leads up rather than down.

  • Steve Alter: [Eric Johnson], I totally get it, but change is not binary. I don't know Tom well enough to know how his brain works, why he may think the way he did here, and why he responded the way he did (which I indeed found deeply offensive). But I do know I've not always behaved well when confronted with things that I wasn't ready to admit to, or own, particularly things that required me to get out of myself and step into someone else's shoes. I don't mean to sound Pollyanna-ish about it. Tom may change, he may not, he many feign change on the surface but not really mean it, etc. But I understand it being super raw for him right, and getting into a defensive posture, and I'm at least OK giving him a little breathing room to see if some self-discovery and adaptation happens. If not, he'll end up ignored like many other folks I've admired and dropped along the way because I wasn't OK with their behavior or values.

  • Eric Johnson: [Steve Alter] I hear you, and that's all good. But for me, I'm done. A bunch of people put a lot of energy into assuring him that we knew his heart was good, while also trying to explain why that prose didn't look like it reflected that good heart. For our trouble we got called cancelers and bullies. Fuck that. I don't have time to be part of another crusty old writer's effort to fix his damn heart.

  • Steve Alter: [Eric Johnson], totally respect everyone's choices here - and appreciate that we can have the conversation here.

  • Kevin Bozelka: [Alfred Soto] you have a like policy that I'm very much opposed to. But that's democracy. I chose my response carefully in accordance with my policy on using Facebook reactions. It was not meant to convey that he's earned my forgiveness but rather something closer, though not identical, with what Steve Alter has written so eloquently above.

I wasn't keeping score at first, but it appears that I'm banned and shunned for life by: Alfred Soto, Eric Johnson, Brian O'Neill. This diverges somewhat from Joey Daniewicz and Melody Esme, who I trust will continue to read, if only to look for more opportunities to push their agenda. Also from Iris Demento and Phil Overeem, who see me more as someone in need of, and possibly still receptive to, help. (I should follow up with them offline, as I have corresponded with them on other topics before, and I think I know them well enough to be able to continue to help one another.)

Not much more to say on this, as only Harper seems to have added anything new. I'm especially disappointed with Soto here. Sure, we've had disagreements before (like on Franco), but he's a good critic, and one I follow regularly.

Some more comments appeared under my Music Week post, so I might as well include them as well:

• Eric Johnson: So, no further engagement with us on reconsidering your approach to reviewing the album by Laura Jane Grace, Tom?

  • Steve Alter: [Eric Johnson], read his Notebook entry on the site.

  • Eric Johnson: [Steve Alter] Read it, and I'm pretty much done.

    I know a couple of trans kids through my kid. One of those kids is the only reason she ever made it to school at all last year while negotiating a maze of grief and medical issues.

    Politicians from one of the two major political parties in the country are using state and institutional powers to make these kids' lives living hells. Kids are literally dying because of the rhetoric that these monsters traffic in. Meanwhile, Tom is tossing around references to "cancel culture" and "free speech" and moaning about how traumatic it is to be criticized by one's peers. Cry me a fucking river.

  Criticism isn't an attack on free speech. It's pretty ironic that a working critic needs to be told this.

  Tom Hull I was pretty sure previously that you were a kind person who hadn't considered how this rhetoric affects real people. What I'm seeing instead here is a preposterous combination of self-importance and self pity. It's pretty clear that you don't really have any empathy for the people you write about. Whatever comments you've transcribed onto your notebook, you clearly still have your head too far up your own ass to understand what anyone is saying. So, fuck you

  To be clear, I'm not trying to "cancel" you. I'm not trying to interfere with how you write. I'm just telling you that you're acting like a piece of shit.

  • Tom Hull: [Eric Johnson] I added a note to the previous Music Week noting the objections and also that I stand by the review. I see no point in further engaging on this issue in this or any other semi-public forum, which probably includes my scarcely noticed Q&A. Private media, as Iris Demento constructively offered, is another option, guaranteed a hearing if not necessarily a response. Of course, you can continue to harangue me on your own forum, including here. Curiously when I first read your question, I started to answer a different one, which I had more on my mind. That's an easy trap to fall into, especially when one is angry.

    [Note: In chronological order, this was a response to Johnson's initial question, not his subsequent tirade. The question I was originally entertaining was why was I still posting to the EW group, despite at least the intimation I might not.]

  • Joey Daniewicz: Really sad stuff, Tom. Don't think you're worth reading without confronting what went wrong here. Hearing all that and still coming down with, "I like my review, deadnaming isn't my problem" just shows that you don't really take any of what was said very seriously.

• Iris Demento: Tom - extending an invite to chat privately if you'd like, as I'm in the unique position of understanding the experience of semipublic online humiliation firsthand and the trauma response. I think you have my email but feel free to message if you need it.

  All I'll say here is I don't think anyone wants you to stop writing or reviewing albums, they just urge you to steer clear of verbiage that will no longer fly in regards to one of the most oppressed groups of people today, who are still struggling extremely hard to be understood and have their human rights recognized.

  • Phil Overeem: Very open-hearted of you. I definitely support that strategy and hope he takes you up on it!

  • Iris Demento: [Phil] regardless of the validity/necessity of this discussion taking place in a public forum I virtually never think personal reflection is best served with an audience

  • Michael Imes: Same, I don't get the public peacocking. It's obvious to a long time reader of this group and Tom's that better ground will be gained from all parties with real dialog not FB posting. Some great points have been made all around butto prove it's more than a performative gesture to a symnpathetic group then a real ole fashioned phone call or discussion should take place.

• Joey Daniewicz: Reposting from the other thread: [already have this, above]

  • Iris Demento: Just to add an anecdote that supports this: in 2015 I wrote the SPIN review of Sophie's Product and gave it a 9 out of 10, one of our highest scores of that year (i pazzed it at 2010s). It got a 6 from pitchfork and a negative review from Sasha geffen of all people (for consequence) and a lot of people who loved the singles felt like the compilation didn't add enough new to them. Despite it being overwhelmingly the most positive review I'm pretty sure that record received (I think xgau was actually responding to me in his A- by saying it "wasn't the future of pop" which I'm pretty sure I said it was), my review/score - tantamount to a full A - wasn't really used in future sophie press kits or emails at all. Sophie wasn't out as trans yet, but I had dug up her then-"real" name-now deadname and used it in the opening bars of the review. (In 2020 I worked with spin again briefly and had the deadname removed.) I can't prove that's why her team didn't wear it as a badge of honor but I'd be really shocked if it didn't have something to do with it.

  • Dalton Mobley: For what it's worth, I would personally keep "bracket the trans angle" on that list--I agree with Tom that many people who might object to it aren't familiar with its origins/use in phenomenology, but that is probably a very good reason -not- to use it in this context--because to most people it just sounds like the review is saying the trans angle is irrelevant, bordering on a nuisance.

    It's also probably true that this is the kind of subject matter that the capsule review can be ill-suited to handling--it's very easy to come off as dismissive in 53 words, when you might just be trying for concision and accuracy as you see it.

Again, nothing much to add at this point. I suppose I could note that I've received several private emails offering support -- not for being transphobic, as none of the correspondents and few if any people who actually know me think I am, but I get the sense that they think I'm not alone in getting slammed in this way. No need to include them here. The point here isn't to relitigate, but just to document what transpired, in case I ever wish to revisit it.

Music Week

Expanded blog post, March archive (in progress).

Tweet: Music Week: 36 albums, 6 A-list

Music: Current count 41974 [41938] rated (+36), 27 [21] unrated (+6).

Another substantial Speaking of Which yesterday, plus some late additions today, bringing it up to 206 links, 9408 words. Otherwise, I have nothing much to show for the week, and I'm feeling as drained and hapless as I can recall, perhaps ever. Lots of tasks and projects piling up, unattended. At least I feel fairly well informed, and like I'm making sense when I drop into whatever topics come my way. Reflexes, and a substantial backlog of references I can still call up.

Meanwhile, I listened to the following bunch of records. I spent a lot more time with the R&B comp, eventually replaying all of it, which was enough for the promotion. Good tip from the redoubtable Clifford Ocheltree, so thanks again. The Hawkwind album tip came from a follower who goes by Cloudland Blue Quartet, who featured it in a #13at13 list. I didn't spend enough time on it -- certainly nothing like I would have had I encountered it at 13 (or 21, which I was when it came out; I certainly didn't have 13 albums at that age, and none to brag about). It seems like I must have heard more from them at the time than I have in the database, but not enough to really register (except as noted).

Three relatively mainstream jazz albums in the A-list this week. I feel a bit bad about not finding less obvious choices, but sometimes it breaks that way. The Potter album isn't actually in the 36 count, but I moved it in to wrap it up here. None scored high enough to be strong top-ten candidates at EOY (11, 13, 14 at the moment, or 6, 8, 9 among jazz), but they are likely to finish high in EOY polls.

Hurray for the Riff Raff is another pick with pretty broad support (86 on 21 reviews at AOTY; making it the year's highest-ranked album so far with that many reviews). It's taken over the number 2 slot in my 2024 list.

As for Old Music, the Gebru album I most recommend is still Éthiopiques 21: Ethiopia Song (1963-70 [2006], Buda Musique), attributed more precisely to Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, but any of the recent Emahoy/Mississippi compilations could do the trick. For solo piano, I usually prefer something upbeat (Earl Hines), fanciful (Art Tatum), and/or abrasive (Cecil Taylor), but all rules seem to have exceptions, and this is definitely one.

PS: [03-19] I have it on good authority that my Laura Jane Grace review, below, is "archaically transphobic." I understand their arguments, and will consider them in the future. But I will let this review stand. I've spent considerable time considering how I might respond, but after one rash attempt, I doubt that further discussion will do anyone any good.

New records reviewed this week:

• Albare: Beyond Belief (2023 [2024], AM): [cd]: B+(*)
• Bob Anderson: Live! (2023 [2024], Jazz Hang): [cd]: B+(*) [03-29]
• Jonas Cambien: Jonas Cambien's Maca Conu (2023 [2024], Clean Feed): [sp]: B+(***)
• Ian Carey & Wood Metal Plastic: Strange Arts (2019 [2024], Slow & Steady): [cd]: B+(**) [03-22]
• Giuseppe Doronzo/Andy Moor/Frank Rosaly: Futuro Ancestrale (2022 [2024], Clean Feed): [sp]: B+(**)
• Fire!: Testament (2022 [2024], Rune Grammofon): [sp]: B+(***)
• Glitter Wizard: Kiss the Boot (2023, Kitten Robot, EP): [sp]: B
• Laura Jane Grace: Hole in My Head (2024, Polyvinyl): [sp]: B+(***)
• Dave Harrington/Max Jaffe/Patrick Shiroishi: Speak, Moment (2021 [2024], AKP): [sp]: B+(**)
• Keyon Harrold: Foreverland (2023 [2024], Concord): [sp]: B+(**)
• Brittany Howard: What Now (2024, Island): [sp]: B+(**)
• Hurray for the Riff Raff: The Past Is Still Alive (2024, Nonesuch): [sp]: A-
• Idles: Tangk (2024, Partisan): [sp]: B+(**)
• Vijay Iyer: Compassion (2022 [2024], ECM): [sp]: B+(***)
• The Last Dinner Party: Prelude to Ecstasy (2024, Island): [sp]: B+(*)
• Little Simz: Drop 7 (2024, Forever Living Originals, EP): [sp]: B+(**)
• Mike McGinnis + 9: Outing: Road Trip II (2023 [2024], Sunnyside): [sp]: B+(**)
• Emile Parisien/Roberto Negro: Les Métanuits (2023, ACT): [sp]: B+(**)
• Emile Parisien Quartet: Let Them Cook (2024, ACT): [sp]: B+(***)
• Chris Potter/Brad Mehldau/John Patitucci/Brian Blade: Eagle's Point (2023 [2024], Edition): [sp]: A-
• Joel Ross: Nublues (2023 [2024], Blue Note): [sp]: A-
• Scheen Jazzorkester & Cortex: Frameworks: Music by Thomas Johansson (2022 [2024], Clean Feed): [sp]: B+(***)
• Patrick Shiroishi: I Was Too Young to Hear Silence (2020 [2023], American Dreams): [sp]: B+(***)
• The Smile: Wall of Eyes (2024, XL): [sp]: B
• Vera Sola: Peacemarker (2024, Spectraphonic/City Slang): [sp]: B+(**)
• John Surman: Words Unspoken (2022 [2024], ECM): [sp]: A-
• Michael Thomas: The Illusion of Choice (2023 [2024], Criss Cross): [sp]: B+(***)
• Akiko Tsugura: Beyond Nostalgia (2023 [2024], SteepleChase): [sp]: B+(**)
• The Umbrellas: Fairweather Friend (2024, Tough Love): [sp]: B+(*)
• Yard Act: Where's My Utopia? (2024, Island): [sp]: B+(**)

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

• Emahoy Tsegue Maryam Guebru: Souvenirs (1977-85 [2024], Mississippi): [sp]: B+(***)

Old music:

• Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru: Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru (1963-70 [2016], Mississippi): [sp]: A-
• Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru: Jerusalem (1972-2012 [2023], Mississippi): [sp]: B+(***)
• Gigi W Material: Mesgana Ethiopia (2010, M.O.D. Technologies): [sp]: B+(**)
• Hawkwind: Doremi Fasol Latido (1972, United Artists): [sp]: B+(***)

Grade (or other) changes:

• The R&B No. 1s of the '50s (1950-59 [2013], Acrobat, 6CD): [cd]: [was: A-] A

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Neal Alger: Old Souls (Calligram) [03-01]
• Sam Anning: Earthen (Earshift Music) [04-05]
• Alex Beltran: Rift (Calligram) [03-01]
• Julieta Eugenio: Stay (self-released) [03-29]
• Julien Knowles: As Many, as One (Biophilia) [04-26]
• Travis Reuter: Quintet Music (self-released) [04-19]
• Claudio Scolari Project: Intermission (Principal) [03-25]
• Dan Weiss: Even Odds (Cygnus) [03-29]
• Hein Westergaard/Katt Hernandez/Raymond Strid: The Knapsack, the Hat, and the Horn (Gotta Let It Out) [02-25]

Speaking of Which

Blog link.

Once again, started early in the week, spent most of my time here, didn't get to everything I usually cover. Late Sunday night, figured I should go ahead and kick this out. Monday updates possible.

Initial count: 181 links, 7,582 words. Updated count [03-11]: 207 links, 9,444 words.

Top story threads:

Not sure where to put this, so how about here?

• Jacob Bogage: [03-08] Government shutdown averted as Senate passes $459 billion funding bill: In other words, Republicans once again waited until the last possible moment, then decided not to pull the trigger in their Russian roulette game over the budget. It seems be an unwritten rule that in electing Mike Johnson as Speaker, the extreme-right gets support for everything except shutting down the government.

Israel:

• Mondoweiss:

  • [03-04] Day 150: Israel is 'engineering famine' in Gaza. "Amnesty International says Israel is 'engineering famine' in Gaza. Organization head Agnes Callamard adds, 'all states that cut UNRWA funding, sold weapons and supported Israel bear responsibility too.'"

  • [03-05] Day 151: Israel 'campaigns' to end UNRWA in Gaza Strip: "UNRWA's chief says dismantling the agency is 'short-sighted' and will 'sow the seeds of hatred, resentment, and future conflict.' Israeli forces fire at Palestinians seeking aid and food in Gaza City and detain others in southern Gaza."

  • [03-06] Day 152: Prospect of breakthrough in ceasefire talks remains thin: "Canada will resume funding to UNRWA and pay a pledge of $25m due in April. In Gaza, another Palestinian child dies of thirst and hunger in the north, bringing the number of children to die from malnutrition to 18."

  • [03-07] Day 153: Over 2 dozen Palestinian captives have 'died' in Israeli detention camps: "At least 20 Palestinians have died as a result of malnutrition and dehydration in Gaza, health officials say. Meanwhile, new reports from Israeli media say 27 Palestinian captives who were being held in Israeli 'makeshift cages' have died."

  • [03-08] Day 154: Biden's maritime aid corridor to Gaza slammed as 'unrealistic': "Human rights experts say the Biden administration's proposed maritime corridor is a much less effective solution to addressing the dire needs of Gaza's besieged and starving population than a ceasefire and pressuring Israel to open land crossings."

  • [03-09] Day 155: Deadly aid drop and obstacles to a maritime corridor expose farcical humanitarian response to Gaza famine: "At least eighteen children have died in Gaza from malnutrition, while deaths by starvation have risen to 23. Meanwhile, the Pentagon announced that Biden's proposed floating pier would take two months and 1000 US troops to build.

  • [03-10] Day 156: Israel deploys 15,000 troops in West Bank as Ramadan starts: "Ceasefire talks falter as Izz El-Din Al-Qassam Brigades spokesperson says Israel is using 'deception and evasion.' Israel deploys thousands of troops in the West Bank and Jerusalem ahead of plans to restrict access to Al-Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan."

• Shane Bauer: [02-26] The Israeli settlers attacking their Palestinian neighbors: "With the world's focus on Gaza, settlers have used wartime chaos as cover for violence and dispossession."

• Giorgio Cafiero: [03-05] Why Egypt can't and won't open the floodgates from Gaza.

• Emma Farge: [03-07] Israel destroying Gaza's food system in 'starvation' tactic.

• Noa Galili: [03-10] Strangled by Israel for decades, Gaza's future must begin with free movement.

• Imad Abu Hawash: A new surge of settler outposts is terrorizing Palestinians off their land.

• Ibrahim Husseini: [03-08] Palestinians expect Israeli crackdown on worship at al-Aqsa during Ramadan.

• Ellen Ioanes: [03-07] What the UN report on October 7 sexual violence does -- and doesn't -- say.

• Eyal Lurie-Pardes: Journalism out, hasbara in: How Israeli news joined the Gaza war effort.

• Khalid Mohammed: Desperate to escape Gaza carnage, Palestinians are forced to pay exorbitant fees to enter Egypt.

• Aseel Mousa: [03-08] As Ramadan approaches, Rafah braces for an Israeli ground invasion.

• Jonathan Ofir: [03-06] 'We are the masters of the house': Israeli channels air snuff videos featuring systematic torture of Palestinians.

• Yumna Patel: [03-05] Palestinian PM's resignation nothing more than 'cosmetic shake up,' analysts say.

• Reuters: [03-09] Israeli settlements expand by record amount, UN rights chief says.

• Jeffrey St Clair: [03-02] Gaza Diary: Burning all illusions.

• Times of Israel: [03-08] Five Palestinians killed in Gaza after aid airdrop malfunctions.

• Nick Turse: Who could have predicted the US war in Somalia would fail? The Pentagon.

Israel vs. world opinion: Note that Biden's relief scheme for Gaza, announced in his State of the Union address, has been moved into its own sandbox, farther down, next to other Biden/SOTU pieces.

• Kyle Anzalone: [03-07] South Africa urges ICJ for emergency order as famine looms over Gaza.

• James Bamford: [03-06] Time is running out to stop the carnage in Gaza: "Given the toll from bombing and starvation, Gaza will soon become the world's largest unmarked grave." Actually, time ran out sometime in the first week after Oct. 7, when most Americans -- even many on the left who had become critical of Israeli apartheid -- were too busy competing in their denunciations of Hamas to notice how the Netanyahu government was clearly intent to commit genocide. At this point, the carnage is undeniable -- perhaps the only question is when the majority of the killing will shift (or has shifted) from arms to environmental factors (including starvation), because the latter are relatively hard to count (or are even more likely to be undercounted). Of course, stopping the killing is urgent, no matter how many days we fail.

• Greer Fay Cashman: [03-07] President Herzog faces calls for arrest on upcoming Netherlands visit.

• Jonathan Cook: [03-07] How the 'fight against antisemitism' became a shield for Israel's genocide.

• Richard Falk: [02-25] In Gaza, the west is enabling the most transparent genocide in human history.

• Noah Feldman: [03-05] How Oct. 7 is forcing Jews to reckon with Israel. Excerpt from his new book, To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People.

• Daniel Finn: [03-07] Slaughter in Gaza has discredited Britain's political class.

• Fred Kaplan: [03-06] Four things that will have to happen for the Israel-Hamas war to end: I have a lot of respect for Kaplan as an analyst of such matters, but the minimal solution he's created is impossible. His four things?

  1. The Hamas leadership has to surrender or go into exile. ("Qatar will have to crack down on Hamas, or perhaps provide its military leaders refuge in exchange for their departure from Gaza.")
  2. "Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and other Sunni powers in the region will have to help rebuild Gaza and foster new, more moderate political leaders."
  3. "Israel will at least have to say that it favors the creation of a Palestinian state and to take at least a small movement in that direction." Why anyone should believe Israel in this isn't explained.
  4. "The United States will have to serve as some sort of guarantor to all of this -- and not only for Israel."

  In other words, every nation in the region has to bend to Israel's stubborn insistence that they have to maintain control over every inch of Gaza, even though they've made it clear they'd prefer for everyone living there to depart or die. In any such scenario, it is inevitable that resistance will resurface to again threaten Israel's security, no matter how many layers of proxies are inserted, and no matter how systematically Israel culls its "militants." Short of a major sea change in Israeli opinion -- which is a prospect impossible to take seriously, at least in the short term -- there is only one real solution possible, which is for Israel to disown Gaza. Israel can continue to maintain its borders, its Iron Walls and Iron Domes, and can threaten massive retaliation if anyone on the Gaza side of the border attacks them. (This can even include nuclear, if that's the kind of people they are.) But Israel no longer gets any say in how the people of Gaza live. From that point, Israel is out of the picture, and Gaza has no reason to risk self-destruction by making symbolic gestures.

  That still leaves Gaza with a big problem -- just not an Israel problem. That is because Israel has rendered Gaza uninhabitable, at least for the two million people still stuck there. Those people need massive aid, and even so many of them probably need to move elsewhere, at least temporarily. Without Israel to fight, Hamas instantly becomes useless. They will release their hostages, and disband. Some may go into exile. The rest may join in rebuilding, ultimately organized under a local democracy, which would have no desire let alone capability to threaten Israel. This is actually very simple, as long as outside powers don't try to corrupt the process by recruiting local cronies (a big problem in the region, with the US, its Sunni allies, Iran, its Shiite friends, Turkey, and possibly others serial offenders).

  Sure, this would leave Israel with a residual Palestinian problem elsewhere: both with its second- and lesser-class citizens and wards, and with its still numerous external refugees. But that problem has not yet turned genocidal (although it's getting close, and is clearly possible as long as Smotrich and Ben-Gvir are part of Israel's ruling coalition). But there is time to work on that, especially once Israel is freed from the burden and horror of genocide in Gaza. There are lots of ideas that could work as solutions, but they all ultimately to accepting that everyone, regardless of where they live, should enjoy equal rights and opportunities. That will be a tough pill for many Israelis to swallow, but is the only one that will ultimately free them from the internecine struggle Israelis and Palestinians have been stuck with for most of a century. There's scant evidence that most Israelis want that kind of security, so people elsewhere will need to continue with BDS-like strategies of persuasion. But failure to make progress will just expose Israelis to revolts like they experienced on Oct. 7, and Palestinians to the immiseration and gloom they've suffered so often over many decades decades.

• Colbert I King: [03-08] The United States cannot afford to be complicit in Gaza's tragedy: True or not, isn't it a bit late to think of this?

• Nicholas Kristof: [03-19] 'People are hoping that Israel nukes us so we get rid of this pain': Texts with a Gazan acquaintance named Esa Alshannat, not Hamas, but after Israeli soldiers left an area, found "dead, rotten and half eaten by wild dogs." Kristof explains: "Roughly 1 percent of Gaza's people today are Hamas fighters. To understand what the other 99 percent are enduring, as the United States supplies weapons for this war and vetoes cease-fire resolutions at the United Nations, think of Alshannat and multiply him by two million."

• Debbie Nathan:

  • [03-03] How Israel quietly crushed early American Jewish dissent on Palestine: Review of Geoffrey Levin: Our Palestine Question: Israel and American Jewish Dissent, 1948-1978, "delves into American Jewish McCarthyism from the 1950s through the late 1970s."

  • Wolf Blitzer cut his teeth doing journalism for AIPAC-linked propaganda outlets.

• Vivian Nereim: [03-10] As Israel's ties to Arab countries fray, a stained lifeline remains: The United Arab Emirates is still on speaking terms with Israel, but doesn't have much to show for their solicitude.

• Ilan Pappé: [02-01] It is dark before the dawn, but Israeli settler colonialism is at an end.

• Mitchell Plitnick: [03-07] Replacing Netanyahu with Gantz won't fix the problem.

• Rebecca Lee Sanchez: [03-06] Gaza's miracle of the manna: Aid and the American God complex.

• Philip Weiss:

  [03-07] Zionism and Jewish identity: "American Zionists are not deluded about Zionism. They know exactly what Israel is, and they are actively supporting blatant supremacy, racism, and apartheid. But that is changing, because Zionism is finally being challenged in the left/liberal press."

  • [03-10] Weekly Briefing: Israeli genocide is 'embarrassing' Biden, at last.

• Brett Wilkins: [03-06] AIPAC's dark money arm unleashes $100 million: "Amid the Netanyahu government's assault on Gaza and intensifying repression in the West Bank, AIPAC is showing zero tolerance for even the mildest criticism of Israel during the 2024 US elections."

America's increasingly desperate and pathetic empire: I started this section to separate out stories on how the US was expanding its operations in the Middle East, ostensibly to deter regional adversaries from attacking Israel while Israel was busy with its genocide in Gaza. At the time, it seemed like Israel was actively trying to promote a broader war, partly to provide a distraction from its own focus (much as WWII served to shield the Holocaust), and partly to give the Americans something else to focus on. Israel tried selling this as a "seven-front war" -- a line that Thomas Friedman readily swallowed, quickly recovering from his initial shock at Israel's overreaction in Gaza -- but with neither Iran nor the US relishing what Israel imagined to be the main event, thus far only the Houthis in Yemen took the bait (where US/UK reprisals aren't much of a change from what the Saudis had been doing, with US help, for years). So this section has gradually been taken over by more general articles on America's imperial posture (with carve outs for the still-raging wars in Israel/Gaza and Ukraine/Russia.

• Ramzy Baroud:

  • [03-04] To defend Israel's actions, the US is destroying the int'l legal system it once constructed: I'm not sure that the US ever supported any sort of international justice system. The post-WWII trials in Japan and Germany were rigged to impose "victor's justice." The UN started as a victors' club, with Germany and Japan excluded, and the Security Council was designed so small states couldn't gang up on the powers. And when Soviet vetoes precluded using the UN as a cold war tool, the US invented various "coalitions of the willing" to rubber-stamp policy. The US never recognized independent initiatives like the ICJ, although the US supports using the ICJ where it's convenient, like against Russia in Ukraine. The only "rules-based order" the US supports is its own, and even there its blind support for Israel arbitrary and capricious -- subject to no rules at all, only the whims of Netanyahu.

  • [03-08] On solidarity and Kushner's shame: How Gaza defeated US strategem, again.

• Mac William Bishop: [02-23] American idiots kill the American century: "After decades of foreign-policy bungling and strategic defeats, the US has never seemed weaker -- and dictators around the world know it."

• Christopher Caldwell: [03-09] This prophetic academic now foresees the West's defeat: On French historian/political essayist Emmanuel Todd, who claims to have been the first to predict the demise of the Soviet Union (see his The Final Fall: An Essay on the Decomposition of the Soviet Sphere, from 1976), has a new book called La Défaite de l'Occident. Caldwell, who has a book called The Age of Entitlement, seems to be an unconventional conservative, so even when he has seeming insights it's hard to trust them. Even harder to get a read on Todd. (The NYTimes' insistence on "Mr." at every turn has never been more annoying.) But their skepticism of Biden et al. on Ukraine/Russia is certainly warranted. By the way, here are some old Caldwell pieces:

  • [2023-02-07] Russia and Ukraine have incentives to negotiate. The US has other plans.

  • [2022-05-31] The war in Ukraine may be impossible to stop. And the US deserves much of the blame.

• Brian Concannon: [03-08] US should let Haiti reclaim its democracy.

• Gregory Elich: [03-08] How Madeleine Albright got the war the US wanted: NATO goes on the warpath, initially in Yugoslavia, then . . . "the opportunity to expand Western domination over other nations."

• Tom Engelhardt: [03-05] A big-time war on terror: Living on the wrong world: "A planetary cease fire is desperately needed."

• Connor Freeman: [03-07] Biden's unpopular wars reap mass death and nuclear brinkmanship.

• Marc Martorell Junyent: [03-07] Tempest in a teapot: British illusions and American hegemony from Iraq to Yemen. Review of Tom Stevenson's book, Someone Else's Empire: British Illusions and American Hegemony.

• Joshua Keating: [03-09] The Houthis have the world's attention -- and they won't give it up: "What do Yemen's suddenly world-famous rebels really want, and what will make them stop?" One lesson here is that deterrence only works if it threatens a radical break from the status quo. The Saudis, with American support, have been bombing the Houthis for more than a decade now, causing great hardship for the Yemeni people, but hardly moving the needle on Houthi political power. So how much worse would it get if they picked a fight with Israel's proxy navy? Moreover, by standing up to Israel and its unwitting allies, they gain street cred and a claim to the moral high ground. For similar reasons, sanctions are more likely to threaten nations that aren't used to them. Once you're under sanctions, which with the US tends to be a life sentence, what difference does a few more make? It's too late for mere threats to change the behavior of Yemen, Iran, North Korea, and/or Russia -- though maybe not to affect powers whose misbehaviors have thus far escaped American sanctions, like Israel and Saudi Arabia. But for the rest, to effect change, you need to do something positive, to give them some motivation and opportunity to change. In many cases, that shouldn't even be hard. Just try to do the right thing. Respect the independence of others. Look for mutual benefits, like in trade. Help them help their own people. And stop defending genocide.

• Nan Levinson: [03-07] The enticements of war (and peace).

• Blaise Malley: [03-06] Opportunity calls as Cold War warriors exit the stage: "Will Mitch McConnell's replacement represent the old or new guard in his party's foreign policy?"

• Paul R Pillar: [03-06] Why Netanyahu is laughing all the way to the bank: "David Petraeus said recently that US leverage on Israel to do the right thing in Gaza is 'overestimated' -- that's just not true."

• Robert Wright: [03-08] The real problem with the Trump-Biden choice: This piece is far-reaching enough I could have slotted it anywhere, but it has the most bearing here: the problem is how much Trump and Biden have in common, especially where it comes to foreign affairs: "America First" may seem like a different approach from Biden's, but the latter is just a slightly more generous and less intemperate variation, as both start from the assumption that America is and must be the leader, and everyone else needs to follow in line. Trump thinks he can demand the other pay tribute; Biden possibly knows better, but his pursuit of arms deals makes me wonder. Wright cites a piece by Adam Tooze I can't afford or find, quoting it only up to the all-important "but" after which the Trump-Biden gap narrows. While I'm sure Tooze has interesting things to say, Wright's efforts to steer foreign policy thinking away from the zero-sum confrontations of the Metternich-to-Kissinger era are the points to consider.

• Fareed Zakaria: [03-08] Amid the horror in Gaza, it's easy to miss that the Middle East has changed.

Election notes: Sixteen states and territories voted for president on Super Tuesday, mostly confirming what we already knew. Biden won everywhere (except American Samoa), even over "uncommitted" (which mostly got a push from those most seriously upset over his support for Israeli genocide). Trump won everywhere -- except in Vermont, narrowly to Nikki Haley, who nonetheless shuttered her campaign (but hasn't yet endorsed Trump). Dean Phillips dropped out of the Democratic race after getting 8% in his home state of Minnesota and 9% in Oklahoma. He endorsed Biden. I'm not very happy with any of the news summaries I've seen, but here are a few to skim through: 538; AP; Ballotpedia; CBS News; CNBC; CNN; Guardian; NBC News; New York Times; Politico; USA Today; Washington Post. One quote I noticed (from CNN) was from a "reluctant Democrat" in Arizona: "It's hard to vote for someone with multiple felony charges; and it's also very hard to vote for someone that is pro-genocide."

• Michael C Bender: [03-06] How Trump's crushing primary triumph masked quiet weaknesses: "Even though he easily defeated Nikki Haley, the primary results suggested that he still has long-term problems with suburban voters, moderates, and independents."

• Aaron Blake: [03-08] The Texas GOP purge and other below-the-radar Super Tuesday nuggets.

• Nate Cohn: [03-07] Where Nikki Haley won and what it means: Inside the Beltway (61%), Home base and Mountain West cities (57%), Vermont (56%), University towns (56%), Resort towns (55%): In other words, the sorts of places that would automatically disqualify one as a Real Republican.

• Antonia Hitchens: [03-06] Watching Super Tuesday returns at Mar-a-Lago.

• Ro Khanna: [03-07] The message from Michigan couldn't be more clear: Actually, these figures (see Nichols below) are hardly enough for a bump in the road to Biden's reelection -- unlike, say, Eugene McCarthy's New Hampshire showing in 1968, where Lyndon Johnson got the message clearly enough to give up his campaign. What they do show is that the near-unanimity of Democratic politicians in support of Israel is not shared by the rank and file.

• Adam Nagourney/Shane Goldmacher: [03-09] The Biden-Trump rerun: A nation craving change gets more of the same: I bypassed this first time around, but maybe we should offer some kind of reward for the week's most inane opinion piece. Wasn't Nagourney a finalist in one of those hack journalists playoffs? (If memory serves -- why the hell can't I just google this? -- he finished runner-up to Karen Tumulty.)

• John Nichols: [03-05] Gaza is on the ballot all over America: "Inspired by Michigan's unexpectedly high 'uncommitted' vote, activists across the country are now mounting campaigns to send Biden a pro-cease-fire message." Uncommitted slate votes thus far (from NYTimes link, above): Minnesota: 18.9%; Michigan: 13.2%; North Carolina: 12.7%; Massachusetts: 9.4%; Colorado: 8.1%; Tennessee: 7.9%; Alabama: 6.0%; Iowa: 3.9%.

• Alexander Sammon:

  • [03-09] Katie Porter said her Senate primary was "rigged." Let's discuss! "Her complaint was kind of MAGA-coded. But it wasn't entirely wrong." Adam Schiff had a huge fundraising advantage over Porter, as Porter did over the worthier still Barbara Lee. This is one of the few pieces I've found that looks into where that money came from (AIPAC chipped in $5 million; a crypto-backed PAC doubled that), and how it was used, explained in more depth in the following:

  • [03-05] Democrats have turned to odd, cynical tactics to beat one another in California's Senate race. Schiff wound up spending a lot of money not trying to win Democrats over from Porter and Lee -- something that might require explaining why he supported the Iraq War (which itself partly explains why he got all that AIPAC money) -- but instead spent millions raising Republican Steve Garvey's profile. In the end, Schiff was so successful he lost first place to Garvey (on one but not both of the contests: one to finish Feinstein's term, one for the six year term that follows), but at least he got past Porter and Lee, turning the open primary into a traditional R-D contest (almost certainly D in California).

• Michael Scherer: [03-08] Inside No Labels decision to plow ahead with choosing presidential candidates: "The group announced on a call with supporters Friday plans to announce a selection process for their third-party presidential ticket on March 14 with a nomination by April." More No Labels:

  • Ed Kilgore: [03-08] No Labels green-lights 2024 bid with no candidates: "The idea of a 'unity ticket' is more popular than a bid with named candidates."

• Li Zhou: [03-06] Jason Palmer, the guy who beat Biden in American Samoa, briefly explained.

Trump, and other Republicans:

• David Atkins: [03-06] The incompetent malfeasance of today's Republican party: "They're mendacious buffoons, but their lack of political acumen makes them no less dangerous than if they knew how to shoot straight." Laugh as you may, but in much of the country, they're still kicking your ass.

• Zack Beauchamp: [03-06] The Republican primary was a joke. It tells us something deadly serious. "Trump's inevitable romp to victory revealed how strong his hold on the GOP is -- and how dangerous he remains to democracy."

• Ryan Bort: [03-08] Republicans tap election denier, Trump's daughter-in-law to run RNC: "The MAGA takeover of the Republican National Committee is complete, and the group appears poised to subsidize Trump's legal fights." Michael Whatley and Lara Trump.

• Zak Cheney-Rice: [03-09] The normalization of Trump's alleged crimes: "His legal strategy is both buying him time and erasing the accusations against him."

• Juan Cole: [03-06] Trump, Like Biden, supports Israeli Campaign against Gaza: "You've got to finish the Problem": Odd turn of phrase, isn't it? (I usually try to standardize case in headlines, but this one was so peculiar, I left it alone.) Most people try to solve problems, but "finish" could have two meanings, one suggesting that it isn't problem enough yet, so needs to be made more complete; the other interpretation, which is more like Trump, is that "Problem" means Palestinians, and "finish" means annihilation (or more vividly, if you know the original German, Vernichtung). I don't quite buy the argument that "Trump's position on Gaza is not any different from that of Joe Biden." Biden may feel powerless to object to Israel, but he's not unaware of the human cost. Trump simply doesn't care. As long as the checks don't bounce, he's good to go. More on Trump's Gaza "problem":

  • Jake Johnson: [03-07] Trump's answer on Gaza shows he's 'even worse' than Biden on Israel.

  • James Risen: On Israel, Trump is even worse than Biden.

  • Connor Echols: [03-04] Would Trump 2.0 be a hawk or a dove? "It's the advisers, stupid."

• Dan Diamond/Alex Horton: [03-07] Navy demoted Ronny Jackson after probe into White House behavior: "Trump's former physician and GOP ally is now a retired captain, not an admiral."

• Jesse Drucker: [03-09] How Trump's Justice Dept. derailed an investigation of a major company: "The industrial giant Caterpillar hired William Barr and other lawyers to defuse a federal criminal investigation of alleged tax dodges."

• Michael Gold: [03-10] Trump vilifies migrants and mocks Biden's stutter in Georgia speech.

• Jessica M Goldstein: The right-wing war on abortion has nothing to do with babies: "Coverage of the recent controversy over IVF has made a perilous omission: This is a battle over body autonomy." Related:

  • Aubrey Hirsch: [03-07] IVF is popular -- and imperiled.

• Alex Isenstadt: [03-11] Ralph Reed's army plans $62 million spending spree backing Trump: "Faith & amp; Freedom plans to spend big registering and turning out evangelicals and handing out 30 million pieces of literature at churches."

• Josh Kovensky: [03-09] Inside a secret society of prominent right-wing Christian men prepping for a 'national divorce'.

• Paul Krugman:

  • [03-04] Trump is running on dystopian fantasies.

  • [03-07] Reminder: Trump's last year in office was a national nightmare.

• Eric Levitz:

  • [03-05] Republicans' voter suppression obsession may end up helping . . . Democrats? "The GOP convinced itself it could only win with a smaller, whiter electorate. The polls show that's just not true."

  • [03-06] Republicans just passed up the chance to win a historic landslide: "If Republicans ever figure out how to nominate a normal human, Democrats could be in trouble." You might think that, but Romney and McCain, who were about as close as Republicans get to normal these days, lost to Obama, and Bush didn't fare much better, leaving office with the lowest approval rating at least since Nixon. Republican policies are moving disasters, many so obviously defective even they don't dare campaign on them. The only option, other than betraying their base(s), is to deflect and dissemble, which they do mostly by generating rage. Even that doesn't always work, but Trump was credibly crazy in 2016, and pulled off a miracle, and when he did, he raised the stakes about what winning meant. As long as he has a chance of winning -- and he does have enough polls to keep that fantasy going -- he's the horse the base wants to bet on, because he's the only one promising to fulfill their fantasies. Until he loses as bad as Landon in 1936, or at least Mondale in 1984, Republicans have little reason to recalculate.

• Daniel Lippman: [03-09] Kellyanne Conway advocating for TikTok on Capitol Hill: Trump failed to "drain the swamp," but his aides are learning to earn there.

• Alexandra Marquez: [03-10] Lindsey Graham: Biden has 'screwed the world up every way you can': I can't help but wonder how many people actually fall for this sort of vague but indiscriminate line, which has become default for most Republicans. Graham spouts more on foreign policy, where it's most clear that he wants to "screw the world up" in ways even Biden hasn't tried.

• Stephanie Mencimer: [03-08] Lara Trump is all about meritocracy: "That's why she got the top job at the RNC."

• Mary Jo Murphy: [03-07] This book about Trump voters goes for the jugular: Another review of Tom Schaller/Paul Waldman: White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy. And another:

  • Nathan J Robinson: [03-04] Are rural white people the problem?

• Nicole Narea: [03-06] Mark Robinson, the North Carolina GOP nominee for governor, is off the rails even by MAGA standards: "North Carolina has seen a politician like Robinson before: Jesse Helms." More:

  • Dan Merica: [03-11] Mark Robinson on ACA: It's an effort to 'enslave everybody'

  • Steve M: [03-06] New York Times sanitizes sewer-mouthed GOP gubernatorial nominee: Mark Robinson. Many links here, including one from 2023 called North Carolina's Lt. Governor is a Facebook brawler whose posts railed against Gays, Blacks, and Jews.

• Anna North: [03-04] Fetal personhood laws, explained: "The anti-abortion legal theory that could jeopardize IVF around the country."

• Charles P Pierce: Many recent short posts, not all of which apply to this slot, but the first couple do, and easier to keep them together, with more respect for their author:

  • [03-11] The Kansas Attorney General doesn't want to replace lead pipes?

  • [03-11] I no longer believe the Republican Party will ever return to normalcy: "The MAGA-backed recall effort directed at Wisconsin's Assembly leader Robin Vos over the 2020 election is just more proof."

  • [03-09] Cheers to Rep. Barbara Lee, and her remarkably principled career: "She's managed to turn her loss in California's 'jungle primary' into a well-deserved victory lap."

  • [03-07] Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton have pulled the wool over the eyes of Texas: "Tuesday's primary results are showing the fruits of their revenge campaigns."

  • [03-05] I, Kyrsten Sinema, am too dedicated to the ideals of politics and government to remain in Congress: "because she was . . . too good at . . . compromise?"

  • [03-05] No Labels? More like no candidate . . . (sorry): "At this point the 'party' is just a vehicle for ratfcking Democrats."

  • [02-29] The US has enabled Netanyahu long enough. Actually, way too long. Like since his failure to implement the Wye River Accords, that long, at least.

• Greg Sargent: Trump's angry rant about Biden's speech showcases MAGA's ugliest scam.

• Charles Sykes: [03-05] Donald Trump, the luckiest politician who ever lived.

• Ishaan Tharoor: [03-08] Trump, Orban and the GOP's deep obsession with foreign demagogues: This column includes an interview with Jacob Heilbrunn, author of America Last: The Right's Century-Long Romance with Foreign Dictators. The century is just enough time to go back to Mussolini, lionized as the guy who got the trains to run on time.

• Liz Theoharis: [03-10] The great unwinding: "The failing battle for health and healthcare in these all too disunited states." Republicans are responsible for this, and need to own it: "Since March 2023, 16 million Americans have lost healthcare coverage, including four million children, as states redefine eligibility for Medicaid for the first time in three years." This is one of many areas where Democrats were able to expand the safety net to ameliorate the horrors of the Covid-19 pandemic, but as Republicans recovered from the panic, they've killed off these much needed expansions as soon as possible.

• Peter Wehner: [03-10] If there's one thing Trump is right about, it's Republicans: They'll follow him anywhere:

  Mr. Trump is a human blowtorch, prepared to burn down democracy. So is his party. When there's no bottom, there's no bottom.

  The next 34 weeks are among the more consequential in the life of this nation. Mr. Trump was a clear danger in 2016; he's much more of a danger now. The former president is more vengeful, more bitter and more unstable than he was, which is saying something. There would be fewer guardrails and more true believers in a second Trump term. He's already shown he'll overturn an election, support a violent insurrection and even allow his vice president to be hanged. There's nothing he won't do. It's up to the rest of us to keep him from doing it.

Biden's band-aid folly: Unveiled in Biden's State of the Union address, q.v., but for this week, let's give it its own section:

• Alex Horton: [03-08] How the US military will use a floating pier to deliver Gaza aid: "Construction will take up to two months and require 1,000 US troops who will remain off shore, officials say. Once complete, it will enable delivery of 2 million meals daily."

• Jonathan Cook: [03-10] Biden's pier-for-Gaza is hollow gesture.

• Kareem Fahim/Hazem Balousha: [03-08] Biden plan to build Gaza port, deliver aid by sea draws skepticism, ridicule. Sounds like they had a contest to come up with the most expensive, least efficient method possible to trickle life-sustaining aid into Gaza, without in any way inhibiting Israel's systematic slaughter.

• Miriam Berger/Sufian Taha/Heidi Levine/Loveday Morris: [03-05] The improbable US plan for a revitalized Palestinian security force: Because the US did such a great job of training the Afghan security force?

• Noga Tarnopolsky: [03-09] The Biden plan to ditch Netanyahu: "The 'come to Jesus moment' is already here, according to Israeli and US sources." I don't give this report much credit, but it stands to reason that eventually Biden will tire of Netanyahu jerking him around just so he can further embarrass both countries with what is both in intent and effect genocide. I do see ways in which Biden's initial subservience is evolving into some kind of passive-aggressive resistance. Rather than denounce Israel for making reasonable aid possible, Biden has challenged Israel to spell out what they would allow, and agreed even as these schemes are patently ridiculous. It's only a matter of time until Israel starts attacking American aid providers. For another piece:

• Zack Beauchamp: [03-08] Are Biden and the Democrats finally turning on Israel? "Biden's new plan to build a pier on the Gaza coast seems to say yes. The continued military aid to Israel says otherwise."

Biden's State of the Union speech: A section for everything else related, including official and unofficial Republican responses:

• Zack Beauchamp: [03-08] Biden's State of the Union got one big thing right: "The president dodged the 'norms trap' by going straight after Trump on democracy."

• Chas Danner:

  • [03-08] Did Biden's SOTU speech turn around his campaign? (And did Katie Britt's response backfire?)

  • [03-09] Did Katie Britt misrepresent the sex-trafficking story in her SOTU response?

• Tim Dickinson: [03-07] Fired-up Biden takes aim at his 'predecessor' in rousing SOTU.

• Moira Donegan: [03-08] Biden's State of the Union: raucous, strident and insistently optimistic: "His remarks were designed to demonstrate Biden's vitality. They succeeded."

• Susan B Glasser: [03-08] So much for "sleepy Joe": On Biden's rowdy, shouty State of the Union.

• Margaret Hartmann:

  • [03-08] Trump responds to State of the Union with Truth Social crash and Snapchat filters.

  • [03-08] Yes, Trump said 'get over it' after a school shooting.

• Sarah Jones: [03-08] When motherhood is a weapon: "Senator Katie Britt of Alabama knows her place."

• Ed Kilgore:

  • [03-07] Biden's State of the Union address: Right in Trump's face! Just an aside here: one thing I've always hated about SOTU is having to watch the VP and Speaker over the President's shoulders. Harris actually put on a fairly good show this time, which was a relief, as she usually comes out super glum. Johnson, however, was clearly miserable while trying to look invisible, and that didn't help anyone. It's rare to have speakers framed like that, and really unnecessary.

  • [03-08] Katie Britt's America sounds scary, but not as scary as Katie Britt.

• Eric Levitz: [03-07] Biden to nation: Republicans like rich people more than they like you.

• Branko Marcetic:

  • [03-08] Biden's state of the union showcased a president in denial. Note that Marcetic was one of the few to take Biden seriously enough to write a book on him going into the 2020 campaign, and it was critical: Yesterday's Man: The Case Against Joe Biden. Marcetic also wrote:

  • [03-07] Support for "uncommitted" runs deep enough to threaten Biden.

• Tori Otten: One line in Biden's SOTU is about to show up in every GOP attack ad.

• Andrew Prokop: [03-08] The media's coverage of Biden's age needs a rethink.

• Nikki McCann Ramirez/Asawin Suebsaeng: [03-08] 'What the hell am I watching': Republicans torch their own SOTU rebuttal: "Alabama Sen. Katie Britt was panned after delivering the most bizarre State of the Union rebuttal in recent memory."

• Bill Scher: [03-08] The oldest president in history just gave the fiercest state of the union address in history.

Biden and/or the Democrats:

• Perry Bacon Jr: [03-07] Biden is failing at the most important task of his presidency. Bacon's definition: "Biden has failed at the most important task for a Democratic president in the 2020s: eliminating or at least drastically reducing the chances of Trump or someone who shares his radical beliefs being his successor." That may have been the job, but it's really hard to see how he could have done it. When I saw the headline, I filled in my own answer, which is that Biden simply isn't a very good communicator. But Obama was, technically at least, pretty much all you could hope for in a communicator, and who listened to him? Bill Clinton was also pretty good. But both were hobbled by a hostile media that relentlessly amplified Republican countermessaging, and by the muddle created by their own willingness to conform to conservative framing of issues -- is it any wonder that they were more successful at persuading donors than voters? Franklin Roosevelt was the great communicator among all presidents, but we no longer live in a world where nominally Republican farmers (like, say, my grandfather) would tune in to listen to him explain how banking worked, and believe a word he said.

• Jonathan Chait: [03-05] Good riddance, Kyrsten Sinema, plutocratic shill: "She killed her career by blocking bipartisan ideas that threatened the rich." The Democrat-turned-independent from Arizona finally decided not to run for a second term. Presumably she'll reap her rewards as a lobbyist, not that she's likely to have much influence over anyone. More:

  • Chris Lehman: [03-06] Kyrsten Sinema does us all a favor.

  • Jim Newell: A singularly arrogant Senator make a very appropriate exit.

• Timothy Noah: The stealth budget cuts imperiling the Biden antitrust agenda.

• Evan Osnos: [03-04] Joe Biden's last campaign: A long New Yorker profile on Biden, by just about the only writer who managed to get a biography of Biden together before the 2020 election (and just barely).

• Andrew Prokop: [03-08] The media's coverage of Biden's age needs a rethink: "There's been too much focus on trivialities."

• John E Schwarz: [03-01] Democratic presidents have better economic performances than Republican ones: This has been true for so long you'd think everyone would be acknowledging it.

• Astra Taylor/Eleni Schirmer: [03-05] The Biden administration has a chance to deliver student debt relief. It must act.

• Benjamin Wallace-Wells: [03-06] Can Joe Biden fight from behind in a rematch against Donald Trump?

Legal matters and other crimes:

• Elie Honig: [03-08] Biden's looming nightmare pardons: Ever since this "former federal and state prosecutor" started writing for Intelligencer, his pieces have sounded like stealth briefs from the Trump legal team, even if not things they would actually want to own. This one at least assumes things not yet in evidence: that Trump is actually tried and convicted and sentenced to jail time -- the power may be to pardon, but all he's asking for is commutation of prison time, not full pardons. As that's increasingly unlikely before November, the assumption may also be that Biden wins then, so has some breathing room before having to consider the issue, which would leave plenty of time for this discussion, unlike now.

• Josh Kovensky: [03-05] Feds slap 12 new counts on Bob 'Gold Bars' Menendez: Senator (D-NJ).

• Ian Millhiser: [03-10] Do Americans still have a right to privacy? "With courts coming for abortion and IVF, it's hard not to wonder what the Supreme Court will go after next."

Climate, environment, and energy:

• Kate Aronoff: Inside Big Oil's plot to keep their emissiosn confidential.

• Evan Halper: [03-07] Amid explosive demand, America is running out of power: "AI and the boom in clean-tech manufacturing are pushing America's power grid to the brink. Utilities can't keep up." I suspect there's a scam or several in here somewhere, most obviously the push for more "clean nuclear power." Also noted here:

  • Elizabeth Kolbert: [03-09] The obscene energy demands of AI: "How can the world reach net zero if it keeps inventing new ways to consume energy?"

• David Wallace-Wells:

  • [02-22] Just how many people will die from climate change?

  • [03-06] John Kerry: 'I feel deeply frustrated': An interview with Kerry, as he is stepping down from his "post as America's top climate diplomat," having achieved, well, not enough.

Ukraine War:

• Blaise Malley: [03-08] Diplomacy Watch: Chinese diplomat shuttling to Russia, and Ukraine. Turkey is also making efforts to mediate the conflict.

• Francesca Ebel/Robyn Dixon: [02-29] Putin threatens nuclear response to NATO troops if they go to Ukraine.

• Francesca Ebel/Serhiy Morgunov: [03-08] Russia's opposition and Ukraine find it impossible to unite against Putin.

• Mark Episkopos: [03-08] What will more aid to Ukraine accomplish? "There are limits to what Kyiv can do, even with an indefinite flow of Western assistance."

• Valerie Hopkins: [03-01] Thousands turn out for Navalny's funeral in Moscow.

• Daniel Larison: [03-05] Victoria Nuland never shook the mantle of ideological meddler: "Blurting out F-ck the EU' typified her blunt, interventionist style throughout three presidential administrations."

• Emily Rauhala: [03-07] Sweden finally joins NATO in expansion spurred by Putin's Ukraine war.

• Lauren Wolfe: [01-16] Putin's history lessons: Review of Yaroslav Trofimov: Our Enemies Will Vanish: The Russian Invasion and Ukraine's War of Independence, which is somewhat tangential to the subhed argument that Putin's rhetoric about the unity of Russia and Ukraine has laid "the rhetorical groundwork for a forever war."

• Amanda Yen: [03-11] Hungary's Viktor Orban: Trump 'won't give a penny' to Ukraine if elected. One of the stranger recent political dynamics is that as Trump digs in more as the anti-war (and especially, anti-world-war) candidate, Democrats are trying to rally support for Ukraine as necessary to spite Trump here in America. Why they think that's a winning strategy is beyond me. They could argue that unified support for Ukraine would help them negotiate a better deal to end the war, but first they need to be open to negotiating, which so far doesn't seem to be the case. America has a bad history of never negotiating reasonable exits from conflicts. Rather, in Vietnam and Afghanistan, they negotiated deals where they just slipped away, leaving their supposed allies to collapse, or in Korea, where they signed a ceasefire but refused to call it an end to the war. A reasonable deal with Russia is possible, and it could lead to further reasonable deals in the future, in the long run ending a conflict that the US has done as much or more to fuel as Putin has. Trump may pull out, but he won't negotiate a real deal, because he doesn't know how, and he doesn't care. But even the bad deals I've mentioned were better for Americans than the hopeless, pointless wars they escaped from. So even if that's all Trump is promising, many people will see it as better than Biden and the Democrats pouring endless resources into a stalemate.

Around the world:

• Nicholas Ford: [03-07] The IMF's policies are destroying Kenya, again.

• Ellen Ioanes: [03-05] Don't ignore Sudan's horrific conflict: "More than 8 million people have been displaced during the war, and more than 13,000 people have been killed."

Other stories:

Michelle Alexander: [03-08] Only revolutionary love can save us now: "Martin Luther King Jr's 1967 speech condemning the Vietnam War offers a powerful moral compass as we face the challenges of our time."

Indivar Dutta-Gupta/Korian Warren: [03-04] The war on poverty wasn't enough: "While Lyndon B Johnson's effort made some lasting impacts, the United States still has some of the highest rates of nonelderly poverty among wealthy nations." As the article notes, Johnson's programs brought big improvements, but the Vietnam War hurt him politically, and his successors lost interest: e.g., Nixon's appointment of Donald Rumsfeld to run the Office of Economic Opportunity. And while Republicans deserve much of the blame, Democrats like Daniel Moynahan and Bill Clinton were often as bad, sometimes worse.

Henry Farrell: [02-27] Dr. Pangloss's Panopticon: A very thoughtful critique of Noah Smith's "quite negative review of a recent book by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, Power and Progress: Our 1000-Year Struggle Over Technology & Prosperity. There are complex issues at dispute here, many much more interesting than those that dominate this (and all recent) posts. Dr. Pangloss (from Voltaire) stands in for techno-optimism: the idea that unfettered innovation, accelerated as it is through modern venture capitalism, promises to deliver ever-improving worlds. Panopticon (from Jeremy Bentham) is an early form of mass surveillance, a capability that technology has done much to develop recently, with AI promising a breakthrough to the bottleneck problem (the time and people you need to surveil other people).

Luke Goldstein: [02-23] Crunch time for government spying: "Congress has a few weeks left until a key spying provision sunsets. Both reformers and intelligence hawks are plotting their strategies."

Oshan Jarow: [03-08] The world's mental health is in rough shape -- and not getting any better: "Guess where the US ranks?"

Sarah Kaplan: [03-06] Are we living in an 'Age of Humans'? Geologists say no. A recent proposal for delineating a stratigraphic boundary for the Anthropocene, based on "a plume of radioactive plutonium that circled around the world" in 1952, was proposed recently and, at least for now, voted down. More:

• Sigi Samuel: [03-07] Why did geologists reject the "Anthropocene" epoch? It's not rock science. "The battle proves that time is political, any way you cut it."

Alvaro Lopez: [03-08] The making of Frantz Fanon: Review of Adam Shatz's new book, The Rebel's Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon. Also:

• Erik Linstrum: Frantz Fanon's conflicted vision for decolonization.

Rick Perlstein: [03-06] The spectacle of policing: "'Swatting' innocent people is the latest incarnation of the decades-long gestation of an infrastructure of fear."

Dave Phillipps: [03-06] Profound damage found in Maine gunman's brain, possibly from blasts: "A laboratory found a pattern of cell damage that has been seen in veterans exposed to weapons blasts, and said it probably played a role in symptoms the gunman displayed before the shooting." Robert Card was a grenade instructor in the Army Reserve for eight years. He went on to shoot and kill 18 people and himself. Something not yet factored into the "Costs of War" accounting. Another report:

• Annabelle Timsit/Jennifer Hassan/Joanna Slater: [03-07] Maine shooter who killed 18 had traumatic brain injury, study says.

Jeffrey St Clair: [03-08] Roaming Charges: Too obvious to be real.

Daily Log

Cloudland Blue Quartet published a "#13at13" list: "Here are 13 of the 16 LPS I owned at the age of 13. No wonder I am warped . . ." As best I can make out:

• The Animals: The Most of the Animals
• The Who: A Quick One
• Various Artists: Fill Your Head With Rock
• Various Composers: The World of Your Hundred Best Things
• Alice Cooper: Love It to Death
• The Rolling Stones: Gimme Shelter (Live)
• Black Widow: Black Widow III
• Hawkwind: Doremi Fasol Latido
• Mott the Hoople: All the Young Dudes
• T Rex: Ride a White Swan
• Uriah Heep: Demons and Wizards
• Uriah Heep: Magician's Birthday
• Alice Cooper: Billion Dollar Babies

Daily Log

I got this message via Facebook from Ken Brown:

Tom - since you know by far the most about the Brown family, I have a question: someone once told me that the Brown boys went to school until they were old enough to pick cotton, and they then picked cotton until they were old enough to run away from home. So, my dad maybe only went to the 5th or 6th grade? What do you know? I do have some letters that my dad wrote to my mom - and you can barely read the handwriting.

Music Week

Expanded blog post, March archive (in progress).

Tweet: Music Week: 38 albums, 5 A-list

Music: Current count 41938 [41900] rated (+38), 21 [22] unrated (-1).

I'm having a rough time getting anything done, which is my best explanation for wasting most of last week on a still-unfinished Speaking of Which -- posted well after midnight last, with a few further adds flagged today. The most important add is the link to Pankaj Mishra's The Shoah after Gaza (also on YouTube).

I've neglected pretty much everything and everyone else. My apologies to anyone expecting a response from me. As I must have noted already, I gave myself a month to write a quick, very rough draft of my long gestating political book, with the promise that if I couldn't pull it off, I'd shelve the idea once and for all, and spend my waning days reading fiction -- forty years later, I still have a bookmark 300 pages into Gravity's Rainbow, and enough recollection I'm not sure I'll have to retrace -- while slipping in the occasional old movie and dawdling with jigsaw puzzles (ok, I'm already doing the latter). I certainly wouldn't have to plow through any nonfiction that might be construed as research -- e.g., a couple items currently on the proverbial night stand: Franklin Foer's book on Biden, or Judis/Teixeira on the missing Democrats.

That month was supposed to be January, but the Jazz Critics Poll and EOY lists lapped over without me starting, so I decided I'd give it February. I still have no more than a fragment of a letter stashed away in a notebook entry, so the obvious thing to do at this point is admit failure, and be done with it. Aside from easing my mind -- the last six months have been unbearably gloomy for my politics, my prognostications turning markedly dystopian -- ditching politics might be good news for those of you more interested in my writing on music.

Two small projects that I've also neglected are: a thorough review of the Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll website, which is missing some unknown quantity of historical material (hopefully Davis has it stashed away), and needs some modernization; I'm also behind on maintenance, not to mention the long-promised redesign, of the Robert Christgau website. It would also make sense to reorganize my own data along those same lines, as even now it's virtually impossible for even me to look up what I've written about any musician.

I also have neglected house projects: the most pressing of which is the imminent collapse of a chunk of ceiling in my wife's study room. I used to be pretty competent at carpentry and home improvement tasks. About all I can claim to have managed in the last month has been replacement of two light bulbs, which took me weeks (in my defense, both involved ladders and unconventional sockets).

Nothing special to say about this week's music. A copy of the year 2023 list has been frozen, but I am still adding occasional records to my tracking file, jazz and non-jazz EOY lists, and EOY aggregate, but mostly just my own belatedly graded items. But I'm not very focused on what I'm listening to, and often get stuck wondering what to play next. I can't say I've reached the point of not caring, but I'm getting there.

My most played record of the last couple weeks is The R&B No. 1s of the '50s, especially the final disc, which has left me with Lloyd Price's "I'm Gonna Get Married" as the ultimate earworm. I should probably bump the whole set up to full A. I played the last three discs while cooking on Saturday, and I'm satisfied with them. Then I started Sunday and Monday with disc 6. As this post lapsed into Tuesday, I was tempted again, but had unfinished Vijay Iyer queued up.

Found this in a Facebook comment: "I'm not sure keeping up with Tom Hull is possible. The very thought makes my synapses cry out, 'no mas, no mas.'" But from my view, they really just keep coming poco a poco. During the long delay from listing out this file to posting it -- mostly spent on the Speaking of Which intro -- I only managed to collect four more reviews for next week: two marginally A- jazz albums (Joel Ross, John Surman), and two more marginally below A- (Vijay Iyer, Emile Parisien).

New records reviewed this week:

• Black Art Jazz Collective: Truth to Power (2024, HighNote): [sp]: B
• The Choir Invisible [Charlotte Greve/Vinnie Sperazza/Chris Tordini]: Town of Two Faces (2022 [2024], Intakt): [sp]: B+(***)
• Djeli Moussa Condé: Africa Mama (2023, Accords Croises): [sp]: B+(***)
• Gui Duvignau/Jacob Sacks/Nathan Ellman-Bell: Live in Red Hook (2022 [2024], Sunnyside): [sp]: B+(**)
• Alon Farber Hagiga With Dave Douglas: The Magician: Live in Jerusalem (2023 [2024], Origin): [cd]: B+(***)
• R.A.P. Ferreira & Fumitake Tamura: The First Fist to Make Contact When We Dap (2024, Ruby Yacht): [sp]: B+(***)
• David Friesen: This Light Has No Darkness (2023 [2024], Origin): [cd]: B
• The Fully Celebrated Orchestra: Sob Story (2023 [2024], Relative Pitch): [sp]: B+(**)
• Vanisha Gould and Chris McCarthy: Life's a Gig (2022 [2024], Fresh Sound New Talent): [sp]: B+(**)
• Heems & Lapgan: Lafandar (2024, Veena Sounds): [sp]: A
• Katy Kirby: Blue Raspberry (2024, Anti-): [sp]: B+(**)
• Lapgan: History (2023, Veena Sounds): [sp]: B+(*)
• Lapgan: Duniya Kya Hai (2021, Veena Sounds): [sp]: B+(**)
• Lapgan: Badmaash (2019, self-released): [sp]: B+(**)
• Les Amazones d'Afrique: Musow Danse (2024, Real World): [sp]: B+(***)
• James Brandon Lewis Quartet: Transfiguration (2022 [2024], Intakt): [sp]: A-
• Cecilia Lopez & Ingrid Laubrock: Maromas (2022 [2023], Relative Pitch): [sp]: B+(**)
• Corb Lund: El Viejo (2024, New West): [sp]: B+(***)
• Brady Lux: Ain't Gone So Far (2024, 6483357 DK): [sp]: B+(***)
• Mali Obomsawin/Magdalena Abrego: Greatest Hits (2024, Out Of Your Head): [bc]: B+(**)
• QOW Trio: The Hold Up (2024, Ubuntu Music): [sp]: A-
• Zach Rich: Solidarity (2021 [2024], OA2): [cd]: B+(*)
• Dex Romweber: Good Thing Goin' (2023, Propeller Sound): [sp]: B+(*)
• Ignaz Schick/Oliver Steidle: Ilog3 (2021 [2023], Zarek): [bc]:" B+(***)
• Fie Schouten/Vincent Courtois/Guus Janssen: Vostok: Remote Islands (2023, Relative Pitch): [sp]: B+(**)
• Håkon Skogstad: 8 Concepts of Tango (2023 [2024], Øra Fonogram): B+(*) [03-15]
• Simon Spiess Quiet Tree: Euphorbia (2022 [2024], Intakt): [sp]: B+(**)
• Sleater-Kinney: Little Rope (2024, Loma Vista): [sp]: B
• Albert Vila Trio: Reality Is Nuance (2022 [2023], Fresh Sound New Talent): [sp]: B+(**)

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

• Roberto Magris: Love Is Passing Thru: Solo/Duo/Trio/Quartet (2004 [2024], JMood): [cd]: A-
• Jack Wood: The Gal That Got Away: The Best of Jack Wood, Featuring Guest Niehaud Fitzgibbon ([2024], Jazz Hang): [cd] [03-29]

Old music:

• Gigi: Gigi (2001, Palm Pictures): [sp]: B+(***)
• Gigi: Illuminated Audio (2003, Palm Pictures): [sp]: B+(*)
• Gigi: Gold & Wax (2006, Palm Pictures): [sp]: A-
• Barney McAll: Precious Energy (2022, Extra Celestial Arts): [sp]: B
• Pajama Party: Up All Night (1989, Atlantic): [sp]: B+(**)
• QOW Trio: QOW Trio (2020, Ubuntu Music): [sp]: B+(***)
• Stacey Q: Greatest Hits (1982-95 [1995], Thump): [sp]: B+(***)
• SSQ: Playback (1983, Enigma): [sp]: B+(**)
• SSQ: Jet Town Je T'Aime (2020, Synthicide): [sp]: B+(*)

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Guillermo Gregorio: Two Trios (ESP-Disk) [2023-12-01]
• Mercer Hassy Orchestra: Duke's Place (Mercer Hassy) [04-15)
• Ellie Lee: Escape (self-released) [05-24]
• Matthew Shipp Trio: New Concepts in Piano Trio Jazz (ESP-Disk) [04-05]
• Ronny Smith: Struttin' (Pacific Coast Jazz) [04-19]

Speaking of Which

Blog link.

I started this early, on Wednesday, maybe even Tuesday, as I couldn't bring myself to work on anything else. There's a rhythm here: I have twenty-some tabs open to my usual sources, and just cycle through them, picking out stories, noting them, sometimes adding a comment, some potentially long. By Friday night, I had so much, I thought of posting early: leaving the date set for Sunday, when I could do a bit of update.

I didn't get the early post done. Sunday, my wife invited some friends over to watch a movie. I volunteered to make dinner, and that (plus the movie) killed the rest of the day. Nothing fancy: I keep all the fixings for pad thai on hand, so I can knock off a pretty decent one-dish meal in little more than an hour. And I had been thinking about making hot and sour soup since noticing a long-neglected package of dried lily buds, so I made that too. First actual cooking I had done in at least a month, so that felt nice and productive.

This, of course, feels totally scattered. I'm unsure of the groupings, and it's hard for me to keep track of the redundancies and contradictions. And once again, I didn't manage to finish my rounds. Perhaps I'll add a bit more after initially posting it late Sunday night. But at the moment, I'm exhausted.

Initial count: 174 links, 8,842 words. Updated count [03-05]: 193 links, 10,883 words.

Top story threads:

Israel:

• Mondoweiss:

  • [02-26] Day 143: Gaza famine is 'man-made,' says UNRWA Chief: "UNRWA says that the famine in northern Gaza can be avoided if more food convoys are allowed in, but Israel continues to hold up over 2000 aid trucks. Meanwhile, Netanyahu reaffirms plans to invade Rafah, where 1.5 million Gazans have sought shelter."

  • [02-27] Day 144: Israel and Hamas contradict Biden claim that Gaza ceasefire is close: "A proposed ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas is reported to include a temporary 40-day truce, the release of 40 Israeli captives in return for 400 Palestinian prisoners, and the entry of humanitarian aid and mobile shelters into Gaza."

  • [02-28] Day 145: Hamas warns Israel and US of 'political machinations' amid ceasefire talks: "UN humanitarian officials say that thousands of Palestinians in Gaza are 'just a step away from famine' by May. Russia calls on UNSC members to refrain from endorsing Washington's resolution on Gaza, denouncing it as 'a license to kill' for Israel."

  • [02-29] Day 146: Israeli forces massacre civilians waiting for humanitarian aid: "Israeli tanks and warplanes reportedly targeted civilians waiting for aid, killing at least 77 and wounding hundreds. Meanwhile, international aid groups say airdrops of aid are so "negligible" that they "perpetuate the overall blockade strategy."

  • [03-01] Day 147: No ceasefire in sight despite international condemnation of Israel's 'flour massacre': "US blocks a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israel for its massacre against Palestinians attempting to receive humanitarian aid in Gaza, saying that the incident "still needs to be investigated."

  • [03-02] Day 148: UN reports at least 14 cases of Israel firing on Palestinians waiting for aid in Gaza: "UN calls for an investigation following Thursday's "flour massacre" where Israel killed at least 115 Palestinians waiting for aid and injured more than 760. The need for aid is becoming even more dire as starvation worsens in northern Gaza."

  • [03-03] Day 149: Palestinian children die of malnutrition as Israel blocks aid into Gaza: "US airdrops of food and aid in Gaza have been described as "performative BS" that "fools no one." Meanwhile, Hamas's delegation has arrived in Cairo for ceasefire talks as Ramadan is due to start next Sunday."

• James Bamford: [02-26] Israel's far right finally gets the war it has always wanted: "Billed as a response to the October 7 Hamas attack, the conflict in Gaza has increasingly become a war to eliminate all Palestinians -- a longtime goal of Israel's homegrown fascists."

• Mariam Barghouti: [02-27] In Jenin, brazen Israeli raids fuel fiercer Palestinian resistance: "Incessant Israeli incursions into Jenin refugee camp since October 7 have killed nearly 100 Palestinians, including many civilians. But as repression surges, the children of the Second Intifada are taking up arms." Which is, of course, a self-perpetuating process, where Palestinians are torn between the urgent need to defend themselves and their inability to muster the arms to do so. So the main effect is, as Israeli leaders seem to wish, to intensify the Israeli drive to genocide.

• Nina Berman: [02-29] Violating intimacies: "Israeli soldiers have photographed themselves posing with the lingerie of Palestinian women they have displaced or killed in Gaza. They join a long line of conquest images, from Abu Ghraib images to the spectacles of Jim Crow-era lynchings." But we've been seeing pictures like this, or more commonly just gratuitous vandalism, for decades now -- from what used to be advertised as "the most moral army in the world."

• Sarah Dadouch: [02-29] As besieged Gaza grows desperate, donors drop aid from the sky.

• Elias Feroz: [02-26] Thirty years after Baruch Goldstein's massacre, his followers are now carrying out a genocide: "His legacy of bloodshed continues in Gaza and the West Bank as his followers are now in power."

• Shatha Hanaysha: [02-28] Israeli forces kill 3 Palestinians, including Tubas Brigade leader in northern West Bank.

• Ellen Ioanes:

  • [02-27] Why the Palestinian Authority's government dissolved: "Its prime minister [Mohammed Shtayyeh] resigned, but it doesn't change much."

  • [02-29] More than 100 Palestinians were killed trying to get aid: "The competing narratives about a deadly aid distribution in Gaza, explained."

• Gideon Levy: [03-03] Gaza's night of death and hunger.

• Niha Masih/Annabelle Timsit: [03-03] US plans more airdrops into Gaza amid hope for Ramadan cease-fire: This has got to be the least cost-effective means of delivering aid humanly possible. That the US cannot trust Israel to safely deliver aid via trucks speaks volumes about how little faith America has in its so-called closest ally.

  Chris Floyd tweeted (?): "OK, why don't you set up a depot on the beach, supply it via the US Navy, and deliver the aid throughout Gaza with military trucks under escort? That would be pulling out all the stops. Otherwise, you're just putting on a PR show with pitiful dribs and drabs." I don't take this as a serious proposal. It's more of a thought experiment. If the US did this, would Israel be deterred from attacking relief distribution? And, to defend its deterrent threat, would US troops be allowed to return Israeli fire?

  The same question applies to airdrops, which thus far Israel has not attempted to shoot down. But the airdrops are so inefficient they'll do little to blunt Israel's starvation weapon. Ships and trucks could make a real as well as a symbolic difference. Still, if Biden had the guts to send the Navy in, why wouldn't he do the right thing and start by insisting on an Israeli ceasefire? The only way relief is going to work is if it won't be attacked by Israel. Until the bombing stops, nothing good, or even decent, can happen.

• Mahmoud Mushtaha: [02-29] These words are penned in hunger from northern Gaza. I have little energy to go on: "From the daily indignity of searching for food to the extreme dangers of doing journalistic work, life in this dark corner of the earth has become impossible."

• Marcy Newman: [03-02] How Israeli universities are an arm of settler colonialism: Review of Maya Wind: Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom.

• Dean Obeidallah: [02-27] "Nothing has compared to what we're seeing": Hala Gorani on the toll of covering Gaza war: Interview with the NBC News journalist and author of But You Don't Look Arab: And Other Tales of Unbelonging.

• Yumna Patel: [02-27] New reports confirm months of Israeli torture, abuse, and sexual violence against Palestinian prisoners.

• Jeremy Scahill/Ryan Grim/Daniel Boguslaw: [02-28] "Between the hammer and the anvil": "The story behind the New York Times October 7 exposé." This was the story by Anat Schwartz that charged Hamas fighters with rape during their short-lived jailbreak. This article was a big deal in the first week of the war, when writers who meant well were so quick to condemn Hamas when they should have been more alert to Israel's initial moves toward genocide. (In particular, I remember a piece by Eric Levitz finding the charges credible because "soldiers of all armies rape" -- an insight he didn't follow up on when Israel started sending their soldiers into Gaza.) For another piece on this:

  • Jeet Heer: [03-01] The Nixonian New York Times stonewalls on a discredited article about Hamas and rape.

• Ishaan Tharoor: [03-01] Gaza's spiraling, unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe.

• Philip Weiss:

  • [02-25] Weekly Briefing: Biden is 'pristine' on Israel, says megadonor Haim Saban: "We've reached the point where Everything that Joe Biden and his associates are saying about the Gaza war is a lie. Because they must deny a truth that is causing worldwide outrage against Israel." And sooner or later against the United States, and pretty much all of its bipartisan political establishment.

  • [02-28] PBS and NPR leave out key facts in their Israel stories: "Pundits and reporters in the mainstream media have a double standard when it comes to Israel and all but lie about apartheid, Jewish nationalism, and the role of the Israel lobby."

• Oren Ziv:

  • [02-26] 'People say I'm naive, antisemitic, a traitor': Israeli teen jailed for draft refusal: "Conscientious objector Sofia Orr explains why she never wavered in her decision despite the crackdown in Israel against opponents of the war."

  • [03-01] Israeli settlers cross into Gaza, build 'symbolic' outpost: "Dozens of settlers and right-wing activists stormed Erez Crossing, building two wooden structures while soldiers and police stood aside." This is a very disturbing development, but follows Israel's now common police practice of permitting and even encouraging encroachments and mob violence against Palestinians. Still, one would expect that in a war zone, the IDF would insist on imposing discipline on its own troops. In 1948, Ben Gurion deemed this so important that he ordered the IDF to turn on the previously independent right-wing EZL/LEHI militias, forcing them to submit to state control. Netanyahu, on the other hand, seems to see right-wing mobs as helping drive his relentless drive to extremism, which is clearly the point here.

• By the way: Killing of aid seekers part of a 'decades-long pattern' of Israeli violence: Per Human Rights Watch.

Israel vs. world (including American) opinion: This week we lead off with a singular act of self-sacrifice, by an American, an active duty serviceman, Aaron Bushnell, in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington. I feel like I should add an opinion, but I don't really have one. My inclination is to view him as just another casualty of the more general madness, so not a hero or martyr or even a fool, but I'm also not so callous as to look the other way -- especially when so many people do have things to say.

• Britt Munro: [02-29] In our thousands, in our millions: On Aaron Bushnell's final act: "What Aaron Bushnell did was an act of fierce, principled love in a situation of extreme desperation. It unflinchingly declared that even in the heart of the empire the lies of Zionism no longer hold."

• Spencer Ackerman: [02-26] 'This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal': "US Airman Aaron Bushnell set himself on fire rather than 'be complicit in genocide.' His last words were a challenge we must find the courage to heed."

• Kate Aronoff: Bushnell's self-immolation is a horrifying symptom of our political dysfunction.

• Michael Arria: [02-29] The Shift: "The answer is, you're doing it. Right now." "The image of Aaron Bushnell will stick with many people for the rest of their lives. His act will be remembered along many others who made an ultimate sacrifice against injustice. Just don't expect US politicians or media to remember him that way."

• Emily Davies/Peter Hermann/Dan Lamothe: [02-27] Airman who set self on fire grew up on religious compound, had anarchist past.

• Masha Gessen: [02-28] Aaron Bushnell's act of political despair.

• Keira Havens: [02-27] In his right mind: "The meaning of Aaron Bushnell's sacrifice."

• Caitlin Johnstone: [02-26] Aaron Bushnell burned himself alive to make you turn your eyes to Gaza.

• Lyle Jeremy Rubin: [02-28] Taking Aaron Bushnell at his word (and deed).

• Philip Weiss: [03-03] Weekly Briefing: Aaron Bushnell calls US progressives to their greatest traditions.

Other stories:

• Spencer Ackerman: [03-28] The anti-Palestinian origins of the War on Terror: Interview with Darryl Li, who wrote the report Anti-Palestinian at the core: The origins and growing dangers of US anti-terrorism law.

• Ammiel Alcalay: [02-28] War on Gaza: How the US is buying time for Israel's genocide: "As the US ambassador to the UN recently made clear in a rare moment of honesty, Washington is fully committed to facilitating Israel's destruction of the Palestinians."

• Kyle Anzalone: [03-01] US vetoes UN resolution condemning Israel for flour massacre.

• Muhannad Ayyash: [02-26] Boycotting Israel could stop the genocide: At this point, this is probably just wishful thinking: "the world must ensure Tel Aviv's legal, economic and political isolation." The nice thing about BDS was that it provided a forum for grass-roots organizing against the apartheid regime in Israel: something that individuals could start and grow, and eventually recruit more powerful organizations, while ultimately appealing to the better consciences within Israel itself. That it worked with South Africa was encouraging.

  But it was always going to be a much more difficult reach in Israel -- I could insert a half-dozen reasons here -- and it never came close to gathering the collective moral, let alone financial, force it had with South Africa. Now, about all you can say for it is that it allowed people of good will to express their disapproval without promoting even more violence. I would even agree that it's still worth doing -- Israel deserves to be shamed and shunned for what it's doing, now more than ever. And, as we witness what Israel is doing, many more people, indeed whole nations, may join us.

  But will boycotting stop the genocide now? Maybe if the US and NATO banded together and put some serious teeth in their threats, some Israelis might reconsider. But sanctions usually just push countries deeper into corners, from which they're more likely to strike back than to fold. I'm not about to blame BDS for Israel's rampant right-wing -- their racism dates back further than any outsider noticed -- but they would claim their ascent as the way of fighting back against foreign moralizers. Even if we could count on eventually forcing some kind of reconciliation, the people in power in Israel right now are more likely to double down on genocide. It's not like anyone in the Nazi hierarchy saw the writing on the wall after Stalingrad and decided they should call the Judeocide off, lest they eventually put on trial. They simply sped up the extermination, figuring it would be their enduring contribution to Aryan civilization.

  • Jo-Ann Mort: [02-28] BDS is counter-productive. We need to crack down on Israeli settlements instead: "A future peace depends on drawing a line between Israel proper and the illegal settlements in Palestinian territory." This article is so silly I only linked to it after the Ayyash piece above. It does provide some explanation why BDS failed, but it doesn't come close to offering an alternative. Israel has been continuously blurring and outright erasing the Green Line ever since 1967. (It started with he demolition of the neighborhood next to the Al-Aqsa Mosque's western wall, just days after the 7-day war ended.) There is no way to force Israel to do much of anything, but few things are harder to imagine them acceding to is a return to what from 1950-67 were often decried as "Auschwitz borders."

• Phyllis Bennis:

  • [02-28] The Biden administration joins Israel's war on UNRWA.

  • [03-01] Gazans are starving, don't cut aid now.

• Amena ElAshkar: [02-28] Gaza ceasefire: Talk of an imminent deal is psychological warfare. I haven't bothered linking to numerous articles about an imminent ceasefire deal because, quite frankly, possible deals have never been more than temporarily expedient propaganda, mostly meant to humor the hostage relatives and the Americans. If Israel wanted peace, they could ceasefire unilaterally, and having satisfied themselves that they had inflicted sufficient damage to restore their Iron Wall deterrence, leave the rubble to others to deal with. The hostages would cease to be a bargaining chip, except inasmuch as not freeing them would keep much needed international aid away. So why is Netanyahu negotiating with Hamas? Mostly to squirrel the deal, while he continues implementing his plan to totally depopulate/destroy Gaza.

• Paul Elle: [02-26] The Vatican and the war in Gaza: "A rhetorical dispute the Church and the Israeli government shows the limits -- and the possibilities -- of the Pope's role in times of conflict." On the other hand, if you look at the Pope's recent comments on "gender theory," you'll realize that he has very little to offer humanity, and that a Church that follows him could be very ominous. (For example, see [03-02] Pope says gender theory is 'ugly ideology' that threatens humanity.) Sometimes I'm tempted to take heart in that the Catholic Church is one of the few extant organizations to predate, and therefore remain somewhat free of, capitalism. But in it the spirit of Inquisition runs even deeper.

• Madeline Hall: [02-28] Israeli genocide is a bad investment: For one thing, Norway has divested its holdings of Israeli bonds.

• James North:

  • [02-25] Extraordinary charges of bias emerge against NYTimes reporter Anat Schwartz: "New doubts are emerging about the Ne York Times's coverage of sexual violence in the October 7 attack."

  • [03-03] Here are the latest examples of the astonishing dishonest 'NYTimes' coverage of Israel's war on Gaza.

• Peter Oborne: [02-27] These ruthless, bigoted Tories would have Enoch Powell smiling from his grave: "The recent spate of vile anti-Muslim rhetoric from the Tories shows they have decided that stoking hatred against minorities is their only way to avoid electoral annihilation." Also in UK:

  • Jonathan Cook: [03-01] First it was Corbyn. Now the while British public is being smeared over Gaza.

  • MEE staff: [03-01] George Galloway strikes blow 'for Gaza' in Rochdale by-election. Galloway ran as an independent, after having been expelled by the Labour Party over his opposition to British wars in the Middle East. For some background, see:

  • Imran Mulla: [01-31] 'Labour is 30,000 dead Gazans too late': Muslim campaign aims to disrupt UK politics.

• Charles P Pierce: [02-29] The US has enabled Netanyahu long enough: "Two democracies, hijacked for alibis."

• Vijay Prashad: [02-14] There is no place for the Palestinians of Gaza to go.

• Barnett R Rubin: [03-02] Redemption through genocide: "The ICJ ruled that Israel's Gaza campaign poses a plausible and urgent threat of genocide. Future historians of Jewish messianism may recount how in 2024 "redemption through sin" became "redemption through genocide," with unconditional US support."

• Sarang Shidore/Dan M Ford: [02-29] At the Hague, US more isolated than ever on Israel-Palestine.

• Adam Taylor: [02-29] Democrats grew more divided on Israeli-Palestinian conflict, poll shows. Interesting that the Democratic split has always favored "take neither side," from a peak of 82% down to 74% before Gaza blew up -- the 12% drop since looks to be evenly split. Republicans, on the other hand, never had any sympathy for Palestinians, and became more pro-Israeli since (56% would "take Israel's side," vs. 19% for Democrats).

Philip Weiss: [02-28] PBS and NPR leave out key facts in their Israel stories: "Pundits and reporters in the mainstream media have a double standard when it comes to Israel and all but lie about apartheid, Jewish nationalism, and the role of the Israel lobby."

America's empire of bases and proxy conflicts, increasingly stressed by Israel's multifront war games:

• Juan Cole: [03-03] How Washington's anti-Iranian campaign failed, big time.

• Dave DeCamp: [02-29] US officials expect Israel to launch ground invasion of Lebanon: "Administration officials tell CNN they expect a ground incursion in late spring or early summer." The logic here is pretty ridiculous, and if it's believed in Washington, you have to wonder about them, too. Israel had a lot of fun bombing Lebanon in 2006, but their ground incursion was a pure disaster. There's no possible upside to trying it again. The argument that Netanyahu will, for political expediency, enlarge the war in order to keep it going "after Gaza," overlooks their obvious desire to "finish the job" by doing the same to Palestinian enclaves in the West Bank.

• Sasha Filippova/Kristina Fried/Brian Concannon: [03-01] From coup to chaos: 20 years after the US ousted Haiti's president.

• Jim Lobe: [03-01] Neocon Iraq war architects want a redo in Gaza: "Post-conflict plan would put Western mercenaries and Israel military into the mix, with handpicked countries in charge of a governing 'Trust.'" Pic is of Elliott Abrams, who was the one in charge of US Israel policy under Bush, and who pushed Sharon's unilateral withdrawal of settlements from Gaza, so that Gaza could be blockaded and bombed more effectively. That directly led to Hamas seizing power in Gaza, so one could argue that Abrams already had his "redo in Gaza."

The Michigan primaries: Of minor interest to both party frontrunners, so let's get them out of the way first. Trump won the Republican primary with 68.1% of the votes, vs. 26.6% for Nikki Haley, splitting the delegates 12-4 (39 more delegates will be decided later). Biden won the Democratic primary with 81.1% of the vote, vs. 13.2% for an uncommitted slate, which was promoted by Arab-Americans and others as a protest vote against Biden's support for Israel's genocide in Gaza. Marianne Williamson got 3%, and Dean Phillips 2.7%. Everyone's trying to spin the results as much as possible, but I doubt they mean much.

• Michael Arria: [02-28] More than 100,000 people vote 'uncommitted' in Michigan primary over Biden Gaza policy.

• John Cassidy: [02-28] Michigan's "uncommitted" Democrats send a message to Biden: "The President won the Democratic primary easily, with more than eighty per cent of the vote, but more than a hundred thousand protest voters have made the war in Gaza an issue in his campaign."

• Kyla Guilfoil: [02-28] Marianne Williamson unsuspends her presidential campaign after placing 3rd in Michigan.

• Frank Bruni: [02-29] Nikki Haley is actually winning. That's fantasy, but she is still enjoying being in the news. [PS: And she did finally win something: [03-03] Nikki Haley wins DC primary, her first victory in GOP nominating race: She led Trump 62.8% to 33.3%, or 19-0 in delegates. Still, isn't a total turnout of 2,030 votes a bit light?]

Next up is "Super Tuesday," so here's a bit of preview:

• Kaleigh Rogers: [02-29] 12 Super Tuesday primaries to watch in Texas and North Carolina.

• Geoffrey Skelley: [03-01] 12 Super Tuesday primaries to watch in California and Alabama. The big one here is the California Senate primary, where Adam Schiff is hoping to wind up running against Republican Steve Garvey instead of more progressive Democrat Katie Porter.

• Mitra Jalali/Aisha Chughtai: [03-04] Here's what the Vote Uncommitted campaign is really about: It's happening in Minnesota, too.

Trump, and other Republicans:

• David Brooks: [02-29] The GOP returns to its bad old self: He means the "America First" party of the 1930s: nativist, isolationist, recoiling in dread of the New Deal, and willing to suffer repeated defeats rather than offer anything constructive. He contrasts that to the bullish, globalist part of Eisenhower and Reagan (and the Bushes?), which Trump has totally eclipsed, and is likely to remain in place even when Trump is gone.

• Russ Choma: [03-03] A large percentage of Republican primary voters can't stomach Trump. Nowhere near large enough to prevent him from running away with the nomination, but the question is whether they are numerous (and resolute) enough to sink him against Biden. "The AP report did find, however, that just because those voters said they didn't want to vote for Trump -- ever -- it didn't mean they were Biden voters." Haley is not a tenable candidate because she can't even crack a 50% approval rate within the Party.

• Rachel M Cohen: [03-03] The anti-abortion playbook for restricting birth control: "Contraception, like IVF, poses problems for those claiming personhood begins at conception." Filed under Republicans, because they own the anti-abortion movement now, and are stuck with it.

• Ryan Cooper: [02-29] Mitch McConnell, Senate arsonist.

• Thomas B Edsall: [[01-17] The deification of Donald Trump poses some interesting questions: First exhibit is a video titled "God Made Trump."

• Susan B Glasser: [02-22] The crazy collapse of the House GOP's impeachment case against Biden: "'A Big Russian Intelligence Op' flops on Capitol Hill."

• Karen Greenberg: [02-29] Trump's justice: "Justice delayed is democracy denied." Four sections on Trump, followed by one on Guantánamo.

• Margaret Hartmann:

  • [02-29] Old-man Trump yells at Biden over Melania Late Night joke.

  • [03-01] Trump complains migrants use languages 'nobody speaks'.

  • [03-01] Trump's most unhinged plans for his second term: Updated, a neverending project. To recap: Give the president unchecked power over federal agencies; Restore the president's authority to bypass Congress; Appoint a special prosecutor to 'go after' Biden; Use the Justice Department to get revenge on all of his enemies; Expand presidential immunity; Purge the civil service; Install thousands of loyalists throughout the federal government; Fill his cabinet with people like Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon; Round up, detain, and deport millions of undocumented immigrants; Deploy US troops for 'war' on the southern border; End birthright citizenship; Construct 'freedom cities'; Put flying cars in Americans' driveways.

• Alexander Hinton: [02-26] I went to CPAC as an anthropologist to understand MAGA -- what I saw was "shocking".

• Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling:

  • Trump admits he could be very easily blackmailed, actually.

  • Trump White House was awash in drugs because no one wanted to be there.

• Sarah Jones: [02-29] Republicans can't be trusted to protect IVF.

• Pema Levy: [03-01] How Todd Akin's "legitimate rape" debacle previewed the abortion agenda of today's GOP.

• Chris Lewis: [02-29] Ken Cuccinelli and the persuasive, pervasive politics of cruelty.

• Jason Linkins: A year of Republicans lying about abortion.

• Sarah Longwell: What 17 of Trump's 'best people' said about him: Quotes from his cabinet members and other high officials in his administration.

• Carlos Lozada: [02-29] What I learned when I read 887 pages of plans for Trump's second term. Lozada was last seen bragging about "reading books so you don't have to," and he proves that in spades here. No doubt his outline only scratches the surface, still I'm left wondering less what they want to do than what kind of damaged psychology drives one to imagine wanting to do such things.

• Michael Podhorzer: [02-20] It was never a civil war: "The threat posed by Trump and the MAGA movement, like the Confederate States, is not 'conservative' or even 'extremist' but criminally anti-democratic."

• Tom Schaller/Paul Waldman: [02-28] How to end Republican exploitation of rural America: "The authors of the upcoming book White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy explain how rural voters can build a national political movement and improve their local economies." Inadvertent humor here when the authors explain that rural voters don't need to switch to Democrats so much as they should find "better Republicans." By the way, this also just appeared:

  • Paul Krugman: [02-26] The mystery of white rural rage: Reviews the same book. I think a big part of the problem is that Democrats simply don't try to organize in impoverished rural areas, partly because they don't expect to win in the short term, and largely because they'd rather put their efforts toward upscale suburban districts. One reason is that readily organized constituencies like unions are scarce in rural America. But well before they consider organizing voters, they search for donors, and that's where the suburbs seem like much riper targets. A good example of this was in 2017, when Trump appointments opened up House districts in Kansas and Georgia. Democrats puts tons of money into the latter (where they lost), and virtually nothing into Kansas (where they also lost, but with a terrific candidate managing to carry Wichita, but losing bad in the adjacent rural areas). On some level, most Democrats actually understand that they have much to offer impoverished rural areas, but they do so as outsiders, more focused on their donors and their issues, and unwilling to put the work in to building a representative local party.

  • Nathan J Robinson: [03-04] Are rural white people the problem?: Another review of the Schaller-Waldman book.

• Tatyana Tandanpolie: [02-28] New book details how "incensed" Trump and Melania clashed in the White House.

• Katrina vanden Heuvel: [02-27] If Trump wins, he'll be a vessel for the most regressive figures in US politics.

• Andra Watkins: [03-01] Project 2025 is more than a playbook for Trumpism, it's the Christian Nationalist manifesto: "The right intends to force every American to live their definition of a good life through government edict."

• Li Zhou: [02-29] Trump's immigration policies are his old ones -- but worse: Some section heads: Mass deportations; Raids; Detention camps; Suspending refugee resettlement; Ending Temporary Protected Status programs; Making seeking asylum harder; Ending DACA; Reviving family separation hasn't been ruled out; Attacks on birthright citizenship.

Mitch McConnell, 82, announced he will step down as Republican Leader in the Senate in November. This led to some, uh, appreciation?

• Ryan Cooper: [02-29] Mitch McConnell, Senate arsonist.

• Jack Hunter: [02-29] Sorry AP: Mitch McConnell is no Ronald Reagan: "The paper deploys the usual neoconservative trope that their foreign policies are the same. They are not." Still, I hate it when critics think they're being so clever in claiming that old Republicans were so sensible compared to the new ones. Reagan's "willingness to talk to America's enemies" didn't extend much beyond Russia, and that only after the door had been opened by Gorbachev. He left nothing but disasters all over Latin America and the Middle East through Iran and Afghanistan.

• Ed Kilgore: [02-29] Mitch McConnell's power trip finally comes to an end.

• Ian Millhiser: [02-29] How Mitch McConnell broke Congress.

• John Nichols: [02-29] Good riddance to Mitch McConnell, an enemy of democracy: Sorry to have to break this to you, but he isn't going anywhere. He'll serve out the rest of his six-year term. He's not giving up his leadership post out of a sudden attack of conscience. He's doing it so some other Republican can take over, and possibly do even worse things than he would have done. By holding out until November, he's giving Trump the prerogative of hand-picking his successor -- assuming Trump wins, of course.

• David A Graham: Mitch McConnell surrenders to Trump: That's more like it, but at least he's given himself some time. If Trump wins in November, there'll be no fighting him. And if Trump loses, why should he want to be the one stuck cleaning up the mess?

• Andrew Prokop: [02-28] How Mitch McConnell lost by winning.

• Jane Mayer: [2020-04-12] How Mitch McConnell became Trump's enabler-in-chief: Sometimes an old piece is the best reminder. Had McConnell a bit more foresight and backbone, he could have swung enough Republican votes to convict Trump over Jan. 6, and followed that with a resolution declaring Trump ineligible to run again, according to the 14th Amendment -- such a resolution was discussed at the time, and would undoubtedly be upheld. Sure, it would have been unpopular among Republicans at the time, but popular will has almost never entered into McConnell's political calculus.

Biden and/or the Democrats:

• Zack Beauchamp: [02-27] Biden has been bad for Palestinians. Trump would be worse. "On Israel, the two are not the same." Probably true, but this really isn't much comfort. Biden is effectively an Israeli puppet, with no independent will, or even willingness to caution Netanyahu in public, and as such has had no effect on moderating Israel's vendetta -- and may reasonably be charged with not just supporting but accelerating it. For instance, Biden did not have to send aircraft carriers into the region, threatening Iran and provoking Yemen and Lebanon. Nor did he have to accelerate arms deliveries when a ceasefire was obviously called for. As for Trump, sure, he doesn't even know the meaning of "caution." He is largely responsible for Netanyahu believing that he can get away with anything.

  • Dave DeCamp: [03-03] Poll: Majority of Democrats want a presidential candidate who opposes military aid to Israel: With Marianne Williamson unsuspending her campaign, there actually is one, but will anyone find out?

  • Isaac Chotiner: [02-28] Does the Biden administration want a long-lasting ceasefire in Gaza? Interview with John Kirby, Biden's National Security Council spokesman, explaining that Biden only wants whatever Netanyahu tells him to want. It's like a form of hypnosis, where Hamas is the shiny object that so captures America's gaze that it will support Israel doing anything to it wants as long as it's saying it's meant to eliminate Hamas. Sure, Biden understands that Palestinians are suffering, and he implores Netanyahu to make them suffer less, but he can't question his orders.

    The key to this is that he buys the line that Hamas is a cancer that can be excised from the Palestinian body politic, allowing Israel to regain its security. I hesitate to call that the Israeli line: sure, they developed it with their targeted assassinations (they go back at least as far as Abu Jihad in 1988), but Israelis never claimed one strike would suffice -- they tended to use metaphors like "mowing the grass"). It was only the Americans, with their romantic conceits about their own goodness and the innate innocence of ignorant savages, that turned this systematic slaughter into magical thinking. Israelis don't think like that. They understand that Hamas (or some other form of militant backlash) is the inevitable result of their harsh occupation. And, their consciences hardened by constant struggle (including their carefully cultivated memory of the Holocaust), they're willing to live with that brutality.

    If they can't distinguish Hamas from the mass of people they've emerged from, they see no reason to discipline their killing. They figure if they destroy enough, the problem will subside. Even if it inevitably erupts again, that's later, and they'll remain eternally vigilant. There are no solutions, because they don't want to accept the only possible one, which is peaceful coexistence. But silly Americans, they need to be told stories, and it's amazing what they'll swallow.

  • Mitchell Plitnick: [03-01] Biden memos show Palestine advocacy is working: "Two recent presidential orders show the Biden administration is feeling the heat from months of protests against his support for Israel's genocide in Gaza."

  • Alexander Ward: [03-01] 'We look 100 percent weak': US airdrops in Gaza expose limit to Biden's Israel policy.

  • Fareed Zakaria: [03-01] Biden needs to tell Israel some difficult truths. Only he can do it.

  Erica L Green: [03-03] Kamala Harris calls for an 'immediate cease-fire' in Gaza: Promising title, but fine print reveals it's only the "six-week cease-fire proposal currently on the table," and that she's calling on Hamas, not Israel, the ones who are actually doing all of the firing, and who have already broken off talks on that particular proposal. A cease fire, especially where the war is so one-sided, doesn't need to be negotiated: just do it (perhaps daring the other side to violate it, but the longer it lasts, the better). Sure, prisoner exchanges have to be negotiated, but not cease-fire, which is just common sense.

• Frank Bruni: [03-03] How Democrats can win anywhere and everywhere.

• Michelle Goldberg: [03-01] The Democrat showing Biden how it's done: Gretchen Whitmer, governor of Michigan. This follows on recent columns by Goldberg:

  • [02-23] Biden is in danger of losing Michigan and, with it, the whole election.

  • [02-12] Biden's age is a campaign problem, not a governing one.

  • [02-06] In Poland, I saw what a second Trump term could do to America.

  • [01-19] Trump just keeps doing appalling things, and the ranks of the disengaged are growing.

• Ezra Klein: [02-16] Democrats have a better option than Biden: Starts by heaping considerable praise on Biden and his accomplishments of the last three-plus years, then lowers the boom and insists that he should step aside, not so much because one reasonably doubts that he can do the job for more years, but that he's no longer competent as a candidate. (Never mind that Trump is far from competent, in any sense of the term. He's a Republican, and one of our many double standards, we don't expect competency from Republicans, or for that matter caring, or even much coherence.) He goes into how conventions work, and offers a bunch of plausible candidates. It's a long and thorough piece, and makes the case as credibly as I've seen (albeit much less critically of Biden than I might do myself).

  Klein's columns are styled as "The Ezra Klein Show," which are usually just interviews, but this one is monologue, with multiple references to other conversations. He's had a few other interviews recently with political operatives, a couple adding to his insight into Democratic prospects, plus a couple more I'll include here. (Also see the pieces I listed under Ukraine.)

  • [01-25] 'The strongest Democratic Party that any of us have ever seen': Interview with Simon Rosenberg.

  • [02-01] 'Why haven't the Democrats completely cleaned the Republicans' clock?' Interview with Ruy Teixeira, co-author of Where Have All the Democrats Gone? The Soul of the Party in the Age of Extremes.

  • [01-16] A Republican pollster on Trump's undimmed appeal: Interview with Kristen Soltis Anderson, arguing that Republicans just want stability, and that's why they love Trump.

  • [2023-10-03] Your guide to the new right: Interview with Stephanie Slade.

• Paul Musgrave: [03-03] An inside look at how Biden's team rebuilt foreign policy after Trump: Review of Alexander Ward: The Internationalists: The Fight to Restore American Foreign Policy After Trump.

• Bill Scher: [02-29] "Nightmare in America": How Biden's ad team should attack Trump: "In 1984, Ronald Reagan's reelection campaign ran a series of ads that evoked how different life felt in America compared to under his opponent's administration four years prior. Today, Joe Biden should do the same." Sure, there's something to be said here, if you can figure out how to say it. But Trump's going to be pushing the opposite spin, in many cases on the same set of facts, all the while pointing out the extraordinary efforts his/your enemies took to hobnob his administration and persecute him since he was pushed out of office. He's just as likely to embrace the Left's notion of him as their worst nightmare. Note that page includes a link to a 2020 article, which also cites Reagan: Nancy LeTourneau: Are you better off than you were four years ago?

• John E Schwarz: [03-01] Democratic presidents have better economic performances than Republican ones.

Legal matters and other crimes:

• Gabriella Ferrigine: [02-28] Lauren Boebert's son arrested on 22 charges -- hours after she attacks "Biden Crime Family": "Boebert's 18-year-old son was charged with vehicle trespass and property theft."

• Aziz Huq: [02-29] Why is Trump getting special treatment from the Supreme Court? "The justices are handling Trump's case far differently than most criminal defendants." Not just the Supreme Court. Has any criminal defendant ever been able to pick their preferred prosecutors and/or judges?

• Jane Mayer: [02-29] The scandal of Clarence Thomas's new clerk: Crystal Clanton.

• Megan Messerly: [02-29] A 'stunning' element of the Alabama IVF ruling. By the way, more IVF fallout:

  • Megan Messerly: [02-29] Alabama legislature votes to restore IVF access.

  • Alice Miranda Ollstein/Robert King: [02-28] Hyde-Smith blocks Senate vote on federal IVF protections.

• Ian Millhiser:

  • [02-26] The Supreme Court appeared lost in a massive case about free speech online: "The justices look likely to reinstate Texas and Florida laws that seize control of much of the internet -- but not for long."

  • [02-28] How Amy Coney Barrett could save us from fully legal automatic weapons.

  • [02-28] The Supreme Court just handed Trump an astonishing victory: They agreed to hear oral arguments in late April on his case that ex-presidents cannot be prosecuted for anything they did as president. The case was decided against Trump by a federal appeals court. In reopening the case, the Supreme Court is adding significant delay to his trial on charges stemming from the January 6 coup attempt.

  • [03-02] The courts were never going to save America from Donald Trump. Most ominous section head here is: "It's not even clear that the Supreme Court is capable of standing up for the rule of law in the face of a sufficiently determined opposition." And this is not just the current right-wing court. Examples, few but he could have listed many, start with Dred Scott (1857).

  • [03-04] The Supreme Court just crushed any hope that Trump could be removed from the ballot: "This is the second major victory the Supreme Court handed Trump in less than one week." No surprise that the Colorado ruling that banned Trump from the primary ballot was overturned -- that could have happened unanimously -- but the right-wing faction went even further to show their fealty to Trump.

• Peter M Shane: [02-27] This will be a big year for the Roberts Court's major questions doctrine.

• Matt Stieb: [02-29] Did the Supreme Court fight over delaying Trump's trial? Interview with Steve Vladeck.

Climate and environment:

• Umair Irfan: [02-29] Texas fires happen in the winter. Just never at this scale before. The Smokehouse Creek Fire "has engulfed more than 1.1 million acres and was 3 percent contained as of Thursday morning." "Encroaching flames forced the Pantex nuclear weapons manufacturing plant in Amarillo to shut down."

• Benji Jones: [02-28] This chart of ocean temperatures should really scare you. The eastern Atlantic, off the coast of Africa -- also in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, which is to say in the areas where hurricanes form and intensify -- is already much warmer than in previous years (at least going back to 1981).

Ukraine War:

• Connor Echols: [03-01] Diplomacy Watch: Russia could be invited to Ukraine-led peace talks. I don't really buy that "Ukraine's shift is a sign of just how dire the situation is becoming for its armed forces," but I do believe that Russia can more/less hold its position indefinitely, that it can continue to exact high (and eventually crippling) costs from Ukraine indefinitely, and that it can survive the sanctions regime (which the US is unlikely to loosen even in an armistice. All of this suggests to me that Zelensky needs to approach some realistic terms for ending the war, then sell them as hard to his "allies" as to Putin, and to the rest of the world.

• Anatol Lieven/George Beebe: [02-28] Europeans' last ditch clutch at Ukrainian victory: "France's Macron raised the idea of Western troops entering the fray, others want to send longer range missiles."

• Olena Melnyhk/Sera Koulabdara: [02-29] Ukraine's vaunted 'bread basket' soil is now toxic: "Two years of war has left roughly one-third of its territory polluted, with dire potential consequences for the world's food supply."

• Will Porter: [02-28] Russia claims first Abrams tank kill in Ukraine.

• Ted Snider: [03-01] How the West provoked an unprovoked war in Ukraine. The ironies in the title at least merit quotes around "unprovoked." The important part of the story is the relatively underreported period from March, 2021 when Biden added $125 million of "defensive lethal weapons" on top of $150 million previously allocated under Trump, up to the eve of the March 2022 invasion, when "Putin called Ukraine 'a knife to the throat of Russia' and worried that 'Ukraine will serve as an advanced bridgehead' for a pre-emptive US strike against Russia." It is unlikely the US would ever launch such a strike, but Ukraine had by then given up on the Minsk accords and was preparing to take back Donbas. Had they succeeded, Crimea would be next, and that (plus excessive confidence in his own military) was enough for Putin to launch his own pre-emptive attack.

• Marcus Stanley: [02-28] Biden officials want Russian frozen assets to fund Ukraine war: "Not only will this prolong the conflict, but rock confidence in the Western-led world economic system."

• Ishaan Tharoor: [02-28] Foreign troops in Ukraine? They're already there.

• Ezra Klein:

  • [03-01] The wars in Ukraine and Gaza have changed. America's policy hasn't. Interview with Richard Haass. [Transcript to be added later.]

• [2022-03-01] Can the West stop Russia by strangling its economy? Transcript of an interview with Adam Tooze, doesn't really answer the title question but does provide a pretty deep survey of Russia's economy at the start of Putin's invasion of Ukraine. One minor note: I think Tooze said "Kremlinologists" where you read "the criminologists of the modern day have five, six, seven, eight different groups now that they see operating around Putin."

  PS: Unrelated to Russia, but for another Klein interview with Tooze, see: [2022-10-07] How the Fed is "shaking the entire system".

Around the world:

• Shaiq Hussain/Rick Noack: [03-03] Lawmakers pick Pakistani's leader, but Khan's shadow looms from prison: Shehbaz Sharif was re-elected, but lacks parliamentary majority support.

• Ishaan Tharoor: [03-03] Iran stages a dismal election as Islamic regime circles the wagons.

Other stories:

Lori Aratani: [03-01] Boeing in talks to reacquire key 737 Max supplier Spirit AeroSystems: Boeing spun the company off in 2005, including the Wichita factory my father and brother worked at for decades.

Marina Bolotnikova/Kenny Torrella: [02-26] 9 charts that show US factory farming is even bigger than you realize: "Factory farms are now so big that we need a new word for them." Related here:

• Current Affairs: [03-01] Why factory farming is a moral atrocity: Interview with Lewis Bollard, of Open Philanthropy.

• Jack McCordick: The academics helping the meat industry avoid climate scrutiny.

Rosa Brooks: [02-20] One hundred years of dictatorship worship: A review of a new book by Jacob Heilbrunn: America Last: The Right's Century-Long Romance With Foreign Dictators [note: cover has it "America First" in large white type, then overprints "Last" in blockier red].

Daniel Denvir: [02-28] The libertarians who dream of a world without democracy: Interview with Quinn Slobodian, who wrote the 2018 book Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism, and most recently, Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy.

Adam Gopnik: [02-19] Did the year 2020 change us forever? "The COVID-19 pandemic affected us in millions of ways. But it evades the meanings we want it to bear." A review, which I haven't finished (and may never) of the emerging, evolving literature on 2020.

Sean Illing: [03-03] Are we in the middle of an extinction panic? "How doomsday proclamations about AI echo existential anxieties of the past." Interview with Tyler Austin Harper, who wrote about this in the New York Times: The 100-year extinction panic is back, right on schedule. I could write a lot more on this, especially if I referred back to the extinction controversies paleontologists have been debating all along, but suffice it to say:

• Short of the Sun exploding, there is zero chance of humans going extinct in the foreseeable future. People are too numerous, widespread, and flexible for anything to get all of us. (Side note: the effective altruist focus on preventing extinction events is misguided.)
• Human population is, however, precariously balanced on a mix of technological, economic, political, and cultural factors which are increasingly fragile, and as such subject to sabotage and other disruptions (not least because they are often poorly understood). Any major breakdown could be catastrophic on a level that affects millions (though probably not billions) of people.
• Catastrophes produce psychological shocks that can compound the damage. By far the greatest risk here is war, not just for its immediate destruction but because it makes recovery more difficult.
• People are not very good at evaluating these risks, erring often both in exaggeration and denial.

The Times piece led to some others of interest here:

• Thomas Homer-Dixon/Johan Rockström: [2022-11-13] What happens when a cascade of crises collide? Homer-Dixon is a "futurologist" I got interested in long ago, but haven't followed in quite some time. He reminds us how many changes produce positive feedback loops (at least temporarily), further destabilizing. In mathematics, a catastrophe is what happens when a function suddenly breaks or collapses. It's easy to come up with real world examples.

• Jerome Roos: [04-16] We don't know what will happen next.

• Ezra Klein: [2023-10-26] The chief ideologist of the Silicon Valley elite has some strange ideas: Marc Andreessen.

Chris Lehman: [03-01] Border hysteria is a bipartisan delusion: "Yesterday, both President Biden and Donald Trump visited Texas to promise harsher immigration policies."

Abdullah Fayyad: [03-01] America has a good model for how to handle immigration: America.

Andrea Mazzarino: [02-27] War's cost is unfathomable. I mentioned this in an update last week, but it's worth mentioning again. She starts by referring to "The October 7th America has forgotten," which was 2001, when the US first bombed Afghanistan, following the Al-Qaeda attacks of that September 11. In 2010, Mazzarino founded the Cost of War Project, which, as economists are wont to do, started adding up whatever they could of the quantifiable costs of America's Global War on Terror and its spawn. Still, their figures (at least $8 trillion and counting, and with debt compounding) miss much of the real human (and environmental) costs, especially those that are primarily psychic.

For instance, would we have the gun problem that we have had we not been continuously at war for over two decades? Would our politics have turned so desperately war-like? Certainly, there would have been much less pressure to immigrate, given that war is the leading producer of refugees. Without constant jostling for military leverage, might we not have made more progress in dealing with problems like climate change? The list only grows from there.

One constant theme of every Speaking of Which is the need to put aside the pursuit of power over and against others and find mutual grounds that will allow us to work together cooperatively to deal with pressing problems. There are lots of reasons why this is true, starting with the basic fact that we could not exist in such numbers if not for a level of technology that is complex beyond most of our understandings and fragile, especially vulnerable to the people who feel most unjustly treated. Our very lives depend on experts who can be trusted, and their ability to work free of sabotage. You can derive all the politics you need from this insight.

Michelle Orange: [03-01] How the Village Voice met its moment: A review of Tricia Romano's The Freaks Came Out to Write, a new "oral history" (i.e., history presented in interview quotes). I rushed out and bought a copy, and should probably write my own review, even if only because she left me out. More:

• Peter Conrad: [02-27] The Freaks Came Out to Write review -- how the Village Voice changed American journalism.

• Maureen Corrigan: [03-04] The oral history of the 'Village Voice' captures its creativity and rebelliousness.

• Dwight Garner: [02-12] What was The Village Voice? Garner is also interviewed in Gilbert Cruz: [02-23] The rise and fall of the Village Voice.

• Adriane Quinlan: [02-28] Meet the New York 'freaks' who reshaped modern journalism.

• Charles Cross: [02-26] Tricia Romano chats Village Voice ahead of Town Hall event.

• Tricia Romano: [03-02] 'There's some music coming out of the Bronx called rap,' how the Village Voice championed hip-hop and changed criticism: An excerpt.

Rick Perlstein: [02-28] Kissinger revisited: "The former secretary of state is responsible for virtually every American geopolitical disaster of the past half-century."

Deanne Stillman: [02-21] Mothers, sons, and guns: Author wrote a book about Lee Harvey Oswald and his mother, recounted here, in light of high school shooter Ethan Crumbley and his mother, Jennifer Crumbley, who was convicted for her role leading up to the shootings.

David Zipper: [03-01] Driving at ridiculous speeds should be physically impossible: As someone who grew up with a great love of auto racing, I'd argue that driving at ridiculous speeds has always been physically impossible, even as limits have expanded with better technology. Of course, "ridiculous" can mean many different things, but I'd say that's a reason not to try to legislate it. I've long thought that the 55 mph speed limit was the biggest political blunder the Democrats made, at least in my lifetime. (Aside from Vietnam.) Not only did it impose on personal freedom -- in a way that, say, European levels of gasoline taxes wouldn't have done -- but it induced some kind of brain rot in American auto engineering, from which Detroit may never have recovered. (I can't really say. After several bad experiences, I stopped buying their wares.)

Ironically, this political push for mandating "speed limiters" (even more euphemistically, "Intelligent Speed Assistance") on new cars is coming from tech businesses, who see surveillance of driving as a growth area for revenue. This fits in with much broader plans to increase surveillance -- mostly government, but it doesn't end there -- over every aspect of our lives. Supposedly, this will save lives, although the relationship between speeding and auto carnage has never been straightforward, and much more plausible arguments (e.g., on guns) go nowhere. My great fear here is that Democrats will rally to this as a public health and safety measure, inviting a backlash we can ill afford (as with the 55 mph speed limit, which helped elect Reagan).

Feb 2024