BROKEN: What did Vladimir Putin propose?

SATURDAY, JULY 21, 2018

Your lizard brain gets a good workout: According to the future elders—they come to us quite late at night—the "Embellishment Industrial Complex" flourished during the so-called Final Human Era, an era defined by the rise of corporate "cable news."

These future elders still laugh about the way Arianna sewed that fourth button onto Candidate Gore's suits in the fall of 1999. Then they remember the way this conduct led to Down Home Bush's Transitional War, with its untold thousands of innocent dead, and they burn with a fury at players like Brian, who spent so many nights, back then, obsessing about Gore's wardrobe.

(At the time, Brian was lobbying to succeed Tom Brokaw as anchor of NBC Nightly News. Because Jack Welch was his corporate owner, this led to lunatic embellishments and theoretics about the various elements of the candidate's troubling wardrobe.

(The liberal world accepted every one of Brian's endless jibes. As Brian played us again and again, we were laughing about the ignorant hillbillies we'd spotted at Walmart.

(Later, when Brian embellished about his own courage in Iraq and New Orleans, he surrendered the anchorman post. Today, he provides each evening's "Last Word" for us, the liberal masses. Through his florid language and his courtly behavior, we can tell that he's On Our Side.)

The Embellishment Industrial Complex ruled the roost at cable news during that final era. For one example, compare what Vladimir Putin proposed to what you've been offered on cable.

The proposal was first made in Helsinki, during the initial summit of Presidents Sundance and Butch. No one knows what Putin said during his private session with President Mitty, but when the two fellows spoke in public, everyone was able to see his statement.

Below, you see Putin's remarks as they were translated in real time. You'll note that what he actually said in the public session doesn't match what you've been hearing on Corporate Embellishment Cable.

Warning! More than ten words:

PUTIN, AS TRANSLATED (7/16/18): Now let's get back to the issue of these twelve alleged intelligence officers of, of Russia.

I don't know the full extent of the situation, but President Trump mentioned this issue and I will look into it. So far, I can say the following things off the top of my head.

We have enacting (sic) an existing agreement between the United States of America and the Russian Federation, an existing treaty that dates back to 1999. The Mutual Assistance on Criminal Cases. This treaty is in full effect. It works quite efficiently.

On average, we initiate about 100, 150 criminal cases upon request from foreign states. For instance, the last year there was one extradition case upon the request sent by the United States.

So this treaty has specific legal procedures we can offer the appropriate commission headed by Special Attorney Mueller. He can use this treaty as a solid foundation and send a formal—an official request to us so that we would interrogate—we want to hold a questioning of these individuals, who he believes are privy to some crimes. And our law enforcement are perfectly able to do this questioning and send the appropriate materials to the United States.

Moreover, we can meet you halfway. We can make another step.

We can actually permit official representatives of the United States, including the members of this very commission headed by Mr. Mueller, we can let them into the country and they will be present at this questioning. But in this case, there is a—there's another condition.

This kind of effort should be a mutual one. Then we would expect that the Americans would reciprocate, and that they would question officials, including the officers of law enforcement and intelligence service of the United States, whom we believe are—who have something to do with illegal actions on the territory of Russia, and we have to—to request the presence of our law enforcement.

For instance, we can bring up the Mr. Browder in this particular case. Business associates of Mr. Browder have earned over $1.5 billion in Russia. They never paid any taxes, neither in Russia nor in the United States, and yet the money escaped the country. They were transferred to the United States. They sent huge amount of money, $400 million as a contribution to the campaign of Hillary Clinton. Well, that's the personal case. It might have been legal, the contribution itself, but the way the money was earned was illegal.

You'll note the following points:

1) Vladimir doesn't suggest that anyone should be extradited, whether from Russia to the U.S. or from the U.S. to Russia. More specifically, there is no suggestion that any Americans will be forced to travel to Russia.

2) He doesn't say that Mueller or his associates would be allowed to question the twelve indicted Russkies. He seems to say that they would be permitted to watch as Russkies questioned these twelve Russkies, on their own sacred soil.

3) He doesn't seem to say that Russkies would be permitted to question any Americans. He seems to say that they would be allowed to be present as American officials questioned certain Americans on our "American soil," which is once again precious to liberals.

4) He doesn't mention Ambassador McFaul. He mentions only Bill Browder by name.

That's what President Soccer Ball proposed in the public session. That's the proposal which President Rain Man briefly described in this way, briefly abandoning his desire to discuss his many electoral votes:

TRUMP (7/16/18): I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today.

And what he did is an incredible offer. He offered to have the people working on the [Mueller] case come and work with their investigators with respect to the twelve people. I think that's an incredible offer. OK?

Thank you.

That's what President Murky said about his best friend's proposal. More precisely, Murky only described a plan in which American officials would "come" (presumably to Russia) to "work with their investigators with respect to the twelve people" Mueller has indicted.

He didn't mention, let alone endorse, any other part of any proposal. It should be noted that he didn't say that he was accepting this offer.

What did Vlad propose in private? To this day, no one knows! But that's what he proposed in public, until the denizens of cable news began their embellishment games.

One caveat should be offered. After Monday's "Bro Summit" was done, Russkie officials seem to have described some variant of Putin's proposal to some Russkie news sites.

Because of the nature of American "journalism," we don't know what this variant may have been. We say that because, starting with the New York Times, we know of no major newspaper which bothered describing these variants, or bothered explaining how these variants may have differed from what President Alpha Male had said in his public presentation.

Beyond that, and stating the obvious, we saw no stars of "cable news" developing this information. In the age of the Embellishment Storyline Industrial Complex, the practice of developing "information" had largely disappeared from the American neo-press.

We've seen what Presidents Spin and Marty said in their public session. As such, we've seen the proposal which President Goofus did, in fact, describe as "an incredible offer." (It should be noted that he never said that he was accepting the offer.)

Vladimir proposed no extraditions. He didn't even seem to propose that Russkies should be allowed to question Americans.

But so what? After that, embellishment culture stepped to the fore. Here's what Lawrence told the liberal masses on Thursday night:

O'DONNELL (7/19/18): The Senate showed how quickly it can actually do something today when the Senate really wants to. It took the Senate's Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer exactly three minutes and eight seconds to convince the Senate to vote on a resolution, quote, expressing the sense of Congress "against the making available of current and former diplomats officials and members of the armed forces of the United States for questioning by the government of Vladimir Putin."

The Senate vote was 98-0 in favor of that resolution after Donald Trump on Monday publicly said that it was a good idea to hand over, among others, Obama administration ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul, who Vladimir Putin specifically mentioned on Monday as he stood beside Donald Trump. Vladimir Putin accused Ambassador McFaul of being a criminal and said he would trade the extradition of the Russian military officers who have been indicted by Robert Mueller for Ambassador McFaul and other Americans...

Where did Embellishment Culture step in? Let us count the ways:

Embellishments by Lawrence:
1) On Monday, Putin didn't "specifically mention" McFaul as he stood beside Donald Trump. McFaul was never specifically mentioned at all.

2) As such, Donald Trump didn't "publicly say that it was a good idea to hand over McFaul." (By now, the notion that people would be "handed over" was a key element of Standard Scripted Thoroughly Pleasing Tribal Embellishment Speak.)

3) Putin didn't accuse McFaul of being a criminal. McFaul wasn't mentioned by Putin.

4) Putin didn't say that he would "trade the extradition of the Russian military officers who have been indicted by Robert Mueller for Ambassador McFaul and other Americans." He never mentioned extradition at all. He never seemed to suggest that anyone would be forced to leave his own country.

Needless to say, this was Typical Everyday Lawrence. It was also a type of behavior which typified the work of "cable news" during the Entertainment / Embellishment Era.

Nor was Lawrence done! Before he was finished on Thursday night, he falsely said that, as of Wednesday, Sarah Huckabee Sanders had said that the administration was "still considering whether to hand over Ambassador McFaul and other Americans to Vladimir Putin."

Sanders hadn't said that. Moments later, Lawrence embellished further, in this question for a cable news potted plant:

O'DONNELL: Ambassador Burns, I just want to go to you first on what Donald Trump called "an incredible offer," this cooperating with Vladimir Putin and how Vladimir Putin wants to investigate, among others, Ambassador McFaul, possibly have him arrested, extradited to Moscow for trial.

By now, Lawrence seemed to have Trump agreeing that McFaul should be arrested and sent to Moscow for trial. Possibly, that is! (Possibly with a bare-chested Putin whipping him! From horseback, right there in court!)

We'll only note that Donald Trump was referring to no such offer when he made his statement on Monday. But this is the bullshit we humans had chosen during Embellishment Days.

Candidate Gore wore four-button suits—and President Trump publicly said that it would be a good idea to hand McFaul over to Putin for extradition! That was the bullshit we'd chosen.

Needless to say, Lawrence wasn't alone.

The leading player on the channel had already embellished beautifully by the time Lawrence came on. Here she was, describing that Senate vote:

MADDOW (7/19/18): That is the Senate voting unanimously that the president maybe shouldn't send former American diplomats and other U.S. officials and U.S. citizens over to Russia to be interrogated by the Russian government just because Vladimir Putin told Trump that's what he wanted.

I mean, it is still almost impossible to believe that the White House did really spend a few days thinking over that request from Vladimir Putin at the summit earlier this week. I mean, the White House acknowledged that yes, that's what Putin asked; yes, there was some conversation about that. The White House acknowledged that the president was meeting with his team and talking over that request from Russia.

I mean, incredibly, they do appear to have mulled over the possibility of doing this, handing the Americans over to the Russians.

In fairness, she did say "incredibly!" Even so, we're forced to tell you that that was embellishment all the way down. That said, there was more excitement to follow:

MADDOW: The White House this afternoon put out a short, very complimentary statement about Vladimir Putin's sincerity in making this request to get his fangs into former U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul and other U.S. officials who he wanted Trump to hand over on a platter. But despite the sincerity of Putin's request to have those Americans handed over, the White House announced that they have finally concluded at least this time, that we won't be sending anybody to them.

Maddow is a more skillful dissembler than Lawrence. But what you're seeing there is tribal excitement, and tribal embellishment, taking the place of information and fact, elements of the old order.

Was Matthews possibly the craziest player this night? Over the course of many years, no one did more to drive the demonology which would eventually let Trump slip past Hillary Clinton.

(Or to build the demonizations which let Bush slip by Gore. Matthews has the blood of thousands on his money-soaked hands. On the bright side, this made him quite rich.)

Matthews was a powerful player during that earlier period. For that reason, the children all knew they mustn't complain as he demonized both Clintons and Gore with years of lunatic statements.

But now, his craziness (and his trademark lack of preparation) had been redirected. They were invested in dumbing the liberal world down in the following ways:

MATTHEWS (7/19/18): What would [Trump officials] have done if Barack Obama had kowtowed to a Soviet or Russian leader, like this guy has, who suggested this subjecting American officials like our former ambassador McFaul to be dragged over to Moscow for interrogation?

MATTHEWS: The attacks, the suggestion that they want McFaul, former ambassador, to come back there and be investigated by the KGB like his crowd, that is how [Trump types] are.

MATTHEWS: Coming up, President Trump described it as an incredible offer, handing over U.S. citizens, including former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, to Vladimir Putin and the KGB for questioning in exchange for interviews with Russians.

MATTHEWS: Nobody's going to take us from anywhere outside the United States to justice. No American is going to be brought before some tribunal. And here's Trump letting this out that we might actually let our people, including our top State Department officials, be facing Russian justice under a KGB colonel.

People are dead all over the world because this disordered jackass played these games, for many years, against both Clintons and Gore. Now his disorder has been redirected, and we liberals say he's the best.

Your lizard brain is telling you that we have this totally wrong. That's the nature of lizard brains, and of our badly failed public culture in these, the last few years before The Dispositive War.

You can see what Presidents Nutcase and Insaner said in their public session. Then, you can see what a bunch of millionaire corporate wh*res told you the fellows had said.

Mercifully, Mister Trump's Fully Dispositive War brought all this to an end. We're told that future historians grudgingly cite this as his one achievement.

For today, we thought your lizard might need a good workout. For that reason, we showed you these quotes.

BREAKING: What we didn't do on our summer vacation!

FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2018

Sullivan gets it right: We took five books on our summer vacation, which lasted all of four days.

We didn't get around to rereading Nietzche's The Birth of Tragedy and The Genealogy of Morals, the subjects of a widely recycled freshman-year term paper we wrote a few years ago.

That said, Andrew Sullivan's portrait of the values of Donald J. Trump reminds us why we took it along. We offer the following excerpt, with one key passage highlighted:

SULLIVAN (7/20/18): Everything Trump did in Europe—every horrifying, sick-making, embarrassing expostulation—is, in some way, consistent, and predictable, when you consider how he sees the world. It’s not a plan or a strategy as such. Trump is bereft of the attention span to sustain any of those. It is rather the reflection of a set of core beliefs and instincts that have governed him for much of his life. The lies come and go. But his deeper convictions really are in plain sight.

And they are, at root, the same as those of the strongmen he associates with and most admires. The post-1945 attempt to organize the world around collective security, free trade, open societies, non-zero-sum diplomacy, and multicultural democracies is therefore close to unintelligible to him. Why on earth, in his mind, would a victorious power after a world war be generous to its defeated foes? When you win, you don’t hold out a hand in enlightened self-interest. You gloat and stomp. In Trump’s zero-sum brain—“we should have kept the oil!”—it makes no sense. It has to be a con. And so today’s international order strikes Trump, and always has, as a massive, historic error on the part of the United States.

There’s nothing in it for him to like. It has empowered global elites over national leaders; it has eroded national sovereignty in favor commerce and peace; it has empowered our rivals; it has spread liberal values contrary to the gut instincts of many ordinary people (including himself); it has led the U.S. to spend trillions on collective security, when we could have used that wealth for our own population or to impose our will by force on others; it has created a legion of free riders; it has enriched the global poor at the expense, as he sees it, of the American middle class; and it has unleashed unprecedented migration of peoples and the creation of the first truly multicultural, heterogeneous national cultures.

Nietzche thought "morals" were an extremely skillful trick through which the weak had gained control over the strong. This resembles the inner world Sullivan describes in his piece.

Concerning the one brief passage we highlighted:

We live in an extremely complex society. Its checks-and-balances are endlessly complex, bewilderingly ornate. Decades ago, changes in immigration laws served to create a much more complex "racial" mosaic.

We liberals are comfortable with this, if not more so. We aggressively hate those others who manage to linger a few steps behind our own incomparable greatness.

We love to talk about their alleged hate. Our own tribe's corresponding instincts go almost completely unnoticed—though only, of course, Over Here.

Concerning those ordinary people: It's one of the most revealing quotes of all time. It comes from Gene Brabender, quoted in Jim Bouton's classic book, Ball Four:

"Where I come from, we just talk for a little while. After that we start to hit."

That was the end of complex discussion out in the Pilots' bullpen. (Brabender was very large.)

Brabender would have been frustrated by the intricacies of our contemporary culture. His brain may have been wired a bit differently from yours. He might have been inclined to respect the rights and advantages of the strong. On that basis, our modern tribe would have known that we should rush to hate him.

He simply wasn't as good as we are. He wasn't as brilliant or worthy or fine. In such ways of reacting, our highly unimpressive tribe resembles one Donald J. Trump.

BREAKING: What we did on our noontime vacation!

FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2018

John King racks up the votes: We just spent the noontime hour watching John King and a panel of four discuss the new Trump sexy-time tape. It was 12:52 PM Eastern before anything else got discussed.

Putin was gone. Russia was gone. Those separated families were gone, as has been true for two weeks. Our team got to assemble an all-female panel to chat with King for the hour about who someone's girl friend was back in 2006.

With lots of photographs!

It was heaven! Why did we think we might be hearing the "ching-ching-ching" of Donald J. Trump racking up votes?

Over Here, we love this stuff! The segment—more accurately, the transcendently pointless group gossip session—looks like a gift from the gods.

But how does the segment look Over There? How does it look to The Others?

Over There, it looks like what it is. It looks like a bunch of pseudo-journalists seeking some point of utter trivia with which to bring someone down.

It almost looks like a budding witch hunt, conducted outside Salem Village. Did we actually hear the "ching-ching-ching" of their target racking up votes?

TRIBAL SNAPSHOTS: Antoinettes before the fall!

FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2018

Part 4—A snapshot of Hamptons-based values: After the past several "weeks that were," it's surely time to add to our storehouse of basic questions concerning Donald J. Trump.

Some cable pundits—not all—have begun to feel free with one obvious question:

Is Donald J. Trump being blackmailed or bribed by his best friend, Vladimir Putin?

Surely, though, it's time to add two other questions to our store. We've long recommended these questions:

Is it possible that Donald J. Trump is some version of "mentally ill?"

Is it possible that Donald J. Trump is intellectually impaired?

Surely it's time to consider those possibilities, despite what the New York Times says!

That said, Donald J. Trump isn't our only misfiring animal. The mental disorder of Donald J. Trump has long had its analogs within the mainstream press.

Mainstream pundits have been misfiring, out in the open, for a very long time now. Despite our self-proclaimed tribal brilliance, we liberals have often failed to see this. That doesn't mean that the highly visible malfunctioning hasn't occurred.

Even today, our most honored pundits may balk at raising the possibilities we've listed above. Why does Trump behave as he does? Consider what Charlie Sykes told Chris on Wednesday night:

MATTHEWS (7/18/18): Charlie, why is the president to keep doing this? I mean, he is an instinctive default thing. He goes back to the Russians are the good guys...His instinct is to say the Russians are the good guys. We are the bad guys.

This is a nationalistic president who says our nation is at fault. And the guys on the other side of the road, and the other side of what we always thought was the good guy-bad guy relationship, are the good guys. He always does it now—the Russians are right. Charlie, why?

SYKES: Well, you know, in part, I think because he is constitutionally incapable of acknowledging the severity of this attack. Because if he acknowledges that it is ongoing, if he acknowledges that, as Dan Coats says, this is a 9/11 type attack, then he has to acknowledge that what happened in 2016 was a big deal, and every instinct in his body is to dismiss it, is to you know, push it away, to say the investigation is a witch-hunt. And look, the Donald Trump you saw in Helsinki is the real Donald Trump. That's what he really believes.

"That's what Donald Trump really believes?" That's certainly possible, of course. But how do we know that he isn't simply being blackmailed by his new best friend?

Sykes still wasn't willing to go there, nor did Matthews challenge his answer. Even more strikingly, Jeffrey Toobin said this that same night:

COOPER (7/18/18): Well, it's also incredible, Jeff, that this is Day Three since—I mean, there was Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. That summit was on Monday. We've now had three days for the White House, for the president to just very clearly, you know, stand with the intelligence agencies, stand with what he claims he believes, or the White House claims he believes. And every single time, he's either ad-libbing something, he is hedging it, he's flat-out saying no.

TOOBIN: He is giving us what he believes. I mean, you know, how obvious does it have to be that he doesn't believe that Putin is a liar, he doesn't believe that the intelligence community is right, that the Russians alone meddled in the election.

I mean, every opportunity he has, as you point out, to say straightforwardly, "This was a Russian effort to help me get elected," he doesn't say it. And the only explanation for why he doesn't say it is he doesn't believe it.

What did Trump hedge that day concerning Russian interference in 2016? Tobbin insisted it's what he believes, full stop.

That's the only possible explanation? At this point, after all this time, why would anyone say that?

How hopelessly do our pundits misfire? How limited are their skills? At the end of that same hour, Cooper interviewed Tony Schwartz, ghost writer of The Art of the Deal. Within a matter of minutes, Schwartz seemed to say that Trump believes every word he says, and that he's constantly lying.

SCHWARTZ (7/18/18): Here's the thing. You have to understand that Donald Trump, more so now than at any time during the presidency, but it's always been true, creates his own reality inside the bubble of his brain. And it is—has nothing to do with what's going on in the real world. It's whatever he says it is to himself at any given time.

So no, he doesn't say, "Lying is one of my strengths." He says quite the opposite. "Reality is one of my strengths, and the rest is fake news."

[...]

SCHWARTZ: What's so interesting about Trump in the way he deals with the truth is that, when he is in his most impulsive, reactive, angry moments that's when he tends to tell the truth. That's when he tends to actually say what he means, as he did at that news conference. When he is thinking about it, much less reading something, he is then almost always lying...

I believe that what reporters now need to start doing is saying in response to his outright and undeniable lies, "That's not true," and move on. Not debate the question of how could he see it that way or, for example, when he took back, you know, what he said at the press conference.

COOPER: Right.

SCHWARTZ: It was clearly a boldfaced lie. Why have hours and hours of discussion about it? You know what the proper response to it is? Trump lied again. Now let's move on.

He truly believes what he says; also, he's lying when he says it. Even after all these years, they strongly tend to function this way. As we'll let Professor Harari explain next week, it's all they were really built for.

(In fairness, you can possibly reconcile those statements. Given the speed of cable pseudo-discussion, no such effort was made.)

Yeats was "fastened to a dying animal;" the American public is too. The nightly performance of these forms is a study in the foolishness of the ancient claim that we are the "rational animals."

The analytical skills are very slight; the courage is frequently lacking. Then too, there's the monumental foppishness. Let's consider a snapshot or two from last weekend's New York Times.

The Times is our most foppish major newspaper by far. It's mental horizons are made in the Hamptons. Even as perdition rushes towards us, they simply can't stop publishing piddle like this, concerning Melania's wardrobe Over There:

FRIEDMAN (7/18/18): Most of the outfits effectively faded into the background. The exception was a minor stir about the pale yellow J. Mendel gown Mrs. Trump wore to the state dinner at Blenheim Palace, with its long flowing sleeves and pleated bodice, which briefly spurred comparisons to Belle from ''Beauty and the Beast'' (the Disney version) and gave rise to a few lackluster suggestions that perhaps Mrs. Trump was using her clothes to send a veiled message to her husband (after all, if she is Beauty ...).

Mostly, though, her outfits' overriding impact was polite and appropriate. They were tailored, but not too much. Buttoned up, but also feminine. Below the knee. Even the colors—pale pink, pale yellow, white, navy and beige (beige!)—were low-key. The clothes were elegant, but bland. They were notable largely for what they were not.

There were no statement hats, for example—not even in Britain, where, presumably, a hat might have made sense. Also no scrawled messages. No attempt at mixing in the accessibly priced item or two.

[...]

She did arrive in England in Roland Mouret, a French designer working in London who is a favorite of the new Duchess of Sussex, and she chose a striped Victoria Beckham dress for an appearance the following day.

The outfits faded into the background? If only FriedmanThink would! Meanwhile, beige! Also, there were no "statements hats," though she did please the Duchess of Sussex.

Friedman noted the mandatory inane musings concerning Beauty and the Beast. This is the way these life forms flail, even as Mister Trump's Fully Dispositive Global War approaches. The piece appeared on the front page of Thursday Styles, right next to the piece about tick bites—in the Hamptons, of course.

It isn't just that our floundering species donnt reely reezun reel gud; we're also born to fawn. At the upper ends of our social order, we're born to bow low to all that's foppish and faux.

Consider last Sunday's editions. Online, the Book Review was pimping this rather extensive list of "Summer Reading" selections. Even as perdition threatened, the categories offered were these:

Thrillers
Cooking
True Crime
Movies & TV
Romance
Travel
Music
The Great Outdoors
Sports

"The Great Outdoors?" one analyst scoffed. "By the time Mister Trump gets through, we'll have a lot more of that!"

More sensibly, we marvelled at the Book Review's list. Granted, "summer reading," almost by definition, is supposed to be easy and stupid. At a newspaper like the Times, summer's the season when the guild is told they can be even dumber than usual.

That said, we ourselves were struggling with Professor Harari, with comic relief from Professor Rovelli—and the end of the world was rushing forward. Might it have occurred to these types to include even one section like "Current Issues" or "Public Affairs" or even "Not Totally Mindless?"

Dearest darlings, this is the Times! In the face of the end of the world, Luther said he'd still work in his garden. At the Times, they continue to drag out Vanessa Friedman to talk about "statement hats."

We were struck by those reading selections, but then came the Sunday Review. The foppishness was general there. Some of the headlines were these:

I’ll Be Out in the Garden, De-stressing

Get Yourself a Giant Dog

Forget a Fast Car. Creativity Is the New Midlife Crisis Cure.

Taking Away the Phones Won’t Solve Our Teenagers’ Problems

I Didn’t Want Co-Sleeping to End

What Adults Can Learn From Dutch Children’s Books

Another hard-hitter started like this, headline included:

The World Cup Final Is Upon Us. What Have We Learned?

Here we are. The final match of the 2018 World Cup has almost arrived, and it has been as thrilling a tournament as I can remember. As Maximus, Russell Crowe’s character in “Gladiator,” famously yelled, “Are you not entertained?”

It didn't go on to offer a point. Meanwhile, on The Review's front page, in one of the paper's most high-profile venues, we got a long piece about "the New York Yankees and their fans." Along with which, Michiko Kakutani got the chance to type in her sleep about the wrongs of the Japanese Exclusion Act, which took effect in 1942.

Kakutani was all over last Sunday's Times. In the Book Review, she got to pen the standard self-praise about the way, when she was a child, "reading was a refuge and a magical form of transport to other worlds." She also got to hand us this piddle about her worthless new book:

KAKUTANI (7/15/18): In “The Death of Truth,” I wanted to look at how we got to where we are today—with reason, science and the rule of law under assault from a president who lies shamelessly and reflexively, and at least a third of the country willing to dwell in a world of “alternative facts.” In examining the fallout that dishonesty and the denial of objective truth are having on our democracy, I went back to the writings of thinkers like Hannah Arendt (“The Origins of Totalitarianism”) and George Orwell (“1984,” “A Collection of Essays”) who chronicled how cynicism and weariness and fear can make people susceptible to propaganda, and the lies and false promises of leaders bent on unconditional power.

So scripted, so tribally pleasing! Meanwhile, poor Kakutani! She "want[s] to look at how we got to where we are today—with reason, science and the rule of law under assault."

Our view? If you want to ponder that question, we'll recommend Kakutani's astounding 1999 review of Candidate Gore's 1992 book, Earth in the Balance. It may have been the craziest review of a book we've ever read, and it appearewd on the Times' front page. In each case, that's because it constituted a crazy campaign in the ongoing war which was being conducted, all over the Times, against the hated Candidate Gore, Bill Clinton's chosen successor.

Kakutani's sneering attack on reason and science helped send Bush to the White House. We're so old that we can remember when we liberals used to pretend that we cared about the war Kakutani helped give us through that astonishing front-page pseudo-review.

Today, the Times calls upon hacks like Kakutani to recite about Trump and Trump voters. Back then, the assault upon reason and science was being conducted by the Times, in part through a crazy pseudo-review.

The Sunday Review was instructive. One scribe didn't want co-sleeping to end. Another scribe recommends big dogs. A third will be out in the garden.

The war will begin while she's pulling those weeds. You see, Kakutani and her fiend, Maureen Dowd, helped send Donald J. Trump to the White House. The rest of the creatures are still crawling all over cable, pretending to sift the key facts.

Next week, we'll examine the species as shown by Harari. For today, we'll end with this "noteworthy fact" from today's page A3:

Of Interest
NOTEWORTHY FACTS FROM TODAY'S PAPER
Magic's version of the Oscars is called the Merlin Awards.

At the modern-day New York Times, that's called a "noteworthy fact."

Donald J. Trump may be stark raving mad. At the Times, that isn't a noteworthy fact. Early this year, the editorial board told the world that it can't be discussed at all!

Next week: Professor Harari explains Homo sapiens. Also, comic relief

TRIBAL SNAPSHOTS: Behaviors of a second band!

THURSDAY, JULY 19, 2018

Interlude—A snapshot of the press corps: "How did it get so far?"

The question was first asked by Don Corleone, a business associate of Donald J. Trump's businessman father.

Today, the question is being asked again. There are several answers.

Last week's questioning of Agent Strzok highlighted a type of behavior our own tribe can't see. We refer to the decades of disdain our own tribe has showered on the ignorant hillbillies found Over There, the irredeemables spotted at Walmart.

According to communications from future anthropologists, that behavior was one of the strains which led the world to Mister Trump's Dispositive War. That foolish behavior is on us, the liberals.

That said, these future experts also point to the behavior of another roving band of this era. They talk about the sad behavior of the so-called mainstream press.

So sad! Even as we liberals laughed at the hillbilly ignorance found Over There, we ourselves were too dumb to see the role being played by those we trusted within that second band. To cite one awful example:

As of July 2018, we sat and watched, on our own cable channel, Lawrence, Brian and even Chris Matthews of a weeknight evening.
All three had played active, embarrassing roles in the earlier wars against Clinton, Clinton and Gore—the 25-year series of wars which finally allowed Mister Trump to squeeze past Hillary Clinton and find his way to the White House.

(Matthews had called her every misogynist name in the book. We were too stupid to notice, too hopelessly dumb to complain.)

Those journalists! Even as they aggressively worked to execute the demonization of Hillary Clinton, they dumbed the discourse way, way down, smoothing the way for the likes of Trump. This was especially true of Matthews, who was made rich by his owner, Jack Welch, as he launched a decade of attacks on the public's IQ.

We liberals didn't notice! We didn't notice the demonization; we didn't notice the dumbnification. We were too busy saying how dumb the hillbillies were Over There!

In this way, the demonology of the one roving band was enabled by the spectacular dumbness of the other. That said, the mainstream press corps was spectacularly incompetent too, during the age which was destined to end in Mister Trump's Score-Settling War of Extreme Resolution.

How persistently dumb was the mainstream press? Consider the uproar on cable last night—and consider today's New York Times.

Let's start with this morning's Times. Atop its front page, Landler and Sullivan write about Mister Trump's "swirl of confusion" over the past three days. But uh-oh!

Midway through their news report, they add today to their own band's swirl from the night before:

LANDLER AND SULLIVAN (7/19/18): Mr. Trump also came under sharp criticism for discussing an agreement with Mr. Putin under which Russian authorities would be allowed to question several American citizens it claims were involved in illegal dealings with a London-based financier and longtime critic of Mr. Putin, William F. Browder.

On Monday, Mr. Trump said Mr. Putin had made an “incredible” offer: to allow the special counsel in the Russia inquiry, Robert S. Mueller III, to interview 12 Russian military intelligence officers indicted last week on a charge of hacking the Democratic National Committee and the 2016 Clinton campaign, in return for access to these Americans.

Among the names on the list, a Russian official told the Interfax news agency, is that of Michael A. McFaul, who served as American ambassador to Russia under President Barack Obama. Mr. McFaul was sharply critical of the Russian government during his posting in Moscow, and has continued to speak and write regularly about Mr. Putin.

That account is larded with confusion about what happened Monday in Helsinki.

It doesn't reflect what Putin says (in translation) in the transcript of Monday's press conference. For that reason, it doesn't reflect the nature of the "agreement" to which Trump didn't agree, though he dumbly called it an "incredible offer."

It doesn't explain who "the Interfax news agency" is. It doesn't explain that the recent statement to that news agency goes beyond what Putin said in the Helsinki presser, to which Trump responded with a typically brief and incoherent remark.

We've decided it would take a month to sort through all the confusion built into those three paragraphs from this morning's Times. But giving credit where credit is due, Landler and Sullivan finally managed to note the following, in paragraph 28:

LANDLER AND SULLIVAN: As a legal matter, Mr. Trump has no authority to force Mr. McFaul or any other American to face Russian questioning. The United States does not have an extradition treaty with Russia, and under a mutual legal assistance treaty between the countries, the Justice Department can reject any request relating to a case it deems politically motivated—a status it has long given to Russia’s case against Mr. Browder.

Duh! That is an obvious point. Did you see anyone make that obvious point on "cable news" last night?

Duh! There's no obvious way that Donald J. Trump could force McFaul, or anyone else, to submit to Russian questioning. There's certainly no obvious way he could force McFaul, or anyone else, to be hauled off to Mother Russia itself, to be questioned on that famous foreign soil.

All last evening, we waited for the children of cable to state this obvious point. Instead, the children voted for high excitement and for fever pitch.

The silliest framework may have been offered—where else?—on the Maddow Show, whose very peculiar cable news host framed the matter like this:

MADDOW (7/18/18): That went off like a rocket today. Here's a taste from Democratic congressman Eric Swalwell, saying online today:

Take this to the bank, Donald Trump. You turn over former ambassador McFaul to Putin, you can count on me and millions of others to swiftly make you an ex-president.

So we know how at least one member of Congress feels about this.

Swalwell was wonderfully brave. But how could Trump "turn over" McFaul to the Russian potentate? Rachel Maddow, Our Own Rhodes Scholar, was too dumb to raise this obvious point as the excitement went off like a cable news rocket.

The children of cable have played it this way for decades. Our favorite pseudoliberal stars demonized Clinton, Clinton and Gore for decades. Eventually, the weight of all these demonizations allowed the Trumpster to slip by Matthews' "Evita Peron" and make his way into the White House.

Over that twenty-five years of demonization, we brilliant liberals were too dumb to notice or to complain. We were too busy laughing about how stupid the hillbillies are!

We waited and waited and waited last night, wondering if anyone would state the obvious point. On what basis could Donald J. Trump "allow" the Russkies to interview McFaul? To hand him over to Vlad?

None of the children raised that point. It isn't what these idiots do. In the decades since since "cable news" began, it's not what they've ever done.

Last night offered one brief snapshot of the "mainstream press." Tomorrow, an embarrassing look at that prehuman band, drawn from its highest platform.

Tomorrow: A snapshot of last Sunday's Times

Only for people who read: We like to laugh about Donald J. Trump's lack of reading. For those who enjoy a good reading assignment, go ahead:

Peruse what Putin said in Helsinki. To what extent did his rather lengthy statement match the proposal Landler and Sullivan describe in this morning's Times?

Do you see McFaul mentioned at all? Do you see anything about Russkies questioning Americans?

Do you see anything about Mueller being "allowed to interview 12 Russian military intelligence officers?" Do you see anything about our people somehow being hauled Over There?

Meanwhile, on what basis would Trump be able to make any of this occur? In what way would he be able to "turn over" McFaul?

It's the world's most obvious question. But in the midst of all the excitement, did you see a single cable denizen ask that question last night?

Truly, it's all excitement now. Until you get to graf 28, it's thrills and chills all the way down.

TRIBAL SNAPSHOTS: Dick jokes of the tribe, unite!

WEDNESDAY, JULY 18, 2018

Part 3—A snapshot of smutty disdain: What does it mean to belong to a tribe?

Along other things, it means the member gets to bathe in the water of tribal assurance. We've marveled at this in the past two days as cable watchers were assured that "everyone" was appalled by Commander Trump's Helsinki performance, and that "no one" believes his Tuesday attempt at a walkback.

Watching CNN or MSNBC, we kept receiving this odd reassurance. On this morning's front page, the New York Times states the obvious—many Trump voters disagree with the Standard CNN Take.

Everyone doesn't think Trump bombed in Helsinki. In this passage from his report, Matt Flegenheimer quotes two examples:

FLEGENHEIMER (7/18/18): So it went in interviews with Republican voters across the country on Monday and Tuesday, most of them devoted to the president’s policies generally. They quickly sorted themselves into two camps: those who winced at the episode, or at least questioned it, and those who continued to defend Mr. Trump without hesitation.

If history is a guide—and polling, too—the second group is significantly larger within the party...

“It is strictly a witch hunt,” said Carol Livingood, 74, of Danville, Ind., who says she owns enough “Make America Great Again” hats and shirts to “wear Mr. Trump” every day of the week. “It makes Watergate look like playing in the sandbox.” She blamed the news media and the F.B.I. for stoking tensions.

“They’re just trying to make Trump’s election look fraudulent,” said Vernon Hastings Jr., 76, from Shreveport, La., calling reports of Russia’s election interference overblown. “You think it ain’t happening already? You think China’s not fooling with it?”

Other Trump voters offered theories concerning the method behind the alleged madness. "Everybody" doesn't agree, in spite of what pundits have said.

These are the people whose votes allowed Herr Trump to squeeze into office, even without a major East Coast weather event. They're the people whose votes could help the Republican Party retain control of the Congress in this November's elections—although we're being assured, on tribal channels, that a blue tidal wave's on the way.

As liberals, we know how to process comments from the likes of Livingood and Hastings. We tell ourselves that they and their kind will soon die off, leaving the planet to the wiser people, to people a bit more like us.

Such comments are common in liberal comment threads. They echo Hillary Clinton's famous statement about how "unfortunate" it is that such "irredeemables" even exist at all. The statement produced LAUGHTER/APPLAUSE from the tribal base—and may have sent Trump to the White House.

Alas! Such statements find their way back to those lesser beings and to their families and friends. And sure enough! Instead of exhibiting gratitude for the way we're willing to share our wisdom, these small-brained oafs tend to take offense when they hear us counting the days until they're gone from the Earth.

What will happen this November? We have no way of knowing. But history suggests that the turnout of the oafs could, in fact, exceed the turnout of our own tribe's many gods.

Our own tribe's bands tend to stay away from the polls, especially in off-year elections. And we aren't always completely successful at getting the lessers to switch—to vote the way we tell them.

What makes the lessers Over There cling to their tribal allegiance? We're going to guess that it doesn't help when they hear themselves described as "ignorant hillbillies" who can be smelled at the Walmart. Or when they hear themselves pruriently denigrated in the way one cable star did.

This cable star is a drinking buddy of Donald Trump's leading birther enabler. She thinks her friend Chris Matthews is the best political analyst ever. Never mind the lunacy he unloosed for two years in the quest to get George W. Bush elected, or the smutty misogyny he aimed at Hillary Clinton over all those smutty, amazingly stupid years.

Last night, the cable star returned to her favorite new pastime; she opened with a long-winded public reading of a pointless court transcript. Still, this peculiar star is one of our own, and she's skilled at selling the car.

Long ago and far away, she helped create the present moment. We're thinking of the extended reign of tribal insult concerning the comical term, "teabagging," which she helped us tribals enjoy over the course of two weeks.

The cable star kept pretending that she was embarrassed by what she was doing on the air night after night. No matter! The smutty fun started on Thursday evening, April 9, 2009. By Monday evening, April 13, the cable star was "teasing" a "teabagging" session like this:

MADDOW (4/13/09): Coming up, what is red-faced, assumes their taxes are going up even though they`re not and will be jockeying for air time on Wednesday? Conservative teabaggers, now with extra Ron Paul. Coming up next, Air America's Ana Marie Cox will join us for a double entendre palooza.

So cool, and so much fun! By the time the palooza was done, the star was playing us gullibles thusly:

MADDOW (4/13/09): Wow, I almost can't hold it together. Thank you very much, Ana Marie Cox, Air America national correspondent and Daily Beast contributor. Thank you very much. Look at me.

COX: Thank You, Rachel.

MADDOW: I've never sneezed on the air, but now, I have officially blushed, twice.

The cable star had now officially blushed! Despite her tremendous embarrassment, she kept the dick jokes coming for six straight nights, aiming them at regular people who weren't smart enough to consult UrbanDictionary.com to learn "why they shouldn't refer to it as 'teabagging.' "

During a later hour-long discussion, Jon Stewart scolded the star for this ugly, stupid behavior. For ourselves, We recall the first night of this extended insult-palooza as the ugliest, stupidest thing we'd ever seen on cable—and we'd sat through the smutty sessions, ten years earlier, in which Matthews explained that Candidate Gore was "today's man/woman."

The cable star entertained the tribe with her smutty putdowns of Others. Our tribal culture is heavily built upon such statements and acts of disdain.

We'll be better off when The Others are dead. We can smell them in Walmart stores, hillbillies that they are. Way back when, it was loads of fun to go on the air and show how thoroughly we disrespect Them for their pitiful lack of hipness.

"Tolerance is not a [Homo] Sapiens trademark." So says Professor Harari, cheekily understating the point in Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.

Our little political/cultural band is often eager to demonstrate Harari's point. In standard tribal fashion, we're highly intolerant of The Others' alleged intolerance, very much in love with our own.

For better or for much, much worse, we harden the other team's tribal instincts as we express ourselves in these ways. This makes it harder to shake voters loose from a fellow like Donald J. Trump.

These are snapshots of primal behavior. In these ways, our uglier, stupider tribal instincts have helped get us where we now are.

Tomorrow: A wholly different snapshot

BREAKING: Donald J. Trump misspeaks a great deal!

TUESDAY, JULY 17, 2018

Is Donald J. Trump impaired: Did Donald J. Trump misspeak yesterday? Did he mean to say what's shown below when the AP's Jonathan Lemire put him on the spot?

LEMIRE (7/16/18): My second question is, would you now, with the whole world watching, tell President Putin—would you denounce what happened in 2016? And would you warn him to never do it again?

TRUMP: So let me just say that we have two thoughts. You have groups that are wondering why the FBI never took the server. Why haven't they taken the server? Why was the FBI told to leave the office of the Democratic National Committee? I've been wondering that. I've been asking that for months and months, and I've been tweeting it out and calling it out on social media. Where is the server? I want to know, where is the server? And what is the server saying?

With that being said, all I can do is ask the question. My people came to me—Dan Coats came to me and some others—they said they think it's Russia. I have President Putin; he just said it's not Russia.

I will say this: I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be [Russia]...

"I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be [Russia]?" Is that what he meant to say? To review the full transcript, click here.

Is that what Donald J. Trump meant to say? As always, everything's possible! That said, if you read the commander's full statement to Lemire, his statement makes a lot more sense if you assume that he said what he actually meant.

(As a basic courtesy, avert your gaze from his rambling comments about the server. More on that tendency below.)

Trump's full statement makes much more sense if you assume that he didn't misspeak. On the other hand...

On the other hand, here's the commander's first Q-and-A, including his response to Jeff Mason's open-ended question. By normal standards, this answer might seem to suggest that Donald J. Trump did believe that the Russkies interfered in the 2016 election:

MASON (7/16/18): Mr. President, you tweeted this morning that it's U.S. foolishness, stupidity, and the Mueller probe that is responsible for the decline in U.S. relations with Russia. Do you hold Russia at all accountable for anything in particular? And if so, what would you consider them—that they are responsible for?

TRUMP: Yes, I do. I hold both countries responsible. I think that the United States has been foolish. I think we've all been foolish. We should have had this dialogue a long time ago—a long time, frankly, before I got to office. And I think we're all to blame. I think that the United States now has stepped forward, along with Russia. And we're getting together. And we have a chance to do some great things, whether it's nuclear proliferation, in terms of stopping—because we have to do it. Ultimately, that's probably the most important thing that we can be working on.

But I do feel that we have both made some mistakes. I think that the probe is a disaster for our country. I think it's kept us apart. It's kept us separated. There was no collusion at all. Everybody knows it. People are being brought out to the fore—so far that I know, virtually none of it related to the campaign. And they're going to have try really hard to find somebody that did relate to the campaign. That was a clean campaign. I beat Hillary Clinton easily. And frankly, we beat her—and I'm not even saying from the standpoint—we won that race. And it's a shame that there can even be a little bit of a cloud over it...

By normal standards, Trump almost seems to be saying, in the highlighted passage, that interference did occur, but with "virtually none of it related to the campaign." In this answer, it almost sounds like Trump believes that the Russkies did interfere, but he doesn't really care all that much beyond the insistence that there was no collusion.

What did Donald J. Trump actually think or mean? In one circumstance after another, dating back to his announcement speech, it has been extremely hard to say.

By light-years, he seems to be the most mentally muddled individual who ever sat in the Oval. This leads us again to a type of question which really ought to be asked:

Among other possible sources of chaos, is it possible that Donald J. Trump is mentally impaired in some way? Along with the possibility that he's being blackmailed or bribed, is it possible that he is suffering from some form of early onset dementia? Are we currently being led by a King Lear with nuclear codes?

As of today, many more pundits are openly asking if Donald J. Trump is being blackmailed. That strikes us as a very good question. So do questions about his mental health and his intellectual competence.

Final point:

He simply can't stop rambling on about Hillary Clinton. King Lear was a lot like that. Among other possible sources of chaos, is it possible that Donald J. Trump is impaired?

TRIBAL SNAPSHOTS: Long-standing disdain!

TUESDAY, JULY 17, 2018

Part 2—The basket of self-defeat: We would assume that Peter Strzok is a perfectly decent person.

Beyond that, we would assume that he, like everyone else, has imperfections and flaws. Some of these imperfections may reflect characteristic tendencies of his sociological tribe.

As a general matter, we humans don't like to acknowledge our imperfections. That's especially true of those imperfections which may be especially embarrassing.

So it was that Agent Strzok offered a silly explanation last week for a couple of things he once said:

GOODLATTE (7/12/18): Let's discuss a text that hits home for me. On August 26, 2016, you texted Ms. Page, quote, "Just went to a Southern Virginia Walmart. I could SMELL the Trump support." And "smell" is in capital letters, all capital letters. What does Trump support smell like, Mr. Strzok?

STRZOK: Sir, that's a expression of speech. I clearly wasn't smelling one thing or the other...What I meant by that was, living in Northern Virginia, having traveled 100, 150 miles south within the same state, I was struck by the extraordinary difference in the expression of political opinion and belief amongst the community there from where I live.

GOODLATTE: And you describe that as "smell," in capital letters?

STRZOK: Sir, that was a choice—the quick choice of words in a text.

GOODLATTE: Well, OK. So earlier, you had texted Ms. Page that another part of Virginia—Loudoun County, which is, I think, in Northern Virginia—is quote, "still ignorant hillbillies," end quote.

Is that what you meant? That you consider Trump supporters to be ignorant hillbillies?

STRZOK: No, sir. Not at all.

GOODLATTE: What did you mean by that?

STRZOK: Well, sir, the first thing I'd tell you as a—as a proud Fairfax County resident, there's a healthy, sort of, competition between Fairfax and Loudoun [Counties]. Second thing I would tell you is that in no way did I or do I believe any resident of Loudoun County, or Southern Virginia or anywhere else in the nation, is—are any of those things. That was a flippant text.

When he said his neighbors were "ignorant hillbillies," that was part of the "healthy competition" which exists between those two neighboring counties!

As we showed you yesterday, Strzok was challenged at other points in his day-long water-boarding about these "flippant text[s]." As we showed you, he stuck to his overall story about those unfortunate statements.

According to Strzok, he hadn't actually meant what he said in those texts. It was like the way people in Wisconsin might speak about Minnesotans!

Surely, no one believes that explanation for those unfortunate texts. During last Thursday's hearing, it was obvious that Republican congressmen weren't buying this explanation.

Later, conservative pundits urged tribal members to see Strzok's explanation as disingenuous, dishonest—as swampishly too cute by half. That' s what conservatives said about Strzok's explanation.

Presumably, though, no one in our liberal tribe will fail to know that Strzok was being a bit disingenuous—was failing to cop to a fairly obvious state of affairs.

To what was Agent Strzok failing to cop? He was failing to acknowledge an obvious fact—his comments reflect a widespread, long-standing disdain within the liberal world for the subhumans found Over There.

The liberal world crawls with this tribal disdain. Indeed, our world has crawled with this tribal disdain for a very long time.

At present, comment threads at liberal sites crawl with familiar variants of this tribal disdain. Beyond that, Strzok's claim that he could SMELL the Trump voters at the Walmart in southern Virginia echo an iconic statement famously made long ago:

KAEL (12/28/72): I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m in a theater I can feel them.

That was film critic Pauline Kael, as quoted in her own New York Times, from a speech she gave on the date we've cited. Where Strzok could smell the Trump voters in southern Virginia, Kael was somehow able to feel their forebears in a darkened room.

Expressions like these are unlovely. Around the world, through the course of time, they're tied to horrible relatives in gruesome family trees.

Almost surely, this explains why Strzok was slow to acknowledge a fairly obvious fact. This is the way we liberals routinely speak, and think, about Those People, the cucarachas found Over There.

As a matter of theory, we all know better than to generalize about people in these unflattering ways. Indeed, when we say we can smell or feel Those People, we're moving rather directly toward the realm of dehumanization—a realm we all know we should avoid, at least as a matter of theory.

That said, the liberal world has run on the fuel of this tribal disdain for a rather long time. In the past few years, the rise of Trump has heightened this instinct, which occasionally gets expressed in ways which live in infamy and can be highly self-destructive:

CLINTON (9/9/16): I know there are only 60 days left to make our case—and don't get complacent. Don't see the latest outrageous, offensive, inappropriate comment and think, "Well, he's done this time."

We are living in a volatile political environment. You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables.

(LAUGHTER/APPLAUSE)

Right?

(LAUGHTER/APPLAUSE)

They're racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic—Islamophobic—you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people—now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric.

Now, some of those folks—they are irredeemable, but thankfully, they are not America. But the "other" basket—the other basket—and I know, because I look at this crowd, I see friends from all over America here: I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas and—as well as, you know, New York and California—but that "other" basket of people are people who feel the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures; and they're just desperate for change. It doesn't really even matter where it comes from. They don't buy everything he says, but—he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won't wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they're in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.

Oof! Complaining about Trump's "offensive comments," Clinton uncorked one herself! Complaining about "mean-spirited rhetoric," she took a trip down the same road.

You can see that Clinton knew better than to make such sweeping statements. You can see that in the very first thing she said:

"You know, to just be grossly generalistic..."

You can see that she knew better. But then, she went there anyway, scoring a brutal own goal.

Jut like that, she was expressing the deepest kind of disdain for exactly half of Trump's voters. "Unfortunately," these people exist, she amazingly said. She somehow knew that half Those People were "irredeemable," not fit for life on this earth.

By now, she was light years over her skis, heading down the slope of defeat. Given the way it was put to use, it isn't clear that this one statement didn't decide the campaign.

Today, the liberal world is wondering what we can do about Commander Trump, who's crazily moving us toward the onset of His Future Dispositive War. Occasionally, an obvious fact swims into view, even for people as clueless as we are:

This whole problem turns on the fact that we haven't been able to persuade enough of the voters who were insulted by Clinton and Strzok. For whatever reason, we haven't been able to persuade Those People that they made a bad choice with Herr Trump.

Comments like Strzok's make conversion harder. Decades of comments like that help explain where we are today.

Secretly, Agent Strzok understood that his remarks came from a dark place. It's hard to apologize for such arrogance and such disdain. That's why he dissembled, making matters worse.

These are snapshots of a highly fallible tribe. They help explain how we got to this ludicrous place.

Tomorrow: Dropping dick jokes on their heads

Thursday: Last Sunday's Sunday Review

BREAKING: One scared journalist, plus two frameworks!

MONDAY, JULY 16, 2018

Discussing the madness of Trump: Jeff Mason, the man from Reuters, seemed to be badly scared.

Over in Helsinki today, it fell to him to ask the first question of Commander Trump. Swallowing hard, he said this:

MASON (7/16/18): Mr. President, you tweeted this morning that it's U.S. foolishness, stupidity and the Mueller probe that is responsible for the decline in U.S. relations with Russia.

Do you hold Russia at all accountable for anything in particular? And if so, what would you— What would you consider them, that they are responsible for?

Poor Mason! Trembling hard, he didn't dare articulate the obvious question at hand. Instead, he threw an open-ended question at our commander-in-chief.

Later, the AP's Jonathan Lemire wasn't timid at all. But Mason really failed to perform. He just flat seemed to be scared.

Still! When the Trumpster responded to Mason's lob, he took a standard route. "There was no collusion at all," he said. "Everybody knows it."

Did the Trump campaign collude with the Russkies? So far, no such charge has been lodged by the Mueller probe.

Still, journalists have struggled today to define the problems with what Trump said. We offer you two basic frameworks for ongoing discussion.

Concerning what may have occurred:

Robert Mueller is exploring two basic questions: 1) Did the Russkies interfere with the 2016 election? 2) Did the Trump campaign collude?

Note to journalists: The Trumpster likes to skip right past that first question. He prefers to address the second question, swearing that no one did. That's what he did today in his response to Mason.

Journalists, go ahead! Articulate each of these two different questions when you discuss what Trump said. Articulate what Trump did and didn't say with respect to each one.

For the most part, Trump took a dive on the first, basic question. Go ahead! You can say that right out loud!

Concerning possible reasons for Trump's bizarre behavior:

Has it ever been more clear? There are two basic possible reasons for Trump's bizarre behavior. Either or both could be true:

Either 1) he's being blackmailed or bribed by Putin, or 2) he's intellectually or psychologically incompetent. Either or both could be true.

Has this man ever appeared less competent than he did today? Sadly, though, the New York Times declared, in January, that we mustn't discuss the possibility that something is wrong with Donald J. Trump's mental health. And sure enough! From that point on, everyone has agreed to avoid any mention of this obvious possibility.

As we watched cable today, pundits struggled to define the two basic questions confronting Trump. Beyond that, they're still refusing to discuss the possibility that his intellect, or his mental health, could be severely impaired.

Mason pulled his punches first. Others soon followed suit.

No deference to Putin: As you can see in the transcript, Mason didn't defer to Putin. He only rolled over for Trump!

BREAKING: David Leonhardt handles the gaps!

MONDAY, JULY 16, 2018

The gaps and rank indifference: In this morning's New York Times, David Leonhardt handles the gaps.

Rather, he praises New Orleans for the way it has handled the gaps. In the wake of Katrina, the city turned to charter schools. Leonhardt tells us how that has turned out—and he makes a gross misstatement:

LEONHARDT (7/16/18): New Orleans is a great case study partly because it avoids many of the ambiguities of other education reform efforts. The charters here educate almost all public-school students, so they can’t cherry pick. And the students are overwhelmingly black and low-income—even lower-income than before Katrina—so gentrification isn’t a factor.

Yet the academic progress has been remarkable.

Performance on every kind of standardized test has surged. Before the storm, New Orleans students scored far below the Louisiana average on reading, math, science and social studies. Today, they hover near the state average.

That's the way the text appears in today's hard-copy Times. Tomorrow, we'll cite an additional claim made in the column online.

We support the sensible use of charters. We even support the sensible widespread use of charters, where such widespread use can be done in a sensible manner.

That said, what has happened in New Orleans? Like Leonhardt, we aren't sure.

In large part, that's because the New Orleans schools haven't surged "on every kind of standardized test." More specifically, New Orleans hasn't surged on our one reliable testing program, because it hasn't chosen to participate in those tests.

We refer, of course, to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (the Naep), the widely-hailed "gold standard" of domestic educational testing.

As of 2017, twenty-two urban districts were participating in the Naep's Trial Urban District Program (the Tuda). The Tuda records the achievement and the progress of those urban systems.

New York City participates in the Tuda. So do Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, Boston, Atlanta, Washington D.C. and fifteen other city systems.

New Orleans has never participated. Because we read the New York Times, we have no idea why.

Has Leonhardt ever heard of the Naep? Has he ever heard of the Tuda? Because he lounges about at the Times, you shouldn't assume that he has.

Do you have to be mired in rank indifference to publish columns like this? We can't answer your thoughtful question, but the foppish Times has played it this way for roughly the past million years.

Tomorrow: A profile of rank indifference

TRIBAL SNAPSHOTS: Our sense of smell!

MONDAY, JULY 16, 2018

Part 1—What others saw: Last Thursday's hearing involving Peter Strzok was frequently unattractive.

Frequently, the hearing showed our floundering species, Homo sapiens, at its unattractive less-than-worst. Cable stars played tape of such moments. If you're a resident of liberal cable, you've frequently seen this:

GOHMERT (7/12/18): I've talked to FBI just around the country. You've embarrassed them. You've embarrassed yourself. And I can't help but wonder, when I see you looking there with a little smirk, how many times did you look so innocent into your wife's eye and lied to her about Lisa Page—

UNKNOWN: Mr. Chairman, this is outrageous!

GOHMERT: Credibility of a witness is always an issue, and you—

UNKNOWN: Shame on you!

UNKNOWN: Mr. Chairman, this is intolerable! Harassment of the witness!

UNKNOWN: What is wrong with you? You need your medication!

GOODLATTE: The gentleman controls the time.

GOHMERT: Thank you.

We liberals have frequently seen that latest moment from Gentleman Gohmert. We've also seen tape of the snarling Rep. Jordan, who specializes in ugly parodies of the time-honored Q-and-A process.

We liberals were shown lots of tape of people like Gohmert and Jordan. It helps us remember that we are the folk who are decent and good, unlike those in the other tribe.

Those in the other tribe saw other things during that hearing. Here's an excerpt which hasn't been played for we who watch MSNBC:

GOODLATTE: Let's discuss a text that hits home for me. On August 26, 2016, you texted Ms. Page, quote, "Just went to a Southern Virginia Walmart. I could SMELL the Trump support." And "smell" is in capital letters, all capital letters. What does Trump support smell like, Mr. Strzok?

STRZOK: Sir, that's a expression of speech. I clearly wasn't smelling one thing or the other. What I was commenting on is living in Northern Virginia, driving—

GOODLATTE: Well, what does that mean?

STRZOK: What I meant by that was living in Northern Virginia, having traveled 100, 150 miles south within the same state, I was struck by the extraordinary difference in the expression of political opinion and belief amongst the community there from where I live.

GOODLATTE: And you describe that as "smell," in capital letters?

STRZOK: Sir, that was a choice—the quick choice of words in a text.

That exchange wasn't replayed for us the liberal tribals. Neither was this, which followed:

GOODLATTE (continuing directly): Well, OK. So earlier, you had texted Ms. Page that another part of Virginia—Loudoun County, which is, I think, in Northern Virginia—is quote, "still ignorant hillbillies." end quote.

Is that what you meant? That you consider Trump supporters to be ignorant hillbillies?

STRZOK: No, sir. Not at all.

GOODLATTE: What did you mean by that?

STRZOK: Well, sir, the first thing I'd tell you as a—as a proud Fairfax County resident, there's a healthy, sort of, competition between Fairfax and Loudoun. Second thing I would tell you is that in no way did I or do I believe any resident of Loudoun County, or Southern Virginia or anywhere else in the nation, is—are any of those things. That was a flippant text—

GOODLATTE: So do you understand the implications of this text when my constituents in Virginia read it?

STRZOK: I do, sir. And I would ask you to tell them that that was a—in some cases, certainly, unfortunate use of words that in no way do I believe that those things are what—

When he said his neighbors were ignorant hillbillies, that was just an expression of the healthy competition between two neighboring counties!

Can you smell Trump supporters when you go to a Walmart? Are the people of Loudoun County really just ignorant hillbillies?

Strzok was asked such questions at various times during his long day's journey into Mister Trump's Coming War. Queried by Rep. Grothman, he returned to the "friendly rivals" hook:

GROTHMAN: You refer to people who live in a county just beyond Washington, D.C.—a little bit more normal, still a Democratic county—you refer to them as this county, Loudoun County, as being gentrified but is "still largely ignorant hillbillies." I don't mean to embarrass you in that, because it doesn't surprise me that people in the swamp would refer to people once you get a couple of hours away from Washington as ignorant hillbillies.

[...]

STRZOK: ...You may not have been here this morning. I certainly, I do not view the people of Loudoun County as ignorant hillbillies. I live in an adjacent county and much like, in Wisconsin, you might let folks in Minnesota, with a sense of rivalry—

GROTHMAN: Well, no.

Grothman knew Strzok was using the argot of those inside The Swamp. For his part, Strzok suggested that Grothman probably speaks in that same playful way manner the people one state away from his Wisconsin abode.

On liberal cable, we the people weren't encouraged to think about these exchanges. Instead, we were encouraged to watch the tape which showed The Others at their dumbest, most venal and worst.

In conservative circles, they the others were encouraged to view moments like these as examples of Agent Strzok's arrogance, of his being too smart by half. This is the way our discourse now works in the era of for-profit Internet/cable.

We liberals are inclined to see Jordan's snarling bully-boy persona as the deep truth about Them. The others are inclined to see Agent Strzok's healthy if unfortunate banter as displaying deep truth about Us.

How do The Others view such banter? At one point, Rep. Comer went ahead and said this:

COMER: With respect to the clear bias against Donald Trump in your text messages, and your clear prejudice against the Trump voters—and by the way, I'm one of those smelly hillbillies from Appalachia that you've referenced in your texts—you were in a supervisory role at the FBI. What would you do if you found texts from a subordinate of yours that exhibited the same type of bias that you had towards a group of people that were key witnesses or key whatever to the investigation? How would you handle that scenario?

Comer represents Kentucky's first congressional district. He was born in Carthage, Tennessee. (Hey wait! That's Al Gore's home town!)

Comer pretended to take Strzok's playful banter in a personal way. Or who knows? Maybe the fellow's just so dense that he couldn't see the friendly nature of the statements Strzok had playfully texted.

Members of our warring tribes saw different things last Thursday. People paid by corporate cable encouraged them to do so.

"Both [parties] read the same Bible and pray to the same God." Abraham Lincoln said that!

Tomorrow: Another snapshot

WHAT WE DID: Vacation's end!

SATURDAY, JULY 14, 2018

Conclusion—Homo sapiens' folly: In the end, which is it?

Does time pass slowly up there in the mountains, as Bob Dylan once insisted?

Or it there really "less time" by the shore, as Professor Rovelli now claims? Does time actually pass more slowly down there?

In this theoretical dispute, Dylan's claim holds one large advantage. As a general matter, people knew what he was talking about when he made his famous assertion.

Rovelli's theoretics don't rise to that level. Let's return to the start of Part 1 in The Order of Times, his impossibly easy-to-understand and also poetic new book.

Rovelli's Part 1 begins on page 9, beneath a selection from Horace's Odes. By page 10, the poetical professor is saying that Dylan was actually aging faster when he lived up in the mountains.

According to Rovelli, times passes more slowly down there by the sea! There's actually "less time" by the shore, where the waves crash and drag, Rovelli unclearly says.

The physical process of "aging faster" is perfectly easy to picture. In the context of Rovelli's page 10, the notion of "less time" pretty much isn't. No matter how many times we quote Rilke or Horace, the concept is murky, unclear.

At this point, as he reads page 10, the reader may make an assumption. Rovelli will clarify his claims as he proceeds, the hopeful reader may assume.

Soon, though, that reader will reach the passage shown below. At this point, we'd have to say that the basic "At What Page?" question has perhaps been answered.

At what page might a sensible reader judge that all hope for clarity is lost? As he or she tiptoes onto page 12, the reader is offered this as Rovelli explains, or pretends to explain, the basic way gravity works.

We highlight the final hope-killer:

ROVELLI (pages 11-12): Einstein asked himself a question that has perhaps puzzled many of us when studying the force of gravity: how can the sun and the Earth "attract" each other without touching anything between them?

He looked for a plausible explanation and found one by imagining that the sun and the Earth do not attract each other directly but that each of the two gradually acts on that which is between them. And since what lies between them is only space and time, he imagined that the sun and the Earth each modified the space and time that surrounded them, just as a body immersed in water displaces the water around it...

In that passage, Rovelli begins to discuss Einstein's explanation of the way the sun and the Earth attract each other. That said:

In response to our request, an international panel of experts has offered a basic assessment. According to these well-known figures, a sensible reader can reasonably quit on Rovelli's book by the part of the passage we've highlighted in the excerpt above.

Others may continue to read, assuming that Rovelli will straighten things out as he proceeds. But a sensible reader is justified in quitting right there, on page 12!

Why did our panel of experts so rule? Consider what Rovelli says in that highlighted passage:

In that excerpt about Einstein's explanation of gravity, Rovelli says that two things lie between the sun and the Earth. Those two things are space and time, Rovelli says.

Most readers will feel comfortable with the first part of that statement. As a general matter, we've all been told that the sun lies roughly 93 million miles from the Earth.

Even a trip from the Earth to the nearby moon is typically described as a trip "into space." Few readers will balk at the general idea that there's a lot of "space" between the sun and the Earth.

(That said, the general reader may generally think of this as empty space. This creates a basic problem for what's coming next.)

Does space lie between the Earth and the sun? Few readers will balk at that notion. But what about the second part of the highlighted statement? What about the claim that the sun and the Earth are also separated "by time?"

According to our international panel, all of whom have read Oedipus Rex, the average reader will have no idea what that puzzling claim means. All the dancing shivas on Earth—all the dancing figures Matisse ever painted; every line in Rilke's Elegy—won't help the average reader decipher that claim, our expert panel has assessed.

Given the general incoherence of his earlier statements, a sensible reader is thereby justified in dumping Rovelli's book right there, our expert panel has judged. According to our Coherence Bureau, a reader can sensibly quit Rovelli right there, on page 12, after maybe two thousand words.

The sensible reader might quit right there, that fast! That said, we thought you might want to see where Rovelli's easy-to-understand page 12 goes from there. First, one small bit of backtracking. Consider:

In the excerpt we've posted, the reader is told that time somehow lies between the sun and the Earth. As noted, the general reader will almost surely have no idea what that claim is supposed to mean. Nor does Rovelli ever attempt to explain.

Beyond that, the reader is also told, in that passage, that the sun and the Earth each "modify the space which surrounds them." The reader has likely accepted the idea that the sun and the Earth are surrounded and separated by space, but he's likely to have no idea what it means to say that this space, which he likely thinks of as empty, gets "modified" by these bodies.

Alas! Even by page 12, this master of explication has left the general reader far behind. As he does, journalists swear on a stack of pay-stubs that they've understood every word of his easy-to-understand text.

(Nineteen years earlier, their colleagues swore on a similar stack that Al Gore said he invented the Internet. Can you see where this willingness to swear to fictions can lead?)

Back to Rovelli's page 12:

Already, the alert reader may understand that he is hopelessly lost. That said, the murky concept of "modifying space" will play no role as Rovelli pretends to explain the way gravity works.

What did Einstein conclude about gravity? As it turns out, the whole thing turns on the concept of "modifying time," which turns out to mean the way time passes slowly away from the mountains, the puzzling concept which didn't exactly get explained on Rovelli's page 10.

In standard Einstein-made-easy texts, one incoherent point gets stacked upon many others. (It's turkeys all the way down!) Before Rovelli exits page 12, we find him offering this:

ROVELLI (pages 12-13): If things fall, it is due to this slowing down of time. Where time passes uniformly, in interplanetary space, things do not fall. They float, without falling. Here on the surface of our planet, on the other hand, the movement of things inclines naturally towards where time passes more slowly, as when we run down the beach into the sea and the resistance of the water on our legs makes us fall headfirst into the waves. Things fall downwards because, down there, time is slowed by the Earth.

Interesting! Here on our planet, the movement of things inclines naturally towards where time passes more slowly!

In fairness to rote learning, everyone can learn to repeat such words. After such a recitation, the reader can also say that the idea is easy to understand.

That said, what makes that natural inclinations occur? Why does "the movement of things incline naturally towards where time passes more slowly?" Why doesn't the movement of things incline towards where time passes faster?

Rovelli is apparently saving that explanation for his next easy book. In his current amazingly simple text, we're simply told that this "naturally" occurs, full stop, with reviewers rushing to say they understand. Why not say that things "naturally" fall toward the Earth? How much have we gained at this point?

According to a panel of experts, a reader is justified in quitting this book as early as page 12. For ourselves, we kept going all the way to the end of Part 2, on page 36.

The subsections called HEAT and BLUR may be as incoherent as any work we've ever encountered. Still, reviewers repeat the script. This book is so easy, they say.

According to Professor Harari, this nonsense started 70,000 years ago. At that time, our currently floundering, lightly-skilled species developed two new abilities—the ability to gossip, and the ability to invent and affirm wide-ranging group fictions.

According to numerous studies, this helped our species, Homo sapiens, wipe out other human species and take control of the Earth. According to Professor Harari, the tendency to invent and affirm absurd group fictions was a boon to our species back then.

This short time later, our journalists largely work from group fictions today. One such fiction involves the blatantly ludicrous claim that people like Rovelli are easy to understand. This one group fiction provides comic relief, even as many other tribal fictions lie at the heart of our discourse.

At one time, the ability to affirm nonsense as a group gave us control of the planet. Pleasures of comic relief to the side, this tendency to repeat Fictive Group Tales seems much less adaptive today—or so it very much seemed to us on our summer vacation.

WHAT WE DID: Gossip, group fiction and comic relief!

FRIDAY, JULY 13, 2018

[w]Interlude—A well-chosen pair of books: We got lucky in the books we chose to take on our summer vacation. Or so it seems to us.

Last Wednesday, we reread the depressing classic, 36 Children, as our hurtling train headed north. But once we reached our sprawling family estate, we turned to a wonderfully well-matched pair of books:

We turned to Professor Harari's Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. It was matched with Professor Rovelli's The Order of Time, and serendipity ruled!

As we've watched our floundering species sift the world's events this week, we've been struck by the way Harari's book equips us to see what's occurring. We especially think of the early passage where Harari claims that the rise of the language of our species was mainly useful because it allowed us to gossip, and to create group fictions.

According to Professor Harari, these abilities let our early ancestors work in substantially larger groups. Let's start with the role of gossip.

In some ways, this passage rings painfully true. Is Harari permitted to say this?

HARARI (page 24): The new linguistic skills the modern Sapiens acquired about seventy millennia ago enabled them to gossip for hours on end. Reliable information about who could be trusted meant that smaller bands could expand into larger bands, and Sapiens could develop tighter and more sophisticated types of cooperation.

The gossip theory might sound like a joke, but numerous studies support it. Even today the vast majority of human communication—whether in the form of emails, phone calls or newspaper columns—is gossip. It comes so naturally to us that it seems as if our language evolved for this very purpose. Do you think that history professors chat about the reasons for World War One when they meet for lunch, or that nuclear physicists spend their coffee breaks at scientific conferences talking about quarks? Sometimes. But more often, they gossip about the professor who caught her husband cheating, or the quarrel between the head of the department and the dean, or the rumours that a colleague used his research funds to buy a Lexus. Gossip usually focuses on wrongdoings. Rumour-mongers are the original fourth estate, journalists who inform society about and thus protect it from cheats and freeloaders.

Do "numerous studies" support this theory? We have no idea.

Meanwhile, is Harari permitted to say that? Is he allowed to say that the vast majority of communication in newspaper columns is actually gossip?

Is he allowed to lump journalists in with rumor-mongers, even in puckish fashion?

Whatever! As he continues, Harari says that the our evolving language next allowed us to construct sweeping group "fictions"—religious and/or national myths that permitted us to cooperate in vastly larger groups. According to Professor Harari, these abilities—the ability to gossip and the ability to create sweeping group fictions—were highly adaptive traits early on.

Last evening, then this morning, we watched the shamans of our two tribes create their equal-but-opposite claims about yesterday's hearing in the House. As this drive toward dueling Group Stories continues, we continue to plunge toward Mister Trump's Dispositive War—which, we're now reliably told, future anthropologists will also call "The War of The Trump Against All."

(We're reliably told that the war will start during Ivanka's one truncated term.)

Gossip and sweeping tribal "fictions" were once adaptive skills? So says Professor Harari. Today, these practices continue to dominate the maladaptive way our tribal leaders unite us rubes. Indeed, this is the point we've been making, at this site, for the past twenty years!

On MSNBC, Mika and a string of like-mindeds insist that Peter Strzok slew the dragon during yesterday's hearing. On Fox, Laura Ingraham and the others swear that Strzok badly embarrassed himself.

Our tribe wasn't told what the other tribe saw. Instead, we were handed our instant group "fiction," building the bond which has always served the move toward disastrous war.

Harari's text—it's blurbed by Bill Gates and by Obama!—builds a framework around what we saw. The comic relief is supplied by Rovelli's text, and by pundit reaction to same, with reviewers standing in line to swear that they understood every easy-to-understand word.

With these claims, our liberal tribe constructs its post-deity gods. Having moved away from religious unity tales, we swoon about cosmic claims concerning neutrinos, as found in today's New York Times.

No one has the slightest idea what these science reporters are talking about, but as reviewers help us pretend, tribal bonds are formed. This brings us back to the basic "At What Page?" question:

At what page should a sensible reader quit on Rovelli's new book? At what page should the voice of reason tell the reader to put Rovelli's book down and move slowly away from her desk?

At what page is all hope gone? Upon review, we break it down like this:

Milestones in The Order of Time:
Page 34: Based upon markings in our book, that's the point where we finally stopped reading. We finally stopped at the end of Part 2, with Rovelli's third Rilke citation.

Pages 22-32: These are the pages where we saw the end drawing near. Especially hopeless are the subsections HEAT and BLUR. Rovelli's attempt to discuss entropy starts on page 25 and works to destroy the will.

Page 12: In our view, this is where a reader could first sensibly claim that the "At What Page?" question has been answered. Doggedly, we read 22 more pages before accepting the truth.

Tomorrow, we promise to show you why page 12 might answer the "At What Page?" question. For today, let's expand on one key word from yesterday's post. That one key word is "small."

As we showed you yesterday, Rovelli makes an interesting claim on page 9 of his easy-to-understand book. One part of his presentation is actually coherent:

ROVELLI (pages 9-10): Let’s begin with a simple fact: time passes faster in the mountains than it does at sea level.

The difference is small but can be measured with precision timepieces that can be bought today on the internet for a few thousand dollars. With practice, anyone can witness the slowing down of time. With the timepieces of specialized laboratories, this slowing down of time can be detected between levels just a few centimeters apart: a clock placed on the floor runs a little more slowly than one on a table.

It is not just the clocks that slow down: lower down, all processes are slower. Two friends separate, with one of them living in the plains and the other going to live in the mountains. They meet up again years later: the one who has stayed down has lived less, aged less, the mechanism of his cuckoo clock has oscillated fewer times. He has had less time to do things, his plants have grown less, his thoughts have had less time to unfold. Lower down, there is simply less time than at altitude.

Interesting! Good Friend A, who lives by the sea, will "age less" (will age more slowly) than Good Friend B, who lives on a mountaintop.

So says Professor Rovelli. We'll assume that this particular claim is accurate.

Left on its own, that particular claim comes close to being coherent. Unfortunately, "the difference is small," Rovelli says. By this he means the difference in aging, here in our world, is so tiny that it will be completely impossible to notice, discern or observe.

Just to get clear on what Rovelli seems to be saying, let's imagine a somewhat changed planet Earth:

Our new Earth will still circle the sun in a regular way. This journey around the sun will still be called a "year."

Our new Earth will still spin on its axis (roughly) 365 times in the course of each year. These discrete parts of the year will still be called "days."

Here's the difference:

Our new Earth will have mountains which are amazingly high, along with a massive supply of air. On this reinvented Earth, Good Friend B goes amazingly high when he moves to his mountaintop lair. Let's say he does this when both friends have lived ten years at sea level.

After twenty more trips around the sun, Good Friend B comes back down to sea level. But uh-oh! According to Rovelli, he will have aged much faster than Good Friend A, due to the enormous height at which he has lived.

Good Friend A will have aged much less. Good Friend A will look the way a person currently looks when he's 30 years old. But Good Friend B will have aged much faster. He may look like people currently look when they're 90 years old!

It's easy to picture this state of affairs, which can't happen here on our Earth. This seems to be a logical extension of what Rovelli says in his easy-to-understand passage.

On this different Earth, will Good Friend B look like he's 90 years old when Good Friend A looks 30? That seems to be what Rovelli has said. That said, please notice this point:

Each friend has circled the sun the same twenty times since their last time together. Granted, Good Friend B has aged much more. But in the most obvious straightforward sense, each fellow has lived twenty years since their previous meeting.

Each fellow has lived that twenty years. With that in mind, in what sense would you say that Good Friend A has actually lived "less time?" Has Rovelli really explained that point, made it easy to understand? Or has he simply said that this is how we the people should talk if we want to sound just like Teechur?

A change in the speed of aging at different altitudes? Conceptually, that seems quite straightforward. But alas! All that talk about "less time" and "time moving faster" is not.

That said, reviewers will stand in line, as they always do, to say that The Order of Time is amazingly easy-to-understand. It's one of our liberal tribe's current group fictions! Following Arsenio Hall, it's one of those "things that make you go ooooh."

In truth, our badly floundering species just isn't amazingly sharp. We do in fact like to gossip a lot. We do fall in line behind Official Approved Tribal Stories.

According to Professor Harari, these traits were once highly adaptive. "Numerous studies" support this view.

Were these traits once highly adaptive? As we wait for Mister Trump's War, they don't seem that way now.

Tomorrow: Live and direct from page 12, what Rovelli says Einstein said!