For the Record: Alexandria Duet

Ancient Alexandria as imagined by the 16th-century Netherlandish painter Maarten van Heemskerck, via Short History.

Wingnuts went crazier than usual when Alexandria Ocasio-Córtez seemed to be saying that after overwhelming Democratic majorities pushed through the New Deal the Republicans stopped FDR from winning a third election by passing term limits, which makes no sense (how could they, if Democrats had overwhelming majorities?) and is also historically not true (that's the part the wingnuts noticed). Hahahaha, is your cute congresswoman really that ignorant?

Sadly, no, as a great blog team used to say. She's not perfect, but what she did was to blow a line she's been using correctly since well before her election:

First Semester Report Card @AOC

US History F
Econ 101 F
Math 101 F
Meteorology F
Interpretive Dance A https://t.co/lkM1PCTkLe

— Eric Bolling🇺🇸 (@ericbolling) March 31, 2019

She knows perfectly well what happened, as she has noted before at her Facebook page. https://t.co/8lGzxUIH1F This is a trivial flub, not ignorance. pic.twitter.com/v5dJqCxDYF

— Collusion Delusion (@Yastreblyansky) March 31, 2019

Annals of Derp: Jordan Peterson, Clinical Psychologist

£7.99 from Mugtopia UK.

Following up on the previous post, here's Conor Friedersdorf complaining about the journalistic tactics used by UK Channel 4 News on the innocent and unsuspecting Jordan Peterson, in that interview:

Peterson was pressed by the British journalist Cathy Newman to explain several of his controversial views. But what struck me, far more than any position he took, was the method his interviewer employed. It was the most prominent, striking example I’ve seen yet of an unfortunate trend in modern communication.

First, a person says something. Then, another person restates what they purportedly said so as to make it seem as if their view is as offensive, hostile, or absurd.

And of course we've seen David Brooks getting upset over this too.

So I ran across a transcript of the the thing (from an all-trite blogger called Katana17, the Daily Stormer also has one), helpfully red-lettering all the spots where Newman seems to be trying to restate Peterson's statement, and I'm going to, sort of, dispute that, first in a segment Friedersdorf doesn't look at, where Peterson is explaining how he never said that trans activists are the same as Mao Zedong. He merely said that they're the same in every important respect:

Newman: I mean there’s no comparison between Mao and a trans activist, is there?

Peterson: Why not?

Newman: Because trans activists aren’t killing millions of people!

Peterson: The philosophy that’s guiding their utterances is the same philosophy.

Newman: The consequences are, …

Peterson: Not yet!

[25:00]

Joyless and graceless

Anton Raphael Mengs, German, 1728-79, An Allegory of Truth. From Kate Foley's Pinterest.

Q: A government shutdown in the face of Congress's inability to follow a normal appropriations process was resolved, but only for three weeks, with almost none of the real problems solved, including the immigration issue, on which Trump has intruded himself again with a proposal completely unacceptable to the Democrats without whose votes the government can't proceed. The Women's March last weekend drew between 1.6 and 2.5 million marchers still unable to accept this presidency. New tariffs apparently designed to destroy the US solar energy industry were announced. Canada and Mexico, unable to persuade the US administration to cooperate in an updating of the NAFTA agreement, are likely to desert it in favor of the 11-member TPP, leaving the US isolated. There has been an average of one school shooting in the US every two days since the beginning of 2018. Representative Pat Meehan (R-PA) has joined the parade of men in power who have used taxpayer money to pay off the victims of their sexual harassment. What should David Brooks write about on Friday?

A: This YouTube performer, Jordan Peterson ("The Jordan Peterson Moment"). He

analyzes classic and biblical texts, he eviscerates identity politics and political correctness and, most important, he delivers stern fatherly lectures to young men on how to be honorable, upright and self-disciplined — how to grow up and take responsibility for their own lives.

Q: Who?