#David Stoller

[milliondollarbaby87]

The Boys in the Boat (2023) Review

Set in the 1930s focusing on the University of Washington’s rowing team who are attempting to get to the Berlin Olympics in 1936, pushing the boundaries for the gold medal. ⭐️⭐️ Continue reading The Boys in the Boat (2023) Review

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The Pizzaburger Presidency

For the rest of May, my bestselling solarpunk utopian novel THE LOST CAUSE (2023) is available as a $2.99, DRM-free ebook!

The corporate wing of the Democrats has objectively terrible political instincts, because the corporate wing of the Dems wants things that are very unpopular with the electorate (this is a trait they share with the Republican establishment).

Remember Hillary Clinton's unimaginably terrible campaign slogan, "America is already great?" In other words, "Vote for me if you believe that nothing needs to change":

https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/758501814945869824

Biden picked up the "This is fine" messaging where Clinton left off, promising that "nothing would fundamentally change" if he became president:

https://www.salon.com/2019/06/19/joe-biden-to-rich-donors-nothing-would-fundamentally-change-if-hes-elected/

Biden didn't so much win that election as Trump lost it, by doing extremely unpopular things, including badly bungling the American covid response and killing about a million people.

Biden's 2020 election victory was a squeaker, and it was absolutely dependent on compromising with the party's left wing, embodied by the Warren and Sanders campaigns. The Unity Task Force promised – and delivered – key appointments and policies that represented serious and powerful change for the better:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/10/thanks-obama/#triangulation

Despite these excellent appointments and policies, the Biden administration has remained unpopular and is heading into the 2024 election with worryingly poor numbers. There is a lot of debate about why this might be. It's undeniable that every leader who has presided over a period of inflation, irrespective of political tendency, is facing extreme defenstration, from Rishi Sunak, the far-right prime minister of the UK, to the relentlessly centrist Justin Trudeau in Canada:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-05-29-three-barriers-biden-reelection/

It's also true that Biden has presided over a genocide, which he has been proudly and significantly complicit in. That Trump would have done the same or worse is beside the point. A political leader who does things that the voters deplore can't expect to become more popular, though perhaps they can pull off less unpopular:

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/the-left-is-not-joe-bidens-problem

Biden may be attracting unfair blame for inflation, and totally fair blame for genocide, but in addition to those problems, there's this: Biden hasn't gotten credit for the actual good things he's done:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoflHnGrCpM

Writing in his newsletter, Matt Stoller offers an explanation for this lack of credit: the Biden White House almost never talks about any of these triumphs, even the bold, generational ones that will significantly alter the political landscape no matter who wins the next election:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/why-does-the-biden-white-house-hate

Biden's antitrust enforcers have gone after price-fixing in oil, food and rent – the three largest sources of voter cost-of-living concern. They've done more on these three kinds of crime than all of their predecessors over the past forty years, combined. And yet, Stoller finds example after example of White House press secretaries being lobbed softballs by the press and refusing to even try to swing at them. When asked about any of this stuff, the White House demurs, refusing to comment.

The reasons they give for this is that they don't want to mess up an active case while it's before the courts. But that's not how this works. Yes, misstatements about active cases can do serious damage, but not talking about cases extinguishes the political will needed to carry them out. That's why a competent press secretary excellent briefings and training, because they must talk about these cases.

Think for a moment about the fact that the US government is – at this very moment – trying to break up Google, the largest tech company in the history of the world, and there has been virtually no press about it. This is a gigantic story. It's literally the biggest business story ever. It's practically a secret.

Why doesn't the Biden admin want to talk about this very small number of very good things it's doing? To understand that, you have to understand the hollowness of "centrist" politics as practiced in the Democratic Party.

The Democrats, like all political parties, are a coalition. Now, there are lots of ways to keep a coalition together. Parties who detest one another can stay in coalition provided that each partner is getting something they want out of it – even if one partner is bitterly unhappy about everything else happening in the coalition. That's the present-day Democratic approach: arrest students, bomb Gaza, but promise to do something about abortion and a few other issues while gesturing with real and justified alarm at Trump's open fascism, and hope that the party's left turns out at the polls this fall.

Leaders who play this game can't announce that they are deliberately making a vital coalition partner miserable and furious. Instead, they insist that they are "compromising" and point to the fact that "everyone is equally unhappy" with the way things are going.

This school of politics – "Everyone is angry at me, therefore I am doing something right" – has a name, courtesy of Anat Shenker-Osorio: "Pizzaburger politics." Say half your family wants burgers for dinner and the other half wants pizza: make a pizzaburger and disappoint all of them, and declare yourself to be a politics genius:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/17/pizzaburgers/

But Biden's Pizzaburger Presidency doesn't disappoint everyone equally. Sure, Biden appointed some brilliant antitrust enforcers to begin the long project of smashing the corporate juggernauts built through forty years of Reaganomics (including the Reganomics of Bill Clinton and Obama). But his lifetime federal judicial appointments are drawn heavily from the corporate wing of the party's darlings, and those judges will spend the rest of their lives ruling against the kinds of enforcers Biden put in charge of the FTC and DoJ antitrust division:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/judge-rules-for-microsoft-mergers

So that's one reason that Biden's comms team won't talk about his most successful and popular policies. But there's another reason: schismogenesis.

"Schismogenesis" is a anthropological concept describing how groups define themselves in opposition to their opponents (if they're for it, we're against it). Think of the liberals who became cheerleaders for the "intelligence community" (you know the CIA spies who organized murderous coups against a dozen Latin American democracies, and the FBI agents who tried to get MLK to kill himself) as soon as Trump and his allies began to rail against them:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/18/schizmogenesis/

Part of Trump's takeover of conservativism is a revival of "the paranoid style" of the American right – the conspiratorial, unhinged apocalyptic rhetoric that the movement's leaders are no longer capable of keeping a lid on:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/16/that-boy-aint-right/#dinos-rinos-and-dunnos

This stuff – the lizard-people/Bilderberg/blood libel/antisemitic/Great Replacement/race realist/gender critical whackadoodlery – was always in conservative rhetoric, but it was reserved for internal communications, a way to talk to low-information voters in private forums. It wasn't supposed to make it into your campaign ads:

https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/05/27/texas-republicans-adopts-conservative-wish-list-for-the-2024-platform/73858798007/

Today's conservative vibe is all about saying the quiet part aloud. Historian Rick Perlstein calls this the "authoritarian ratchet": conservativism promises a return to a "prelapsarian" state, before the country lost its way:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-05-29-my-political-depression-problem/

This is presented as imperative: unless we restore that mythical order, the country is doomed. We might just be the last generation of free Americans!

But that state never existed, and can never be recovered, but it doesn't matter. When conservatives lose a fight they declare to be existential (say, trans bathroom bans), they just pretend they never cared about it and move on to the next panic.

It's actually worse for them when they win. When the GOP repeals Roe, or takes the Presidency, the Senate and Congress, and still fails to restore that lost glory, then they have to find someone or something to blame. They turn on themselves, purging their ranks, promise ever-more-unhinged policies that will finally restore the state that never existed.

This is where schismogenesis comes in. If the GOP is making big, bold promises, then a shismogenesis-poisoned liberal will insist that the Dems must be "the party of normal." If the GOP's radical wing is taking the upper hand, then the Dems must be the party whose radical wing is marginalized (see also: UK Labour).

This is the trap of schismogenesis. It's possible for the things your opponents do to be wrong, but tactically sound (like promising the big changes that voters want). The difference you should seek to establish between yourself and your enemies isn't in promising to maintaining the status quo – it's in promising to make better, big muscular changes, and keeping those promises.

It's possible to acknowledge that an odious institution to do something good – like the CIA and FBI trying to wrongfoot Trump's most unhinged policies – without becoming a stan for that institution, and without abandoning your stance that the institution should either be root-and-branch reformed or abolished altogether.

The mere fact that your enemy uses a sound tactic to do something bad doesn't make that tactic invalid. As Naomi Klein writes in her magnificent Doppelganger, the right's genius is in co-opting progressive rhetoric and making it mean the opposite: think of their ownership of "fake news" or the equivalence of transphobia with feminism, of opposition to genocide with antisemitism:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine

Promising bold policies and then talking about them in plain language at every opportunity is something demagogues do, but having bold policies and talking about them doesn't make you a demagogue.

The reason demagogues talk that way is that it works. It captures the interest of potential followers, and keeps existing followers excited about the project.

Choosing not to do these things is political suicide. Good politics aren't boring. They're exciting. The fact that Republicans use eschatological rhetoric to motivate crazed insurrectionists who think they're the last hope for a good future doesn't change the fact that we are at a critical juncture for a survivable future.

If the GOP wins this coming election – or when Pierre Poilievre's petro-tories win the next Canadian election – they will do everything they can to set the planet on fire and render it permanently uninhabitable by humans and other animals. We are running out of time.

We can't afford to cede this ground to the right. Remember the clickbait wars? Low-quality websites and Facebook accounts got really good at ginning up misleading, compelling headlines that attracted a lot of monetizable clicks.

For a certain kind of online scolding centrist, the lesson from this era was that headlines should a) be boring and b) not leave out any salient fact. This is very bad headline-writing advice. While it claims to be in service to thoughtfulness and nuance, it misses out on the most important nuance of all: there's a difference between a misleading headline and a headline that calls out the most salient element of the story and then fleshes that out with more detail in the body of the article. If a headline completely summarizes the article, it's not a headline, it's an abstract.

Biden's comms team isn't bragging about the administration's accomplishments, because the senior partners in this coalition oppose those accomplishments. They don't want to win an election based on the promise to prosecute and anti-corporate revolution, because they are counter-revolutionaries.

The Democratic coalition has some irredeemably terrible elements. It also has elements that I would march into the sun for. The party itself is a very weak institution that's bad at resolving the tension between both groups:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/30/weak-institutions/

Pizzaburgers don't make anyone happy and they're not supposed to. They're a convenient cover for the winners of intraparty struggles to keep the losers from staying home on election day. I don't know how Biden can win this coming election, but I know how he can lose it: keep on reminding us that all the good things about his administration were undertaken reluctantly and could be jettisoned in a second Biden administration.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/29/sub-bushel-comms-strategy/#nothing-would-fundamentally-change

[houseofbrat]

Well, well, well...

The debate that needed to happen, happened.

Can't pretend we all don't know now.

EXCEPT for this guy:

It was literally a debate that changed history, but the 44th POTUS is doing this:

Straight up gaslighting from Barack Obama about the situation that he caused.

Everyone else has known for a LOOOOONG time.

Here are some tweets from the land of sanity:

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And if you think Kamala is going to save you, well, most people don't think she could win a presidential election.

Can't wait until SCOTUS enters the fray with their last day of their current term ending tomorrow...

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"There are decades where nothing happens, and then there are weeks where decades happen." ~ Vladimir Lenin

[gatutor]

Mona Freeman-Joan Fontaine-David Stollere-John Lund "Cariño, ¿por qué lo hiciste?" (Darling, how could you!) 1951, de Mitchell Leisen.

[insanityclause]

Deadline’s Contenders Television, the event where stars and showrunners talk up their shows ahead of Emmy voting, has unveiled its lineup.

The event kicks off on Saturday April 13 and runs through Sunday April 14 at the Directors Guild of America in LA. There will also be a virtual livestream of the event. Full details of the event and an RSVP link can be found here.

It will give you a sense of the hits of the last twelve months, as well as some shows that you’re about to be talking about, as the networks, studios and streamers vie for some awards love.

Stars attending include Tom Hiddleston, Nicole Kidman, Brie Larson, Kristen Wiig, Rebecca Ferguson, Lily Gladstone, David Oyelowo, Common, Jimmy Fallon, Giancarlo Esposito, Joey King, Andrea Riseborough, Sebastian Maniscalco, Bill Pullman, Kiefer Sutherland, Logan Lerman, Kelsey Grammer, Matt Bomer, Jonathan Bailey, Allison Williams, Maya Erskine, Nathan Fielder, Skeet Ulrich, Jeff Probst, Omar J. Dorsey, Harriet Dyer, Patrick Brammall, Sophia Di Martino, Sarayu Blue, Ji-young Yoo and Taylor Zakhar Perez.

Shows that will be featured across the two days include Parish, Masters of the Air, Lessons in Chemistry, The Morning Show, Silo, Palm Royale, The New Look, Survivor, Colin From Accounts, A Murder at the End of the World, True Detective: Night Country, We Were the Lucky Ones, Under the Bridge, Murdaugh Murders: The Movie, Loki, Alice & Jack, Genius: MLK/X, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, 3 Body Problem, Mr. Monk’s Last Case: A Monk Movie, Lawmen: Bass Reeves, Frasier, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Fallout, Expats, Red, White & Royal Blue, Fellow Travelers, The Curse, The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, Platonic and Bookie.

There will also be numerous top showrunners and exec producers including Chuck Lorre, David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, Alexander Woo, Benny Safdie, Graham Yost, Gary Goetzman, Lee Eisenberg, Abe Sylvia, Brit Marling, Zal Batmanglij, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Francesca Sloane, Lulu Wang, Sarah Schechter and Nicholas Stoller.

The studios, networks and streamers participating include AMC, Apple TV+, CBS, CBS Studios, FX, HBO and Max, Hulu, Lifetime, Marvel Studios and Disney+, Masterpiece on PBS, National Geographic, NBCUniversal, Netflix, Peacock, Paramount+, Prime Video, Showtime, Sony Pictures Television and Warner Bros. Television.

The event is sponsored by Apple TV+, Eyepetizer Eyewear and Final Draft + ScreenCraft in partnership with Four Seasons Resort Maui and 11 Ravens.

---

Both Tom and Sophia will be there.

[operachristine]

Holiday Gifting Day 5

Day 5 of 5 features a few Wicked audios with Nessarose understudies!

Idina Menzel (Elphaba), Helen Dallimore (Glinda), Adam Garcia (Fiyero), Nigel Planer (The Wizard), Miriam Margolyes (Madame Morrible), Caroline Keiff (u/s Nessarose), James Gillan (Boq), Martin Ball (Doctor Dillamond) October 28, 2006; London Matinee

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Ashleigh Gray (s/b Elphaba), Dianne Pilkington (Glinda), Pharic Scott (u/s Fiyero), Sam Kelly (The Wizard), Harriet Thorpe (Madame Morrible), Emily Tierney (u/s Nessarose), Alex Jessop (Boq), David Stoller (Doctor Dillamond) February 6, 2010; London

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Idina Menzel (Elphaba), Kristin Chenoweth (Glinda), Kristoffer Cusick (u/s Fiyero), Joel Grey (The Wizard), Carole Shelley (Madame Morrible), Eden Espinosa (u/s Nessarose), Christopher Fitzgerald (Boq), William Youmans (Doctor Dillamond) December 21, 2003; Broadway || Notes: This is the only known recording of Eden as Nessarose! Missing No Good Deed and March of the Witch Hunters.

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Shoshana Bean (Elphaba), Megan Hilty (Glinda), David Ayers (Fiyero), Ben Vereen (The Wizard), Adinah Alexander (u/s Madame Morrible), Stacie Morgain Lewis (u/s Nessarose), Jeffrey Kuhn (Boq), Sean McCourt (Doctor Dillamond) September 24, 2005; Broadway

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Dee Roscioli (Elphaba), Erin Mackey (Glinda), Derrick Williams (Fiyero), Gene Weygandt (The Wizard), Rondi Reed (Madame Morrible), Kate Fahrner (u/s Nessarose), Adam Fleming (Boq), K. Todd Freeman (Doctor Dillamond) March 21, 2007; Chicago

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Jenna Leigh Green (u/s Elphaba), Kendra Kassebaum (Glinda), Derrick Williams (Fiyero), David Garrison (The Wizard), Carol Kane (Madame Morrible), Lori Holmes (u/s Nessarose), Logan Lipton (Boq), Timothy Britten Parker (Doctor Dillamond) April 9, 2005; First National Tour

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Willemijn Verkaik (Elphaba), Valerie Link (u/s Glinda), Jens Simon Petersen (u/s Fiyero), Carlo Lauber (The Wizard), Angelika Wedekind (Madame Morrible), Maike Switzer (u/s Nessarose), Stefan Stara (Boq), Michael Günther (Doctor Dillamond) December 22, 2007; Stuttgart Matinee || Notes: Valerie's first show as Glinda.

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Eden Espinosa (Elphaba), Kendra Kassebaum (Glinda), Nicolas Dromard (Fiyero), Tom McGowan (The Wizard), Jody Gelb (Madame Morrible), Neka Zang (u/s Nessarose), Etai BenShlomo (Boq), Paul Slade Smith (Doctor Dillamond), Gregory Haney (Chistery), Samantha Zack (u/s Witch's Mother), Tim Talman (Witch's Father / Ozian Official) April 6, 2010; San Francisco || Notes: Neka's first show as Nessarose.

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[dailyanarchistposts]

The institutionalized invention of transsexuality

For quite some time there has been a tendency in the Social Sciences to be driven by knowledge that does not accept alternative, popular and dissident concepts as legitimate; a tendency that aims to keep hegemonic knowledge in its place of hegemony and “subaltern” knowledge in “its place” of subalternity. It is a monoculture of knowledge (SANTOS, 2014), in the sense that the cultivation of certain beliefs and ideologies nullifies the possibility of other ways of thinking being validated. The monoculture of knowledge produces epistemicide, “the murder of knowledge” (SANTOS, 2014, p. 149). The academically legitimized studies on transsexuality are based on the same premise: the monoculture of knowledge, which offers certain [cisgender] figures institutional protection so that they can determine what it means to be trans.

In relation to transsexuality, its emergence as a sociological category occurred as a pathology, a disorder that could be diagnosed. The pathologization of trans individuals takes place through the eyes of cisgender physicians, holders of epistemic privilege (GROSFOGUEL, 2016), never considering the self-determination of the individuals referred to as “patients”. The antagonism of epistemic privilege is epistemic inferiority, epistemic racism/sexism. Grosfoguel (2016, p. 30) defines epistemic racism/sexism as “the inferiority of all knowledge coming from human beings classified as non-western, non-male or non-heterosexual”, and to this we add non-cisgender, dissenters from the cis and heterosexual norm. The “transsexual” category was formulated within North American and European universities, by the hands of “intellectuals” and whose scientific production did not encounter any barriers to being disseminated, as it was already embedded in the institutional apparatus responsible for legitimizing it as scientific. This invention was responsible not only for the current way in which physicians approach transsexuality, but furthermore for the way in which other institutions — legal, educational, academic etc. — exclude, historically erase and violate trans people. Therefore, in order to better understand this process and its consequences, a brief historical review of the institutionalized invention of transsexuality is in order.

Reiterating Grosfoguel’s assertion that the predominant knowledge in our global system, in our schools, universities, hospitals and clinics, derives from five countries — France, Germany, England, the United States and Italy -, the hegemonic understanding of transsexuality comes especially from the United States and Europe. The first mentions of “transsexuality” date back to the beginning of the 20th century: in 1919, the term “transsexualism” was used by the german physician Magnus Hirschfeld; in 1949, the american sexologist David O. Cauldwell used it again in the paper Psychopatia Transexuallis, in which he analyzed the life of a transfeminine person. But the earliest medical records concerning transsexuality — and which underpinned the way gender is currently diagnosed — emerged in the 1950s in the United States, based on the studies of endocrinologist Harry Benjamin (BENTO & PELÚCIO, 2012), one of the forerunners in the establishment of a cisgendered trans subjectivity. According to this logic, the only possible ‘treatment’ for ‘real transsexuals’ would be transgenital surgery. No therapy could reverse the transsexuality of a ‘true transsexual’.

In contrast to Benjamin, the north-american psychiatrist Robert Stoller, professor at the University of California, refuted the practice of surgery or any procedures that could be considered ‘social transitions’. For him, trans people should be convinced that in fact they needed psychiatric treatment (BENTO & PELÚCIO, 2012). Another important personality was the north-american physician John Money, from Johns Hopkins Hospital. For him, children would already have their sexual identity defined by the age of 3, which encouraged him to advocate transgender surgeries. In 1966, the Johns Hopkins Hospital opened the Gender Identity Clinic, one of the first to cater for transgender people.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Benjamin’s efforts influenced the performance of surgical procedures relating to the medical veracity of transsexuality. In 1973, John Money coined the term ‘gender dysphoria’ to designate a symptom determining transsexuality and, in 1977, the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association was founded, an institution responsible for publishing and updating the Standards of Care (SOC) and legitimized as a world reference for the care of trans people (BENTO, 2006). Along with the SOC, the International Code of Diseases (ICD) and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) constitute the main documents that pathologize transsexuality.

In 1980, transsexuality was included in the ICD. During this period, Leslie Lothstein, a professor at Yale University, contributed to structuring the diagnosis of transsexuality by carrying out a study with ten adult trans people. In 1994, the DSM-IV replaced the diagnosis of ‘Transsexualism’ with ‘Gender Identity Disorder’, breaking down the diagnoses by age and creating yet another category, ‘Gender Identity Disorder Not Otherwise Specified’, aimed at people who did not meet the requirements of the previous diagnoses.

There are constitutive differences regarding ‘trans identity’ in the three documents — SOC, ICD and DSM — and with each new edition the diagnostic definitions are reviewed. For example, the DSM-IV focuses on identifying the traits of the ‘disorder’ in childhood, briefly addressing the issue of surgery. In its fourth version, gender, sexuality and sex are used arbitrarily in the qualifications of the ‘disorder’. Sex and gender would be synonymous. In the tenth version of the ICD, transsexuality was included in the section entitled “Personality Disorders of Sexual Identity”, characterized by the “desire to live and be accepted as a person of the opposite sex”, and this ‘sexual identity’ could only be validated if the patient had presented it for at least two years. Although these concepts have been updated over the years and have differed from one another, SOC, DSM and ICD perpetuate the same pathologizing perspective in the academic and medical fields.

The ICD-11 no longer conceives of transsexuality as a “gender identity disorder”, as the ICD-10 had previously proposed, and places it in the “conditions related to sexual health”, as “a marked and persistent incongruence and persistent incongruence between the gender experienced by the individual and their assigned sex”. The DSM-V, in turn, defines gender dysphoria as a “marked incongruence between a person’s experienced/expressed gender and their assigned gender, lasting for at least six months”, and argues that the best diagnostic method is the observation of child behavior, the child’s preference for ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ toys, the desire of ‘boys’ to wear ‘feminine clothing’ and ‘girls’ to wear ‘masculine clothing’. It does not fail to mention the importance of identifying, as a diagnostic trait, a “strong dislike of one’s own sexual anatomy”.

The influence of Stoller on the DSM, with its psychoanalytic discourse, and that of Benjamin on the SOC, with its endocrinological and physiological roots, can be found. As endocrinology seeks to discover the biological origins of transsexuality and is responsible for delivering the final decision on transgenital surgery, the psychological sciences (psychology, psychiatry and psychoanalysis) attempt to understand one’s desire to undergo the surgical procedure, as the demand for surgical interventions is perceived as an essential requirement for a ‘true transsexual’. The commonly asked questions by physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists and psychoanalysts take the trans person’s word almost as a lie: do you really want to do this? Are you sure you want to make such drastic changes? Will you not regret it? For someone to be ‘truly’ trans, they would have to prove that they are not compulsively lying. The decision is never made by the trans patient, but by the holders of epistemic privilege, of the power to legitimize or delegitimize the patient’s narrative. Despite the theoretical differences, both fields — endocrinology and psychiatry/psychoanalysis/psychology — fear the same situation: being deceived by ‘lying transsexuals’. Health services for trans people in Brazil, for instance, promote ‘gender asepsis’, a categorization of trans people into those who are ‘truly trans’ and those who are ‘untruthfully trans’ (BENTO, 2006).

The most significant feature of the aforementioned documents lies not in their differences, but in their similarities. Whether from the perspective of Benjamin or Stoller, Bento & Pelúcio understand that the elaboration of the concept of transsexuality by medicine occurred in such a way that trans people were “conceived as having a set of common indicators that position them as disordered, regardless of historical, cultural, social and economic variables” (BENTO & PELÚCIO, 2012, p. 572). The ‘truth’ of transsexuality is to be found in discourses about rejecting one’s own body, in dysphoric suffering, in necessarily conflicting family relationships, in a traumatic childhood. Any life experience that doesn’t fit in with these dictates immediately casts doubt on the legitimacy of the person’s own transsexuality and prevents them from accessing the health services they need. After reviewing the various pathologizing documents and movements regarding transsexuality, Bento (2011, p. 96) reveals her surprise at realizing that “so little so-called scientific knowledge has generated so much power”.

The common assertion of axiological neutrality, which psychiatry uses to justify its diagnoses, aims to annul its social position, to neutralize the perspective of the subject who produces knowledge, as if it were possible to assume a position of total neutrality. Neutrality becomes a farce when we consider precisely which beings hold and have held the places where knowledge is produced and which have never been able to enter a university as students or professors. Not only does it apply to a gender perspective, but also to race and class. The holders of epistemic privilege, who devised the diagnostic category of “transsexuality”, relied on a cisheteronormative perspective to list, name, categorize, subordinate and humiliate the trans people who came to them in search of assistance, but who found — and still find — an environment of control, tutelage and humiliation: if one wishes to access health devices, from routine care to surgical procedures, one must be evaluated according to the symptoms set out in the ICD, DSM or SOC. These documents, drawn up by North American and European institutions, are considered valid regardless of where they are operated on. A cisnormative and eurocentric scientific paradigm is imposed, one that does not dialogue with the self-determination of trans subjectivities or with gender identities from non-Westernized cultures — which, by the standards of this science, are furthermore considered pathologies.

The pathologization of trans identities is far from granting access to health institutions, on the contrary. Jaqueline Gomes de Jesus (2016, p. 198) perceives a generalization of the medical care given to trans people by health professionals, who end up “disregarding their particularities, or considering, ubiquitously, that all their health demands are restricted to the process”. Only if we replicate medical discourses about what it means to be trans, if we report suffering from dysphoria since childhood, and express our anguish over being born in the ‘wrong body’, are we legitimized as ‘real’ trans people, and especially if we urgently expose our repulsion towards our genitals and the need to have transgenital surgery.

As trans people’s autonomy over their own identities is scrutinized; as bureaucracies are created so that we can access trans clinics, hormonization processes and surgeries, the situation for intersex people is, in a way, the opposite. Surgeries on their bodies are encouraged, even if against their will. Investigating the records from 1990 to 2003 of a brazilian pediatric surgery clinic for intersex children, Machado (2005, p. 62) noted the repetition of “expressions such as “genitalia with a good aesthetic or cosmetic aspect””. The doctor’s “gaze” would be decisive in judging the “good aspect” of a genitalia, which would decide whether the child should undergo genital modification surgery, according to the sex assigned to them by the medical team. Heteronorm is present even in the details of surgical procedures.

This contradiction between how trans and intersex people are treated in medicine conveys a message: what matters to the “health” institution is not really the well-being of those people, but the reproduction of a norm that must be kept operative. Why are trans people systematically denied hormone therapies, surgeries, cosmetic procedures, civil registration changes, access to public restrooms, schools and spaces of empowerment? For what ends there are, for intersex people, pediatric surgery clinics — that is, surgeries on children — that encourage physical genital changes in infants, without them even being able to decide for themselves about their own identity? Why are physicians responsible for determining the sex of the child, and why are the surgeries performed with a heterosexual and cisgender bias?

Trans people are constantly put to the test. Our behavior, the way we speak and the way we dress are analyzed and questioned: in the case of a transmasculine person, for example, sitting cross-legged can lead to doubts on the part of the medical team: “Are you really trans? If you wanted to be a man, you’d act like a man”. These conflicts are referred to by Bento as an ‘invisible protocol’, present in the strange looks from the medical team, the insults, the whispers and all the attitudes that remind the trans person of their deviant place. The relationship between the medical team and the patients continues through the “essentialization of relations of power [...] by which the medical know-how doesn’t leave alternatives to the patients” (BENTO, 2006, p. 61).

This essentialization is not limited to relations of power, but extends to the standardization of a trans identity through the correlation of certain symptoms, in order to diagnose gender dysphoria, gender identity disorder, gender nonconformity or any other term that points to one’s incompatibility with cisgender norms. As anarchism includes in its fundamentals the defense of self-determination, then the control regime over trans people, erected by pathologization, is contrary to any and all principle that follows the anarchist logic of emancipation, because in pathologization there is no possibility of self-determination. By annulling the self-determination of trans people, the colonialist and institutional way of annihilating non-normative cultures and subjectivities is reproduced. Decolonial and anarchist ideas take a stand against this process.

If the legitimization of our identities by government institutions depends on the deepest submission to cisgender normativities, from the detailed elaboration of our narratives to the affirmation of our desires, then, in this and other contexts, the State constitutes itself as the ultimate denial of the freedom of its governed. This denial worsens as the individual distances themself from the colonial epistemological standard. For this reason, from an anarchist perspective, we defend the impossibility of any State to perform a favorable role for trans people, as well as for black, indigenous and insubmissive beings. Anarchist political theory is not static; it undergoes changes and adaptations according to the context in which it is inserted (WOODCOCK, 1998), but anarchist principles should not be abandoned, as they advocate the need for constant change.

In its transformations, anarchist philosophy consistently rejects any kind of authority, which means, politically, denying any form of government and, economically, denying any form of exploitation; and we can infer, in a medical sense and, more broadly, in any institutional sense, the denial of any authority figure that has the power to control a body, to impose rules upon it, to subject it to humiliation and behavioral protocols, to regulate its desire and its identity.

Thinking of “transsexuality” as a category created in a place of power, immersed in the concept — still not widely accepted by cisgender academics — of cisnormativity, we can see how, from Harry Benjamin’s studies to the present day, the defense of self-determination is something poignant among trans movements and remains necessary in the defense of every marginalized group. In general terms, even if we say we are trans and elaborate a narrative of self-hate, of ‘I was born in the wrong body’, the truth about who we are will be in the hands of a medical authority. Even if we remain in a transsexualization program for two years, with psychiatric and endocrinological monitoring, the medical team’s opinion may be negative. In other words, they may decide that we are not trans and that we cannot undergo physical modifications in relation to gender self-affirmation. The truth of gender and sex is in institutionalized hands.

[therecordchanger62279]

THE BEST WRITTEN SONGS OF ALL-TIME

     Because I have zero innate musical ability, the idea that someone can sit down with a musical instrument, and create an original song out of thin air is magic to me. Songwriting is a craft, but it’s inspiration that makes a good song into a great one. There are songwriters who seem able to turn out high quality songs in perpetuity. There are others who write maybe one or two great songs, and are never heard from again. So, I made a list of what I think are the 50 best written songs I’ve ever heard. These are in no particular order. I’ve listed the title followed by the songwriter or songwriters, and in parentheses is the performer I most enjoy hearing do the song – although most of these songs have been recorded countless times by a variety of artists. You can probably find all of these on YouTube or any of the streaming services. Most have lyrics, but some do not. But, it’s hard for me to imagine any of these songs being recorded by anyone with talent, and not retaining the brilliance with which the song was written.

Claire de Lune by Claude Debussy (Eugene Ormandy & The Philadelphia Orchestra)

Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin (Zubin Mehta & The New York Philharmonic, Gary Graffman, piano)

A Change Is Gonna Come by Sam Cooke (Sam Cooke)

Coal Miner’s Daughter by Loretta Lynn (Loretta Lynn)

Hello Walls by Willie Nelson (Faron Young)

I Left My Heart In San Francisco by George Cory and Douglass Cross (Tony Bennett)

God Bless The Child by Arthur Herzog, Jr. and Billie Holiday (Billie Holiday)

Eleanor Rigby by Paul McCartney and John Lennon (The Beatles)

Blind Willie McTell by Bob Dylan (Bob Dylan)

A Remark You Made by Wayne Shorter (Weather Report)

She’s Always a Woman by Billy Joel (Billy Joel)

Roll Me Away by Bob Seger (Bob Seger)

Margie’s At the Lincoln Park Inn by Tom T. Hall (Bobby Bare)

Angel From Montgomery by John Prine (Bonnie Raitt and John Prine)

Rainy Night in Georgia by Tony Joe White (Brook Benton)

You Never Can Tell by Chuck Berry (Chuck Berry)

Where or When by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart (Dion and The Belmonts)

American Pie by Don McLean (Don McLean)

It Was a Very Good Year by Ervin Drake (Frank Sinatra)

Gentle On My Mind by John Hartford (Glen Campbell)

Early Morning Rain by Gordon Lightfoot (Gordon Lightfoot)

Book of Rules by Harry Johnson and Barry Llewellyn (The Heptones)

Highwayman by Jimmy Webb (The Highwaymen)

American Music by Ian Hunter (Ian Hunter & Mick Ronson)

That’s Entertainment by Paul Weller (The Jam)

Song of Bernadette by Leonard Cohen (Jennifer Warnes)

Jazzman by Carole King and David Palmer (Carole King)

Talking Back to The Night by Steve Winwood and Will Jennings (Steve Winwood)

My Favorite Things by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II (John Coltrane)

Don’t It Make You Want to Go Home by Joe South (Joe South)

Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down by Kris Kristofferson (Kris Kristofferson)

Heart Like a Wheel by Anna McGarrigle (Linda Ronstadt)

I Am a Town by Mary-Chapin Carpenter (Mary-Chapin Carpenter)

Footprints by Wayne Shorter (Miles Davis Quintet)

Pleasant Valley Sunday by Gerry Goffin and Carole King (The Monkees)

This Old Town by Jon Vezner and Janis Ian (Nanci Griffith)

Brooklyn Roads by Neil Diamond (Neil Diamond)

Thrasher by Neil Young (Neil Young & Crazy Horse)

Box of Rain by Robert Hunter and Phil Lesh (Grateful Dead)

Is That All There Is? By Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller (Peggy Lee)

Louisiana 1927 by Randy Newman (Randy Newman)

King of the Road by Roger Miller (Roger Miller)

America by Paul Simon (Simon & Garfunkel)

The Sound of Silence by Paul Simon (Simon & Garfunkel)

Children’s Crusade by Sting (Sting)

My Girl by Smokey Robinson and Ronald White (The Temptations)

Green, Green Grass of Home by Claude “Curly” Putnam, Jr. (Tom Jones)

Downtown Train by Tom Waits (Tom Waits)

The Whole of The Moon by Mike Scott (The Waterboys)

My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys by Sharon Vaughn (Willie Nelson)

[scary-ivy]

I should be Singing the Songs of Holland Dozier Holland, Bacharach and David, Leiber and Stoller, and Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, instead I have this stupid ass job 🤦‍♂️

[avoecs]

Ten Key Innovation Signals To Better Serve The Brain Health Needs Of An Aging Population

It's been a busy year, with hundreds of studies and media stories about this website brain health, neuroplasticity, lifestyle and emerging neurotechnologies. To summarize where we are, and to better prepare for the opportunities and challenges in the year ahead, let's step back for a minute. Let me highlight Ten Important Signals to help Reinvent Brain Health in the Digital Age we live in.

It's been a busy year, with hundreds of studies and media stories about brain health, neuroplasticity, lifestyle and emerging neurotechnologies.

To summarize where we are, and to better prepare for the opportunities and challenges in the year ahead, let's step back for a minute.

Let's take a look at the big picture presented in the article Both Important and Urgent: Getting ready to serve the Cognitive & Brain Health needs of an Aging Population, prepared by David Stoller at the new Canadian Centre for Aging and Brain Health Innovation (CC-ABHI):

"The urgency to develop innovative new technologies that will support brain health is closely linked to the fact that a growing proportion of the global population is living longer than at any other time in history. As this population ages, the need to maintain brain health and/or manage declining cognitive function will have far-reaching impact both socially and economically." -- David Stoller @ CC-ABHI.

Good news is, scientists, technologists and entrepreneurs are working hard on this in the US and abroad.

The list of insights and initiatives worldwide is too long to detail; let me just highlight Ten Important Signals to help Reinvent Brain Health in the Digital Age we live in:

"Our health starts and ends with brain health," as Dr. Sandra Bond Chapman, Founder and Chief Director of the Center for BrainHealth at The University of Texas at Dallas, reminds us.

"There is too little wisdom in brain health (as practiced today)," cautions Dr. Peter Whitehouse, Professor of Neurology at Case Western Reserve University.

The American Academy of Clinical Neuropsychology (AACN) just announced a new Disruptive Technology Initiative focused on "assessment and/or intervention-prevention-improvement of cognitive functions, accessible to the entire population."

Both the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the Canadian Centre for Aging and Brain Health Innovation (CC-ABHI) have substantial funding programs to help start-ups access seed capital to develop and commercialize evidence-based digital brain health platforms.

Venture investors see a burgeoning landscape and future of the mind training space.

Many pioneers are working on ways to harness neuroplasticity for good, via cognitive assessments and therapies (BrainHQ, Akili, Click Therapeutics, Cogniciti, SBT Group) mindfulness apps (Claritas Mindsciences), EEG (Emotiv) and virtual reality (MindMaze).

A growing number of pharma companies, from Merck to Janssen, are investing in digital therapeutics by developing tools, licensing them, even investing in start-ups in the space.

"Clinically-guided" video capture of behavior can aid in diagnosis…behavior imaging, augmented by deep learning, will lead to real precision medicine, thanks to firms like Behavior Imaging Solutions, MyndYou, Pear Therapeutics, and more.

Old and new players in education--Pearson, ETS, UC Berkeley, the Arrowsmith School-- are developing digital and in-person programs to promote lifelong brain development.

The Coaches and Psychologists of the Future-exemplified by the Institute of Coaching, The Synapse System, the new Watson Centre for Brain Health-are already augmenting their practices with latest brain & cognition findings and digital neurotechnologies.

[wellpitterpatter]

Key Innovation Signals To Better Serve The Brain Health Needs Of An Aging Population

It's been a this website busy year, with hundreds of studies and media stories about brain health, neuroplasticity, lifestyle and emerging neurotechnologies.

To summarize where we are, and to better prepare for the opportunities and challenges in the year ahead, let's step back for a minute.

Let's take a look at the big picture presented in the article Both Important and Urgent: Getting ready to serve the Cognitive & Brain Health needs of an Aging Population, prepared by David Stoller at the new Canadian Centre for Aging and Brain Health Innovation (CC-ABHI):

"The urgency to develop innovative new technologies that will support brain health is closely linked to the fact that a growing proportion of the global population is living longer than at any other time in history. As this population ages, the need to maintain brain health and/or manage declining cognitive function will have far-reaching impact both socially and economically." -- David Stoller @ CC-ABHI.

Good news is, scientists, technologists and entrepreneurs are working hard on this in the US and abroad.

The list of insights and initiatives worldwide is too long to detail; let me just highlight Ten Important Signals to help Reinvent Brain Health in the Digital Age we live in:

"Our health starts and ends with brain health," as Dr. Sandra Bond Chapman, Founder and Chief Director of the Center for BrainHealth at The University of Texas at Dallas, reminds us.

"There is too little wisdom in brain health (as practiced today)," cautions Dr. Peter Whitehouse, Professor of Neurology at Case Western Reserve University.

The American Academy of Clinical Neuropsychology (AACN) just announced a new Disruptive Technology Initiative focused on "assessment and/or intervention-prevention-improvement of cognitive functions, accessible to the entire population."

Both the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the Canadian Centre for Aging and Brain Health Innovation (CC-ABHI) have substantial funding programs to help start-ups access seed capital to develop and commercialize evidence-based digital brain health platforms.

Venture investors see a burgeoning landscape and future of the mind training space.

Many pioneers are working on ways to harness neuroplasticity for good, via cognitive assessments and therapies (BrainHQ, Akili, Click Therapeutics, Cogniciti, SBT Group) mindfulness apps (Claritas Mindsciences), EEG (Emotiv) and virtual reality (MindMaze).

A growing number of pharma companies, from Merck to Janssen, are investing in digital therapeutics by developing tools, licensing them, even investing in start-ups in the space.

"Clinically-guided" video capture of behavior can aid in diagnosis…behavior imaging, augmented by deep learning, will lead to real precision medicine, thanks to firms like Behavior Imaging Solutions, MyndYou, Pear Therapeutics, and more.

Old and new players in education--Pearson, ETS, UC Berkeley, the Arrowsmith School-- are developing digital and in-person programs to promote lifelong brain development.

The Coaches and Psychologists of the Future-exemplified by the Institute of Coaching, The Synapse System, the new Watson Centre for Brain Health-are already augmenting their practices with latest brain & cognition findings and digital neurotechnologies.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Antitrust is a labor issue

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me SATURDAY (Apr 27) in MARIN COUNTY, then Winnipeg (May 2), Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), and beyond!

This is huge: yesterday, the FTC finalized a rule banning noncompete agreements for every American worker. That means that the person working the register at a Wendy's can switch to the fry-trap at McD's for an extra $0.25/hour, without their boss suing them:

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/04/ftc-announces-rule-banning-noncompetes

The median worker laboring under a noncompete is a fast-food worker making close to minimum wage. You know who doesn't have to worry about noncompetes? High tech workers in Silicon Valley, because California already banned noncompetes, as did Colorado, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Virginia and Washington.

The fact that the country's largest economies, encompassing the most "knowledge-intensive" industries, could operate without shitty bosses being able to shackle their best workers to their stupid workplaces for years after those workers told them to shove it shows you what a goddamned lie noncompetes are based on. The idea that companies can't raise capital or thrive if their know-how can walk out the door, secreted away in the skulls of their ungrateful workers, is bullshit:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/02/its-the-economy-stupid/#neofeudal

Remember when OpenAI's board briefly fired founder Sam Altman and Microsoft offered to hire him and 700 of his techies? If "noncompetes block investments" was true, you'd think they'd have a hard time raising money, but no, they're still pulling in billions in investor capital (primarily from Microsoft itself!). This is likewise true of Anthropic, the company's major rival, which was founded by (wait for it), two former OpenAI employees.

Indeed, Silicon Valley couldn't have come into existence without California's ban on noncompetes – the first silicon company, Shockley Semiconductors, was founded by a malignant, delusional eugenicist who also couldn't manage a lemonade stand. His eight most senior employees (the "Traitorous Eight") quit his shitty company to found Fairchild Semiconductor, a rather successful chip shop – but not nearly so successful as the company that two of Fairchild's top employees founded after they quit: Intel:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/24/the-traitorous-eight-and-the-battle-of-germanium-valley/

Likewise a lie: the tale that noncompetes raise wages. This theory – beloved of people whose skulls are so filled with Efficient Market Hypothesis Brain-Worms that they've got worms dangling out of their nostrils and eye-sockets – holds that the right to sign a noncompete is an asset that workers can trade to their employers in exchange for better pay. This is absolutely true, provided you ignore reality.

Remember: the median noncompete-bound worker is a fast food employee making near minimum wage. The major application of noncompetes is preventing that worker from getting a raise from a rival fast-food franchisee. Those workers are losing wages due to noncompetes. Meanwhile, the highest paid workers in the country are all clustered in a a couple of cities in northern California, pulling down sky-high salaries in a state where noncompetes have been illegal since the gold rush.

If a capitalist wants to retain their workers, they can compete. Offer your workers get better treatment and better wages. That's how capitalism's alchemy is supposed to work: competition transmogrifies the base metal of a capitalist's greed into the noble gold of public benefit by making success contingent on offering better products to your customers than your rivals – and better jobs to your workers than those rivals are willing to pay. However, capitalists hate capitalism:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/18/in-extremis-veritas/#the-winnah

Capitalists hate capitalism so much that they're suing the FTC, in MAGA's beloved Fifth Circuit, before a Trump-appointed judge. The case was brought by Trump's financial advisors, Ryan LLC, who are using it to drum up business from corporations that hate Biden's new taxes on the wealthy and stepped up IRS enforcement on rich tax-cheats.

Will they win? It's hard to say. Despite what you may have heard, the case against the FTC order is very weak, as Matt Stoller explains here:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/ftc-enrages-corporate-america-by

The FTC's statutory authority to block noncompetes comes from Section 5 of the FTC Act, which bans "unfair methods of competition" (hard to imagine a less fair method than indenturing your workers). Section 6(g) of the Act lets the FTC make rules to enforce Section 5's ban on unfairness. Both are good law – 6(g) has been used many times (26 times in the five years from 1968-73 alone!).

The DC Circuit court upheld the FTC's right to "promulgate rules defining the meaning of the statutory standards of the illegality the Commission is empowered to prevent" in 1973, and in 1974, Congress changed the FTC Act, but left this rulemaking power intact.

The lawyer suing the FTC – Anton Scalia's larvum, a pismire named Eugene Scalia – has some wild theories as to why none of this matters. He says that because the law hasn't been enforced since the ancient days of the (checks notes) 1970s, it no longer applies. He says that the mountain of precedent supporting the FTC's authority "hasn't aged well." He says that other antitrust statutes don't work the same as the FTC Act. Finally, he says that this rule is a big economic move and that it should be up to Congress to make it.

Stoller makes short work of these arguments. The thing that tells you whether a law is good is its text and precedent, "not whether a lawyer thinks a precedent is old and bad." Likewise, the fact that other antitrust laws is irrelevant "because, well, they are other antitrust laws, not this antitrust law." And as to whether this is Congress's job because it's economically significant, "so what?" Congress gave the FTC this power.

Now, none of this matters if the Supreme Court strikes down the rule, and what's more, if they do, they might also neuter the FTC's rulemaking power in the bargain. But again: so what? How is it better for the FTC to do nothing, and preserve a power that it never uses, than it is for the Commission to free the 35-40 million American workers whose bosses get to use the US court system to force them to do a job they hate?

The FTC's rule doesn't just ban noncompetes – it also bans TRAPs ("training repayment agreement provisions"), which require employees to pay their bosses thousands of dollars if they quit, get laid off, or are fired:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/04/its-a-trap/#a-little-on-the-nose

The FTC's job is to protect Americans from businesses that cheat. This is them, doing their job. If the Supreme Court strikes this down, it further delegitimizes the court, and spells out exactly who the GOP works for.

This is part of the long history of antitrust and labor. From its earliest days, antitrust law was "aimed at dollars, not men" – in other words, antitrust law was always designed to smash corporate power in order to protect workers. But over and over again, the courts refused to believe that Congress truly wanted American workers to get legal protection from the wealthy predators who had fastened their mouth-parts on those workers' throats. So over and over – and over and over – Congress passed new antitrust laws that clarified the purpose of antitrust, using words so small that even federal judges could understand them:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/14/aiming-at-dollars/#not-men

After decades of comatose inaction, Biden's FTC has restored its role as a protector of labor, explicitly tackling competition through a worker protection lens. This week, the Commission blocked the merger of Capri Holdings and Tapestry Inc, a pair of giant conglomerates that have, between them, bought up nearly every "affordable luxury" brand (Versace, Jimmy Choo, Michael Kors, Kate Spade, Coach, Stuart Weitzman, etc).

You may not care about "affordable luxury" handbags, but you should care about the basis on which the FTC blocked this merger. As David Dayen explains for The American Prospect: 33,000 workers employed by these two companies would lose the wage-competition that drives them to pay skilled sales-clerks more to cross the mall floor and switch stores:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-04-24-challenge-fashion-merger-new-antitrust-philosophy/

In other words, the FTC is blocking a $8.5b merger that would turn an oligopoly into a monopoly explicitly to protect workers from the power of bosses to suppress their wages. What's more, the vote was unanimous, include the Commission's freshly appointed (and frankly, pretty terrible) Republican commissioners:

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/04/ftc-moves-block-tapestrys-acquisition-capri

A lot of people are (understandably) worried that if Biden doesn't survive the coming election that the raft of excellent rules enacted by his agencies will die along with his presidency. Here we have evidence that the Biden administration's anti-corporate agenda has become institutionalized, acquiring a bipartisan durability.

And while there hasn't been a lot of press about that anti-corporate agenda, it's pretty goddamned huge. Back in 2021, Tim Wu (then working in the White wrote an executive order on competition that identified 72 actions the agencies could take to blunt the power of corporations to harm everyday Americans:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/party-its-1979-og-antitrust-back-baby

Biden's agency heads took that plan and ran with it, demonstrating the revolutionary power of technical administrative competence and proving that being good at your job is praxis:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff

In just the past week, there's been a storm of astoundingly good new rules finalized by the agencies:

A minimum staffing ratio for nursing homes;

The founding of the American Climate Corps;

A guarantee of overtime benefits;

A ban on financial advisors cheating retirement savers;

Medical privacy rules that protect out-of-state abortions;

A ban on junk fees in mortgage servicing;

Conservation for 13m Arctic acres in Alaska;

Classifying "forever chemicals" as hazardous substances;

A requirement for federal agencies to buy sustainable products;

Closing the gun-show loophole.

That's just a partial list, and it's only Thursday.

Why the rush? As Gerard Edic writes for The American Prospect, finalizing these rules now protects them from the Congressional Review Act, a gimmick created by Newt Gingrich in 1996 that lets the next Senate wipe out administrative rules created in the months before a federal election:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-04-23-biden-administration-regulations-congressional-review-act/

In other words, this is more dazzling administrative competence from the technically brilliant agencies that have labored quietly and effectively since 2020. Even laggards like Pete Buttigieg have gotten in on the act, despite a very poor showing in the early years of the Biden administration:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/11/dinah-wont-you-blow/#ecp

Despite those unpromising beginnings, the DOT has gotten onboard the trains it regulates, and passed a great rule that forces airlines to refund your money if they charge you for services they don't deliver:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/04/24/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-announces-rules-to-deliver-automatic-refunds-and-protect-consumers-from-surprise-junk-fees-in-air-travel/

The rule also bans junk fees and forces airlines to compensate you for late flights, finally giving American travelers the same rights their European cousins have enjoyed for two decades.

It's the latest in a string of muscular actions taken by the DOT, a period that coincides with the transfer of Jen Howard from her role as chief of staff to FTC chair Lina Khan to a new gig as the DOT's chief of competition enforcement:

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/2024-04-25-transportation-departments-new-path/

Under Howard's stewardship, the DOT blocked the merger of Spirit and Jetblue, and presided over the lowest flight cancellation rate in more than decade:

https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/2023-numbers-more-flights-fewer-cancellations-more-consumer-protections

All that, along with a suite of protections for fliers, mark a huge turning point in the US aviation industry's long and worsening abusive relationship with the American public. There's more in the offing, too including a ban on charging families extra for adjacent seats, rules to make flying with wheelchairs easier, and a ban on airlines selling passenger's private information to data brokers.

There's plenty going on in the world – and in the Biden administration – that you have every right to be furious and/or depressed about. But these expert agencies, staffed by experts, have brought on a tsunami of rules that will make every working American better off in a myriad of ways. Those material improvements in our lives will, in turn, free us up to fight the bigger, existential fights for a livable planet, free from genocide.

It may not be a good time to be alive, but it's a much better time than it was just last week.

And it's only Thursday.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/25/capri-v-tapestry/#aiming-at-dollars-not-men

[houseofbrat]

Because Kamala is Hillary 2.0.

Just a nice Rorschach inkblot where everyone can project their winning ideas on to Kamala right now.

Of course she will. She has terrible political judgement.

My senior labor source, who knows both Harris and Khan, found the fight over the latter disturbing. But when I mentioned the tariff bit, his reaction was visceral. “If Harris doesn’t push back,” he said, “she’s going to lose the election.” Indeed, I couldn’t keep track of the number of times he said “lose”: “Every labor official knows about tariffs in their bones. Harris will raise $100 million from Silicon Valley, she will spend it running up popular vote totals in blue areas, and she will lose the election.” “Today, the workers in industrialized and de-industrialized areas that you need to win the election want tariffs,” he said. “Biden neutralized that with his pro-tariff agenda. But the problem isn’t gone. It’s far worse, especially with Chinese EVs on deck. Harris needs to understand that money doesn’t vote. And Silicon Valley votes don’t matter. Votes in Kenosha do.”

[justforbooks]

Few songwriters have been able to enjoy hits across six decades, as well as the bonus of a dramatic revival of interest in their work during the later years of their careers. Burt Bacharach, who has died aged 94, could claim both.

With his writing partner Hal David, Bacharach launched himself into the front rank of pop songwriters with a brilliant streak of hits for Dionne Warwick during the 1960s, beginning in 1962 with Don’t Make Me Over and proceeding through (among others) Walk on By, Anyone Who Had a Heart, I Say a Little Prayer, Trains and Boats and Planes, and Do You Know the Way to San Jose. All became standards in Bacharach’s chosen pop-easy-listening genre, and meanwhile he was turning out equally durable classics for a string of different artists. Tom Jones never particularly liked What’s New, Pussycat?, the Oscar-nominated theme from the 1965 film of the same name, but acknowledged its enduring popularity.

Herb Alpert topped the US chart with the winsome ballad This Guy’s in Love With You, Jackie DeShannon did likewise with What the World Needs Now Is Love, and BJ Thomas was the lucky recipient of Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head, from the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (which brought Bacharach and David Oscars for best theme song and best original score). Bacharach was an Oscar-winner for a third time in 1982, with Arthur’s Theme from the film Arthur.

The son of Bert Bacharach, a sports star turned nationally syndicated newspaper columnist, and Irma Freeman, an artist and songwriter, Burt was born in Kansas City, Missouri. The family moved to Kew Gardens in Queens, New York, when he was a child. At the insistence of his mother, Burt studied the cello, drums and piano. His ears were opened by the innovative harmonies and melodies of jazz musicians of the day such as Thelonious Monk and Charlie Parker, and he played with several jazz combos before enrolling in music courses at the Mannes School of Music, New York, and at McGill University in Montreal.

He served in the US army (1950-52), and while acting as a dance band arranger in Germany he met the singer Vic Damone. Back in the US after his discharge, Bacharach worked as piano accompanist to Damone and to numerous other artists on the club circuit. One of them was the actor and singer Paula Stewart, whom he married in 1953.

He was fortunate to fall into one of the all-time great songwriting partnerships with David, whom he first met at the New York songwriting beehive, the Brill Building (also to be the home of other renowned songwriting duos including Leiber & Stoller, Goffin & King and Pomus & Shuman). David had been writing hits for such luminaries as Sarah Vaughan and Frank Sinatra since the late 40s. Bacharach and David scored their first big commercial coup when the country singer Marty Robbins took their song The Story of My Life into the US Top 20 in 1957. A cover version by Michael Holliday reached No 1 in the UK the following year, and Perry Como brought them another smash with his recording of Magic Moments, which spent eight weeks at No 1 in Britain.

After the breakdown of his marriage (he and Stewart divorced in 1958), Bacharach travelled to Europe to become pianist and bandleader for Marlene Dietrich, a role he would sustain until 1964. By 1961 he was back in New York, and wrote some material for the Drifters, as well as the Chuck Jackson hit Any Day Now before resuming his partnership with David. Their song (The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valance, inspired by the John Wayne/James Stewart western, became a US No 4 hit for Gene Pitney in 1962. Pitney did better still with the duo’s composition Only Love Can Break a Heart, which reached No 2 later that year.

Then came Bacharach and David’s historic hook-up with Warwick. She was a member of the Drifters’ backing group, the Gospelaires, and the songwriters invited her to make some demo recordings at their office at the publishers Famous Music, in the Brill Building. One of them was for Make It Easy on Yourself, which became a big hit for Jerry Butler. David recalled: “She said, ‘I thought that was my song!’ We said, ‘No, you just made a demo’. She was really very hurt and angry. Then we realised here’s this wonderful singer and we’re using her to make demos – she could be a star!”

So it proved, and the hits with Warwick became their calling card. They wrote and produced 20 American Top 40 hits for her over the ensuing decade, including seven that reached the Top 10. One of these songs, I Say a Little Prayer, also gave Aretha Franklin a US Top 10 hit and her biggest solo hit in Britain, where it reached No 4. Throughout the 60s anything Bacharach and David touched became commercial gold dust. They wrote film scores for What’s New, Pussycat?, Alfie and Casino Royale, and scored the successful Broadway musical Promises, Promises, whose title song provided another hit for Warwick and spun off a chartbuster for Bacharach himself with I’ll Never Fall in Love Again.

The writers always had a soft spot for the UK, probably because so many British-based artists had No 1 hits with their material, including Cilla Black – whose version of Anyone Who Had a Heart was her breakthrough hit – Sandie Shaw, the Walker Brothers and Frankie Vaughan.

The Carpenters ushered in the 70s with (They Long to Be) Close to You, a US No 1 which also reached No 6 in the UK, but although Bacharach’s 1971 album (called just Burt Bacharach) became a sought-after collector’s item, the decade would prove disappointing. In 1973 Bacharach and David collaborated on a new musical version of the 1937 film Lost Horizon, but it was a commercial disaster that prompted angry splits between Bacharach, David and Warwick, and involved them in a spate of lawsuits. The writers parted company after a disagreement over royalties. Bacharach’s second marriage, to the actor Angie Dickinson, whom he had married in 1965, began to come apart, although they did not divorce until 1980.

It was not until the early 80s that Bacharach’s magic touch returned, when he won the Oscar for best original song for the chart-topping theme from the film Arthur, which he had also scored. One of its co-writers was the lyricist Carole Bayer Sager, whom Bacharach married the following year. The couple went on to write Making Love for Roberta Flack and Heartlight for Neil Diamond. In 1986, Bacharach enjoyed one of his best ever years, achieving two US No 1s with That’s What Friends Are for, recorded by Warwick with Elton John, Gladys Knight and Stevie Wonder as a charitable fundraiser for Aids, and the Patti LaBelle/Michael McDonald recording of the lachrymose On My Own.

In 1991 his marriage to Bayer Sager ended, and two years later he married Jane Hansen. In a 2015 interview, Bacharach – who was nicknamed “the playboy of the western world” during the 60s – admitted: “I didn’t mean to hurt anybody, but when you wind up being married four times, there are a lot of bodies strewn in your wake.”

During the 90s, Bacharach and David reunited with Warwick for Sunny Weather Lover, from her album Friends Can Be Lovers, and Bacharach wrote songs for James Ingram and Earth, Wind & Fire. In 1995 he co-wrote God Give Me Strength with Elvis Costello for Allison Anders’ film about the Brill Building era, Grace of My Heart, and this resulted in the Costello-Bacharach album Painted from Memory (1998).

Bacharach’s contribution to pop history was acknowledged in a 1996 BBC documentary, Burt Bacharach – This Is Now, and he would find himself being hailed as an icon of cool by bands as varied as Oasis, REM, Massive Attack and the White Stripes. In 1997, an all-star cast including Costello, Warwick, Chrissie Hynde, Sheryl Crow and Luther Vandross banded together at the Hammerstein Ballroom, New York, for a serenade of Bacharach’s songs called One Amazing Night, and the Rhino label issued The Look of Love, a three-disc compilation of his music.

Bacharach’s profile received a huge boost from his appearances in all three of Mike Myers’s 60s-spoofing Austin Powers films. He earned an Oscar nomination for the song Walking Tall, his first collaboration with the lyricist Tim Rice, which was performed by Lyle Lovett on the soundtrack of Stuart Little (1999).

His 2005 album At This Time unusually found Bacharach writing lyrics as well as music and even provoking some controversy by touching on political themes. “All my life I’ve written love songs, and I’ve been non-political,” he said. “So it must be pretty significant that I suddenly have strong feelings of discomfort with the state of the world, and what our [US] administration is doing.” This did not prevent the album from winning the 2006 Grammy award for best pop instrumental album.

In 2008 he opened the BBC Electric Proms at the Roundhouse, in London, with Adele and Jamie Cullum among his supporting musicians. His autobiography, Anyone Who Had a Heart: My Life and Music, was published in 2013, and in 2015 he performed at the Glastonbury festival. He continued to tour past his 90th birthday, with concerts in the UK, US and Europe in 2018 and 2019.

In addition to his Oscars and six Grammy awards (plus a lifetime achievement award in 2008), he was awarded the Polar music prize in Stockholm in 2001. In 2011, the Library of Congress awarded Bacharach and David the Gershwin prize for popular song.

A daughter, Nikki, from his second marriage, died in 2007. He is survived by Jane, their son, Oliver, and daughter, Raleigh, and another son, Cristopher, from his third marriage.

🔔 Burt Freeman Bacharach, songwriter, singer and musician, born 12 May 1928; died 8 February 2023

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Kim Høltermand (b 1977) is a photographer from Denmark, based in Copenhagen.

Focusing mainly on architecture, Kim works with elements such as composition, space, light and mood. He says that much of his work bares references to masters of architectural photography; Julius Shulman, Ezra Stoller and Balthazar Korab but also takes inspiration from cinema - more specifically directors such as Stanley Kubrick, Ridley Scott, David Lynch and Andrei Tarkovsky.

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