IT CAN HAPPEN TO YOU

From here on the ground, pundits spill millions of words explaining the worldwide resurgence of populism, demagoguery, and tyranny. They wonder whether these scourges, considered largely vanquished by the middle of the 20th century, are fated to perpetually cycle back.

The higher-level view, from 50 years hence, will take thousands of words to explain the contributing factors, extenuating circumstances, and rare opportunities that coincided to make this surprising development possible. Unique circumstance sparked the unthinkable for a brief and catastrophic while.

But the highest level view, with the distance of a century or two, will - like all high-level views - fit on a postcard:

Humanism, pluralism, and technocracy were surging worldwide, pushing cruelty, racism, and ignorance toward irrelevance. But every leap triggers a recoil. Unable to maintain power within systems as they stood, oppositional parties stopped seeing democracy as a game in which they could compete, and sought alternative ways to preserve their side of the binary.

The timeworn sinister machinery - division, demagoguery, lies, conspiracy theories, yellow journalism, voter suppression, dark nostalgia, and personality cult - was dusted off and trotted out, and it served for a time. Hyper-aroused transgressive political minorities briefly seized power around the world and installed weakly buffoonish kakistocracies. Essentially dug in against Modernity, they had no better plan and no interest in good governance.

But the underlying mechanisms remained in play. Long-term demographic, intellectual, and moral shifts continued to overtake this segment. Most devastating of all was the short-term reality that these movements were stoked disproportionally by older people, fated to swiftly dwindle. To put it mildly, they did not go gentle into that good night.

This won't be recounted as a tale of left vs right; liberal vs conservative. Already these terms have been hollowed out, revealing the purely tribal basis of the schism.


Back in 2017 I called it a last gasp. In The Un-Self-Aware Assholes’ Last Hurrah, I wrote:

We’re getting a front row view of something few people have seen in person. it’s usually only read about. And it’s somewhat defanged; we won’t fall into autocracy, we won’t lose our freedom, it’s not the third reich ... [I've self-servingly cut out predictions that didn't come true]...and, luckiest of all, the bad guys are self-defeating idiots.

There will be more chaos and chagrin, but we’re getting this view relatively cheaply. When it’s over, center left and center right will come together (it’s already started…pro-Trump stats are so high among Republicans because so many Republicans have renounced their party). This is a last gasp of moldy human tropes; the un-self-aware assholes’ last hurrah...It’s not the end of the world, it’s birth pangs for a new better one.

Since the mid 20th century, we'd felt inoculated against these moldy remnants, an assurance that proved sadly wrong. But that's not to say we're trapped in an inescapable cycle. On the contrary, we're winning. Pluralistic humanism is now the majority credo, despite the political aberration. But a last gasp is still appalling to endure. Pity our innumerable forebears who lived, stiflingly, through forgotten periods of senseless idiocy within otherwise enlightened eras. “The one rotten king” may not do permanent damage, but a generation is an eternity for those stuck in it.

But though we're evolving in fits and starts (this now would be a "fit"), we'll never be fully inoculated. So the key message for posterity is that we are not primitives. We're not some lower breed, unusually blind and stupid. And this means that you, my great-great-great-great grandchildren, may come to watch a huge chunk of your society wrap itself around some fecal doo-dah. Yes, you may flit around in flying cars, google searching within your minds, but you're no more "modern" than we were.

So while this moment of utter buffoonery - perfectly exemplified by a nihilistic clown of a prime minister being strapped into a ventilator weeks after petardedly poo-pooing a pandemic - will make for hilarious reading in a century or two, and we are very much the nutty ancients whom the future will mock, they need to know they aren’t inoculated.

There's always an opposition. Society always produces an opposing faction, even anti-paradise. And once a faction is shamed and shouted down, they will fight dirty. Whenever a critical mass finds its back against the wall, the old machinery may be reached for. And it will always be available. The bell can’t be unstruck.

I called this way back in the late 1990s, when Gingrich and his band of pirates were crapping all over DC, and the DNC hit me up for a donation to stop them. I knew the treasurer, who'd sent the email pitch, a little, and I pushed back, insisting that it was far more critical to support sane Republicans against the radical loonies. He refused to take my point, able to see only the binary. And sure enough, the Republican party fell into delirium, monkey-barring from Gingrich to Limbaugh to Cheney to Palin to this toxic vacant whackjob.

So I have an idea. Let’s drag boulders, great big boulders, into a meadow somewhere and have it spell out “IT CAN HAPPEN TO YOU”. Let's raise funds to get this done as a service to posterity.


See also: Historian Consensus Circa 2117 (though the above is better re: Trump).

Hal Willner

RIP Hal Willner, my perennial second degree of separation, purveyor of weird juxtapositions (like the one below) which didn't smugly exult in their oddness but (usually) actually (mostly) worked, a vastly higher-level accomplishment.



Here's the story of the above.

Trader Joe's Matcha Green Tea Powder

The powers that be at Trader Joe's are all about price. I have a couple of friends who supply items for the chain, and they will attest that the entire operation can be summarized in two words: Price Squeeze.

So when something's expensive at TJ's, you need to take note. Like for instance the Matcha Green Tea Powder, which looks like this:

and not like this:

or like this:

and definitely not like this:

What's matcha? I don't know, exactly. I know something about Chinese tea and pu-ehr, but am pretty ignorant on the Japanese stuff. I could gargle out a few semi-correct facts, but let's view it empirically:

You know the cheap plastic bottles of green tea water sold in Asian markets? You can do better, flavor-wise.

Also: death-wise, considering the arsenic or lead (or both) found in cheap green tea products (it may help to filter).

When it comes to instant green iced tea, the good stuff is Japanese matcha (or sencha, which I know even less about), which also presents less lead and arsenic risk. There's a hierarchy of matcha quality, and I'm told Trader Joe's stuff is way up the curve. It would be graded "ceremonial".

That's good. Ceremonial matcha is usually pricey (I used to up-pay for the hard-to-find one from YamaMotoYama). Yet this is not. Because it's Trader Joe's, and they squeeze their suppliers. That said, it's still really expensive for Trader Joe's, which is why they've pulled out every trick to mask the expense.

The substantial-looking box contains 7 tiny individual portions the size of kiddy ice cream cup sticks. And the portion packets are like 5% full. The big tell is the box's weight, a ludicrous .37 ounces (a price sticker would bring it up to .38 oz). And there are just seven wee packets per $7 box.

For a household of two, rationing one matcha/person/day, you'd need to budget a steep $56/month...just to step up from crappy supermarket green tea (which TJ's used to sell, too, btw). It's a hell of huge quality step-up, but it's risky to count on customers to recognize this. So Trader Joe's is taking a big chance, but not without reason. This stuff's great.

It doesn't instantly dissolve; you need to work at it. I add it to water in a weightlifter's protein shake shakey cup (with built in spikey agitator), which seals tightly and lets me really froth up the contents (this one looks good to me). And I wouldn't do it any other way, because you want an aerated, bubbly, lavish result. Oh, and I woulnd't add this stuff for smoothies, it's too fine for that.


I'm very sensitive to caffeine, and while I can handle a single shot of coffee (which I murder with milk), matcha, like all green tea, treats me more gently. One single portion of matcha seems to be my Goldilocks result.

Pasta Water Theory

Theory: A big reason it helps to add pasta water back into your finished pasta dish is because it’s salty. It’s a backdoor way of using a restaurant-ish quantity of salt.

Free Games and Myriad Other Amusements

This truly amazing $30 bundle includes lots of great Mac games (even more on the PC side), and the revenue goes to COVID-19 relief charities. On the Mac side, "Psychonauts" and "Undertale" are classics. Also highly-rated: "World of Goo", "Into the Breach", and"Broken Age". Among the e-books, the Python book is not a typical programming book, written so non-programmers can use it. Fun! And "Saga" is a really good comic. "Journeys Through Time" is great classic sience fiction and fantasy.

In other news...

Monument Valley, a great iOs game, is now free. The announcement about Monument Valley links to some other free games (though only a few on iOs).

Don't miss "Norm Macdonald does standup about coronavirus", part 1 and part 2. Norm also has a somewhat uneven video podcast series on Youtube, "Quarantined with Norm Macdonald". Also Norm's extremely hard to find first TV interview with Jerry Seinfeld is available, audio only.

And it's a great time for a rewatch of The Leftovers, about a mysterious event that removed 2% of the world's population. Well, no, it's about the aftermath. It's one of the greatest series of all time, and features the single best episode of TV, hands down ("International Assassin", in season 2). It streams on HBO GO, and is well worth the $20-25 per season on Amazon or Apple.

If you have an old coin collection moldering in the attic, this is a good time to take stock of it (here's a site with complete information, including value, on every US coin in every date, and here's the up-to-date "melt value" of all coins re: their precious metal content).

Read about how the Earth is really really enjoying this.

Or learn a language!

There are nearly 2500 Slog postings, relatively few of which are migraine-inducing meditations on perceptual framing! Have you read all the "Popular Entries" in the left hand margin? Consider the postings labeled "Funny".The "Profiles" are a good read. And while I'm reluctant to write about music, readers have enjoyed my few exceptions.

If you'd rather sit and sulk and stress while feeling perfectly healthy, there's no shame in that choice, but if health's so valuable, why wouldn't you be exuberantly enjoying every second of good fortune?


Thanks to the various uncredited tipsters (I can't remember all, so I won't credit any).

Blithe

So long as I feel ok, I feel ok. I think I’m too stupid to do complicated things like feel bad when I feel good. I kind of marvel at those who can.


If my misery could help the problem even in the least little bit, I'd happily make myself miserable.

My friend Andrea's response: "Of course. Always positive, never be negative!"
My reply: "Neither negative nor positive. Both are lies. Better to strive for clarity.
Negativity is a deliberate filter on reality. I want the raw feed. And that flow is overwhelmingly beautiful."

Toothbrush Zeitgeist

A short toothbrush dialog with friend-of-the-Slog Paul Trapani (in reference to yesterday’s post about toothbrush hounding):

The following, from my posting "Unhinged", explains about admiration compression:

Here's a fun game. Search Amazon for the bajillion consumer reviewers who express utter delight for the product, yet award it only four stars. What are they thinking? The answer is right there: "Well, geez....greatness???".

We drag our feet on the upside. We mentally compress our assessment of quality. We miss the non-linearity. We have been deliberately blinkered by the myriad stolid pud-puds trafficking in the wide part of the bell curve; in mere competency. To point to just one single line of pressure, the billions of advertising dollars streaming out of the Olive Gardens of the world push hard against any notion of duly recognizing and supporting bona fide greatness.

More here, and this is related.

Toothbrush Hound

If you could somehow turn the physical sensation evoked by very advanced meditation practice (this is a great time to start, btw) into pill form, it'd be worth $10,000/pill. I can't explain the biochemistry, but it has to do with natural endorphins, which are way, way better than the standard prescribed opiates. People risk jail to get their hands on Vicodin - said to produce some of the most blissful states available to human beings - but when I popped one once after dental surgery, I needed to vomit it up. It was a complete buzzkill. Just awful.

So that's where I'm coming from on the issue of pleasure.

For the past years, I've been tracking the creative progress of whatever wizard designs REACH toothbrushes. That is, one certain REACH designer. As with Kashi cereals, there appears to be one wizard plus a few lackluster pud-puds at work.

While I can finish a cereal box in a couple of weeks, allowing me a solid overview of the uneven Kashi lineup, toothbrushes last much longer, so it's been a long, languorous odyssey tracking the REACH genius' work. The datapoints have spread so widely that it's like Bugs Bunny wafting down the long staircase:



But a couple nights ago, I hit pay dirt. I unboxed a new model, and...jackpot. Ladies and gents, I present to you the REACH Total Care Floss Clean Toothbrush Soft Full Professional ("this brush does not replace flossing").

It may not look like much (in fact, as I squint for a closer look, "ick"), but the REACH genius has outdone himself. This toothbrush offers more than fresh breath, invigorated gumlines, and outstanding dental hygiene. It also delivers something akin to divine consolation; a tiny taste of the benefits of advanced meditation.

I can't account for the hows and whys, but I'm constantly on the watch for the banal erupting into inspiration (the world's crud, I figure, is in plain sight, so I feel compelled to vigilance), however loony that makes me look. I wrote in my posting "Unhinged" that:

My review of the Arepa Lady, a Colombian street vendor in Jackson Heights, Queens, was rejected by my NY Press editor in the early 90s, because I was told it's nutty to moon lengthily over some stupid snacky item grilled on some greasy street cart in some grim ethnic neighborhood no one ever goes to.

The juju behind the Arepa Lady also applies to the REACH wizard: any item, no matter how prosaic, can be invested with such enormous creativity and care that it's not only worthy but full-out mesmerizing (see Leff's Second Law, as well as my explanation of Steve Jobs).

You gotta get the model with soft bristles (I'm ordinarily a medium bristle guy), and the full-sized brushing head.

Here's a four-pack on Amazon, 'cuz, believe me, you're going to want more than one.

Please do not persecute me for my religious beliefs. 

I am fully aware that there’s a non-zero chance I’ve gone insane. However, even when I brush absent-mindedly, forgetting the previous experiences, I'm caught by surprise (“Why do I feel so good? OH.....").

Don't Do MORE

I just posted this rant to Facebook, and figured I'd throw it up here as well.


I heard the normally sharp Nicolle Wallace say on her show yesterday that "One sick person in the grocery store could infect EVERYONE". So much ignorance and misunderstanding.

This isn't a plague. An infected person in your midst can't infect you with his presence. People aren't radiating virus. The air does not sizzle with homicidal microbes.

It's transmitted via large-ish droplets and personal contact. So try super hard not to cough or sneeze on anyone, or be coughed/sneezed upon yourself. For extra safety, stay 6 feet away, out of large droplet range.

WE'RE ALREADY DOING THAT! So we're GOOD! It's enough! Just do that! Not more!

We don't need to view other people as evil contaminators. You can talk to them. You can be in a room with them. You can be around them. Just STAY 6 FEET AWAY. 20 feet won't make you extra safe.

We're being told to stay home because some people are too dumb and sloppy to enforce distancing. But that doesn't mean you can't chat with your friend or neighbor from 6 feet away. Which actually feels pretty normal.

The distancing guidelines are pretty draconian....and they are sufficient! We don't need to do lots of OTHER stuff on top of those guidelines! It won't make you extra safe and healthy!


If you're passing someone in the supermarket aisle, and need to reduce to 5 foot separation for a second, you don't have to hold your breath and squirm. Your viral geiger counter doesn't start clicking.

If you're not coughing/sneezing at them, nor they at you, and nobody's licking their hand and rubbing it on the other person's nostrils, everybody's cool. Regain full separation when you can, just for extra safety's sake, and chill the F out.

The Earth Calms and Greens Amid Pandemic

Couple of interesting sciencey things:

Earth Is Literally Moving Less Now That We're All on Lockdown (h/t Tara Cox).

and...

The environmental upside of the virus shows the green way ahead.