Some Books

I'm declaring a reading vacation. Which makes things lean in the blog department on some days, but that's the way it is.

Escapism from all this may continue until morale improves. 

Can't Wait to Smell the GLOVE

I heard on NPR on the way home this afternoon that ICE plans to spend our tax dollars to buy millions of dollars worth of shock gloves to put on its storm troopers, so they can shock people into compliance without warning. 

Get this: the company that makes the devices is called Compliant Technology, and the things are an acronym called G.L.O.V.E. (Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter). Bureaucrats and fascists all love a good euphemistic acronym.

This AP story has the details. Quoting that story: 

The manufacturer warns the device should not be used as punishment, against people merely exhibiting “verbal defiance or belligerence” or on high-risk populations such as children, pregnant women or elderly or disabled people.

Jenn Rolnick Borchetta, deputy project director on policing at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the public should have no confidence that ICE officers will use the devices appropriately. She questioned why the devices would be necessary for civil immigration enforcement and noted those getting shocked might have no advance warning.

“ICE spent the last year showing this country they are too quick to use force. Now they will be able to deploy electric shocks with the slight push of a button that maybe nobody else can see them do,” she said. “Introducing gloves that can so easily be used to deliver terrible pain in encounters is a recipe for harm to the public.”

Supporters say the devices are generally used in specific jail and transport situations, rather than broadly to patrol on the streets. They have been used to subdue violent suspects who are refusing to get into squad cars and inmates who are harming themselves and threatening officers, according to Compliant Technologies.

The NPR story, however, said the gloves have been on the market for 10 years — 10 years! — and that while they have been bought by prisons and police departments, they have also been bought by schools. Schools. And even in the supposed intended use locations, does anyone believe that cops and prison guards only use them to get compliance in extreme situations?

The technology should not exist, the company should not exist, and ICE (and DHS) should not exist.
 

As We Know, He Can't Stand Reality

I try to put images of Trump on this blog as little as possible, despite the regime's egregious use of AI images to puff him up. (For example... did you see the recent one with him dressed as a general, complete with medals, standing between MacArthur and Eisenhower? The nerve of this man.)

For some reason, I feel called upon to comment on a more trivial example I saw recently. It was posted as AI being used to "touch up" this photo of him in a golf cart with retired South African pro Gary Player. 

The original:

The so-called retouched image:



And clearly, the overall engoldening of Player and the aide or caddy in the blue shirt is retouching (plus the caddy has been moved out of the frame to the right a bit for some reason). 

However, I would say the background has not been retouched, but is instead a completely new background, created with AI.

And that is also true of the image of Trump. This is not a retouched photo: It is a completely new image, generally based on the components of the other photo:


If it were only retouched, there is no reason the 45-47 on the side of his hat would have been changed at all, let alone to become what appears to be 6-41. The numbers were more readable in the original. There was also no improvement made by changing the fold of his right sleeve, or the angle of his pinky finger. 

Trump has been given an entirely new face, which is less surprising: no more dumb-gaping mouth, no more eye bags or peering squint, and his skin tone has become an even glow. It's a little extra weird that they didn't put the actual Trump golf resort logo onto his shirt. (The AI created more width on the left breast of the shirt to fit the full word TRUMP in.) 

Trump, of course, has been brought out of the shadow that originally was falling on him, compared to Player who was in full sun. And Trump's body has been recreated with a more upright posture and multiple sizes smaller than it actually is.  

And his shirt is just so smooth. You never realize how many wrinkles a shirt has until an AI makes a shirt for you.

I think it's important to keep the words "retouched" or "touch up" for removing a wrinkle here or there, or shifting color. When a completely different, imaginary version of a person has been dropped into an otherwise relatively accurate depiction of a scene... that is not retouching.

 

P.S. Mueller

We're going through some boxes of stuff from the basement, deciding what to keep and what to recycle (or send to the trash, which in Saint Paul goes to an incinerator). As weirdo print designers, my other half and I have a few too many copies of the Twin Cities' various, now-defunct weekly alternative newspapers that we kept for various reasons.

Sometimes it was a particular article that included someone we know. Other times the illustration or photos are by someone we know. Sometimes it was just an interesting topic at the time, and now I can't quite figure out why it seemed so important.

While I was sorting through it all, I saw this cartoon by P.S. Mueller on the back page of the City Pages:

(Click to enlarge.)

I think I saw my first Mueller cartoon while I was living in Washington, D.C. in the mid-1980s — probably in the alternative weekly there — but it's possible it was after I came to Minnesota in 1986.  

At first I was going to crop in on my photo to only show the cartoon, and then I thought I should retain the part of the page I had included in order to retain the short text ads that ran around it to give a sense of the context. And the phone number that ran above it... sans area code. 

The 612 now associated with Minneapolis went without saying back in those days, since it covered the entire Twin Cities. We split into four area codes in the late 1990s and Saint Paul lost out to Minneapolis on retaining 612. 

I remember advocating for existing phone numbers to keep 612, with cell phone numbers getting a new area code. I still can't remember what geography the other two area codes (952 and 763) cover exactly.

Those were the days!

Nagasaki

Alex Wellerstein, a nuclear historian and professor at Stevens Institute of Technology, wrote a long thread today on BlueSky about the bombing of Nagasaki on this, the 81st anniversary of that day. It provides a number of points from his 2025 book, The Most Awful Responsibility: Truman and the Secret Struggle for Control of the Atomic Age. 

I recommend the whole thread, but his key points are that Truman was read-in only generally on the bombing of Hiroshima, that he didn't understand Hiroshima was a civilian target, and particularly that the bombing of Nagasaki was not at Truman's behest. Wellerstein also provides detail to show there was not enough time for Japan's military leadership to respond to the bombing of Hiroshima before the bomb fell on Nagasaki. 

The U.S. military planned to drop multiple bombs on Japan, he says, and the only constraint was the weather, which led to the very close spacing of the two bombs, just a few days apart. 

Truman, for his part, issued an order on August 10 to stop dropping atomic bombs on Japan. As Wellerstein puts it, "That is the most 'proactive' thing he did regarding the atomic bomb in WWII."

I don't believe I was ever taught that in school.

I think this is significant, because Nagasaki is often framed in "strategic" terms by laymen, journalists, and experts. That is an after-the-fact gloss on it. At the time, it was done because the military felt they could do it, and wanted to do it. Truman was thoroughly out of the loop....

The consequence of all of these misunderstandings is, I think, at the root of both his August 10 order (which he told his cabinet was about avoiding further Japanese civilian lives lost), and his later centralizing of nuclear use authority in the personage of the President.

Private Prisons Making Bank

It seems like most of the time when I catch news stories from National Public Radio, they are regurgitating some Trump regime press release. I generally don't listen to the national part of Morning Edition anymore for that reason. 

Today, though, I happened to catch this worthwhile story from Weekend Edition Saturday, which reported on recent earnings calls by the private prison companies CoreCivic and GEO Group. Big surprise! They are doing gang-busters business from the federal government and DHS. Thank you Congress for all of that money!

I came in as the reporter was saying that the (illegal) use of ankle monitors on Haitians who've had Temporary Protected Status revoked means lots more business for the companies. 

Then I heard that CoreCivic has sold four prison buildings to DHS for $307,000 per bed, and will still be paid to operate the prisons, I'm sure at some exorbitant rate. (GEO Group also has plans to sell prisons to the feds.)

Then I heard about the ways members of the Trump regime, including Trump himself, have personal financial interests in these companies.

So good job, NPR, for once.  

Undoing Head Start

The Trump regime's assault on Head Start doesn't get the attention it should. This AP story from a few days ago and this update describe the latest assault.

Essentially, they plan to remove federal requirements, leaving the definition of what the federally mandated program called "Head Start" is up to individual states. So in Minnesota, for instance, that could mean child/staff ratios similar to what exist now, while in Mississippi the ratios would be... I hate to guess. And curriculum could be whatever tripe Republicans decide it should be.

According to the second story, programs would be limited to 5% in administrative expenses, instead of the current 15%. Anyone familiar with nonprofit organizations knows that is untenable. Plus, while they're taking away real family supports for health and wellness, which are essential to families in poverty, RFK Jr. gets to add his brand of "nutrition requirements." 

Quoting that first AP story,

Jody Smith, a lead Head Start teacher south of Seattle, said she’s seen firsthand how critical many of the requirements are, especially the ones for engaging with families and screening kids for disabilities. Smith was a high school dropout when she enrolled her first child in Head Start, where she was encouraged to go back to school and inspired to become a teacher. Later, Head Start helped diagnose her youngest child with autism.

Without Head Start, “I would have probably stayed as a poverty line,” Smith said. “And I don’t know that we would have gotten as far in life as we have.”

And:

Earlier this year, Trump officials also erased a Biden-era rule that mandated raises and greater benefits for Head Start employees. When the rule went in to effect in 2024, Head Start teachers, the majority of whom have bachelor’s degrees, earned less than $40,000 a year on average.

So the teachers are already earning well below their worth and educational attainment, and Trump will make sure that continues to degrade. 

This is in keeping with the regime's reclassification of many professions — including nurses, nurse-practioners, and physician assistants — as nonprofessional when it comes to graduate programs. (Theology and chiropractic graduate degrees are still considered professional, however.)

Just another part of the degradation of American infrastructure that barely gets noticed in the midst of Trump's constant conflagration. 

It's Summer

Sometimes you have to put your fingers in your ears and say "I'm not listening" to *everything* and just... eat some ice cream.

I saw these two word graphics at a local ice cream shop recently: 

Ice cream hyperbole. But it works for just a few minutes.
 

Posters from the Dells

Another year, another family reunion in Wisconsin Dells. (Here's a previous post about that place.)

It's been a tourist attraction for as long as there have been such things in the U.S., but particularly since the post-World War II boom. On this trip, I saw what I think are some original silk-screened posters from that era, hanging in the entry to a diner in Lake Delton.

I've omitted the objectionable one(s). 

(Apologies for the glints of light.)

Most of these attractions are still in business. Biblical Gardens and Fort Dells are the exceptions (thank goodness).

I love the exuberant illustration style and color use of these mid-century posters. I'm not sure if its nostalgia, given my age, or if they really are charming.

Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C.

Today, my Facebook feed reminded me that 12 years ago, I was in Washington, D.C. That was during the Obama administration, when there were not armed troops standing around on corners in that city intimidating people, and the president wasn't building monuments to himself without authorization and arresting people for vandalism they didn't do.

Anyway.

I just heard about a case from early May, in which three Idaho National Guard members assaulted a woman who is a retired Army captain (with a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star to her credit) — on her own property. (NPR story here.) She was sitting on a bench below the windows of her home. She had a banner hanging in or on a window that read "National Guard Stop Being So Embarrassing."

The whole thing was captured on her Ring doorbell camera. 

Their supervisor(s) says that she was "approached...because she was suspected of assaulting a guard member two days earlier." That doesn't account for their behavior afterward. Approaching someone is not wrestling them to the ground and putting zip ties on them. And of course it will turn out there is no evidence of this supposed assault.

The retired captain is suing the Idaho Guard for $3 million dollars. Her attorneys are the same ones who recently won the case of the guy who was following other Guard members around D.C. while playing the Imperial March music from Star Wars. 

I wonder how those Idaho guys are liking their new long-term stay accommodations. Better than hotel rooms, I bet.
 

Three Tabs

Here are a couple of things I found in recent days that I recommend. They never made it into tabs, but I'm putting them in the Too Many Tabs category because they were open windows on my phone. 

You are with resistance politics or you are against resistance politics: Opposing fascism isn't going to make you feel cool. Get over it. From Bad Faith Times by LunchCounterPunch. "This arrangement of words – 'woke became too cringe' – is an insult, not an idea; a facile fabrication of a commentariat that is all hedge masquerading as edge. There’s not even a lie here. It’s nonsense as a first principle."

Purple Air is the place to go when you suddenly see smoke in your local sky. The air quality number that shows up in your weather app is a 12-hour average, so it's pretty much useless when things are changing quickly. Purple Air, on the other hand, is a map that lets you zoom to your location and shows you the most recent 10 minutes of data from nearby air quality monitors. A handy thing to know about these days.

We don’t have a culture of convenience in North America. We have a CULT of convenience.
And you can tell the difference by what happens when you question it. By Cody Littlefield on Medium. "Watch what actually draws anger, because it isn’t lawbreaking. Speeding is a crime, and it is completely unremarkable. Every one of us has done it this month. People are rarely shouted at from a truck window for doing it. Cycling is entirely legal, and it is enraging to the believer."   

Anti-Recommendations

I am deeply rankled when multiple people recommend a book to me — even highly recommend it — and then I don't like it. Especially if I dislike it pretty intensely. 

This has happened to me twice in the past six months. The two books were This Is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone (2019) and Severance by Ling Ma (2018).  

For the first, even though I am a long-time science fiction reader who's able to catch on to the arcanities inherent in far-future world-building, I never felt any connection with the characters or interest in the story that the author was trying to create.

In the second (which I just finished today), while it's wrapped in a post-apocalyptic shell, it's really just a little pile of 20-something New York City navel-gazing with a literary sheen. I kept waiting for it to pay off, but it never did. (Most people on GoodReads liked it, but one commenter who did not said it well: "Who knew that a book about a fever outbreak crippling civilization could be SO dull?")

Thank goodness both of these books were short because I ended up feeling as though each was a waste of time.