I'm Rubber, You're Glue

Once again, a pretty low-key day around our house yesterday.

I spent the morning reading a long article in The New Yorker about Larry Gagosian. This is a good example of how The New Yorker gets me interested in things that I would otherwise gloss over completely. I always like a good painting but I know nothing about the world of art dealing, which is certainly not my world. I've seen Gagosian's name in magazines and newspapers for years but he isn't someone whose career I have followed. But darned if that article wasn't very interesting!

All it takes is a good writer, really. As we say in the world of journalism, there are no boring stories -- only boring reporters.

I also caught up with my daily dose of right-wing media. You know that crazy woman who was charged with threatening the Trump judge in DC? Well, the right-wing media -- at least the site I read, which shall remain nameless -- have decided that she is a government agent. Or possibly "antifa."

This is how the right-wingers respond when one of their number does something so egregiously embarrassing and wrong that they can't justify it. They disavow that person completely and switch them into the "deep state" column. They've also done this with a white supremacist organization called the Patriot Front, which they insist is actually composed of FBI agents.

And it's what they've done with George W. Bush. The Iraq war was such a shambles that they have decided that Bush, Dick Cheney and their cohort are not true Republicans or conservatives at all. They are actually members of the "uniparty" -- the Democrat and mainstream Republican alliance that allegedly controls the country on behalf of the globalist puppetmasters. In other words, because the right-wingers can't defend Iraq (despite the fact that it was a campaign created by the right), they basically blame it on the DEMOCRATS! And Democrats were voices in opposition to the Iraq war at the time (although admittedly some in Congress ultimately voted for it). Certainly no one I knew in my largely Democratic circles was in favor of it.

This denialism is equal parts fascinating and infuriating. It's like telling your little brother he's wrong only to have him respond, like Pee-Wee Herman, "I know you are but what am I?"

The Trumpian populists are right to be critical of the power structure -- the bankers, the corporations, the CEOs, the "Rich Men North of Richmond" (although many of them are actually south of Richmond -- in Palm Beach, for example). What's frustrating is the populists have equated all those people with Democrats. As has often been pointed out, Donald Trump is a prime example of a wealthy guy whose sympathies hardly lie with the working man -- and yet they've hitched their wagon to him. It's upside-down world.

Anyway, all my friends say to me of my right-wing media indulgence, "How can you stand to read that drivel?" But I think it's valuable to know what the opposition is thinking and how they argue their case. So every day I dip into right-wing news and survey the scene. As long as I read it with a gimlet eye and keep in mind that none of it is actually true, it can be quite illuminating.

Olga didn't even want a walk! I took her up to the high street and back, and that was about it. She was content to lie around the garden while I read. Sometimes we need a day of rest, particularly when we're 80 in dog years.

Can you see how huge the burdock behind her has grown? The leaves are as big as she is!

(Top photo: A fly on verbena in our garden.)