A young cosmopolitan such as I did not need the foreign terms explained. When well-meaning people tried to tell me that the “Cookie Monster” was equivalent to a “Biscuit Monster”, or that the “trash can” in which Oscar the Grouch resided was the same as a dustbin, I responded, with some hauteur, that I already knew these things. There was, however, one thing that I did not understand about Sesame Street, and that was why on earth at some point in every episode the announcer would say something along the lines of, “Today’s show is brought to you by the letter P and the number 6”.
Oh well. I liked the puppets.
I remain a fan of the letter P and the number 6. But when it comes to the American media I consume nowadays, I no longer like the puppets.
Oh, I can sympathise a little with the American newspapers for dutifully hastening to parrot every Word of the Week that the Harris campaign gives them. It is human nature to follow the herd. Although, as Glenn Greenwald put it in this tweet, “Not even herd animals are this flagrant about it. You tell me how and why corporate media constantly speaks from the same exact script this way, verbatim.” “Not happiness, not glee, not delight, not jubilation.” The cue card says JOY.
Until Kamala’s JOY expires and the next card comes up. The next card is Donald Trump’s dress sense, or lack of it.
As I said, I can understand, if not admire, the obedience of the American press. But why do British newspapers feel the need to immediately follow suit in complying with the “TRUMP’S SUITS” order?
Cue the Telegraph: The meaning behind Trump’s ill-fitting suits
Cue the Guardian: Donald Trump’s weird clothes: from shoulder pads to extremely long ties, what do they mean?
A great deal of the ‘stories’ in our local press are often warmed over press releases and product launches. They are no longer news, they are repackaged opinions. It’s a lot easier to fill column inches/pixels with content prepared by others – it doesn’t even need to be true, just eye catching.
So it is no surprise to me that American news ‘stories’ are just warmed over ‘talking points’ from the press corps of the political machines. You can argue to what degree the Presidential candidates are just tailor’s dummies to hang the latest clothes upon. Clothes that are fashionable for a week or so unless they catch on with the public and resonate over a longer period.
So… will “Two Tier” stick?
Between Kammi and the press, it’s Mean Girls all the way down.
I thought the Donald sounded a bit down in his conversation with the Elon. Hardly surprising. He is only human. They tried to kill him last month. He dodged death by an inch or less. His survival was random. Everyone who was meant to protect him failed, or did not try.
After the assassination attempt, I think he was running on adrenalin for a while, but now I think the reality has hit him. They tried to bankrupt him. They tried to gaol him. Now they tried to kill him. All for having the temerity to run for president, which is the right of every natural born American. He knew the deep state was bad, but they haven’t been quite this blatant since 22nd November 1963. He must be wondering, if he is elected, how long has he got?
A republic if you can keep it? Trump can be forgiven for a hollow laugh at that.
Trumps’s dress is kinda ’80s. Mine is kinda ’90s. People are like that. Donald Trump’s dress-sense is, I’d say, poor, but is that a matter of relevance? I think not. I do think Harris is much more stylish in what she wears but again that matters nothing either. It is a truly bizarre discussion which so misses any relevant point that I do wonder…
Oh, I agree. Harris looks great and dresses sharply. Time was when feminists looked forward to the day when we would move beyond assessing political candidates by how good looking they were and whether their clothes were cool.
Trump’s clothes look odd because he’s wearing body armour, as his would be assassin was apparently aware. If Trump were not, and the shooter gone for center of mass he would have succeeded.
Not so long ago, people in the US read British news, and vice versa, to get the stories their own press wasn’t telling. Seems the political machines are on to this now.
The media, including the supposedly conservative Daily Telegraph – at least in its American coverage (NOT in other coverage), has become an echo chamber for the left. They all run with the same stories (taken from a couple of news agencies) and spin them the same way. The “mainstream media” being made up of “educated” people – and modern “education” being about absorbing and repeating back “Progressive” doctrines, on economic and social (cultural) matters – and never fundamentally questioning them.
I was late (very late – so people such as Dr Sean Gabb were quite correct in gently mocking me for being obtuse when it came to the systematic bias of the media) in really seeing this – for example in 2008 I was still trying to interest publications supposedly interested in finding out the truth, in the Marxist background of Barack Obama – not “just” his parents and mentors (although even that is hardly “irrelevant” – how many candidates for President of the United States had Marxist parents and Marxist mentors in their youth? well K. Harris does – but it used to be unusual for a candidate for President of the United States to have a Marxist background) but also his own personal Marxist activities – both as a student in California and then New York and then with other Marxists as an adult activist in Chicago. The Economist magazine was totally uninterested in the information that many people (it was certainly not just me – I could understand if it was just me, but it was many people) gave them.
Just as they were uninterested in the real background to the 2008 financial crash, a publication supposedly about economics utterly uninterested in the Credit Money expansion that led to the crash – this was baffling. Even when books were written explaining the background to the crash, the Credit Money expansion, the Economist and other “mainstream” publications made a point of NOT reviewing these books – they just carried on demanding “hair of the dog” policies – yet more Credit Money dished out to the banks and other corporations (an economy presented as “capitalist” – but really based on Credit Money created by the government and pet banks – NOT the “consumer sovereignty”, as W.H. Hutt called it, of real capitalism – not based on cash-money, Real Savings – the actual sacrifice of consumption by Real Savers, and consumer choice).
Slowly, painfully, I was forced to the conclusion that the “mainstream media”, not just the Economist magazine, were not interested in reporting the truth – even when it was handed to them on a plate, so it was not just a question of them being too lazy to go and find out the truth.
They follow an agenda, on various matters, and they will not let facts get in the way of that “Progressive” agenda of international “governance”. A system of international governance based on public-private partnership of governments and banks and other vast corporations.
“That is NOT Marxism” – no that is indeed not Marxism, it is more like the form of Collectivism pushed by Henri Saint-Simon two centuries ago, or like “Fascism” (the Corporate State) pushed by Mussolini and others in the 20th century – although on an international basis (WEF and so on) NOT a national basis. But it is still totalitarian – and utterly vile.
Media groupthink is remarkable. About 25 years ago I worked for a UK business magazine and got some extra pay by reading all the Sunday broadsheets plus the Express & Mail to check for stories about the industry my magazine focused on.
Going through the papers I was always struck by how much of the content was more or less the same. The travel/fashion/arts/lifestyle articles always followed the same trends/performers/creators. Much of it was clearly written from the same press releases. That seems to have spread much wider today.
Marius – yes indeed.
Speaking of joy, Trump and Musk give it their best shot while Stayin’ Alive:
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1823742501884453312
A biscuit is not a cookie. Have you ever eaten a cookie? A cookie is soft, a biscuit is hard – as per the word “biscuit” – baked twice. A cookie bends, a biscuit snaps.
If the Dems want to concentrate on Trump’s appearance I would have thought that his somewhat bizarre hair would be of more interest than his choice of suits.
On the Mainstream Media just forwarding press releases and reposting stuff off the web. It always reminds me of the Life Of Brian where there is a guy with a table outside the stoning who is selling stones despite the fact that there are stones lying around everywhere.
They do know that JOY can also be spelled JOI (Jerk Off Instruction), which is a perfect description of the Media-Harris Campaign circle jerk
Stonyground – most men have grey hair at the age of 78, and I think that President Trump was right to allow the greyness to show.
As for the length of his hair – it has always been fairly long. It is thinning now – but he still has vastly more hair than I do (I am bald – as half of men are by my age).
JB – quite so Sir.
In re: Trump’s ties, I would like to point out that he regularly wears them, unlike Barack and Joe.
Bad Suit Man Bad
I expect nonsense, indeed evil nonsense, from the Guardian.
But, even after so many examples of them doing it, I am still disappointed when the Telegraph goes down this road.
jgh, as a native speaker of American English (which I think is relevant since we’re talking about the Cookie Monster, who hails from the US), for us a cookie can be chewy, crunchy, or in-between. They are all cookies here. Sounds like UK English makes more distinctions…?
In the US, a biscuit is a savory dough concoction similar to a muffin, to which one usually adds butter and some sort of sweet topping (honey, jam, etc).
Similar to, but quite distinct from, a scone.
Ferox:
Except, of course, for dog biscuits. 😉
Sesame Street was always about teaching kids to watch TV. Little more.
Oscar is an appropriate mascot. Garbage show.
However odd Trump’s appearance, who the f**k cares? OK, Ms Harris is quite smart (and she is an attractive woman, it cannot be denied, even if you dislike her views as much as I do).
Dress sense, call it what you will, has its place. I like elected people to look smart and sharp because I hope they think and act in a smart way, but there’s no real guarantee of that. Maggie Thatcher was always well turned out, and she insisted that her colleagues made an effort. OTOH, President Milei of Argentina looks a bit scruffy, and he’s got those 70s sideburns going on, but he’s a devotee of Ludwig von Mises, so there’s that.
Tony Blair was often smart, and we all know what happened there. John Major was reasonably smart, but having spoken to him, I get the impression that he’s not an especially nice individual.
Churchill was chubby, with his waistcoat and bow tie, but he helped save the West; De Gaulle was tall and had that grandeur, that few politicians today can match. Sir Robert Peel, with this smart jackets, waistcoat and shirts with the high collar, was very stylish, and a great statesman.
Johnathan Pearce.
Donald J. Trump has always gone for Italian suits and shoes (rather the fashion in New York in the 1960s – when English style tailoring was considered a bit old fashioned) – that served him well as a young man, but perhaps not so much now he is not young. The sort of suit a man of 28 can wear can look a bit off on a man of 78 – although, oddly enough, it does not work the other way round (a man of 28 can happily wear an “old man’s suit” and look fine in it). It is a fairly minor dispute between Italian and English tailoring – including the sort of cloth used. English cloth would not crease so easily – but would be hotter to wear.
In the Middle Ages there were arguments over suits – but then it was suits of armour, basically Italian (Milan), Gothic (a bit odd looking to my eyes – but some people love them), or English style. The most advanced suits of armour were English under Henry VIII – they had no gaps at all, no where to put a rondel dagger in (they were even studied by NASA – specifically the articulation of the joints, for space suits) – but the were insanely expensive, and muskets made them obsolete anyway.
It is true that K. Harris was attractive to Mayor Willie Brown of San Francisco and traded sex for political advancement, but at least she did NOT do what so many Hollywood women did to Harvey Weinstein – scream “rape” when he was not useful to them any more.
Mr Weinstein was a life long Progressive Democrat – but when he was not useful to the Clintons (and so on) any more, they flung him under the bus – and the American media acted as a pack (as it always does). During the trial the media (television and print) all put down their pens and other equipment when the lawyer of Mr Weinstein read out the letters to him from women he supposedly raped, the letters were all written after the alleged events yet were filled with fawning affection, and little reminders of the parts in films and television he had promised them. Everything from the Prosecution was recorded and lovingly repeated – but the defence was ignored (the jury got the message).
When he was useful to them, the ladies “loved” him – when he was no longer useful the old leftist sex fiend was off to prison. Perhaps I should not care – after all he is a leftist, an ENEMY, but I hate crooked courts (which means I am not a fan of modern American, or British, courts).
At least K. Harris did not do that to Willie Brown.
Watching the Democrat Convention in Chicago shows how “weird” (to use their favourite word) these hate filled serial liars are.
They used to hide their evil – for example at one Convention (quite some years ago now) the delegates booed and screamed abuse at Boy Scouts (yes Boy Scouts) because, back then, the Boy Scout movement did not allow homosexual scout masters (for obvious reasons)- the Democrat delegates hated that, how dare people not allow little boys to be sodomised! The media had to work very hard to cover up the behaviour of the Democrat delegates. The American media has two main functions – to lie, and (even more important) to cover up the truth.
Now they do not really bother in relation to the Democrat Convention – the vicious evil of the people at the Convention is openly on display with very little effort to hide it. Perhaps they think that the education system and the media (including the entertainment media) have done their work – and that tens of millions of people in the country are just like them.
And perhaps they are correct in thinking that.
The people at the Convention openly support such things as the sexual mutilation of children – where do they go from there, how do they “top” that?
At the Convention of 2028 will there be human sacrifices? People having their hearts cut out with the delegates screaming “Hail Satan!”? As the media dance and applaud.
Hopefully I will not be around to see it.
A point I feel the need to make:
Homosexuality/heterosexuality – virtually no correlation to rates of pedophilia. Lots more straight pedos than gay ones. Almost exactly mirroring the proportion of gay/straight men.
I was a Boy Scout Assistant Scoutmaster for years as my boys went through the program. We had a couple of gay guys also in leadership. Never an issue, never a fear.
(Of course, there were some parents who were scandalized by that, and several removed their sons. Their loss.)
((ETA: It was the addition of girls – and women leaders – that ultimately did the BSA in. Boys need men.))
bobby b – the Boy Scouts of America adopted the ideology the Progressives demanded it adopt (which, YES, was broader than homosexuality – it covered many things, such as girl boy scouts and female boy scout leaders), and, by so doing so – it destroyed itself.
Go Woke – Go Broke.