overtone

Twenty or thirty years late. The Republican Party did not die in 2016. It was dead as a legitimate political Party when it impeached Clinton, if not before. It was a corpse - as a legit Party - when it nominated W for the Presidency, rigged key voting districts and the Supreme Court to hand him the office. This isn't a surprise, a shock, a new thing in the public arena. Donald Trump is saying nothing that Rush Limbaugh wasn't saying in 1994, he's not a whit nuttier in his positions than Ronald Reagan was in 1980. Trump is unusually vulgar, like the hate radio and Fox punditry and PAC tactics that threw him up, but he's otherwise an ordinary Republican politician. (Trump's economics make more sense than Reagan's voodoo, actually, and when Ronnie stood up on his hind legs and defended US support of death squads in Central America - yes, they tortured, and under US guidance and supervision as well as support - his invocation of the terrorist risk from the fanatic agents of Communism so close to the US border in Nicaragua was as fantastically delusional as anything Trump is putting out there. ) From the Reich link: "I, for one, regret its passing. Our nation needs political parties to connect up different groups of Americans, sift through prospective candidates, deliberate over priorities, identify common principles, and forge a platform - - - - But there was always enough of a Republican Party to do these important tasks – to span the divides, give force and expression to a set of core beliefs, and come up with a candidate around whom Party regulars could enthusiastically rally." Robert, Robert - bless your warm and kindly heart replacing the spotlight of history with the glow of nostalgia, but the Republican Party has not been operating like that since the last time you raided the change jar for laundry quarters. That's not how Nixon won the Presidency, that's not how Reagan or W came to power in that Party, that's not where Spiro Agnew and Dan Quayle and Dick Cheney and Sara Palin came from, that's not the Party taking its marching orders from Karl Rove and Frank Lunz and Newt Gingrich and the Kochs/Adelmans of this world.

And they used the rally monkey image from the Angels baseball team - very low ethical standards, there.

I would be much less bothered if I thought the Republican Party actually represented the citizens of the United States. That would be simple justice - the citizens getting what they deserved, good and hard. No complaints. Happytalk about Democracy is no excuse for the current Republican Party.

So? Of course one wouldn't expect people who have lost their collective mind to respond to any such approach. They aren't getting any big picture concepts from the Left. They aren't getting anything from the Left. They wouldn't know what the Left was if it was actually signing their Social Security checks "from the Left". No, they aren't. And their media pundits are not going to just have a change of heart one day. Have you been following where these people are getting their news? Listening to their media pundits? It's not a "vent", it's journalism. And if it isn't happening, it's the journalists who should be called out. Having the entire body of the news media ignoring the craziness of the current Republican Party, and treating the rise of fascism to power in this country with respect as a legitimate political ideology, is dangerous, and should be called out. Trying to be specific about where somebody like Mike Huckabee or Jeb Bush or Ted Cruz could "help" is a complete waste of time, unless you specify the planet on which you expect that to happen. They are not, however, "specifically good" people. For example, you're right about those buttons being white and black - yep. And I'm not interested in getting their respect - I'm interested in minimizing their influence on my government. Look: if you think these people are reacting against being confronted and criticized, you are taking their whining and claims of persecution way too seriously. They have not been confronted, not been criticized, not been forced to account for themselves at all. These people have been mollycoddled for forty years, treated with respect for doing and saying stuff no adult should have to put up with from a two year old. They're spoiled, not persecuted. These are tantrums, not grievances. These people are, as Matt Taibbi documented so thoroughly last election, completely full of shit. And it's partly because they have never faced consequences for their behavior, delivered by the people they abuse. Insistence that they need mental help would be directed at those capable of providing it, not the crazy themselves. Meanwhile, if you think they are going to be paying any attention to reason you haven't been paying attention to them. How would they find out about it? The good news is, this is 27% of the electorate. They can be isolated, and stepped on, democratically - the longer you postpone, the harder it will get. Once we had to fight a Civil War. Once we had to endure a Great Depression kicking their teeth in. Once we had to call in the National Guard so that their neighbors's children could go to school - through a gauntlet of these "generally good" people spitting and screaming. Those were consequences of letting things go and hoping they would see reason in small, palatable chunks. They won't.

To deny their role in causing their problems, they have been forced farther and farther into hallucination, farther and farther from a reality that will not - out of courtesy, say - ever become a different reality, and cease its progress away from them. The progress of the entire juggernaut of crazy depends on amnesia, forgetting the past in order to mistake the direction and deny the destination. The only caveat here is that this is not recent: Trump is just Limbaugh running for office, Gingrich with no political obligations, Coulter with a fat ass and better makeup - Limbaugh has been the central and most significant Republican intellectual since 1992, Gingrich got this monster on its feet in 1994, Coulter has been the best selling Republican hit man for twenty years now. What's the difference between that and losing one's mind? Losing one's footing in reality and losing one's mind are the same thing. We now have essentially every single pundit on the major media doing the "both sides" whackdance on this stage, trying to find some way to fit Donald Trump into a play about sane and competent adults belonging to a legitimate political Party democratically governing a major industrial power according to a commendable set of values, and it's becoming clear that what started in tragedy is going to end - as foreshadowed by Ronald "Quotes" Reagan and spotlit by Sara "Winks" Palin - in farce. This isn't anything new, folks. This is the incoming Republican political world since 1968, the power takeover of 1980, the consolidation of 1994, the consummation of 2000 (remember the giddy celebration of W's win that year? The fireworks and chestbeating of Mission Accomplished? How much fun it was to call all those whiny liberals "traitors" before they turned out to be, once again, right? You can still find the remnants on Youtube).

Lizards - crocodiles and Komodo dragons and possibly others - act so as to intentionally deceive prey. So lizard level intelligence is enough. Whether or not they know they are lying, what exactly self-knowledge of lying comprises, is one of those questions.

It's important to realize that this current scene is not a recent development - the takeover of the Republican Party by the manipulated and deranged tools of this American faction that shall not be named dates back to before Palin sent it up the flagpole on national TV, before "Jeff Gannon" was installed as a Republican approved journalist with White House press credentials and 24 hour access, before Cheney installed a private safe in his VP office and blocked subpoena attempts to investigate its contents, before the famously discourteous and philandering Newt Gingrich used his Speaker position to shut down the US government for weeks over Presidential snubs and Presidential adultery, even before Reagan gutted the economy giving tax cuts to the rich while overseeing the setup of a black market arms and cocaine smuggling operation in the lower office levels of the White House: It goes back to 1964, when a Democratic President set out to enforce the Constitutional guarantees of civil rights and civil liberties to black people in the former Confederacy. That opened the door to gathering the formerly distributed white fundies and bigots into one Party, and backing them with the serious money.

Height to voice is not a simple pitch relationship: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/12/131207-sounds-voices-height-tall-short-science-health/ Male voices that can produce 80 Hz tones are common - I can, for example, normally sing a low D (one note below a standard pitch guitar's bass string), which is about 73 - 74 Hz. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_key_frequenciesAnd I do not have a notably deep voice - a bit deeper than average, only.

It looked familiar to me from a time when I was dealing with the mathematics of ecology and epidemiology - similar stuff would turn up in the middle of models.

I'm sorry to hear that. I won't be completing the set, then - I did in fact set "Snuff" aside, permanently.

"Plainwater" Ann Carson "Snuff" - The last book of the Discworld series, Terry Pratchett. The Carson book may be (after future rereading and thought, which it deserves) the latest addition to my short shelf of "solos"; ( criteria: uniquely inspired, strange or weird, slim and concise, very well written in English, and elegant. Typical members: "Grendel", "Far Tortuga", Leguin's "Tao Te Ching", "The Miner's Pale Children", Rubin's "Principles of Mathematical Analysis", Shakespeare's "Sonnets".) It's a compilation of a couple of compilations of short quasi-essays, or possibly near-poems, or muse-addled journal/travelogue entries. It fits in my hip pocket, and enchants. The Pratchett book I began to read to complete the set, expecting and finding bad news, with a heavy heart as they say. I doubt I will finish it, on principle. By the numbers, it's many people's first or only encounter with his stuff, and that's a shame - this is not the book people should remember as Terry Pratchett's work. There is a dark fascination in comparing it with his earlier writing, and the differences are not at all what I expected - instead of simpler, less dense in jokes, less layered and allusive, confused or burdened with holes in plot, he became wordy and thorough and more completely descriptive. The jokes are still there, and in essence as fun and clever and complicated as ever - but now they are set up and laid out at length, repeated for emphasis, even explained. The characters deliver their thinking in speeches, or have it described to us in detail. The reader is not trusted to pick up on things, catch a hint. He shows as of old, but then he goes on to tell, in case we missed something. In a sense it reads like a draft of one of his books - it's easy to imagine him removing about a third of the prose on any given page, tightening things up, and getting to the real Pratchett pace - but the trouble goes deeper: he has lost track of his characters. Fans of Pratchett will know what is implied by this example: he has Sam Vimes bragging and boasting. I was almost wanting to cry, when it occurred to me that the backstory might be calming: it's possible that Pratchett did not write all this stuff. He had help, toward the end, and in addition to being unable to edit as masterfully as Pratchett himself they may have padded his prose. That would explain a lot.

He's to the right of Nixon and Eisenhower, as well - in his actual legislative and executive efforts and initiatives , certainly, and generally in his rhetoric as well. (TPP, EPA and similar agency policies, Romneycare without a public option, private military contracting and mercenary involvement in war, bank and financial industry regulation, Social Security and Medicare "reform", etc etc etc). The Republican Party officials and major national figures, nominees, etc, are mainstream. Sarah Palin is not a fringe figure. Neither is Scott Walker, or Donald Trump. The neo-Confederates are not on the edge of the Republican Party - they are essential and dominant constituents of its base, its core political strength. Fox News is mainstream, middle of the road, standard US political propaganda - their vocabulary and framing of issues are adopted by all major "news" media.

The Republican Party invited the KKK faction of the US population into its ranks in 1968; they accepted, and they have been Republicans ever since. They are Republicans , and the Republican Party represents them in Congress - right now, and for the past fifty years. If the Republican Party wants to avoid the stink and shame of them, it needs to clean house. It won't, because it would never win another national election again - the heirs of the Klan (Birchers, Tea Party, "conservatives") are its electoral base.

The KKK faction has been allied with the Republican Party in US national politics since 1968. Lyndon Johnson drove them out of the Democratic Party, Nixon welcomed them into the Republican Party. Forty seven years now. They've been calling themselves the "Tea Party" lately - check 'em out: http://aattp.org/20-of-the-most-racist-teapublican-political-signs/ The Republican Party evicted Lincoln, and became the Party of Jefferson Davis, almost fifty years ago.

Confined to heterosexual, for a minute: Men looking at naked women are being presented with sexual opportunity, in appearance. Women looking at naked men are not, usually - they have to identify as being in the scene, project themselves, to be in that apparent situation. A man is not sexually available to a woman unless he is aroused by her. So the equivalent erotic visual for a woman, to compare with a simply naked woman for a man, would be an aroused and intent naked man focused on her, apparently aroused by her. If you are just showing pictures of the same stuff to men and women, you aren't comparing apples to apples, from temptation's pov.