Hugging as a protest tactic

As confrontations between neo-Nazi and white supremacists continue at various locations around the country, there was an interesting moment at the most recent one at the University of Florida where counter-protestors vastly outnumbered the neo-Nazis. For some reason, a white skinhead walked right into a crowd of counter-protestors and initially there was a fight where he was punched. But then this burly black guy enveloped the skinhead in a bear hug, holding him tightly and repeatedly saying “Give me a hug!”
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It’s all a game for these people

This Saturday Night Live clip about Anderson Cooper and Kelly Anne Conway show how these talk show are just ritualized show busness, like professional wrestling, where each player knows what role they are to play. Conway knows that she has to say wild and crazy things in defense of Trump while Cooper’s role is to feed her opportunities to do so. In this way, CNN’s ratings go up and Trump’s fans are pleased.

Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart give Trump equal time

Donald Trump hates it when others look down on him and it is clear that Rex Tillerson calling him a moron rankles deeply. In an interview, Trump challenges Tillerson to an IQ test, which is the kind of response one has come to expect from this man-child. But it is interesting how Trump worded it: “I think it’s fake news, but if he did that, I guess we’ll have to compare IQ tests. And I can tell you who is going to win.” (My italics)
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Stephen Colbert on Trump being called a moron

He has a lot of fun with the Tillerson story. I really wonder how long the Trump-Tillerson relationship can last, now that the latter did not unequivocally deny that he called Trump a “fucking moron”. Even someone as self-absorbed as Trump has to realize that Tillerson did call him that. I think that unless Trump fires him, Tillerson will stay until he has completed a year in office so as to avoid a tax bill, because these people love money the most. It may happen that Trump, out of spite, fires Tillerson before the year is up just to have him pay the tax, unless being fired lets Tillerson off the hook.
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Exploiting the credibility of science

As a result of science’s great achievements in giving us reliable and accurate knowledge, it has tremendous credibility. Unfortunately, that increase in credibility has not been matched by a corresponding increase in the public’s awareness of how science acquires that knowledge and the limitations on it. This makes it possible to dazzle people with ‘science’.
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