newyorker--2020-02-19--The Political Scientist Hélène Landemore on Open Democracy

Imagine being a citizen of a diverse , wealthy , democratic nation filled with eager leaders .
At least once a year—in autumn , say—it is your right and civic duty to go to the polls and vote .
Imagine that , in your country , this act is held to be not just an important task but an essential one ; the government was designed at every level on the premise of democratic choice .
If nobody were to show up to vote on Election Day , the superstructure of the country would fall apart .
So you try @ @ @ @ @ @ @ best to stay informed .
When Election Day arrives , you make the choices that , as far as you can discern , are wisest for your nation .
Then the results come with the morning news , and your heart sinks .
In one race , the candidate you were most excited about , a reformer who promised to clean up a dysfunctional system , lost to the incumbent , who had an understanding with powerful organizations and ultra-wealthy donors .
Another politician , whom you voted into office last time , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , instead making decisions in lockstep with her party and against the polls .
She was reëlected , apparently with her party ’ s help .
There is a notion , in your country , that the democratic structure guarantees a government by the people .
And yet , when the votes are tallied , you feel that the process is set up to favor interests other than the people ’ s own .
What corrective routes are open ?
One might wish for pure direct democracy—no body of elected representatives , each @ @ @ @ @ @ @ policies , laws , and acts abroad .
But this seems like a nightmare of majoritarian tyranny and procedural madness : How is anyone supposed to haggle about specifics and go through the dialogue that shapes constrained , durable laws ?
Another option is to focus on influencing the organizations and business interests that seem to shape political outcomes .
But that approach , with its lobbyists making backroom deals , goes against the promise of democracy .
Campaign-finance reform might clean up abuses .
But it would do nothing to insure that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be receptive to hearing and acting on your thoughts .
The scholar Hélène Landemore , a professor of political science at Yale , has spent much of her career trying to understand the value and meaning of democracy .
In recent years , she has been part of a group of academics , many of them young , trying to solve the problem of elected democratic representation—addressing flaws in a system that is widely believed to be no problem at all .
In her book “ Democratic Reason : Politics , Collective Intelligence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” ( Princeton , 2012 ) , she challenged the idea that leadership by the few was superior to leadership by the masses .
Her forthcoming book , due out next year and currently titled “ Open Democracy : Reinventing Popular Rule for the 21st Century , ” envisions what true government by mass leadership could look like .
Her model is based on the simple idea that , if government by the people is a goal , the people ought to do the governing .
“ Open democracy , ” Landemore ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ elections of professional politicians into representative roles .
Leadership is instead determined by a method roughly akin to jury duty ( not jury selection ) : every now and then , your number comes up , and you ’ re obliged to do your civic duty—in this case , to take a seat on a legislative body .
For a fixed period , it is your job to work with the other people in the unit to solve problems and direct the nation .
When your term is up , you leave office @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and work .
“ It ’ s the idea of putting randomly selected citizens into political power , or giving them some sort of political role on a consultative body or a citizens ’ assembly , ” said Alexander Guerrero , a professor of philosophy at Rutgers who , in 2014 , published an influential paper arguing for random selection in place of elections—a system with some precedents in ancient Athens and Renaissance Italy which he dubbed “ lottocracy.
” ( It ’ s the basis for his own forthcoming book . )
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ rule combined with crowdsourced feedback channels and other measures ; the goal is to shift power from the few back to the many .
To many Americans , such a system will seem viscerally alarming—the political equivalent of lending your fragile vintage convertible to the red-eyed , rager-throwing seventeen-year-old down the block .
Yet many immediate objections fall away on reflection .
Training and qualification : Well , what about them ?
Backgrounds among American legislators are varied , and members seem to learn well enough on the job .
The belief that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , too , cancels out , since none of the skills tested in campaigning ( fund-raising , glad-handing , ground-gaming , speechmaking ) are necessary in a government that fills its ranks by lottery .
Some people might worry about commitment and continuity—the idea that we are best served by a motivated group of political professionals who bring experience and relationships to bear .
Historically , such concerns haven ’ t weighed too heavily on the electorate , which seems to have few major reservations about choosing outsiders and weirdos for important roles @ @ @ @ @ @ @ taken as a salve , then maybe it ’ s the institutions that require adjustment .
Landemore ’ s open-democratic model purports to work with the people as they are , with no reacculturation or special education required—and its admirers describe the idea as being durable , sophisticated , and able to channel populist sentiment for good .
“ Democratic governments are losing perceived legitimacy all over the world , ” Jane Mansbridge , a professor of political leadership and democratic values at Harvard ’ s Kennedy School of Government , told me @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is that it has a firm understanding not just of the complexity of democratic principles but of how to make those principles cohere in a way that meets people ’ s deepest intuitions.
” She sees it as an apt response to population-sized problems , such as climate change , that seem to require solutions more pervasive and willful than professionalized leadership can muster .
“ Landemore is very much on the side of all the young people in the world who are saying , ‘ How the heck are we going to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Landemore herself would point to the last U.S. Presidential election—a contest between two candidates so unpopular with the people as to have the lowest approval ratings in the history of American Presidential races .
Roughly four in ten eligible voters did not bother to show up at the polls , and Donald Trump was elected against the will of the majority of citizens who did .
Such an outcome seems to strain the premise of democracy .
Could picking leaders randomly , and getting everyone involved , be worse ?
I went @ @ @ @ @ @ @ winter ; newly hardened ice sparkled on branches stretching out over the road .
“ I think I lost five years of life expectancy renovating this place , ” she told me , as I stepped inside the Cape Cod-style house in New Haven where she lives with her husband , Darko Jelaca , an engineer , and their two young daughters .
“ I don ’ t know whether I ’ d do it again.
” We sat at a long dining table in a bright nook .
At forty-three , Landemore @ @ @ @ @ @ @ swept back into a ponytail ; she wore a checked flannel button-down , jeans , and Ugg boots .
She grew up in a village in France ’ s flinty Normandy region , and came to Paris at eighteen , with stars in her eyes , to take a spot at the élite Henri IV prep school .
She ended up at the École Normale Supérieure , which channels brilliant young people toward a distinctly Gallic strait of glamorized intellectualism .
Landemore ’ s passion then was for philosophy , her interest having @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her teen-age years : Why do the right thing ?
Her parents were atheists ; she ’ d been reared without a faith .
In the absence of a god and mediating clerics , she wondered how we were compelled to make good choices .

Imagine being a citizen of a diverse, wealthy, democratic nation filled with eager leaders. At least once a year—in autumn, say—it is your right and civic duty to go to the polls and vote. Imagine that, in your country, this act is held to be not just an important task but an essential one; the government was designed at every level on the premise of democratic choice. If nobody were to show up to vote on Election Day, the superstructure of the country would fall apart.
So you try to be responsible. You do your best to stay informed. When Election Day arrives, you make the choices that, as far as you can discern, are wisest for your nation. Then the results come with the morning news, and your heart sinks. In one race, the candidate you were most excited about, a reformer who promised to clean up a dysfunctional system, lost to the incumbent, who had an understanding with powerful organizations and ultra-wealthy donors. Another politician, whom you voted into office last time, has failed to deliver on her promises, instead making decisions in lockstep with her party and against the polls. She was reëlected, apparently with her party’s help. There is a notion, in your country, that the democratic structure guarantees a government by the people. And yet, when the votes are tallied, you feel that the process is set up to favor interests other than the people’s own.
What corrective routes are open? One might wish for pure direct democracy—no body of elected representatives, each citizen voting on every significant decision about policies, laws, and acts abroad. But this seems like a nightmare of majoritarian tyranny and procedural madness: How is anyone supposed to haggle about specifics and go through the dialogue that shapes constrained, durable laws? Another option is to focus on influencing the organizations and business interests that seem to shape political outcomes. But that approach, with its lobbyists making backroom deals, goes against the promise of democracy. Campaign-finance reform might clean up abuses. But it would do nothing to insure that a politician who ostensibly represents you will be receptive to hearing and acting on your thoughts.
The scholar Hélène Landemore, a professor of political science at Yale, has spent much of her career trying to understand the value and meaning of democracy. In recent years, she has been part of a group of academics, many of them young, trying to solve the problem of elected democratic representation—addressing flaws in a system that is widely believed to be no problem at all. In her book “Democratic Reason: Politics, Collective Intelligence, and the Rule of the Many” (Princeton, 2012), she challenged the idea that leadership by the few was superior to leadership by the masses. Her forthcoming book, due out next year and currently titled “Open Democracy: Reinventing Popular Rule for the 21st Century,” envisions what true government by mass leadership could look like. Her model is based on the simple idea that, if government by the people is a goal, the people ought to do the governing.
“Open democracy,” Landemore’s coinage, does not center on elections of professional politicians into representative roles. Leadership is instead determined by a method roughly akin to jury duty (not jury selection): every now and then, your number comes up, and you’re obliged to do your civic duty—in this case, to take a seat on a legislative body. For a fixed period, it is your job to work with the other people in the unit to solve problems and direct the nation. When your term is up, you leave office and go back to your normal life and work. “It’s the idea of putting randomly selected citizens into political power, or giving them some sort of political role on a consultative body or a citizens’ assembly,” said Alexander Guerrero, a professor of philosophy at Rutgers who, in 2014, published an influential paper arguing for random selection in place of elections—a system with some precedents in ancient Athens and Renaissance Italy which he dubbed “lottocracy.” (It’s the basis for his own forthcoming book.) In open democracy, Landemore imagines lottocratic rule combined with crowdsourced feedback channels and other measures; the goal is to shift power from the few back to the many.
To many Americans, such a system will seem viscerally alarming—the political equivalent of lending your fragile vintage convertible to the red-eyed, rager-throwing seventeen-year-old down the block. Yet many immediate objections fall away on reflection. Training and qualification: Well, what about them? Backgrounds among American legislators are varied, and members seem to learn well enough on the job. The belief that elections are a skills-proving format? This, too, cancels out, since none of the skills tested in campaigning (fund-raising, glad-handing, ground-gaming, speechmaking) are necessary in a government that fills its ranks by lottery.
Landemore was taken with the unorthodox idea that normal people, in a group, could be trusted with big, scary decisions.
Some people might worry about commitment and continuity—the idea that we are best served by a motivated group of political professionals who bring experience and relationships to bear. Historically, such concerns haven’t weighed too heavily on the electorate, which seems to have few major reservations about choosing outsiders and weirdos for important roles. If anti-institutionalism has become a poison taken as a salve, then maybe it’s the institutions that require adjustment. Landemore’s open-democratic model purports to work with the people as they are, with no reacculturation or special education required—and its admirers describe the idea as being durable, sophisticated, and able to channel populist sentiment for good.
“Democratic governments are losing perceived legitimacy all over the world,” Jane Mansbridge, a professor of political leadership and democratic values at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, told me. “The beauty of open democracy is that it has a firm understanding not just of the complexity of democratic principles but of how to make those principles cohere in a way that meets people’s deepest intuitions.” She sees it as an apt response to population-sized problems, such as climate change, that seem to require solutions more pervasive and willful than professionalized leadership can muster. “Landemore is very much on the side of all the young people in the world who are saying, ‘How the heck are we going to manage this?’ ” Mansbridge said.
Landemore herself would point to the last U.S. Presidential election—a contest between two candidates so unpopular with the people as to have the lowest approval ratings in the history of American Presidential races. Roughly four in ten eligible voters did not bother to show up at the polls, and Donald Trump was elected against the will of the majority of citizens who did. Such an outcome seems to strain the premise of democracy. Could picking leaders randomly, and getting everyone involved, be worse?
I went to visit Landemore one freezing day this winter; newly hardened ice sparkled on branches stretching out over the road. “I think I lost five years of life expectancy renovating this place,” she told me, as I stepped inside the Cape Cod-style house in New Haven where she lives with her husband, Darko Jelaca, an engineer, and their two young daughters. “I don’t know whether I’d do it again.” We sat at a long dining table in a bright nook. At forty-three, Landemore is tall, with long blond hair swept back into a ponytail; she wore a checked flannel button-down, jeans, and Ugg boots. She grew up in a village in France’s flinty Normandy region, and came to Paris at eighteen, with stars in her eyes, to take a spot at the élite Henri IV prep school. She ended up at the École Normale Supérieure, which channels brilliant young people toward a distinctly Gallic strait of glamorized intellectualism. Landemore’s passion then was for philosophy, her interest having grown from a question that had haunted her teen-age years: Why do the right thing? Her parents were atheists; she’d been reared without a faith. In the absence of a god and mediating clerics, she wondered how we were compelled to make good choices.
Philosophy offered her the first semblance of an answer. In school, she fell in love with the work of David Hume, whose theory of the human passions touched on decision-making, but this path took her only so far. She found herself studying rational-choice theory and taking classes at France’s top political academy, Sciences Po. Until then, Landemore had held no real interest in politics. (Her earliest ambition was to be a novelist.) But the intersection of the field with social science and decision-making behavior fascinated her, and she arranged a yearlong exchange at Harvard, where she could study rational-choice and game theories in more depth.
She packed up her life in Paris, landed at Boston’s Logan airport, got in a cab, and told the driver to take her to the Harvard campus, expecting him to be impressed by the fancy address. “I was trained at institutions in France where they tell you, you know, ‘You’re the élite of the country, and it’s a big responsibility,’ and I bought that,” she said. “But he was not impressed at all!”
Instead, they talked about his job. He announced his yearly earnings, which flabbergasted Landemore. (He was doing really well!) She loved the way that American society seemed to be full of egalitarian surprises of this kind, not deferential to old status markers, as French society is. “It really struck me—that you can be a Harvard student on a level playing field with a taxi-driver, in the same way that you can be a millionaire on a level field with a nurse,” she said. “Of course, it’s not true: the money distortions in this country are very problematic, politically and economically. But, on a social level, people behave as if they think it doesn’t matter, and that’s quite remarkable.” It puzzled her that this openness wasn’t better reflected in American institutions.
By that point, Landemore had reached the conclusion that individuals did the right thing basically out of self-interest: to get what they needed, to win respect, and to avoid negative cycles of retribution—incentives that, presumably, carried into their work as leaders. Why groups did the right thing, though, was a trickier, more interesting question. In complex societies, the interests of self-preserving individuals and the interests of big, varied groups aren’t always aligned. It’s obviously a bad idea—for me—to kidnap my next-door neighbor’s golden retriever and put him on a giant hamster wheel to generate electricity for my house. But what if many of us could get a cut in electricity fees by voting for a power plant that kidnaps dogs owned by people we don’t know? Could we, as a group, be relied upon to make the right decision?
That year, in a course at M.I.T., Landemore learned about a probability principle known as Condorcet’s jury theorem, named for the Marquis de Condorcet, who set it down in 1785, not long before being imprisoned by revolutionaries. The theorem says: imagine that there’s a vote between two options, A and B. And imagine that we, the observers, know with godlike certainty that Option A is the better choice. If the odds for each individual voter choosing Option A are more than fifty per cent—that is, if each voter is even slightly better than a flipped coin at choosing correctly—then the chances of the group doing the right thing increase as more people are added.


newyorker--2020-02-19--The Trouble with Donald Trump’s Clemencies and Pardons

Authoritarianism is usually associated with a punitive spirit—a leader who prosecutes and incarcerates his enemies .
But there is another side to this leadership style .
Authoritarians also dispense largesse , but they do it by their own whims , rather than pursuant to any system or legal rule .
The point of authoritarianism is to concentrate power in the ruler , so the world knows that all actions , good and bad , harsh and generous , come from a single source .
That ’ s the real lesson—a story of creeping authoritarianism—of today ’ s commutations and pardons @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sentence of Rod Blagojevich , the former governor of Illinois , who was eight years into a sentence of fourteen years , for various forms of corruption in office .
The President pardoned several other white-collar criminals : Michael Milken , the junk-bond king , who pleaded guilty , in 1990 , to securities violations ; Bernard Kerik , the former New York City police commissioner , who , in 2009 , pleaded guilty to charges of tax fraud and lying to the government ; and Edward J. DeBartolo , Jr. , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , who , in 1998 , pleaded guilty to concealing an extortion attempt .
( Milken and Kerik served time in prison ; DeBartolo was fined a million dollars and suspended for a year by the N.F.L . )
The common link among this group is that all have some personal connection to the President .
Blagojevich was a contestant on “ Celebrity Apprentice , ” and he was prosecuted by Patrick Fitzgerald , a close friend of and lawyer for James Comey , the former F.B.I .
director who is a Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump said of the case against Blagojevich , “ It was a prosecution by the same people—Comey , Fitzpatrick—the same group.
” Milken ’ s annual financial conferences are a favorite meeting place for , among others , Trump ’ s moneyed friends .
( Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner spoke at last year ’ s gathering . )
Milken is also an active philanthropist , as Trump observed : “ We have Mike Milken , who ’ s gone around and done an incredible job for the world , with all of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s done this and he suffered greatly .
He paid a big price , paid a very tough price.
” Trump ’ s explanation for the Kerik pardon is probably the most revealing .
The President said that Kerik is “ a man who had many recommendations from a lot of good people .
You know , oftentimes—pretty much all the time—I really rely on the recommendations of people that know them.
” Kerik was appointed police commissioner by Rudolph Giuliani , who was then the mayor of New York and is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It ’ s safe to assume that Giuliani played a role in Trump ’ s decision to pardon him .
And DeBartolo ’ s cause was championed by a large group of former professional football players , whose favor Trump has often sought .
In short , then , the pardons were entirely personal in origin , and so the granting of them was exclusively an exercise of Trump ’ s own power .
That was their point .
A benevolent leader dispensed favors .
The world will not change much because of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only Blagojevich was still incarcerated .
Some of the others may receive a few minor benefits , such as a restored right to purchase guns legally .
The only cost is the further degradation of the government , moving our system closer to a cult of personality .
In this era of mass incarceration , many people deserve pardons and commutations , but this is not the way to go about it .
All Trump has done is to prove that he can reward his friends and his friends ’ friends .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can punish his enemies , too .

Authoritarianism is usually associated with a punitive spirit—a leader who prosecutes and incarcerates his enemies. But there is another side to this leadership style. Authoritarians also dispense largesse, but they do it by their own whims, rather than pursuant to any system or legal rule. The point of authoritarianism is to concentrate power in the ruler, so the world knows that all actions, good and bad, harsh and generous, come from a single source. That’s the real lesson—a story of creeping authoritarianism—of today’s commutations and pardons by President Trump.
Trump commuted the sentence of Rod Blagojevich, the former governor of Illinois, who was eight years into a sentence of fourteen years, for various forms of corruption in office. The President pardoned several other white-collar criminals: Michael Milken, the junk-bond king, who pleaded guilty, in 1990, to securities violations; Bernard Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner, who, in 2009, pleaded guilty to charges of tax fraud and lying to the government; and Edward J. DeBartolo, Jr., a former owner of the San Francisco 49ers, who, in 1998, pleaded guilty to concealing an extortion attempt.(Milken and Kerik served time in prison; DeBartolo was fined a million dollars and suspended for a year by the N.F.L.)
The common link among this group is that all have some personal connection to the President. Blagojevich was a contestant on “Celebrity Apprentice,” and he was prosecuted by Patrick Fitzgerald, a close friend of and lawyer for James Comey, the former F.B.I. director who is a Trump enemy. Explaining his action today, Trump said of the case against Blagojevich, “It was a prosecution by the same people—Comey, Fitzpatrick—the same group.” Milken’s annual financial conferences are a favorite meeting place for, among others, Trump’s moneyed friends. (Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner spoke at last year’s gathering.) Milken is also an active philanthropist, as Trump observed: “We have Mike Milken, who’s gone around and done an incredible job for the world, with all of his research on cancer, and he’s done this and he suffered greatly. He paid a big price, paid a very tough price.” Trump’s explanation for the Kerik pardon is probably the most revealing. The President said that Kerik is “a man who had many recommendations from a lot of good people. You know, oftentimes—pretty much all the time—I really rely on the recommendations of people that know them.” Kerik was appointed police commissioner by Rudolph Giuliani, who was then the mayor of New York and is now Trump’s personal lawyer. It’s safe to assume that Giuliani played a role in Trump’s decision to pardon him. And DeBartolo’s cause was championed by a large group of former professional football players, whose favor Trump has often sought.
In short, then, the pardons were entirely personal in origin, and so the granting of them was exclusively an exercise of Trump’s own power. That was their point. A benevolent leader dispensed favors. The world will not change much because of these actions; of the four, only Blagojevich was still incarcerated. Some of the others may receive a few minor benefits, such as a restored right to purchase guns legally. The only cost is the further degradation of the government, moving our system closer to a cult of personality. In this era of mass incarceration, many people deserve pardons and commutations, but this is not the way to go about it. All Trump has done is to prove that he can reward his friends and his friends’ friends. The chilling corollary is that he knows he can punish his enemies, too.


My Happy Place

Between work and family and the stresses of modern life , sometimes it feels like you can ’ t even breathe .
But whenever the outside world seems like too much I just close my eyes and go to my happy place , where it never rains and the air smells like daisies .
In my happy place , you can sing in the fields !
And dance in the clouds !
And eat ice cream for every meal !
Granted , there ’ s been a recent uptick in obesity because of the carefree diet .
And the jelly-bean @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Tooth decay is rampant , but who cares ?
You can be whatever you want to be !
You can ride unicorns through the cool night air .
Their manes flutter in the wind , fine as angel hair .
Full disclosure : the unicorns do get aggressive when they hear loud noises , so you ’ ll want to steer clear of the butterscotch waterfall .
Those feral fuckers will bite if they ’ re not Tased .
Around here , no one says mean or hurtful things .
They just write @ @ @ @ @ @ @ your face .
The ocean in my happy place shimmers bright and blue , at least until high tide , when the garbage patch rolls in .
Then it ’ s all diapers and energy-drink cans .
Since the seagulls immediately swoop in and snag all the chicken bones , the syphilitic pirates have resorted to eating plastic six-pack rings .
One of them handcuffed my wrist to my ankle .
In my happy place , there ’ s no war , just armed conflicts .
No racism , just racist dog whistles @ @ @ @ @ @ @ art that ’ s honestly missable .
Unlike in the world of sheeple , who are so obsessed with buying this and owning that , money doesn ’ t matter in my happy place .
There is no rich and no poor .
Everyone just pays for what they need through sex .
It ’ s very illegal , so everyone is either in jail or about to be sentenced .
No one with a record can get hired , so unemployment is always at a hundred per cent .
It ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is psychologically devastating .
Also , every song skips except “ Cotton Eye Joe.
” Keeping a happy place happy requires vigilance , so a series of military checkpoints have been built along the border to monitor smiles .
Those unable to provide proof of elation are taken into custody until they seem jolly .
Non-rosy-cheek-havers forfeit their rights .
Fleeing is not an option because the face-tatted mercenaries manning the guard towers are trained to shoot grumps on sight .
I ’ ve met God in my happy place .
She is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ divine understanding that there is good in the world .
Though , if I ’ m being honest , absorbing Her cosmic energy is kind of tough with all those unicorns snapping at my genitals .
I ’ ve had to start wearing MC Hammer pants so the beasts think that my crotch is lower .
Modern life is full of anxiety .
That ’ s why I need my happy place—somewhere I can go to escape the daily grind which doesn ’ t have any magical woodland elves .
Then again , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all the bear traps that have been set to control the soaring elf population .
The elves have been screwing in my hot-air balloon and are starting to form throuples !
Their moans of pleasure rain down like the coital grunts of Zeus .
I had a different happy place once , and it was perfect .
Children ’ s laughter rang out throughout the meadows .
Neighbors helped neighbors .
Everyone had a personal , jovial pet walrus who could tap-dance like Fred Astaire .
But then something occurred to me .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ should everyone get his or her own walrus ?
Why aren ’ t the taffy farmers signing a loyalty oath to me ?
And why are n't I taller ?
I ’ m talking , like , six feet eight .
So I took action .
I waged war , wrought destruction , and burned down every tree that made me feel small .
I brought hell upon my happy place until I was its lone sovereign .
And then , as I stood panting atop the heap of carnage , it dawned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I could use a place to get away from it all—to relax .
One with free Wi-Fi .
Which my current one has , but it ’ s slow as fuck .

Between work and family and the stresses of modern life, sometimes it feels like you can’t even breathe. But whenever the outside world seems like too much I just close my eyes and go to my happy place, where it never rains and the air smells like daisies.
In my happy place, you can sing in the fields! And dance in the clouds! And eat ice cream for every meal! Granted, there’s been a recent uptick in obesity because of the carefree diet. And the jelly-bean fountains certainly don’t help. Tooth decay is rampant, but who cares? You can be whatever you want to be!
You can ride unicorns through the cool night air. Their manes flutter in the wind, fine as angel hair. Full disclosure: the unicorns do get aggressive when they hear loud noises, so you’ll want to steer clear of the butterscotch waterfall. Those feral fuckers will bite if not Tased.
Around here, no one says mean or hurtful things. They just write their insults on boxing gloves and punch your face.
The ocean in my happy place shimmers bright and blue, at least until high tide, when the garbage patch rolls in. Then it’s all diapers and energy-drink cans. Since the seagulls immediately swoop in and snag all the chicken bones, the syphilitic pirates have resorted to eating plastic six-pack rings. One of them handcuffed my wrist to my ankle.
In my happy place, there’s no war, just armed conflicts. No racism, just racist dog whistles. And the celebrity perverts make lame art that’s honestly missable.
It’s splendiferous!
Unlike in the world of sheeple, who are so obsessed with buying this and owning that, money doesn’t matter in my happy place. There is no rich and no poor. Everyone just pays for what they need through sex. It’s very illegal, so everyone is either in jail or about to be sentenced. No one with a record can get hired, so unemployment is always at a hundred per cent. It’s not a perfect system, but it is psychologically devastating.
Also, every song skips except “Cotton Eye Joe.”
Keeping a happy place happy requires vigilance, so a series of military checkpoints have been built along the border to monitor smiles. Those unable to provide proof of elation are taken into custody until they seem jolly. Non-rosy-cheek-havers forfeit their rights. Fleeing is not an option because the face-tatted mercenaries manning the guard towers are trained to shoot grumps on sight.
I’ve met God in my happy place. She is pure light and fills me with the divine understanding that there is good in the world. Though, if I’m being honest, absorbing Her cosmic energy is kind of tough with all those unicorns snapping at my genitals. I’ve had to start wearing MC Hammer pants so the beasts think my crotch is lower.
Modern life is full of anxiety. That’s why I need my happy place—somewhere I can go to escape the daily grind which doesn’t have any magical woodland elves. Then again, the grind also doesn’t have all the bear traps that have been set to control the soaring elf population. The elves have been screwing in my hot-air balloon and are starting to form throuples! Their moans of pleasure rain down like the coital grunts of Zeus.
I had a different happy place once, and it was perfect. Children’s laughter rang out throughout the meadows. Neighbors helped neighbors. Everyone had a personal, jovial pet walrus who could tap-dance like Fred Astaire. But then something occurred to me. This is my happy place. Why should everyone get his or her own walrus? Why aren’t the taffy farmers signing a loyalty oath to me? And why aren't I taller? I’m talking, like, six feet eight.
So I took action. I waged war, wrought destruction, and burned down every tree that made me feel small. I brought hell upon my happy place until I was its lone sovereign. And then, as I stood panting atop the heap of carnage, it dawned on me: This is exhausting. I could use a place to get away from it all—to relax.
A new happy place.
One with free Wi-Fi. Which my current one has, but it’s slow as fuck.


newyorker--2020-02-20--Can the Wildlife of East Africa Be Saved? A Visit with Richard Leakey

The week before Christmas , Richard Leakey , the Kenyan paleoanthropologist and conservationist , celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday .
He is lucky to have reached the milestone .
A tall man with the burned and scarred skin that results from a life lived outdoors , Leakey has survived two kidney transplants , one liver transplant , and a devastating airplane crash that cost him both of his legs below the knee .
For the past quarter century , he has moved around on prosthetic limbs concealed beneath his trousers .
In his home town of Nairobi , Leakey keeps an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ annex building of a suburban shopping mall .
His desk and chair fill most of his cubicle , which has a window that looks onto a parking lot .
The space has no adornments other than two framed photographs , each sharply symbolic of the parallel interests that have absorbed most of his adult life : the world of extinct prehistoric hominids and the contemporary natural environment that is being pushed toward extinction by humankind .
In one of the photographs , Leakey is three decades younger , a trim man wearing a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of senior Kenyan officials , including then President Daniel arap Moi , who are gathered next to a pile of elephant tusks .
It is a snapshot from 1989 , when , as the head of the Kenya Wildlife Service , Leakey oversaw the public burning of several tons of poached elephant ivory .
At the end of the nineteen-seventies , there were an estimated quarter of a million elephants in Kenya , but , when the photograph was taken , only sixteen thousand were left .
Leakey wanted to stigmatize the ivory @ @ @ @ @ @ @ same way that police treated cocaine seized from drug traffickers .
His publicity-seeking gambit worked , making global headlines and leading the way for an international ivory ban that went into effect that same year .
The killing of elephants went down for a while as well , allowing Kenya ’ s herds to recover .
Today , Kenya has a relatively stable population of about thirty-five thousand elephants .
The other photograph shows a high ridgetop overlooking a sweeping valley .
On the edge of the ridge , two contiguous white stone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ enveloping sky .
This is Daniel Libeskind ’ s artistic rendition of Leakey ’ s proposed Ngaren : The Museum of Humankind , to be built on a piece of land Leakey owns that overlooks the Great Rift Valley , an hour or so outside Nairobi .
When the museum building is completed , at an expected cost of more than a hundred million dollars , the idea is that it will be a testament to Kenya ’ s central role in human evolution and also , inevitably , a somewhat Pharaonic monument @ @ @ @ @ @ @ career , which , like almost everything about him , has been complicated and larger than life .
In the sixties , when Leakey was still in his twenties and following in the footsteps of his famous paleoanthropologist parents , Louis and Mary Leakey , he began directing expeditions in northern Kenya and later on made breakthrough discoveries of his own , with previously unknown hominid species .
Leakey ’ s achievements saw him placed on the cover of Time magazine , in 1977 , and he has rarely been out of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Leakey became involved in Kenyan politics , including his early stint at the Kenya Wildlife Service , which ended with his plane crash ( which he believes was an assassination attempt ) .
He also founded an opposition political party , served in parliament , and was put in charge of the Kenyan civil service , where , as part of an anti-corruption drive , he ordered the dismissal of tens of thousands of public employees .
( His zeal soon cost him his job , however , when President Moi , who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ summarily fired him .
( Moi , who was Kenya ’ s President from 1978 to 2002 , died on February 4th , in Nairobi , at the age of ninety-five . )
In 2015 , Leakey agreed to return to the Kenya Wildlife Service as its chairman of the board , appointed by President Uhuru Kenyatta .
Even in semi-retirement , Leakey has remained typically hyperactive , co-founding a new conservation charity , WildlifeDirect , and , in partnership with Long Island ’ s Stony Brook University , setting up the Turkana @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on continuing the Leakey family ’ s field work in East Africa .
In a meeting we had one bright Nairobi morning a few months ago , Leakey lived up to his reputation for blunt outspokenness .
I had gone to ask him about the prospects for East Africa ’ s wildlife .
During the past half century , many animal species have been devastated because of civil wars , unrestricted poaching , surging human population growth , and habitat encroachment .
Even so , it has been the hope of many conservationists @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an international network of breeding zoos , national parks , and private conservancies will ultimately save the most endangered species .
Leakey had been at the forefront of such efforts in Kenya , of course , but I ’ d heard that he had become increasingly pessimistic .
I wanted to know why .
Before our meeting , I had spent several weeks visiting wildlife reserves and private conservancies in Kenya and Tanzania .
The critically endangered black rhino population had stabilized and even increased slightly , thanks to protective security fences and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ populations , despite ongoing poaching , thanks in part to Leakey ’ s work , which had resulted in a more professional , proactive , and less corrupt Kenya Wildlife Service .
But the populations of lions , cheetahs , hyenas , giraffes , and other once abundant species had all plummeted in recent years because of shrinking habitats and the increasing use of industrial pesticides .
Poaching was only part of a much larger problem of long-term sustainability—the result of an ever-expanding human population , chronic water shortages , and spreading desertification @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by overgrazing from cattle herders .
Michael Dyer , Richard Bonham , Tony Fitzjohn , and other conservationists I met acknowledged privately that , beyond their individual successes in helping to keep certain species alive ( thanks to a complex combination of efforts that included land-use arrangements with local communities , income from high-spending Western visitors , and international donation drives ) , the future was highly uncertain .
When I asked Leakey for his thoughts about the future of Kenya ’ s wildlife , he was uncompromisingly bleak , predicting that most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ far beyond the middle of the century .
The next thirty to fifty years would be decisive .
“ Over all , I ’ m in a very pessimistic short- to mid-term attitude , ” he said .
“ While I applaud the good efforts being made to get microcosm survival and improvement , I am not persuaded of the prospects for wildlife unless something gives , and I don ’ t see it.
” For Leakey , it all comes down to global climate change : “ Our population is growing too @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t growing with it , and , with the crisis of climate change , whether you have a capital ‘ C ’ or not , the fact is that the mean temperature is getting warmer , the rainfall is getting less , the snowmelt is increasing , the ice formation is less , oceans are rising .
It ’ s a strangulation grip on the environment , and there ’ s nothing Kenya can do to arrest climate change globally , ” he said .
“ So if you take the change in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ temperature and the unavailability of land to grow viable crops on , your animal husbandry is getting squeezed out because there isn ’ t the open-range land on which you can raise cattle which you can sell in markets , so there ’ s a narrowing down of the options for humanity , and how you fit people and animals into that has to be a big question mark.
” Leakey was courteous but dismissive about the efforts of the conservationists : “ The fact is that the problems we all face now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conservationists to cope with .
They can help stem the disappearance of certain species , and to hold what ’ s there , but it ’ s tough when you ’ ve got national parks ” —Leakey named Meru , a Kenyan park that is partially fenced off— “ where there used to be [ fourteen ] rivers running through , draining off Mt .
Kenya , but now [ almost ] all the ice is gone from Mt .
Kenya , and the springs are drying up , and there are now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and in a couple of years there won ’ t be any .
What will the animals inside drink ?
They can smell water and can break out of the electrical fences , or they die .
”

The paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey is pessimistic about the future of Kenya’s wildlife. Photograph by Mickey Adair / Getty
The week before Christmas, Richard Leakey, the Kenyan paleoanthropologist and conservationist, celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday. He is lucky to have reached the milestone. A tall man with the burned and scarred skin that results from a life lived outdoors, Leakey has survived two kidney transplants, one liver transplant, and a devastating airplane crash that cost him both of his legs below the knee. For the past quarter century, he has moved around on prosthetic limbs concealed beneath his trousers. In his home town of Nairobi, Leakey keeps an office in an unlikely sort of place—the annex building of a suburban shopping mall. His desk and chair fill most of his cubicle, which has a window that looks onto a parking lot. The space has no adornments other than two framed photographs, each sharply symbolic of the parallel interests that have absorbed most of his adult life: the world of extinct prehistoric hominids and the contemporary natural environment that is being pushed toward extinction by humankind.
In one of the photographs, Leakey is three decades younger, a trim man wearing a dark suit and standing amid a group of senior Kenyan officials, including then President Daniel arap Moi, who are gathered next to a pile of elephant tusks. It is a snapshot from 1989, when, as the head of the Kenya Wildlife Service, Leakey oversaw the public burning of several tons of poached elephant ivory. At the end of the nineteen-seventies, there were an estimated quarter of a million elephants in Kenya, but, when the photograph was taken, only sixteen thousand were left. Leakey wanted to stigmatize the ivory trade by treating poached tusks in the same way that police treated cocaine seized from drug traffickers. His publicity-seeking gambit worked, making global headlines and leading the way for an international ivory ban that went into effect that same year. The killing of elephants went down for a while as well, allowing Kenya’s herds to recover. Today, Kenya has a relatively stable population of about thirty-five thousand elephants.
The other photograph shows a high ridgetop overlooking a sweeping valley. On the edge of the ridge, two contiguous white stone structures rise, daggerlike, into the enveloping sky. This is Daniel Libeskind’s artistic rendition of Leakey’s proposed Ngaren: The Museum of Humankind, to be built on a piece of land Leakey owns that overlooks the Great Rift Valley, an hour or so outside Nairobi. When the museum building is completed, at an expected cost of more than a hundred million dollars, the idea is that it will be a testament to Kenya’s central role in human evolution and also, inevitably, a somewhat Pharaonic monument to Leakey’s long and multifarious career, which, like almost everything about him, has been complicated and larger than life.
In the sixties, when Leakey was still in his twenties and following in the footsteps of his famous paleoanthropologist parents, Louis and Mary Leakey, he began directing expeditions in northern Kenya and later on made breakthrough discoveries of his own, with previously unknown hominid species. Leakey’s achievements saw him placed on the cover of Time magazine, in 1977, and he has rarely been out of the news since, especially in Kenya. Leakey became involved in Kenyan politics, including his early stint at the Kenya Wildlife Service, which ended with his plane crash (which he believes was an assassination attempt). He also founded an opposition political party, served in parliament, and was put in charge of the Kenyan civil service, where, as part of an anti-corruption drive, he ordered the dismissal of tens of thousands of public employees. (His zeal soon cost him his job, however, when President Moi, who had hired him for the job, summarily fired him. (Moi, who was Kenya’s President from 1978 to 2002, died on February 4th, in Nairobi, at the age of ninety-five.) In 2015, Leakey agreed to return to the Kenya Wildlife Service as its chairman of the board, appointed by President Uhuru Kenyatta.
Even in semi-retirement, Leakey has remained typically hyperactive, co-founding a new conservation charity, WildlifeDirect, and, in partnership with Long Island’s Stony Brook University, setting up the Turkana Basin Initiative, a research foundation focussed on continuing the Leakey family’s field work in East Africa. In a meeting we had one bright Nairobi morning a few months ago, Leakey lived up to his reputation for blunt outspokenness. I had gone to ask him about the prospects for East Africa’s wildlife. During the past half century, many animal species have been devastated because of civil wars, unrestricted poaching, surging human population growth, and habitat encroachment. Even so, it has been the hope of many conservationists, and also concerned governments, that an international network of breeding zoos, national parks, and private conservancies will ultimately save the most endangered species. Leakey had been at the forefront of such efforts in Kenya, of course, but I’d heard that he had become increasingly pessimistic. I wanted to know why.
Before our meeting, I had spent several weeks visiting wildlife reserves and private conservancies in Kenya and Tanzania. The critically endangered black rhino population had stabilized and even increased slightly, thanks to protective security fences and armed guards. So had the elephant populations, despite ongoing poaching, thanks in part to Leakey’s work, which had resulted in a more professional, proactive, and less corrupt Kenya Wildlife Service. But the populations of lions, cheetahs, hyenas, giraffes, and other once abundant species had all plummeted in recent years because of shrinking habitats and the increasing use of industrial pesticides. Poaching was only part of a much larger problem of long-term sustainability—the result of an ever-expanding human population, chronic water shortages, and spreading desertification, triggered by prolonged drought and compounded by overgrazing from cattle herders. Michael Dyer, Richard Bonham, Tony Fitzjohn, and other conservationists I met acknowledged privately that, beyond their individual successes in helping to keep certain species alive (thanks to a complex combination of efforts that included land-use arrangements with local communities, income from high-spending Western visitors, and international donation drives), the future was highly uncertain.
When I asked Leakey for his thoughts about the future of Kenya’s wildlife, he was uncompromisingly bleak, predicting that most of the animals are unlikely to survive far beyond the middle of the century. The next thirty to fifty years would be decisive. “Over all, I’m in a very pessimistic short- to mid-term attitude,” he said. “While I applaud the good efforts being made to get microcosm survival and improvement, I am not persuaded of the prospects for wildlife unless something gives, and I don’t see it.”
Giraffes in the Maasai Mara game reserve. Shrinking habitats and industrial pesticides have caused populations to plummet in recent years. Photograph by Guillaume Bonn / Institute
For Leakey, it all comes down to global climate change: “Our population is growing too fast; our resource base isn’t growing with it, and, with the crisis of climate change, whether you have a capital ‘C’ or not, the fact is that the mean temperature is getting warmer, the rainfall is getting less, the snowmelt is increasing, the ice formation is less, oceans are rising. It’s a strangulation grip on the environment, and there’s nothing Kenya can do to arrest climate change globally,” he said. “So if you take the change in climate and you take the impact of temperature and the unavailability of land to grow viable crops on, your animal husbandry is getting squeezed out because there isn’t the open-range land on which you can raise cattle which you can sell in markets, so there’s a narrowing down of the options for humanity, and how you fit people and animals into that has to be a big question mark.”
Leakey was courteous but dismissive about the efforts of the conservationists: “The fact is that the problems we all face now are far beyond the power of individual conservationists to cope with. They can help stem the disappearance of certain species, and to hold what’s there, but it’s tough when you’ve got national parks”—Leakey named Meru, a Kenyan park that is partially fenced off— “where there used to be [fourteen] rivers running through, draining off Mt. Kenya, but now [almost] all the ice is gone from Mt. Kenya, and the springs are drying up, and there are now [four] rivers running through, and in a couple of years there won’t be any. What will the animals inside drink? They can smell water and can break out of the electrical fences, or they die. ”
Leakey apologized for his bleak assessment. “I am sorry to be depressing, but you asked me to speak honestly.” I observed that his words carried the unwelcome ring of truth, and Leakey added, “I could be more of a curmudgeon and go and live on my farm, but . . . ” He didn’t finish his sentence and threw up his hands in a futile gesture. “As I said, my time frame is only fifty years to look for some really positive change. I think the potential’s there. I don’t see the signs that it’s started yet, but I have been an ardent believer that the elephants must live and the rhinos shouldn’t be destroyed and all of that. And I was sincere. And I am quite sure I gave enough attention to the fact that we were swimming against the current, and I even went into politics. It’s sad, you know. . . .” Leakey’s voice trailed off again. For an instant, he looked despondent.


newyorker--2020-02-20--What Charles Portis Taught Us

What Charles Portis Taught Us

Charles Portis died on Monday , at the age of eighty-six .
He left us with five impeccable novels and the question of how properly to mourn a writer whose work handled life ’ s tragic and rhapsodic moments with a shrug of quiet amusement .
It ’ s been said that fans of Portis constitute a cult , which I think is true insofar as we generally maintain at least one core ritual .
When we come across a fellow-member , we recite our favorite moments from Portis until people make us stop .
Here are some of mine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the South ” : When Ray Midge brags to the quack doctor Reo Symes that he , Midge , owns “ sixty-six lineal feet of books , ” Symes tells him to “ throw that trash out the window ” and read nothing but the motivational author John Selmer Dix , who is , Symes claims , “ the greatest writer who ever lived.
” 2 .
From “ Gringos ” : A junk trader , Jimmy Burns , has just fired a shotgun at a murderous hippie named Dan : “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his headband and the top of his head went away .
.
.
.
Shotgun blast or not at close range , I was still surprised at how fast and clean Dan had gone down .
It was like dropping a Cape buffalo in his tracks at one go .
I wasn ’ t used to seeing my will so little resisted , having been in sales for so long.
” 3 .
From “ True Grit , ” the book ’ s final lines from the narrator , Mattie Ross : “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This ends my true account of how I avenged Frank Ross ’ s blood over in the Choctaw Nation when snow was on the ground.
” The careful , wooden music of this last line—especially the omission of a “ the ” before “ snow ” —is what , for me , elevates Portis from a comic writer to a practical philosopher at least of equal magnitude to J. S. Dix .
Not the snow , just snow .
The snow—the heroic iamb—is the epic material of trial and catharsis that people shouldn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Snow is the unpoetical actual of what you ’ ve got and had better get used to .
Don ’ t live in too grand a key is the message of plain old snow .
It is what it is .
On some days , you will avenge your father ’ s murder .
On others , you will accept a lowball offer for a load of salvaged irrigation pipe .
When “ True Grit , ” published in 1968 , was turned into a movie starring John Wayne and became a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ world became something Portis had to work at .
He spent much of his career dodging the press and literary society .
This earned him , unfairly , a reputation as a recluse , though he was reportedly an approachable presence at the Little Rock , Arkansas , beer joints he frequented .
Before the release of the Coen brothers ’ adaptation of “ True Grit , ” in 2010 , he amiably consented to talk with a Times Magazine writer who had pursued him to Little Rock , on the condition that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the piece .
Portis ’ s aversion to publicity perhaps explains why he never found a wider readership , and why all of his books but “ True Grit ” were for a time out of print , until the Overlook Press began reprinting his novels , in 1999 .
Nevertheless , I do not imagine that Portis witnessed much in our age to make him regret withholding his private life from the scrutiny of strangers .
He had , of course , witnessed many other ages .
Born in 1933 , Portis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dorado , Hamburg , and Norphlet , where his father was a school superintendent .
His scant writings about his childhood are short on Proustian yearning and long on wry literalness .
He confessed in The Atlantic to boyhood chagrins , such as the futility of trying , in the local swamps , to replicate “ Tarzan ’ s aerial glide across the jungle , leaping from one opportune vine to the next , ” only to learn that “ when you jumped from a swinging vine to one that was hanging dead @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t going any farther , and could only be left looking foolish , dangling there at rest.
” In his teen years , Portis worked as an apprentice mechanic at a Chevrolet dealership , fostering the automotive preoccupations that come as close as anything to a unifying subtheme in Portis ’ s non- “ True Grit ” books .
After high school , he enlisted in the Marine Corps and fought in the Korean War .
Upon his return , Portis became a newspaper reporter , ultimately landing at the Herald Tribune , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ London offices .
At the Tribune , Portis worked alongside Lewis Lapham and also Tom Wolfe , who was baffled when , in 1964 , Portis moved back to Arkansas to write fiction full time .
But , in the words of Ray Midge , the narrator of “ The Dog of the South , ” the author ’ s return fit a familiar local pattern : “ A lot of people leave Arkansas and most of them come back sooner or later .
They can ’ t quite achieve escape velocity.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s unclear whether it was the Midgean traction of his native soil that kept him there or some understanding that he could not have built his fiction ’ s singular and droll terraria nearer to the emanating rays of East Coast fiction in the sixties , seventies , and eighties .
Portis ’ s diffident , modestly gallant characters were a world away from the marital bonfires and priapisms of other male writers of his crop—Roth , Updike , Yates .
His male heroes practiced a masculinity that by the standards of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) nontoxic .
It ’ s hard to imagine the bafflement with which Portnoy or Angstrom would have confronted a guy like Jimmy Burns , from “ Gringos , ” who tries to persuade two young women to move into his hotel with a come-on like this : “ The doorknobs are porcelain with many fine hairline cracks .
The towels are rough-dried in the sun .
Very stiff and invigorating after a bath.
” “ Only a mean person won ’ t enjoy it ” is something a critic once wrote about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I love Portis because I feel less mean when I read him .
It ’ s not just that his novels are gentle and funny ; it ’ s that Portis ’ s books have a way of conscripting the reader into their governing virtues—punctuality , automotive maintenance , straight talk , emotional continence .
Puny virtues , as Portis himself once put it , yet it is a great and comforting gift ( in these days especially ) to offer readers escape into a place where such virtues reign .
It ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s work ushered much comfort into his own life .
My sense is that he was lonely .
I imagine he had a fair bit in common with Jimmy Burns , described in “ Gringos ” as a “ hard worker , ” “ solitary as a snake , ” and , yes , “ punctual.
” Portis never married and had no children .
He never published another novel after “ Gringos , ” from 1991 .
The closest he gets to self-portraiture comes in his short memoir “ Combinations of Jacksons @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Atlantic .
Toward the essay ’ s close , the author spots an “ apparition ” of his future self in the form of a geezer idling his station wagon alongside Portis at a traffic light in Little Rock .
He wore “ the gloat of a miser , ” Portis writes .
“ Stiff gray hairs straggled out of the little relief hole at the back of his cap .
.
.
.
While not an ornament of our race , neither was he , I thought , the most depraved member @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of himself at the wheel of the phantom station wagon , Portis goes on to write what feel like fitting instructions for how we ought to cope with this great and overlooked writer ’ s exit from the scene : “ I could see myself all too clearly in that old butterscotch Pontiac , roaring flat out across the Mexican desert and laying down a streamer of smoke like a crop duster , with a goatherd to note my passing and ( I flatter myself ) to watch me until I was utterly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and only then would he turn again with his stick to the straying flock .
So be it .
”

Charles Portis died on Monday, at the age of eighty-six. He left us with five impeccable novels and the question of how properly to mourn a writer whose work handled life’s tragic and rhapsodic moments with a shrug of quiet amusement.
It’s been said that fans of Portis constitute a cult, which I think is true insofar as we generally maintain at least one core ritual. When we come across a fellow-member, we recite our favorite moments from Portis until people make us stop. Here are some of mine:
1. From “The Dog of the South”: When Ray Midge brags to the quack doctor Reo Symes that he, Midge, owns “sixty-six lineal feet of books,” Symes tells him to “throw that trash out the window” and read nothing but the motivational author John Selmer Dix, who is, Symes claims, “the greatest writer who ever lived.”
“They say Shakespeare was the greatest writer who ever lived.” “Dix puts William Shakespeare in the shithouse.”
2. From “Gringos”: A junk trader, Jimmy Burns, has just fired a shotgun at a murderous hippie named Dan: “There were two sheets of flame and his headband and the top of his head went away. . . . Shotgun blast or not at close range, I was still surprised at how fast and clean Dan had gone down. It was like dropping a Cape buffalo in his tracks at one go. I wasn’t used to seeing my will so little resisted, having been in sales for so long.”
3. From “True Grit,” the book’s final lines from the narrator, Mattie Ross: “Time just gets away from us. This ends my true account of how I avenged Frank Ross’s blood over in the Choctaw Nation when snow was on the ground.”
The careful, wooden music of this last line—especially the omission of a “the” before “snow”—is what, for me, elevates Portis from a comic writer to a practical philosopher at least of equal magnitude to J. S. Dix. Not the snow, just snow. The snow—the heroic iamb—is the epic material of trial and catharsis that people shouldn’t hope for in real life. Snow is the unpoetical actual of what you’ve got and had better get used to. Don’t live in too grand a key is the message of plain old snow. It is what it is. On some days, you will avenge your father’s murder. On others, you will accept a lowball offer for a load of salvaged irrigation pipe.
When “True Grit,” published in 1968, was turned into a movie starring John Wayne and became a best-seller, a low-amplitude course through the world became something Portis had to work at. He spent much of his career dodging the press and literary society. This earned him, unfairly, a reputation as a recluse, though he was reportedly an approachable presence at the Little Rock, Arkansas, beer joints he frequented. Before the release of the Coen brothers’ adaptation of “True Grit,” in 2010, he amiably consented to talk with a Times Magazine writer who had pursued him to Little Rock, on the condition that the writer not actually quote him for the piece. Portis’s aversion to publicity perhaps explains why he never found a wider readership, and why all of his books but “True Grit” were for a time out of print, until the Overlook Press began reprinting his novels, in 1999. Nevertheless, I do not imagine that Portis witnessed much in our age to make him regret withholding his private life from the scrutiny of strangers.
He had, of course, witnessed many other ages. Born in 1933, Portis grew up in several small Arkansas towns—El Dorado, Hamburg, and Norphlet, where his father was a school superintendent. His scant writings about his childhood are short on Proustian yearning and long on wry literalness. He confessed in The Atlantic to boyhood chagrins, such as the futility of trying, in the local swamps, to replicate “Tarzan’s aerial glide across the jungle, leaping from one opportune vine to the next,” only to learn that “when you jumped from a swinging vine to one that was hanging dead still and vertical, you weren’t going any farther, and could only be left looking foolish, dangling there at rest.”
In his teen years, Portis worked as an apprentice mechanic at a Chevrolet dealership, fostering the automotive preoccupations that come as close as anything to a unifying subtheme in Portis’s non-“True Grit” books. After high school, he enlisted in the Marine Corps and fought in the Korean War. Upon his return, Portis became a newspaper reporter, ultimately landing at the Herald Tribune, where he served in the Manhattan and London offices. At the Tribune, Portis worked alongside Lewis Lapham and also Tom Wolfe, who was baffled when, in 1964, Portis moved back to Arkansas to write fiction full time. But, in the words of Ray Midge, the narrator of “The Dog of the South,” the author’s return fit a familiar local pattern: “A lot of people leave Arkansas and most of them come back sooner or later. They can’t quite achieve escape velocity.”
In Portis’s case, it’s unclear whether it was the Midgean traction of his native soil that kept him there or some understanding that he could not have built his fiction’s singular and droll terraria nearer to the emanating rays of East Coast fiction in the sixties, seventies, and eighties. Portis’s diffident, modestly gallant characters were a world away from the marital bonfires and priapisms of other male writers of his crop—Roth, Updike, Yates. His male heroes practiced a masculinity that by the standards of the day was uniquely (and unfashionably) nontoxic. It’s hard to imagine the bafflement with which Portnoy or Angstrom would have confronted a guy like Jimmy Burns, from “Gringos,” who tries to persuade two young women to move into his hotel with a come-on like this: “The doorknobs are porcelain with many fine hairline cracks. The towels are rough-dried in the sun. Very stiff and invigorating after a bath.”


newyorker--2020-02-20--North Carolina Shows the Rapidly Changing Battle for the Democratic Nomination

It was a December night in Raleigh , and the television behind the bar at the Hibernian Pub was tuned to the Democratic Presidential debate .
North Carolina ’ s primary election was weeks away , but more than two dozen supporters of Elizabeth Warren cheered her declamations against corruption , her pitch for an extra two-cent tax on wealthy Americans , and her zinger , when asked about her age , that she would be the youngest woman ever elected President .
Melissa Hecht , wearing an Old Hickory Brewery ball cap , was sitting at a bar table @ @ @ @ @ @ @ slogan “ Dream Big .
Fight Hard.
” Hecht had been volunteering for Warren since August , and when she saw an unfamiliar man walk into the room she approached him .
Within minutes , he was typing his contact information into a Warren campaign app on Hecht ’ s phone .
Hecht , a thirty-one-year-old Appalachian State math grad who has worked in the software industry , is always on the lookout for voters , and typically wears Warren gear .
She told me , “ I went into a restaurant last @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ‘ I love your shirt.
’ I said , ‘ Can I ask you some questions ?
’ I feel like I ’ m constantly on.
” Warren ’ s North Carolina operation was up and running last summer , building on an impassioned cadre of volunteers like Hecht .
Led by Maggie Thompson , a thirty-four-year-old political organizer who learned her trade in Barack Obama ’ s 2008 campaign , the Raleigh-based operation embarked on the labor-intensive work of constructing a lattice of personal relationships designed to win delegates on Tuesday @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Tuesday.
” The biggest day of the primary calendar , voters in North Carolina and thirteen other states , from California to Texas , Minnesota , and Tennessee , will make their choices .
Warren ’ s initial goal was to win an endurance test that might stretch deep into the spring , or longer .
The unexpected question that Warren now faces , after disappointing finishes in New Hampshire and Iowa , is whether her ground game can keep her candidacy afloat .
Bernie Sanders rolled out of New Hampshire last week @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a distant fourth , not even reaching double digits .
As the rest of the Democratic field vies to go head to head with Sanders , Warren faces the growing momentum of Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar , whose fund-raising has mushroomed , as well as the television onslaught of Michael Bloomberg , the former New York mayor .
Bloomberg has spent a breathtaking four hundred million dollars on advertising across the country and has hired more than a hundred and twenty staff members in North Carolina alone .
Sanders , who recently @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and announced the opening of four North Carolina offices , appears to be swamping Warren among voters who say that they want a significant break from centrist Democratic politics .
Morgan Jackson , a North Carolina political strategist , thinks that Warren is in trouble in the state , where Democrats are as divided as their counterparts across the country , and that Sanders , in particular , stands in her way .
“ As long as they split the very progressive vote in North Carolina , there ’ s no path , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ candidate has been polling well among African-American voters , who comprise nearly half of the state ’ s electorate .
Even with her superior ground game , he believes , Warren can not do well in the state unless she finds momentum somewhere , “ and I don ’ t know where that is , ” he said .
In a memo released on the day of the New Hampshire primary , Warren ’ s national campaign manager , Roger Lau , urged her supporters to take the long view and consider “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of delegates to the Democratic National Convention .
Lau wrote , “ The process won ’ t be decided by simple horse race numbers in clickbait headlines .
That ’ s never been our focus—our focus is on building a broad coalition to win delegates everywhere.
” Many candidates have recovered from slow starts , but the fact remains that plenty of voters know nothing but the horse-race numbers , a problem for a lagging candidate .
A SurveyUSA poll released this week showed Sanders and Bloomberg in a tie in North Carolina @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Democratic primary voters , and Joe Biden in third with twenty per cent , followed by Buttigieg at eleven per cent .
Warren was the choice of just eight per cent of voters , with eleven per cent undecided .
Super Tuesday is technically March 3rd , but early voting in North Carolina began on Thursday , with a hundred and fifty-seven thousand voters casting ballots in the first few days , according to state election-board figures .
In the November , 2018 , midterm elections , fifty-one per cent of the votes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Given the calendar , Maggie Thompson , Warren ’ s state director , and her team are pushing supporters to vote long before seeing returns from the next two contests , in Nevada , on Saturday , and in South Carolina , on February 29th .
Thompson knows her task well .
In addition to working in a string of states for the Obama campaign , she was a longtime Wellstone Action trainer who served as the executive director of Generation Progress , a progressive advocacy group that works with young people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ immigration , and affordable education .
She first heard of Warren while working at the White House Council on Environmental Quality .
“ I remember them talking about , well , there ’ s this lady over at the Treasury Department .
She predicted the financial crisis and she ’ s starting a new agency , ” Thompson recalled .
( This was the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau , established in 2010 , after the financial meltdown . )
By 2014 , Warren was a U.S. senator from Massachusetts , and Thompson was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ student-debt crisis by supporting borrowers and exploring what the organization considered a decline in the affordability and quality of higher education .
Thompson contacted a raft of senators and asked for help with the launch of a national-campaign called Higher Ed , Not Debt .
Warren was the only one who responded .
“ She got back to us right away , and she was thrilled .
She was really engaged with us , worked with us all the time after that .
She was always there , ” Thompson said .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ alumni were in high demand , Thompson helped organize conference calls to persuade former Obama organizers and campaign staffers to support Warren .
She said that several hundred people dialled into the first call , led by Jon Carson , Thompson ’ s former boss in the Obama campaign and the White House .
Though Obama alumni are scattered among the 2020 campaigns , more than two hundred and thirty former Obama campaign staffers endorsed Warren in December .
Thompson chose to return to the field , despite its punishing hours and uncertain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , it might not be the best life style , the most healthy life style , I ’ m a little older now , ” Thompson told me .
“ But I do think you just feel those moments in history , and they ’ re for special candidates , and this is one of them.
” By the time Thompson arrived , in August , Warren volunteers had been holding impromptu events in North Carolina for months .
Among them was Melanie Wong , a thirty-nine-year-old fund-raiser for a nonprofit organization .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Internet , and I thought I would do something more productive , ” Wong told me at the Raleigh debate watch party .
She signed into the campaign ’ s Web space , All In For Warren , and soon connected with like-minded souls , “ people that were excited but didn ’ t know what to do.
” A few supporters got together and advertised a “ y ’ all come ” event at Clouds Brewing , a Raleigh brewery , in August .
Eighty people showed up , Wong said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ two hours away .
Thompson began building a more formal campaign structure .
She explained her approach when I met her , in December , at a Durham drinking spot , where one patron was watching the House impeachment vote on a laptop perched on the bar .
“ We have our organizing program split into two parts , ” she said .
“ One is a very traditional organizing program .
We ’ re working the list , we ’ re calling hot leads , we ’ re doing phone banks , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we have our community organizing program , which is where our African-American outreach program lives.
” Thompson had staffers recruit black voters who were not already on Warren ’ s lists by visiting churches and community meetings .
“ That ’ s deliberate , because you want to show up and be present in the right way and engaging in the right way , ” she said , “ in order to demonstrate that you ’ re serious about earning the votes of people , rather than expecting them .
”

It was a December night in Raleigh, and the television behind the bar at the Hibernian Pub was tuned to the Democratic Presidential debate. North Carolina’s primary election was weeks away, but more than two dozen supporters of Elizabeth Warren cheered her declamations against corruption, her pitch for an extra two-cent tax on wealthy Americans, and her zinger, when asked about her age, that she would be the youngest woman ever elected President.
Melissa Hecht, wearing an Old Hickory Brewery ball cap, was sitting at a bar table near a sign with Warren’s slogan “Dream Big. Fight Hard.” Hecht had been volunteering for Warren since August, and when she saw an unfamiliar man walk into the room she approached him. Within minutes, he was typing his contact information into a Warren campaign app on Hecht’s phone. Hecht, a thirty-one-year-old Appalachian State math grad who has worked in the software industry, is always on the lookout for voters, and typically wears Warren gear. She told me, “I went into a restaurant last month. Someone pointed. She said, ‘I love your shirt.’ I said, ‘Can I ask you some questions?’ I feel like I’m constantly on.”
Warren’s North Carolina operation was up and running last summer, building on an impassioned cadre of volunteers like Hecht. Led by Maggie Thompson, a thirty-four-year-old political organizer who learned her trade in Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, the Raleigh-based operation embarked on the labor-intensive work of constructing a lattice of personal relationships designed to win delegates on Tuesday, March 3rd, or “Super Tuesday.” The biggest day of the primary calendar, voters in North Carolina and thirteen other states, from California to Texas, Minnesota, and Tennessee, will make their choices. Warren’s initial goal was to win an endurance test that might stretch deep into the spring, or longer. The unexpected question that Warren now faces, after disappointing finishes in New Hampshire and Iowa, is whether her ground game can keep her candidacy afloat.
Bernie Sanders rolled out of New Hampshire last week with a win, while Warren finished a distant fourth, not even reaching double digits. As the rest of the Democratic field vies to go head to head with Sanders, Warren faces the growing momentum of Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, whose fund-raising has mushroomed, as well as the television onslaught of Michael Bloomberg, the former New York mayor. Bloomberg has spent a breathtaking four hundred million dollars on advertising across the country and has hired more than a hundred and twenty staff members in North Carolina alone.
Sanders, who recently held boisterous rallies in Durham and Charlotte and announced the opening of four North Carolina offices, appears to be swamping Warren among voters who say that they want a significant break from centrist Democratic politics. Morgan Jackson, a North Carolina political strategist, thinks that Warren is in trouble in the state, where Democrats are as divided as their counterparts across the country, and that Sanders, in particular, stands in her way. “As long as they split the very progressive vote in North Carolina, there’s no path,” Jackson said, adding that neither candidate has been polling well among African-American voters, who comprise nearly half of the state’s electorate. Even with her superior ground game, he believes, Warren cannot do well in the state unless she finds momentum somewhere, “and I don’t know where that is,” he said.
In a memo released on the day of the New Hampshire primary, Warren’s national campaign manager, Roger Lau, urged her supporters to take the long view and consider “delegate math,” the steady accumulation of delegates to the Democratic National Convention. Lau wrote, “The process won’t be decided by simple horse race numbers in clickbait headlines. That’s never been our focus—our focus is on building a broad coalition to win delegates everywhere.” Many candidates have recovered from slow starts, but the fact remains that plenty of voters know nothing but the horse-race numbers, a problem for a lagging candidate. A SurveyUSA poll released this week showed Sanders and Bloomberg in a tie in North Carolina, at twenty-two per cent of likely Democratic primary voters, and Joe Biden in third with twenty per cent, followed by Buttigieg at eleven per cent. Warren was the choice of just eight per cent of voters, with eleven per cent undecided.
Super Tuesday is technically March 3rd, but early voting in North Carolina began on Thursday, with a hundred and fifty-seven thousand voters casting ballots in the first few days, according to state election-board figures. In the November, 2018, midterm elections, fifty-one per cent of the votes cast in the state were cast early. Given the calendar, Maggie Thompson, Warren’s state director, and her team are pushing supporters to vote long before seeing returns from the next two contests, in Nevada, on Saturday, and in South Carolina, on February 29th.
Thompson knows her task well. In addition to working in a string of states for the Obama campaign, she was a longtime Wellstone Action trainer who served as the executive director of Generation Progress, a progressive advocacy group that works with young people on climate change, gun violence, immigration, and affordable education. She first heard of Warren while working at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. “I remember them talking about, well, there’s this lady over at the Treasury Department. She predicted the financial crisis and she’s starting a new agency,” Thompson recalled. (This was the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, established in 2010, after the financial meltdown.)
By 2014, Warren was a U.S. senator from Massachusetts, and Thompson was working with Generation Progress to address the student-debt crisis by supporting borrowers and exploring what the organization considered a decline in the affordability and quality of higher education. Thompson contacted a raft of senators and asked for help with the launch of a national-campaign called Higher Ed, Not Debt. Warren was the only one who responded. “She got back to us right away, and she was thrilled. She was really engaged with us, worked with us all the time after that. She was always there,” Thompson said.
In the summer of 2019, when Obama alumni were in high demand, Thompson helped organize conference calls to persuade former Obama organizers and campaign staffers to support Warren. She said that several hundred people dialled into the first call, led by Jon Carson, Thompson’s former boss in the Obama campaign and the White House. Though Obama alumni are scattered among the 2020 campaigns, more than two hundred and thirty former Obama campaign staffers endorsed Warren in December. Thompson chose to return to the field, despite its punishing hours and uncertain outcome. “I was, like, it might not be the best life style, the most healthy life style, I’m a little older now,” Thompson told me. “But I do think you just feel those moments in history, and they’re for special candidates, and this is one of them.”
By the time Thompson arrived, in August, Warren volunteers had been holding impromptu events in North Carolina for months. Among them was Melanie Wong, a thirty-nine-year-old fund-raiser for a nonprofit organization. “I would argue with people on the Internet, and I thought I would do something more productive,” Wong told me at the Raleigh debate watch party. She signed into the campaign’s Web space, All In For Warren, and soon connected with like-minded souls, “people that were excited but didn’t know what to do.” A few supporters got together and advertised a “y’all come” event at Clouds Brewing, a Raleigh brewery, in August. Eighty people showed up, Wong said, some driving from as far as two hours away.


newyorker--2020-02-20--Elizabeth Warren Makes Her Electability Argument at Michael Bloomberg’s Expense

On Wednesday night , Michael Bloomberg made his long-awaited début on the Democratic debate stage .
The last time Bloomberg had participated in a debate was in 2009 , when he was running for a third term as mayor of New York City .
By contrast , after eight previous Democratic primary debates , the others on the dais with him were well-practiced—and poised to attack him .
Any number of issues could have posed problems for Bloomberg on Wednesday evening , but the most incendiary were related to the degrading comments he has allegedly made to female employees and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Early in the debate , Hallie Jackson , one of the moderators , confronted Bloomberg directly about the charges , asking , “ Should Democrats expect better from their nominee ?
” Bloomberg tried to pivot , responding that a woman runs his foundation , that the most senior member of his administration in City Hall was a woman , and that forty per cent of his city commissioners were women .
But Senator Elizabeth Warren , who appeared energized on Wednesday night , had a blunt rejoinder .
“ I hope @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” she said .
“ ‘ I ’ ve been nice to some women.
’ ” Warren then challenged Bloomberg to release women who had filed complaints against him from their nondisclosure agreements .
Bloomberg had a legalistic answer .
“ These are agreements between two parties that wanted to keep it quiet , and that ’ s up to them , ” he said .
“ They signed those agreements , and we ’ ll live with them.
” Warren pressed her point .
“ I just want to be clear , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wish now to speak out and tell their side of the story about what it is that they allege , that ’ s now O.K .
with you ?
You ’ re releasing them on television tonight .
Is that right ?
” Of course , it was not right .
After Bloomberg muddled his way through another deflection , Warren turned to the audience and made her case .
“ This is not just a question of the mayor ’ s character , ” she said .
“ This is also a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ going to beat Donald Trump with a man who has who knows how many nondisclosure agreements , and the drip , drip , drip of stories of women saying they have been harassed and discriminated against.
” Warren ’ s assessment of Bloomberg ’ s vulnerability against the President may or may not be correct .
Until Wednesday night , however , Bloomberg had been able to steer clear of the Democratic fray and make his electability argument largely unchallenged .
That is no longer the case .
This has been the season @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for who is best positioned to beat Donald Trump .
They may have to recalibrate once again .

On Wednesday night, Michael Bloomberg made his long-awaited début on the Democratic debate stage. The last time Bloomberg had participated in a debate was in 2009, when he was running for a third term as mayor of New York City. By contrast, after eight previous Democratic primary debates, the others on the dais with him were well practiced—and poised to attack him.
Any number of issues could have posed problems for Bloomberg on Wednesday evening, but the most incendiary were related to the degrading comments he has allegedly made to female employees and accusations of gender discrimination at his company. Early in the debate, Hallie Jackson, one of the moderators, confronted Bloomberg directly about the charges, asking, “Should Democrats expect better from their nominee?”
Bloomberg tried to pivot, responding that a woman runs his foundation, that the most senior member of his administration in City Hall was a woman, and that forty per cent of his city commissioners were women. But Senator Elizabeth Warren, who appeared energized on Wednesday night, had a blunt rejoinder. “I hope you heard what his defense was,” she said. “ ‘I’ve been nice to some women.’ ” Warren then challenged Bloomberg to release women who had filed complaints against him from their nondisclosure agreements.
Bloomberg had a legalistic answer. “These are agreements between two parties that wanted to keep it quiet, and that’s up to them,” he said. “They signed those agreements, and we’ll live with them.” Warren pressed her point. “I just want to be clear,” she said. “If they wish now to speak out and tell their side of the story about what it is that they allege, that’s now O.K. with you? You’re releasing them on television tonight. Is that right?”
Of course, it was not right. After Bloomberg muddled his way through another deflection, Warren turned to the audience and made her case. “This is not just a question of the mayor’s character,” she said. “This is also a question about electability. We are not going to beat Donald Trump with a man who has who knows how many nondisclosure agreements, and the drip, drip, drip of stories of women saying they have been harassed and discriminated against.”
Warren’s assessment of Bloomberg’s vulnerability against the President may or may not be correct. Until Wednesday night, however, Bloomberg had been able to steer clear of the Democratic fray and make his electability argument largely unchallenged. That is no longer the case. This has been the season of triangulating Democratic voters, casting about for who is best positioned to beat Donald Trump. They may have to recalibrate once again.


newyorker--2020-02-20--Bloomberg to Spend Ten Billion Dollars to Buy Entirely Different Personality

LAS VEGAS ( The Borowitz Report ) —Shortly after the Democratic Presidential debate on Wednesday night , aides to Michael Bloomberg announced that he would spend ten billion dollars to buy an entirely new personality .
Acknowledging that some attributes of the former New York mayor ’ s new personality have yet to be ironed out , campaign advisers indicated that the eleven-figure outlay would be used to purchase warmth , empathy , and humanity .
Additionally , billions of Bloomberg ’ s war chest will be used to remove several unappetizing qualities from his current personality , including arrogance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to hide his contempt for others .
If all goes as planned , a thoroughly revamped and unrecognizable version of Bloomberg , called New Mike ( TM ) , will be up and running in time for Super Tuesday .
But even as they announced the impending launch of Bloomberg ’ s new incarnation , campaign officials were careful to tamp down expectations .
“ In a perfect world , spending ten billion dollars on a new personality would make Mike an appealing person , but we ’ ll be happy with ‘ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ aide said .

LAS VEGAS (The Borowitz Report)—Shortly after the Democratic Presidential debate on Wednesday night, aides to Michael Bloomberg announced that he would spend ten billion dollars to buy an entirely new personality.
Acknowledging that some attributes of the former New York mayor’s new personality have yet to be ironed out, campaign advisers indicated that the eleven-figure outlay would be used to purchase warmth, empathy, and humanity.
Additionally, billions of Bloomberg’s war chest will be used to remove several unappetizing qualities from his current personality, including arrogance, touchiness, and a glaring inability to hide his contempt for others.
If all goes as planned, a thoroughly revamped and unrecognizable version of Bloomberg, called New Mike (TM), will be up and running in time for Super Tuesday.
But even as they announced the impending launch of Bloomberg’s new incarnation, campaign officials were careful to tamp down expectations. “In a perfect world, spending ten billion dollars on a new personality would make Mike an appealing person, but we’ll be happy with ‘not an asshole,’ ” one aide said.


newyorker--2020-02-19--Mexico Tightens Border After Trump Pardons White-Collar Criminals

MEXICO CITY ( The Borowitz Report ) —The government of Mexico announced that it was tightening its border with the United States “ effective immediately ” after Donald Trump pardoned a host of white-collar criminals on Tuesday .
Speaking to reporters , the President of Mexico , Andrés Manuel López Obrador , said that Mexican border agents were on alert to prevent any recipients of Trump ’ s pardons from crossing into their country .
“ They ’ re bringing bribery , they ’ re bringing tax evasion , they ’ re bringing racketeering , ” Obrador said .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of them were good people , but that does not appear to be the case.
” Obrador said that border agents had been given “ special instructions ” to block the entry of Rod Blagojevich , the former governor of Illinois , whom he called “ El Blago.
” “ If El Blago enters our country , he will head straight to Mexico City and start trying to sell Senate seats , ” Obrador said .
“ He is a dangerous man.
” Concluding his remarks , Obrador said that he had contacted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the criminals to Mexico .
“ I told him to find places for them in his Cabinet , ” he said .

MEXICO CITY (The Borowitz Report)—The government of Mexico announced that it was tightening its border with the United States “effective immediately” after Donald Trump pardoned a host of white-collar criminals on Tuesday.
Speaking to reporters, the President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, said that Mexican border agents were on alert to prevent any recipients of Trump’s pardons from crossing into their country.
“They’re bringing bribery, they’re bringing tax evasion, they’re bringing racketeering,” Obrador said. “I wish I could say that some of them were good people, but that does not appear to be the case.”
Obrador said that border agents had been given “special instructions” to block the entry of Rod Blagojevich, the former governor of Illinois, whom he called “El Blago.”
“If El Blago enters our country, he will head straight to Mexico City and start trying to sell Senate seats,” Obrador said. “He is a dangerous man.”
Concluding his remarks, Obrador said that he had contacted Trump directly to warn him against sending the criminals to Mexico. “I told him to find places for them in his Cabinet,” he said.