Reflecting Pool Fiasco

Posted on Wednesday 17 June 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • How the reflecting pool fiasco is emblematic of Trump’s manner of government;
  • Facebook’s AMV about how the reflecting pool is a miniature Anthropocene;
  • Why Trump keeps talking about voter fraud: he has specific ideas about the kind of people who should rule and those who are mere subjects;
  • Noting a piece on what might happen if AI is fed religion.
– – –

This may seem a tempest in a teapot, a relatively incidental matter compared with wars in the Middle East and whatnot, but it’s making lots of news in the past couple days, and the incident seems to represent the broad manner in which Trump is leading the government. Trump emptied the reflecting pool, had the bottom painted blue (apparently in the naive assumption that the water would then look the same blue) by a no-bid contractor who had once resurfaced a pool at one of his properties. What could go wrong?

The Guardian, yesterday: Algae thwart Trump’s $14.2m attempt to turn reflecting pool ‘American flag blue’, subtitled “Green algae have proliferated amid warm weather after Lincoln Memorial pool renovation turning water green”

The New York Times, 15 Jun 2026: Trump Ordered ‘American Flag Blue’ for the Reflecting Pool. It’s Green Again., subtitled “Algal blooms have hit the site, between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument, after a $14.2 million repair project.”

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America’s Continued Decline

Posted on Tuesday 16 June 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Michelle Goldberg on the garish spectacle at the White House;
  • Will Leitch about its absurdity;
  • Conservatives are trolls;
  • US science is also in decline;
  • Paul Krugman’s theory of the vulgar class;
  • And music: Hans Zimmer’s “Chevaliers De Sangreal”, a great piece of conceptual breakthrough music, from The Da Vince Code.
– – –

NY Times, opinion by Michelle Goldberg, yesterday: A Garish Spectacle of American Decline

Only the hackiest screenwriter imaginable would script America’s decline this way.

Think of it: On the 250th anniversary of our country’s founding, America’s increasingly senescent president turned the White House lawn into a tacky, bloody gladiatorial arena while capitulating to Iran. Mike Judge came close to imagining some elements of our debasement in his 2006 satire “Idiocracy,” which depicts a United States led by a professional wrestler whose middle name is Mountain Dew. But if “Idiocracy” captured something of the vibe of Donald Trump’s reign, it was both too early and too lighthearted to nail the sordid specifics, which on Sunday included the fighter Josh Hokit, standing in an octagonal cage wrapped in crypto ads, calling the former first lady Michelle Obama a man.

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Practicalities and Prejudices Trump Principles

Posted on Monday 15 June 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • The voters who believe that Trump defends their values;
  • The DHS head is happy to throw out the Constitution in order to fight the minuscule number of voter fraud cases;
  • Trump’s UFC fight reveals his violent worldview;
  • The problematic latest ‘deal’ with Iran;
  • Trump’s list of “media offenders” includes David Pakman, whom I’ve been following, today with his reaction to yesterday’s White House event.
– – –

I have a hunch.

The Atlantic, Katy Osborn and Scott Warren, 13 Jun 2026: The Voters Who Believe That Trump Defends Their Values, subtitled “Why calls to ‘save democracy’ don’t work”

Our research involved conducting in-depth interviews with and observing the daily lives of dozens of people along with their friends, families, and neighbors to better understand how they think about American democracy right now. Our goal was not to persuade or judge, but to figure out why public trust in national institutions has plummeted to historic lows and what might be done to build it back up.

Anecdotes, of course. Aren’t these the kinds of stories you would expect in these states?
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The Barbarians Are Well Within the Gates

Posted on Sunday 14 June 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Trump’s cage match, planned for this evening; his attack on the weather service; comments from Bill Kristol and Robert Reich;
  • How MAGA-style Christianity isn’t about Christ at all, what with attacks against James Talarico for quoting Jesus;
  • Abbott’s nonsensical claim that Democrats support Sharia Law (does he even know what that is?); Trump’s obsessions and his cultural references.
– – –

Photo from NY Times, today: How Trump Transformed the White House Lawn Into a Fighting Arena

\

Among many others:

Deadline, today: UFC Tells Attendees To “Plan Accordingly” As Severe Thunderstorm Watch Threatens To Disrupt Trump White House Cage Match

This has been in the air for days. Naturally, Trump attacked the weather service.
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They Precede Us

Posted on Saturday 13 June 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Not aliens. Aspects of primal human nature. Equus. But perhaps Disclosure Day is more of the same.

  • Several links about Spielberg’s new movie Disclosure Day, which I’ll wait to see for another week or two. Will revisit and comment about these items then;
  • Good: Despite the regressive opposition, the US now generates more energy from solar than from coal;
  • Bad: The “white-trash” UFC White House spectacle; Christian certitude and Hell; notions of primitive masculinity; and how denial of science seems to align with conspiracy theories, and so discredits them.
– – –

Slate has been posting items in its Spielberg Week for the past seven days in anticipation of the release of Disclosure Day, on Friday, yesterday. Haven’t seen it yet; I’ll wait another week or two, as I did with Project Hail Mary. But I’ll compile all the links I’ve compiled, from here and other sites, to come back to. Haven’t read these yet.
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Asymptotic Progress

Posted on Friday 12 June 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • How the news about adjusting climate change predictions is good news, and how science is always about increasingly approaching the truth, while never claiming (as religion does) to have found it;
  • Trumps guts a line of oceanic defense; there’s a screwworm crisis because DOGE canceled the fund to monitor it; Charlie Kirk’s message lingers; MAGA applauds Trump’s storming out of an interview when asked for evidence; why David Barton’s disregard for truth matters; Pentagon cancels ceremony honoring female vets; and the cult’s search for voter fraud.
– – –

OnlySky, Adam Lee, today: Cutting off the tail of climate change, subtitled “We’ve avoided the worst-case scenario.”

Here’s the best news you’ll read this year: RCP8.5 is dead.

This concerns the recent revision to the climate change model that simpletons (like Trump) think means that scientists don’t know what they’re doing and that climate change is a hoax. Rather, as Lee explains, this is good news: we’ve actually *done something* to reduce the possibility of that worst-case scenario. Not enough to solve the entire problem, but a little bit.

If you don’t know what that means or why it’s such good news, that’s understandable. But that bland, technical acronym concealed an apocalyptic scenario for humanity. The fact that it’s no longer a future we need to fear is something the whole world should be celebrating.

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Meaning, Purpose, Science, Science Fiction

Posted on Thursday 11 June 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Kevin Kelly’s take on a meaning of life: be the most improbable person you can be;
  • And my provisional ideas about meaning and purpose;
  • Hans Zimmer’s Interstellar.

I mentioned Kevin Kelly yesterday, and so I checked out his blog, his Substack, and saw this recent post that applies to my current reading, of books about the meaning and purpose of life. Yes, really. (Alongside reading more books about religion and the Bible.)

My provisional conclusions: Meaning is what you make of your life, it’s about what you choose in your life that is meaningful — significant, fulfilling, enriching — and you build that meaning. Purpose? There is no cosmic purpose; there are no handed-down orders from on high. You can choose your purpose. Perhaps whatever you personally are best at, and are uniquely able to accomplish. I’ve been developing these ideas, especially since both recent understandings of science, and the concepts explored by science fiction in recent decades, can inform these ideas in the way no contemporary philosophers seem to have considered.

But here’s Kevin Kelly’s take.

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Looking Up and Looking Down

Posted on Wednesday 10 June 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Looking Up: Fareed Zakaria on human intelligence and artificial intelligence;
  • Kevin Kelly thinks his 1994 book Out of Control is still mostly right; perhaps technology reached a kind of plateau 30 years ago;
  • Ranked voting works, and people like it;
  • Looking Down: Pete Hegseth and the immorality and incoherency of Christian nationalism;
  • How Robert Jeffress supports Trump because he wants to be mean to non-Christians.
– – –

— Looking Up —

Washington Post, Fareed Zakaria, 7 Jun 2026: Human intelligence will win out over artificial intelligence, subtitled “The more machines can do, the clearer it becomes what only human beings can provide.”

Let me start by giving you a trigger warning. I’ve noticed in this commencement season, some graduation speeches have provoked a few boos from students. So, I should probably warn you that I am about to utter the two most provocative letters in the English language today: AI. Artificial intelligence.

But in fact, I don’t really want to talk to you about AI. I want to talk about HI: Human Intelligence.

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The Destruction of American Scientific Research

Posted on Tuesday 9 June 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Deport 106 million illegals??
  • More misunderstandings or lies about how California elections works;
  • More about how experience, knowledge, and talent are being marginalized by the current US government;
  • Items about 60 Minutes;
  • Activity today: a brief jury duty experience (posted on Facebook).
– – –

— Conservative morality is superstitious cave-man tribalism —

  • JMG, today: Bovino: As President I’ll Deport “106 Million Illegals”
  • Nearly a third of the nation consists of illegal aliens? He’s bonkers.
  • (Not to mention, does he not realize what deporting that many people would do to the American economy? No, he does not. And if he did, he wouldn’t care. It’s all about getting those icky non-white people out of the country.)

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Is Consensus History Possible?

Posted on Monday 8 June 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • The Atlantic’s Yoni Applebaum on the idea of consensus history;
  • A review of Steven Spielberg’s film history;
  • How conservatives don’t understand how California voting works, and imagine conspiracies;
  • Ennio Morricone, Marco Polo, and Canzone di Mai-Li.
  • Activity today.
– – –

A couple essays.

The Atlantic, Yoni Appelbaum, today: How America Gave Up on Its Own History, subtitled “Unable to agree on how to interpret the American story, the country’s schools, universities, and political institutions have stopped trying to tell it at all.”

My immediate thought: Continue reading →

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