mahiwaga

I was looking for the Tongvan (also known as Gabrielino) word for coyote (it’s <p>‘iitar</p> ) and ran across this article:

How to Revive a Language With No Native Speakers • 2014 Oct 29 • Pamela Munro • future tense • Slate

It is surreal to contemplate the possibility that Nancy Reagan effectively ran the White House while Ronald Reagan was starting to become incapacitated by Alzheimer disease.

• Parsing Ronald Reagan’s Words for Early Signs of Alzheimer’s • 2015 Mar 30 • Lawrence K. Altman, M.D. • New York Times
• Reagan’s speeches may have shown early signs of Alzheimer’s • 2015 Apr 1 • AOL News

This is not unprecedented, though. Edith Wilson effectively ran the White House after Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke.

Without trying to be too disrespectful, I’m just going to post this here.

There’s a Petition to Have Fetty Wap Play ‘Trap Queen’ at Nancy Reagan’s Funeral • Beyond being the first lady, Nancy Reagan holds the important legacy as being the most famous trap queen in American history • 2016 Mar 7 • James Grebey • Spin

There’s also this (it’s not The Onion):

Obama to Skip Nancy Reagan’s Funeral to Attend South by Southwest • 2016 Mar 9 • Elizabeth Chuck • NBC News

It is heartening that The New York Times has decided to separate pledged delegate counts from superdelegate counts.

Superdelegates…
Democratic party leaders who are free to support any candidate. The majority of the 712 superdelegates have declared support for Mrs. Clinton, though they could switch candidates if she were to lose the lead in pledged delegates, which are awarded based on election results.

After Michigan’s and Mississipi’s Democratic primaries last night, Clinton leads with 759 pledged delegates versus Sanders with 546 pledged delegates.

2016 Mar 9 • Harry Enten • FiveThirtyEight

Even Debbie Wasserman Schultz—who has been reviled by many in the Sanders camp because they believe she is a bought-and-paid Clinton minion—thinks it’s absurd to count superdelegates at this stage.

Are superdelegate counts skewing election results? • DNC chair blasts media for ‘inaccurate’ portrayal of delegate counts • 2016 Mar 8 • Hannah Button • KOIN 6

I feel like the March 15th primaries deserve a “Super” name. No one appears to be calling it Super Tuesday II or Mini Tuesday.

Bernie Sanders surprises Hillary Clinton in Michigan. Is Ohio next? • 2016 Mar 9 • Cathleen Decker • Los Angeles Times

It’s only five states (FL, IL, MO, NC, OH) but it’s a total of 691 pledged delegates—17% of all pledged delegates—on the Democratic side. (Super Tuesday was 11 states with 856 pledged delegates—21% of all pledged delegates.)

I thought about calling it Super Ides, but the Ides of March kind of has a negative connotation, especially for politicians :D #‎BewareTheIdesOfMarch

The L.A. Times asks “Is Donald Trump a fascist?”.

The transcript is here:

Patt Morrison asks: Robert O. Paxton talks fascism and Donald Trump • 2016 Mar 9 • Patt Morrison • Los Angeles Times

There’s the claim that the United States is in decline and needs a strong leader. And that was at the heart of what Mussolini and Hitler promised. They offered a recipe for revival: nationalism, aggressive foreign policy, attacks on the enemies inside and out without much regard for due process, an obsession with decline and with enemies like Jews or socialists, foreigners – those are echoes of that today.

…

Blaming our troubles on the internal enemy as well as the external enemy – well, that goes wider than fascism; it is present in classical fascism. First of all you depersonalize them, and then you attach negative images to them, and then you prescribe measures that are illegal, brutal – and this is very much what Hitler did with Jews and with Slavs and Mussolini did with socialists. That’s one of the echoes.

…

And then, it’s the manner, it’s the kind of style, the aggressive style, the assertion of strength and the image presented of somebody who’s not going to be bothered by little things like the rule of law or political correctness or being polite, and will actually get things done.

…

I understand perfectly that no one would want to hear him called fascist, but then he should stop using these images, retweeting Mussolini and so forth.