Bruce R
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flitbrucer.bsky.social
Bruce R
@flitbrucer.bsky.social
190 followers 140 following 820 posts
Personal account of a recovering Afghan vet, gamer and gadabout. Asst. Editor of a peer-reviewed military journal in my spare time, which I may mention here once in a while Previously on Twitter as Flit_BruceR, and a blogger of little consequence long ago
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"I have sworn on the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man" youtu.be/stIK_uPpVjY via
@YouTube
Bob Roberts: the end
YouTube video by gluckschmerz
youtu.be
In 9 months we've rolled back to 1618. Trump is in all senses King Donald the First and American governance is basically back at a pre-English Civil War state, 150 years before the Revolution.
Using his powers to extract tribute from foreign countries, "donors," etc. and then using those extraconstitutional slush funds to bypass the Constitution and the rule of law. Literally the opposite of originalism and a profound threat to the continuation of constitutional democracy in this country.
$550 billion in Japanese funding.
Directed by the President.
Outside Congress’s control.

My new @justsecurity.org piece explains how the agreement bypasses the Appropriations Clause and violates the laws that safeguard Congress’s power of the purse.

www.justsecurity.org/123478/trump...
Reposted by Bruce R
The book to read is James Tan’s Power and Public Finance in Rome. Which argues (among other things) that Roman taxpayers had real leverage over elites due to being taxpayers. Turning point: by 167 the empire was so profitable that direct taxation ended. Which ended that leverage.
Using his powers to extract tribute from foreign countries, "donors," etc. and then using those extraconstitutional slush funds to bypass the Constitution and the rule of law. Literally the opposite of originalism and a profound threat to the continuation of constitutional democracy in this country.
$550 billion in Japanese funding.
Directed by the President.
Outside Congress’s control.

My new @justsecurity.org piece explains how the agreement bypasses the Appropriations Clause and violates the laws that safeguard Congress’s power of the purse.

www.justsecurity.org/123478/trump...
Reposted by Bruce R
Between bringing Vicki Vale into the Batcave and opening the door for these two obvious weirdos, I like the portrayal of Alfred Pennyworth as a guy that's desperate to have someone, anyone come hang out at his house.
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The Trump-Putin meeting in Budapest was cancelled after Russia sent a memorandum demanding territorial concessions from Ukraine, major force reductions, and NATO membership ban, Financial Times reports citing sources.
Reposted by Bruce R
Can't overstate how fucked up it is that unraveling what is arguably the greatest achievement in the history of humanity is now a motivating issue of one of the two dominant parties in the U.S.
FL is moving forward w/ plan to end all childhood vaccine mandates. Starting with hepatitis B, chickenpox, and the bacteria causing meningitis and pneumonia. Then next year GOP FL legislature is expected to revisit 1977 law re: whooping cough, measles, polio, rubella, mumps, diphtheria, and tetanus.
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I never gossip. Except to save a soul. Or a conversation. So you won't catch me repeating the rumors about JD Vance and Erika Kirk.
I'd say the discussion was about whether Tolkien was more the first or the second, actually. And no I don't think he thought any other country's people were "children who must be guided." I don't know where anyone could get that from his work or letters. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolkien...
Tolkien and race - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
But that's the thing with art. It escapes boundaries, resists simple interpretation.

Anyway the point of the Said thesis here was the nudity/male gaze aspects were inextricably entwined with the othering in (early) 1800s harem art. It's not just "woman reclining on cushions=racism." That's all.
I suspect someone probably someone liked a Renoir and decided to emulate it in game, sans context. And as said the Renoir itself is partly a "put their clothes back on, you perv" critique of French art from 50+ years before, making it a copy of that critique. Intentionally? Probably not, no.
... critique today if we do put to one side that nudity/sexually exploitative aspect? That it's stereotypical and appropriative. Yeah well, FFXIV has always been stereotypical and appropriative about all KINDS of things. It's been Orientalist a lot too... I mean we all DO remember Emanation, right?
... of a Turkish harem worker, on an Arabian flying carpet, in an Indian (Rajastan/Mughal) backdrop (made by a Japanese company!) Squeenix just throws culture in a blender like that all the time, me I wouldn't assign words like "racist" so casually to that. In any case what is the Orientalist...
In their own way they were critiquing their culture's Orientalist trope in their time by using a woman in the same pose, but in an (arguably) more respectful and less tropey way.

So in FFXIV we seem to have a reference to the French impressionist critique of a French Oriental romantic art trope...
Renoir and Matisse both travelled extensively in N.Africa and the Middle East, Berteaux actually was working for the Turkish sultan as his official painter at the time of the art work you show. They were trying to show the "real" behind the "romantic" of Muslim culture... hence the clothed models
All three of your painters grew up with the French art odalisque trope of Romanticism. The difference was the romantic portrayals of harems Said comments on in "Orientalism". The othering was both excuse and permission structure for the pornographic aspects, which in turn contributed to the othering
Nothing wrong with bringing Mr. Said to new audiences. But my larger critique would be your focus on clothed harem art, probably to keep your post non-R rated, which is fine, uses two Impressionists and a post-Impressionist riffing on Said's Romantic-era trope, maybe missing the point a little.
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Trying to blame the Dems cutting off SNAP (while sitting on billons of available contingency funds) as his boss bulldozes the WH to build a ball room like Saddam's palace, sends $40 billion to bail out Argentines, and eats "gold adorned" brownies in Korea is not gonna work.
Mike Johnson: "On Saturday, things are gonna become very dire."
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Notable that the people carrying Trumpism don't act like they believe they're carrying out the will of the public, they act like dictators terrified of a spontaneous uprising so swift and massive it overwhelms their protective services before assistance can arrive.
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Trump bungled China policy so badly he had to run to Xi to beg forgiveness and surrender. Everyone knows it. In the "deal", America gets nothing, not even a return to status quo.

Trump has now totally abandoned his promise to "get tough" on China.
The Art of Letting Trump Claim a Win, While Walking Away Stronger
www.nytimes.com
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The selection of Garland as AG and his failure to act was about ten bajillion times more consequential than any campaign strategy decision

www.msnbc.com/msnbc/news/t...
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No there isn’t you Vichy bastards
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He said, "When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on Day One"

He lied

But what's worse-he didn't even TRY to lower prices

Instead, almost as soon he got into office, he started hitting people with tariffs-making things infinitely worse
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The former president of the Philippines is literally sitting in The Hague right now for doing this exact same thing.
Donald Trump and Peter Hegseth have now murdered 57 human beings on their boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific.

That means they've passed Seattle's "Green River Killer" (49) to become the most lethal serial killers in American history

Where is The Hague?