Sorkin, to his wife, and 15 year old daughter Roxy, following Trump’s win:
Here’s what we’ll do…
…we’ll fucking fight. (Roxy, there’s a time for this kind of language and it’s now.)
I originally quoted three paragraphs, but that seemed unfair. Go read the whole thing.
On a totally unrelated note, I miss Jed Bartlet.
Fantastic take on the initial Trump-Obama meeting the other day:
This was Obama’s chance for the most perfect revenge that would never be picked up on as revenge at all. He was gracious, polite—everything he needed to be for a peaceful transition and a good review from the press. And that would continue when the doors were closed, because that’s the key. Not a Come to Jesus meeting, oh no. If Obama were smart—and he is very smart—he would have treated Trump like an equal, and brought the discussion to a level that assumes far more of Trump than anyone has so far. Assumes that he’s an adult who’s been paying attention. Statistics, esoteric minutiae about the executive branch procedure, economic growth numbers, labor figures, domestic policies, countries Trump has never even heard of, shit that would never in a million years have been in Trump’s campaign soundbites or digestible summaries.
No way to escape. No aides to remember any of it for him. Just the two of them.
Because that’s what would strike a precise chill into Trump. The thundering realization that he’s woefully unprepared for the hard, boring, thankless reality of this, and Obama’s version of a smooth transition won’t and shouldn’t include remedial civics.
That’s what I saw when they shook hands and Trump stared at the floor instead of looking back into Obama’s face. He’s just figured out how little he knows about any of this.
I can only hope this is true.
The day after Trump’s win, the ACLU published an open letter to him on their site, then took out a full-page ad in the New York Times:
If you do not reverse course and instead endeavor to make these campaign promises a reality, you will have to contend with the full firepower of the ACLU at every step. Our staff of litigators and activists in every state, thousands of volunteers and millions of card-carrying members and supporters are ready to fight against any encroachment on our cherished freedoms and rights.
Right now their website is very focused on fighting Trump and his policies. He’s been huge for fundraising:
In just five days, our Facebook followers have increased by 25 percent to nearly one million people; 400,000 people viewed our open letter to President-elect Trump on our website; and 150,000 new people have joined our e-mail list. We have also heard from thousands of people offering to volunteer their time and services and have received roughly 120,000 donations, totaling more than $7.2 million.
This is the greatest outpouring of support for the ACLU in our nearly 100-year history, greater than the days after 9/11.
ACLU will be getting a big donation from me this year. You should donate too. And check if your company matches donations to increase your impact.
Elon Musk, talking about Tesla’s super charger network in 2013:
They will be free forever.
Tesla today:
For Teslas ordered after January 1, 2017, 400 kWh of free Supercharging credits (roughly 1,000 miles) will be included annually so that all owners can continue to enjoy free Supercharging during travel. Beyond that, there will be a small fee to Supercharge which will be charged incrementally and cost less than the price of filling up a comparable gas car. All cars will continue to come standard with the onboard hardware required for Supercharging.
Translation: We found a loophole: We never promised “free unlimited charging!”
These changes will not impact current owners or any new Teslas ordered before January 1, 2017, as long as delivery is taken before April 1, 2017.
Translation: Screw you, future Model E owners.
New York Times:
Mr. Trump, a homebody who often flew several hours late at night during the campaign so he could wake up in his own bed in Trump Tower, is talking with his advisers about how many nights a week he will spend in the White House. He has told them he would like to do what he is used to, which is spending time in New York when he can.
And
The questions reflect what Mr. Trump’s advisers described as the president-elect’s coming to grips with the fact that his life is about to change radically. They say that Mr. Trump, who was shocked when he won the election, might spend most of the week in Washington, much like members of Congress, and return to Trump Tower or his golf course in Bedminster, N.J., or his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach on weekends.
Does he realize the presidency is a full time job? You can’t live where you want. It’s not a commuter job.
The man want to be called president, but he doesn’t want to be president.
Apropos the aforelinked push to a national popular vote, Lawrence Lessig responds to a change.org call to elect Hillary Clinton at the Electoral College vote in December:
I apologize for the technical, law-geek reply but: Hell yes!
The Framers created the electoral college as a safety valve. They were not certain how the states would establish the process for selecting a president. Most assumed they’d have popular elections. But to avoid the chance that some insane passion would sweep the nation, and drive it to elect a nut, or a demagogue, they embedded an electoral college as a kind of circuit breaker. If the people go crazy, the college would be there to check it.
It’s a nice fantasy, but not going to happen. We’re going to have to live with this one.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Lots of people suddenly want to eliminate the Electoral College, but the National Popular Vote bill has been recommending it since 2006.
The National Popular Vote interstate compact would not take effect until enacted by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—that is, enough to elect a President (270 of 538). Under the compact, the winner would be the candidate who received the most popular votes from all 50 states (and DC) on Election Day. When the Electoral College meets in mid-December, the national popular vote winner would receive all of the electoral votes of the enacting states.
The effect is to remove the effect of the Electoral College’s influence without actually ending the Electoral College, which would require a change to the constitution, and allow the winner of the national vote to become president.
It’s already in place with jurisdictions to tallying 165 electoral votes, or just about two-thirds of what it needs to be enabled.
What a brilliant hack.
I’ve never been a fan of guns. I think they are dangerous and result in more accidental deaths than lives saved.
But in the new world order where Trump is in charge, and Giuliani is being considered for Attorney General, it seems prudent to investigate this now.
It will be interesting to see how the “fundamental right to bear arms” holds up under the administration of a white supremacist-supported president, and a “stop and frisk”-supporting AG.
I’m eminently disappointed by today’s California Supreme Court Prop 8 ruling. Putting aside the gay marriage issue for a second, today’s ruling upholds the ability of the majority to restrain or eliminate the rights of the minority.
What will be next? Will the majority curtail when tall people can walk the streets? How about banning driving for bald people? Will we be required to wear Dodger blue when visiting L.A. from the Bay Area?
You laugh at these inane suggestions, but when all that is necessary to alter the constitution of the state is fifty percent plus one, you are in for some inane laws.
Isn’t this country all about protecting minority rights?
I guess I can’t fault the Supreme Court themselves. That lays with the fucked-up way California lets their constitution be changed. Taking away rights, or limiting how those rights can be exercised, should be done only after careful deliberation and a super-majority vote, and perhaps not even then.
Consider that Prop 8 barely passed (600,000 votes, less than 5% of the votes cast, and 2.7% of the voting California voting population). Six hundred thousand voters made this decision for 22 million people.
Just in case, I’m going to act short, keep my hair long and and limit my trips to Disneyland.
Back in the late 80s, I spent a tiny fraction of my life in the theatre, on an invitation by my best friend Anton, predicated on our friendship and my love of Shakespeare. I’ve held those moments as my most cherished, and credit the time with the New York Parks Shakespeare Company for what little presentation and speaking skills I have.
Over the last few days, I’ve revisited my microscopic time on stage, thanks to Steve Martin’s Born Standing Up, an autobiography of his life as a stand-up comic, which I listened to as an audiobook, read by Steve himself.
Born Standing Up isn’t a story-of-my-life style biography; instead it recounts how Steve honed and perfected his stand-up act—an early yet influential part of his career—how working at Disneyland, learning lasso and magic tricks, and pecking away at a banjo led to his massive success as a world-famous comedian, and why he walked away from stand-up and never looked back. It talks about how his act was influenced as much by philosophical discussion as it was by physical displays. He describes his realization that comedy is about creating and releasing tension:
In a college psychology class, I had read a treatise on comedy explaining that a laugh was formed when the storyteller created tension, then, with the punch line, released it. I didn’t quite get this concept, nor do I still, but it stayed with me and eventually sparked my second wave of insights. With conventional joke telling, there’s a moment when the comedian delivers the punch line, and the audience knows it’s the punch line, and their response ranges from polite to uproarious. What bothered me about this formula was the nature of the laugh it inspired, a vocal acknowledgment that a joke had been told, like automatic applause at the end of a song.
[…]
These notions stayed with me until they formed an idea that revolutionized my comic direction: What if there were no punch lines? What if there were no indicators? What if I created tension and never released it? What if I headed for a climax, but all I delivered was an anticlimax? What would the audience do with all that tension? Theoretically, it would have to come out sometime. But if I kept denying them the formality of a punch line, the audience would eventually pick their own place to laugh, essentially out of desperation. This type of laugh seemed stronger to me, as they would be laughing at something they chose, rather than being told exactly when to laugh.
The audiobook, despite it’s all-to-brief four hour running time, was my companion on my daily walks, and on some days pushed me beyond my set distances, so enthralled was I by his soothing tone, remembered comedy bits and performance insights.
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Anyone with a modicum of creativity—or someone looking for that spark—would do well to read Born Standing Up. The lessons that great performances are crafted, that they take work, that creativity is as much perseverance as it is inspiration, is something everyone—even if it’s just preparing a ten minute presentation in front of peers—should take to heart. I was fascinated by Steve’s recollections of the odd interests and insights he gained throughout his life that influenced him and his act, and that, as Johnny Carson once told him, “you’ll use everything you’ve ever known.â€
Steve’s accounts of his time on stage triggered in me—even though I’m merely a footnote on an aside in the history of theatre—a rueful remorse that I didn’t—or perhaps wasn’t good enough to—pursue my theatrical passion. But those lessons from my days on stage remain with me. I use them every time I help craft presentations with engineers, engage customers in trade shows, or persuade colleagues in meetings.
YouTube has a bunch of Steve Martin clips (and another) and Smithsonian Magazine offers an extended excerpt of Born Standing Up; if you like it, you won’t regret buying the book
(miniscule kickbacks come my way).