The Wheel

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

POTD: Jamaican Tam

From 2015 11 13 Caribbean Cruise

Today's photo-of-the-day is from Montego Bay, Jamaica. Previously, I gave a vacation rule of thumb: your comfort level wearing local fashion is inversely proportional to your distance from your vacation destination. That goes double for hair styles. I never could pull it off, but dreadlocks or not, this unknown gentleman looks kick-ass in a Jamaican tam.

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Repeat Tweets: Can You Say "Pander"?

Repeat tweets from January, 2016:

Jan 1 2016: RT @CarlyFiorina: "Love my alma mater, but rooting for a Hawkeyes win today. #RoseBowl" Can you say "pander?"
Jan 2 2016: RT @GroverNorquist: "To understand what Obama wants in our future...Watch the Star Wars movies and imagine that only the storm troopers have guns." Did he just equate the US military and American police to Star Wars storm troopers? Despicable.
Jan 2 2016: RT @justinc: "Idea: never go for two." Neither team went for two without being required to. Oregon should have gone for two to win but didn't and lost.

After the jump, more repeat tweets.

Decoherence and Disharmony

In October, I mused on an essay by Brookings scholar Philip A. Wallach on the subject of "decoherence", the notion that American governance is coming apart at the seams. Some evidence on the left is in President Obama's use of executive orders to get anything done in the face of an obstructionist Congress. And on the right it's in the curious admiration many Republicans express for Russian President Putin for his defiance of international law to further Russian interests.

Today's musing is on a related article that connects today's mood in America with a recurring phenomenon in American politics identified by Samuel Huntington in a 1981 book, "American Politics: Promise of Disharmony." Again, Lee Drutman of Vox Media reviews it.