{"id":6307,"date":"2025-08-18T17:21:40","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T17:21:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uang69.id\/?p=6307"},"modified":"2025-08-18T17:21:41","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T17:21:41","slug":"200pm-water-cooler-7-31-2024-naked-capitalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uang69.id\/?p=6307","title":{"rendered":"2:00PM Water Cooler 7\/31\/2024 | naked capitalism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>By Lambert Strether of Corrente<\/p>\n<p>Bird Song of the Day<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Blue Mockingbird, Presa Guti\u00e9rrez, Etla, Oaxaca, Mexico. Lots of summery insects, too.<\/p>\n<p>* * *<\/p>\n<p>In Case You Might Miss\u2026  <\/p>\n<p>(1) Kamala\u2019s idpol keeps rolling.<\/p>\n<p>(3) Covid and class.<\/p>\n<p>(2) Call any vegetable\u2026. <\/p>\n<p>* * *<\/p>\n<p>Politics<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.\u201d \u2013Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles<\/p>\n<p>* * *<\/p>\n<p>2024<\/p>\n<p>Less than one hundred days to go!<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p> Friday\u2019s RCP Poll Averages:<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/rcp_2024-07-26.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"638\" height=\"1082\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-275750\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/rcp_2024-07-26.png 638w, https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/rcp_2024-07-26-177x300.png 177w, https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/rcp_2024-07-26-604x1024.png 604w, https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/rcp_2024-07-26-624x1058.png 624w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 638px) 100vw, 638px\"\/><\/p>\n<p>First poll with Harris at the top of the Democrat ticket; Trump\u2019s position deteriorates (and any advantage he gained from the assassination attempt has been wiped away. Nevertheless, he still leads, albeit within the margin of error. NOTE RCP used to have two pages of swing states; I always used the first one. Now there is only one, which I take as an indicator that Harris v. Trump polling is not all that widespread.<\/p>\n<p>Vibe shift:<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Unbelievable vibe shift in the US with Kamala Harris  pic.twitter.com\/rrMisGHLbu<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Albert Pinto (@70sBachchan) July 26, 2024<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ll see what the averages say Friday, but:<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Harris has wiped out Trump&#8217;s lead across seven swing states in the latest round of the Bloomberg News \/ Morning Consult poll. The poll found a big Dem lead in Michigan, a more modest Trump lead in Pennsylvania and close contests everywhere else. Dead heat. pic.twitter.com\/xxJN94TFec<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Josh Wingrove (@josh_wingrove) July 30, 2024<\/p>\n<p>Lots of Brownian motion here, still. More noteworthy is that Trump got no visible bounce from the assassination.<\/p>\n<p>* * *<\/p>\n<p>The Campaign Trail:<\/p>\n<p>Kamala (D): \u201cKamala Harris Is Bringing Blue-State Politics to the Campaign Trail\u201d [The Nation]. \u201c[T]he central virtue of the newly launched Harris campaign [is] its straightforward, combative approach to defeating Trump and his decade-long takeover of right-wing politics. Harris\u2019s brash (if not, strictly speaking, brat) offensive against the GOP is rooted in something broader and deeper than her own character, or her popcult appeal; It is, in large part, traceable to the California political scene that launched her career.\u201d \u2022 California is, however, a one-party state; that\u2019s not transferable to the country as a whole (and were the parties reversed, Kamala\u2019s \u201cdominance politics\u201d would be instantly characterized by a million liberal pundits as \u201cbullying\u201d (or, for those who want the seventy-five cent word, \u201cmicroaggression\u201d). <\/p>\n<p>Kamala (D): \u201cWhy Harris and Democrats keep calling Trump and Vance \u2018weird&#8217;\u201d [Associated Press]. \u201cDemocrats are applying the label with gusto in interviews and online, notably to Vance\u2019s comments on abortion and his previous suggestion that political leaders who didn\u2019t have biological children \u201cdon\u2019t really have a direct stake\u201d in the country. The \u2018weird\u2019 message appears to have given Democrats a narrative advantage that they rarely had when President Joe Biden was still running for reelection. Trump\u2019s campaign, which so often shapes political discussions with the former president\u2019s pronouncements, has spent days trying to flip the script by highlighting things about Democrats it says are weird. \u2018I don\u2019t know who came up with the message, but I salute them,\u2019 said David Karpf, a strategic communication professor at George Washington University. Karpf said labeling Republican comments as \u2018weird\u2019 is the sort of concise take that resonates quickly with Harris supporters. Plus, Karpf noted, \u2018it frustrates opponents, leading them to further amplify it through off-balance responses.&#8217;\u201d \u2022 Yes, \u201cweird\u201d take me back to High School bullying, so maybe the Harris campaign has perfect pitch, I don\u2019t know. Clinton 2.0\u2019s \u201cweird\u201d is certainly an upgrade over Clinton 1.0\u2019s \u201cdeplorable.\u201d And Professor Karpf is correct that Democrats love it \u2014 being, in so many, many ways, totally not weird themselves \u2014 but that\u2019s irrelevant; they\u2019d be falling over themselves for \u201cpeculiar.\u201d Or \u201celdritch.\u201d As for Democrat \u201copponents\u201d being thrown \u201coff-balance,\u201d I haven\u2019t seen any examples, and I do try to keep track. Finally, if Karpf is correctly summarized as saying that \u201cweird\u201d is directed at \u201cRepublican comments,\u201d he\u2019s wrong. It\u2019s directed at Republicans, personally. Are ad hominem attacks not part of strategic communications. Perhaps \u201cweird\u201d will persuade those not yet persuaded, or those especially impressionable (TikTok youth?). We shall see.<\/p>\n<p>Kamala (D): \u201cHarris was expected to have fundraising trouble. Here\u2019s why big donors are actually lining up in droves\u201d [Politico]. \u201c\u2018I\u2019ve talked to more people who have been just in a general sense more reserved about President Biden, who are now very enthusiastic,\u2019 said Mozelle Thompson, a former Federal Trade Commission commissioner and Democratic donor. \u2018The enthusiasm gap, the excitement gap, has been erased. It\u2019s still early days, but so far the stream of money has been so strong that one donor adviser has even cautioned some donors to slow down until the dynamics of the race make it clearer where money is most needed.\u201d \u2022\u00a0This is all vibes. I wouldn\u2019t, after the Scranton Joe\u2019s Brain Reveal, trust the Democrats not to lie about whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted (they are, after all, fighting for \u201cour democracy\u201d). So on dollar figures, I\u2019ll wait for reports. That said, I\u2019m sure the Democrats got a cash injection of some sort. It will be interesting to see what Democrats buy, instead of speculating on how much they have. Same with volunteers. Are they opening new offices? And so forth.<\/p>\n<p>Kamala (D): Yesterday, I noted the pecking order for Kamala\u2019s idpol rollouts, which was: \u201cFirst, Black Women. Second, White Women. Third, White Men. Fourth, Latino Men\u201d and remarked \u201d I suppose the Asian verticals are yet come.\u201d Here they are:<\/p>\n<p lang=\"fr\" dir=\"ltr\">AAHNPI Men Assemble pic.twitter.com\/UO8L38uPaL<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Wesley Yang (@wesyang) July 31, 2024<\/p>\n<p>Next, LGBTQIA+? (I love AAHNPI food. Don\u2019t you?)<\/p>\n<p>Syndemics<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am in earnest \u2014 I will not equivocate \u2014 I will not excuse \u2014 I will not retreat a single inch \u2014 AND I WILL BE HEARD.\u201d \u2013William Lloyd Garrison<\/p>\n<p>* * *<\/p>\n<p>Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); \u201cIowa COVID-19 Tracker\u201d (in IA, but national data). \u201cInfection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts\u201d (especially on hospitalization by city).<\/p>\n<p>Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put \u201cCOVID\u201d in the subject line. Thank you!<\/p>\n<p>Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d\u2019Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (dashboard); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).<\/p>\n<p>Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).<\/p>\n<p>Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux us\u00e9es); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).<\/p>\n<p>Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, KF, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3). <\/p>\n<p>Stay safe out there!<\/p>\n<p>* * *<\/p>\n<p>Transmission: H5N1<\/p>\n<p>USDA statement:<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">So, Eric Deeble, who is out of the Congressional Liaison Office of the USDA, finished his &#8220;reassuring&#8221; #H5N1 statement in the most recent meeting by saying this,<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You know, we\u2019re not seeing reservoir populations of wildlife that may contribute to harbor for this disease.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\ud83e\uddf5 pic.twitter.com\/8xXBcBvYBG<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Lazarus Long (@LazarusLong13) July 31, 2024<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot seeing.\u201d Are you looking?<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Skunks, racoons, foxes, cats, house mice\u2026 I can&#8217;t even remember them all, all over the country?<\/p>\n<p>Wild birds? How this all started?<\/p>\n<p>It gets worse. Right before that, he wants us to disbelieve our eyes, what we have witnessed. <\/p>\n<p>That there is no respiratory transmission. pic.twitter.com\/IPJ95VEkoB<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Lazarus Long (@LazarusLong13) July 31, 2024<\/p>\n<p>It tires you out, the lying and the ignorance. As it is designed to do, I suppose.<\/p>\n<p>Vaccines<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLong Island hospital 1 of 3 in U.S. running nasal COVID vaccine trials\u201d [Newsday]. \u201c\u2018We get infected with COVID through our respiratory system,\u2019 said Dr. Mart\u00edn B\u00e4cker, associate director of the vaccine center at NYU Langone Hospital-Long Island. \u2018Having our immune system activated at the site of infection might lead to more sterilizing immunity, which might help prevent milder infections or [prevent] transmissions better than the currently available vaccines.&#8217;\u201d Meanwhile, NIH rushes to protect Pfizer\u2019s existing market: \u201c\u2018While first-generation COVID-19 vaccines continue to be effective at preventing severe illness, hospitalizations, and death, they are less successful at preventing infection and milder forms of disease,\u2019 Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, director of the NIH\u2019s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a statement. \u2018With the continual emergence of new virus variants, there is a critical need to develop next-generation COVID-19 vaccines, including nasal vaccines that could reduce SARS-CoV-2 infections and transmission.&#8217;\u201d And: \u201cAbout 60 people across all three sites will be enrolled in the study. The other locations are Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and The Hope Clinic of Emory University in Georgia. In order to be eligible, people need to have received at least three prior doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.\u201d \u2022 Hmm.<\/p>\n<p>Sequelae: Covid<\/p>\n<p>Brain fog is brain damage, an anecdote:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/brain_fog.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"633\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-275981\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/brain_fog.png 500w, https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/brain_fog-237x300.png 237w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Quality of Life Research]. \u201cHigher symptom burden was associated with reporting more comorbidities; being unmarried, difficulty paying bills, being disabled from work, not having a college degree, younger age, higher body mass index, having had COVID multiple times, worse reported QOL, greater reported financial hardship and worry; maladaptive coping, and worse healthcare disruption, health\/healthcare stress, racial-inequity stress, family-relationship problems, and social support\u2026. Long-COVID symptom burden is associated with substantial, modifiable social and behavioral factors. Most notably, financial hardship was associated with more than three times the risk of high versus low Long-COVID symptom burden.\u201d \u2022 A population cull of the working class, then?<\/p>\n<p>Social Norming<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGrandiose narcissism, unfounded beliefs, and behavioral reactions during the COVID-19 pandemic\u201d [Nature]. From the Abstract: \u201cA theoretical perspective on grandiose narcissism suggests four forms of it (sanctity, admiration, heroism, rivalry) and states that these forms conduce to different ways of thinking and acting. Guided by this perspective, we examined in a multinational and multicultural study (61 countries; N\u2009=\u200915,039) how narcissism forms are linked to cognitions and behaviors prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic.\u201d From the Discussion: \u201c[N]arcissists will not always act and think in an antisocial manner. Instead, narcissism can be a double-edged sword: sometimes it is linked to anti-social thoughts and actions, whereas other times it is linked to prosocial thoughts and actions. Whether the consequence is anti-social or pro-social depends on the joint action of the domain in which the narcissism exists (agentic vs. communal), the motives that underlie it (self-enhancement vs. self-protection), and the criterion variable that is being predicted by any of the four grandiose narcissism forms.\u201d \u2022 Hmm.<\/p>\n<p>* * *<\/p>\n<p>Lambert here: New York hospitalization leveling out, and now WalGreens positivity down for two weeks, are the first positive signs I\u2019ve seen in a long time. Wastewater still going strong, though!<\/p>\n<p>TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts<\/p>\n<p>LEGEND<\/p>\n<p>1) \u2605 for charts new today; all others are not updated.<\/p>\n<p>2) For a full-size\/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and \u201copen image in new tab.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>NOTES<\/p>\n<p>[1] (CDC) This week\u2019s wastewater map, with hot spots annotated. Keeps spreading.<\/p>\n<p>[2] (CDC) Last week\u2019s wastewater map.<\/p>\n<p>[3] (CDC Variants) KP.* very popular.<\/p>\n<p>[4] (ER) Worth noting Emergency Department use is now on a par with the first wave, in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Leveling off. Doesn\u2019t need to be a permanent thing, of course. (The New York city area has form; in 2020, as the home of two international airports (JFK and EWR) it was an important entry point for the virus into the country (and from thence up the Hudson River valley, as the rich sought to escape, and then around the country through air travel.)<\/p>\n<p>[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). The visualization suppresses what is, in percentage terms, a significant increase.<\/p>\n<p>[7] (Walgreens) An optimist would see a peak.<\/p>\n<p>[8] (Cleveland) Slowing. Comment on the Cleveland Clinic:<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Why is the Cleveland Clinic building a new facility for a professional basketball team? These hospitals are not &#8216;nonprofits&#8217; they are ridiculously profitable monopolies with an endless cash gusher to point at whatever they want. <\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) July 29, 2024<\/p>\n<p>Ka-ching.<\/p>\n<p>[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Up. Those sh*theads at CDC have changed the chart so that it doesn\u2019t even run back to 1\/21\/23, as it used to, but now starts 1\/1\/24. There\u2019s also no way to adjust the time rasnge. CDC really doesn\u2019t want you to be able to take a historical view of the pandemic, or compare one surge to another. In an any case, that\u2019s why the shape of the curve has changed.<\/p>\n<p>[10] (Travelers: Variants) Same deal. Those sh*theads. <\/p>\n<p>[11] Deaths low, but positivity up.<\/p>\n<p>[12] Deaths low, ED up.<\/p>\n<p>Stats Watch<\/p>\n<p>Employment Situation: \u201cUnited States ADP Employment Change\u201d [Trading Economics]. \u201cPrivate businesses in the US added 122K workers to their payrolls in July 2024, the least in six months, following an upwardly revised 155K in June and compared to forecasts of 150K. The figures showed job creation edged down as pay gains continued to slow.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Manufacturing: \u201cUnited States Chicago PMI\u201d [Trading Economics]. \u201cThe Chicago Business Barometer, also known as the Chicago PMI, fell to 45.3 in July 2024 from a seven-month high of 47.4 in June, though slightly above market forecasts of 45. The latest reading still indicated a substantial contraction in Chicago\u2019s economic activity for the eighth consecutive month.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>* * *<\/p>\n<p>Antitrust: \u201cCrowdSuck\u201d [Maureen Tkacik, The American Prospect]. The first two paragraphs provide a lot of food for thought, before we even get to antitrust: \u201cOn the \u2018perfect phone call,\u2019 then-President Donald Trump famously asked newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to look into a Republican conspiracy theory about the California cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. The Democratic National Committee had hired CrowdStrike to respond to a security breach on its servers, but according to Trump, the company was secretly owned by a Ukrainian oligarch who had instructed his employees to fabricate evidence that the intrusion was carried out by Russian government\u2013linked hackers, to conceal the fact that the emails had been leaked by a low-level DNC voter outreach data manager named Seth Rich, who\u2019d been mysteriously murdered two months after the breach. There was, as is often the case, a kernel of plausibility to one part of the theory. While no evidence surfaced to link Rich to the leaked emails, and Fox News had to pay a seven-figure settlement to Rich\u2019s family for spreading the erroneous claim, CrowdStrike co-founder Dimitri Alperovitch would soon retire from the software industry to become a full-time professional neo\u2013Cold Warrior, founding a think tank that predicted Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine and writing a book about the coming world war over Taiwan. But cybersecurity tends to attract the geopolitically paranoid, and CrowdStrike, whose seed funding had come from private equity firm Warburg Pincus and Google, had just gone public on the NASDAQ stock exchange and its ownership was public: Its largest single shareholder was the money management empire BlackRock.\u201d \u2022 So that\u2019s alright then. Anyhow, Tkacik is always worth a read.<\/p>\n<p>* * *<\/p>\n<p>Today\u2019s Fear &amp; Greed Index: 41 Fear (previous close: 45 Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 54 (Neutral). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Jul 30 at 12:48:21 PM ET<\/p>\n<p>Permaculture<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWash those vegetables!\u201d [Indignity]. \u201cIf I wanted to get my hands dirty, I would go live somewhere where I have to grow my own food. Or at least I would sign up for the community garden. When I\u2019m in the galley kitchen of my Manhattan apartment, what I\u2019m looking for from my vegetables is to get them cooked for dinner. Quickly\u2026 Organic produce is meant to appeal to people who don\u2019t want the specter of the unnatural hanging over their food. I personally prefer not to eat pesticides, if I can help it, and I grew up seeing the Chesapeake Bay ravaged by nitrogen runoff from the overuse of synthetic fertilizer. As long as it\u2019s not too bug-eaten or wildly overpriced, I\u2019ll usually choose organic over conventional produce. And then I\u2019ll find myself up to my forearms in grimy water in the sink, rubbing clinging dirt off a lettuce leaf that would have been pristine if it were conventionally produced, and I\u2019ll wonder why I bothered. The thought of bug-killer on the produce may be upsetting, but dirt is dirt and time is money, on top of the money that was money that I already paid for organic vegetables. Nothing in organic certification says they can\u2019t wash the vegetables better! It\u2019s not industrial or artificial to get the dirt out of there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Gallery<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDutch Chemists Finally Work Out How Rembrandt Achieved the Golden Lustre in His \u2018The Night Watch\u2019 Painting\u201d [ARTnews]. \u201cChemists from Holland\u2019s University of Amsterdam (UvA) have finally worked out how Rembrandt managed to embellish his The Night Watch (1642) painting with striking golden detail. They used high-tech spectroscopic techniques to identify the presence of pararealgar [yellow] and semi-amorphous pararealgar [orange\/red] pigments in minute detail in the famous artwork. The research team concluded that the Dutch artist intentionally mixed these particular arsenic sulfide pigments with other pigments to create the golden sheen.\u201d \u2022 Arsenic!<\/p>\n<p>Zeitgeist Watch<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not just us: Other animals change their social habits in old age\u201d [Knowable]. \u201cA recent study by Albery and colleagues in Nature Ecology &amp; Evolution \u2009found that older deer reduce their contacts more than you\u2019d expect if their shrinking range was the only cause. That suggests the behavior may have evolved for a reason \u2014 one that Albery prosaically summarizes as, \u2018Deer shit where they eat.\u2019 Gastrointestinal worms are rampant on the island. And though the deer do not get infected through direct contact with others, being at the same place at the same time probably does increase their risk of ingesting eggs or larvae in the still-warm droppings of one of their associates. \u2018Younger animals need to put themselves out there to make friends, but perhaps when you\u2019re older and you already have some, the risk of disease just isn\u2019t worth it,\u2019 says study coauthor Josh Firth, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Oxford.\u201d \u2022 And so with Covid?<\/p>\n<p>News of the Wired<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCreativity Fundamentally Comes From Memorization\u201d [Ashwin Mathews]. \u201cBy definition, you can\u2019t even be certain of novelty without familiarity of existing works. Creativity comes to those who have internalized the patterns of their art \u2014 they can see the connection or novelty because it\u2019s all in their head. Therefore autonomy enables creativity, and a system helps achieve autonomy quicker.\u201d \u2022 Hmm.<\/p>\n<p>* * *<\/p>\n<p>Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi, lichen, and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From TH:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/duckweed.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"486\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-275983\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/duckweed.jpeg 600w, https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/duckweed-300x243.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\"\/><\/p>\n<p>TH writes: \u201cI spent long enough watching this Snowy Egret wade through the duckweed to learn that its technique was to drag its feet across the bottom, stirring up edibles. I had to admire its ability to see what was dislodged through the thick cloud of green. I\u2019m not sure what was happening here\u2014it appears that it may have released that little gray [slimy?] thing.\u201d Egrets, I\u2019ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention\u2026.<\/p>\n<p>* * *<\/p>\n<p>Readers: Water Cooler is a standalone entity not covered by the annual NC fundraiser. So if you see a link you especially like, or an item you wouldn\u2019t see anywhere else, please do not hesitate to express your appreciation in tangible form. Remember, a tip jar is for tipping! Regular positive feedback both makes me feel good and lets me know I\u2019m on the right track with coverage. When I get no donations for three or four days I get worried. More tangibly, a constant trickle of donations helps me with expenses, and I factor in that trickle when setting fundraising goals:<\/p>\n<p>Here is the screen that will appear, which I have helpfully annotated:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-226891\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/contribution.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"606\" height=\"384\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/contribution.png 606w, https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/contribution-300x190.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 606px) 100vw, 606px\"\/><\/p>\n<p>If you hate PayPal, you can email me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, and I will give you directions on how to send a check. Thank you!\n<\/p>\n<div class=\"printfriendly pf-alignleft\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border:none;-webkit-box-shadow:none; -moz-box-shadow: none; box-shadow:none; padding:0; margin:0\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.printfriendly.com\/buttons\/print-button-gray.png\" alt=\"Print Friendly, PDF &amp; Email\"\/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/2024\/07\/200pm-water-cooler-7-31-2024.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Lambert Strether of Corrente Bird Song of the Day Blue Mockingbird, Presa Guti\u00e9rrez, Etla, Oaxaca, Mexico. Lots of summery insects, too. * * * In Case You Might Miss\u2026 (1) Kamala\u2019s idpol keeps rolling. (3) Covid and class. (2) Call any vegetable\u2026. * * * Politics \u201cSo many of the social reactions that strike [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6025,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35,34,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-berita-internasional","category-berita-dalam-negeri","category-berita-panas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uang69.id\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uang69.id\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uang69.id\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uang69.id\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uang69.id\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6307"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/uang69.id\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10744,"href":"https:\/\/uang69.id\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6307\/revisions\/10744"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uang69.id\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uang69.id\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uang69.id\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uang69.id\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}