I don’t usually join the mourning when a famous person dies because…I don’t know, I guess because non-famous people die too and there isn’t a big public fuss (naturally: that’s what “famous” means), so I at least keep mum unless it really gets to me. Oliver Sacks was one. Anthony Bourdain is another. I watched his show occasionally (I rarely have access to cable), and I learned stuff from it and I liked his way with the people he met. Just the other day there was one where he talked to guys in Nagorno-Karabakh ffs. Twitter is full of stories about what a mensch he was.

Frank Bruni remembers him:

Anthony Bourdain devoured the world. That’s not hyperbole. It’s

Trump hired Heather Nauert from Fox News to be a spokesperson for the State Department. Maybe it would have been better if he’d chosen someone a little more educated about Forrin Stuff.

“We have a very strong relationship with the government of Germany,” Heather Nauert said.

“Looking back in the history books, today is the 71st anniversary of the speech that announced the Marshall Plan. Tomorrow is the anniversary of the D-Day invasion. We obviously have a very long history with the government of Germany, and we have a strong relationship with the government of Germany.”

Yeah, boy, the D-Day invasion just wouldn’t have been the same without our warm relationship with Germany.

The State Department spokeswoman was defending remarks

So let’s take a closer look at what Audrey Yap is saying in that comment, which followed several comments about the epithet “TERF” and whether it’s a pejorative or not.

I don’t happen to find the term problematic, personally, but I also don’t share views with anti-trans feminists about these issues, which means it doesn’t apply to me so I don’t have much of a stake in it. So I’m fine with not using it.

So setting aside the question of terminology, what I do have a serious problem, with, are people who are happy to speculate about gender identity, and whether trans women are really women, as though it were an abstract philosophical puzzle to be solved, and

There was this today:

Two male-bodied trans gender runners came first and second. What do you say to the girls who train so hard but can never win? Yet can’t even say: this is not fair. https://t.co/P3KKNL4unZ

— Janice Turner (@VictoriaPeckham) June 7, 2018

Terry Miller of Bulkeley wins the 100m girls dash i. 11.72 (meet record). Andraya Yearwood of Cromwell 2nd, RHAM’s Bridget Lalonde 3rd #cttrack pic.twitter.com/4GmLRyicDI

— GameTimeCT (@GameTimeCT) June 4, 2018

And there was a piece by Colleen Flaherty at Inside Higher Ed with the subhead

Is philosophy really ignoring important questions about transgender identity, specifically what it means to be a woman?

As last year’s Hypatia debate revealed, writing philosophy about being transgender is tricky. There

No more consumer protection for you!

Mick Mulvaney, the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, was expected to meet on Wednesday with members of its consumer advisory board, which provides feedback on the bureau’s rules and policies.

Instead, one of his deputies dismissed the board’s members.

By law, the bureau must convene the advisory board and hold at least two in-person meetings with its members a year. The bureau canceled a meeting scheduled for February, and last week it canceled one planned for this week.

Instead it put on a conference call and fired them. Boom.

The consumer advisory board’s members are consumer activists, academics, entrepreneurs who run financial start-ups and industry representatives from companies including Citi, Discover,

But at least he’s fixed the patriotism problem.

Only a few of the Super Bowl-winning Philadelphia Eagles were going to show up at the White House to meet the president, so the White House emitted a Very Strongly Worded Statement saying that the Eagles had been disinvited because they were not willing to respect the national anthem. No, the statement said, the president could not bear to see the flag and the troops and this amber grain-waving land so sorely disrespected, so therefore they would be having an afternoon of patriotic singing and troop saluting with no Philadelphia Eagles whatsoever, just regular eagles, if any were available, that fans of the sports franchise (or White House staff) would be

The many ironies in Trump’s whining about news reports on Melania Trump’s long absence from public view…

President Trump engaged in characteristic hyperbole when he tweeted Wednesday that the media “reported everything from near death, to facelift, to left the W.H. (and me) for N.Y. or Virginia, to abuse” — as if reputable journalists had presented various conspiracy theories as fact.

Moreover, the president ignored or failed to see the multiple ironies in his grievance.

For starters, the president’s tweets amount to a complaint about conspiracy theories from the man who spent years promoting the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not born in the United States and who touted the “amazing” reputation of Infowars founder Alex Jones, a 9/11

Sean Illing at Vox talks to feminist philosopher Kate Manne about what’s really so great about Jordan Peterson anyway?

Sean Illing

Peterson has this recurring interest in identifying social hierarchies, which resonates with people who think they’re in danger of losing their privileged position or are resentful about having lost it. This is something you really home in on in your review of his book.

Kate Manne

Yeah. I mean, it’s striking. There’s an interesting moment in the book where Peterson talks about resentment as a “revelatory” emotion that can mean one of two things. One, you feel it because you’re immature, in which case you just need to buck up. Two, you feel resentment because you really are

Now here’s a wild and crazy idea:

EPA must produce the opposing body of science Administrator Scott Pruitt has relied upon to claim that humans are not the primary drivers of global warming, a federal judge has ruled.

Whaaaaaaaaaaat? Produce actual reasons for making a claim? Produce actual evidence and argument and statistics? That’s unAmerican!

The EPA boss has so far resisted attempts to show the science backing up his claims. His critics say such evidence doesn’t exist, even as Pruitt has called for greater science transparency at the agency.

Now, a court case may compel him to produce research that attempts to contradict the mountain of peer-reviewed studies collected by the world’s top science agencies over decades that

Well, you see, it’s not about free speech, at least not according to Trump.

The White House press secretary today said the president doesn't consider the protected free speech of NFL players against police brutality to be free speech. Which is a totally accurate reflection of how he sees it and a pretty remarkable statement.

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) June 5, 2018

Yep, she said that.

“The president doesn’t think that this is an issue simply of free speech,” Sanders responded when reporters questioned why the White House supported the Supreme Court’s decision to protect the rights of a Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple but not those of NFL players kneeling

Trump’s Spite the Eagles party was a dud.

Donald Trump’s “celebration of America” at the White House, hastily put together on Tuesday in the absence of Super Bowl winners the Philadelphia Eagles, proved that rare thing in the Trump era: an anti-climax.

“I was surprised from the ordeal to get here that it was only a 12-minute shindig,” said Emma Wittstruck Call, 30, who did not vote for the president. “I thought it would be longer.”

Trump handed more ammunition to critics who compare him to a tinpot dictator wrapping himself in the flag and appealing to cheap patriotism. He did not mention the Eagles or attempt to heal divisions.

The event on the south lawn had been

More shame and disgust.

German politicians have called for Donald Trump’s envoy in Berlin to be expelled from the country after he said in an interview that he wanted to “empower” conservative forces throughout Europe.

Ambassador Richard Grenell, who has been in office for less than a month, has caused irritation in Berlin with a series of perceived breaches of diplomatic etiquette.

On Monday, the former Fox News contributor further strayed beyond his ambassadorial remit by requesting a short meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu at Berlin’s airport following the Israeli prime minister’s meeting with Angela Merkel.

…

In Germany, Grenell’s series of unorthodox moves is drawing mounting criticism. Sahra Wagenknecht, the co-chair of leftwing party Die Linke, called for the