"Hours after it went offline on Monday, the social media start-up Parler filed a lawsuit in federal court accusing Amazon of violating antitrust law..."

"... and asking for a temporary restraining order to prevent the tech giant from blocking access to cloud computing services. Amazon told Parler over the weekend that it would shut off service because 'a steady increase in violent content' on the site showed that the company did not have a reliable process to prevent it from violating Amazon’s terms of service. Amazon said it would ensure Parler’s data was preserved so that it could migrate to a new hosting provider. Millions of people turned to Parler after Twitter and Facebook barred President Trump following the riot at the Capitol last week. Apple and Google both kicked Parler out of their app stores at the end of the week, though users who already had downloaded the app could still use it. But the app relied on Amazon’s cloud computing technology to work.... Parler did not provide direct evidence showing Amazon and Twitter coordinated the response. Instead, it pointed to a December news release announcing a multiyear strategic partnership between Amazon and Twitter, and it made references to Twitter’s own challenges policing its content."

The NYT reports.

Okay, Joe. Thanks. I will link back to this if it ever seems you might be stoking the flames of hate and chaos.

The work of the next four years must be the restoration of democracy and the recovery of respect for the rule of law, and the renewal of a politics that’s about solving problems — not stoking the flames of hate and chaos.

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) January 11, 2021

"But 'dilettante' is one of those words which deter people from taking up new pursuits as adults."

"Many of us are wary of being dismissed as dabblers, people who have a little too much leisure, who are a little too cute and privileged in our pastimes.... We might remember... that the word 'dilettante' comes from the Italian for 'to delight.' In the eighteenth century, a group of aristocratic Englishmen popularized the term, founding the Society of the Dilettanti to undertake tours of the Continent, promote the art of knowledgeable conversation, collect art, and subsidize archeological expeditions. Frederick II of Prussia dissed the dilettanti as 'lovers of the arts and sciences' who 'understand them only superficially but who however are ranked in superior class to those who are totally ignorant.'... The term turned more pejorative in modern times, with the rise of professions and of licensed expertise. But if you think of dilettantism as an endorsement of learning for learning’s sake... [m]aybe it could be an antidote to the self-reported perfectionism that has grown steadily more prevalent.... '[I]ncreasingly, young people hold irrational ideals for themselves, ideals that manifest in unrealistic expectations for academic and professional achievement, how they should look, and what they should own'.... Fluid intelligence, which encompasses the capacity to suss out novel challenges and think on one’s feet, favors the young. But crystallized intelligence—the ability to draw on one’s accumulated store of knowledge, expertise, and Fingerspitzengefühl—is often enriched by advancing age."

From "Is It Really Too Late to Learn New Skills?/You missed your chance to be a prodigy, but there’s still growth left for grownups" by Margaret Talbot (The New Yorker).

When's the last time you learned a new skill? If you had to identify 5 new skills to learn — which is something some older person in that article did — what 5 would you give yourself? The guy referred to in the article took on chess, singing, surfing, drawing, and juggling. I wish I could think of just one thing — one or 2. You know, tomorrow is my birthday, and it's one of the Big 0 birthdays. I'd like to think about something to do about it. The skill, perhaps, of stopping time. Apparently it's fine not to be good at it at all — a pure dilettante. But you can only slow the perception of the passage of time, and the relevant skill is boring yourself. What an awful skill! 

"German Chancellor Angela Merkel considers it 'problematic' that Twitter would toss President Trump off its social media platform..."

"'This fundamental right can be intervened in, but according to the law and within the framework defined by legislators — not according to a decision by the management of social media platforms,' Merkel spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters in Berlin. 'Seen from this angle, the chancellor considers it problematic that the accounts of the U.S. president have now been permanently blocked,' he added."

The NY Post reports.

Many American are quick to say that freedom of speech is only a right that can be asserted against government, so there's no right — or even an interest in freedom of speech — that can be asserted against a private company like Twitter. But the German Chancellor speaks of "fundamental rights."

"House Democrats on Monday introduced an article of impeachment against President Trump for inciting a mob that attacked the Capitol last week, vowing to press the charge..."

"... as Republicans blocked a separate move to formally call on Vice President Mike Pence to strip him of power under the 25th Amendment.... Democratic leaders were confident it would pass, and pressured Republican lawmakers to vote with them to beseech the vice president, who is said to be opposed to using the powers outlined in the Constitution, to do so. It was a remarkable threat. If Mr. Pence does not intervene 'within 24 hours' after passage and the president does not resign, House leaders said they would move as early as Wednesday to consider the impeachment resolution on the floor, just a week after the attack.... Last minute changes were made late Sunday to include a reference to the 14th Amendment, the post-Civil War era addition to the Constitution that prohibits anyone who 'engaged in insurrection or rebellion' against the United States from holding future office. Lawmakers also decided to cite specific language from Mr. Trump’s speech last Wednesday, inciting the crowd, quoting him saying: 'If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.'"

The NYT reports.

Here's the text of the article of impeachment.

I note that the Trump quote they included did not make my list "The 7 most violence-inciting statements in Donald Trump's speech to the crowd on January 6th"! I thought "fight like hell" sounded too much like ordinary politics to make the list. We fight for our rights, we fight in political campaigns, we fight in court. Are we going to outlaw the word "fight"?! We'll be descending into Newspeak.

The fork as a weapon.

In the previous post, discussing a WaPo article about various characters in the January 6th incident at the U.S. Capitol, we encountered a man named Pete Harding, who "said that the only weapon he carried was a dinner fork, which he put in his pocket." He said — humorously, I think — "Fortunately, I didn’t have to wield the kitchen fork menacingly."

So I want to look into the topic of the fork as a weapon. When I was a college student and went through a phase of thinking I might take a course in "creative" writing, I considered writing a story about a perfectly friendly dinner between 2 characters that somehow escalated into a murder scene, with the fork as the weapon. Why not the knife?! The knife isn't interesting. The fork would be interesting, no?

Interesting — but way too much work! Too much work to write the description. And, of course, too much work to commit murder with a fork. But it would be a gruesome scene. It's for someone else to scribble out details like that. Like Harding's fork, my fork story remained in my pocket, unbrandished. 

But is a fork a plausible weapon? There's something called a military fork:

But we're talking about the table utensil of our time. 

I see that using a fork to fight is common enough in popular culture to have a page to itself at TV Tropes: 

[I]f chaos breaks out at the dinner table, a diner may have to get creative with what they have on hand, turning their utensils into an Improvised Weapon. Normally played for laughs (especially if there's Sword Sparks), but if the chips are down, things can get pretty ugly: this can lead to sickeningly devastating effect in the hands of someone skilled/determined enough.... Subtrope of Improvised Weapon. Compare Frying Pan of Doom....

That sounds funny, but remember that an improvised weapon — a fire extinguisher — was [allegedly] used at the Capitol and it killed a police officer. 

If the "Capitol mob" was "a raging collection of grievances and disillusionment" as The Washington Post says...

... in its headline, here, then doesn't that mean it wasn't an "insurrection" or much of a plan at all, just a coming together of disparate elements? Let's look at the long article. I'm reading it for the first time and making excerpts and comments as I go. I'm doing this without an agenda, just wanting to figure out what the hell happened and what it means.

Those who made their way to the grounds of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday hail from at least 36 states, along with the District of Columbia and Canada, according to a Washington Post list of over 100 people identified as being on the scene of the Capitol. Their professions touch nearly every facet of American society: lawyers, local lawmakers, real estate agents, law enforcement officers, military veterans, construction workers, hair stylists and nurses. Among the crowd were devout Christians who highlighted Bible verses, adherents of the QAnon conspiracy theory and members of documented hate groups, including white nationalist organizations and militant right-wing organizations, such as the Proud Boys. 

The list is just a limited cross section of the thousands of people who descended upon the area, yet some striking commonalities are hard to ignore. Almost all on the list whose race could be readily identified are White.

Not sure how that is done. But okay. The Washington Post seems to have compiled a list of 100 people — a hundred out of what? "thousands"? — and it's making assertions about these people, somehow "readily identifying" their race and capitalizing "White." How many of the 100 were in the category whose race was "readily identified"? 10? 80? I have no idea.

Most are men, yet about one in six were women...

2 grammar mistakes there. It needs to be "one in six was a woman" to get subject/verb agreement, and, for parallelism, it needs to be either "Most were men, yet about one in six was a women" or "Most are men, yet about one in six is a women." We can argue about whether past or present tense is worse (or an outright error). But enough tripping along the pleasant side road that is grammar. Back to the substance:

... also almost all White. Many left extensive social media documentation of their passions, ideologies and, in some cases, disillusionment and vendettas.

Great. This is what I've been waiting for. Reading the social media of the various participants in the breaching of the Capitol. 

Their paths to the nation’s capital were largely fueled by long-standing grievances and distrust, and yet planned in spontaneous and ad-hoc fashion.

Was there a plan?  If it was "spontaneous and ad-hoc" then maybe it was not a plan, just diverse individuals whose paths flowed together at that place and time?

Several reported pulling together their travel funds and schedules in just a handful of days. Some took a solitary journey, including flying from coast to coast alone, only to find a shared community upon their final destination in Washington. Others traveled in buses that departed Wednesday at dawn, filled to the brim with other Trump supporters....

Don't mix up the plan to go to a big rally and street protest with a plan to break into the Capitol (and don't mix up a plan to break into the Capitol with a plan to take Mike Pence or members of Congress hostage).

Several who traveled to Washington to support the “Stop the Steal” rally told The Post they were driven by two primary grievances: their opposition to the election results and the restrictions in place to stop the spread of the coronavirus. Lindsey Graham...

Interesting name. 

... a 39-year-old entrepreneur from Salem, Ore., said her eventual path to the Capitol began last spring, when the six small businesses she and her husband own, including tanning salons, a gym and hair salon, were suddenly shuttered because of coronavirus restrictions...  Graham said she was “peacefully protesting” with thousands of people. She said she did not enter the building and does not condone violence. “I’m glad I was there because I am one of the people that can vouch for the crowd,” she said. 

Like Graham, 47-year-old construction worker Pete Harding said he was drawn to the Capitol by his disdain for restrictions to stop the spread of the coronavirus. Until last year, the Upstate New York resident said he had largely confined his strong political opinions to the Internet, describing himself as just a “keyboard warrior.” That’s all changed now, in radical fashion. The first days of 2021 found him — by his own account — charging through the chemical irritants that Capitol Police meant to deter him from entering the U.S. Capitol, rambling through the building, and then attempting to set fire to journalists’ equipment outside.... 

“We know that if Biden-Harris was going to get into office, they’ve said they’re going to make the lockdowns mandatory and mask-wearing mandatory across the country,” he said....

This article is making the lockdown seem more central to the protest than the idea that Trump won the election. 

After listening to Trump’s speech and marching to the Capitol, he found that “our people,” as he described the mob, had already pushed police back up to the top of the Capitol steps.

So Harding doesn't seem to be part of any plan to breach the Capitol, just a person in a crowd who finds out that in some other part of that crowd, something violent is happening. This reminds me of Black Lives Matter events, where there were peaceful protesters in some places and violent people in other parts. Is the whole mass to be called a "mob," with everyone who went to the event held responsible for what everyone else does? The answer should be no.

He waded through the crowd to join them, and persisted up the stairs, though he says police repeatedly deployed irritants to try to deter the mob. Harding describes himself as a “peacekeeper” who charged up the Capitol stairs to protect both police officers and rioters. 

“I started to see everybody going up the stairs at that point, and I decided I needed to be up there. … I knew that things could escalate and I needed to be there to de-escalate things,” he said. “I was there to protect and keep the peace. That’s what I do every single place that I go.”

By his own account, Harding made an independent decision to enter after the breach was made, and he has the image of himself as a "peacemaker."  

Harding said that the only weapon he carried was a dinner fork, which he put in his pocket because he believed he might need it to confront “antifa” or “Muslim brotherhood” fighters. 

It stayed in his pocket. “Fortunately, I didn’t have to wield the kitchen fork menacingly,” he said.

I hear that statement as humorous, though you could do some damage with a fork. Harding also seems to have believed, as I think many do, that any violence was attributable to anti-Trump forces — “antifa” or “Muslim brotherhood."

Once he left the Capitol, he saw journalists with cameras protected by barricades. He says he walked over twice to taunt them, saying, “You’re responsible for this” and “There’s a woman shot — this is on your hands.”

Harding claims that only after he walked away did other Trump supporters harass the journalists to the point that they fled, leaving behind their equipment. He was delighted. “I was kind of happy about it, to be honest with you, not going to lie, because they deserve it. But that’s not a crime,” he said. 

He said he came back and piled up the abandoned equipment, then used a lighter to try to set it on fire though he believed most of it was metal and wouldn’t burn. 

“The visual and the imagery was for the media to see, that they have started our country on fire,” Harding said, “with their constant lies about covid and about Trump.” Harding maintains that he did nothing illegal Wednesday....

Clearly, some of what Harding did is illegal, but — by his own account, assuming he's correctly and fairly quoted — he seems like an independent actor, making his own decisions according to his idea of what is true and good, and not part of a group plan. Just to be clear: I completely oppose the intimidation of the reporters and the damaging of their property. 

Many attendees described a type of fervor they felt that drew them to the Capitol. For 48-year-old Leonard Guthrie Jr., it manifested in his faith in the Lord. The Cape May, N.J., resident hasn’t often been well enough to work since having two surgeries on his back. In the absence of employment, he has heavily leaned into his Christian beliefs and conservative political views. When he heard about the “Stop the Steal” rally, Guthrie thought he could combine his two passions. If he and other Christians had been able to pray outside while senators voted inside, he feels certain it would have changed their votes.... 

He said he broke through a police barrier to reach the U.S. Capitol steps and readily admits his transgressions, bluntly saying: “I broke the law.” Still, he feels aggrieved. “We’ve been silenced for so long,” he said. “For years, because I voted for Trump, I’m called a racist, a Nazi, a bigot and all that stuff, and it’s not right.”

Again, this sounds like an individual making his own decision in real time, not a participant in any plan to enter the Capitol. He wanted to pray outside, and it sounds as though he didn't go inside, but only to the steps, though he did break a barrier, and he's confessionally sorry. 

Others squarely cited their fealty to the president as the force that pulled them to the nation’s capital....

This is a screwy way to blame Trump. Trump is a man, not a force. If the "fealty to the president" is a "force" within people who love him, then "pull" is the wrong word. That wrongness is the tip that WaPo is straining to blame Trump. In any case, this is only saying people were drawn "to the nation's capital." That's only saying they chose to go to the city, not that they felt drawn to enter the Capitol building.

Now, I've read the whole thing. There's nothing here about a plan to break into the Capitol! That doesn't mean there weren't people with such a plan, and I can see why such people wouldn't want to talk to the Washington Post, but this article supports the idea that the crowd consisted of individuals who were acting independently.